History Characters / StarTrekDiscoveryFederation

* {{Foil}}: Like Stamets, he is extraordinarily intelligent and an outstanding scientist… but he’s far more reckless and selfish.

* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Already a fairly shady character, Dr. Tarka advocates before the Federation Council, calling for the use of [[Film/StarTrekInsurrection isolytic weaponry]] to destroy the DMA rather than study it. He also endangers ''Discovery'' and her crew with his experiments on board.

* StraightGay: He's gay but not flamboyant. This makes him the first original character[[note]]Sulu was {{Retcon}}ned to be gay in ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', but Stamets is the first character designed to be gay from his inception[[/note]] in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' who is explicitly gay.[[note]]Jadzia Dax from ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' is canonically bisexual, though given the unique peculiarities of Trill biology, it's not clear that terms like "sexual orientation" even apply to them.[[/note]]

* DefrostingIceQueen: Getting to know him is a lot of work thanks to all those insufferable walls he throws up. Michael manages to defrost him with a mix of being damn good at her job and sharing his drive to figure out puzzles and mysteries.

* SadisticChoice: His own actions with the spore drive force him into one, as he develops increasingly debilitating cognitive issues. If he tells Dr. Culber about the side effects, Culber will have no choice but to ground Stamets for his own safety and the good of Starfleet's only spore drive, which in turn would force Culber to tell Starfleet about Stamets' illegal genetic experiment--jeopardizing or outright ending Culber's career in addition to his own. If he does ''not'' tell Culber, he's betraying his partner's trust and straining their own relationship, plus depriving himself of any opportunity to get help managing the side effects. He ends up trying to TakeAThirdOption by co-opting Cadet Tilly to help him deal with the side effects, but this only puts ''her'' career in jeopardy as she tries to aid him as best she can while keeping Stamets' congitive issues a secret. This ends up falling apart when Lorca makes Culber run diagnostic scans in "Into The Forest I Go", and they reveal neurological problems. Stamets still agrees to make a series of micro-jumps to help expose the Klingon flagship's cloak, followed by one more to get ''Discovery'' back to a starbase -- which ends up TemptingFate one time too many, landing Stamets in a HeroicRROD and ''Discovery'' in the MirrorUniverse.

* TimeDissonance: After his BioAugmentation, he has a little trouble keeping himself focused within space-time. Exaggerated after his ill-fated final jump in "Into the Forest I Go", which leaves him catatonic in a HeroicRROD. After he recovers from his catatonia, he gains an immunity of sorts to time anomalies, because he doesn't get confused by the strangeness the way normal humans do.

* FutureBadass: Subverted. A confused Stamets at one point asks why TheCaptain is there, when it's still just ''Cadet'' Tilly. The implication is that Stamets had become UnstuckInTime and foreseen that Tilly would eventually reach her lifelong dream of being a captain... but it's revealed within a few episodes that he's been getting impressions from the MirrorUniverse, where Tilly is TheDreaded Captain.

* SadisticChoice: She ends up with one of these courtesy of Lt. Stamets’ deteriorating mental state in season 1. She is honor-bound to report his condition to Starfleet Command, which would get him into a heap of trouble, setting the spore drive back for decades and undoing the whole reason for ''Discovery'''s existence. If she does not report Stamets’ state (which is his explicit request, and he is her commanding officer), they could both get found out and end up in a heap of trouble anyways, with the addition of her own future career on the line. She ''could'' go to the ship's medical staff, but Dr. Culber, who is Stamets’ husband, would be obligated to report Stamets' condition to Starfleet Command—endangering Stamets’ career, Culber’s career, and Stamets and Culber’s relationship. It’s something an ensign should never have been stuck dealing with.

* StatuesqueStunner: She is 5ft 9in (175 cm) tall and extremely attractive.

* PsychicStarshipPilot: Can operate the spore drive, like Stamets, because he can communicate with the spores.

