How Starfleet Academy’s Nahla Ake Will Break New Ground in Star Trek

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is trying a lot of new things in its first season. From attempting to reclaim the franchise’s 32nd century setting to introducing a bevy of young cadets ready to be shaped into the starship captains and Federation leaders of tomorrow, the series is, of necessity, going to feel like something entirely new in the franchise. (And that’s not a bad thing, for the record!) But one of its most interesting elements is likely not going to be one of the series’ students, but the woman in charge of them: Chancellor Nahla Ake. 

While Starfleet Academy is ostensibly going to have a more youthful vibe than its predecessors, complete with lower-stakes stories about personal relationships and a healthy dose of romance. But let’s be real, there’s no way this woman is going to be relegated to supporting character status. After all, this is Star Trek, a franchise that’s essentially incapable of obsessing over the folks that sit in a captain’s chair, and Ake is a particularly fascinating addition to the ranks of legends like Pike, Kirk, and Picard. Truthfully, the fact that Oscar-winning actress Holly Hunter plays the character is enough on its own to make Ake a memorable figure. (Holly! Hunter!!) But she’s also filling a new and unique role within the franchise—a starship captain who is also an academic bureaucrat. 

The series will be set on the USS Athena, a ship that doubles as the Starfleet Academy campus when it’s docked on Earth. Described by showrunner Alex Kurtzman as an “intergalactic teaching hospital”, the Athena’s unique dual function allows students to gain hands-on experience as part of real missions even as they attend class. This, of course, means that Ake is the first figure in the franchise to serve in such a unique position, a leader who must be somehow nurturing enough to serve as a mentor for her students, decisive enough to command her crew, and capable of navigating the uncomfortable tensions that will inevitably arise when those two roles clash.

But, at least Ake has the advantage of having had literal centuries of experience to figure out how to find a professional balance. In another unique twist, she’s also the franchise’s first primary captain who isn’t completely human. Ake is half-Lanthanite, and apparently, even the slightly diluted gift of that particular species’ long lifespan means that the Athena’s captain is over 400 years old. Whether this means we’re in for some sort of tie-in with or connection to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Commander Pelia, or simply a more in-depth exploration of the specifics of Lanthanites as a species, is still up in the air. (Here’s hoping for a guest appearance, is what I’m saying.)

But Ake’s age does mean something quite significant. She’s also one of the show’s only figures who remembers and experienced life before the devastating event known as The Burn, which fractured the Federation and essentially ended Starfleet Academy as everyone once knew it over a hundred years before the arrival of Michael Burnham and the Star Trek: Discovery crew. And while it’s currently unknown whether she was involved in the Academy in some way all those years ago, it’s certainly likely, and even if she wasn’t, she’s at least familiar with what the institution was originally meant to be and do. Which feels like a particularly important bit of information to have, given that she’s now in charge of running the whole thing. 

Whether the character of Chancellor Ake will live up to all this built-in potential is something we’ll have to wait until 2026 to find out. But it’s certainly a reason to feel hopeful — both about her character, specifically, and Starfleet Academy as a whole.