• The episode’s title, “Erigah”, refers a form of Breen “blood bounty” first mentioned a couple episodes ago in “Mirrors”.

• The opening shot is of the USS Locherer, first seen in “Jinaal”, and the Terran warp pod that Moll and L’ak escaped with in “Mirrors”.

• It’s Nhan! From Star Trek! Nhan was introduced in “Brother” and is played by Rachael Ancheril.

• ”Last time I saw you, also a personal situation, you fired on Discovery with photon torpedoes, and set off an isolytic weapon.” Nhan is referring to the season four episode, “Rubicon”.

• ”You did this to him!” Moll stabbed himself while in a fight with Burnham in “Mirrors”.

• ”Fierce as a sa-te kru.” This is the first mention of a sa-te kru on screen, but the cat like predator from Vulcan/Ni’Var originated in a six page comic called “When Worlds Collide: Spock Confronts the Ultimate Challenge” written by Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, and drawn by Paul Pope that was published in a 2009 issue of “Wired”.

• Throughout the course of the episode, outside of Federation HQ, in addition to the USS Discovery A we see:

    • Two Mars-class starships

    • USS Excalibur - 32nd century Constitution-class

    • USS Credence - Introduced in “Choose to Live”

    • USS LaMar - A ship of the same class as the USS Dresslehaus

    • USS Lochlerer - Merian-class

• The fourth piece of the Progenitor technology researchers’ map piece is now included in the opening credits sequence.

• ”Let’s not forget what happened last time Breen entered Federation space.” The last time we know for certain that the Breen entered Federation space was in “The Changing Face of Evil” when they attacked Starfleet HQ on Earth during the Dominion War, some 834 years ago. It is entirely possible that Rayner is referring to a more recent event that we the audience are unaware of.

    • Later, Tilly claims, ”The last time the Breen paid a visit to the Federation, they destroyed an entire city.” That might be a reference to the attack on San Francisco in “The Changing Face of Evil”, though it would be an exaggeration of the scale of the destruction. And again, 834 years have since passed.

• Rayner evokes the Romulan saying, ”Never turn your back on a Breen.” While in a Dominion prison station in “By Inferno’s Light” a Romulan fellow prisoner told Doctor Bashir that was a saying among her people.

• The Betazoid emblem on the clue that we will learn is a library card, was originally designed by a Trek fan named David Bilic for the “Birth of the Federation 2” mod. It was first seen on screen in “The Star Gazer”.

• The USS Mitchell was first seen in “Rubicon”.

• ”What’s worse than death?”
”This conversation, for starters.”
In “Magic to make the Sanest Man Go Mad”, Harry Mudd claimed that the weaponized dark matter beads that Captain Lorca had were rumoured to be the most painful way to die; now they need to be downgraded to number two.

• Jett Reno apparently makes a cocktail called the Seven of Limes, presumably named for the notable captain of the USS Enterprise G.

• Unlike the 24th century Breen Interceptors, the Breen Dreadnought appears to be more or less symmetrical.

    • It is stated that this Dreadnought is the one Burnham and Rayner saw outside the destroyed Federation HQ in a possible future in “Face the Strange”, though I will be honest, it was too dark for me to make out on the screen at the time.

• Burnham learned that Kellerun was used as a Breen outpost. Apparently that didn’t come up when she did the research in to Kellerun culture she mentioned in “Mirrors”.

    • Does this indicate that Kellerun is not part of the Federation, or is the attack on Kellerun the previous entry into Federation space that Rayner mentioned earlier in the episode?

• Reno claims she had ”tons of contacts in the book trade” 800 years earlier. Discovery and its crew jumped to the 32nd century 933 years earlier. I think it’s safe to assume that Reno was rounding off, however, 133 years is still a pretty big gap. This can only mean that at some point before the jump to the 32nd century, Reno also found herself in the 24th century smuggling books. I eagerly await that spin-off.

• President T’Rina bluffs Primarch Ruhn by claiming the Federation has received an offer from another Breen Primarch for Moll and L’ak. As we all know, Vulcans cannot lie.

    • Vulcans lie all the time.

• ”This bluff wouldn’t fool a hatchling.” Ruhn’s remarks imply that Breen are oviparous.

