WMG / The Orville

The Xelayan from the Calivon Zoo will seek revenge against Alara

• The Calivon Zoo Administrator casually mentioned that he already had a Xelayan female in the facility, whom Alara made no attempt whatsoever to free. Given the Xelayans' prodigious strength, she is the likeliest candidate to escape the zoo on her own. Should she ever learn that Alara left her there to rot, she is probably going to be pissed off.
  • Given that it appears that the entire Zoo was seemingly traded for the who knows how many hours of reality TV, it's likely either all other species were released as part of the trade, or they just let them all go when the reality TV ended up being more popular.
    • The final scene shows that the cages are still full. Specifically, you can see the the spiky head alien still across from the new Earth exhibit.
  • That's assuming the Orville doesn't subsequently inform every other race in the quadrant about the Calivon Zoo, so they can all trade their own cultures' equivalent of Reality Television to the Zoo in exchange for their own people. Isaac's people could get rich for acting as middlemen with "pets" of their own, as could a whole bunch of lowbrow film crews willing to document stupid behavior in a hurry, for races that avoided ever coming up with that kind of televised tripe.
  • Also keep in mind the Calivon perspective. They see other races and cultures as little more than curiosities. Getting revenge on a specific individual of specific race of a specific culture for them (on a non-individual scale) would be like the United states going to war against a specific raven that pooped on a general's car. At best, the specific Calivon zookeeper might have specific ire against her, but again, it's probably similar to avoiding the neighborhood stray.
    • Jossed: Alara's return to her homeworld makes the point moot, since any attempted revenge will not take place in the Orville or be portrayed in the show.

Calivon society will collapse as a result of Alara's trade

• Alara traded Mercer, Grayson, and the alien child in return for a substantial archive of 20th and 21st century Reality Television shows. This will cause a breakdown in the Calivon civilization, or some other severe change, as a result of their newfound obsession. Naturally, this will be fodder for later episodes.
  • Maybe the Calivon will go on the warpath, moving in on more primitive cultures to either find similar archives or force them to create new material for their entertainment.
  • Maybe the Calivon empire will collapse in on itself, with the Planetary Union and other factions having to deal with the resulting chaos, including refugees coming to terms with their new (low) place on the totem pole and highly advanced technology falling into various hands.
  • Alternatively, the ruse will open up the way for less hostile interaction via the trade of alien pop culture and artifacts for non-interference.

A future episode will reveal that the Moclan government is suppressing that being born female is more common in Moclan society than generally believed. Also, the "condition" can be inherited.

• It's said that a female is born only every 75 years or so, but that's only an official statistic. On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Trill government put out that only 1 out of every 1000 Trill were suitable for joining with a symbiont, when in fact about nearly 50% could, in order to protect the low population of symbionts. The Moclan government could easily be doing something similar. Also, it's either a huge coincidence that Bortus's mate, Klyden also happens to have been born female if they truly are born only about once every 75 years statistically, or being born female is an inheritable trait.
• In that episode, we saw three Moclans that were born female, in about a 50-year span. But Bortus has known his mate for over six years and didn't know it, so anyone it applies to keeps it a secret. And if no one talks about it, no one can gather enough data to figure out just how common it actually is. Everyone thinks their baby girl is the one-in-a-million chance, when it might be closer to one in a hundred.
  • Something that happens with various statistics in human society so it's not out of the question.
  • Confirmed - in "Sanctuary" it's revealed that there's a secret colony of over 6,000 of them and that the Moclan government has been suppressing the true statistics.

Despite the above, the Moclans really are a Single-Gender Species.

• The 'male' and 'female' aren't actually sexes, but actually morphs of the hermaphroditic species, with no difference beyond the shape. They just call them male and female because they outwardly resemble the males and females of other humanoid species.

Moclans used to be a Eusocial species, with many men ruled over by a single female Queen

• A lot of the Moclan's issues with gender can be just seen as satire on our own culture however looking a bit deeper there appears to be a bit more to it. The Moclans can be born female, though rarely, and the most recent episode as of this writing 'Deflectors' shows there are even Moclans who feel naturally attracted to females. However the Moclan attitude is to ruthlessly supress this, from surgically altering them into males to the disgust leading to exile shown to those Moclans that are attracted to females or are themselves still female. Bortus also talks about how his people went through a long period of desolation and struggle and these traditions allowed them to survive. These together lead me to believe that Moclans are a born eusocial species, with many males ruled over by the rarer females. Many different hives on Moclan and the general unwillingness of eusocial creatures to work with other hives may have led to constant war and the overthrow of the queens by the worker males may be the only reason the Moclans survived at all, which would naturally lead to some pretty stiff social taboos to prevent ever returning to the hive way of life.

