Star Trek SNW: Season 1, Episode Three “Ghosts of Illyria”

Stardate: 1224.3
Original Air Date: May 19, 2022
Writers: Akela Cooper & Bill Wolkoff
Director: Leslie Hope             

“You start breaking down the genetic code, who knows what the consequences might be?”

First Officer’s Log –The Enterprise has arrived at Hetemit IX, the site of an abandoned Illyrian colony. The Illyrians are a humanoid species known for modifying their genes in order to enhance their bodily capabilities and levels of function. However, because genetic modification is forbidden throughout the Federation, the Illyrians have always been outcasts. In fact, many species within the Federation are prejudicial against the Illyrians. The Enterprise’s presence at Hetemit IX is part of a standing mission to discover what happened to the Illyrians. However, research time on the surface is limited since the planet is prone to ion storms and a new storm is rapidly approaching. When the landing party tries to beam back aboard the ship, the ion storm interrupts the signal for some of the crew, and Spock and Pike are trapped on the surface. While stuck on Hetemit IX, Spock discovers a previously unknown library filled with a cache of journals that may be relevant to this expedition.  

Once back aboard the ship, Ensign Lance (Daniel Gravelle) starts behaving strangely, stripping off his clothes and professing an obsession with light, even crashing his head into a nearby light source. Similarly strange behavior begins affecting everyone who was part of the landing party –all of them show low levels of Vitamin D and the only things offering them comfort are the ship’s lights. The strange “light” contagion also begins spreading to other members of the ship who were not members of the landing party. Apparently, this dilemma was partly the result of possibly malfunctioning biofilters in the transporter. Una/Number One (temporarily in command) initiates “level five lockdown protocols” which confines all non-essential crew members to quarters; all on-duty crew are assigned to specific work zones.

Back on Hetemit IX, Spock and Pike learn that this colony of Illyrians were actually trying to join the Federation. They were attempting to reverse their genetic modifications. But as the ion storm approaches, the library where they are bunkered is invaded by strange electric-plasma-human-esque creatures who protect them from the ion storm. Apparently, these creatures are revealed to be the electromagnetic remnants of the original Illyrian colonists who wanted to renounce their bio-enhancements as a show of solidarity with the Federation. These Illyrians were apparently desperate to join the Federation. Spock and Pike realize that much of the prejudice against Illyrians is unwarranted.  

Meanwhile, the crew aboard the Enterprise soon realizes that this strange virus actually triggers pleasure centers in the brain when exposed to light –thus, they sedate the infected and turn out the ship’s lights. Still the disease spreads, and Hemmer attempts to beam aboard a piece of the core of Hetemit IX to unleash its light on the ship (Una stuns him and, seemingly using superhuman strength, she carries him back to sickbay). La’an is later found attempting to remove the containment field around the warp core to introduce more light, but this leads to a radiation exposure crisis (La’an and Una fight in a hand-to-hand combat sequence during the radiation leak wherein an infected La’an screams that Una is an “abomination” and an “augment” before Una knocks her out).

As it turns out, Number One reveals she is a secret Illyrian. She contracted the “light” disease when confronting La’an during the radiation leak but since her Illyrian body can heal itself, contracting the disease merely allowed her develop antibodies so that Nurse Chapel could create a vaccine of sorts… this ending seemed a bit too convenient to me. A vaccine is distributed to the crew, but the self-sacrifice of Una/Number One shows that the stereotypes about Illyrians were false. The Illyrians were never really interested in domination, instead they sought to better adapt themselves to their natural surroundings. They are not harmful. Rather than unleashing grand outward plans on conquest, like terraforming planets, they modified themselves. Upon coming to this realization, Pike refuses to accept Una’s resignation when she offers it –he says she is the best first officer in Starfleet.   

“Prejudice has kept people from helping each other for centuries with no scientific justification. And after we met our neighbors in the galaxy, we found new bigotries.
Human and Vulcan blood. Now it’s human and Illyrian.”

But before the episode concludes, there is still the problem of the malfunctioning transporters to solve. When Una/Number One confronts Dr. M’Benga, it is revealed that the transporter issue has actually been deliberate –Dr. M’Benga has been keeping his daughter Rukiya (who has leukemia) trapped inside the ship’s transporter pattern buffer. He had tampered with the ship’s advanced biofilters within the emergency medical transporter, and shows that there’s no limit to the amount of time a person’s genetic material can be kept inside the buffer, but at least here she cannot die. Dr. M’Benga has been holding out hope that the Enterprise might find a cure at one port or another to save his daughter.

Rather than penalizing Dr. M’Benga for risking the lives of the entire crew, Una/Number One decides to dedicate a unique power source direct from the warp core specifically for Dr. M’Benga’s daughter. Just as Pike showed mercy to Una for keeping her Illyrian heritage a secret, Una shows mercy to Dr. M’Benga for secretly protecting his daughter inside the transporter buffer.   

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My Thoughts on “Ghosts of Illyria”

In part a meditation on the recent COVID-19 pandemic (with the use of contact-tracing and a ship-wide lockdown), and also an intimate reflection on the secrets, prejudices, and confessions closely held by the crew, “Ghosts of Illyria” gives a nice nod to classic contagion episodes like “The Naked Time” (TOS) or “The Naked Now” (TNG).

However, there were a few questionable decisions made by characters in this episode. For example, the fact that Una/Number One did not inform Dr. M’Benga of her immunity to the “light” disease as an Illyrian defies common sense on some level (why would she worry about prejudice when nearly all the crew is incapacitated?). Also, later when she finds La’an rapidly removing the containment field around the warp core, why doesn’t Una/Number One simply use her phaser again to stun La’an as she previously had done with Hemmer in the transporter room?

Admittedly, I got a bit lost in some of the techno-babble in this episode, particularly the rushed deus ex machina ending, as well as the fact that Starfleet is seemingly unable to identify an Illyrian like Una in their midst despite being extremely prejudiced against their species, and the subplot of Dr. M’Benga’s daughter felt a bit contrived and ethically eyebrow-raising (also wouldn’t other crewmen like Lt. Kyle have noticed Dr. M’Benga’s daughter sitting in the transporter buffer?) In spite of my quibbles, this is still a nice episode of Trek. Classic Trek often shows us a nuanced narrative and a moral quandary with characters who manage to overcome prejudices and pursue a higher path, and in this respect “Ghosts of Illyria” succeeds.

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Star Trek Trivia:

• The original settlement of the Illyrians was in the “Vaultera Nebula.”
• In this episode, La’an reveals that Khan Noonien Singh, the bio-engineered “mass murderer,” is her ancestor. As a result, she was chastised as an “abomination” and an “augment” –so why did she never change her name?  
• Hemmer runs a “Level 5 Diagnostic” which is ship-wide to discover the transporter issue.
• In this episode, Number One reveals that she is secretly an Illyrian.
• The classic TOS boatswain’s whistle triumphantly returns in these first few episodes of SNW.
• The Illyrians also appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise.
• Apparently, Una’s background as an Illyrian was further explored in DC Fontana’s novel Vulcan’s Glory, though it was retconned in later books in the Trek litverse.

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