Technically, our next little slice of Star Trek: Discovery is going to be one of our farthest looks into the future of the entire franchise. Sort of.
CBS has just dropped a new trailer for the second of the four Short Treks minisodes being released on a monthly basis ahead of Star Trek: Discovery’s sophomore season early next year. Unlike the first episode—a delightful little story revolving around Ensign Tilly—“Calypso” introduces an entirely new character to the world of Discovery: Craft, played by Aldis Hodge, a mysterious man who finds himself stranded on a seemingly abandoned U.S.S. Discovery, with only a shipboard computer for company.
But the empty Discovery isn’t what’s most intriguing about this trailer. It’s the tease of just when “Calypso” is set: 1,000 years after the events of the show. That puts the story far beyond even the hyper-futuristic 31st century glimpsed in Enterprise (and liberally utilized in the non-canon Star Trek Online, even in its recent Discovery-set content update) as one of the farthest-flung stories we’ve ever seen in Trek history.
What the hell is the Discovery doing there? Who even is Craft? What is Star Trek’s far, far future like? We’re probably not going to get many answers, but we won’t have to wait all that long to find out: “Calypso” will air on CBS All Access November 8.