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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Discovery, and thus may contain spoilers.
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Laira Rillak was a female Human, Bajoran, and Cardassian hybrid who lived during the late 32nd century. She served for many years as a Federation politician, before she was elected president of the rebuilding United Federation of Planets in 3190.
Early life[]
Rillak was part-Human on her mother's side, though her mother never saw Earth in her lifetime. (DIS: "...But to Connect")
Though she was not in Starfleet, she felt that serving on her father's cargo ship had given her a resilience for rough space travel. In those travels, she had become familiar with the Kobayashi Maru scenario, and the lessons of command it was intended to teach. (DIS: "Kobayashi Maru")
Rillak was the Federation's top ambassador for twenty years before assuming the presidency. (DIS: "The Galactic Barrier")
President of the Federation[]
In 3190, President Rillak addressed the first group of Starfleet Academy cadets in over a hundred years and also unveiled Archer Spacedock. Shortly after, she accompanied Captain Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery on a mission to Deep Space Repair Beta Six and Kwejian. (DIS: "Kobayashi Maru")
Later that year, President Rillak arranged a joint mission between Starfleet and the Qowat Milat to track down a rogue sister named J'Vini who had murdered Commander Patrick Fickett while stealing dilithium from the USS Credence. After the mission's success, she authorized the extradition of J'Vini to Ni'Var, reasoning that allowing the former Federation founding world to prosecute one of their own would increase the likelihood that they would ultimately rejoin. (DIS: "Choose to Live")
Having come to the end of a four month negotiation process, President Rillak, ready to welcome Ni'Var back into the Federation, was slipped Intel by President T'Rina of a possible derailment of the union between the two interstellar powers. With the threat of the DMA igniting post-burn fears on Ni'Var, President T'Rina, under pressure from her political base, was moved to insist on an unprecedented exit clause at the tail end of the talks to appease the desire for a logical framework of protective measures to prevent similar circumstances that led to Ni'Var's earlier exit from the Federation. Refusing to accept terms that would result in a weaker and less cohesive Federation, President Rillak maneuvered circumstances for Captains Burnham and Saru to be in attendance. After hinting at her desire for Burnham and Saru to come up with a third party solution, she and President T'Rina came back to the table, and with the third party solution in place due to Burnham and Saru's efforts, the talks were completed and with the gift of the flag of the Federation to T'Rina, welcomed Ni'Var back into the Federation. (DIS: "All Is Possible")
In the midst of the DMA crisis, she presided over an assembly of the galaxy's nations to best decide how to approach Species 10-C. As the chair of the assembly, knowing she needed to maintain impartiality, urged Captain Michael Burnham to speak on behalf of first contact. (DIS: "...But to Connect")
After the theft of the next generation Spore Drive, the closest the Federation had come to freedom from their dilithium dependence, she dressed down Admiral Charles Vance and Captain Burnham over the lapse in security. (DIS: "All In")
Citing her ambassadorial work, Rillak chose to personally join the delegation aboard the USS Discovery seeking to make diplomatic first contact with Species 10-C, temporarily transferring her powers to the Vice President in order to do so. Rillak reached an agreement with Burnham where Discovery and her crew was Burnham's concern while diplomacy and the delegates were Rillak's, although this was complicated by the news that Earth, Titan and Ni'Var were going to be threatened by the DMA within the next three days. Burnham and Rillak eventually opened up to each other about the personal struggles that they were going through on the mission. Rillak later revealed the new danger to Discovery's crew with Burnham choosing to let her do so alone so that the crew would get a sense of security from seeing how confident their president was. (DIS: "The Galactic Barrier")
Rillak later expressed concern at the idea of both Burnham and Saru -- the ship's captain and first officer -- going on an away mission to Species 10-C homeworld, but accepted Burnham's reasoning and rebuked Dr. Hirai for his attitude. The mission results in the discovery of a way to communicate with the 10-C. (DIS: "Rosetta")
