USS Discovery
The USS Discovery (NCC-1031) was a  starship operated by the Federation Starfleet in the 23rd century, initially under the command of Captain  and, later, Christopher Pike. () 

After time traveling to the 32nd century, Discovery underwent a three week retrofit and was recommissioned with the registry NCC-1031-A under the command of Captain Saru. (). Over time, owing to her fusion with the Sphere data, she became a fully fledged artificial intelligence. She experienced emotions, worked with the crew, and chose her own name, Zora. ()

At some point, the ship was abandoned by her crew and remained empty for almost a thousand years. ()

Service history

Construction 
The Discovery was launched into service from the San Francisco Fleet Yards, Earth. Its motto was a quote from Galileo Galilei: "All things can be understood once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." ()

By November of 2256, it was still considered impressive and new, fresh out of the shipyards and equipped with some of Starfleet's most advanced technologies, in contrast to the older . ()

As a Crossfield-class starship, the Discovery was officially designated a science vessel. In 2256, the ship had a crew manifest of approximately 136. () However, by 2257, following the  the complement increased to over two hundred during the investigation of the Red Angel. () The ship's facilities were able to accommodate three hundred discrete scientific missions, a Starfleet record at the time. ()

Both the Discovery and its sister ship, the , were equipped with an experimental spore drive for field testing. Much research and refinement remained to be done as of late 2256, but if perfected, it had the potential to instantly traverse vast galactic distances in the blink of an eye. The Discovery only used it in short bursts while attempting to perfect it into a reliable drive system. In contrast, the crew of the Glenn took bolder risks to develop it more quickly, resulting in an accident which killed the entire crew and crippled the ship. ()

The Discovery was built from the ground up to be a test bed for the experimental spore drive, based on the research of Paul Stamets and his colleagues. Stamets had intended his research to pursue purely theoretical knowledge and peaceful applications but, with the outbreak of war, the Discovery was rapidly constructed to perfect the military applications of his research. ()

Due to the top secret, and, in some cases, dangerous research projects being conducted on the Discovery, its internal security was much more rigid and compartmentalized than was regular protocol on Starfleet vessels; breath print identification locks were used to restrict access to different sub-sectors. It also possessed a disproportionately prominent and well-armed security detail, standing guard at various restricted access points throughout the ship. These guards were outfitted with tactical gear bearing a Section 31 "black star" uniform insignia, unlike the normal silver Starfleet delta insignia. ()

Several experiments conducted aboard Discovery had the potential to physically endanger the ship itself and its crew; hazardous situations caused by the black ops experiments being activated were addressed by declaring a "black alert" (which was not a standard protocol on Starfleet vessels). ()

Federation-Klingon War 
Following the outbreak of the , Discovery was placed under the command of Captain Gabriel Lorca and given a clandestine mission to conduct black ops scientific research, developing top secret weapons and technologies that would help the Federation win the war. ()

Six months into the war, Discovery rescued the prison shuttle SPT 21 from an infestation of Species GS54 during an interstellar storm. Among the prisoners being transported, former Commander Michael Burnham came aboard and was enlisted by Captain Lorca to serve as a specialist aboard Discovery. ()

In November 2256, Discovery received a distress call from Corvan II, under attack by Klingons. The only ship in range, Discovery attempted a spore jump to the Federation mining colony, ending up dangerously close to a star. Utilizing the  as a conduit through which to navigate the ship, the crew ultimately jumped Discovery to Corvan II in time to destroy the attacking Birds-of-Prey and save the colony from destruction. ()

The following month, Discovery, under the command of first officer Saru, was tasked by Vice Admiral Katrina Cornwell with the rescue of Lorca following his abduction by the Klingons. Once again using the tardigrade as a living navigational computer, Discovery jumped into Klingon territory, but the creature was disabled in the process. Unwilling to subject the tardigrade to further injury, Lieutenant Stamets injected himself with the creature's DNA, allowing Discovery to recover Lorca and his fellow POW, , and jump back to Federation space. ()