* AmbiguousSituation: In "Into the Forest I Go", Stamets's overuse of the spore drive causes his body to become non-responsive (and his eyes to turn an icy blue) after accidentally sending ''Discovery'' into the MirrorUniverse. Ultimately, he isn't dead, but he's left temporarily both blinded and delirious.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Stamets is caustic, especially in season 1 when Starfleet is trying to weaponize his life's work and Lorca keeps pushing Stamets for more and longer jumps even at the expense of safety, but he does care deeply about others, and especially about peaceful applications of his beloved science. He's the first person that rather openly tells Burnham that Lorca is a "war monger", when others like Saru tried to shy around the topic. Though he mellows out considerably after the tardigrade DNA incident, he's apparently still enough of an arrogant git to annoy Detmer as late as Season 3's "Forget Me Not".
** He actually drops the abrasiveness pretty quickly, implying it was more a reaction to stress and anger than his real personality. He mentors Tilly and adopts Adira, and openly shows concern for [[spoiler: Book's trauma and devotes himself on working on figuring out the DMA to make sure no one else suffers the loss Book suffered]]. By season 3 he’s generous enough to encourage Tilly to take the position as Saru’s Number One, even though it means that ''he'' would be subject to ''her'' orders.
* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: How most of his interactions with Dr. Culber go, especially since "Choose Your Pain" revealed they were already a couple before they were individually introduced on-screen.
** In Season 2 Episode 5, the introduction refers to Stamets as a widower, confirming that they were married.

* PsychicStarshipPilot: A sentient being with a connection to the spores is required to use the spore drive. Stamets qualifies after he acquires tardigrade DNA.

* SadisticChoice: His own actions with the spore drive force him into one, as he develops increasingly debilitating cognitive issues. If he tells Dr. Culber about the side effects, Culber will have no choice but to ground Stamets for his own safety and the good of Starfleet's only spore drive, which in turn would necessarily mean Culber telling Starfleet about Stamets' illegal genetic experiment--jeopardizing or outright ending Culber's career in addition to his own. If he does ''not'' tell Culber, he's betraying his partner's trust and straining their own relationship, plus depriving himself of any opportunity to get help managing the side effects. He ends up trying to TakeAThirdOption by co-opting Cadet Tilly to help him deal with the side effects, but this only puts ''her'' career in jeopardy as she tries to aid him as best she can while keeping Stamets' congitive issues a secret. This ends up falling apart when Lorca makes Culber run diagnostic scans in "Into The Forest I Go", and they reveal neurological problems. Stamets still agrees to make a series of micro-jumps to help expose the Klingon flagship's cloak, followed by one more to get ''Discovery'' back to a starbase -- which ends up TemptingFate one time too many, landing Stamets in a HeroicRROD and ''Discovery'' in the MirrorUniverse.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: When Tilly apologizes for Stamets' condition, Culber says that it's not her fault, as she was put into an impossible situation by her superiors.

** He actually drops the abrasiveness pretty quickly, implying it was more a reaction to stress and anger than his real personality. He mentors Tilly and adopts Adira, and openly shows concern for [[spoiler: Book's trauma and devotes himself on working on figuring out the DMA to make sure no one else suffers the loss Book suffered]]. By season 3 he’s generous enough to encourage Tilly to take the position as Saru’s Number One, even though it means that ‘’he’’ would be subject to ‘’her’’ orders; by season 4 he’s counseling kindness and empathy and self-acceptance… to ‘’Hugh’’.

* SadisticChoice: His own actions with the spore drive cause one that rivals the SwordOfDamocles, as he develops increasingly debilitating cognitive issues. If he tells Dr. Culber about the side effects, Culber will have no choice but to ground Stamets for his own safety and the good of Starfleet's only spore drive, which in turn would necessarily mean Culber telling Starfleet about Stamets' illegal genetic experiment--jeopardizing or outright ending Culber's career. If he does ''not'' tell Culber, he's betraying his partner's trust and straining their own relationship, plus depriving himself of any opportunity to get help managing the side effects. He ends up trying to TakeAThirdOption by co-opting Cadet Tilly to help him deal with the side effects, but this only puts ''her'' career in jeopardy as she tries to aid him as best she can while keeping Stamets' congitive issues a secret. This ends up falling apart when Lorca makes Culber run diagnostic scans in "Into The Forest I Go", and they reveal neurological problems. Stamets still agrees to make a series of micro-jumps to help expose the Klingon flagship's cloak, followed by one more to get ''Discovery'' back to a starbase -- which ends up TemptingFate one time too many, landing Stamets in a HeroicRROD and ''Discovery'' in the MirrorUniverse.

* FutureBadass: Subverted. It was originally assumed that Lt. Stamets got UnstuckInTime as a result of his integration into the spore drive, and at one point asks why TheCaptain is there, when it's still just ''Cadet'' Tilly. He seems to have actually gotten an impression from the MirrorUniverse where Tilly is TheDreaded Captain.

** Stamets does care, though--he mentors Tilly and adopts Adira, and openly shows concern for [[spoiler: Book's trauma and devotes himself on working on figuring out the DMA to make sure no one else suffers the loss Book suffered]].

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Necessary, given the way his "spore drive" links fungal mycelia with interstellar travel.