• Rayner states that Primarch Tahal named her ship the Tau Ceti ”After a lethal viper with a slow acting venom.” It’s unclear if this viper is native to the Tau Ceti system, which can be seen on star charts going back to “Conspiracy”.

• Book is able to get a psychometric reading off the library card to to figure out where the Archive is. This is the second time Book’s extrasensory abilities have been the key to solving one of the clues, the first being in “Jinaal”.

    • The reading from the library card indicates the archive is in the Badlands, a volatile region of space, conceived of for the premiere of VOY, “The Caretaker”, and first seen in the DS9 episode, “The Maquis, Part 1”.

• ”Sell me a goat farm on Bopak III while you’re at it.” Bopak III is the world where the Jem’Hadar first, Goran’Ager enlisted Doctor Bashir to try and use the locally available materials to cure his men of addiction to ketracel white in “Hippocratic Oath”.

• After stabbing himself and intentionally overdosing on medication meant to save him, L’ak dies as he lived. Stupidly.

    • In an interview with TrekMovie, series editor Carlos Cisco said that while Breen are less vulnerable in their solid form -- still susceptible to self inflicted stab wounds though -- the act of maintaining it requires so much energy they are slower, more sluggish, and less intelligent while doing so. This is the form that L'ak chooses to remain in.

• Rayner advocates for firing on the Breen before they can make the first move. in “The Vulcan Hello” Burnham so strongly believed that the USS Shenzhou should fire the first shot against the Klingons that she was willing to foment a mutiny to do so, a fact that she later points out to him.

• Doctor Kovich gives Burnham a list of the five scientists who had the task of researching the Progenitor technology, three of whom we’ve already learned about. The remaining two are a Denobulan, Hitoroshi Kreel, and a Betazoid named Marina DeRex. The first Betazoid we were introduced to in Trek was TNG’s Deanna Troi, played by Marina Sirtis.

• The opening sequence now shows the third map piece being added to the whole.

• Burnham gives Tilly a rundown of what she learned about the pre-warp Halem’nite language. It was established in the series premiere, “The Vulcan Hello”, that Burnham’s expertise is xenoanthropology.

    • The episode is named for the whistlespeak that the Halem’nites use to communicate over long distances. This mode of communication is used briefly early in the episode, and never again, including during the climax that relies upon a child communicating with their father.

• When Burnham and Tilly beam down to Halem’no, they arrive with markings on their foreheads to appear as Halem’nites. Starfleet officers being surgically altered to blend in with the locals during an away mission goes back to “The Enterprise Incident” when Captain Kirk was disguised as a Romulan, but this is the first time we’ve seen those alterations be applied mid-transport.

• “Turns out you have a perfectly typical, healthy, and rather handsome human brain.” Doctor Culber’s body was recreated out of mycelial network fungus matter in “Saints of Imperfection”.

• “I’m the queen of endurance.” In “Point of Light”, Tilly, with some help from a jahSepp inhabiting her body, set a course record running a half-marathon through the corridors of the USS Discovery.

• The weather tower control board features Denobulan script, first seen in “Stigma”.

• It is revealed that the winner of the Journey of the Mother Compeer gets sacrificed to the gods in order to bring the rain.

    • There are a few examples of sentient beings being ritually sacrificed in Trek, though most are talked about as something done in the past, such as on live sacrifices to Molar on “Qo’noS” being mentioned in “Will You Take My Hand?”, or the inhabitants of the planet featured in the VOY episode, “Muse” having replaced live sacrifice with theatrical plays.

    • We saw that Kelpiens culture viewed their being taken by the Ba’ul as a sort of ritual sacrifice in “The Brightest Star”.

    • In “Life Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach”, the Majalans regularly sacrifice a child referred to as the ”First Servant” to a slow and painful death to maintain the technology which enabled their civilization.

• The walls of the weather tower’s vacuum chamber are made of solid tritanium, and apparently too dense to allow for a transporter lock. The hulls and bulkheads of many Federation starships including the Discovery and the USS Enterprise D were made of tritanium, but did not impede transporter functions.

