The premiere of Paramount+'s Section 31 movie, the first Star Trek film to stream on the channel, is on January 24, 2025. The official trailer just dropped, and fans of Star Trek: The Original Series will recognize one of the aliens that pops up, and it's one that hasn't been seen in over 55 years.
In the third season episode of The Original Series, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," Lokai and Bele, two aliens from the People of Cheron, had been at war, as had their planet, for over 50,000 years...all because of skin pigmentation. Bele's skin pigment was black on the right side and white on the left, and Lokai's was the opposite.
In the Section 31 trailer we catch a glimpse of a similar alien with black and white coloring, even though, when the Enterprise beamed Bele and Lokai back down to their planet, there wasn't anything left. Their people had massacred one another over their skin color. But this movie is set before the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation so it's possible some of the aliens had escaped their planet before its complete destruction to save their families, and that is what we're seeing in the trailer.
It is interesting that Section 31 is rebooting these aliens as their one-off appearance didn't result in any longlasting effects on the Enterprise, its crew, or Starfleet. Usually, the aliens that cause the most damage are the ones that crop back up, i.e., the Borg, the Romulans, Q, and the Gorn. But, then again, since humanity didn't learn the first lesson "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" taught, this could very well be an intentional message the movie intends to pass along.
The appearance of this alien who looks similar to Lokai and Bele could be coincidental, but that's not usually Star Trek's way of doing things. This alien from the People of Cheron was, most likely, craftily planted, and even if for only a small part of the story, will serve a purpose.