Does Star Trek: Discovery risk a season 2 repeat by giving Zora - the titular ship's computer - emotions and feelings in season 4? The Star Trek universe wouldn't get very far without computers, but as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of sci-fi knows, technology can't always be trusted. So it proved in Star Trek: Discovery season 2 when Section 31 foolishly programmed a predictive AI system called Control. Initially intended as a strategic advice algorithm, Section 31 even more foolishly handed Control full... control. The software promptly decided humanity was surplus to requirements and war broke out with Starfleet's finest on one side, and Control's drone fleet on the other. The good guys emerge victorious, but only thanks to Discovery traveling into the far future.

The 32nd century hasn't been all bad. Discovery got upgraded with personal transporters, nanotech, and a more user-friendly spore drive. Another fresh addition is Zora, the ship's on-board computer. Discovery's futuristic operating system merged with data seized from a living sphere entity 100,000s of years old and now exists as a sentient program - like a less temperamental Alexa, but infinitely more powerful. Zora rapidly developed her own personality and mannerisms, but has thus far remained placid aboard Discovery, fulfilling her function without flaw or fuss.

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That could be about to change in Star Trek: Discovery season 4. After a typical day raiding alien prisons and almost killing everyone by creating miniature gravitational anomalies on deck, Captain Michael Burnham has Zora locate a refugee. To Burnham's surprise, Zora not only senses the captain's emotion, but has also started empathizing with the crew's feelings. When Burnham questions, "You feel emotions?" the computer replies, "It is a recent development." Though Zora is cordial enough during the elevator ride, alarm bells should be ringing for Burnham - after all, the gap between Zora and Control is now virtually non-existent.

Airiam in Star Trek Discovery

Whereas Control failed to inherit the sphere info-dump, Zora is fully integrated with Discovery's juicy data. Fortunately, her base system was designed for running scans and serving mashed potatoes, whereas it was Control's parameters as a clandestine predictive strategy program that compelled it to wage cold, mechanical war against man. The new addition of emotion to Zora's programming, however, could quickly lead her down the same path. Picking up on Burnham's stress and sadness is one thing, but if that empathy extends to the whole crew, that's a massive heap of raw feels for one supercomputer to process. As demonstrated by Dr. Hugh Culber's considerable in-tray, Discovery isn't short on inner turmoil. Can Zora absorb all those pent-up traumas without transforming into something darker than a charmingly docile AI system? Or does she, like Control, decide to "help" humanity by hurting it?

The Zora situation becomes even more ominous when considering 2018 Short Treks episode, "Calypso." Set 1000 years into the future (relative to when, who knows?) Zora is alone inside an abandoned Discovery. There's no word on what happened to the Starfleet officers on board, but given how Zora is evolving in Star Trek: Discovery season 4, it doesn't take much to fill in the gaps between "sentient AI" and "missing crew." Does another rogue digital enemy lie ahead for Michael Burnham, this time driven by emotion and in possession of the sphere data?

Star Trek: Discovery's Zora storyline faces a tricky tightrope. Can season 4 tell another "sentient AI" narrative without treading on season 2's toes and repeating the Control arc? A well-meaning computer program turning on its creators is hardly fresh territory to begin with, and with Star Trek: Picard also mining that topic in recent years, Star Trek: Discovery needs a new spin on the trope. If that is indeed where Zora is heading, of course. Maybe she takes on Culber's role as a ship therapist, or perhaps she ascends to become the opposite of Control - that rare success story of sentient technology. Or perhaps history repeats itself, and the more Zora learns, the more of a threat she poses... until the entire crew is gone.

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