Thanks to San Diego Comic-Con, we know quite a bit more about Star Trek‘s next new series, Starfleet Academy. We got a teaser trailer and character details—and the show’s cast and creators took to the Hall H stage to share even more hints about what’s to come.
Though Paul Giamatti—who portrays the show’s “half-Klingon, half-Tellerite” villain, a blend clarified by executive producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman—was not in attendance, Holly Hunter, who plays Academy chancellor Captain Nahla Ake, took the stage along with her “students,” played by Sandro Rosta, Karim Diané, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, and Bella Shepard. Kurtzman’s fellow executive producer and co-showrunner Noga Landau was also on hand.
“It’s set in the 32nd century, so it takes place in a time right after the Burn,” Landau explained, referencing a catastrophic event fans of Star Trek: Discovery will know very well. “It’s a time of rebuilding, and it’s a time when the generation of Starfleet cadets that you’re going to meet here—the world has to be fixed, and a lot of the responsibility [for] that lies on their shoulders. It was a very intentional choice because a lot of the generation who’s alive right now, who would be going to Starfleet Academy, if there was a Starfleet Academy, that’s a similar thing to what they would be going through.”
Added Kurtzman, “We looked at the generation now that is inheriting all this division and all these major issues, and what we felt was that we wanted to create a show that anchored us back to [Gene] Roddenberry’s essential vision of hope. How do you find it? How do you rebuild it? This is the first Academy class back after 120 years of a closed Starfleet. They have a tremendous amount on their shoulders, and their mission is to reinstate the original vision of Star Trek. And it’s really exciting to also have all these teachers who are really, really fun. Our rule on the show was that the teachers have to be as interesting and as fun as the cadets.”
At the top rung is, of course, Hunter’s authority figure. “It was really interesting to get the offer to be the captain, but then also to combine that with being the chancellor—it was just an interesting dichotomy and challenge because the captain is there to command, to analyze in emergency situations, and then to delegate. And the chancellor is there to guide, to collaborate, and have tremendous empathy,” the Oscar winner said. “So it was just a wonderful combination of things that it brought out in me, in all of us. I mean, each relationship that I have with each of you [actors playing the students] is so particular and so private. That’s the cool thing about the show—[its] massive scale combined with this incredible intimacy that we all have with each other and an intimacy that we all had as a group. So yeah, it was a privilege.”
We’ll get to know the younger characters better once Starfleet Academy arrives, but two among the cast seem to have particularly intriguing roles. Sandro Rosta’s Caleb is described as a “troubled orphan” in his official character description; he also happens to be human, seemingly one of few humans among Starfleet Academy‘s core cast.
“Caleb starts off in a different place from the other cadets,” Rosta explained. “He starts off being disillusioned by Starfleet. He’s grown up without an institution or institutional help for 13 years, so he’s been surviving on his own. He’s been on the run for his entire life; [he’s an] outsider [who is] introduced to Starfleet’s values of connection, community, working together for a higher purpose to better yourself as a group, not just as an individual—that was what was special about Caleb. […] You’re going to be entering Starfleet through the eyes of this outsider, and it was an honor to play that role.”
Kerrice Brooks—who became emotional watching the Starfleet Academy teaser for the first time, which immediately endeared her to the entire Hall H audience—co-stars as Sam, “aka Series Acclimation Mil, the first member of her species, the Kasqians, to sign up for Starfleet,” according to the official description.
“I’m a hologram,” is how Brooks described Sam. “Sam is programmed to feel a certain age, but she was literally only created like weeks ago. So she’s like a newborn; everything is so fresh to her.”
Kurtzman stepped in at the end to offer a few parting insights to the crowd. “I’m sure there’s been some questions about the trailer,” he said, “[including] why is there a ship that’s landing in San Francisco? And the answer is, the school is a ship, and it’s part of the campus in San Francisco. So they go to class in San Francisco, in the ship. And because resources are lighter in the 32nd century, think of it like a teaching hospital: the ship gets deployed with the fleet in a real-life situation so they can learn in the field.”
“So this is not just theoretical classrooms. You’re going to see Star Trek episodes where we meet new species, episodes that are about diplomacy. You’ll see episodes where these cadets, who are not yet captains, are learning who they are and how they fit into Starfleet. They can make mistakes in ways that if you’re already a captain or if you are already in Starfleet, you really can’t. So these characters get to do unique things in that way.”
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy hits Paramount+ in early 2026.
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