Star Trek's Classic 1960s Tribbles Episode Was Made Possible By A Star Trek: Discovery Story

Part of Star Trek's classic introduction to Tribbles in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 15, "The Trouble With Tribbles", was set up by Star Trek: Discovery. In "The Trouble With Tribbles", Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) USS Enterprise crew meets Klingon Captain Koloth's (William Campbell) crew on Space Station K-7. Instead of attacking the station, the Klingons claim to want shore leave. A Klingon plot to sabotage the Federation settlement on Sherman's Planet is unveiled and subsequently thwarted when an outbreak of mass-replicating Tribbles consumes a shipment of poisoned quadrotriticale grain destined for the colony.

Star Trek: The Original Series' incident on K-7 alerts Kirk to a very important fact: Klingons do not like Tribbles, and Tribbles do not like Klingons. That mutual hatred points towards the true mastermind behind the poisoned quadrotriticale: Arne Darvin (Charlie Brill), assistant to the Federation Undersecretary in charge of agriculture. Tribbles don't seem to like Mr. Darvin much, leading to the correct assumption that Arne Darvin is, in fact, a Klingon spy. This explanation worked in the TOS days when Klingons appeared more human, but as Klingons became more alien, a better explanation for Darvin's appearance was needed.

Star Trek: Discovery Set Up TOS’ Classic “The Trouble With Tribbles”

Star Trek: Discovery provides a retroactive set-up 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's Lieutenant Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) is, like Darvin, revealed to be a Klingon spy who has been surgically altered to appear human.Tyler had once been Voq, the Torchbearer for Klingon leader T'Kuvma (Chris Obi), who dreamed of uniting the Empire. After T'Kuvma's death, Voq is willing to sacrifice "everything", and is thus transformed into Tyler.

Star Trek: Discovery depicts Voq's transformation into human Starfleet officer Ash Tyler as a painful, irreversible process. While Starfleet can transform humans into aliens humanely 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 humans', with multiple redundant organs, that Voq's bones and internal organs were broken down and reconstructed before the memories of a very real Lieutenant Tyler were overlaid with Voq's. To pass as human, Darvin must have undergone the same terrible procedure.

Star Trek: DS9 Explains What Happened To TOS’ Klingon Infiltrator

Arne Darvin Is Still Passing For Human In The 24th Century

The fate of Star Trek: The Original Series' 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 USS Defiant crew pick up the Bajoran Orb of Time from Cardassia Prime, Arne Darvin falsely presents himself as a Federation citizen trapped on Cardassia after the Cardassian-Klingon War broke out. 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 among the lot.

Like other actors who reprised 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 had failed so spectacularly at executing the Tribble plot to take Sherman's Planet, the Klingon Empire refused to take Darvin back, and the Klingon operation that transformed Arne Darvin into passing for human in the 23rd century hasn't been reversed. The same is true for Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery, who abandoned the life he knew as Voq and joined Starfleet's Section 31.