Throughout season 2, Discovery's A.I. from "Calypso" - Zora - was among the names being thrown around for the possible identity of the Red Angel. Even though that turned out to not be the case, she/it made an impression from that Short Trek. Amid the news about season 3, we've heard about "Calypso," Craft, and some of the surrounding plot points working their way into the main story, but nothing about Zora (that I'm aware of anyway). Are there any plans to introduce Zora in season 3 - possibly as the embodiment of the Sphere data/consciousness? If it's a dystopian future, her kind & tender ways might help tame the wild west of whatever future that Discovery arrives at.
Wasn't there a writer or producer a few weeks back who said they are aware of Calypso's popularity and are thinking of ways to work it into the show? That's about the closest we have to whether Zora or Craft will show up.
The interview I'm aware of is with executive producer Heather Kadin, where she said, “We definitely want to deal with that story [Calypso] in particular down the line, and especially with that actor, Aldis Hodge. He was magnificent. So you’ll see sometime down the line, for sure.” That could really mean anytime, whether season 3 or later, but I was wondering whether the circumstances that set up "Calypso" might be put in motion sooner rather than later. (For example, the very beginnings of Zora's awareness, the temporal storm, introducing the conflict that Craft spoke of, the reason Discovery gets abandoned by the crew, etc.)
I think Airiam's memories form a personality, or at least the originating basis for one, so she has a baseline for personhood. Combine that with processing the Scrolls and cultivating over a period of 1,000 years. That's how I think we get Zora. The only weird thing (or maybe not) is doing two time-jumps of such a massive magnitude. I figured Discovery might go back to the 23rd Century, drop off Georgiou, and then the ship would wait somewhere it couldn't be found. But if they're not going back at all, then that makes things a bit more interesting. It's a mystery.
What I find fascinating about "Calypso" is how much it fucked their continuity. Like, if they insist on "Calpyso" being canon, they cannot, ever, destroy the main ship. Hell, they can't even have a set redress anymore! Because we know, that exact ship, exactly looking like in season 2, will wait around 1000 years in a nebula. Now don't get me wrong - Calypso was fucking amazing! But in a more controlled environment (say, under Berman) they would have put in some safeguards. Like, they simply could have put the entire short on Discovery's identical sister ship - and they would never run into pronblems. But no, they decided, this super special, unique thing is going to happen to this very ship. That is why - even tough I'm certainly interested in where season 3 will lead us - I have absolutely no faith they will put in some safeguards to keep the story world open for future story tellings. I fear they will tell us exactly where all the familiar Trek elements - from the Federation to the Klingons - will end up exactly in a 1000 years, and all future Trek series set in between the 25th and the 33rd century are going to be fucked by it, because they cannot divert from that part, ever. Except if the creators become honest and say that, yes, DIS in it's entirety takes place in a different continuity than, say, PIC and the Kelvin and prime shows. Or we run into the X-men comicbook movie continuity, where things are "loosely" connected at best, and we have stuff like "the Phoenix" being inside Jean Grey already in "Apocalypse", a direct sequel ("Dark Phoenix") where the Phoenix gets inside her the first time (even though it's set after "Apocalypse"), and a prequel ("Days of Future Past") that showed that it's set in the same continuity as the Patrick Stewart X-Men, where the Phoenix has always been a part of Jean Grey (X3: "Last Stand").
In the 53 year history of the franchise, the main ship has only been destroyed permanently four times: the Enterprise in TSFS, the Enterprise D in Generations, the Defiant in DS9 S7, the Enterprise in Beyond. And in three of those four examples, the destroyed ship was replaced by an identical one anyway.
In the 53 year history of the franchise, every single main ship has been either a) destroyed or b) had a major set redress happen to it during it's runtime. Not a single one has stayed in it's s1e01 appereance until the end of it's run.
The show is called Star Trek: Discovery. odd that someone would be upset about a short taking place on the selfsame ship. I watched Calypso and don't see the problems you do. There's also no reason why any future Trek will be fucked by anything they do. None at all. Over the top worrying that the Far Future of Trek will mess things up for other series is kind of like not being able to enjoy Robin Hood or stories set over the next several hundred years because you know what happens to England all the way up to the 21st century.
Theory: "Calypso" is in a Possible 42nd Century and Zora takes it back in time to the 32nd Century when she's ready. So "Calypso" is still a future compared to the third season's new "present".
I think we see Zora sooner than later. I think the original intent was to introduce her in season 2 but, like everything else about season 2, the internet whiners scared them off. Because for some bizarro reason, retroactively updating the relative technological level of the 23rd century is 'wrong' - that updating the AI to actually be more sophisticated than Alexa somehow meshes with some nostalgia-distorted aesthetic. But that's gone now, so there's no reason not to introduce her.
My theory? Since they also have to bring Georgiou back to Discovery's original timeframe in time for her Section 31 show, somehow Georgiou is thrown back into the past on the ship, leaving the crew stranded without a ship in the future. She contacts Tyler (or maybe the Enterprise) to find a solution without alerting Starfleet in general or any remnants of Control in particular that the ship is back, and to find a way to get back to the future to help the crew. But there is none, at least not as directly as with the suit. So they finally come up with the plan to park the ship in a nebula close to the last position Georgiou knew the crew to be, outfit it with an AI that will maintain the ship and its position, and if necessary actively avoid detection, as a type of time capsule for the crew to find. Or maybe Zora has orders to start flying towards the crew's position once the "time has come". But in these almost 1000 years Zora becomes sentient and independent enough to be able to fudge orders to pull Craft on board because she's lonely. So, Georgiou is back in the past, Zora exists in the 32nd century, and if she reunites with the crew and they meet Craft later he can express how happy he is for her to have found her crew after all this time.
Robin Hood is not science fiction. And yes, setting a science fiction series at the time of Robin Hood would be a monumentally bad idea, if you want the rest of history line up with the "canon" 21th century.
In any case, hijacking a known starship from any arbitrary point in her history and having her do hijinks (such as spending a millennium idle if need be) has never been much of a problem for those who can do time hijack. Q was at it in basically every spinoff. "Zora's ship" could have been hijacked between "Butcher's Knife" and "Choose Your Pain", say, and then returned after the thousand years were up, with a bit of cleanup. Or duplicated, or whatever. That's not particularly nonstandard Trek fare as such. Timo Saloniemi
Voyager did. DS9's Ops did. Aside from a new Captain's chair, the NX-01's bridge stayed more or less the same. Unless you're counting the changes made specifically for TATV.
Personally I stopped worrying about continuity the moment they decided Zefram Cochrane was an alcoholic rock and roll fan working in a tin shed in post-apocalyptic Montana, rather than a brilliant young scientist from Alpha Centauri.
The sets of both VOY and ENT got major do-overs in the middle of the run. Adjusted lightning, new console arrangements, screens, on ENT all the doors got new paint... The usual set redresses. No, it didn't. Your were comparing a historical movie with a science fiction prequel movie. Which is too stupid to go into all the details about how that doesn't work, because, like,... come on...