* MortonsFork: She ends up with one of these courtesy of Lt. Stamets; either she could report his condition to Starfleet Command and get him into a heap of trouble, thereby setting the spore drive back for decades and undoing the whole reason for ''Discovery'''s existence -- or if she doesn't, they could both get found out and end up in a heap of trouble anyways, with the addition of her own future career on the line. She ''could'' go to the ship's medical staff, but they're obligated to report Stamets' condition to Starfleet Command, with the added complication of Dr. Culber being in an active relationship with Stamets at the time. It's something an intern should never have been stuck dealing with.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Before Adira, their Trill symbiont was joined with six other hosts, three of which were Starfleet officers.

** Stamets is caustic, but he does care deeply about others and it's implied that he would be a more pleasant person if Starfleet wasn't trying to co-opt his life's work for war. He's the first person that rather openly tells Burnham that Lorca is a "war monger", when others like Saru tried to shy around the topic. And though he's initially impatient with Tilly, by the second season he considers her a friend and goes to great lengths to help her when "May" takes over.
** By the third and fourth season Stamets mellows out considerably. While he can still be abrasive at time he openly shows concern for [[spoiler: Book's trauma and devotes himself on working on figuring out the DMA to make sure no one else suffers the loss Book suffered]].

* MortonsFork: His own actions with the spore drive cause one that rivals the SwordOfDamocles. Either he confesses to his boyfriend, Dr. Culber, straining their relationship and putting Culber's career in jeopardy -- or he doesn't, and he's forced to continually lie to Culber to maintain the facade of normalcy. He ends up trying to TakeAThirdOption by co-opting Cadet Tilly to help him deal with the side effects, but this only puts ''her'' career in jeopardy as she tries to aid him as best she can while keeping Stamets' genetic self-modification a secret. This ends up falling apart when the genetic modifications, or at least the side effects, are discovered in "Into The Forest I Go". Stamets still agrees to make a series of micro-jumps to help expose the Klingon flagship's cloak, followed by one more to get ''Discovery'' back to a starbase -- which ends up TemptingFate one time too many, landing Stamets in a HeroicRROD and landing ''Discovery'' in the MirrorUniverse.

->'''Played by:''' Sonja Sohn

->'''Played by:''' Chelah Horsdal

* AllegoricalCharacter: She's a perfect representation of the problems that the Federation has always faced, in that she preaches about unity and goodwill in public, but in private she’s TheNeedsOfTheMany (even if JerkassHasAPoint about Michael’s trauma) and concerned with military prowess and getting everyone in under the Federation again.

* UnevenHybrid: She's a mix of human, Cardassian, and Bajoran, though the proportions are unknown.

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:The last we see of Tarka is him messing with his teleportation device, musing that it's better than just dying. We never see if he got it to work or if he was killed with Book's ship was destroyed.]]

!!Cleveland "Book" Booker

A mysterious man overseeing Mirror Philippa Georgiou's interrogation.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: She is the chief security officer, and also holds a relatively high rank among the crew. As a Commander, she's second only to Lorca himself and tied in rank with First Officer Saru (though technically, she would be under Saru's command thanks to his position as First Officer, though whether that would be true in practice is never demonstrated).

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: As a brilliant military tactician, he has certainly earned his command.

[[folder:Kovich]]
!!Kovich

* {{Jerkass}}: Runs roughshod over everyone who he doesn't like, which is practically all of the main cast, and tries to manipulate those (like Booker) who he finds receptive to his ideas.

* TheMillstone: He has a singular talent for screwing things up whenever our heroes appear to be making progress dealing with the 10-C.

* InformedFlaw: During his run-ins with Kirk and company, Harry always made Stella out to be a shrewish harridan, as exemplified by [[Recap/StarTrekS2E8IMudd the android replicas he made of her]]. However, when she appears in the flesh she is an attractive, amiable and very understanding young woman.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Zig-zagged. The Battle of the Binary Stars left her with injuries requiring a cranial implant. The hair on the left side of her head is shaved off around it, leaving visible surgical scars where they put the implant in, and she's missing her left eyebrow. If you look closely, she also lost her left eye and needed it replaced with [[ElectronicEye a prosthetic]]; prior to the battle both of her eyes were green, but now her left eye is a [[UncannyValley mismatched, artificial-looking blue]]. That said, even with the implant, she is still attractive.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The man might be a complete moron, but it's ''still'' staggering just how low his social-IQ is. It's almost a wonder how he managed to function in society up until that point. He doesn't even appear to be capable of holding a conversation with anyone.

* AwesomeMccoolname: The ''Enterprise'' rightly earned her name for boldly going where no one has gone before.