Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 ending explained - What is Pike's final decision about the future?

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, the highly riveting sci-fi prequel series to The Original Series, has come to an end with the exhilarating and quite emotionally heavy Episode 10, which made its debut this Thursday, July 7, 2022, exclusively on Paramount+.

The official synopsis for Season 1, released by Paramount Plus, states:

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is based on the years Captain Christopher Pike manned the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The series will feature fan favorites from season two of Star Trek: Discovery - Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. The series will follow Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Number One in the years before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they explore new worlds around the galaxy."

The intriguing cast list for Strange New Worlds Season 1 entails Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One, Ethan Peck as Spock, Christina Chong as La'an Noonien-Singh, Babs Olusanmokun as M'Benga, Jess Bush as Christine Chapel, Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas, and several others.

Episode 10 has been titled, 'A Quality of Mercy' and Chris Fisher has served as the director of the final episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1. Since its arrival, the finale has already started to get a lot of positive attention from both critics and the audience for ending on such a thrilling note.

Without further delay, let's delve deep and find out how the ending of Strange New Worlds Season 1 has turned out.

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The ending of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 explained

What did Captain Christopher Pike finally decide regarding the future?

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 sees Captain Pike getting visited by a version of himself from the future. Future Captain Pike is seen displaying the current Captain Pike a glimpse of an alternate reality by utilizing the Klingon time crystal.

In an alternate reality, Pike is seen unscathed in the dreadful 2266 incident, which would leave him stuck in a wheelchair, completely distorted. This reality will still have Pike as the Captain of the Enterprise, while Captain James T. Kirk will become the Captain of the USS Farragut.

Throughout the entire Season 1, Pike was seen dreading the terrifying accident that will happen to him in the future. Captain Pike confided his worries regarding the future to Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley and Spock. Meanwhile, Number One was seen arguing that Chris has the potential to change it.

Future Captain Pike's timeline shows that Captain Pike will face the 'Romulan Bird-of-Prey' and will survive through the horrifying incidents of the epic The Original Series episode, titled 'Balance of Terror.'

However, Captain Pike's noble approach to making peace with the Romulans wound up in absolute mayhem and started a destructive war that would go on for decades and have a direful impact on the whole galaxy.

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Pike is seen finding out the inevitable nature of his future, and if a dreadful tragedy does not happen to him, it will come upon Spock, leading to devastating consequences for the entire galaxy as Spock is arguably the most important person for future events.

Pike is seen discovering that Una was indeed right about changing his future, however, it will have alarming effects, especially on Spock. The letter Captain Pike intended to send to the son of Commander Hansen Al-Salah regarding the future is the very beginning point of future destructive events.

The finale episode sees Pike deleting the letter so that the Prime timeline continues the way it is meant to. Hence, Captain Pike accepts his future the way he saw it in his vision of Boreth.

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Don't forget to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 finale, which arrived on Thursday, July 7, 2022, on Paramount+.