Star Trek: Discovery's Red Angel Identity Revealed As [SPOILER]

The identity of Star Trek: Discovery's Red Angel has been revealed - and the time traveler is Michael Burnham's mother (played by Sonja Sohn from The Wire). The shocker was the cliffhanger ending episode 10, "The Red Angel", built towards when the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery captured the Red Angel.

The quest to discover the Red Angel's identity drove the action of Star Trek: Discovery season 2 but the crimson apparition affected Star Trek canon long before the series even began. In the 21st century, the Red Angel appeared during World War III and used her advanced technology to transport a church full of humans who were about to die to the planet Terralysium in the Beta Quadrant. The Angel appeared to Spock in the 2230s after Michael Burnham was adopted by Sarek of Vulcan; it told Spock where Michael had run away to, which ended up saving her life. The Red Angel appeared to Spock again months before Star Trek: Discovery season 2 began and it brought the Vulcan Science Officer to an unknown planet, mind-melded with him, and showed him a vision of all sentient life in the Alpha Quadrant being wiped out by an artificial intelligence from the future. This same A.I. has since infected Control, Section 31's threat assessment program that the entire Federation was inputting data into.

Since the Red Angel was introduced, numerous fan theories sprang up about who or what it could be. Fans suspected that the Red Angel was an Iconian or was another one of Star Trek's space gods. Suspicion also fell on past and unseen Star Trek: Discovery characters like Gabriel Lorca, who was the main villain of season 1. "Calypso", arguably the best of the Short Treks, also led some fans to believe the Red Angel was Zora, U.S.S. Discovery's A.I. in the 31st century. Finally, the prime suspect was Michael Burnham herself and that the Red Angel was a future version of the series' beleaguered main character. This was ultimately the same conclusion the crew of the Discovery reached as well - until the surprise swerve that the Red Angel was Michael's mother all along.

This Page: How Michael's Mother Was Revealed As The Red Angel
Page 2: Where The Red Angel Suit Came From & The Questions Now Raised

How Discovery Revealed Michael Burnham's Mother Is The Red Angel

Michael Burnham and Red Angel in Star Trek Discovery

All evidence pointed to Michael's future self as the Red Angel, specifically a data core left behind by the A.I. that had infected the late Commander Airiam. In "Light and Shadows", the A.I. from the future came through a temporal wormhole and took over Airiam, who is cybernetically augmented, and used her to download data about artificial intelligence collected from the dying sphere the Discovery encountered in "An Obol For Charon" so it could evolve and gain sentience. Michael and Commander Nhan battled the rogue Airiam and were forced to kill her by blowing her out of an airlock. But once her body was recovered and a purge of data from her memory core was performed, Ensign Sylvia Tilly found a positive DNA sample that the Red Angel was Michael Burnham. Further tests by Dr. Hugh Culber confirmed Burnham was the Red Angel.

The crew of the Discovery, cooperating with Section 31, then set up "a mouse trap" to capture and contain the Red Angel so it couldn't time travel back to the future. Using Michael herself as bait and placing her life in danger, they successfully forced the Red Angel to appear - using the logic of the grandfather paradox that if Michael were to die in 2257, the Red Angel (who was presumed to be Michael) would cease to exist. The crew's belief that Michael was the Red Angel was reinforced by Spock assessing that the Red Angel's appearances coincided when Michael herself was in danger - when she ran away from home as a little girl, when she was injured on an asteroid in "Brother", and when she nearly perished in an extinction-level event in "New Eden". The Red Angel specifically targeting Spock, Michael's adoptive brother, also fueled the belief that Michael and the Angel were one and the same.

However, when the Discovery's trap was sprung and the containment field designed by Lieutenant Paul Stamets captured the Red Angel, the woman who emerged from the exo-suit wasn't Michael but Michael's mother (whose first name hasn't yet been revealed), who Michael believed was murdered by Klingons when she was a little girl.

Page 2 of 2: Where The Red Angel Suit Came From & The Questions Now Raised

Section 31 Built The Red Angel Suit

The other major revelation in "The Red Angel" is that the time traveling exo-suit was built by Michael Burnham's parents for Section 31. Michael's father was a xenobiologist (the discipline Michael adopted when she joined Starfleet) and Michael believed her mother was an astrophysicist. However, Section 31's Captain Leland confessed to Michael that her mother was secretly an engineer and both of her parents were agents of Section 31. The Red Angel's time suit was built in the Vulcan research facility on Doctori Alpha, which is where they were killed when it was attacked by Klingons in the early 2230s.

Codenamed "Project Daedalus", the Red Angel's winged suit uses a time crystal to create micro wormholes in order to time travel and the wearer could remain anchored to her starting point and be pulled back through the wormhole. The tech was developed for a 'temporal arms race'; in the 2230s, Section 31 learned that the Klingons were using time crystals (like the one used by Harry Mudd in Star Trek: Discovery season 1) to experiment with time travel. Leland, who oversaw the Red Angel project and recruited the Burnhams to build it, arranged to have a time crystal stolen and brought to Doctori Alpha, but the Klingons tracked it and eventually attacked the station, killing Michael's parents while she remained hidden - or so she always believed.

Michael always blamed herself for her parents' death because she had insisted they postpone their departure from Doctori Alpha to watch a nearby star go supernova. In reality, the Burnhams stayed behind to collect the massive amount of energy created by the supernova to power the suit. From her hiding point, Michael heard but never saw the Klingons kill her parents, but she recalled that her father was killed quickly while "they took their time" with her mother, and the Klingons even started eating dinner at their table after the carnage was over. And yet, somehow, Michael's mother somehow not only survived, but she escaped to the future with the Red Angel exosuit.

The Red Angel Reveal Creates Questions About Star Trek: Discovery's Timeline

Spock and Michael Burnham with Red Angel in Star Trek Discovery

Beyond the simple question of what Michael's mother's first name is, the revelation of the Red Angel's true identity creates questions Star Trek: Discovery season 2 now has to satisfyingly answer. Since there is little actually known about the fateful Klingon attack on Doctori Alpha beyond Michael's faulty memories and the bits of information fans have heard from Leland and Sarek, the first question is, how Michael's mother survived and at what point in the future did she escape to? While the Red Angel's focus on Michael's survival is understandable, as her mother, why did she also save people during World War III and bring them to New Eden and also, why did she save Saru and the Kelpiens from the Ba'ul? And if the Red Angel helped Spock save Michael when they were children, why didn't she intercede when Michael's life was in danger at the Battle at the Binary Stars and at numerous other points during the Klingon War?

The logical answer to why the Red Angel wasn't present during the events of Star Trek: Discovery season 1 is that the character wasn't invented until season 2, but this type of time traveling paradox creates problems, and so does the existence of the Red Angel tech in the 23rd century. The exosuit is too advanced to be technology Star Trek has in the 23rd century, and even the characters themselves have said so; therefore, it's hard to believe the Red Angel suit was built 20 years before Star Trek: Discovery season 2. It's likely the Red Angel suit initially allowed Michael's mother to jump to the future and once there, it was further augmented with future tech. But with the season's biggest mystery now solved (with a rather soap opera-like twist), fans hope Star Trek: Discovery's superior season 2's final episodes don't drop the ball and build to a worthy conclusion.