One week later, Cornwell's cruiser rendezvoused with Discovery before departing for peace talks on Cancri IV. ()

On stardate 2136.8, Discovery encountered an injured space-dwelling lifeform known as a gormagander and conducted aid per the Endangered Species Act. This resulted in Harcourt Fenton Mudd boarding Discovery and activating a time crystal, creating a time loop in which Mudd repeatedly destroyed the ship in an effort to learn the secret of the spore drive and sell the ship to the Klingons. The loop was eventually discovered by Stamets, avoiding the permanent destruction of Discovery. ()

On stardate 1308.9, Discovery engaged a Klingon destroyer in defense of the . With the advantage of their invisibility screens, the Klingons succeeded in destroying the Gagarin forcing Discovery to withdraw. Discovery then proceeded to the planet Pahvo where it retrieved a landing party as the native Pahvans broadcasted a signal directed at both the Federation and Klingons. () 

Encountering the Ship of the Dead in orbit of Pahvo, Discovery engaged in ship-to-ship combat with the Klingons. Discovery then conducted 133 micro-jumps around the cloaked Klingon vessel, allowing the crew to target and destroy the enemy's capital ship. ()

The mirror universe
After an apparent accident with the spore drive propelled Discovery into the mirror universe, it emerged that Lorca was in fact an inhabitant of that universe who had replaced his counterpart and deliberately brought Discovery to his home universe. Following Lorca's revelation, Saru assumed full command of Discovery. ()

In order to return to their universe, Discovery then launched an attack on the Terran flagship, , on stardate 1834.2. Flying through the Terran ship's superstructure, Discovery destroyed the super-mycelial reactor powering the Charon, and used the resulting mycelial shockwave to power the spore drive and cross back into normal space. ()

Return to the war
Discovery returned nine months after its departure, having overshot its intended destination. In that time, the Klingons had captured a significant proportion of Federation territory. Boarded by a number of Starfleet officials including Vulcan Ambassador Sarek, Discovery was placed under the temporary command of Admiral Cornwell and brought to Starbase 1, 100 au from Earth. Finding the station overrun by Klingons, Discovery warped away. ()

With Klingon forces encroaching on Earth, Starfleet elected to use Discovery to prepare a strike against the Klingon homeworld, Qo'noS, and solicited the abilities of the Terran emperor, . In order to make the jump to the Qo'noS, Discovery traveled to the Veda system where the crew terraformed the moon Delta 2 and replenished their supply of mycelium spores. ()

Under the command of Emperor Georgiou (standing in as the deceased Captain Philippa Georgiou), Discovery became the first Starfleet vessel to visit the Klingon homeworld since Captain Jonathan Archer and the  visited the planet in 2151. In order to avoid detection and conflict with Klingon planetary defenses, Discovery jumped into an inactive volcanic cavern large enough to accommodate a Crossfield-class starship beneath the surface of Qo'noS. A landing party to the surface ultimately concluded the mission and brought a peaceful resolution to the conflict. ()

With the war over, Discovery returned to Earth, where its senior staff was honored. The starship was then ordered to  to retrieve its new commanding officer to take Ambassador Sarek home. ()

Investigating the red bursts
En route to Vulcan, a priority 1 distress call led Discovery to drop out of warp and respond to the call from Captain Christopher Pike on the . ()

With Enterprise unable to continue its mission – the investigation of one of seven red bursts that were detected across the galaxy; Pike was ordered to assume command of the Discovery from Acting Captain Saru under Starfleet Starfleet Regulation 19, Section C. Discovery then warped to an interstellar asteroid at the coordinates of the burst, where it located the wreckage of the . Unable to maintain shields while transporting survivors from the Hiawatha, the starship suffered severe hull damage from the fragmenting asteroid, before capturing a fragment of the asteroid in its shuttle bay using a gravity simulator.  ()

