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Star Trek fans got their first look at Starfleet Academy at San Diego Comic-Con in their annual Hall H panel. The new cadets were introduced along with their captain and Starfleet chancellor, played by Holly Hunter. The recruits the show will follow are Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta), Jay-Den Graag (Karim Diané), Sam (Kerrice Brooks), Darem Reymi (George Hawkins), and Genesis Lythe (Bella Shepard). Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau are co-showrunners.

To set the stage, Starfleet Academy takes place in the 32nd century, after The Burn, and it’s a time of rebuilding. For those that didn’t watch Star Trek: Discovery, the galaxy-wide cataclysmic event called The Burn was explained in great length. But to put it plainly, thousands of starships were destroyed, millions died and a dilithium shortage wreaked havoc across the known galaxy. The event collapsed the Federation and greatly reduced the efficiency of Starfleet to protect planets and worlds unknown. 

“This generation of Starfleet cadets–the world has to be fixed and a lot of the responsibilities of that lies on their shoulders,” explained Landau. “It was a very intentional choice because a lot of the generation who’s alive right now who would be going to Starfleet Academy, if there was a Starfleet Academy, that’s a similar thing to what they would be going through.”

“We look at the generation now that is inheriting all this division and all of these major issues and I think what we felt was that we wanted to create a show that anchored us back to (Gene) Roddenberry’s essential vision of hope,” added Kurtzman. “How do you find it? How do you rebuild it? So this is the first Academy class back, after 120 years of being closed to Starfleet. They have a tremendous amount on their shoulders and their mission is to reinstate the original vision of Star Trek.”

The trailer also shows that the there’s a ship in the series and it’s docked at San Francisco. Kurtzman explained that the ship is part of the campus in San Fran. He likened it to a teaching hospital and the ship will get deployed into real life situations to learn in the field, not just theoretical classrooms. Cadets will travel to planets and meet new species and learn about diplomacy. 

“You’re going to see Star Trek episodes where these cadets who are not yet captains are learning who they are and how they fit into Starfleet. They can make mistakes in ways that if you’re already a captain or you’re already in Starfleet you really can’t.

Some familiar faces show up in the trailer including Voyager’s The Doctor (Robert Picardo) and Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), Discovery’s Silvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr). Tatiana Maslany shows up and the first season antagonist will be played by Paul Giamatti, who is half-Klingon and half-Tellarite. It will be interesting to see who all plays teachers at the Academy, and it makes sense to bring back the legacy characters as some of those instructors.

“It’s really exciting to have all these teachers who are really, really fun,” said Kurtzman. “Our rule on the show was that the teachers had to be as interesting and as fun as the cadets. If you’ve seen Harry Potter, obviously the teachers are a huge part of it and that was really how we wanted to build it.”

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