The answer to a big Star Trek: Discovery mystery could be found in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Star Trek: Discovery‘s Dr. Kovich (David Cronenberg) is an enigma that has yet to be unraveled. First appearing in Star Trek: Discovery season 3, Kovich boasts a significant amount of authority within the United Federation of Planets. Kovich questions the crew of the USS Discovery alongside Starfleet’s Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) after Discovery’s forward time jump to the 32nd century. Kovich knows quite a lot of classified information about the Star Trek timeline but reveals very little about himself, sparking speculation about who Kovich really is and just how much he knows.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 introduces Commander Pelia (Carol Kane), an instructor at Starfleet Academy who becomes the USS Enterprise’s new Chief Engineer. A collector of antiquities, Pelia suffuses Engineering with a refreshing combination of whimsical joy and deep wisdom. Despite appearing human, Pelia’s distinctive accent tips off Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) that Pelia is a Lanthanite, a Star Trek species notable for their extremely long lifespans. At first glance, Pelia and Kovich couldn’t be more different, but the things that they have in common explain how Star Trek: Strange New Worlds might have the answer to Dr. Kovich’s identity.
There are signs that Star Trek: Discovery‘s Dr. Kovich could be a long-lived Lanthanite like Commander Pelia from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Kovich’s wardrobe and dark-rimmed glasses are unusually modern for Star Trek. Kovich’s knowledge about Star Trek‘s Mirror Universe, which drifted from the Prime universe over 500 years ago, is suspiciously vast for a 32nd-century denizen. Kovich brings a genuine 21st-century legal pad to a meeting with Captain Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 6, “Whistlespeak”, claiming a preference for real paper before casually tearing off a sheet without the kind of reverence one might expect from a collector of antiquities. That might be Kovich’s own paper.
Many Star Trek characters have a fondness for antiques and study history, but Dr. Kovich in Star Trek: Discovery has a relationship to history that’s far more uncanny than that of someone who simply has a hobby.Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ Commander Pelia also writes off her historical knowledge and multiple areas of study like someone who’s hiding something. Pelia admitted to being a Lanthanite after Uhura picked out her accent, which Kovich lacks, but it’s not hard to mask an accent, especially with millennia of practice trying to pass off as human. That practice may also make Kovich particularly qualified to keep the Federation’s most classified secrets.
As a new Star Trek species, information about Lanthanites is limited to what’s introduced in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and specifically through Commander Pelia. Lanthanites may be recognized by their distinctive accent, but the key feature of the species is the extremely long lifespans that make Lanthanites functionally immortal. Because Lanthanites are physically indistinguishible from humans, a group of Lanthanites was able to live on Earth for millennia without being detected. Pelia claims to have lived at the same time as the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, which would place Pelia’s earliest existence as far back as the 6th century BCE.
Lanthanites first revealed themselves to humanity in the 22nd century. Pelia, in particular, trusted her secret Lanthanite identity to Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner), the mother of Spock (Ethan Peck) and Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). Spock claims to have found Lanthanites fascinating, implying that Spock knew that Pelia was a Lanthanite, so it’s entirely possible that Michael also knew Pelia’s identity. Although Michael Burnham is from a time when humans were only first becoming aware of Lanthanites, Burnham might not be all that surprised to learn that Star Trek: Discovery‘s Dr. Kovich is a Lanthanite, just like Pelia in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are streaming on Paramount+.