Introduction

“The Sound of Thunder” is the 6th episode of season 02 of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery, which is set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series and follows the crew of the USS Discovery as they investigate seven mysterious signals.

The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Alex Kurtzman serving as showrunner.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, along with the returning Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Shazad Latif; they are joined by former recurring guest star Wilson Cruz as well as Anson Mount as original Star Trek captain Christopher Pike. Ethan Peck recurs as another original series character, Spock. These characters and their starship, the USS Enterprise, were included as part of the series’ attempt to explain its connections to the larger Star Trek franchise.

The season was officially ordered in October 2017, and filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from April to December 2018. Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, the first season’s showrunners, returned for the second but were fired during production; co-creator Kurtzman replaced them.

The 14-episode season was released from 17 January to 18 April 2019, on CBS All Access. A third season was ordered in February 2019.

Outline

Another of the mysterious signals leads Discovery to Saru’s homeworld of Kaminar, where the Kelpiens’ predators, the Ba’ul, demand Pike surrender Saru as Starfleet has agreed to stay out of the conflict between the two species. Pike refuses, but Saru turns himself over to prevent a fight.

Tilly works with technologically-augmented Lieutenant Commander Airiam to sift through the Sphere’s information on Kaminar: they learn that the post Vahar’ai Kelpiens were once Kaminar’s dominant species and nearly eradicated the Ba’ul, with the latter only surviving by using their superior technology to cull Kelpiens before they lose their threat ganglia.

Pike uses the Ba’ul’s technology to trigger Vahar’ai in all Kelpiens, hoping the two species can instead work towards a peaceful solution once the Kelpiens are freed and learn the truth about their past from Saru’s priestess sister Siranna.

The Ba’ul retaliate to Starfleet’s actions by attempting to commit genocide, but are stopped by the Red Angel, who Saru sees is a humanoid wearing a highly-advanced suit.

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Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Douglas Aarniokoski.
• Writer(s): Bo Yeon Kim and Eriak Lippoldt.
• Release Date: 21 February 2019.
• Running Time: 50 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.