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While exploring space, Starfleet has made a number of discoveries too dangerous to be made public.
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00:00In Trek, Starfleet constantly encounters dangerous new technologies, phenomena and alien societies.
00:06Despite this, they are actually surprisingly transparent with their knowledge.
00:10Students at Starfleet Academy, for example, learn about the adventures of Kirk's Enterprise
00:14and the many earth-shattering discoveries they made with little censorship.
00:18However, Starfleet, like pretty much every other organisation, has some secrets that they wish to keep hidden.
00:24Tech too potentially dangerous to be shared, crimes that Starfleet committed in the past, entire worlds forbidden to visit
00:31and many more classified pieces of information exist, known only to the highest-ranking officers in the fleet
00:37and the CIA-inspired secret organisation Section 31.
00:41Section 31 itself, since its conception, has retreated further and further into the shadows
00:46until they were virtually forgotten by everyone by the 24th century.
00:50Clearly, Starfleet has a skill of hiding what they don't want to be known.
00:54And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with TrekCulture here with 10 Classified Starfleet Secrets.
01:03When Discovery's crew travelled to the 32nd century in Star Trek Discovery's third season,
01:08the Mirror Universe version of Philippa Georgiou started having flashbacks, losing control of her mind
01:13and physically glitching at random intervals, and no one on the ship could figure out what was wrong.
01:18The Discovery crew took this information to Dr. Kovic, who accessed and showed Dr. Culber the classified file of the alien known as Yor.
01:26Yor was a Starfleet officer and time soldier who, in 2379, travelled both to the future and to the Prime Universe from another dimension.
01:34Kovic revealed that his journey to both a different time and a different universe, just as Georgiou had done,
01:39caused him to slowly and painfully die as his molecules drifted further away from the time and place they were meant to be.
01:45Interestingly, it's heavily implied that the universe Yor originated from was the rebooted timeline from the new Star Trek movies.
01:52Kovic stated that his reality was created by a Romulan mining ship.
01:56Fans assumed that he was referring to the Narada, Nero's ship from the 2009 film Star Trek.
02:02Number 9. The technology of the Genesis device
02:06The development of the Genesis device started off with good intentions.
02:10The device created by Dr. Carol Marcus was the most sophisticated terraforming technology in the Federation.
02:16But after Khan stole it and detonated it aboard the USS Reliant, the technology's destructive capability was exposed,
02:23which made Project Genesis a huge controversy across the quadrant.
02:27All of the science behind the Genesis device was classified by Starfleet.
02:31This, mixed with the drama surrounding Khan, made many neighbours of the Federation, such as the Klingons, very nervous.
02:37Ultimately, these fears died down because the tech was soon found to be unstable and the project was scrapped.
02:42So, although almost everyone in the quadrant had heard about the Genesis device in the 23rd century,
02:47the actual science behind it was known to only a few individuals.
02:51It's likely that either Starfleet or Section 31 still keep records of the tech, and many other alien species have probably tried to recreate it,
02:59but we have so far never seen this on screen.
03:02Number 8. Dangerous Borg Files
03:04In the iconic two-part Voyager episode Scorpion, the crew entered Borg space for the first time.
03:11Prior to this moment, no Federation ship had ever gone so deep inside the Borg's home territory,
03:16so Janeway tried to prepare by reviewing every file on the Borg she could find, including classified information, likely only available to captains.
03:24It's a quick shot that's easy to miss, but near the beginning of the episode, when Janeway is doing research on the computer in her ready room,
03:31you can see that the Borg files she's reading are, in fact, classified.
03:36This might seem like a minor detail, but it actually tells us a lot.
03:39Most people in the Federation have heard of the Borg, so it's likely the classified information pertains to Borg technology,
03:45such as nanoprobes and electronic mind control, which could have been studied from salvaged Borg drones and ships.
03:51It makes sense that Starfleet would know a great deal about the tech simply from examining it,
03:55but they definitely wouldn't want the Klingons or Romulans to be able to access it.
