Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4, Episode 4 - "All Is Possible".

The new Starfleet Academy in Star Trek: Discovery season 4 fixes a major franchise problem that has existed for 29 years since Star Trek: The Next Generation season 5. Along with the United Federation of Planets, Starfleet Academy was forced to leave Earth when the Terran homeworld sealed itself off from the rest of the galaxy after The Burn. After the USS Discovery solved the mystery of the Burn and restored warp travel to the Federation, the Academy was reinstituted, but Starfleet Academy is now based in Federation headquarters instead of San Francisco.

Starfleet Academy is an institution revered by most Star Trek characters who matriculated there but Star Trek: The Next Generation showed the darker side of the school, which cultivated elite cadets who thought they were above Starfleet's values. The TNG season 5 episode, "The First Duty," introduced Nova Squadron, a group of elite cadets whose careless spaceflight stunt led to the accidental death of one of their classmates. Nova Squadron, which included Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), tried to cover up the accident until Wesley came clean and admitted his role in the conspiracy. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine later introduced Red Squad, another corp of elite cadets that Nog (Aron Eisenberg) barely survived when he joined. Not only did Red Squad participate in an attempted Starfleet military takeover of Earth, but they later commandeered the USS Valiant and fought in the Dominion War without Starfleet's knowledge. Red Squad was so full of their superiority as Starfleet Cadets that they got themselves killed fighting the Dominion.

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With the 32nd century's new Starfleet Academy, Star Trek: Discovery finally amends a decades-long issue and eliminates the concept of elite cadets entirely. In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, Starfleet Academy's reboot introduced a smaller Class of 3189, which consists of just under two dozen students. When Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) agreed to lead a training exercise with a handful of cadets in Star Trek: Discovery season 4, episode 4, "All is Possible," she learned that although Starfleet Academy now consists of the best and brightest from their respective worlds, they had no experience dealing with other alien species because of their previous life of isolationism thanks to the Burn. But this is also an advantage because, in the new Starfleet Academy, everyone starts out on even footing without the elitism that tainted the Academy in TNG and DS9.

Nova Squadron

Starfleet Academy in the 24th century seemed to encourage arrogance and elitism among its students. After Nova Squadron, Starfleet Academy should have shut down some cadets being given special privileges and elite status. Instead, it created Red Squad just a few years later, and those Starfleet cadets were easily manipulated into supporting a coup that could have put the Earth under Starfleet's military control. Worse, Red Squad was given their own starship, the USS Valiant, and they fought their own version of the Dominion War until their hubris ended all of their lives. It's not clear if Starfleet Academy learned from Red Squad's debacle and put an end to 'elite cadets' but Star Trek: Discovery season 4 can certainly prevent mistakes like Red Squad from forming again in the 32nd century.

Star Trek: Discovery season 4's Starfleet Academy seems to be a more optimistic concept of the school, although the Class of 3189 and the cadets who will follow them face an incredibly hostile galaxy full of new challenges and dangers. However, Starfleet Academy's Class of 3189 now has the benefit of Lt. Sylvia Tilly as one of their instructors. Because Tilly grew up a thousand years in the past, she can impart her vision of Star Trek: Discovery's 23rd century Starfleet, in which space is the final frontier where anything is possible. Tilly also frowns on elitism and her egalitarian view of Starfleet would be invaluable to the cadets so that they see everyone as equal to themselves. With Tilly serving as an example, Starfleet Academy can make sure corrupt groups like Nova Squadron and Red Squad are a thing of the distant past in Star Trek: Discovery season 4.

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