Red Angel Theories- Post Here

[Lord Garth]

I'm about to watch the video. This beats out my brother's theory that it's Pike or Vina from the future with Talosian technology.

EDIT: Okay. I think the guy who put this video together is on the money.

If the Red Angel is Burnham, then the Red Angel would be able to tell Spock where Burnham was when she was a kid.

If the Red Angel is Burnham, then she has a reason to want to save the Kelpians from extermination.

And if the Red Angel travels through time, and the crew is temporally displaced, then it explains why Discovery has to wait around for 1,000 years to catch up to whenever the crew ends up. With the Discovery somewhere far off, it would be nowhere near the Federation while it waits around. It's like the beginning of Back to the Future, Part III when Marty and 1955 Doc uncover the DeLorean that was buried behind a wall in a mine for 70 years.

The only thing I have to wonder about is: How relocating people from Earth to New Eden during World War III figure into this? What would Burnham, if she were a Red Angel, be doing there?

 

[Succubint]

I think it's possible. I know it's not going to be well received in certain parts of the fandom if that's the case, but...it is what it is.

They have deliberately given us a better look at the RA this last episode and it's most definitely a female humanoid. Apparently this person is wearing a mechanized suit of some kind. And it may be too advanced for this timeline. In Ep 6, the Red Angel seemed to be able to make short jumps. Like a personalized spore drive.

I think that they could write a well constructed story where it turns out to be Michael going back in time because she knows she already did, but I am not a very big fan of time travel unless done extremely well, so I am not that enthused with the idea.

I prefer the idea that it's AI Zora from the Calypso short. Because the ship itself would also know all the events which happened.

Still, it's undeniable that the RA first visited Spock (giving him the idea of the 7 red bursts of light on the galaxy map) and has appeared to Michael and Saru in person. This is no coincidence.

It's probably going to be some kind of closed loop predestination paradox. There will be much groaning and gnashing of teeth, especially if Burnham is the key to it.

Also, I think there is a hint supporting the idea in the upcoming episode titles released:

Spoiler

Project Daedalus

 

[donners22]

Zora would be the best option for me. The future tech and use of a suit seems a hint.

I wouldn’t mind Tilly or Spock either, or Ariam, or Neelix, or Gary Hobson, or Sheldon Cooper, or pretty much anyone other than Michael. We’ve reached Michael saturation level already.

 

[Succubint]

The only thing I have to wonder about is: How relocating people from Earth to New Eden during World War III figure into this? What would Burnham, if she were a Red Angel, be doing there?

Because she already knows she went there and saved those people. So she has to do it or alter the timeline she has already experienced.

Yeah, like Janeway, I'm not a big fan of time travel.

 

[UssGlenn]

I'm going to say it's Prime Universe Lorca. Because his name is Gabriel, like the Archangel.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I prefer the Iron Man theory.

 

[Succubint]

Michael is also an archangel, remember.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Adding to the Burnham theory, some of the opening words of Season 2, as narrated by her:
"The final frontier. Above us. Around us. Within us. We have always looked to the stars to discover who we are. A thousand centuries ago in Africa, the Kaaba Em Abathwa tribe gathered to share a story. The tale of a girl who dug her hands in the wood ash and threw it into the sky to create the Milky Way. And hidden there, a secret buried among the eternal stars, was a message. An enormous letter in a bottle made of space and time, visible only to those whose hearts were open enough to receive it... When I first heard the story of the girl who made the stars, I wasn't ready to understand. I still don't know if I am."

 

[Cyrus]

Did the Red Angels disable the Enterprise or was it the holo-communicators?

If it was the Red Angels then it means they wanted Discovery to investigate the signals and not any other ship.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Did the Red Angels disable the Enterprise or was it the holo-communicators?

If it was the Red Angels then it means they wanted Discovery to investigate the signals and not any other ship.

They tried to use the holo communicators to contact the Enterprise and blew them out. /theory

 

[SG-17]

OK, here's my half-baked idea. It won't happen, and I don't think I'd want to it, but...

So we were told that this season would explain why Spock never mentioned Burnham, but narrative rules suggest that two people who begin in a state of estrangement will reconcile by the end of the story, so something's gotta give. Either Burnham gets erased from Spock's mind, or something happens to permanently separate them. Are there other options?

