Poll Will Burnham become Captain in Season 3?

Do you think Burnham will become The Captain by the end of the third season?

 

I vote no. I don't think becoming Captain is where Burnham's head is at, she is not the same ambitious officer that she was at the beginning of the series. Also, Burnham and the crew clearly deeply respect Saru as their commanding officer. I think Saru will remain Captain with Burnham as his XO and we'll get what was originally intended for TNG, the first officer leading the landing parties and being forefront of the action.

 

that would mean something bad happening to Saru so i hope not

 

Do I think it will happen? Maybe. Do I think she should? No. Saru is the senior officer and judging by the trailer, Burnham is cut off from the ship for a long time, meaning that Saru has spent probably a year as the captain. He's probably the highest-ranking Starfleet officer in the galaxy, I think he's earned the position. Also, it's about time for an alien captain.

 

From the gist of what's been said in interviews Burnham and Discovery get separated in the wormhole but arrive at different points in time. From Burnham's perspective Discovery arrives a year after she does, but to the Saru and the crew they exit the wormhole right after they entered.

However in full agreement with you about Saru. An alien Captain as a main character is long overdue in trek.

 

In theory, we don't know which of the two is senior to the full Commander rank, that is, whether Burnham's S1 disgrace was fully nullified or, say, reset her seniority so that she's drastically junior to Saru now.

Also in theory, we don't know whether Saru ever ceased to be Captain when Pike barged in and took over his chair. In "Brother" still, they make fun of it, speaking of shared custody or whatnot. Might be things got cleared up later on. Might be Saru by the end of S3 now has two full years of unbroken captaincy under his belt.

OTOH, in practice, all this means is that we already have had an alien captain for one or two years straight, so giving Burnham a shot would not detract from that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Saru is not the only other contender. I am sure Georgiou will make a claim too.

 

Well, she'll always be in factual charge anyway, so perhaps she won't bother?

Timo Saloniemi

 

No. I do not see Burnham becoming a captain either at the end of season 3 or at all. It defeats the point of her character and the show.

The captain will be Saru. Or someone else.

 

Georgiou may try, but I suspect she realizes as long as Michael and Saru are around the crew is loyal to them. Likewise, should something mysterious happen to either Michael or Saru, Georgiou would not have the loyalty of the crew were she to take command and trying to enact Terran discipline would result in the crew staging a mutiny. So it would be best for her to leave command to Saru or Michael and then she could try an influence their command decisions by drawing on her experience.

 

I love Saru, and he's a great fit for Captain.

I feel that Burnham may be in charge by the time the series is reaching the end, but it doesn't really fit her arc at the moment.

 

I highly doubt that Georgiou actually wants command of the Discovery. All she seems to want to do is escape. (We don't even know if she ever served in her universe's Starfleet.)

And we know she eventually WILL escape, as she has to make it back to 2257 for the Section 31 series.

 

It will be that guy waiting on Vulcan since season one ended. Dude is very patience.

 

And now I'm imagining a montage of him on Mount Seleya waiting as the years pass by, just like Fry's dog on Futurama.

 

I myself am leaning towards she won't be. In this analysis of the S3 trailer, at the 8:30-mark, Trek Central points out Burnham is back in gold-striping (as opposed to the silver-striping from before), which puts her back on the Command Track. But she doesn't have any extra piping on top of her shoulders like Disco Captains do. So she's probably First Officer.



Granted this trailer came out in October 2019, three months after they started shooting, so that would still be from the early part of the season.

 

I can't see her as captain and I don't think it would be a good direction to put her character in, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Besides we already have a good captain in Saru and I don't see Michael taking away her friend's command position, unless he'd offered it to her or was otherwise incapable of fulfilling his duties.
And Saru is just too good a character to lose.

 

Let's think long run..... Discovery will NOT return after S3 and the show will remain in the 31st century. Asuming we're talking about a devided/diminished Federation that will be rebuild, I can see it happening that, at the end of the series finale, Burnham accepts a command in what is either a new Starfleet or rebuild of what's left when Discovery arrives. That would make sense.

But right now, Burnham is still healing as a person. She's still finding her way as a person and officer. If Saru offered her to be in command, she'd decline. No, my money is on Saru.

And Georgiou will not want command. She'll be in charge, subtly playing and manipulating people to do what she wants and alter outcomes to her desire. But she doesn't want to be in public.

 

#saruforcaptain

 

If Burnham becomes a captain, it'll be in the final scenes of the series finale, IMO.