03:59Number 7. The Paxons
04:02In the Next Generation episode Clues, the Enterprise D inadvertently stumbled into the home system of the Paxons,
04:09but everyone other than Data had the memory of their encounter erased.
04:13The Paxons are a highly xenophobic species.
04:16They hate outsiders so much that they conceal their homeworld with an energy field that stuns the crew of approaching alien ships,
04:22rendering them unconscious until they leave the system.
04:25The field also tricks sensors into detecting a fake wormhole,
04:28so when the crew awakens, they assume that the journey through the wormhole was the cause of their unconsciousness
04:33and spontaneous jumping across light years.
04:35Unfortunately for the Paxons, Data, as an android, was immune to the effects of the energy field.
04:40At first, Data was able to revive the crew, but in order to escape certain destruction and appease the Paxons,
04:46Picard had to allow them to erase the crew's memories.
04:49He ordered Data to never reveal the existence of the Paxons,
04:52but clues were left behind that led Picard to uncover Data's secret.
04:56The Paxons agreed to give them a second chance and once again erased their memories,
05:00this time taking special care to remove any residual clues.
05:03Data presumably kept the existence of the Paxons secret for the rest of his life.
05:086. Discovery and the Spore Drive
05:11After its sister ship, the USS Glenn, was destroyed,
05:14Discovery became Starfleet's only ship equipped with a displacement-activated Spore Hub Drive.
05:19This unique technology is the fastest and most advanced method of travel ever seen on screen.
05:24The ship can access a universe-wide network of mycelium to instantaneously move across the galaxy.
05:30The tech was highly classified and was even developed with the involvement of Section 31.
05:35Although the Klingons were aware Discovery could appear out of nowhere,
05:38they had no idea how the Spore Drive functioned.
05:41After Discovery and its crew were transported to the future following the battle with the Artificial Intelligence Control,
05:47Spock recommended to Starfleet that Discovery should be reported as destroyed
05:51and keep classified all information regarding the Spore Drive and control.
05:55Clearly they listened to his advice, as Starfleet never used Spore Drive tech again until Discovery returned in the 32nd century.
06:03When they got to the future, the Spore Drive was instrumental in protecting what remained of the Federation and solving the mystery of the Burn.
06:11Number 5. The Morphogenic Virus
06:14One of the more abhorrent acts ever committed by Section 31 was their creation and deployment of the Morphogenic Virus.
06:21Section 31, realizing that the Federation's hopes of winning the Dominion War were dwindling,
06:26intentionally infected Odo with the virus during a medical examination.
06:30The top secret Morphogenic Virus was specially designed to kill Changelings, the leaders of the Dominion.
06:36They hoped that Odo, when linking with other Changelings, would pass it on to the whole population.
06:41Odo was never meant to develop symptoms, but when he began to,
06:44Dr Bashir did some digging and exposed the Section 31 plan.
06:48Using some fancy tech, Bashir was able to enter the mind of the Section 31 agent Luther Sloan
06:54to extract the cure, saving the Changelings, including Odo, and improving the relationship between the Dominion and the Federation.
07:01Many in the Federation opposed giving away the cure to save their enemies,
07:04but this act of mercy was instrumental in ending the Dominion War.
07:08Number 4. The Pegasus
07:10In Star Trek Discovery's third season, the ship received a number of tech upgrades from the future.
07:15One of these upgrades was a cloaking device which surprised audiences because for most of Starfleet's history,
07:21the organization was banned from developing any sort of cloaking technology.
07:25The ban was one of the requirements of the Treaty of Algeron,
07:28which also reinforced and redefined the Romulan Neutral Zone,
07:32and greatly improved the Federation's relationship with the Romulan Empire.
07:36The treaty brought peace to the Alpha Quadrant, but delayed the advancement of cloaking technology for centuries.
07:42Many in Starfleet were apparently rather displeased with this arrangement,
07:45as we learn in the Next Generation episode Pegasus
07:48that the organization illegally developed and tested a secret cloaking ship, the USS Pegasus.
07:54The Pegasus was equipped with a phase cloaking device,
07:57a unique type of cloaking tech that shifted the vessel out of phase with normal space,
08:01rendering it not only invincible but also presumably indestructible.
