Did ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Just Confirm Its Biggest Fan Theory?

Tonight’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery came very close to confirming a huge fan theory.

Spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery Season 1, Episode 10, “Despite Yourself” follow.

From the start of the season, fans have been theorizing that Ash Tyler and Voq are one and the same. There are lots of reasons the theory has flourished. The basic idea is that Discovery is borrowing the twist from “The Trouble with Tribbles.”

“Despite Yourself” practically confirms this theory is true. Tyler continues to struggle with flashbacks to mysterious surgeries. Were the Klingons torturing their prisoner or something more?

The plot thickens when Tyler visits the prisoner L’Rell. L’Rell implies a deep, loving connection between the two of them. She then speaks a prayer in Klingon. Tyler responds in Klingon then blacks out. L’Rell becomes confused. The prayer should have done something to Tyler and it didn’t. Something is wrong.

Tyler visits sickbay to speak to Dr. Hugh Culber. He wants the Doctor to run some tests to see if the Klingons did something to him. What Culber finds is not encouraging.

There’s scar tissue around Tyler’s organs. Culber at first contributed this scarring to torture. Now he sees that the Klingons modified Tyler’s physical appearance. He also finds evidence of tampering with Tyler’s psychology. The Klingons altered Tyler’s personality and appearance.

This information triggers something in Tyler. Things don’t end well after that.

This all points pretty squarely at Tyler being Voq. The prayer to Kahless being a trigger is particularly telling. Voq was a religious disciple of T’Kuvma and the teaching of Kahless. It makes sense that L’Rell would make something so important to Voq his trigger.

The question now is why the trigger didn’t awaken Voq. Did something go wrong in his transformation? Has he drifted away from Kahless’s teaching? Is it Tyler’s relationship with Burnham that is stopping Voq from reemerging?

These are questions that still need answering.

New Star Trek: Discovery episodes become available to stream Sundays at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS All Access.