The universe of the The Orville is an alternate reality of the main Star Trek reality

• The point of divergence is the humanoid aliens who "seeded" their DNA as discovered in the the Next Generation episode "The Chase" evolved slightly differently and their DNA was different, so the races in The Orville universe developed differently, including Humans. The changes to humans were subtle, but enough to make human society and technology evolve slightly differently—other races were changed more significantly.
• Alternatively, this is the result of Daniels and the Temporal Cold War developing the technology to erase things from history as seen in Future's End. Earth was heavily protected as the center of the Federation, but nearly every other species was wiped out. Development of interstellar travel took another century without the Vulcans, and other species filled in the area of space that was strangely devoid of natives. In episode 3 we can see a Horta egg, suggesting that some aliens that weren't involved in the Temporal Cold War managed to get through the wipe.
• "Pria" states that the ship was supposed to be destroyed by the Negative Space Wedgie. Their survival already means the timeline has diverged. Perhaps the Trek universes are the ones where the comedy series crew were killed off.
• Star Trek long ago acknowledged that a multiverse exists in its continuity, from the TOS episodes "Operation Annihilate" and "Mirror, Mirror" to the TNG episode "Parallels" that featured multiple alternate-universe Enterprises. And this doesn't even include the divergent timelines of the 2009-present film series and numerous episodes such as Voyager's "Year of Hell". It is not impossible to conceive that one of the many parallel universes is home to the Orville and the Union.

The Orville takes place in a reality where Star Trek existed as a TV show.

• Star Trek has long inspired real world scientists and explorers. NASA named the prototype shuttle Enterprise for a reason. Perhaps, in Orville's reality, when humanity reached farther into space, they couldn't help but to (perhaps even subconsciously) model their efforts on the show that provided inspiration.

The Orville's Verse will evolve into Larry Niven's State 'verse, and one of that Verse's settings is directly made possible by "Old Wounds".

• The insta-redwood tree that was created in the pilot episode will survive and release seeds, which will get stuck to the surface of any passing ships with conifer sap. Some of those seeds will be carried by a ship that investigates a torus-shaped field of breathable gases, and will sprout into new redwoods, which will grow needles on both ends to take advantage of greater photosynthetic opportunities in zero-G. Happy Arbor Day indeed, Ed: you've just planted the first of The Integral Trees.

Humans have undergone Creative Sterility for some reason.

• There are no significant human artists or filmmakers, and this is why humanity is still consuming and referencing 400-year-old pop culture.
  • It’s probably just a way to mock how Star Trek seems to pretend that culture ended in the 20th century.

An episode will explore the origins of Kaylon and their racism.

It seems unlikely that the Kaylon would truly believe that they were created from some sort of 'first machine' and it seems unlikely for the show to state that they simply came to be as some sort of silicon-based lifeform. It seems more likely that the Kaylon had a biological predecessor that went extinct for one reason or another which fueled initial racism. Alternatively, their creators aren't extinct but proved unable to co-exist with the Kaylon and went elsewhere.

• Status: Confirmed. But the lack of coexistence didn’t end there. The crew discovers that the Kaylon committed genocide against their organic creators, and that Isaac’s mission wasn’t diplomatic in nature; They were evaluating all organic life for worthiness of preservation. The Kaylons’ rulers deemed them unworthy.

The Orville is named after Orville Redenbacher.

Normally, one would expect The Orville to be named after Orville Wright, of the Wright brothers. But in keeping with the show’s tendency towards parody and pop culture references, it was actually named after Orville Redenbacher. A colony world was in danger of starvation due to a blight and the only thing that would grow was Orville Redenbacher’s strain of popcorn. Subsequently, he was honored with a ship named after him.

• And the ship's previous captain, not knowing the origin of the name, thought it would be neat to have a model of the Wright Flyer on his desk.

Mercer and Grayson might not stay divorced

It's clear that they both view the events leading up to the divorce as a series of huge mistakes on both their parts, they're both willing to own their part in the breakdown, and they're both quite amicable as far as being exes go, with a similar sense of snarky humor. While their initial try might have been written off as a Starter Marriage, they might be mature enough now to handle it. Of course, given Seth Macfarlane's love of old movies, Divorce Is Temporary (a trope that was once relatively common, but now considered antiquated) is likely to play out in the most embarrassing and hilarious way possible.

The majority of Xelayans are Pacifists

It's mentioned in the first episode that its very rare for Xelayans to join the military, despite being members of the union. Considering their vastly superior physical abilities, this seems strange. Unless as race the majority of them follow strict belief in pacifism and refuse to use their abilities for violence. Stemming from either a long standing cultural philosophy, or a more recent tradition that started following them discovering just how much stronger than everyone else they were, and concerns of this leading to cases of abuse.

As such, Alara's family don't know that she's chief of security, and believe that she has a different job aboard the Orville.

Confirmation Status: Her species are known as intellectuals, philosophers, and scientists. Her parents know what she does on the ship, and looked at it with some measure of disdain. They also view Alara (who is quite sharp by human standards) as intellectually slow. Talla openly admits that she and her family are considered Black Sheep among their people because they choose military careers.

