Spoilers Some Details about Burnham

[Balok's Decoy]

Potential spoilers? Depends on how fresh you want to be going in.

Sonequa Martin-Green gave some details about her character in a recent interview. Appears she'll be the first human to attend the Vulcan Learning Center and the Vulcan Science Academy. Link.

Personally I adore the Vulcans, so I'm very excited for some flashbacks to the Science Academy. I think that's great.

 

[Tuskin38]

This explains her connection to Sarek.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I was just about to post this. Good to get some confirmation on her heritage. Fully human, after all!

 

[BillJ]

I still think it would be cool if she was Number One from "The Cage".

 

[captainkirk]

She mentions Amanda in the interview. Does this mean she's going to be in the series?

 

[Michael]

Nice to finally get confirmation on this. Looking forward to Michael Burnham!

I still think it would be cool if she was Number One from "The Cage".

Yup, would love that, too. Would be a subtle thing for the fans, most casual viewers wouldn't even notice.

 

[Mudd]

It certainly sounds as if her creation may have been inspired by that character.

There have been a few times when Trek's producers have wanted to use a previously existing character as a regular in a TV series, but have nixed that (or been instructioned by the studio to change it) because it would involve an ongoing pay-out to a writer who created the character. For example, CBS probably owes Dorothy Fontana something for using Sarek, just as Paramount would have had to pay Theodore Sturgeon's estate for each appearance of T'Pau in Enterprise.

CHARACTER PAYMENTS

If you create a character for an episodic television series in a script other than the pilot script and the character recurs on subsequent episodes of the series, you may be entitled to a character payment every time that character reappears in a new episode or if that character is spun off into a new series. Generally, in order to receive character payments for a character, you must have fully developed and fully described a unique, non-generic character with specific characteristics that are established in a script written by you.

Does any of that apply to "Number One" from "The Cage?" I'd guess not, as she was created by Gene Roddenberry and would be covered by whatever such arrangements exist between the Roddenberry estate and the studio regarding Star Trek. Supposedly Roddenberry sold the property to Paramount outright at some early point.

 

[Rahul]

I still think it would be cool if she was Number One from "The Cage".

You can be assured that:

1.) She is not the same person as "Number one" from the cage. This is the prime universe. Burnham will not become the first officer of the Enterprise under Cpt. Pike. She is a new character.

2.) Her character is definitely strongly inspired by the original Number One. She is the emotionless, logical female first officer for all intends and purposes. And we already know her nickname is also "Number One" (as was Rikers).

Much like Will Riker was "inspired" by Will Decker from Phase II and Deanna Troi by Illia. Or Tom Paris by Nick Locarno. Or Major Kira by Ro Laren. It's only logical to reuse an interesting concept for a character if there's room to expand upon, and it has happened before.
But I guess she will quickly evolve further, I guess we will see her as the Captain of the DIscovery at some point (maybe the end of the first season).

 

[Mudd]

The show will follow established characters and events until the showrunners want to do something that contradicts that.

 

[Rahul]

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the idea. Giving a well known character (Spock) a "long, lost sibling", even if only adopted, is cliché by this point. Hell it has already even happened to Spock before.

Also, Leonard Nimoy was remarkable in pulling the "logical" character off while still being friendly and caring, in a way only Mark Lenard has achieved since then. Most others have failed and came across as extremely stiff. Tuvok or early T'Pol & Soval come to mind, as well as Ben Cross' Sarek from Trek09 and to a degree Quinto's Spock. It's not an easy feat, and giving the "emotionless" role to the main character instead of a strong supporting character might not be such a great idea, as she has to perform as the "identifiable" person for the audience.

Furthermore, boxing in Sarek as "the absent father figure" is not that good an idea in my mind either. That has been sufficiently explored in TOS, the movies and TNG. It only invites direct comparison to the original. I hope we see some other, new sides of Sarek instead.

 

[Rahul]

I'm much more interested in a strong mentor/protegee-relationship with Michelle Yeoh's character instead. I hope it can reach the quality of the Janeway/Seven-dynamic to a degree. In my opinion the strongest parts of Star Trek often aren't the characters themselves (with a few notable exceptions), but a strong and interesting central relationships between those different characters. Kirk/Spock, Picard/Data, Odo/Quark and Archer/Shran come to mind. I hope they find a good other character for her to play off.

 

[Four Lights]

I still think it would be cool if she was Number One from "The Cage".

Unless they were going to change her skin colour I very much doubt it.
Then again, we've had a white Khan, so I guess a black Number One is possible.

 

[Mudd]

No reason they couldn't, no.

We've also had a Latino Khan.

 

[Ralphis]

I wonder if Burnham's background is somewhat like Worf's. Orphaned as a child, raised on an alien planet, outsider, etc.

 

[JRoss]

Telling you, I wouldn't be surprised if she was Amanda's daughter from a previous marriage.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I still think it would be cool if she was Number One from "The Cage".

I wonder if that was the plan at some point in production - after all, a human raised by Vulcans would perfectly explain why the Majel's Number One had the personality later transplanted to Spock for the series proper.

 

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A new news article has been published at TrekToday:

Sonequa Martin-Green has provided some details about her character in Star Trek: Discovery. According to EW, Burnham is “fully human (not half-Vulcan...

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[Noname Given]

You can be assured that:

1.) She is not the same person as "Number one" from the cage. This is the prime universe. Burnham will not become the first officer of the Enterprise under Cpt. Pike. She is a new character.

If they had gone that route (IE Saying the character was "Number One" from "The Cage") - there would have been zero canon conflict because the events of "The cage" ALREADY have happened ("The Cage" took place 12 years prior to TOS first season. ST: D takes place 10 years prior.)

But eiither way, I find what they're doing with her character background interesting.

 

[Apparition B5]

Yeah, she can't possibly be Number One from "The Cage," unless CBS retcons it back further in the timeline. This Michael Burnham has been XO of the Shenzhou for the past seven years.

 

[tenmei]

If they had gone that route (IE Saying the character was "Number One" from "The Cage") - there would have been zero canon conflict because the events of "The cage" ALREADY have happened ("The Cage" took place 12 years prior to TOS first season. ST: D takes place 10 years prior.)

But eiither way, I find what they're doing with her character background interesting.

And Burnham has been working under Georgiou for six years - so, back to it wouldn't have worked unless they have changed the time spent on the Shenzhou up as a result.