Star Trek: Discovery's red angel could actually be from a race of aliens - the Iconians - first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2. The mystery of who or what are behind the seven signals/red angel visions promises to be the main focus of Star Trek: Discovery season 2's action, and fans are already speculating as to the nature of what the phenomena are. What we know so far is that seven anomalies erupted and spread throughout the galaxy, and Starfleet discovered they were more powerful than anything they’d ever encountered before. They also discovered that the signals appeared in a synchronous fashion, indicating there was some kind of intelligent design behind their appearance.

At the same time, Michael Burnham’s foster brother, Spock, began experiencing visions not unlike some he’d seen when he was a child and found them so disturbing that he took medical leave and checked himself into a psychiatric institution. A visit from Amanda in the episode “Points of Light” revealed that these were visions Spock had had before – years before, after Michael had run away from their home on Vulcan, a red angel appeared to Spock and directed him to her location. In Star Trek: Discovery season 2 episode 2, “New Eden,” the Discovery finds a settlement of humans in the Beta Quadrant who’d somehow arrived 50,000 light years away from Earth decades before warp drive had ever been invented. It was discovered that in a similarly beneficent fashion, a red angel (or something that looked a lot like Spock’s visions) had rescued them by transporting a church filled with worshippers from a WWIII Earth to safety in the Beta Quadrant.

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So who are these mysterious benefactors? It’s still too early in Star Trek: Discovery season 2 for anything but speculation, but we hit on an interesting theory that connects the red angels to the Iconians, an “extinct” alien race introduced in the The Next Generation episode “Contagion.” This mysterious race of aliens left behind technology that would reappear on an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and a legacy that would permeate several notable (but apocryphal) Star Trek books and games. But even though we have very little to go on that’s canon, there’s still a decent amount of evidence that the Iconians could be the solution to Star Trek: Discovery's season 2 mystery.

THE ICONIANS EXPLAINED: STAR TREK’S SPACE GODS

The Iconians are first mentioned (though remain unseen) in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Contagion.” Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) investigates a distress call made by another Galaxy class starship, the U.S.S. Yamato, and travels to the Romulan Neutral Zone in the Beta Quadrant to investigate. When he arrives, his friend, Captain Donald Varley, informs him that they’ve finally tracked down the Iconian homeworld. The Iconians are introduced as a highly advanced species that died out over 200,000 years before and whose existence had yet to be confirmed. But confirm it they do, and, after the destruction of the Yamato, Picard, Worf, and Data are able to beam down to the planet’s surface and investigate what happened to its erstwhile inhabitants.

Data finds evidence that the planet’s surface suffered an intense bombardment attack from space, thus indicating that the Iconians were purposefully wiped out by their enemies. Picard deduces that references to the race as “demons of air and darkness” referred to their ability to travel between worlds using Star Trek's highly-advanced gateway. These portals allowed them to travel to the far reaches of the galaxy by simply stepping through a gateway – no ships, no time, just a few steps and one could go from Earth to Romulus or Romulus to Bajor, or Bajor to El Auria. Picard also points out that the Iconians were probably feared because of their advancement, and their dubious nickname didn’t necessarily indicate their true natures.

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Finally, in what’s perhaps the most important part of the Next Generation episode, Data discovers that the Iconian language permeating their homeworld is related to several other languages in known usage. That would seem to indicate that, even though their civilization was destroyed, some of the Iconians might have escaped. All in all, the Iconians were an ancient, technologically-advanced alien species who managed to escape an apocalyptic event and ultimately, albeit partly, influence future civilizations, even if only through language.

STAR TREK'S ICONIANS HAVE ONLY EVER BEEN SEEN IN THE "FUTURE"

Unfortunately, Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Contagion" episode is the closest that fans have ever come to meeting an actual Iconian in canon. The Dominion discovers one of their portals in the Gamma Quadrant, so the Deep Space Nine episode "To The Death" is devoted to keeping the powerful technology out of enemy hands, but other than that, there are only apocryphal mentions of the race left to explore. There were no canon sightings or references to Iconians before The Next Generation's "Contagion" - they didn’t appear in The Original Series, in the animated series, or in any of the movies.

However, what we know of the Iconians from the limited amount of exposure they’ve had in Star Trek more than allows for the fact that they could’ve been active in some capacity during the 2250s when Star Trek: Discovery is set. If their civilization ended 200,000 years before the events of The Next Generation and if Picard’s theory about there being survivors is true, then the fact that the species was introduced after the events of Star Trek: Discovery doesn’t preclude them from somehow being active during Discovery’s time period.

