Uhura’s log is stardated 2394.8. Bannon’s Nebula (named after Melissa “Erica Ortegas” Navia’s late partner Brian Bannon) is on the edge of explored space, and is a stellar nursery full of deuterium. An outpost is being built to collect and refine it. Deuterium is used as fuel for the fusion reactors that power a starship’s impulse drives. It is also used in warp cores where deuterium and anti deuterium streams meet in a matter/antimatter reaction, the resulting energy being tuned by dilithium crystals into electroplasma which is used for ship’s systems and warp drive.
The design of the refinery is likely a Bussard ramscoop, utilizing a magnetic field to funnel the deuterium atoms into a collector. Starships have their own Bussard collectors (the glowing caps on the nacelles) so they can refuel if necessary and we see Enterprise doing just that.
Pike has been temporarily promoted to Fleet Captain (with a black disc backing his delta) because he’s been given command of the refinery and the USS Farragut for this mission. The Farragut is where LT James T. Kirk is serving as we saw in the alternate timeline of SNW: “A Quality of Mercy”. This is a few years after CPT Garrovick, his CO, was killed by a dikironium cloud vampire (TOS: “Obsession”).
Spock notes that outpost is also in proximity to Gorn space, so the hope is that this will counter their expansion. Uhura listens to Hemmer’s recorded instructions on maintaining the subspace antenna. Hemmer apparently died last season (SNW: “All Those Who Wander”), having been infected with Gorn eggs.
Pelia asks what Uhura is doing inside “her nacelle”, and we see behind her the cylindrical row of warp coils stretching off in the distance. We’ve seen the inside of a Galaxy-class nacelle in TNG: “Eye of the Beholder”. The communications array antenna runs through the nacelles. Hemmer was one of Pelia’s students.
M’Benga says that deuterium poisoning can cause hallucinations, headaches, blurred vision and nausea. Exhaustion can exacerbate the condition.
Uhura now has her own quarters. She was sharing a room with some other Lower Deckers in SNW: “Ghosts of Illyria”, where we also found out that she needs pitch blackness to sleep.
Jim Kirk is about to become XO of the Farragut, which will make him the youngest first officer ever (at age 26-27). George Kirk, Sr. held the previous record as XO of the USS Kelvin (ST 2009).
Spock notes that Starfleet has protocols about fraternization, which would be familiar HR policy today. We’ve seen relationships between Starfleet officers before, but this is the first time we’ve heard that there are formal procedures surrounding it.
An Andorian bartender serves Uhura Saurian brandy in its distinctive curved bottle. Jim comments on Spock’s 3D Chess game, foreshadowing the days when he would routinely beat Spock at it. Sam has apparently told Uhura about Jim’s proclivities around women. As a side note, Jim is older than Uhura here, but in the Kelvin Timeline they were of the same graduating class.
This is the first time we’ve seen a dermal regenerator (or at least had it referred to as such) in the 23rd Century. Dermal regenerators have appeared several times from TNG on.
In Uhura’s hallucination, the main viewer shatters and people are blown out into vacuum. In the original TOS Constitution-class design this would not have happened because the main viewer is not a porthole. Having a starship’s main viewer be an actual window started with ST 2009 and was seen in the Prime Universe in DIS: “The Vulcan Hello”.
Jim meets Pike for the first time (from his POV, seeing as Pike met an alternate Kirk in “A Quality of Mercy”). This also clarifies when exactly Jim met Pike. Previously it was assumed that Jim only met him when taking over the Enterprise due to this dialogue from TOS: “The Menagerie, Part I”:
MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him.
Now we know these were two separate occasions and removes a writing obstacle from having the “real” Kirk appear in SNW.
Sickbay is on Deck 4 here. In the original Franz Joseph deck plans it was on Deck 7 (with additional facilities on Deck 16) while Deck 4 housed junior officer’s quarters.
La’An addresses Jim as “James”. The only occasion they’ve met in this timeline was over a subspace communication, whereas La’An had a brief encounter with the Jim Kirk of an altered timeline in SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, where he died.
Uhura removes an access panel to “Engineering Circuit Bay D-24” which opens onto a Jeffries Tube that leads to the port nacelle. In TOS, Jeffries Tubes were usually seen already exposed.
Uhura was born in Kenya (SNW: “Children of the Comet”), used to have a cat named Kamili (meaning “perfect” in Swahili) and her first memory is of watching her father play the piano.
Pike says Starfleet gave him permission to decrypt the deceased Ramon’s medical files and personal logs. In SNW: “Ad Astra Per Aspera”, we found out that Regulation 25, Section B prohibits unsealing personal logs unless by order of Starfleet Command.
La’An correctly assesses Jim as someone who can’t walk by a stranger in need. In TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, Kirk tells Edith Keeler that a 21st Century novelist will recommend the words “Let me help,” over “I love you.”
Kirk’s status as a Starfleet brat who barely saw his father growing up is consistent with some beta canon depictions of Kirk’s childhood, specifically novels like Best Destiny by Diane Carey and Desperate Measures by Dayton Ward.
La’An, of course, was rescued as a child by then-Ensign Una Chin-Riley, who subsequently sponsored her admission to Starfleet (SNW: “Strange New Worlds”).
Una calls Pelia a “space hippie”. We met actual space hippies in TOS: “The Way to Eden”.
Uhura tells Kirk that she lost her parents and brother in a shuttle accident. This was first mentioned in “Children of the Comet”.
Jim says that their job as Starfleet officers puts them up against death and they have to face it. Years later, he would confess to his son David that he’s never faced death - merely cheated his way around it and congratulated himself for his ingenuity (ST II). He was wrong, of course.
Uhura is on the receiving end of a Jim Kirk pep talk for the first time, but not the last. We see here the foundations of her loyalty to him and her looking to him for reassurance in future.
Uhura notes that the Universal Translator hooks on to commonalities in the way different species handle ideas and language. The theory behind the UT was first stated in TOS: “Metamorphosis”:
KIRK: There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognises, and then provides the necessary grammar. Guess we now know from whom Jim picked this up.
The idea that aliens in the environment could be inadvertently harmed by human operations has been used before, in TNG: “Home Soil”. In VOY: “Equinox”, the titular ship tortured and killed alien life forms to harvest their energy.
Admiral Nagawa’s name sounds similar to Admiral Nogura, first mentioned in TMP and having a long storied role in the novels of the TOS period.
Pelia gave Una a C in the Starship Maintenance 307 course because her paper was "sloppy".
Sam refers to the Enterprise as the flag ship, which I think is the first time it’s been established as such. And in another historic first which should somehow feel more historic, really, Spock officially meets Jim for the first time.