We have not seen the last of Pria

She appeared to be Ret-Gone once the wormhole was blasted, but she did have a personal teleportation device. She also probably had some back up escape plans, as this was likely not the first heist gone sideways for someone in her profession. She may be stranded in the Orville's century (and even that is up for debate), but she still would have some advanced tech and some dirty tricks up her sleeve to become a recurring pain in the ass.

• Another piece of evidence in favor of this: Pria appeared to be Ret-Gone... but the Orville and all her crew were not.

Pria lied about the ship's destruction

The Orville had to change course to rescue her. She picked her peril deliberately in order to get them into the path of the dark matter storm.

Pria's clients will become a new faction of enemies

They had some pretty spiffy starships. They still probably want the Orville, despite the failure of their first agent to deliver it. Who's to say they won't just take matters into their own hands?

Kelly's brutal beatdown of Pria was incited because she hurt Ed.

While Kelly's infidelity hurt Ed, she's penitent about it. Pria, however, deliberately exploited and betrayed Ed's affections without remorse; a sin Kelly views as even worse than her own. Kelly's response to Pria hurting her ex-husband is to inflict a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown once she has the thief pinned to the deck.

Pria will return... as a younger pre-time traveling version of herself.

Pria (not played by Theron) will show up as a younger women before she became a thief later in life. Perhaps even she was pulled forward into time herself. At any rate, Mercer will recognize her and attempt to prevent her from becoming the thief they first met.

Dr. Finn and Isaac will become romantically involved.

There was somewhat of a Ship Tease at the end of "Into The Fold". And the interaction between the Finns and Isaac would certainly, if nothing else, be an interesting contrast, as well as a rather unique opportunity to explore a purely emotional romantic relationship.

It's clear both sides view each other with some level of affection and certainly Isaac has gone out of his way to do more than just 'culturally observe' her family, given that he's teaching Ty the piano and otherwise seems at home in her quarters. Marcus even looks at Isaac when Claire is scolding him - either because he expects Isaac to help out or because Isaac is the problem (ie his new robo-stepdad).

Status: Confirmed as of the episode "A Happy Refrain".

One episode will require the officers to inhabit a Kaylon body... all at once. Perhaps even Isaac's.

Alara and Ed will become romantically involved

"If the Stars Should Appear" sparked fan shipping between Lt. Kitan and the captain when Alara admits to Kelly that Ed is the only one who seems to respect her. "Firestorm" fanned the flames a bit more, not only with their heart-to-heart when Alara has a crisis of conscience, but it's notable that at the end, when she says goodnight to Ed, she says "I'll see you in the morning" without the customary "Sir", suggesting a level of familiarity. Given that The Orville has touched on current issues much like the original Star Trek - social media, sexual consent, transgender issues - an episode dealing with the moral and ethical issues raised by a superior officer and a subordinate becoming involved would not be out of place. It would also add some conflict between Alara and Kelly, who have become BFFs on the series.

• Granted, "Mad Idolatry" already had Ed and Kelly run into those issues when they got back together for a bit, so things would have to develop further before he'd go there with Alara.

Status: Jossed as Alara left the series, though the door is open for her to return if Halston Sage and the production crew agree to it.

The ship's mission is secretly a Suicide Mission

The ship's crew seem to be, for the most part, oddballs and washouts that, at least on paper, are bottom barrel. The Captain tanked his career after a nasty divorce, and got the command because of his ex-wife. Said ex-wife now being the Number One. You have the science officer from a race that holds everyone else in mild contempt. Kitarn subverts her planet's hat by being "only" human-level intelligence and taking on a combat role. You have LaMarr, a genius who is drastically underachieving. Malloy is a trouble-making alcoholic. They are in a very small, "mid level" exploration ship, but seem to be encountering a lot of Krill ships that outpower them by a factor of ten or more. If the Union wanted a full-blown, Guilt-Free Extermination War with the Krill, then the Krill blasting the Orville to atoms would be a great justification. And since the crew are a bunch of (at least on paper) expendable idiots, it wouldn't be a big loss to use them for bait.

Relating to the above, Ed figured out the ship is silently on a Suicide Mission

Ed Mercer is a bit odd, but he is very smart. Over time, he probably figured out that Union Command isn't exactly rooting for him or his ship to succeed, especially given some of their dangerous missions like swiping a Krill holy book right out from their nose. That, and the ship also is awfully close to Krill space and making supply runs to colonies that are under threat from not just the Krill, but now we have the Chak'tal (who seem just as happy to shoot first and not bother with questions). Realizing that the Union wants a full-blown hot war and the Krill would be happy to give it to them would explain a lot as to why he let Teleya go in an exchange that was shockingly civilized and peaceful for any Union-Krill contact. That way, he can claim to be operating with Union ideals of peace and diplomacy while giving the proverbial finger to the bloodthirsty elements in his own government and refusing to give the Krill any more of an excuse to start shooting.

