Part of Star Trekclassic Tribbles intro Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 15, “The Trouble With Tribbles”, was created by Star Trek: Discovery. In “The Trouble With Tribbles”, the crew of Captain James T. Kirk’s (William Shatner) USS Enterprise encounters the crew of Klingon Captain Koloth (William Campbell) on the K-7 space station. Instead of attacking the station, the Klingons claim to want to get off the coast. A Klingon plot to sabotage the Federation settlement on Sherman’s Planet is revealed and subsequently thwarted when an outbreak of mass replicating Tribbles consumes a shipment of poisoned quadrotriticale grains destined for the colony.
Star Trek: The Original SeriesThe incident at K-7 alerts Kirk to a very important fact: Klingons don’t like Tribbles and Tribbles don’t like Klingons. This mutual hatred points to the true mastermind of the poisoned quadrotriticale: Arne Darvin (Charlie Brill), assistant to the Federation’s undersecretary in charge of agriculture. Tribbles doesn’t seem to like Mr. Darvin very much, leading to the correct assumption that Arne Darvin is actually a Klingon spy. This explanation worked Terms of Service days when Klingons looked more human, but as Klingons became more alien, a better explanation for Darvin’s appearance was needed.
Star Trek: Discovery Sets Up the TOS Classic “The Trouble With Tribbles”
Star Trek: Discovery provides a retroactive setting for Arne Darvin as a Klingon spy in Star Trek: The Original Series‘ classic episode, “The Trouble With Tribbles”. About ten years before Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 Lieutenant Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) is, like Darvin, a Klingon spy who has been surgically altered to appear human. Tyler was once Voq, the torchbearer of the Klingon leader T’Kuvma (Chris Obi), who dreamed of uniting the Empire. After T’Kuvma’s death, Voq is willing to sacrifice himself”all“, and is thus transformed into Tyler.
The truth about Ash Tyler’s identity as Voq is revealed in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, episode 11, “The Wolf Inside.”
Star Trek: Discovery portrays Voq’s transformation into human Starfleet officer Ash Tyler as a painful and irreversible process. Although Starfleet can transform humans into aliens using short-term DNA manipulation, the Klingon version of the same procedure, called choH’a’, is brutal and invasive. Klingon physiology is so different from that of humans, with multiple redundant organs, that Voq’s bones and internal organs were broken down and rebuilt. before the memories of a very real Lt. Tyler were superimposed on Voq’s. To pass as human, Darvin must have undergone the same gruesome procedure.
Star Trek: DS9 Explains What Happened to TOS’ Klingon Infiltrator
Arne Darvin still pretends to be human in the 24th century
The fate of Star Trek: The Original Series’ The Klingon infiltrator, Arne Darvin, is explained in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 6, “Trials and Tribble-ations.” When Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the crew of the USS Defiant take the Bajoran Orb of Time from Cardassia Prime, Arne Darvin falsely poses as a Federation citizen trapped on Cardassia after the start of the Cardassian-Klingon War. Darvin plans to use the orb to get revenge on Captain Kirk by time traveling back to that fateful day on K-7. and planting an explosive Tribble in the middle of the lot.
Like other actors who reprized their roles as Star Trek: The Original Series Klingons in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Charlie Brill returns to play Darvin in “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Because Arne Darvin failed so spectacularly in carrying out Tribble’s plot to take the Planet from Sherman, the Klingon Empire refused to take Darvin back, and The Klingon operation that transformed Arne Darvin into a human in the 23rd century was not reversed. The same is true for Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discoverywho abandoned the life he knew as Voq and joined Starfleet Section 31.