So let's try this: the Discovery crew finds out that not only is someone trying to wipe out life in the galaxy, but that they're from the far future, 1000+ years, and they're trying to change the course of history to prevent the Federation from becoming what it will be. And the Red Angel seems to be trying to stop this. So Discovery will need to hop across 1,000+ years to solve the mystery and thwart the enemy. They're literally in a fight for the future.

How will they get there? They can't use the spore drive--we saw how temporally unreliable that was--but they come up with a way to move just a skeleton crew (Mudd's time crystal?). How will they move the ship? There are two paths to the future: they're taking the short road, but the ship will need to take the long way round.

So they give Discovery some simple automated maintenance and defensive subroutines and hop through time. They rendezvous with the ship to discover that she's sapient now, and calls herself Zora. And they realize that the thing that called them to the future was in fact Discovery herself, who has been sitting, monitoring, charting history, becoming alive. Some kind of downfallen Preserver-equivalent enemy has set out not to save but to end civilization, and they're reaching across history to do it by changing little things a la A Sound of Thunder. And it's bad news: the future, as it stands, is a place where things fall apart for the Federation, now the backwards-looking, self-obsessed V'Draysh. But Zora knows what needs to happen: send one of them back, using advanced future tech, to intervene in a few critical events, the proverbial butterfly effect. And someone, maybe Burnham, is sent through time at Zora's behest, fixing the timeline and thwarting the enemy in the guise of the Red Angel.

In some kind of suitably epic showdown, everything the anti-Preservers have been up to is prevented, and a future where the Federation survives is maintained. But for whatever reason they can't all make it home, and Burnham and most of our cast (save Pike and Spock) are stranded 1000+ years in the future, with a sentient ship and a brave new world.

But there's one last butterfly effect act that needs to be carried out to pave the way for the world that will be. The season ends with Christopher Pike returning to New Eden to welcome Jacob and his people into the Federation.

OK, time to go to bed.

(I don't really think this will happen. And I'd rather Disco stay in its century. But I'd love for Calypso to be relevant to what happens!)

But you also have to take into account the Temporal Integrity Commission of the 29th century and the Temporal Accord Agents of the 31st century.

 

[Tuskin38]

Did the Red Angels disable the Enterprise or was it the holo-communicators?

Pike assumed it was the holo communicator, but we never got any dialogue saying it was actually that device that caused it.

We haven't had any dialogue saying what exactly caused the system failure.

 

[Donker]

Body shape looks like Tilly so my bet is it's Tilly and Spore related shenanigans. I've also heard Amanda thrown around a lot which I would also rank highly.

That said I DESPERATELY want it to be Michael Burnham, not for good reasons as well, but taking a character that is already an absurd fan-fiction level mary sue and presenting her as an literal angel would just be so on the nose, I think I legitimately would be crying from laughter for a solid hour afterwards.

 

[Nerys Myk]

fan-fiction level mary sue

two points from House Donker.

 

[Donker]

two points from House Donker.

Not even an unfair compairson. Go read a Trekkie tale. Lt. Mary Sue has pretty much the exact same backstory as Michael Burnham to the point I wonder if it was a injoke or not.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not even an unfair compairson. Go read a Trekkie tale. Lt. Mary Sue has pretty much the exact same backstory as Michael Burnham to the point I wonder if it was a injoke or not.

No thanks, I'll just use the cliff notes to see if she's a promising Starfleet officer who fell from grace and is Spock's sister.

 

[Lord Garth]

I think a number of Burnham-haters actually want the Red Angel to be Burnham to fuel their "Mary Sue" Argument. Or, in their view, further fuel it. Burnham as a Red Angel makes a certain amount of in-story sense as it would give the Red Angel motivation to want to protect the Kelpiens and it would explain how the Red Angel would know where Burnham is when telling Spock way back when.

BUT, this argument was presented to me that the Red Angel could be Zora. Right here. I'll cut-and-paste what the author says:

New clues suggest that Star Trek: Discovery's Red Angel could possibly be the sentient A.I. of the Discovery from a thousand years in the future. In theShort Trek episode "Calypso," fans learned that the titular starship survives intact into the 33rd century and its onboard computer upgraded itself, taking the name Zora. Could Zora, in fact, be the Red Angel traveling back through time to affect the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery in the 23rd century?