• Burnham makes the decision to disregard the prime directive as opposed to letting Tilly and Ravah die. Kirk frequently ignored the prime directive to save lives, such as in “The Return of the Archons”, “A Taste of Armageddon”, and “The Apple”. Even Picard violated the prime directive in “Justice” to save the life of Wesley Crusher, and “Who Watches the Watchers” to prevent the Mintakans from worshiping him as a deity.

    • The punishment for violating the prime directive is apparently a significant amount of paperwork. In “Bread and Circuses” it is stated that Starfleet officers swear to die before violating the prime directive.

• The handle Ohvahz uses to open the sacrificial vacuum chamber functions very similarly to 24th century manual access clamps, such as the ones seen in “Star Trek: First Contact” and the LDS episode, “First First Contact”.

So, the plot in season five of Disco is hunting down clues left behind by scientists who uncovered the technology left behind by a precursor race of alien beings who panspermiad their genetics all over the galaxy, resulting in all your favourite humanoids, like humans, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians, as seen in the TNG episode, "The Chase".

And the antagonists of the season are not actually the tragically dumb young lovers, Moll and L'ak, but instead appear to be the Breen. We've learned Breen are, as Captain William Shaw might say, goo people. Or at least they're semi-transparent so long as they're within the confines of their refrigeration suit. If L'ak is any indication they can take a more solid, humanoid form, but the Breen appear to prefer to be Sour Patch Kids.

I'm going to speculate that we will learn that the Breen are not actually one of the species who resulted from the Progenitors seeding the galaxy, and as such the Progenitor technology is of limited use for them.

I've known for years that Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics for Theme from Star Trek so that he could receive 50% of the royalties, but it never occurred to me that I should try and find out what those lyrics were. However, the lyrics did come up recently in a nerdy trivia show I watch, "Uhm, Actually", and now that I know them, I thought it important to share.

Beyond the rim of the star-light

My love is wand'ring in star-flight

I know he'll find in star-clustered reaches

Love, strange love a star woman teaches.

I know his journey ends never

His star trek will go on forever.

But tell him

While he wanders his starry sea

Remember, remember me.

Not my original content.

• The episode title references the mirror universe, a dark reflection of the familiar reality of Star Trek where humans, or Terrans as they’re more commonly called there, evolved to be more sensitive to light, resulting in everyone tending more towards malevolence, and barbarism, and queer coded villainy. Other episodes involving the mirror universe that reference mirrors, include:

    • “MIrror, Mirror”

    • “Through the Looking Glass”

    • “Shattered Mirror”

    • “In a Mirror, Darkly”

    • “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II”

• Despite not being Starfleet, Book apparently keeps a personal log. He records the stardate as 866282.9.

    • Other non-Starfleet personnel whom we know kept logs include: Neelix, Seven of Nine, and T’Pring.

• The digital ”Federation Watch List” wanted poster for Moll shows the emblems of:

    • Starfleet

    • Ni’Var

    • United Earth

    • Trill

    • Fernginar

    • Risa

    • Hornish

    • Orion

    • Andoria

    • We also see Orion and Andorian files on Moll, including Orion and Andorian script, first seen in “Borderland” and “The Andorian Incident” respectively.

• Rayner suggests to Burnham that the mission into the wormhole is too dangerous for the ship’s captain to take themselves. Picard says it’s a general policy in “Time’s Arrow” that the captain does not join away teams, and in “Star Trek Nemesis” Data sites a specific regulation. However, no captain we’ve seen other than Picard really observes this regulation.

• On the other side of the wormhole, Burnham and Book find the ISS Enterprise. The ship’s only other appearance was in “Mirror, Mirror”. For this episode, the Constitution-class appearance seen in both DIS and SNW is used for the ship, and redressed SNW sets are used for the interior.

    • In “Despite Yourself”, a wireframe model of the Constitution-class USS Defiant was displayed aboard the USS Discovery; at that time the ship had been in Terran Empire custody for over a 100 years, and appeared to have some alterations to both the nacelle pylons, and the bridge, but apparently when the Terrans got around to building their own Constitution-class, they opted for a configuration closer to the original.

• It was established in “Die Trying” that ”Crossing between universes has been impossible for centuries.”

