New Moments of Discovery goes deep into Control

In the latest Moments of Discovery video, Alex Kurtzman talks about Control, the Section 31 artificial intelligence and its disturbing mission.

Spoilers for Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery follow! If you don’t want to know, go away!

In “Perpetual Infinity” it was revealed that the big bad of Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery wasn’t really the Red Angel (aka Michael Burnham’s Mom) at all, but was actually Control. The artificial intelligence program was designed by Section 31 to collect data and do threat analysis and instead decided on its own that organic life must be eliminated for the universe to be safe.

Control takes its place among various technological beings that have become something of a problem for the various Star Trek crews. The Borg, V’Ger, the Enterprise computer more times than anyone can count. You would think be now Starfleet would just give up on A.I.

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Anyway, in the latest Moments of Discovery video, showrunner and executive producer Alex Kurtzman talks about Control and how it has become more than the sum of its parts.

"“In its analysis, it sort of realizes that organic life and human and alien inability to fully come together is inefficient, and that the best way to proceed is to eliminate all organic life. It won’t be relying on anything we organic creatures need and it will be an evolutionary step.”"

In addition, actor Alan Van Sprang discusses how he had to change the way be plays Leland after Control takes him over and assumes, well, control.

"“Doing the AI is a little more difficult because you are given dialog and you can’t be a human about it, you just have to say it straightforward. It is all facts to a kind of computer, basically.“It just gives you so much range throughout a season of television, which I wasn’t really expecting because none of us really knew what was going to happen next.”"

Even though various folks at CBS have said in the past that Discovery would not serve as a backdoor pilot for Star Trek: Section 31, it’s tough to think that its not. The producers are doing an awful lot of world building when it comes to the secret Federation organization, much of which will no doubt set the stage for Section 31 once it arrives sometime after Discovery‘s third season.

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Already some fans are sensing that there may be a connection between Control and the Borg, even though the thinking is that Borg originated in the Delta Quadrant. And while we’ll look at that possible connection in a future article, with only three episodes left, pretty much anything can happen.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 continues every Thursday on CBS All Access.

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