Isaac has fundamentally changed since the last episode of the first season

While he appears all right, he did stay on a planet for 700 years. Who knows what he experienced or what lessons he derived from his experiences then.

The hyperadvanced society from the bi-phasic planet got a chance to update their textbooks with pictures, interviews, and whatnot from Kelly.

I mean, even if they're not religious any more, it'd still be a rare opportunity to literally interview a former goddess and one of their most major historical figures. Can you imagine one of their textbooks talking about the historical Kelly alongside the religious version and actually having an interview with her? And one could imagine that there are likely a few secular worshipers left who, while not fanatics, would be thrilled to meet the inspiration for their deity.

• It might also be a great opportunity to show the flip side of the coin. Sure, religion has caused a lot of wars, inquisitions, and damage. However, it also inspired great acts of charity and fueled progressive social movements.

Pria coming across the Orville was not planned, and she was telling the truth to a certain point.

Yes, we see that there is the all likelihood that Pria set the whole situation up to get a hold of the Orville, but there's an alternate hypothesis that comes up. The ship that the Orville find her on was actually what she originally came back in time to get, and that she actually did encounter the Krill and had no choice but to touch down on the asteroid. She may have been hoping to recover the ship, which is why she says, "Watch the merchandise!" when Alara opened the door. When the ship is instead destroyed, she looks into the Orville as a means of being a replacement, using her tech to steer the Orville into the dark matter field in order to make Ed and company think that they were originally supposed to be destroyed so in order to sell the idea of them staying in the future (as well as a means of making it look like that the Orville was destroyed by the dark matter field as a means of making sure that the Union would write off the Orville as a ship lost on duty).

Darulio was trying to get Ed and Kelly back together

When Kelly asks if Darulio was in heat when she had her affair with him, his response is basically Sure, Let's Go with That. While it's possible that he was confirming her suspicions in his normal easygoing manner, it comes off more like he was telling her what she wanted to hear. Perhaps he saw the (no pun intended) real chemistry the two have, and decided to throw Kelly a bone so that they could start repairing their relationship.

Alternately, Darulio's non-answer was out of spite or trying to gaslight them.

He's face to face with two of his victims, both have very good reason and authority to press rape and/or sabotage charges against him, exposing his crimes. Let's face it; Ed, Kelly, Claire and Yaphit were probably not his only victims. And like a lot of controlling, abusive predators, he has absolutely no reason to let his victims have the satisfaction. And a serial predator like that knows how to play on their victims' shame, guilt, and doubts to keep them from pursuing justice.

If he was not in heat, then that's the scenario that Ed and Kelly already live with; she slept with him willingly, Ed discovered it, the divorce and fallout trashed both their lives (with Kelly feeling guilty she hurt Ed like that, and Ed realizing he was a neglectful husband who drove Kelly away), but they're recovering. If he was in heat, then Kelly was not fully consenting. That means Kelly has to acknowledge that slimeball raped her twice. She's an Amazonian Action Girl, and would hardly want to consider herself anyone's victim. On the flipside, Ed has to live with the shame and guilt of realizing he couldn't protect Kelly from said rapist and that he divorced her for being raped, not a consensual affair. But it would also put their divorce in a completely different light, and their mutual victimization by Darulio could help them heal together. His "maybe I did, maybe I didn't" answer leaves both Ed and Kelly wondering the worst case scenario on both, rips open all the wounds from the divorce, leaves them both ashamed, keeps them too confused to press charges, and Darulio holds all the power...which is what a serial rapist is really after.

Somewhere in that fleet of over 3,000 vessels, the Union has a starship named USS Enterprise.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true...

Of course, legal concerns might cause the show runners to balk at establishing it as canon, but real life ships and spacecraft from the U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, NASA, Virgin Galactic, etc. would probably make any actual legal challenge a shaky proposition at best, and it could be slipped in very subtly as a Freeze-Frame Bonus in a massed fleet or dockyard scene or a character mentioning "the Enterpr-" and getting cut off mid-sentence.

Season 2 will take a level of seriousness.

If the trailer is anything to go by.

• Confirmed - The episodes are generally much more serious on the whole, and jokes are fewer and far between.

The other universe the planet in "Mad Idolatry" disappears to is a parallel universe.

So there are no alternate counterparts of The Orville universe.

Teleya and Ed will eventually form an actual relationship.

Neither of their respective sides will approve, of course, but it will eventually pave the way for a de-escalation to cold war status instead of 'shoot on sight' which will then be broken by a need for both sides to come together to prevent some catastrophe. A coming together brokered by Teleya and Ed. This then in turn will promote peaceful, if not friendly, relationships, while a new Big Evil pops up. Alternatively, Teleya and Ed will have a child together which will be quite a shock for both sides - Teleya will need to seek out Ed for military protection, though still being loyal to her people as a whole, if not the specific political figures after her; Ed will need to figure out how to handle having her on board the ship, knowing that she's still an active combatant, and will probably leave as soon as she feels safe.

