Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 7 Ending Explained

WHY is Sybok? 

As Spock explains to Nurse Chapel in this episode, “Amadssor Sarek had a child out of wedlock. Although full Vulcan, he has rejected the teachings of logic.” This checks out with the backstory we got in The Final Frontier, in which Spock makes it clear that Sybok’s mother was NOT his human mother, Amanda Grayson. As Spock said in The Final Frontier: “Sybok’s mother was a Vulcan princess. After her death, Sybok and I were raised as brothers.”

So, Strange New Worlds has added several fairly big wrinkles to what we knew about Sybok.

• Sybok was an illegitimate child of Sarek’s.
• Sybok was in love with a human pirate!
• Sybok was in a rehabilitation center run by T’Pring, Spock’s fiancee.

Sybok’s fate beyond Strange New Worlds

The thing to keep in mind with all of these revelations is that everything we’re seeing in Strange New Worlds takes place well before The Final Frontier. Season 1 of Strange New Worlds happens in 2259, while The Final Frontier takes place in 2287. That means there are 28 years between Sybok in SNW and Star Trek V. And the only detail we have about Sybok in those ensuing years, is that at some point, he will be “banished from Vulcan, never to return.”

Because Sybok is now tangentially part of T’Pring’s backstory, Strange New Worlds is connecting Spock dots that nobody ever knew needed connecting. We know T’Pring will eventually betray Spock, and pit him in a fight to the death against Kirk. Could she have gotten any of these notions from Spock’s unhinged brother? 

Either way, if Sybok does become a bigger deal in Strange New Worlds, the storytelling possibilities are pretty wide open. We know how his story ends, but other than that, when it comes to Sybok, the sky’s the limit.