Based on a recipe suggested to him by his friend Ivar Bryce, in the novel, the drink was named for Vesper Lynd, Bond’s famous paramore in the book and the 2006 film of the same name. Interestingly, in real life, a true 1950s Vesper is hard to make because the ingredient of Kina Lillet went out of production in the 1980s. Generally, bartenders today use substitutes like Lillet Blanc in its place, but, because of replicator technology in Star Trek, it’s very possible that Reno’s Vesper martini is more accurate to Fleming’s than anything we can drink today.
Zora and the Future
When Burnham and Rayner jump 30 years into a possible future, they find the ship abandoned and Zora, the ship’s friendly AI, playing music for herself. Zora mentions that she thinks seeing Captain Burnham again is “another dream.” This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a possible future in which Zora is running the ship alone, listening to old music. In the 2018 Short Treks episode “Calypso,” a man called Craft boards a version of the Discovery in the distant future, even beyond the 32nd century setting we’ve seen in the show recently. This was the first episode that revealed Zora’s evolution, and whether or not it’s still the real destiny of the ship remains to be seen.
Warp Bubble’s Purpose
When Rayner, Stamets, and Burnham decide to break the ship’s warp bubble to stop the time bug, Burnham mentions that the warp bubble “is what protects us from the effects of relativity.” This very neatly explains that warp speed in Star Trek, is, in a sense, a form of time travel, since traveling faster than the speed of light, bends the regular way time is experienced. In the first 1964 Original Series pilot “The Cage,” Enterprise navigator Tyler even says “the time barrier has been broken,” and Captain Pike refers to warp factors as “time warp factors.” Everything in Star Trek is kinda time travel, but the warp bubble prevents it from getting too confusing.
Burnham vs. Burnham in Early Season 1
The final stop in the time jumps puts everyone back to a very, very early point in season 1. Here, Lorca is still in command of the ship, but on an “away” mission with Saru and Landry.” Because Landry is still alive, we’re directly between the events of “Context is For Kings” and “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry.” This is why the Burnham from this timeline is still known as “Specialist Burnham,” and why most of the crew hates her. From their point of view, she’s a mutineer, who only recently was allowed back in uniform.
When Burnham has to fight herself, we see Sonequa Martin-Green revert back to a version of her season 1 hairstyle, a fact which Tilly comments on when seeing the future Burnham. During the Burnham-on-Burnham fight, both employ the Vulcan martial art Suus Mahna, which originated in the series Enterprise. However, we saw Burnham and Sarek fight using Suus Mahna in the Discovery season 1 episode “Lethe,” and it’s been a staple of Burnham’s defensive style ever since.
And in the ultimate callback to her upbringing on Vulcan — and to the beginning of Discovery itself — Burnham uses the Vulcan nerve pinch on her younger self. Interestingly, the nerve pinch was invented by Leonard Nimoy for the TOS episode “The Enemy Within.” And, just like in that episode, the nerve pinch was used on a duplicate of the captain; in that case, on the “evil” Captain Kirk.
