Star Trek Discovery: Carl's True Identity & TOS Connection Explained

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Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 10, "Terra Firma, Part 2".

Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 10, "Terra Firma, Part 2" revealed the identity of Carl (Paul Guilfoyle): He is the Guardian of Forever! The portal through time and space was introduced in the Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever", written by the late Harlan Ellison, which is widely considered to be the greatest TOS episode and ranked as one of the best Star Trek episodes ever.

In "Terra Firma, Part 1", Carl was a mysterious being who appeared out of nowhere when Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) brought Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michael Yeoh) to Dannus Five in search of a cure for her terminal condition that was literally tearing her apart molecule-by-molecule. Carl, who appeared to be a human wearing a suit and bowler hat, suddenly materialized in the middle of the barren, snow-filled planet sitting in an Adirondack chair and reading a newspaper next to a doorway. Because of Carl's playful, riddle-filled banter, it was natural for Star Trek fans to guess that Carl was a member of the Q Continuum from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, there were odd aspects to Carl that belied him being a Q, and his newspaper - the Star Dispatch - offered several Easter eggs that were clues to what Carl really was (although some were clever red herrings referencing TNG). The Star Dispatch itself was the biggest hint since it was the same newspaper shown to Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in "The City on the Edge of Forever" that foretold the destiny of Sister Edith Keeler (Joan Collins). Ultimately, Carl invited Georgiou to pass through his doorway, which whisked her to the Mirror Universe of the 23rd century and allowed her to make different, more compassionate choices that appear to alter the trajectory of the Terran Empire.

When Georgiou returned, Michael said she was only unconscious for less than a minute yet the bio scanner on her wrist registered 3 months of data. Carl revealed his true form as the Guardian of Forever and that his function was to "weigh" the former Terran Empress and decide where her true path lies because to remain in the year 3189 would be a death sentence. The Guardian of Forever gave Georgiou the choice to be sent to a time when the Prime and Mirror Universes were still aligned, which would save her life, although she can never return to the 32nd century. Just as it has been weaving in Star Trek's varied history throughout season 3, Star Trek: Discovery incorporating the Guardian of Forever is a thrilling callback to classic TOS, although the original concept was updated in surprising ways.

The Guardian Of Forever's Star Trek History

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In "The City on the Edge of Forever", the Starship Enterprise encountered the Guardian of Forever on an uncharted planet after it tracked the source of mysterious ripples in time. The Guardian was an ancient and sentient asymmetrical donut-shaped time portal that described itself as neither machine nor being. The portal offered to be Kirk's gateway to any place and any time, and it showed Captain the progression of Earth's history, although it could not alter the speed at which it displayed the past.

When Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) was driven mad by an accidental injection of cordrazine, he leaped into the time portal and changed Earth's history. Kirk and Spock had to follow McCoy into the time portal, which brought them to 1930s New York City before Bones' arrival point, wherein they learned that a woman named Edith Keeler was a focal point of time. Keeler was destined to die, but if Bones were allowed to save her life, it would totally alter the course of human history. Although Kirk had fallen in love with Keeler in the time he and Spock waited for McCoy to emerge. Ultimately, Bones stopped Kirk from following his heart and saving Keeler, which set history on its proper course, but Kirk was heartbroken by the tragic experience.

Before Star Trek Discovery, "The City on the Edge of Forever" was the only canonical live-action appearance of the Guardian of Forever, but the time portal reappeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "Yesteryear". Two years after they encountered the Guardian, Kirk and Spock accompanied a team of historians using the time portal to research Federation history. An accident caused Spock to die as a child on Vulcan, which altered the timeline, so Spock had to use the Guardian to travel back to Vulcan's past and enact a paradox where he stopped his younger self from dying.

Why The Guardian Of Forever Is In Hiding & Posed As Carl

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As Carl explained to Burnham and Georgiou, the Guardian of Forever went into hiding after the Temporal Wars when the various factions of time soldiers tried to use the portal in order to kill each other, which Carl clearly found abhorrent. The Guardian removed itself from its original planet and traveled far away from those who wanted to use it towards their own ends. The Guardian chose Dannus Five, on the galactic rim bordering the Gamma Quadrant, since that location was an uninhabited planet that was nowhere near its original coordinates.

However, the U.S.S. Discovery's computer, which became sentient after merged with the sphere containing 100,000 years of galactic data, was able to extrapolate the Guardian's current location. The sphere was aware of the Guardian of Forever, even though, chronologically, Burnham and the Discovery left their 23rd-century timeline nine years before Kirk and Spock made first contact with the Guardian - which explains why Michael had never heard of it before. However, Discovery's computer merged with the 32nd-century Federation database and used that combined information t0 find the Guardian. Either Discovery's computer somehow contacted the Guardian of Forever or the space-time portal possesses a form of omniscience; either way, this explains how Carl seemed to be expecting Georgiou and Burnham and knew what the Terran needed from the Guardian of Forever.

How Star Trek: Discovery Changed The Guardian Of Forever

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Carl is obviously a radical retcon of the Guardian of Forever, the self-described spacetime portal that didn't take on a humanoid form in "The City on the Edge of Forever", although, in Harlan Ellison's original screenplay, the Guardians were actually 9-foot-tall aliens that were revamped into the familiar donut hole due to TOS' limited budget. The Guardian also didn't display any kind of personality "back in the day" as Carl says, whereas Carl is compassionate, friendly, and has a sense of humor. The fact that the Guardian can change its form, turn invisible, and achieve space/dimensional travel under its own power is also a retcon of the original TOS concept.

The function of the Guardian of Forever is also different as it was able to send Georgiou into the parallel dimension of the Mirror Universe, not just the past of the Prime Universe, so it now has multidimensional capabilities and awareness, whereas in TOS, the Guardian couldn't even control the rate of speed it showed time passing. (It's understandable why the Guardian of Forever was sought after during the Temporal Wars since it could be used as an all-powerful and dangerous weapon.) But what happened to Georgiou in the Mirror Universe is also very different from the time paradox Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had to repair in "The City on the Edge of Forever". Carl sent Georgiou back to the Mirror Universe of the 23rd century, but the Emperor immediately made irreversible changes to how events would play out, like murdering Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and ordering the death of Commander Ellen Landry (Rekha Sharma), both of whom were meant to die later according to what happens in Star Trek: Discovery season 1.

So, when the Guardian sent Georgiou back and the Emperor chose to change the course of the Mirror Universe's future, are those changes permanent, and did they indeed alter the trajectory of what Star Trek fans already know happens in the Mirror Universe's 23rd and 24th centuries? Or did Georgiou, who also killed the Mirror Michael Burnham and then seemingly dies herself in the parallel universe, create a branching alternate reality for the Mirror Universe the same way Nero (Eric Bana) created the alternate Kelvin timeline in J.J. Abrams Star Trek 2009? Unfortunately, after Georgiou used the time portal to permanently leave the 32nd century, Carl vanished instead of offering answers. Who knows if Star Trek: Discovery fans will ever see the Guardian of Forever again?