Detecting a new signal in the Beta Quadrant, Discovery used the previously defunct spore drive to jump to the coordinates, but found no sign of a red burst. Instead, Discovery entered into orbit over Terralysium, a previously unknown Earth colony of World War III-era Humans. With the planet and its population threatened by radioactive asteroids, Helmsman Keyla Detmer piloted Discovery in a donut maneuver, using a dark matter asteroid to magnetically drag the radioactive debris away from the planet. ()

Later, a  rendezvoused with Discovery, offloading Amanda Grayson. ()

While searching for Spock, Discovery was pulled out of warp by an massive sphere-shaped lifeform. Discoverys computer system was overloaded by what the crew believed to be a computer virus. Eventually, the Sphere's intentions were discovered and Discovery subsequently became the recipient of a hundred thousand years of the Sphere's knowledge and memories. ()

In order to rescue Sylvia Tilly from the JahSepp, Discovery executed a partial jump into the mycelial plane. The ship was almost instantly attacked by the JahSepp, who began to dissolve the hull. In order to keep from being destroyed, Discovery was assisted by Section 31 chief Leland aboard the NCIA-93. ()

After a red burst appeared over Kaminar, Discovery arrived in the system where it came into conflict with the Ba'ul. Using the Sphere's signal that had triggered vahar'ai in Saru, they helped the Kelpien race evolve beyond the limitations forced on them by the Ba'ul, and opened the way for the two races to somehow coexist. ()

Control 
The red bursts, as well as an entity associated with it (known by the crew as the "Red Angel"), appeared to be tied to Michael Burnham's foster brother, Lieutenant Spock of the Enterprise, and Section 31 took an interest in capturing him. They caught up to Spock and Burnham on Talos IV, but they were revealed to be illusions projected by the Talosians; the real Spock and Burnham had escaped to Discovery, which was declared a renegade ship and forced to go on the run. ()

The data from the Sphere also included information on artificial intelligence. An AI from the future infected Control, the threat assessment system developed by Section 31, and made it sentient. Control became obsessed with obtaining all of the Sphere's data on artificial intelligence in order to evolve into a true lifeform and wipe out all other sentient life. Discoverys spore drive operations officer, Lieutenant Commander Airiam, was possessed by Control through her cybernetics, and forced to deliver the Sphere data to Control at Section 31 Headquarters. Airiam was killed and the base destroyed before it could take the entire archive. Before her death, Airiam told her colleagues to find "Project Daedalus". ()

Daedalus proved to be a Section 31 project involving time travel, building a suit capable of taking its wearer through time. The suit matched the description of the Red Angel. The Angel appeared to be connected to Commander Burnham, and she was used as bait to attract it to Essof IV, where the Angel was revealed to be her mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham, who was believed killed by the Klingons on Doctari Alpha some two decades before. ()

Finding that the Sphere data would not allow itself to be deleted from the databanks, the Discovery crew attempted to send the data back to the future with Gabrielle. However, the plan was sabotaged by Leland, who was possessed by Control through nanotechnology; he destroyed the time crystal in Gabrielle's suit, which was pulled back along with Gabrielle to her anchor point in the future. ()

Discovery continued to investigate the red bursts while keeping ahead of Leland/Control, and detected a fourth signal orbiting the Klingon world of Boreth. There, they obtained a time crystal and began work to create a Daedalus suit of their own in order to take the Sphere data to the future, beyond Control's reach. However, they were surrounded by Section 31's fleet, which was fully under Control's domination. Pike summoned the Enterprise to take on Discoverys crew before setting the ship to auto-destruct, in an effort to prevent Control from obtaining the Sphere data. ()