Thus far, the Red Angel has been linked to (or is creating) seven red signals in space. The U.S.S. Discovery under the command of Captain Pike has investigated three signals and each one led to a rescue mission. The first saw Pike and Michael Burnham save Jett Reno from an asteroid. Next, the Discovery's crew saved the humans living on Terralysium from an extinction-level event. Finally, on First Officer Saru's homeworld of Kalinar, the Red Angel saved the Kelpiens from being wiped out by the Ba'ul.

The Red Angel is also somehow linked to Spock; it visited the Vulcan as a boy and helped him save his half-sister Michael. It visited him again two months before season 2 began. Spock seems to have suffered emotional damage that led him to be confined to - and become a fugitive from - a Starfleet psychiatric facility. While it's unclear what the Red Angel wants with Spock, here is the evidence the mysterious entity could be Zora, the 33rd century A.I. of the Discovery.

THE RED ANGEL IS A HUMANOID USING FUTURE TECHNOLOGY

When the Red Angel saved the Kelpiens, Saru's heightened eyesight allowed him to see the crimson apparition in more detail than ever before: the Red Angel is no space god but appears to be a humanoid in a mechanized suit "exhibiting technology far beyond present Federation capabilities". The Red Angel also seems to be shaped like a female.

Also, as Section 31's Ash Tyler explained to Pike and Burnham, the Red Angel is capable of time incursions. It traveled back to the 21st century and brought humans about die in World War III to a new world in the Beta Quadrant. All of this points to the strong possibility that the Red Angel could be Zora, the Discovery's A.I. from a thousand years in the future going back and affecting the past.

THE DISCOVERY EVOLVES A THOUSAND YEARS IN THE FUTURE

In the Short Trek "Calypso," the Discovery is floating all alone in an unknown region of space. It had been waiting for new orders for nearly a thousand years and it was abandoned long ago by its crew when the ship saved Craft, a human soldier from Alcor IV adrift in an escape pod. After beaming Craft into the medical bay, Zora introduced herself as the Discovery's A.I. and explained that she spent the last millennia evolving herself. Craft and Zora had a bit of a romance before he chose to return to his family on Alcor IV, leaving Zora all alone once more.

Craft leaving her could theoretically be what prompted Zora to become the Red Angel and begin affecting the past - all instances specifically involving the Discovery. After all, Zora would possess the 100,000 years of galactic history recovered from the sphere in the episode "An Obol For Charon" - information that could possibly include the secrets of time travel. Zora also created a hologram human body for herself; it's not a great leap to make that she could then replicate a humanoid body and the tech Saru saw the Red Angel using. Craft also had a tattoo of a cyclops owl from Alcor IV, which Zora zoomed in on; this could have inspired the Red Angel persona.

If the Red Angel is Zora, it opens up a slew of new questions, especially about why the Red Angel has been visiting Spock since he was a boy. It remains to be seen what the Red Angel's true intentions ultimately are, but it could be a poetic discovery for Pike, Burnham, and their crew that their own ship from the future is manipulating their adventures in Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

 

[Donker]

BUT, this argument was presented to me that the Red Angel could be Zora.

Ha, I completely forgot I was pondering before bed last night if it had something to do with the Discovery crew going missing in Calypso.

I think a number of Burnham-haters actually want the Red Angel to be Burnham to fuel their "Mary Sue" Argument.

It would legitimately just be hilarious. Burnham is the closest you're going to get to a flat out complete Mary Sue in professional fiction (I would argue Wesley Crusher was largely one as well) and then presenting her as a literal angel would just be absolutely on the nose and deaf to the audience concerns about her character.

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[Lord Garth]

Ha, I completely forgot I was pondering before bed last night if it had something to do with the Discovery crew going missing in Calypso.

I figured "Calypso" would tie into the end of the season, especially if time travel was involved. And Zora as a time-traveling non-physical AI with technology 1,000 years beyond current Discovery technology would give her the means to seem or become Angelic within a sci-fi context.

The argument is too good. I'm leaning more toward Zora now. If Burnham were to become a Red Angel, I don't think that would be conductive to having her as the protagonist after this season. I don't think a supernatural being (or AI in Zora's case) would work as a main character for the show.

 

[Donker]

Would also explain the feminine figure since she modelled herself on that actress in the film they were watching. Yep, 100% on the Zora train.