The meaning of the red directive is explained

The fifth and final season of “Star Trek: Discovery” I started with a puzzling hypothesis. Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) receives a red herring from a top Federation official, Dr. Kovic (David Cronenberg), who assigns her to a secret mission. There’s an abandoned 800-year-old Romulan science ship lost in deep space, and Burnham is sent to recover a mysterious object aboard. However, it appears that a pair of mysterious thieves named Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) found the object first. After some games of cat and mouse, Captain Burnham recovers the object from them and discovers that it is a journal written by 24th century scientists, indicating the location of an impossible ancient technology built by the Ancestors.

Trekkies will be able to tell you that The Ancestors were perhaps the first human species to evolve in the galaxy. Alone, the Ancestors seeded millions of worlds with their own DNA, triggering evolution in each one of them. This means that all human species in Star Trek share a common ancestor. The rest of Season 5 follows an Indiana Jones-style adventure as Burnham and fellow Captain Reiner (Colum Keith Rennie) attempt to track down the mysterious Progenitor technology before Moll and L’ak can. Naturally, there are many plot twists along the way.

But what the heck is a “red directive”. Its name suggests it’s a mission of the utmost importance, of course, but oddly enough the term wasn’t used in “Star Trek” until this episode. The order appears to extend from higher-ups in Starfleet who have the power to order any ship to undertake any mission at any moment, and that the mission must remain completely secret. Dr. Kovic seems to have a lot of influence in Starfleet. This adds an additional mystery: What is Kovich’s rank?

Through dialogue, Trekkies can only deduce what the Red Steer actually is. We know that Red Directives can only be issued in a top-secret location called the Infinite Chamber, a secret location deep inside Starfleet headquarters, making them orders of the most exclusive kind, given only in person. Some spacecraft captains seem to receive red flags more often, as Captain Reiner noted, now participating in his eighth flight.

Fast forward to the end of “Star Trek: Discovery,” and Captain Burnham has completed her mission, having located the Progenitor and hidden it safely next to a black hole. She announced that Red Directive was closed and that all details of her mission would be classified immediately. So it seems that Red Directive is just a fancy term for a top-secret mission, as one might hear about in “Mission: Impossible.”

And who is Kovic who can deliver the red directives? His ability to do so undermines even the authority of Fleet Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr), one of the service’s most senior officers. It appears that Kovic’s backstory was more complicated than originally thought. In the 32nd Century, Kovich seemed like a shadowy executive of sorts, overseeing various aspects of the Federation bureaucracy. In Discovery’s fifth season, he will reveal himself to be a long-time time traveler named Daniels who has interacted with several Star Trek ships throughout his life. Daniels famously appeared in several episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, played by Matt Winston. His exploration of events in “Star Trek” history seems to give him a lot of traction at headquarters.

“Discovery” ends with Burnham receiving another red directiveAnd she’s on her merry way. It seems that the adventures will continue.