Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ended the season without another chief engineer in place.
Before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped its amazing first season, we said goodbye to Hemmer, the chief engineer aboard the Enterprise. When episode ten of the season rolled around last week, another engineer wasn’t tasked as the show went in a different direction, casting Captain Pike and his crew into an alternate future where we did hear a distinctly Scottish voice talking to Spock in engineering. But that was just an Easter egg, according to showrunner Henry Alonso Myers.
Myers spoke with CinemaBlend about the future engineer that would be in charge of the Enterprise when the series returns for season two, and he said they weren’t quite ready to cast Scotty yet. That doesn’t mean we won’t see him in the series, but, most likely, it won’t be season two, as Myers told Syfy WIRE that we would meet a new engineer next season, but that it wouldn’t be Scotty.
"We will meet a new chief engineer — it’s not going to be Scotty. There will be a new character who I’m excited for you to meet, but I’m not going to tell you who it is. It’s going to be a very different person, a completely different type of engineer."
With Star Trek: Strange New Worlds introducing a new engineer, when will Scotty come aboard the Enterprise?
Memory Alpha clarifies that Scotty served as the chief engineer of both the USS Enterprise and the USS Enterprise-A, which were both under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, for almost thirty years. In the chronology, he began his Starfleet career in 2242. Captain Pike and his crew showed up in the second season of Discovery in 2258, which puts Scotty still in his teens. Supposedly, Scotty wasn’t assigned to the Enterprise until 2265 when Captain Kirk is captain of the Enterprise.
We know that Strange New Worlds has already gone outside of canon so we can safely assume it’ll do the same with Scotty. After all, Myers did say they weren’t ready to cast Scotty yet. So perhaps in a later season, that decision will be made, but honestly, I’m okay with Scotty not coming aboard the Enterprise without Captain Kirk. What about you?