Introduction

“Project Daedalus” is the 9th 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

Starfleet Admiral Katrina Cornwell secretly joins Discovery to interrogate Spock, and brings video footage depicting Spock murdering the three doctors.

Saru discovers that Section 31 faked the footage using holograms, and Cornwell directs Discovery to Section 31 headquarters where Starfleet’s Control artificial intelligence is kept.

Control is behind the forgery and has been directing Section 31 to pursue Spock. Burnham, Security Officer Nahn, and Airiam beam into the headquarters to find the personnel, including Section 31’s leadership, dead after Control turned off life-support systems.

Airiam is tasked with restoring Control to Starfleet’s intended purpose, but the virus from the future she carries is Control itself, and instead attempts to upload the Sphere’s knowledge of all artificial intelligence into Control’s database.

Airiam asks to be ejected into space before Control gains the knowledge that it wishes, and Nahn does so before it is too late.

Airiam dies reliving her favourite memory from before she was technologically-augmented.

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Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Jonathan Frakes.
• Writer(s): Michelle Paradise.
• Release Date: 14 March 2019.
• Running Time: 50 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.