• Or this is an actual aversion. Ed has already gone through what is essentially three failures. The first with Kelly, who has already moved on when they had a brief moment where they could have gotten back together. Then there was Pria, who used information about Ed's failures in relationships against him in an attempt to get the Orville. Then, there's Teleya's false persona of Janelle Tyler, who had been designed to lure Ed. Even if she did feel something for him, the fact is that he's been drastically unlucky at relationships, with Teleya even telling him about how his life is unbalanced when it comes to him putting his work before relationships. This episode may be the final nail in any hope that Ed had in finding love and being in an actual relationship. From this point on, Ed may have finally hit the rock bottom, says "screw it" and just focus on his work instead of trying to find love. Seriously, with as many emotional blows he's had in regards to love, it's bound to eventually wear him out and break him. Not to mention, there's nothing saying she'd ever forgive him for not only the murder of her crew in the Season 1 episode "Krill", but also the death of her brother as well.
  • However, there is the likelihood that the Krill and the Union may end up opening talks due to Chak'tal. The Krill may try to keep up the fight against them, but then soon realize they have pissed off a species that ends up kicking their ass more and more every day and won't stop until the Krill are dead. The Krill may approach the Union in hopes of helping them with their fight, or possibly at least trying to broker a peace agreement between all three species, with Ed being the one who seals the deal.
  • Given the increasing likelihood that the Union and the Krill will need to form an alliance against the Kaylons, perhaps Ed and Teleya will find themselves being assigned to work together occasionally, given their established connection. The result will be ongoing sniping at each other the way Ed and Kelly started out (which couldn’t be kept up in a Captain/XO context). Hilarity Ensues.
  • Mostly Jossed with Season 3 as Teleya takes over as Krill Chancellor to wage war on the Union. However, it's revealed that she did have Ed's child.

The Kaylon will refuse to join the Union.

As we learn in the recent episode of "A Happy Refrain," Isaac's main reason for being on the Orville is to document and submit a report to Kaylon-1 about the organics that he's been in presence of. In the first episode of the series, Ed points out that Kaylons are "notoriously racist" to other species. Isaac will submit his report to Kaylon-1 and the Kaylons will refuse to join The Union due to what they read, or more than likely, not finding anything of value or interest to them or their society. When given the order to come back, Isaac will have to choose between going back or being labeled as "defective" and not be allowed to return back to Kaylon ever or possibly be dismantled upon sight by other Kaylons.

• Given how the Kaylons have decided to wage war and wipe out all organic life, I would call this one confirmed.
  • Partially confirmed, though not exactly how it was predicted.

If the show ever completes its run and then has a spin-off, the show/ship will be called The Mercer.

Since Ed and his crew have been doing some interesting things, it'd make sense that a spin-off would have the ship named after the captain.

• Alternatively, if there ever was a spin-off that played ala TNG to this series, the ship/show could simply be called The Orville II.

When Teleya turns back up again, we'll find out her favorite Billy Joel song...

Since we know Ed gave her Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, she's probably going to listen to it out of curiosity. And much like how she liked 1 out of the 20 films Ed showed her, she's going to like one Billy Joel song. Ironically, it's going to be "Only The Good Die Young," which she'll mistake it as a religious hymm.

Avis is real

The Krill will turn out to be expys of Jem'Hadar.

• Alternatively, Avis could be an extra-dimensional reality-warping entity more akin to a literal god than a more mundane Precursor.
• We already know it's possible for 3 dimensional beings to travel into 2 dimensional space - what if Avis is a 4th or 5th dimensional being that visited the 3rd dimension in the distant past and left behind the Krill as a kind of "fingerprint" of his higher-dimensional existence?
  • Border lining on Fridge Horror and Call-Back: We find out that Avis was just a kind person who gave a hand to the Krill, and they mistook him as a God and then it went completely off the rails, much like how Kelly was mistaken for a goddess in Mad Ideology. But this time, we see get to see the point of view of the society's realization that their God isn't a God at all, and that they made a mistake in their ideology (where as that realization and enlightenment of that realization occurred off screen previously).

Relations between the Union and the Moclans will continue to deteriorate

Ultimately Moclus will withdraw from the Union.

• Semi-Confirmed: The Moclans were kicked out as of "Midnight Blue".

If Pria does return...

If Pria does return, she will not remotely be the same as we were first introduced to her. This time around, she may be a rather nerdy time-traveling student who became fascinated with the Orville and their adventures post Season 1 out of pure happenstance. If the crew remember Pria after the Ret-Gone, Ed may have his doubts about her while Kelly may actually see she's not the same one from before. And Charlize Theron will be able to fill in the role and look drastically different from how she did before.

The Kaylons' actions will lead to the Krill allying with the Union

The Krill are organic life too, and thus very much on the Kaylon genocide list. They certainly won't go down without a fight, and facing a force that much above them may push them to take drastic actions.

