A Familiar Promise, Seen from the Beginning
There is something quietly hopeful about Starfleet Academy. From its opening moments, the series positions itself not as a nostalgia project, but as a recommitment to what Star Trek has always argued for: learning, cooperation, and moral growth at the moment they matter most. Set during the early rebuilding of the Federation, the show understands that education is never neutral. What Starfleet teaches now will determine what the next century looks like.
This is Star Trek returning to first principles, filtered through a new generation.
Table of Contents
The Premise: Learning After the Fall
Starfleet Academy is set in the 32nd century, decades after the galaxy-wide catastrophe known as The Burn fractured the Federation and nearly erased Starfleet as a unifying force. With interstellar trust shattered and once-reliable systems rendered meaningless, the Federation is no longer operating from moral certainty. It is rebuilding from doubt.
The reopening of Starfleet Academy is both symbolic and strategic. This is not merely a school returning to operation; it is the Federation attempting to relearn how to exist. The cadets training here are not inheriting a stable institution. They are being asked to help redefine it.
The series follows a diverse class of cadets as they navigate education, rivalry, friendship, and romance while being shaped into officers for a future that is still unresolved. Hovering over their training is a growing mystery involving Academy Chancellor Ake and the troubled past of cadet Caleb Mir, a narrative thread that links personal history to institutional consequence. At the same time, a broader, as-yet-unseen threat challenges not just Federation security, but the credibility of its ideals.
Crucially, the setting demands an ensemble. This is a moment where no single worldview is sufficient, and the Academy works best when it reflects that truth. Starfleet Academy is strongest when it treats its cadets not as satellites orbiting one story, but as a collective experiment in rebuilding trust, leadership, and belief in the Federation itself.
Infinite Diversity, Still the Point
Since Star Trek: The Original Series, the franchise has carried a simple but radical idea: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. That philosophy was never cosmetic. It informed story structure, diplomacy plots, and the very makeup of the crews. Diversity was not a background detail; it was the operating system.
Through Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, the franchise expanded that idea. Different cultures did not merely coexist; they clashed, negotiated, misunderstood one another, and learned. That friction was the story.
Starfleet Academy inherits this tradition honestly. Its cast is visibly varied across species, cultures, gender expression, and lived experience. More importantly, the writing allows those differences to shape conflict and collaboration rather than serving as background texture.
About That “Woke” Complaining
The recurring online complaints about Star Trek becoming “woke” are less critiques than selective memory. The franchise placed a Russian on the bridge during the Cold War. It aired one of American television’s first interracial kisses. It consistently argued that fear of the “other” is a failure of imagination.
To suggest that modern Star Trek has suddenly adopted values is to ignore six decades of storytelling. Starfleet Academy is not importing new politics into the franchise. It is continuing the same ethical project Star Trek has always pursued.
A Note of Concern: Ensemble Matters
There is one reasonable concern after the first two episodes. Recent Star Trek—most notably Star Trek: Discovery—sometimes narrowed its focus too tightly around a single character’s emotional journey. That approach can flatten a universe that thrives on multiplicity.
Older Star Trek worked because it was never a one-person vehicle. Kirk mattered, but so did Spock and McCoy. Picard led, but Data, Worf, Crusher, and Troi each carried stories that stood on their own. These were shows about crews, not protagonists with orbiting support characters.
Starfleet Academy flirts with this danger by anchoring too much of the series to the mystery surrounding Caleb Mir. The hope is that the writers allow the full cadet class to share narrative weight. An academy, by definition, should be an ensemble.
The Leadership: Officers Shaping the Next Generation
The Academy’s senior staff provide the moral and structural backbone of the series, each representing a different response to the Federation’s collapse and rebirth.
Academy Chancellor Ake
Chancellor Ake is the institutional heart of the series. Pragmatic, politically aware, and clearly burdened by past failures, Ake represents a Federation attempting to lead without certainty. Their leadership style favors debate over decree, signaling a Starfleet that no longer assumes it is automatically right.
The Cadet Master
Tasked with discipline and day-to-day training, the Cadet Master embodies Starfleet tradition. More rigid than the Chancellor, this officer views structure as survival. Their friction with both cadets and peers highlights the tension between adaptability and order in a Federation still finding its footing.
The Doctor
The Academy’s Doctor offers a quieter, but no less vital, presence. Acting as both physician and counselor, they see the psychological cost of rebuilding firsthand. Their storylines ground the series in trauma, recovery, and the unseen labor required to keep institutions functional.
The Cadets: A Generation Worth Watching
The cadets are where Starfleet Academy finds its emotional range and long-term promise. Each arrives with a different relationship to Starfleet, shaped by a Federation that fractured after The Burn and is now attempting to stand again. Even in the first two episodes, the group feels distinct enough to support a true ensemble, provided the series allows the focus to remain shared.
Caleb Mir
Caleb Mir serves as the primary narrative entry point. Disillusioned with Starfleet and carrying a deeply personal past tied to the Academy’s larger mystery, he approaches the institution with skepticism rather than faith. His arc reflects a generation raised amid collapse, but the series will need to ensure his story does not eclipse the perspectives of the other cadets.
Jay-Den Kraag
Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon cadet with aspirations toward medicine, is a refreshing departure from familiar portrayals of Klingon honor culture. His presence reframes strength as care and discipline as service, quietly expanding what Klingon identity can look like in the 32nd century.
SAM (Series Acclimation Mil)
SAM is the early standout. A photonic being only weeks old yet presenting as a young adult, she experiences the Academy with genuine curiosity and little preconception. Her storyline revisits classic Star Trek questions about personhood and agency, but does so with warmth, humor, and emotional clarity rather than abstraction.
Darem Reymi
Darem Reymi is a cadet with command ambitions and a background shaped by privilege. His confidence borders on competitiveness, positioning him as both a potential leader and a source of tension within the class. He represents the pressure of expectation in a Federation still renegotiating what leadership means.
Genesis Lythe
Genesis Lythe is the daughter of a Starfleet admiral, determined to succeed on her own merits. Her arc explores the weight of legacy in an institution rebuilding its credibility, asking whether lineage is an advantage, a liability, or something to be consciously set aside.
Tarima Sadal
Tarima Sadal, a Betazoid cadet and the daughter of Betazed’s president, carries the burden of public identity into a space meant for personal growth. Her presence raises questions about privacy, obligation, and how much freedom truly exists when one’s future is already politically symbolic.
Final Thoughts
After two episodes, Starfleet Academy occasionally feels like Star Trek: 90210. There are heightened emotions, interpersonal drama, and young-adult energy built into the premise. That is not a flaw.
What matters is that beneath the academy dynamics, the show remembers what powers Star Trek. It is still asking how people with different histories choose to live together—and what they owe the future.
At its warp core, this is still Star Trek.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy releases every Thursday on Paramount+
