Spoilers My main suspects for the anomaly.

Part of me did wonder if they might go the 'All Good Things' route with this - an anomaly in the past, 'present' and 'future' (e.g. SNW, Picard, Disco) that would require all three crews to team up for a Marvel-esque smackdown..

 

The anomaly is B4.

 

I wonder why apparently so many people here have a problem with a possible second encounter with Nagilum, if entities like Q or the Guardian of Forever (also being from earlier Star Trek shows) had multiple appearances in other Trek shows throughout the years.

And the ending of "Where Silence Has Lease" actually foreshadows another possible encounter in the future.

 

Shaihalud?

Maybe His Divine Shadow?
May his merciful shadow fall upon you..

 

To be fair I have a huge problem with Q as well.

Nagilum just strikes me as extremely odd, given the lack of history with the current crew.

 

Yeah, but the same also counts for the Guardian.

And the ending of that TNG episode, where Picard said that another encounter with Nagilum should happen "among the stars" strikes me as really poignant, especially as this seemed to be kind of promissing a sequel that never happened.

And the conversation between Culber and Tilly seemed to hint that something might be "wrong" with reality and Nagilum could from what we have seen cause such things/illusions. If an entity like him moves through space, who knows how the range of its abbilities...

But on the other side, we also never saw the "Conspiracy" parasites again, in canon

 

If they go like the Guardian and try to make the history make sense then so be it. But, the Guardian was not something I would prefer happen again.

 

Probably turns out Burnham is Paul's Aunt and the key to the golden path

 

Do you know why there was never a sequel to “Where Silence Has Lease?” Because Nagilum was an uninteresting and forgettable character. And I’m pretty sure no one expected to do a sequel to it anyway.

The Guardian had something to do with the story they were telling, including the Temporal wars and Emperor Georgiou’s fate. Please explain to me what Nagilum or V’Ger have to do with the story other than taking things out of context and calling it evidence?

 

The producers mentioned before the release of the season that they want to explain why the Discovery in "Calypso" looked like before the refit and they said again and again that Disco would stay in the 32nd century. And the slang word used in this short trek for the Federation was used at the beginning of Season 3, which would be relatively unlikely if "Calypso" happened in the 42nd century.

The Calypso Discovery being a construct made by Nagilum could explain "Calypso" without the crew needing to do another time travel.

And maybe Craft's people were in conflict with the Federation, because of the anomaly and possible evacuation orders. Remember the mentioning of possible unrests by T'Rina in the last episode.

 

Sorry, this is where you lost me. You’re not explaining why Nagilum specifically would be the reason for the anomaly, much less the idea of the writers using him to shoehorn Calypso into the current continuity.

 

I'm not saying that it couldn't be something new, but i think Nagilum would fit. If the writers want to effect the galaxy like we have seen so far and to explain this Short Trek.

And the producers never shied away from doing fan service.

By the way, it's interesting that they mentioned Picard but not also Korby, when they discussed Gray's new body. Considering the connection between TOS and Disco during the first two seasons

 

Korby would not quite be the same, given that the tech used was considered "old" and less than effective.

Also, while the producers have never shied away from doing fan service this particular bit of fan service makes no sense.

 

Doubtful. For starters, the anomaly storyline is meant to be a pandemic analogy, and Patrick Stewart used his veto authority over story content to nix any pandemic analogies done on Picard. And there's no way such a crossover would fit with the standalone episodic nature of SNW, to say nothing of spending an episode in the first season when the show is still trying to establish its identity and stand on its own.

Q is a fan favorite character from TNG appearing in many of the show's more popular episodes, while the Guardian of Forever is featured in fan favorite episodes from TOS and TAS. It makes sense to bring them back, fans will recognize them. Nagilum is a forgettable character from a forgettable episode in TNG's most forgettable season. No one besides the most die-hard fans are going to know who he is, and even a few of them are going to struggle to place him. It's been thirty-three years since Nagilum's first and only appearance and in that time he's never been seen or heard from in any show, novel, comic, or anything. There's absolutely no reason to expect him to show up on Disco this season or ever.

 

I don't have a problem with it. I just think the chances of Nagilum being part of S4's plot are about the same as the Detroit Lions making the SuperBowl. It just ain't gonna happen. It's like saying the anomaly is controlled by Vash...I basically react to the idea that Nagilum would have anything to do with the anomaly with the same level of seriousness.

 

I sorta said this in a thread on early season themes, but that didn't get much traction, so I will say it here as well - whoever or whatever the anomaly is, and/or whoever or whatever created it, I suspect the whole thing was triggered by a devastating misunderstanding.

Both in terms of character dynamics and metaphor/expression inter-species confusion humor, "Kobayashi Maru" and "The Anomaly" are thick with it. Discovery's writers love to tease revelations through recurring narrative elements.

I'm more interested in what this will all mean from a symbolic thematic perspective than which Memory Alpha pages have pre-existing identification hints, ha.

 

DUMPLINGS, man! They're EVERYWHERE!

Ooh! While I appreciated all the jokes in this thread, *this* has me thinking!

 

Oh yeah, I like the jokes, too! That probably came out harsher than I'd intended! But yeah, I guess the more "what does it all mean?" shtick is more my wheelhouse.

 

- Nagilum is a completely forgettable character from a completely forgettable episode of early TNG that only hardcore fans know or care about. Normals would probably be more familiar with the reaction gif of the helmsman being killed than they would be with who's killing him.

- It was Picard who suggested they might meet again. Nagilum was thoroughly disgusted with Human aggressiveness (which is ironic since it planned to kill off up to half the crew) and didn't seem to desire encountering them again.

- The method of operation and effects of this anomaly on surrounding space and planets are nothing like that of Nagilum.

- The appearance of the anomaly doesn't have any resemblance to Nagilum beyond a vague "cloud in space" quality, which includes most of the anomalies in Trek. This cloud does not look anything like the Nagilum cloud.

- I doubt if the writers were pouring over old TNG villains and settle upon the giant space fetus and said, "yes, that's the one" any more than they would settle upon "Evil Tar Pit Monster that killed Tasha Yar." Not that they avoid hokey stuff, because they made the Burn caused by some Kelpian kid crying, but they'd make their own original hokey stuff.

- They're not even bringing back Nagilum on Picard, where it would at least make a little more sense. They're sticking with more well-known (even among non-fans or barely fans) antagonists like the Borg and Q.

I have no doubt the anomaly is some sort of living being given its behavior, but the odds of it being Nagilum of all things are astronomical, and I have no idea how this became such a popular suggestion. If there's some reason people seem so confident in this suggestion beyond "space cloud" I would sure like to hear the reasons why, 'cause I'm just not seeing it.

 

I feel an intense emotional need to mention that Nagilum is one of the least forgettable things to ever happen to me. I saw that episode live, as a 15-month-old infant, and the image of that creature scarred me for life! To this day, I shudder. It's quite literally my most terrifying childhood media-related experience. I apparently screamed in protest whenever my grandmother attempted to catch it on reruns thereafter.