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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 2 “Ad Astra per Aspera.”]
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds resolves the major cliffhanger of Una’s (Rebecca Romijn) Season 1 finale arrest — Starfleet learned she’s Illyrian and arrested her for violations of the anti-genetic modification directive — in the latest episode. And in doing so, it reconnected Una with a childhood friend, Neera (Yetide Badaki, whom executive producer Henry Alonso Myers calls “a great gift”), and revealed who turned her in in the first place.
Pike (Anson Mount) was the one to track down Neera, who, though reluctant, did take on Una as a client. Among those who took the stand in Una’s defense were: La’an (Christina Chong), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun). And when it came time for Una to testify, Neera had her share why she joined Starfleet, knowing she could end up where she did. Its motto, ad astra per aspera, to the stars through hardship, she explained. She liked to think it meant the stars could deliver them from anything, that in the mystery and vastness of space, they might not just satisfy curiosity and the need for explanation but find salvation.
Una needed salvation after growing up in a Federation colony, where those who were found to be genetically augmented were arrested and anti-augmentation laws gave people the freedom to act on their worst impulses. When she tried to intervene during a fight at school, her leg was broken. It became infected — her parents were too afraid to take her to the hospital — and she would’ve died if they hadn’t found an Illyrian doctor willing to see her in the middle of the night. Una revealed she turned herself in, because she was sick of living the lie and hoped Starfleet would understand Illyrians better.
Michael Gibson/Paramount+
It then became a question of when Pike learned the truth (and what that might say about the chain of command on the Enterprise) until Neera turned it around that Una was seeking asylum (and her captain granting it), according to Starfleet’s code. Una’s request was granted, and she was found not guilty of all charges, able to return to her command on the Enterprise. It’s a start for Illyrians, Neera said after, since she was looking at a crew proudly serving under an Illyrian commander.
“This took a lot of discussions,” Myers tells TV Insider. “It’s a complicated issue we really wanted to explore. [Executive producer] Akiva [Goldsman] had a strong heart and direction and feel about this one that I think helped deepen it and make it better. We knew [Una and Neera] were sort of the crucial moment. Also, look, we were trying to do a courtroom drama, which are extremely hard to do and hard to do well, and really give it heart. And so the difference between those two people was one of the critical elements in it.”
Added Goldsman, “Star Trek is challenging when it comes to talking about marginalized peoples because it’s utopia, right? That’s the great thing about it. So we found ourselves starting in Season 1 in a very interesting quandary — which would be a great quandary in real life — which is, who is marginalized institutionally in the Federation? Few and far between. But when we did find that, that became something that we really wanted to talk about, and this episode was where we got to be most explicit about it. And that was certainly one of my favorite episodes of the show.”
For Romijn, “I think it’s interesting that she’s an Illyrian, but she was passable. She was able to hide and she was able to pass for non-Illyrian, which is how she made it into Starfleet in the first place. I think she was sick of hiding, she was sick of lying, and she wanted to live authentically. And I think the takeaway is at some point, just because you can hide doesn’t mean you should have to hide. And I think that’s where she finally ended up: She didn’t want to hide anymore.”
And now she doesn’t have to, and it’s really good to see her back where she belongs: as Number One.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+
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