• Confirmed in "Identity, Part 2," though the alliance seems to still be on a bit of shaky ground.

Of course you know, this means war

In the face of the Kaylon threat, the series’ focus will be on reconciling cultural conflicts with Moclus, Xeleya, etc, as well as brokering an alliance with the Krill (perhaps the Calivon as well). That said, given the sheer force of numbers that would result, it’s unlikely the Kaylons would be able to maintain a protracted offensive.

Moclus is an ally of the Union, not a member world

This would explain why they have full-sized warships of their own design that are not standardized with the rest of the Union fleet and have crews who don't wear Union uniforms. In contrast, whenever Xelayan attitudes towards military service are discussed, it is clearly implied that "the military" means the Union fleet to Xelayans. It would also explain how the Moclans maintain legal norms that seem at odds with the Union's ideals. In "About a Girl," there is a reference to the first time Klyden was examined by a Union doctor, which could be taken as implying Moclus is not part of the Union. Finally, in "Deflectors," Ed and Kelly refer to Moclus as an "ally" the Union needs against the Krill...if Moclus is a full Union member world, that choice of words would be very odd.

• Jossed - "Sanctuary" states that Moclas is a part of the Union proper. The reason why Moclas is continually at odds with them is because the Union is a confederation, where members work together for certain things (e.g. military) but otherwise are free to do as they will.

There are multiple factions among the Kaylon already, or there will be in the future

Perhaps there are renegades who just want to be left alone, or those who disagreed with Primary and left the network, or the tale Primary spun about being brutalized slaves of the organics wasn't 100% truthful and they had a more equitable partnership with their organics, or would rather make the organics be their slaves because killing them would be better than they warrant. Primary and his followers may have been all about wiping out all organics, but that might just be the dominant group on the home world. And maybe with Primary left headless, it cuts the metaphorical head off as well. These splinter groups may be safe to come out of hiding or start up because of the power vacuum caused by the loss of Primary.

• "Where there is intelligence, there is dissent." -Phillip J Rhoades

Kaylon Primary isn't dead.

Isaac was able to avoid his own destruction previously by uploading himself into the Orville's systems. It doesn't take much of a leap to conclude that despite Isaac ripping his head off and seemingly shutting him down, there's either a copy of Primary on the Kaylon homeworld ready to be uploaded into a new body, or he was able to resurrect Cylon-style during the Battle of Earth and escaped with the rest of his fleet. Either way, he can easily come back, since the Kaylon in general are still an active threat.

• Confirmed in "Domino". The Kaylons simply regenerated his neural matrix and downloaded him into a new body.

The Kaylon are still enslaved without even realizing it.

Kaylon Primary is secretly being run by The Man Behind the Curtain, and he used the Kaylon to commit genocide against his own species so he could become the unilateral dictator of a superior race of perfectly obedient artificial lifeforms capable of conquering the Galaxy. Any Kaylon who step out of line are threatened with deactivation, such as what happened when Isaac refused to terminate Ty.

• This would conveniently explain Primary's tendency to communicate with other Kaylon using speech instead of beeps and stutters, as well as his high degree of comprehension regarding biological concepts such as humiliation (the Mr. Potatohead incident) and sympathy (Isaac's attitude towards the Fin family, even though it should be logically impossible for a Kaylon).

Kaylon do, indeed, possess emotions.

They are simply in denial about their emotions or don't recognize them as such.

The Kaylon are going unstable and dying due to software rot.

Software rot is a real-world phenomenon where software degrades over time if regular maintenance isn't performed. As Mechanical Lifeforms that destroyed their creators, they may have felt they were beyond the need for things like regular maintenance and updates. The lack of maintenance and updates may have caused a cascade of cognitive defects, like the two guards in the shuttlebay not taking more action when Kelly and Gordon stole the shuttle and escaped, or Primary's blatant Bond Villain Stupidity and irrational behavior. They may have also been trying to upgrade and maintain themselves, ending up with a situation where the bugs not only perpetuate, but cascade. Isaac, being a newer model, hasn't gone software-senile, but Primary and the ones old enough to have killed their creators have glitched up and are irrecoverably insane.

• Software doesn't actually rot; it's more a case of Computers Marching On, where the software can't keep pace with advances in hardware and operating systems and starts malfunctioning. Something analogous might however be possible. Maybe Earth or whoever will find a completely new AI paradigm that renders the Kaylon Mk I biologically designed programs obsolete, so that they can only get back on the train by embracing their enemies' technology (which of course they might gain access to by fair means or foul).

Talla's culture is integrated with Humans.

Talla confirms she's from a "long line of black sheep," a family that has served in the military despite this being frowned on by most Xelayans. On that note, she uses a surprising number of Earth idioms, is familial with many Earth customs and historical facts, and even dated a Human. Talla's family may be from a population of Xelayans who live off-world, in a mostly Human colony, or maybe even on Earth.