Upon arriving at the 10-C's massive hyperfield, Burnham had Rillak and the first contact team initiate their contingency plan which involved using a team of DOTs to broadcast a message using hydrocarbons. In response, the 10-C pulled Discovery into the hyperfield using an orb. Rillak and the delegates argued about how best to deal with the situation with Rillak arguing that communication was their only option. Discovery successfully made first contact and the 10-C sent a smaller orb to invite a party to meet them in person. Rillak decided to go, inviting Burnham, Saru, T'Rina and Diatta Ndoye to join her, although Ndoye refused the offer. Transported to a recreation of Discovery's bridge, the group had some success in diplomacy, learning that the 10-C were had empathy and thus could be negotiated with. However, Ruon Tarka's sudden escape from the orb in Booker's ship ended diplomatic contact. (DIS: "Species Ten-C")
Seeing that Tarka was intending to attack the DMA power source with a gravimetric beam, Rillak realized that the 10-C believed that they were under attack and would not resume negotiations until Tarka was stopped. Ndoye confessed to helping Tarka and Cleveland Booker with their rogue plan. With less than four hours before Earth and Ni'Var would be hit, T'Rina attempted to communicate telepathically with the 10-C that Discovery was not working with Tarka without success, but T'Rina's impressions from the brief communication helps them to understand the 10-C better. Commander Paul Stamets was able to break Discovery out at the cost of burning out the spore drive, leaving the ship stranded decades from home at conventional warp speed. By ramming Booker's ship with a Discovery shuttle, Ndoye was able to disable it and the gravimetric beam, and the 10-C resumed negotiations. Joined by Discovery's bridge crew and Booker, who had been rescued by the 10-C from his ship's destruction, the Federation was able to convince the aliens to shut down the DMA, saving Earth, Titan and Ni'Var just in the nick of time. Afterwards, the 10-C used the DMA wormhole to return Discovery to Earth.
In the aftermath, Rillak told Burnham that her partner was evacuated with the Luna research team while the rest of her family remained on Earth, but escaped the worst of the damage and Rillak would reunite with them soon. Rillak commended Burnham on how far she had come from their first meeting and believed that Burnham was now ready to captain the USS Voyager-J, although both women knew that Burnham would never take the offer. While Booker would have to be punished for his crimes, Rillak was willing to be lenient as she understood his reasons and assigned Booker to assist the Federation in aiding families displaced by the DMA.
Rillak later led a delegation to meet with the President of United Earth to open negotiations for Earth to rejoin the Federation. However, much to everyone's delight, the President revealed that Earth was ready to rejoin immediately with no negotiations needed. (DIS: "Coming Home")
In 3191, Rillak was at a diplomatic summit on Tellar Prime when a Breen dreadnaught entered Federation space to demand that Moll and L'ak be turned over to them. Rillak remained on Tellar Prime for her own safety, but she sent T'Rina in her place to negotiate with Primarch Ruhn. (DIS: "Erigah")
Rillak later returned to Federation Headquarters where she held an emergency meeting with T'Rina and Saru, revealing that Moll had killed Ruhn and Primarch Tahal was on her way to claim his forces. However, Starfleet could do little to help Discovery as most of the ships sent to aid her were too far away to get there in time. Rillak attempted without success to establish contact with Tahal, leading T'Rina to suggest sending the USS Mitchell using its pathway drive to intercept Tahal's fleet. Rillak rejected the idea as the sudden appearance of a Federation starship could be taken as an act of aggression, potentially escalating the situation, so Saru suggested sending a shuttle equipped with the pathway drive instead which could be used to force Tahal to open contact or even alter her course. With Rillak needing to remain behind to negotiate with the Breen should things go badly, Saru volunteered to go on the mission himself as her delegate which Rillak agreed to. (DIS: "Lagrange Point")
| Presidents of the United Federation of Planets |
|---|
| Jonathan Archer (2184-2192) • unidentified individual (c. 2257) • Human male (c. 2286) • Efrosian male (c. 2293) • Jaresh-Inyo (c. 2372) • Anton Chekov (c. 2401) • Laira Rillak (c. 3189) |
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
Background information[]
President Rillak was played by Chelah Horsdal.
Rillak's ancestry was first mentioned on screen in "All Is Possible"; prior to this, it was only discussed in interviews with Michelle Paradise and Olatunde Osunsanmi. Paradise described developing a Federation President for DIS Season 4 that would say something "about the world that we're in", and that Human-Bajoran-Cardassian heritage seemed like "an interesting choice" given the history between those species. [1]
External link[]
- Laira Rillak at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works