Lacking a true homeland of their own, the Klingons have doubled down on the sanctity of their culture and traditions, which offers an important insight into why Jay-Den’s chosen path, one that eschews violence in favor of healing, is so shocking at this particular moment. He grew up with his family on a refugee planet, where his brother encouraged his interest in Starfleet and didn’t judge him for his dislike of the warrior ethos their father insisted he follow. His death — a tragedy that could have been prevented by access to the same sort of Federation tech the Klingons have rejected since the Burn – shapes much of Jay-Den’s life, solidifying his decision to embrace pacifism and seemingly driving a wedge between him and his parents. Now, those same parents are aboard a missing transport ship that has suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure, and neither Jay-Den nor the Federation knows if they, or the other members of eight of the other surviving Klingon houses, are alive.
It’s a lot for poor Jay-Den to process, as the only member of his species currently enrolled at the Academy, which means that, of course, it’s time for his debate class to take up the subject of the Klingon diaspora. Should Klingons be forced to accept asylum from the Federation? Should they be allowed to live in whatever way seems best to them, even if their choices essentially ensure the death of their species when given a long enough timeline? Who gets to make these choices for them? Suddenly, everyone has opinions! It’s more than a bit uncomfortable to watch these kids treat the right to self-determination of Jay-Den’s people into a thought experiment. Still, almost everyone comes prepared with what appear to be generally cogent and thoughtful arguments, so it could be a lot worse.
New friendship alert: After Jay-Den’s debate with Caleb gets both heated and surprisingly personal — the boys don’t come to blows, but it feels like a near thing — the Klingon gets some advice from a surprising quarter: Darem. A character who started the series off as a self-centered rich kid, he’s nevertheless managed to display some real growth and vulnerability, and his reaching out to Jay-Den is both unexpected and strangely meaningful. He teaches him some Khionian breathing techniques to help him focus, and the two have some intriguing chemistry with one another. (Maybe shared breathing techniques just almost always make me think of romance, but they’re more interesting together than Darem and Genesis are, I said what I said.) It ultimately helps Jay-Den and Caleb find a way to a better understanding together.
Compromise is the lesson of the day in more ways than one. Thanks to a surprisingly warm pep talk from Cadet Master Thok, Jay-Den comes to a deeper understanding of his father, who just may have pushed his son away to set him free from a culture that would otherwise not respect his choice of a peaceful future in the only way he knew how. Similarly, Jay-Den, Ake, and Admiral Vance must come up with a way to meet the surviving Klingon clans on their own terms to gift them the homeworld their people need. The ruse — that the Klingons somehow defeat the Athena and several other Starfleet ships to claim and conquer the Qonos-like planet the Federation was planning to just hand them in the first place — is laughably thin. But it allows the Klingons to save face and the Federation to show it’s capable of humbling itself in a way we haven’t really seen all that much of in post-Burn society. But, hey, we definitely got confirmation that Ake has for sure hooked up with a Klingon warlord, so here’s hoping that an episode that dives into her backstory is coming sooner rather than later.