• ”That was my brother’s station, aboard the USS Enterprise*.”* Burnham was raised by Sarek after the apparent death of her parents, as established in “The Vulcan Hello”.

    • ”I’m sure he was just as ruthless as the rest of them.” We learned in “Crossover” that mirror universe Spock became High Chancellor of the Terran Empire, after being inspired by Kirk in “Mirror, Mirror” and instituted major societal reforms, making the Empire more peaceful, resulting in it being conquered and enslaved by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.

    • Book finds a plaque with the story of the mirror Enterprise claiming that they escaped to the prime universe after the High Chancellor was killed for attempting to institute reforms. Presumably this still refers to mirror Spock, though he’s not mentioned by name.

    • Burnham and Book assume the ”Kelpien slave turned rebel leader” who helped the mirror Enterprise escape was mirror Saru, whom we saw in “The Wolf Inside”.

• Burnham find a plush doll of a mirror universe Gorn. Mirror Gorn, of course, also abduct members of other species to use as host bodies/food on their breeding planets, but in the Terran Empire that is considered to be a cuddly trait.

• Moll and L’ak created multiple holographic duplicates of themselves to stymie Book and Burnham. The Doctor did something similar in “Renaissance Man” by filling the holodock with copies of himself to escape Tuvok.

• We learn that L’ak is a Breen, a species whom we the audience have not previously seen outside of their refrigeration suits.

    • In “‘Til Death Do Us Part” Worf claimed that no one had seen a Breen outside their suits and lived. Though in “Indiscretion”, three seasons earlier, Kira and Dukat did incapacitate some Breen and steal their uniforms to use as disguises, so Worf’s claims are about as accurate as usual.

• In flashback we see a station operated and populated by Breen. Though their helmets no longer resemble something a character might wear during a War in the Stars, the asymmetric design of their refrigeration suits is inspired by what we saw in DS9.

• We learn through the flashbacks that Moll was saving latinum to be able to afford to set herself up on a colony in the gamma quadrant that she had never been to, but was described to her by Cleveland Booker as being the perfect home. In the season four episode, “The Galactic Barrier” we saw Tarka’s flashbacks to his developing a relationship with Oros, and their mutual obsession with finding a way to an alternate universe that was supposed to be a paradise.

• Unlike what we’ve seen of the Enterprise in DIS and SNW, it’s mirror counterpart has been upgraded with the same system aboard the USS Discovery A that belches gouts of fire into the bridge whenever it encounters a bit of turbulence.

• During a scuffle with Burnham, L’ak ends up stabbing himself, an advanced fighting technique usually only attempted by the most feared Klingon warriors, such as Kozak in “The House of Quark”, the Torchbearer in “The Vulcan Hello”, and most recently Dak’Rah in “Under the Cloak of War”. L’ak has not quite yet mastered the move though, as he lived.

• We learn that L’ak “Carries the genetic code of the Yod-Thot. Those that rule.” In DS9, Thot was a rank held by Breen flag officers.

• Book asks Burnham if she wants to give Pike’s catchphrase, “Hit it,” but she declines. Presumably Book looked up the catchphrases used by various captains of the Enterprise at some point.

• Detmer and Owosekun get to head a team to fly the mirror Enterprise back to Federation HQ. Rhys, whom it has been established twice this season in “Jinaal” and “Face the Strange” loves the Constitution-class more than any other ship, punches a bulkhead when he hears the news.

• A gormagander is a colloquial referred to as a space whale, and they were introduced in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”.

• Doctor Culber mentions having died, which he did when Ash Tyler snapped his neck in “Despite Yourself”, his resurrection in “Saints of Imperfection”, and then hosting the Jinaal personality in “Jinaal”.

• The episode was dedicated to Allan “Red” Marceta, a set dresser who passed away in 2022.

• The arms merchant whom we see Moll and L’ak dealing with appears to be an Annari, who were introduced in the VOY episode, “Nightingale”, which I mention only because I believe it is the first time we’ve seen a member of Delta Quadrant species in DIS, though not the first mention.

    • The weapon he acquired for them is a Krenim “chronophage,” or time bug, which presumably would have originated in the Krenim Imperium, also in the Delta Quadrant, as seen in “Year of Hell” and “Year of Hell, Part II”. In those episodes, the Krenim also had a weapon that manipulated time.