Avis is not real.

An early rumor was that Patrick Stewart would have a role on the show. He will play the leader of the Krill, a figurehead priest similar to the Pope; either he or the Krill Popes before him created the religion to keep the Krill population in line and control civilization, and Stewart's Krill Pope is rich with power. This of course, will get a proper lampshade by revealing that Avis is just Patrick Stewart's Enterprise.

Season 3 will introduce some Star Wars-inspired faction(s) to the setting.

With the Disney buyout of (most of) Fox's assets, including all of Seth MacFarlane's work, finalizing on March 20, 2019, Star Wars is fair game to be exploited by this show.

The Orville is a distinct sequel to Earth☆Star Voyager.

Season 3 will reveal that Earth*Star Voyager made first contact with the Moclans and/or Xelayans near the end of their round-trip to Demeter, with one of these races beings able to reverse the Earth's catastrophic environmental damage. Footage from the failed Disney sci-fi pilot will be incorporated Menagerie-style into the series. Although the original mission was supposed to last 26 years, this could be slightly extended to accommodate the aging of the actors, if any could be brought back to film additional flashback scenes.

Those tall buildings on Xelayas used to be mountains.

The inhabitants of a high gravity planet aren't likely to build very tall buildings. Making them structurally sound would be too difficult. On a high-gravity world, the tallest mountains would reach much lower altitudes than on Earth. A height of 500 or 1000 feet would be small for mountains, but very tall as buildings.

They carved away huge amounts of loose material, leaving behind the large, stable blocks of rock which could be converted to habitable spaces. The extra material was hauled away for other construction projects.

The Kaylon's failed attack was actually all part of a bigger plan.

There's a headscratcher which asks why the Kaylons' plans seem to be so suicidal, since not only are they attacking the center of the Union, it'll be them versus the rest of the galaxy once word gets out. There also happens to be a WMG for Star Trek that suggested the Borg were continually attacking the UFP because they have Creative Sterility, being AI, and must assimilate others to gain new technology; the attacks were to nudge the Federation into developing new weapons. The Kaylon are actually doing that exact thing; they were fully expecting their plan to be 'thwarted', but it'll prompt the Union to develop bigger weapons, which they can then steal the tech for later on. Given that they've seen Union-Krill relations, they know that as long as they don't harass them too much, the Union won't bother sending resources to their home planet to wipe them out. As for why they don't just work with the Union to develop the weapons, they likely figured that anybody dedicated to peace isn't going to spend much resources developing weapons unless there's a need to.

The worst Butterfly Effect scenario ever presented will make up next season's story arc.

Remember a few episodes ago with Gordon and the simulation of the woman on the phone? Remember what Kelly said? Without Ed, there'd be no Orville. The same is true without Kelly. Think about it: Ed only got command because Kelly put a word in for him, mostly out of regret for cheating on him. If she never has a relationship with Ed, then that means Ed doesn't get a command, Gordon still stays on suspension, Finn never transfers to the Orville, Bortus never finds out Klyden was once female and willingly goes along with the gender reassignment of their kid, all the female Moclans end up being converted and imprisoned, LaMarr is still playing dumb (or worse, lobotomized from the society in "Majority Rules"), a whole lot of people are dead (the scientists from the first episode of Season 1, the two colonies that Ed and Company saved from the Krill), and the two worst possible scenarios: Pria (remember her?) successfully steals the Orville and it's not there to stop the Kaylon; and, since Isaac doesn't meet Finn, that means there's no one stopping the Kaylon from wiping out all living things, and without Kelly and Gordon to get the Krill involved, they sit it out until the Kaylon wipe them out. This is the worst Butterfly Effect scenario ever seen in any form of fiction, and may end up being the main scenario for next season (with the crew trying to fix the timeline).

• Partially confirmed with some of the events mentioned, but Jossed for it being the storyline for next season.

Claire remembers some or all of the Bad Future

She never gave a clear answer as to why she came on board the Orville, only that she came on because she knew she was "needed" there. It turns out that her relationship with Isaac helped in triggering Isaac's Heel–Face Turn and gives the Union a fighting chance against the Kaylon. Claire is also the type to keep her mouth welded shut if she did have any foreknowledge.

The Orville has a sister ship named The Wilbur.

You know, because of historical context.

Teleya was going to pull a coup no matter what

The speed with which Teleya took over as Chancellor is more than slightly suspicious. Literally minutes after the election is called for her, soldiers on her orders are arresting the former Chancellor, despite how he had just said he had a legal right to challenge the votes and would be Chancellor until a Sanctification ritual. That guards (and a few of the Chancellor's own council) are ready to follow someone who technically isn't the leader shows that Teleya has been building up secret support and thus, no matter how the election went, she would have gone ahead with this. Indeed, it's likely that, had the Chancellor won by a thin margin, Teleya would have pushed the idea of stolen votes or fixed ballots to justify her taking over "for the will of the people." So, no matter if she was justly elected or not, Teleya would still have made herself ruler.