Page 2 of 2: Evidence Red Angels Are Iconians & What It  Means For Discovery

EVIDENCE STAR TREK: DISCOVERY'S RED ANGEL IS AN ICONIAN

While we know relatively little about both the Iconians and red angel(s), the possibility that they could be one and the same is surprisingly compelling - mostly because of the similarities between the two. Firstly, the Iconians and red angels both know their way around space travel, and while they use superficially different means, there’s nothing to say that, sometime during the 200,000 years between their homeworld's destruction and the events of Star Trek: Discovery, the Iconians couldn’t have streamlined the way they moved around the galaxy beyond even what was shown on The Next Generation. Their gateway technology developed over 200 millennia before Discovery was unmatched by even the most advanced societies during Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager eras. The Borg absorbed many civilizations with a high degree of technological achievement, and even they couldn’t match the speed and efficiency of Iconian travel.

In “New Eden,” Discovery's Captain Pike made much of the fact that humans had made their way all the way to the Beta quadrant considering it would’ve taken the Discovery, at top speeds, over a century to make it that far. But not only did humans make it there, they and their church were physically transported there by what looks like the red angel Michael saw in the Discovery season 2 premiere and the images Spock created based on his visions. Clearly the red angels can travel distances previously inconceivable by human standards, something we know the Iconians could do. Perhaps the Iconians evolved their abilities over time to be able to move larger objects and groups of people without the use of an Iconian gate.

Related: Star Trek: Discovery May Be Explaining Spock's Mutiny

Secondly, the planet where the WWIII humans were sent was in the Beta Quadrant, which was also home to the Iconia established in “Contagion.” While it’s entirely possible the two are unrelated, it’s still tempting to draw a connection between the location of the Iconian homeworld and where the red angels decided to drop the group of humans. Thirdly, the red angels and the Iconians are similar in spirit. As Iconians were explored in licensed short stories, novels, and games, their overall personality began to take shape, and the commonalities between them and the red angels started to appear more fully.

Through several stories that take place from the perspective of the The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager crews, the Iconians emerge more fully as a benevolent race that operated their society based on a principle similar to General Order One/the Prime Directive. While the red angels are defined on Star Trek: Discovery by their interference with various figures and groups, they do so at seemingly random times, thus making it seem like they exercise a degree of forbearance when interacting with certain species. Even if that's not the case, both the red angel and the Iconians share benevolent natures.

After a contingent of races banded together and destroyed Iconia, there were about 15 survivors who remained active in the galaxy in various ways. Due to their advanced technology, their lifespans were elongated to thousands of years, and it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that they found some way to evolve into the red angels that have occasionally saved specific humanoids from death or distress. Perhaps by the time the U.S.S. Discovery is in play, they no longer needed to use their gateways to travel, but can do so on their own.

HOW ICONIANS WOULD FIT INTO STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

Whether or not the red angels are another stage of evolution of the Iconians remains to be seen, but the Iconians do fit neatly into the religious themes present in Star Trek: Discovery season 2. Captain Pike and Burnham have a trenchant conversation in “New Eden” about the nature of magic as simple concepts too advanced for the perceiver to understand. That conversation eventually turns to religion as Pike’s faced with his own responsibility in “playing God” to the humans cut off from their own civilization on New Eden. Eventually, he decides to go forward with explaining their history to one human on the planet, Jacob, and winds up playing the interfering God he wanted to avoid, though on a much smaller scale than the red angels have operated on.

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One of the most frustrating things about the idea of an all-powerful spiritual entity is, if it does exist, why doesn’t it help more often? Theologians have tried to answer this question since time immemorial, and while there are answers, nothing is definitive. It would seem Star Trek in some fashion or another is wrestling with the idea of a higher power in season 2. If that’s the case, then the Iconians, with their ability to help other species, but seeming inability to do so on a large scale, fits neatly into the kind of questions Star Trek: Discovery is asking. The Iconians were gods to many of the species they encountered - that much is certain. The red angels fit that bill and are already serving as a flashpoint for theological discussion. Regardless of whether or not the red angels will turn out to be leftover Iconians, the way they seem pointed to effect Star Trek: Discovery is to serve as a way to investigate how a society without religion embraces something they have no hope of explaining or understanding.

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