    • Rayner establishes that the time bugs are left over from the Temporal War, which was mentioned in “That Hope Is You, Part 1” as being the reason time travel is outlawed in the 32nd century.

• The Emerald Chain were the antagonist organization of season three of DIS.

• We see that the time bug is what Moll put on Adira’s uniform sleeve at the end of the previous episode, “Jinaal”.

• Burnham appears to keep either a copy of the Vulcan Kir’Shara or a similar artifact in her ready room.

• The opening credits sequence has changed to include both the parts of the key that the Discovery crew have secured being inserted into the ring.

• Burnham and Rayner find themselves being transported between multiple points in the USS Discovery’s existence.

    • The Discovery following Burnham in the Red Angel suit to the future in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”.

    • The construction of Discovery apparently in drydock in San Francisco. The first time we saw a starship being constructed at a ground facility was the Kelvin timeline USS Enterprise.

    • Stardate 1051.8, which was the stardate Burnham recorded in her log in “Such Sweet Sorrow” at the beginning of the episode when they’re preparing to abandon Discovery and destroy it, somewhat before the battle with Control depicted here begins. That battle was in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”.

    • Stardate 865422.4. Not a stardate previously given, but apparently during the Emerald Chain attack on Discovery in “There Is A Tide…”

    • 27 years in the future.

    • Some point after Discovery arrives in the 32nd century in “Far From Home”, but before the retrofit in “Scavengers”.

    • After Burnham becomes captain in “That Hope is You, Part 2”, but before the destruction of Kwejian in “Kobayashi Maru”.

    • Season one between “Context is For Kings” and “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not For the Lamb’s Cry”.

• The hardhat worn by the technician working aboard the Discovery during construction has the 23rd century symbol for Starfleet’s operations division on it.

• ”Well, he lives outside of time because of his tardigrade DNA.” Obviously. Stamets spliced the DNA of the giant tardigrade with his own in “Choose Your Pain”, and we learned that allowed him to exist outside normal spacetime in the time loop episode, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”.

• The Temporal Prime Directive was first mentioned in “Future’s End, Part II”.

• Zora is listening to a rendition of “Que Sera, Sera”.

• ”Are you stuck in a time loop now right now, Stamets?” He’s not, but Stamets was the only one aware of being stuck in a time loop in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”.

• Burnham runs into her younger self. Other characters have met iterations of themselves via time travel in:

    • “Yesteryear” - Spock

    • “Time Squared” - Picard

    • “Firstborn” - Alexander

    • “Visionary” - O’Brien

    • “Children of Time” - Odo; the Dax symbiont

    • “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night” - Kira

    • “Time’s Orphan” - Molly

    • “Relativity” - Seven of Nine

    • “Endgame” - Janeway

    • “E²” - T’Pol

    • 2009’s “Star Trek” - Spock

    • “A Quality of Mercy” - Pike

• It’s Airiam! From Star Trek! Despite Airiam’s appearance here taking place during season one, it is Airiam’s season two actor, Hannah Cheesman, under the prosthetics.

• It’s Bryce! From Star Trek! Ronnie Rowe Jr. reprises the role he played in seasons one, two and three, before leaving the regular cast, and appearing in only four episodes of season four.

• Burnham demonstrates her familiarity with Owo by mentioning the operations officer joined Starfleet because she wasn’t able to prevent a childhood friend’s death, something Owo told Saru in “Stormy Weather”.

• Burnham convinces Airiam she’s genuine by telling Airiam she sacrifices her life to save everyone else in “Project Daedalus”, an act that none of the rest of the crew believe Airiam would perform.

• ”You love ships, you love the Crossfield.” “Who doesn’t?” Buddy….

• Rayner has to stick a chroniton stabilizer into a field of accelerated time protecting the time bug with his bare hand for some reason, causing the appendage to age rapidly. Picard accidentally stuck his hand in “Timescape”.

Supermodel

• Burnham records the stardate as 866274.3 in her personal log.

• Burnham has the recording of the projection of the Progenitor from “The Chase” displayed in her quarters.

