The Legacy of Gabriel Lorca

When considering the legacy of Gabriel Lorca, the Terran who posed as his Starfleet counterpart and captained the U.S.S. Discovery, deception and selfishness are surely two of the first traits which leap to mind.

While such an assessment is accurate, those qualities guided Lorca's actions during his time away from the Mirror Universe and set events in motion that would leave a permanent impact upon our Prime reality. The nature of those repercussions ranged widely, and in some instances, exactly where those consequences will fall on the spectrum of good and evil still remains unknown.

Michael Burnham's Reprieve

With the major caveat that Michael Burnham's accomplishments stemmed from her own dedication and perseverance, her respite from prison was nevertheless orchestrated by Lorca in 's "Context is for Kings."

Starfleet granted Lorca the ability to fight the war as he saw fit, and his attachment to the Mirror Universe's Michael Burnham motivated him to utilize his authority to conscript Prime Burnham into service aboard the Discovery.

The heights that Michael Burnham would go on to achieve in the 23rd and 32nd Centuries are well-documented, and we must stress once more that they are her successes, but Lorca's actions did open the door for her to return to Starfleet and fulfill her potential.

A Tardigrade's Tale

Lorca's questionable morality and violent disposition allowed him to ignore the ethical dilemma inherent in capturing the tardigrade found aboard the U.S.S. Glenn and conducting weapons research on its resilient attributes. While those efforts didn't get far, keeping the tardigrade around resulted in Burnham's revelation that the Glenn had utilized it to solve the spore drive's navigation problem.

This proved to be a major breakthrough in Discovery's bid to chart a course through the mycelial network, and it offered the immediate benefit of permitting the starship to make an accurate jump across the quadrant and prevent the Klingons from wiping out the mining colony on Corvan II in "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry."

An Operational Spore Drive

On a related note, Lorca's drive to return to the Mirror Universe meant he was willing to pressure his crew to unlock the spore drive's full capacity for instantaneous interstellar travel. The captain demonstrated an especially critical eye toward Paul Stamets in particular, and it was the astromycologist who ultimately decided to inject himself with tardigrade DNA in order to mount a mission to rescue Lorca in "Choose Your Pain."

With Stamets as the spore drive's permanent navigator and the captain's private catalog of data pertaining to Discovery's jumps, Lorca accelerated the spore drive's development to the point that it significantly aided the Federation's war effort.

Whether or not an operational spore drive would have been attained without Lorca's involvement is unknown, but his influence permitted the technology to be ready soon enough to have an effect on the Klingon conflict and Discovery's subsequent struggle against Control.

Klingon Infiltration

A more troubling ramification of Lorca's presence in the Prime Universe revolved around Ash Tyler. Unbeknownst even to himself, Tyler was actually Voq, a Klingon soldier and devout supporter of T'Kuvma who was sent to infiltrate the Discovery and learn its secrets.

Lorca met Tyler while he was imprisoned by the Klingons and became impressed by the younger officer during their escape from that vessel in "Choose Your Pain." Lorca invited Tyler to join his crew in the early stages of "Lethe," and while he acquitted himself well as Discovery's new Chief of Security, Voq's personality emerged and nearly killed Burnham aboard the I.S.S. Shenzhou.

One can hardly fault Lorca for his inability to see through a disguise that no one else perceived, but in the end, it was the captain's affinity for Tyler's aptitude that allowed the Klingon to embed himself within Discovery.

Turning the Tides of War

On the other hand, Lorca's captaincy dealt consequential blows to the Klingon fleet, with his most compelling victory taking place over Pahvo. Under the pretense of collecting enough data to render Klingon cloaking technology ineffective, Lorca sought to amass the information necessary for him to finally make a jump back to the Mirror Universe and avoid Admiral Cornwell's suspicions about him. Discovery launched an extensive series of short jumps around the Klingon Ship of the Dead, unwittingly completing Lorca's hidden task.

Fortunately, the effort also provided the data points required to develop a cloak-breaking algorithm. Discovery’s crew exploited their new advantage to destroy the Klingon flagship and rob the Empire of its ruthless leader, Kol, who perished during the Ship of the Dead's destruction in "Into the Forest I Go."

