Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) paid her dues and earned the right to join the elite team of Star Trek captains, so how exactly did she make it so far when her beginning was so rough? Building a redemption arc is par for the course in any franchise. Viewers love when a character makes bad choices, struggles to make up for them, and comes out the other side better than when they started. Star Trek: Discovery introduced viewers to Michael Burnham when the United Federation of Planets was on the verge of war with the Klingon Empire. She defied her superiors and was branded a mutineer in the process of advocating for violence when others saw peace as the best option.
Burnham’s career as a Starfleet officer was later peppered with similar moral quandaries. She was often left standing alone in her convictions, but her willingness to stand strong in the face of adversity is what ultimately made her captain material. Burnham refused to stand down when life got tough. At the same time, part of her growth as a character meant learning how to slow down and take time to weigh her options before taking dramatic leaps. While it wasn’t an easy lesson, it was a necessary one for the headstrong young officer.
Michael Burnham, the Mutineer
Star Trek: Discovery revealed Burnham’s background as having been adopted by Sarek (James Frain) and Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner), the parents of the famous Mr. Spock. It’s hard to tell which was more shocking: that she was Spock’s (Ethan Peck) foster sister, or that she was a human raised on Vulcan. Burnham may have lacked the pointed ears, but she was just as dedicated to the pursuit of logic as her peers on the planet. This didn’t negate her emotional human side. Rather, it gave her two parts of herself to pull from while convincing Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) to take offensive action against a seemingly rogue Klingon ship they came across in Federation space.
Burnham tried using reason to convince Georgiou that the USS Shenzhou needed to attack first in season 1, episode 1, “The Vulcan Hello.” When that didn’t work, she used emotional pleas to get her colleagues to understand the importance of swift action. Then Burnham got desperate enough to use a Vulcan neck pinch on Georgiou and attempt to commandeer the USS Shenzhou herself. She was trying to get the Starfleet ship to fire the first shot to establish dominance before they were seen as weak, a death knell in any interaction with Klingons. Georgiou was killed in the process. For a while, it seemed like Burnham would never be seen as anything but the mutineer who started the war with the Klingons.
Michael Burnham Gets a Second Chance
Six months later, Burnham was being transported between prison facilities when the USS Discovery rescued her ship in season 1, episode 4, “Context is for Kings.” She ended up temporarily stationed in Engineering alongside Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp).
It seemed like a happy accident at first. Then it was eventually revealed that Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) had ulterior motives for accepting Burnham into his science vessel. He was working with Stamets to develop the Displacement-Activated Spore Hub Drive, also known as the spore drive, using morally dubious tactics involving a tardigrade named Ripper.
Lorca expected Burnham to be a wild child with a passion for breaking the rules just because she could. Even Discovery viewers and other crew members expected her to be angry, malicious, and eager to make trouble. Instead, Burnham got to reveal her compassion, respect for Starfleet, and her genuine desire to do good. Lorca’s misconception gave viewers the chance to see Burnham’s actions as those of someone desperate to give her colleagues a fighting chance. She wasn’t a reckless criminal acting out of a desire for chaos. In fact, it was her respect for Starfleet that pushed her to make the hard call and put her career on the line while trying to save lives. This was only the beginning of her heart shining stronger than her past mistakes.
Michael Burnham’s Redemption Arc
Burnham’s arc throughout Discovery has mostly been about the small moments that showed her in a more positive light. She pushed back against the immoral use of a sentient being, stood up for what she saw was right even when she stood alone, and was there for her crew. She let go of her own ego and learned to trust others. She fell in love with Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) and later with Cleveland Booker (David Ajala), and allowed herself to be vulnerable.
Burnham’s arc has also been about the bigger moments. She gave up everything to protect the galaxy from a threat assessment AI system known as Control. She was vital to figuring out what caused the Burn, a galaxy-wide breakdown in warp cores that killed millions of Starfleet officers. Then in season 3, episode 13, “That Hope is You (Part II),” Burnham helped take down the Orion crime syndicate by killing the leader Osyraa (Janet Kidder). The sheer level of bold effectiveness finally put her in the captain’s chair, and it wasn’t the end of her dynamic story. Eventually, she took the USS Discovery crew beyond the Galactic Barrier and literally went where no one had gone before.
Many viewers have argued that Burnham is a Mary Sue. They claim that she does what she wants and never faces consequences. Yet, her entire development as a character has put her face-to-face with how her actions affect others. She was forced to reckon with how her mutiny impacted Starfleet (even if she was in the right). Her interactions with individual crew members were a constant reminder of her choices impacted them – for better and for worse. There was rarely a moment in which Burnham wasn’t being reminded of her faults.
Like many captains before her, she continued to confront her own mistakes even after earning the conn. Burnham’s road to the captain’s chair wasn’t without flaws, challenges, and major bumps in the road. The point is that she persevered through the toughest storms and came out the other side a better version of herself. Burnham became a captain by fortifying herself as a leader and carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. However, she became one of the best captains in Star Trek by learning to wield her strengths with grace and trust her team to keep up with her.