Medical genius in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 from Nurse Christine Chapel
Third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds pays homage to the genius of Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), a recurrent character from the first two seasons. A first-look clip of season 3 released at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 shows Nurse Chapel treating a group of crew members—including Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Commander Pelia (Carol Kane), and herself—with a novel treatment.
Designed by Nurse Chapel, this "jury-rigged" serum seeks to momentarily convert these humans into Vulcans so they may covertly enter a Vulcan civilization. Inspired by Star Trek: The Original Series, where Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) underwent surgical transformation into a Romulan in the season 3 episode "The Enterprise Incident," this habit of surgically transforming Starfleet officials into aliens originated.
Legacy of Surgical Alien Alteration
Particularly during the initial contact missions of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation, this approach was increasingly popular in Star Trek's 24th century. Maintaining Starfleet's Prime Directive required surgical alien change. Still, the exact techniques used by Starfleet stayed unknown until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revealed the sources of such changes.
Pioneer of Surgical Alien Transformation: Nurse Chapel
Nurse Christine Chapel debuted the technique of medically transforming Starfleet officials into aliens in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 1. Nurse Chapel grabbed the chance to carry out an experimental process she had developed when Captain Pike, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, and Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) needed to pass as natives of Kylie279 to rescue Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) from a failed first contact mission.
At least superficially, Chapel's technology quickly and profoundly changed an individual's genes to prevent detection as an alien by the pre-warp Kiley. Though transient, this process fundamentally changed the person's genetic composition. For the good of the mission, Nurse Chapel was authorized to experiment with the genetic structure of the Enterprise crew even though genetic augmentation is forbidden inside the Federation.
Nurse Chapel's knowledge of pre-warp civilization exploration brought her onto the Enterprise. She actively participated in a program aimed at engaging pre-warp civilizations without generating cultural contamination while a civilian on loan from the Stanford Morehouse Epigenetic Project. Her fit for her position on the Enterprise was thus very distinctive.
Refining and replication: Kerkhovian Serum of Nurse Chapel
Nurse Chapel says in the season 3 clip that the Kerkhovian serum initially developed in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 5, "Charades" forms the basis of the treatment meant to turn the Enterprise team into Vulcans. Mistooking Spock's half-Vulcan physiology as a fault, the Kerkhovians were kindly trying to restore Chapel and Spock's health following a shuttle disaster. Their assistance unintentionally brought Spock back in his totally human form.
The Kerkhovians gave Chapel a serum able to restore Vulcan DNA when she pointed out this mistake. By effectively copying this drug, Nurse Chapel changed the Enterprise crew.
The fact that Nurse Chapel is keen to reverse-engineer the Kerkhovian serum and test it on the team and herself highlights her will to challenge medical knowledge. She surely savored the chance to investigate this foreign method, contrasting it with her own creation and looking for enhancements.
Although the trailer implies that Pike, La'an, Uhura, and Chapel might be stranded as Vulcans longer than expected, Nurse Chapel's genius promises that the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds crew will be human once more in due course.