• As with season four, it appears that aliens serving Starfleet, specifically the ones whom you would except to have hands notably different from a human’s based on their facial features, wear gloves. Apparently this mandate extends to the admiralty, as we see the Deakohn admiral here covering the shameful monstrosities we can only assume his digits to be.

• In addition to the USS Discovery A and the USS Antares, congregating around Federation Headquarters at various points we see:

    • Three Eisenberg-class starships

    • Two Courage-class starships

    • Two Constitution-class starships

    • Two Merian-class starship

    • Three Friendship-class starship

    • A Saturn-class starship

    • A Mars-class starship

• It’s grudge! From Star Trek!

• We learn that Lyrek is a burial world that was used by the Promellians prior to their extinction. Promellians first appeared in “Booby Trap”.

• ”The last recorded exploration was over a century before Doctor Vellek was even born.” That does potentially raise the question of how Burnham would have been so familiar with Lyrek in the previous episode, though of course she and most of the rest of the Discovery crew might have been alive before Doctor Vellek’s birth.

• Saru reveals that it was Jett Reno who gave him the nickname ”Action Saru,” which only makes the fact that we’ve yet to see Reno this season all the more galling.

• ”I remember the day you came aboard Discovery. A mutineer. A prisoner. You seemed exactly the wrong choice.” Saru seems to be overlooking the fact that he knew Burnham prior to her mutiny and imprisonment, as seen in the series premiere, “The Vulcan Hello”.

• Saru implies to Burnham that she should consider making Book the new first officer on Discovery. Book is not a part of Starfleet or any other similar hierarchical organization. Presumably Saru makes the suggestion so that his own choice of ensign Tilly as his first officer in “Unification III” is no longer the wildest choice of in the history of Starfleet.

    • Presumably Book could be given field commission, as Chakotay was in “The Caretaker”.

• Adira laments being separated from their boyfriend, Gray who almost immediately booked it off Discovery in “But to Connect…” after his consciousness was transferred out of the Tal symbiont and into a synth gollum in “Choose to Live”.

• On Lyrek, Burnham and Saru encounter parts of statues, including heads that have features similar to the Promellian captain whose log was seen in “Booby Trap”, but the statues have four eyes whereas Promellians only have two.

• The Promellian statues launch flying drones that set to attacking Burnham and Saru. The crew of the USS Enterprise D were also attacked in a jungle by the flying drones of a dead civilization in “The Arsenal of Freedom”.

• ”Tilly, we’re losing our foot!” Burnham is referring to a bit of shelter she and Saru have taken cover under. Nog lost an actual food in “The Siege of AR-558”.

• Lang-cycle fusion engines were established as being a feature of Promellian battle cruisers in “Booby Trap”.

• It was established in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” that Kelpiens are stronger, and faster than humans.

• We’ve previously seen Saru’s quills stab into a wall, or incapacitate a human, but this is the first time we’ve seem them projected with enough force to obliterate a machine.

• The fact that Kelpien visual acuity allows them to see things outside the range available to humans was seen in “Brother”.

• Burnham and Saru both recognise a type of Romulan poem called a revlav. Burnham and Saru also both come from a time in Starfleet’s history when the Romulans were known to the Federation only as a mysterious enemy.

• ”Diary’s Romulan; Federation’s got no claim to it.” it was established in “Unification III” that the Romulans had reunified with the Vulcans at some point during the in the past, and in “All Is Possible” Ni’Var rejoined the Federation.

• Romulan homes having a false front door was established in “The End is the Beginning”.

• Zora uses programmable matter to create a physical copy the symbol from Doctor Vellek’s diary. This physical version is the one seen in the opening sequence this season.

• Book explained that he got his name from his mentor, the previous Cleveland Booker, in “Species Ten-C”, who was also apparently Moll’s father.

    • ”Which, I suppose, makes her the closest thing to family I’ve got left.” Book’s Kwejian family was killed in “Kobayashi Maru”.

• Saru’s pruning knife was a gift from his sister in “The Brightest Star”.

• Saru recounts his experience going through Keplein puberty, vahar’ai, in “An Obal for Charon”.

• Saru told Tilly to avoid touching the swampkelp while it was in bloom in “Choose to Live”.

Not my oc.