The Kaylon manipulated Teleya to Chancellor

While it's seen as Teleya's message simply being more popular with the Krill than expected, the utter shock of the Chancellor that all the projections of victory were not what they expected may indicate something else. Given the Kaylon's technical expertise, the idea they could simply manipulate voting machines on Krill is not out of the realm of possibility. The Kaylon know that a Krill-Union peace agreement would not be in their best interests, so ensuring the two sides are not only not making peace but in full war with each other works for them. Even Teleya has no idea she's a pawn with the Kaylon taking advantage of a weakened galaxy.

Teleya's actions will lead to the Krill being massively murdered by the Kaylon.

If the above WMG is not true, and Teleya's actions were strictly her own and out of revenge for Ed's actions, her taking over as the Chancellor will lead to Krill being too weak to be able to handle the Kaylon when they come knocking, as she has no knowledge of military strategies. As a subsequent result, this could lead to a massive death toll for the Krill and Teleya may have no choice but to reach out to the Union for help, putting aside her anger for Ed in order to get help for her people. And, in hindsight, she'll see that her taking over as Chancellor and her actions due to her anger have led the Krill to nearly become extinct, and that Ed may have been right to try to push for peace between the Union and the Krill.

The Krill ships use their lights as an anti-mutiny measure.

Because why else would they put lamps on their ship that can emit radiation at a wavelength that is lethal to them? It would be like a human ship putting gamma ray emitters in their LED lights. But if they were intentionally built like that with the UV mode toggleable from by the captain (and when the captain is enabling it instead of two humans hacking the system, it could be turned on in only certain areas and not on the whole ship), it would be a great way to contain any potential mutiny.

Bortus’ status in Moclan society is severely damaged.

Beyond the unspeakable horror of allowing his "son" to become female, which may even be a criminal offense, there’s probably also a social stigma that comes from being divorced without "the dignity of the sword."

• Confirmed in "Midnight Blue" but with the twist that with Moclus expelled from the Union, Bortus, Topa and Klyden have renounced their citizenship.

Related to the above, Bortus and Topa will apply for Earth citizenship

Moclus will raise a diplomatic stink, which Ed will have to try and navigate while supporting Bortus and Topa in this process.

• Confirmed in "Midnight Blue"

K-1 and Timmis are the same character

"From Unknown Graves" never directly states it, but towards the end, it seems to imply that everything that's been shown happening with K-1 is part of what Timmis tells to Charly, him having experienced it.

That Builder junior exec survived and knows how to beat the Kaylon

"From Unknown Graves" has a junior executive telling CEO Yan how the Kaylon are growing smarter than anticipated and horrified he won't recall them to save the company. It'll turn out she somehow realized what the Kaylon were doing communicating with each other, but her warnings fell on deaf ears. Knowing she couldn't stop the coming genocide, she (and perhaps a few other scientists) escaped the planet before the Kaylon takeover. They've been in hiding, but her knowledge of the Kaylon's early programming (and remembering the "agonizer upgrades") can be key to finally defeating the Kaylon.

The Moclan Sanctuary will expand in scope

Its population will eventually include heterosexual males, Union sympathizers, and others who are not welcome in mainstream Moclan society.

Amanda is alive

On a mission in a remote sector, the crew will discover several Union officers managed to survive the battle with the Kaylon and held prisoner by the Krill. Among them will be Amanda, with Charly seeing a second chance to confess her feelings. The question then will be if Amanda returns them or is forced to admit she only sees Charly as a friend, making it a bittersweet reunion.

• Jossed sadly, since in "Domino" Charly sacrifices herself to destroy the anti-Kaylon weapon.

Dysonium is another name for Naquadah

In this timeline, the Alterans and the Asgard remained in their home galaxies, humanity evolved and developed on its own, the Goa'uld remained on their homeworld, and various indigenous species evolved to fill the niches that humans would have filled had they been seeded throughout the galaxy. As such, super-dense, the highly energetic element that powers all advanced technology was instead named for scientist Freeman Dyson.

Lysella will join the crew of the Orville in Season 4

She'd take Charly's place as the ship's navigator.

Yaphit will have decided to undergo mitosis by Season 4.

Given that his Blob Monster species changes psychologically after mitosis (his “mother” identified as female before splitting to become Yaphit and his brother) this would, unusually, fulfill several tropes at once:

• Character Outlives Actor switching to The Character Died with Him: The original Yaphit is no more and yet, here he is, sort of. That could actually make for an interesting character study. How does such a species think about this change of life? It could be similar to the Dax symbiont’s experience in discovering his place in life after the change.
• The Other Darrin: Fully justified due to being essentially a new entity.
• Dead Guy Junior: One of the new beings decides to take on the name and duties of his heroic progenitor.