Opening of Season 3,
we see Cleveland Booker in a very tense situation.
He's on a personal mission,
delivering an endangered species to its original habitat.
But he's also being pursued by a poacher.
It's high-octane, you know?
And this is something that Cleveland Booker does selflessly.
It's his mission for the world.
Well, when Burnham meets Book for the first time,
it's quite antagonistic.
He's on a mission to do something very, very important,
and she crashes into his ship.
Burnham just represents a big inconvenience.
I've just crash-landed, all alone.
The ship is not behind me.
I don't know where they are.
I assume they'll be coming soon.
In this new future, I have no idea where I am,
nothing looks familiar,
it does not look like Terralysium.
So,
on my quest to find civilization
or someone alive that I can speak to or get help from,
I come across Book, Cleveland Booker,
who sees me as a threat from the very beginning.
He's not a fan of Michael Burnham when they first meet.
We do not start out as friends.
We do not.
I mean, they fight.
It's a big old friggin' fight sequence.
I damaged his ship,
and now I'm messing up a timetable of his.
He has something to return by a deadline,
and I've messed all of that up.
So now he's gonna have to source out dilithium
because he needs dilithium for his ship,
and he needs to raise some more money
to facilitate this trip.
But he does end up being
that sort of savior that I'm looking for.
He ends up being that one person that I need
to help me find my crew,
to help me figure out where I am.
You believe in ghosts.
What does that mean?
That badge on your shirt.
Sometimes you see a guy with one of those badges
getting himself all worked up about the Federation,
the old days.
True believers can't handle that it's gone.
The Federation has taken a beating this far in the future,
and it was still important that no matter what
we still held to the founding principles
of what the Federation is,
that it's a beacon of hope, that it's inspirational,
that anything is still possible.
The fact that our heroes come from a past
where the Federation was so strong,
where hope was so strong, where connection was so strong,
they are then uniquely poised in this new future
that is so challenged, to help bring that sense of hope back
and to help bring that sense of connection,
and Burnham specifically to be the driver of that.
Hope is a powerful thing.
Sometimes it's the only thing.
If there are others out there we'll find them.
We will.