Star Trek: Discovery is going to be breaking two long-established rules for the franchise, the showrunners have revealed. The new series, which will bring Star Trek back to the small screen after a 12-year gap, is set to air this fall with a whole new starship crew. Recently, fans got their first look at Jason Issacs' Captain Lorca in the Captain's chair in some new images this month, as a follow-up to the first trailer that was released last month.

Now, as the series gears up and fans start speculating about what could happen in this latest installment of the franchise, the showrunners have opened up about some things that will be very different from the earlier shows. In particular, they say that they will be breaking some long-running rules to create more conflict on board the Discovery.

In an interview with EW, showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg revealed that they would not be concerning themselves with 'Roddenberry's Box' - a longstanding tradition that prevented any Star Trek series from having significant interpersonal conflicts within Star Fleet, unless characters were under the influence of some kind of outside force.

"Harberts: We’re trying to do stories that are complicated, with characters with strong points of view and strong passions. People have to make mistakes — mistakes are still going to be made in the future. We’re still going to argue in the future.”

Berg: The rules of Starfleet remain the same, but while we’re human or alien in various ways, none of us are perfect.

Harberts: The thing we’re taking from Roddenberry is how we solve those conflicts.So we do have our characters in conflict, we do have them struggling with each other, but it’s about how they find a solution and work through their problems."

In addition to the utopian conflict-free rule, Star Trek: Discovery will be making another major change -- from an episodic to a serialized format. The original shows dealt primarily with close-ended episodes, or short story arcs, but the new series will be much more like other, newer sci-fi series with a focus on a season-long arc for the characters.

While it may disappoint some fans to see Discovery making big changes to the Star Trek world, these are alterations that make a lot of sense. The original series first aired over 50 years ago, and audience expectations have changed drastically since then. Serialized shows often hold a greater appeal that purely episodic ones, and sci-fi shows have evolved to put a stronger focus on characters and drama than on fighting aliens or exploring space. Hopefully, these changes will bring the latest addition to the Trek family bang up to date, while still keeping the heart and soul of the franchise alive.

Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on CBS September 24, then the reason of the season will be available on CBS All Access

Next: First Look at Jason Isaacs’ Captain Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery

Source: EW