Warning: SPOILERS For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 has added even more retcons to the growing list of changes the prequel has made to Star Trek canon. Strange New Worlds season 3 is primarily set in 2261 and made great strides towards its endgame of leading into Star Trek: The Original Series.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ executive producers and co-showrunners, Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, are lifelong fans of Star Trek: The Original Series, and they’ve recognized opportunities for Strange New Worlds to fill in blanks and answer long-held questions about Star Trek‘s 23rd century.

Here are a baker’s dozen ways that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has, so far, changed what was previously known about the final frontier.

Strange New Worlds Changed World War III & Star Trek’s Eugenics Wars

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ series premiere changed the date of World War III and conflated it with Star Trek‘s Eugenics Wars.

Star Trek: The Original Series established that those conflicts began in the 1990s, and Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) fled Earth that decade after his defeat in the Eugenics Wars.

As a warning to the people of Kiley 279, Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) revealed that Earth survived World War III, which took place in the mid-21st century. The Eugenics Wars also happened at that time, and this retcon had a ripple effect that directly impacted Khan.

Strange New Worlds Put Sam Kirk On The Starship Enterprise Before James T. Kirk

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ series premiere ended with the surprise reveal that a Kirk was already stationed on Captain Pike’s Enterprise, but it was Lieutenant Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte), the mustachioed older brother of James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley).

Sam is a xenoanthropologist in the Starship Enterprise’s Science division overseen by Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), who dislikes the elder Kirk. Sam serving on the United Federation of Planets’ flagship before Jim is his main source of bragging rights over his little brother.

Strange New Worlds Changed When Khan Was Born

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” was a time travel romance that revealed Romulan temporal agents meddled with Star Trek‘s Prime Timeline.

When Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) time-traveled to Toronto in 2022, she discovered young Khan (Desmond Sivan) living in the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement.

This means Star Trek‘s Prime timeline changed Khan’s canon so that he was born decades earlier, although how this reconciles with Star Trek: The Original Series’ “Space Seed” is still unclear.

Strange New Worlds Completely Changed The Gorn

One of the biggest retcons by Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is its total overhaul of the Gorn, turning the alien reptiles into the show’s primary villains in Strange New Worlds’ first 3 seasons.

Eschewing the man in a rubber suit seen in Star Trek: The Original Series’ “Arena,” Strange New Worlds turned the Gorn into cannibalistic and violent marauders whose infants gestate in hosts like the Xenomorphs in Alien.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 9, “Terrarium,” also revealed that the Gorn are more individualistic than the killer horde Starfleet sees them as. Lieutenant Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) befriended a Gorn pilot when they were stranded in a wormhole.

Strange New Worlds Revealed The Metron Before Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 9, “Terrarium” also ended with the Metron space gods revealing themselves to Lt. Erica Ortegas years before they do the same to Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: The Original Series.

For inexplicable reasons, the Metron are fascinated with whether humans and the Gorn can co-exist. The Metron manipulated Ortegas to meet a Gorn pilot, just as they will force Captain Kirk to fight a Gorn Captain after their encounter on Cestus III.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ executive producers and co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have also hinted that the Metron have altered reality, erasing knowledge shared by humans and the Gorn, to explain why Captain Kirk knows almost nothing about the alien reptiles in “Arena.”

Strange New Worlds Confirmed Trelane Is A Member Of The Q Continuum

After the omnipotent Q (John de Lancie) and the Q Continuum debuted on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, Star Trek fans conjectured that Trelane (William Campbell) in Star Trek: The Original Series’ “The Squire of Gothos” was a Q all along.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 2, “Wedding Bell Blues,” brought Trelane (Rhys Darby) into the prequel era and confirmed that the cosmic meddler is a Q when his father, Q (voiced by John de Lancie), appeared to bring Trelane home.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ executive producers and co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers confirmed to ScreenRant that Q’s cameo was meant to confirm that Trelane is, indeed, also a member of the Q Continuum.

Strange New Worlds Gave Uhura A Backstory & Love Interest

Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) has enjoyed a backstory and deeper characterization in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds than Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) ever received in Star Trek: The Original Series.

Thanks to Strange New Worlds, audiences now know that Uhura was orphaned before she joined Starfleet Academy. Uhura also received her first love interest in Star Trek‘s Prime timeline: Beto Ortegas (Mynor Luken), the younger brother of Lt. Erica Ortegas.

Strange New Worlds Revealed Number One’s History & Romantic Past

Number One was one of the original Star Trek characters when she was played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry in Star Trek‘s first pilot, “The Cage,” but little was known about her past until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) was revealed to be an Illyrian, a species that practices genetic engineering, by Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Number One was arrested and placed on trial by Starfleet, but Una was exonerated and returned to the USS Enterprise.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 8, “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans” introduced Doug (Patton Oswalt), a Vulcan spiritualist who was Una’s former lover, and they still share an irresistible attraction to each other 15 years after they first dated.

Strange New Worlds Revealed Holodecks Were A 23rd Century Failure

Holodecks were first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation as standard technology aboard Federation starships and starbases in the 24th century. However, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revealed Starfleet had holodeck technology a century earlier.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 4, “A Space Adventure Hour,” established that Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh tested the viability of holodecks aboard 23rd century starships.

Unfortunately, the drain on a starship’s power caused by the holodecks made it impractical for use in the 23rd century. The Starship Enterprise gained holodeck technology called a recreation room in Star Trek: The Animated Series, years after Strange New Worlds.

Strange New Worlds Established Kirk’s First Time As Captain

Lt. James T. Kirk was promoted to Lt. Commander and became First Officer of the USS Farragut in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, but season 3 saw Kirk make a big leap towards his destiny as Captain of the Enterprise.

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 6, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” James became acting Captain Kirk for the first time, leading the USS Farragut in a successful rescue of the Starship Enterprise from a group of intergalactic Scavengers.

The lessons about command and compassion Kirk learned as acting Captain of the Farragut will form the foundation of why James becomes a legend as Captain of the USS Enterprise.