However, they discovered that the Sphere data would also not allow the ship to be destroyed, leading to a change of plans: To bring Discovery itself into the future, and the data with it. Pike and other essential personnel returned to the ship to investigate a fifth red burst on the planet Xahea, where they welcomed aboard its queen, Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po, who had developed a dilithium incubator that could be used to charge the time crystal. Discovery began retrofitting its fleet of shuttles and landing pods with enhanced weaponry, joined together with similarly-modified craft from the Enterprise, to combat the Section 31 fleet. At the same time, work continued on preparing the Daedalus suit, to be worn by Burnham, as her mother's DNA was encoded into the suit schematics and she was the closest match. However, it was revealed that it would be a one-way trip, as the energy needed to charge the crystal with Po's incubator would make it unstable. The senior staff all chose to remain with  Discovery and make the trip with Burnham. Pike relinquished command of Discovery back to Saru for the journey, and returned to the Enterprise to prepare for the battle to come. ()

After a pitched battle with Control's forces, Burnham successfully opened the wormhole, taking Discovery through with her. Pike, his first officer Una, Spock, and acting Section 31 chief Tyler all reported to Starfleet Command that Discovery was destroyed with all hands. Spock furthermore recommended that in order to prevent such incidents with Section 31 from happening again, that all participants in the event were to be barred from talking about Discovery, her crew, or her spore drive under penalty of treason. ()

In 2259, Captain Christopher Pike wore a USS Discovery pin for Starfleet Remembrance Day. ()

Arriving in the 32nd century 
Upon exiting from the wormhole in 3189, Discovery crash-landed on an ice planet known simply as "The Colony". It was eventually rescued by Michael Burnham who had arrived in the future a year earlier. ()

After Discovery arrived in the 32nd century, shipboard computer developments caused some crewmembers such as Captain Saru to develop a theory that the integration of the vast quantities of Sphere data, central to their journey into the future, had prompted the development of a self aware protective instinct among the ship's computer systems. ()

At Federation Headquarters, Discovery underwent a three-week retrofit, with all of her systems being upgraded on par with 32nd century technology. Part of this refit included the installation of programmable matter into all stations for better control and converting her warp engines to be detached for improved maneuverability and performance. During the refit, the ship was recommissioned with the registry NCC-1031-A.

Adira Tal also included an upgrade to the spore drive reaction cube as well as converting the physical injector shunts into nanogel control interfaces. 

At the same time, her mission orders were that of a rapid response craft based out of Federation Headquarters due to the unique nature of her spore drive. ()

As part of its refit, Discovery was equipped with a cloaking device, the turbolifts didn't run on tracks anymore, they hovered, and the systems hub section was upgraded. ()

A holodeck was also among the renovations included in the refit. ()

The Discovery was eventually hijacked by Osyraa and her Emerald Chain forces who used the ship to reach Federation Headquarters.() During the battle that followed, Burnham killed Osyraa, reset the computer to its previous operating system and retook the ship. Discoverys warp core was then ejected and detonated in order to destroy the Emerald Chain flagship Viridian while Discovery herself spore jumped away using Cleveland Booker's empathic abilities in the absence of Paul Stamets.

Following the resolution of the crisis, Michael Burnham was promoted to captain of Discovery while Saru took Su'Kal home. The ship was then assigned to transport dilithium to various Federation worlds. ()

With the threat of the Dark Matter Anomaly, Discovery was assigned to travel beyond the galactic barrier and make first contact with Species 10-C, bringing along a number of diplomatic representatives including the Federation President and the President of Ni'Var. The mission left the spore drive burned out, stranding the ship decades away from Earth at warp speed. However, the crew succeeded in convincing the 10-C to shut down the DMA just in time to save Ni'Var and United Earth and Titan from destruction. Before the 10-C shut down the DMA completely, they used the wormhole to return the Discovery to Earth. ()

Abandonment

At some point, the ship reverted to her pre-refit appearance and was abandoned by her crew. Discovery remained empty for almost a thousand years, when Craft came aboard. The ship's computer was under orders to maintain her position. ()