Knowledge of the Mirror Universe

Now armed with the capability of returning home, Lorca altered Discovery's jump coordinates and brought them the Mirror Universe. As he set his sights on overthrowing Emperor Georgiou and asserting control over the Terran Empire, Lorca's subordinates endeavored to find their way back to the Prime reality.

The crew succeeded after an arduous series of encounters with the Terrans, and Burnham even gained some insight as to how to appeal to the Prime Klingons from the Mirror Universe resistance group that was composed of Klingons, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians.

Though all knowledge of the Mirror dimension was allegedly classified when Discovery reached its own reality once more, awareness of its existence endured in the minds of the starship's crew, senior officials such as Admiral Cornwell and Ambassador Sarek, and a certain ex-Emperor who we will get to in a moment…

Dr. Culber's Death

Two of Lorca's actions, namely his recruitment of Tyler and Discovery's Terran excursion, converged in tragic fashion in "Despite Yourself."

Dr. Hugh Culber responded to Tyler's request for a physical evaluation, uncovering the brutal changes the Klingons had subjected him to in order to turn Voq into a human. Reacting in fear, Tyler murdered Culber in a ferocious burst of violence, a deed which caused intolerable heartbreak for Stamets.

Although Culber enjoyed a second chance at life in Season 2 and his demise originated from two previously established repercussions of Lorca's reign, the devastating loss nevertheless underlined the personal cost of the Terran's tyranny.

An Emboldened Discovery

While nothing can excuse the trauma Lorca inflicted on Discovery's crew, the captain's betrayal galvanized Commander Saru and his subordinates into a cohesive and dependable team. Citing Lorca's abuse of their idealism, Saru rallied his officers to overcome the seemingly no-win scenario that faced them as they hoped to recover Burnham and retrace their path back to the Prime Universe in "What's Past Is Prologue."

Furthermore, Saru and the bridge crew stood up against the Federation's plan to annihilate Q'onoS in "The War Without, The War Within," voicing their opposition to the genocidal plan hatched by the admiralty. This special bond became a recurring theme on Discovery, as the ship’s complement maintained a unique familial relationship all the way through until the series’ final episode.

The Toll on Starfleet

Once reunited with Admiral Cornwell and Ambassador Sarek in the Prime reality, Discovery learned of what had befallen the Federation as a direct result of Lorca's personal quest.

Without Discovery's spore drive on the front lines or the cloak-breaking algorithm to detect Klingon ships, Starfleet incurred the wrath of the now-squabbling Klingon houses. Deprived of Kol's leadership, the Klingons wiped out numerous Federation colonies and starbases, as well as one third of its fleet. Nearly 20% of Federation space had been occupied by the time of "The War Without, The War Within," and House D'Ghor even gained a foothold in the Sol System by capturing Starbase 1.

Had Lorca never taken Discovery off the board with his unsanctioned jaunt to the Mirror Universe, these casualties may have been avoided entirely.

The Road to Section 31

Lorca's attempted coup aboard the Terran Empire's flagship produced perhaps the most enigmatic ramification of all those we've covered so far. Though it failed to yield a permanent ascent to power, Lorca's takeover of the I.S.S. Charon toppled Emperor Philippa Georgiou's regime. Aware that Emperor Georgiou would perish if she stayed behind, Burnham elected to extract the deposed Terran leader and bring her back to the Prime Universe.

Georgiou's tenure on the U.S.S. Discovery included both negatives and positives, varying from her unsettling willingness to employ a hydro bomb that would eradicate Qo'noS to the valuable assistance she provided as the ship thwarted Control's goal of exterminating all sentient life in the galaxy. Georgiou joined Discovery's jump to the 32nd Century, but her distinctive path across both time and dimensions necessitated she travel through the Guardian of Forever and into a nebulous future in "." Emperor Georgiou's legacy in our universe and her mere presence in the Prime Timeline can be traced to Captain Lorca's nefarious exploits.