“Light-Years from Home” is episode one of the second and final season of Krypton.
General Zod is giving a speech. By the sounds of it, it’s six months since the season one finale, “The Phantom Zone”, and Seg being sucked into the Phantom Zone. Adam materialises as Zod is saying that they will spread Kryptonian excellence as rulers of the galaxy, and honour Zod’s father, Seg’s, ultimate sacrifice to build a better tomorrow. This involves reporting people so Adam runs when he spots some Sagitari. He’s grabbed by Jax-Ur, who then drugs him unconscious.
Adam wakes and is questioning Jax-Ur on how she got him there when Mama Zed appears and says she had help. Better than what would have happened to Adam with the Sagitari. Val-El and Nyssa enter; she has a baby, Cor-Vex, hers and Seg’s son. Adam notices Val can be felt and asks how he feels so real. Because he is real, not a hologram. Val asks Adam where he’s been. Back to the future, but his home planet is not the same, because it’s now ruled by General Zod. And then Brainiac went and bottled Adam’s home town. Val and Nyssa exchange a look; if Brainiac escaped then maybe Seg did too.
Seg is in the Phantom Zone, where he sees Zod strangle Lyta. Zod, then Lyta’s body, both disappear.
Val tells Adam that Zod destroyed his Phantom Zone projector, then seized the fortress when Val tried to build a new one. Wegthor, one of Krypton’s moons, is home to a colony that is the only city-state not under Zod’s control. After Brainiac’s defeat, Zod seized control of the Sagitari and conquered the other city-states, conscripting those who could fight, disappearing those who defied him. Wegthor is a mining colony, and what is mined can be processed into warp fuel for the interstellar fleet that Zod is building. Adam says that the planets Zod is conquering in the future, he’s eradicating the people and then terraforming – kryptoforming might be a more accurate term – into planets suitable for Kryptonians.
Raika is being questioned by Lyta about where Doomsday is. She doesn’t know. It broke out of its containment chamber and slaughtered most of her people. The rest were either conscripted or disappeared. Lyta wants to know what happened to Jayna-Zod; her body hasn’t been found. Raika doesn’t know anything. She’s telling the truth. Lyta tells her the next but will be painful, but she will become a different person with no memory of this. Raika is only one of many being questioned.
Lyta heads to see Zod; she asks why they are wasting time on Doomsday and not on the Wegthor rebellion. Because they barely survived Brainiac and who knows what other disasters there are. To ensure the survival of their people, they must get off this world and Doomsday can be used as a weapon against any who refuse to be annexed. In that case, Lyta wants Zod to concentrate on Doomsday whilst she goes after the resistance.
In the Phantom Zone, Seg sees Val, who says he’s just a projection of Seg’s mind. There are wormholes leading out and Val knows which one leads back to Krypton. The problem is opening it. The sunstone, which contains the harnessed energy of a 10-billion-year-old yellow star, can do that. Val encourages Seg to pierce the veil. Seg does – and Val turns into Brainiac.
Both are sucked through. Seg wakens on a world that is definitely not Krypton and asks where he is. Colu, replies Brainiac. His homeworld. Yes, Brainiac manipulated Seg. Seg should forget about revenge if he wants to survive. Brainiac needs Seg to survive himself. Something has detected them; or, probably, Brainiac.
Seg is stuck on a world a long way from home with a fairly polite monster. Things on his homeworld are not so great, either.