'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 3 Episode 3: Crew makes its first step toward re-establishing the Federation
Spoilers for 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 3 Episode 3 - 'People of Earth'
The road to restoring the Federation was always going to be a long one, but despite a devastating blow, the crew of the USS Discovery has rallied admirably, and have made their first significant steps towards brining it back. The peace treaty that the Discovery organized may not seem all that significant, but in the long run, it might just be the foundation stone for rebuilding the United Federation of Planets back from the ground up.
This episode saw Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) reunite with the crew of the Discovery, and tell them all about her mission to discover what happened in the Burn, and her attempts to pull what's left of the Federation back together. This is obviously a huge challenge, as dilithium shortages severly limit warp travel, making interstellar flight a thing of the past in more ways than one. With the Discovery and its spore drive now in the 32nd Century, Burnham and the crew are able to make their way to Earth to answer a Federation call from a Starfleet officer.
Once there, however, the crew discover news with heavy implications - Earth is no longer a part of whatever remains of the Federation. Considering that Earth is the planet from which the Federation was founded, this news may have been the final nail in the coffin for the Federation as a whole. Earth has become the opposite of what the Federation once stood for - it's walled itself from outsiders with planetwide forcefields, attacking anyone who enters their scanning range.
To be fair, Earth is under attack from pirate captain Wen, who is after Earth's dilithium supplies, which is what makes Discovery such a prime target when it arrives with its stock of untouched dilithium straight out of the 23rd Century. Using this as a bargaining chip, Burnham and Book (David Ajala) are able to not only capture Wen, but get the leaders of Earth to realize that Wen is from a research facility on Titan - and negotiate a peace treaty between the two colonies.
It appears to be the first time that the two groups have heard each other out since the Burn - over 100 years ago. This kind of peacekeeping mission is exactly the kind of thing that the United Federation of Planets was built to achieve in the first place. Earth may have left the Federation behind, but the Discovery's act of negotiation over mistrust and war sets a new example that turned out beneficial to everyone involved. If the Discovery is ever to restored the Federation to its former glory, then it's made an important first step - one that might echo through an all new historic era.
The next episode of 'Star Trek: Discovery' airs on Thursday, November 5, on CBS All Access.