Star Trek: Discovery EP Confirms The Federation Exists In 32nd Century

When Star Trek: Discovery ended its second season earlier this year, it left a lot of lingering questions. While cliffhangers are in no shortage for genre TV in general, Discovery left on a pretty big one by leaping forward in time to a period that hasn’t been explored in Star Trek canon before.

As such, no one’s quite sure what’s in store for Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham and her crew. In particular, audiences have been speculating about the fate of the Federation that provides much of the foundation for the franchise. This became a much more pressing issue as the recently released trailer appeared to hint that season 3 of the streaming series would explore a universe where Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets no longer existed.

New co-showrunner Michelle Paradise quickly cleared up this rumor at a recent Comic-Con appearance though, confirming that the spacefaring organization is still alive and kicking in the 32^nd century. Even so, things aren’t all sunshine and roses and the Federation is being “challenged” in ways that will likely be developed as the season progresses.

It’ll certainly be interesting to get a glimpse into the future of the series, and audiences aren’t the only ones excited. Star Doug Jones recently opened up during an interview about his enthisasm regarding the trajectory for the next batch of episodes, stating:

We jumped to the future at the end of season two. This is a big deal. We’ve boldly gone where no Star Trek series has gone before. So, we’re gonna see what happens in the future. What condition is the Federation in? We’re gonna find out when we land. What happens to me and my rank? I’m a Commander, but I’m also acting Captain of the ship because we lost all our captains now. I take the ship and so, do I get to keep the Captain’s chair? Do I have to give it away to another Federation/ Starfleet captain in the future? We’re gonna find out all that when we get there.

There are a lot of narrative paths open for Star Trek: Discovery to take with the ending of season 2. It’s clear that the creative team has a specific story they’re trying to tell and it’s good to see they’re trying new things. That’s the best way to keep things fresh and audiences interested, but Trekkies are going to have to wait until 2020 to find out what’s going down with Starfleet in the future.