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‘Strange New Worlds’ Just Found the Perfect Way to Reinvent ‘Star Trek’ Sci-Fi

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Editor’s Note: The following article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 2.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been a standout in the Star Trek franchise thanks to its ability to play with different genres. Over the course of four seasons, there have been episodes that took place within a fantasy realm, a murder mystery, and even a full-blown musical. Season 4 takes this up a notch with its latest episode, “The Griffin Incident,” where members of the U.S.S. Enterprise stumble across a Starfleet vessel that mysteriously disappeared years ago. They soon learn that the ship isn’t as abandoned as they thought, and suffer a series of psychological torments ​​​​​​before being rescued. Strange New Worlds is no stranger to horror, but “The Griffin Incident” is on a whole other level.

It’s the final moments of the episode that prove to be the most interesting. After the Enterprise rescues Kirk (Paul Wesley), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and La’an (Christina Chong) from the Griffin‘s clutches, a section of Starfleet known as “Division 12” is contacted to study the haunted ship. According to Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Division 12 is a group of “Starfleet analysts who explore unexplained phenomena,” and this isn’t the first time he’s been in touch with them. The idea of a Starfleet division that explores the mysteries of the universe is ripe for a spinoff series and the best way to push the Star Trek franchise forward.

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A Division 12 Series Could Explore Hidden Corners of the ‘Star Trek’ Universe

(L-R): Rebecca Romijn as Una, Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh, and Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas in season 4, episode 1, of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+
Image via Jan Thijs/Paramount+

If Division 12 got its own series, it’s a chance for Star Trek to further explore some of its biggest mysteries. There are still a lot of mysterious figures within the franchise, most notably the reality-bending Q (John de Lancie) and the other members of the Q Continuum, or the Guardian of Forever, who was first introduced in the iconic Star Trek: The Original Series episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” Revisiting those characters could touch on different aspects of beloved Star Trek series, and give Trek fans a deeper appreciation of the overall franchise. There’s also the matter of the other times that Division 12 has crossed paths with Pike, which begs the question: what did he find too strange for the Enterprise to explore?

Division 12’s mission to explore the unexplained also brings another iconic science fiction series to mind, namely The X-Files. That series featured FBI agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) delving into cases that featured paranormal phenomena, and even spawned a franchise of its own. One episode of The X-Files revealed that there was a government division known as the “Majestic 12,” which operated out of Area 51 after the infamous Roswell Incident. It’s not a stretch to imagine that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brought in Division 12 as a homage to that same group.

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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz
Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like?
Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky

Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🏜️Paul Atreides

🖖Capt. Kirk

Princess Leia

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🔦Ellen Ripley

🔥Max Rockatansky

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01

How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher?
The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.





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The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.





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What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for?
Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.





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Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.





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You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do?
How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.





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What has your heroism cost you personally?
Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.





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Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?





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When everything is on the line, what keeps you going?
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Your Hero Has Been Identified
Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…

Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.

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Arrakis · Dune

Paul Atreides

You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.

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  • You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
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  • Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
  • That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.


USS Enterprise · Star Trek

Captain Kirk

You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.

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  • You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
  • Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
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The Rebellion · Star Wars

Princess Leia

You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.

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  • You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
  • You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
  • Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
  • That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.


The Nostromo · Alien

Ellen Ripley

You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.

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  • You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
  • Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
  • You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
  • When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.


The Wasteland · Mad Max

Max Rockatansky

You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.

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  • You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
  • Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
  • Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
  • That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.

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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Continues A Tradition Set By Other ‘Star Trek’ Spinoffs

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds isn’t the first Star Trek series to reveal a hidden part of Starfleet. That’s been a tradition stretching back to other Trek spinoffs, most notably Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its revelation of the secret intelligence organization known as Section 31. Star Trek: Enterprise introduced the concept of the “Temporal Cold War,” and Starfleet agents who fought to preserve the timeline. Deep Space Nine writer Ira Steven Behr, who penned the episode that introduced Section 31, said he was inspired by a line Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) says in the series about “being a saint in paradise” and wanted to further explore what that meant:

“Why is Earth a paradise in the twenty-fourth century? Well, maybe it’s because there’s someone watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that no one wants to think about.”

That same approach should be applied to a potential Division 12 series, if it ever comes to fruition. Though next year will mark the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “The Griffin Incident” just introduced a unique way to continue the franchise on television.


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Release Date

2022 – 2027-00-00

Network
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Paramount+

Showrunner

Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman

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Directors

Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman

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Writers

Onitra Johnson

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