The following contains spoilers from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 2, Episode 1, "The Broken Circle," now streaming on Paramount+.
One of the most exciting set pieces in the Season 2 premiere of Strange New Worlds was Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel fighting a group of Klingons. Star Trek is a show all about peace and diplomacy, but sometimes Starfleet has to let their fists or phasers do the talking. Beyond just a chance to show off Babs Olusanmokun's martial arts expertise, Strange New Worlds explores how war trauma stays with those who fought it.
Right before the battle broke out, M'Benga revealed a vial filled with green liquid, saying it would give them a fighting chance. Chapel asked if he always has this medicine with him, and he replied that he does. Only whatever was in the vial doesn't heal an affliction. It's a sci-fi stimulant that allowed M'Benga and Chapel to effectively survive hand-to-hand combat while outnumbered by stronger, tougher Klingon warriors. M'Benga even lost control, choking and threatening one of the Klingons in a way Starfleet officers don't usually behave. Chapel tried to stop him, and the subtext of the scene was that M'Benga's rage and violence are, ironically, tied to his hatred of war. He is a healer, but even military medics must fight to stay alive.
Strange New Worlds Is Set After the End of the Klingon War
Captain Pike and Number One first appeared on Star Trek: Discovery, revealing the Enterprise had been absent from the war. If the Federation fell, it would've been on Pike and the Enterprise to rebuild it. M'Benga, Chapel and helm officer, Ortegas weren't so lucky. They all served on ships that didn't get to miss out on the war, which lasted for about a year but cost billions of lives. When La'an told the Enterprise crew about the plan by profiteers to reignite the war, M'Benga was viscerally disgusted by the idea. He was almost happy to be taken prisoner by the villains because it allowed him to stop their plan personally.
While treating a Klingon conspirator, M'Benga had to prove to his patient that he was stationed on the moon of J'gal. He tells him that the sky was so full of blood from all the destroyed ships in the atmosphere that the rain turned red. War imagery is, by definition, horrific. Yet, this is particularly terrible considering how many "destroyed bodies" such a thing would require. M'Benga still treated the patient, even though minutes later, he was beating the Klingon unconscious. A healer in war is a walking contradiction.
M'Benga clearly holds a lot of rage and resentment, and it's unleashed on the Klingons. However, the feelings may also stem from his own actions and regrets about the war. The lingering trauma from war manifests in many ways. Sometimes it's because something terrible happened; other times, it's because something terrible happened to everyone else. For M'Benga, it seems that what he's left to deal with is a mixture of both.
War Is Rare in Star Trek, but It Is No Less Devastating
Star Trek has survived a few wars. There was the Romulan War about a century before The Original Series episode that introduced them. In the 24th century, a war with a Delta Quadrant species called the Dominion played out on Deep Space Nine. Discovery added the short war with the Klingons that was eventually won because a Klingon leader found common ground with Michael Burnham's Starfleet values. Even though war as a concept is antithetical to Starfleet's values, it's always been part of their mission. In early episodes of the series in the 1960s, the Enterprise was an exploratory vessel at times, but they were also tasked with defending innocent lives, even at the cost of killing the aggressors.
One of the more common complaints about Discovery's first season was that it was a war story. It's hard to find the themes of optimism, cooperation and exploration at the core of Star Trek with battle waging across the galaxy. Yet, Star Trek stories often focus on how, in order to keep the peace, anti-war values are sometimes compromised. M'Benga's story in the Season 2 premiere is a fine study of how those compromises can affect the people forced to make them.
Strange New Worlds debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.