“Despite Yourself” is episode ten of season one of Star Trek: Discovery.
In the previous episode, “Into the Forest I Go”, Discovery destroyed the Klingon Ship of the Dead and Kol along with it. Not that killing Kol is likely to stop the war, because he was only taking control of the Klingons, but it does mean they are currently leaderless. Stamets, after doing 133 jumps, said he would do one more, period, to get the ship home. This turned out to be one more jump than was wise. Discovery ended up somewhere unfamiliar in a cloud of debris and Stamets’ eyes filmed over.
Discovery is trying to work out where it is, because they are not at Starbase 46. Burnham tells the captain that the blast scoring on the debris is consistent with Federation weapons, but the debris itself is off. It’s Klingon, but outside acceptable margins. There are no lifesigns or active power sources. Saru says, according to the readings, they reached their intended coordinates. Their position has been confirmed but almost nothing else is where it is supposed to be.
They detect what appears to be a Vulcan cruiser approaching. It powers up weapons, so they assume the Vulcans have detected Klingons in the area. Then the Vulcan ship fires at the Discovery. Another ship shoots the Vulcans and Discovery receives a hail from the Cooper, the ship that fired on the Vulcans. Only the Cooper is supposed to be undergoing refit. The Cooper‘s captain mentions the Discovery being spooked by rebels. Vulcan rebels. Stamets is out of it so they have no spore drive. According to Saru, the quantum signatures of the other two ships are inconsistent with that of the Discovery. Which isn’t possible, because all matter in the universe has the same quantum signature and nothing can change that. Unless, Captain Lorca suggests, they are not in their universe.
He briefs Saru and Burnham about the parallel worlds he and Stamets had uncovered evidence of. Yes, Lorca and Stamets were working on a theory of being able to jump between them; something they planned to pursue after the war. The 133 jumps they did have filled in huge gaps. However, with them being in another universe, they can’t send the cloak-breaking algorithm they just created back to Starfleet. First, they need to understand where they, how to survive then how to get home.
Tilly is in sickbay with Dr Culber and Stamets. She’s trying to jog Stamets’ memory. Stamets is talking about a palace, then gets up and knocks Culber across the room. After Stamets is placed behind a forcefield, Tilly apologises to Culber for not telling him about what was wrong with Stamets. The doctor tells her she was ordered by a superior officer and she’s not the one responsible. Lorca arrives at this point. Clearly, Culber considers him to be the guilty party. After Tilly leaves, Lorca essentially agrees. He also wants Culber off the case, because he’s too emotional to be objective. And look where Lorca’s need to win the war got them.
Tyler is outside in a Worker Bee, heading to get a Klingon data core so that they can find out what’s going on. He has a flashback to his torture during this, and detects bodies on the Klingon ship. Vulcan and Andorian bodies. Who do not get along with each other, let alone the Klingons.
Afterwards. Tyler goes to confront L’Rell, who is in the brig. He wants to know what she did to him. The flashbacks he’s been having are of surgeries, rather than torture. L’Rell tells Tyler to let her out of her cell and she will tell him everything. He does, and she starts reciting the prayer to Khaless in Klingon. And Tyler responds in Klingon. L’Rell starts demanding to know what his name is, because he has another. The prayer should have made him remember; something must have gone wrong. This brings up a disturbing idea; perhaps Tyler isn’t Tyler. It isn’t known what happened to Voq after “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry”. Could Tyler be connected?
Tilly has managed to get the data core open. Burnham notices that the chips inside are of a Vulcan design. The Vulcans, Andorians and Klingons are in an alliance. But against who? Are they in the Mirror Universe?
Burnham briefs Tilly, Tyler, Saru and Lorca. They are in a parallel universe, one not governed by the Federation, but by a fascistic, human-only organisation. Called the Terran Empire. Most of the ships and people they know exist, but Terrans are their antithesis in every way. Yes, they are in the Mirror Universe. All the nonhumans have rebelled and are fighting for their freedom. The Terrans hate everything that is other. Which will include the crew of the Discovery.
It seems their Discovery switched places with the Mirror Universe Discovery. Now, they have to pretend to be the Mirror Universe Discovery. Which is captained by a rather scary-looking Tilly. In addition, it looks like Stamets is seeing things that are not obvious.
Quite a few connections in this episode. First, there’s the obvious one with the TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror”. Then, the crew learn that the Defiant, which disappeared (rather, will disappear; that even is in the future) in “The Tholian Web” arrived in the Mirror Universe. This was previous discovered in the Enterprise episodes “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” and “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II”.