Merge with Sphere data and sentience
After Discoverys encounter with the sphere-shaped lifeform and its subsequent downloading of its millenniums worth of information, the data seemed to have a mind of its own. () It was repeatedly said to be "protecting itself", preventing its own deletion, not allowing the ship to self-destruct, and even raising the ship's shields when the Enterprise tried to destroy it with a photon torpedo. () It combined with Discoverys systems in 3189, and the computer's voice changed to signify this. Her first act that stretched the bonds of a normal computer was holding a movie night for the crew. (). When Osyraa hijacked Discovery, the Sphere data transferred itself to the DOT-23s, which then helped the crew of Discovery take back the ship. Most notably of her actions during that time, she rescued Owosekun from death by oxygen deprivation. ()

By the 32nd century, the computer AI had assumed the name Zora. () A relatively short period of time after that, she had developed emotions. () She worked with the crew of the Discovery on a personal level to escape a subspace rift, struggling with the task due to having to manage her new emotions. ()

Embarked craft
Discovery carried a complement of Class C shuttlecraft and worker bees in its shuttlebay. In 2257, the shuttlecraft were upgraded with enhanced phasers in preparation for battle with a Control-led Section 31 fleet. ()

Discovery also carried four landing pods, first developed for a mission to Kim-Tara, though two were destroyed in 2257. ()

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List of First contacts
Over its four years of service, the Discovery made first contact with the following species:
Pahvans, 2256 ()
Species 10-C, 3190 ()

Command crew

Commanding officer
 (2256-2257)
Katrina Cornwell (2257) 
 (2257)
Saru (2257, 2258, 3189) 
Christopher Pike (2257-2258) 
Michael Burnham (3189-) 
First officer
Saru (2256-2258, 3189, 3190)
Michael Burnham (3189)
Sylvia Tilly (3189–3190) 
Security chief 
Ellen Landry (2256)
 (2256-2257)
D. Nhan (2257-2258, 3189)
Cleveland Booker (3189-3190) 
Science officer
Michael Burnham (2257-2258, 3189)
Linus (2257-2258, 3189-)
Helmsman/Conn officer
Keyla Detmer (2256-2258, 3189-)
 (3189) 
Communications officer
Milton Richter (2256)
R.A. Bryce (2256-2258, 3189-)
 (3190)
Haj (2257)
Operations officer 
Joann Owosekun (2256-2258, 3189-)
Airiam (2257) 
Physician
Hugh Culber (2256, 2257-2258, 3189-)
Tracy Pollard (2257-2258, 3189-)
Tactical officer
Gen Rhys (2256-2258, 3189-)
Spore drive navigator
Paul Stamets (2256-2258, 3189-)
 Spore drive ops officer
Airiam (2256-2257)
Nilsson (2257-2258, 3189-)
Engineer
Jett Reno (2257-2258, 3189-)
Sylvia Tilly (2256-2258, 3189)
Counselor
Hugh Culber (3190–)

See also
USS Discovery personnel
Unnamed USS Discovery personnel

Appendices

Appearances
 Every episode except:

 
 (digital image)
 (archive footage)

Background information
Bryan Fuller chose the Discoverys registry number, 1031, because he loves Halloween. 

Before the show premiered, Aaron Harberts described the ship as "the latest and greatest ship to roll off the assembly line" (SFX, issue 292, p. 80)

The set used for the Discoverys interior was a reused set which, with just a few changes, had previously served as the interiors of the  and the . ()

In , Saru, while commanding the ship, says he has 134 souls to protect, strongly hinting at the size of the ship's crew. The statement is made while captain Lorca and the shuttle pilot are off-ship, one episode after Ellen Landry is killed, and before  joins the crew, suggesting the complement is 136 at that time.

Apocrypha
USS Discovery appears in Star Trek Online in an ending cutscene for the players taking the "Discovery" route, where it mentions the crew and the special mission Discovery was to undertake. Later, in the mission "The Measure of Morality", Discovery is again mentioned when the player comes in contact with Michael Burnham.  In that scene, it is mentioned that the Discovery was lost with all hands at some point in the past.

External link

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ru:USS Дискавери

Federation starships