The “Strange New Worlds” finale is pretty much a retelling of the original series episode “Balance of Terror.” It shows exactly what would happen if Pike was still captaining the Enterprise during a fateful encounter with a Romulan warship, in lieu of his successor, James T. Kirk. This new reality manifests when Pike feels compelled to warn a future Starfleet cadet, Maat Al-Salah, about the accident that will claim his life. This prompts an appearance from an older version of Pike, one from an alternate future.

Older-Pike is sent by the Klingon Timekeepers to stop Prime-Pike from making a huge mistake, one that might save a few lives (including his own), but lead to millions of deaths down the line. With the help of a Klingon time crystal, Pike is catapulted seven years into the future to live out his own version of “Balance of Terror.” It’s clear he’s been sent forward to a crucial moment for the Enterprise, one where his decision-making skills could change the course of history, possibly for the worse.

The original series episode begins harmlessly enough, with Kirk performing a wedding ceremony between two enterprise crew members, Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson. The Enterprise is also en route to Outpost 4, one of the eight patrol outposts that monitor the Neutral Zone between Federation Space and Romulan Territory. Notably, Pike is actually in the midst of retrofitting these outposts at the very beginning of “Quality of Mercy.” The Enterprise soon receives a distress call from Outpost 4, which sends the ship into red alert … and takes Pike off the hook from officiating the same wedding ceremony.