Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Section 31Star Trek: Section 31’s exact placement inStar Trek’s timelineis now clear, and here’s what it means forStar Trek: The Next Generation. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi and written by Craig Sweeny,Star Trek: Section 31is now streaming on Paramount+. Headlined by Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, who is back as her fan-favorite anti-heroine,Emperor Philippa GeorgioufromStar Trek: Discovery,Section 31is the firstStar Trekmovie in 9 years and the firstStar Trekmovie made for streaming on Paramount+.
Emperor Philippa Georgiou’s last appearance was inStar Trek: Discoveryseason 3, when the Guardian of Forever (Paul Guilfoyle) judged whether the former despot of theMirror Universe’s Terran Empirehad sufficiently changed. The Guardian of Forever sent Georgiou to an unknown destination where the Prime and Mirror Universes were more closely aligned, as they were broken apart inStar Trek: Discovery’s 32nd century.Georgiou reappeared somewhere in the mid-24th century"lost era"ofStar Trek. Thankfully,Star Trek: Section 31wastes no time defining when, exactly, the movie takes place.
Star Trek: Section 31’s Exact Stardate Explained
Section 31 Is Smack Dab In The Middle Of Star Trek’s Lost Era
Star Trek: Section 31establishes that itsmain story takes place on Stardate 1292.4. On the Gregorian calendar, this converts to July 07, 2025. This meansSection 31is set 40 years beforeStar Trek: The Next Generation, which begins in 2364 with its two-hour premiere, “Encounter at Farpoint.“Star Trek: Section 31is also the first full-lengthStar Trekadventure set in the 24th century"lost era,“whichTNGhas only referenced a handful of times with flashbacks and in theStar Trek: The Next Generationclassic season 3 episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”
Miku Martineau
Young Philippa Georgiou
However,Star Trek: Section 31also contains flashbacks to the Mirror Universe of the early 23rd century. Given thatStar Trek: Discoveryestablishes that Emperor Georgiou lost control of the Terran Empire and jumped to the Prime Universe in 2257,Star Trek: Section 31’s flashbacks to how the young Philippa Georgiou (Miku Martineau) became Emperor take place sometime in 2210s or early 2220s if Georgiou is in her 50s as an adult and young Philippa is in her late teens.
Which Star Trek Movies & Shows You Need To Watch Before Section 31
Star Trek: Section 31 is the first Star Trek streaming movie, but it’s a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery and has elements of other Trek lore.
Star Trek: Section 31’s main story takes place over the course of one day since Control (Jamie Lee Curtis) establishes thatSection 31’s Alpha Teamled by Alok Sahar (Omari Hardwick) had 24 hours to recruit Emperor Georgiou and find and capture the Godsend weapon. Finally,Star Trek: Section 31’s epilogue flashes forward to three weeks later, where Georgiou reveals that she received an offer to formally rejoin Section 31, and Control gives them marching orders for the team’s next mission.
Where Is Jean-Luc Picard During Star Trek: Section 31?
Picard’s Starfleet Career Is Just Beginning
Jean-Luc Picard is arguably the most important Starfleet figure of 24th centuryStar Trek, and the futureCaptain of the Enterpriseis definitely alive duringStar Trek: Section 31.Jean-Luc Picard was born in 2305, and he joined Starfleet Academy in 2323 to pursue his dream of exploring the stars and to escape the childhood trauma of his broken home as established byStar Trek: Picardseason 2. InStar Trek: Section 31’s 2324 time frame,Jean-Luc Picard is a 19-year-old sophomore at Starfleet Academy.
Star Trek: Section 31 never references Jean-Luc Picard.
Virtually all of the established canon of Jean-Luc Picard’s Starfleet career is still to come afterStar Trek: Section 31.Picard will be stabbed through the heart in a bar fight with Nausicaans and receive an artificial heart, Jean-Luc will become Captain of the USS Stargazer, and Picard will become legendary for commanding the USS Enterprise-D and E.Star Trek: Section 31never references Jean-Luc Picard, butStar Trekfans know Captain Picard will eventually meet one keyStar Trek: Section 31character.
How Section 31 Connects To Star Trek: The Next Generation
Section 31 Hints At Lt. Rachel Garrett’s Future
Star Trek: The Next Generationbegins 40 years after the events ofStar Trek: Section 31, but the twoStar Treksagas are bonded through Lieutenant Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl). Garrett is a Starfleet Science Officer assigned to Section 31 to ensure that the black ops team"doesn’t commit murder.“Although, Section 31 also alludes to darker aspects of Garrett’s personality that make her a good fit for intelligence work.Star Trek: Section 31doesn’t shy away from foreshadowing Garrett’s desire to become a Starfleet Captain.
7 Star Trek: TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise” Details You Missed
Star Trek: TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is an all-time classic enhanced by the fascinating decisions made to bring the time travel story to life.
Of course, Lt. Rachel Garrett is destined to becomeCaptain Rachel Garrett(Tricia O’Neill) of the USS Enterprise-C.Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” establishes that Captain Garrett and the Enterprise-C are caught in a temporal rift while defending a Klingon outpost from Romulans.The Enterprise-C is trapped in a time loop in 2344 - 20 years after the events ofStar Trek: Section 31. It’s also unclear whether the Ambassador Class USS Enterprise-C has launched inStar Trek: Section 31or if the Starship Enterprise in active service is the Excelsior Class USS Enterprise-B.
Why Section 31 Doesn’t Have Star Trek: TNG’s Starfleet Look
Section 31 Is “A New Flavor Of Star Trek”
DespiteStar Trek: Section 31being set in 2324, there are no visual ties to the established look of Starfleet and its uniforms fromStar Trek’s 24th century"lost era,“and this can be disappointing to longtime Trekkers.Star Trek: Section 31continues the visual overhaul of Star Trek thatStar Trek: Discoverybegan. The firstStar Trekstreaming movie takes advantage of being geographically set outside the United Federation of Planets, and the fact that Section 31 is an underground black ops agency, so that the movie’s optics have no obvious ties to Starfleet beyond Starfleet’s delta insignia.
An alternate future Admiral Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) wears a"monster maroon"Starfleet uniform inStar Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 1 finale, “A Quality of Mercy.”
Sadly, hopes thatStar Trek: Section 31will contain characters like Lt. Rachel Garrett wearingStarfleet’s famous"monster maroon"uniformare dashed. When not donning outlandish undercover outfits, Garrett wears a black tactical uniform inStar Trek: Section 31,and most of the other members of the team wear variations of that gear. Just watchingStar Trek: Section 31, there aren’t a great deal of visual cues that indicate when and where the movie takes place inStar Trek’s timeline, outside of the title card establishing Stardate 1292.4.
