Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Star Says Season 2 Will Test Trek's Morality

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' second season will push Star Trek's ethical boundaries, according to series star Anson Mount. Mount is currently helping to promote Paramount+'s launch in new European markets. Star Trek fansite TrekZone asked Mount about what they perceive as a more militaristic leaning morality in Strange New Worlds compared to past Star Trek shows, given the treatment of the Gorn and the resolution of the first season's finale. Mount responded by saying that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' second season will continue to pull at those threads, looking into whether there really is a diplomatic solution to any given conflict. 

"Well, you'll have to see where we take that," Mounts says (via Trek Movie). "Because some of those themes go on in the second season and really asking those exact questions that you were just asking. Is it possible that intelligence can be so completely ripped apart from any sense of communication or idealism? That, is there such a thing as a monster? Is that really possible? So yeah, we go down that exact road."

Fans should also remember that Star Trek is on a timeline. During Strange New Worlds' era, the final frontier is much more of a frontier, and the Federation-Klingon War, and even the Romulan-Earth War, are fresh memories. What many think of as the morality of Starfleet doesn't entirely firm up until the Star Trek: The Next Generation era, roughly a century after Strange New Worlds takes place, and we've already seen steps in that direction with Starfleet re-emphasizing General Order One with a new name, "the Prime Directive," in response to the events of Strange New Worlds' pilot episode.

Capt. Janeway once summed it up well while looking back on the Star Trek: The Original Series era during the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback." She said, "It was a very different time… they all belonged to a different breed of Starfleet officer. Imagine the era they lived in: the Alpha Quadrant still largely unexplored, Humanity on verge of war with Klingons, Romulans hiding behind every nebula. Even the technology we take for granted was still in its early stages: no plasma weapons, no multiphasic shields; their ships were half as fast… Space must have seemed a whole lot bigger back then. It's not surprising they had to bend the rules a little. They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive, and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' first season is streaming on Paramount+ and headed to home media soon. The show's second season has already wrapped filming and is expected to debut in 2023.