But perhaps the most heartrending moment of the hour comes after Number One confesses her years’ worth of lies to Pike, who predictably doesn’t care even the slightest bit and essentially promises to protect her if and when Starfleet eventually finds out. Not to mention stunning Hemmer and carrying him back to sickbay and then physically fighting La’an, before either of them can do something stupid like open the warp core or transport a piece of Hetmet-9’s core onto the ship. Una gets plenty of opportunities to be a complete badass this week though, from offering up her most closely guarded secret, her literal blood, and the rest of her career to try and save her crewmates. And the sentiment isn’t something that I think Federation and/or Starfleet are necessarily super proud of-Pike certainly isn’t, it would seem-but the lingering distrust of the race is very real and apparently quite widespread. The idea that they’ve been forbidden Federation membership because of their interest in genetic modifications makes a ton of sense given the fact that Strange New Worlds isn’t that far removed, timeline-wise, from the Eugenics Wars and the defeat of Khan and his Augments. Though Illyrians have appeared in the Star Trek universe previously, they haven’t been the focus of an especially huge story.
(And it certainly explains how she’s so good at so many things.) I’m not sure that any of us expected that she would be revealed as an alien essentially passing for human just so she could serve in Starfleet, but given her ridiculous work ethic and desire to prove herself it makes a bizarre kind of sense. Given that we knew comparatively little about the Enterprise’s female first officer prior to this series, the idea that Strange New Worlds would be particularly eager to flesh out her character makes a lot of sense. She’s the character that gets the opening and closing voiceovers, and it’s the secrets she’s been keeping that provide the hour’s most dramatic revelations. Where last week’s installment was largely a Uhura-focused episode, “Ghosts of Illyria” is probably best categorized as a story about Number One, though it touches on many larger themes and topics. (Though, admittedly, it does provide us with some excellent horror-tinged moments along the way.) The fight against a virus that causes those infected to crave light so badly they will do literally anything to get more of it, from ripping out electrical fixtures to trying to open the warp core in order to bask in its radioactive glow is the primary problem for the Enterprise crew to solve, but it’s only about maybe the third most exciting thing going on this show this week. “Ghosts of Illyria” is a perfect example of how this incarnation of Star Trek is more than capable of telling rich, character-focused stories right alongside close-ended adventures of the week. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 2 Easter Eggs and Reference Guide By Ryan Britt That this is obviously where Pike and Spock get trapped should be a no-brainer to anyone who is even at least passingly familiar with this franchise, but what is a pleasant surprise is that because of this, they’re actually absent from the bulk of the episode, allowing us to spend most of our time with the main Enterprise crew we’re least familiar with (Una, M’Benga, Chapel, and La’an). The planet is frequently swept by ion storms, which renders extensive trips to the surface impossible and can be potentially life-threatening to organic life forms. (Or what became of this particular group of colonists.) Illyrians have a fraught history with the Federation, thanks to their history of genetically altering themselves in ways the organization forbids in the wake of the Eugenics Wars, and little is known about them. This week’s installment finds the Enterprise crew investigating the site of an abandoned Illyrian colony, as part of a research attempt to find out what happened to them before they all vanished.
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