08:05After an accident, the Pegasus was thought to be destroyed,
08:08but it was actually drifting through space in its cloaked state,
08:11before materializing later inside a solid asteroid.
08:14In the episode, the Enterprise D crew was ordered to retrieve or destroy the wreckage before the Romulans found it,
08:20but when Picard learned the truth of the phase cloaking device, he made the information public.
08:25Number 3. The Mirror Universe Visitors from Discovery
08:29At the end of the first season of Star Trek Discovery,
08:31the ship and its crew were transported to the Mirror Universe,
08:34the edgy, authoritarian reality, first appearing in the original series episode Mirror Mirror.
08:40Eventually, Captain Gabriel Lorca was revealed to be a Mirror Universe imposter
08:44trying to use Discovery to get revenge on the Empress of the Terran Empire,
08:48the Mirror counterpart of Michael Burnham's deceased former Captain Philippa Georgiou.
08:53In the end, Lorca was killed and Georgiou was brought back to the Prime Universe against her will,
08:57where she assisted Discovery in ending the Klingon War, then later started working for Section 31.
09:02Despite Discovery's first season taking place before the original series,
09:06when Kirk's Enterprise encountered the Mirror Universe in Mirror Mirror,
09:10they had never heard about it before.
09:12This is because Discovery's interactions with the Mirror Universe were classified on a need-to-know basis.
09:17Only high-ranking officers like Captain Pike were briefed on the Mirror Universe,
09:21Lorca's origins and the true identity of the new Georgiou.
09:25When interacting with average people, Georgiou played the role of her Prime counterpart,
09:29stating that she somehow survived her supposed death.
09:32Number 2. The Secret of Talos IV.
09:35The true nature of Talos IV was a secret so guarded by Starfleet that revealing it was,
09:40during the original series, the only crime with the death penalty.
09:43Talos IV was the planet visited by Captain Pike and the old Enterprise crew in the original series pilot episode The Cage.
09:49The world was home to the Talosians, whose technological illusions were so powerful that they could allow extremely injured or dying people to live comfortably again.
09:58Spock commandeered the Enterprise in the two-parter episode The Menagerie in order to free his former Captain Pike from his wheelchair.
10:05The law forbidding travel to Talos IV was known as General Order VII, and as mentioned earlier, had a punishment of death.
10:12But Spock was able to protect his crew by seizing control of the ship single-handedly, risking only his own life.
10:18In the end, Starfleet made an exception to General Order VII and allowed Spock to go unpunished,
10:23but the law likely remained in place afterwards at least for a few decades.
10:27Starfleet feared what would happen to both the Federation and the Talosians if the public were to learn of the incredible powers found on Talos IV.
10:36Number 1. The Omega Directive
10:39In the late 23rd century, a Federation scientist named Keterat made a very dangerous discovery, the Omega Molecule.
10:46Keterat created an Omega Molecule using boronite ore, but lacking proper containment, the molecule became unstable and exploded,
10:53killing everyone aboard their secret research base and devastating the Lantaru sector.
10:58The worst effect of the explosion was the destruction of subspace,
11:01which rendered warp travel and subspace communications impossible across light-years of space.
11:06Starfleet determined that Omega was too dangerous to be allowed to exist,
11:09as a few mere particles were thought to be enough to destroy subspace across an entire quadrant.
11:14All information regarding them was classified, and only Starfleet captains and flag officers were briefed on its existence
11:20for the sole purpose of destroying it at any cost, should any molecules be detected.
11:25Voyager encountered a large number of Omega Molecules in the episode The Omega Directive.
11:29Alone in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway was forced to inform the crew about Omega,
11:33and with the help of Seven of Nine, successfully destroyed the molecules, damaging only a small area of space.
11:39And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below,
11:44and while you're there, don't forget to like, and subscribe, and tap that notification bell.
11:48Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, at TrekCulture,
11:51and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:55I've been Ellie with TrekCulture, I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
12:02Before
12:03Wait
12:03I don't know that he has gone before….
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