The newest issue of the official Star Trek Magazine is out now in the United States, and it’s all about the men and women who keep Discovery running: the ship’s bridge crew!

Out now in the US and Canada (and coming to the UK and Europe on December 3), the Star Trek Magazine bridge crew special spends the bulk of its focus on the five main cast members of “lower deckers” of the starship Discovery — that’s Emily Coutts (navigator Keyla Detmer), Oyin Oladejo (ops officer Joann Owosekun), Patrick Kwok-Choon (tactical officer Gen Rhys), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (communications officer R.A. Bryce), and Sara Mitich (Season 1’s Lt. Airiam, and Season 2-3’s Lt. Nilsson).

The five tertiary Star Trek: Discovery cast members have each been floating around the edges of the Discovery story since the show debuted in 2017, each getting minor moments in the spotlight during the show’s first two years — and as Season 3 has begun to widen their participation, especially with Detmer’s trauma and associated outbursts in “Forget Me Not.”

In an excerpt from the new Star Trek Magazine, actor Emily Coutts speaks about Detmer’s Discovery journey so far — from the good old days on the Shenzhou to a flight to the future.

In Season 1, we saw her be one of the only survivors who went from the Shenzhou to the Discovery, where she was thrown into the deep end with Captain Lorca [Jason Isaacs], and adapted very quickly, which was great to play. We didn’t really see, on camera, Keyla and Michael’s [Sonequa Martin-Green] relationship.

We saw a quick glimpse of how I held her responsible, in my mind, for the crash and all the casualties that came from that.

I think Keyla has to learn how to accept that she was someone who’d survived, and that is was for a reason: she was meant to be a part of this new team. Under Lorca, she had to learn a different rhythm on the bridge. She had to meet her new crew. And I think she’s extremely good at what she does, which is why she thrives in intense situations.

In Season 2, we got to see a little bit more of her colors and her personality, with friendships emerging on the bridge. We saw how much Airiam (Hannah Cheesman) meant to her, how close [Owosekun] and she had gotten. I think it gave the audience a bit more to chew on in terms of what her personality is like.

And, at the end of Season 2, it was high-pressure, obviously, extremely scary, for everyone to accept the challenge of flying into the future, and not knowing what that meant.

I think it meant a lot for us on-screen and off-screen, too. It was like, ‘We’re in this together, for real, all of us, and we’re going into the next season together and continue to build this amazing story.

Stoic communications officer, Lt. Ronald Altman Bryce, has been played by Ronnie Rowe, Jr. since “Context is for Kings” — and while he’s not gotten much to do outside of his on-duty responsibilities, the actor hints that Bryce will have a bit more activity in the upcoming episodes of Season 3.

There’s going to be a lot of exploration and you’ll see a lot of enhanced technology.

We are encountering interesting things, and Bryce is doing what he does. He’s just being that piece that the team needs him to be, at the moment they need him. You’ll get to see a little bit more of all of us on a personal level, and doing things that aren’t necessary just on the bridge, which is pretty cool, for Bryce, at least.

It’s been great because the stakes of what has happened are so high. We’re going forward almost 1,000 years, so we’ve lost anybody we had contact with in our own time. It’s this completely new world, and the crew has to get tighter because of it, because we’re in a place unknown.

Ops officer Joanne Owosekun, played by Nigerian-born Oyin Oladejo, is in the forefront of most action on the Discovery bridge… but when she first got to set, she had a lot to learn about the Star Trek world.

Honestly, they told me nothing, and I understand, because in the first year I think everybody was frantic. So, I honestly did not know what I was walking into with [the character].

But we did get a huge manual, this whole ‘Star Trek’ manual for all the operation systems, what each button does, what the stations were, what the ranks meant. I’m looking at science diagrams and terms and thinking, ‘What? What? This is like school! This is biology, and chemistry and physics that I didn’t like in school!’

Then, when I sat at my console, I realized, ‘Oh, you are actually a huge part of controlling this ship. I’m the operations officer, and I see everything that happens on the ship. I see everybody’s lifelines’ And I thought, ‘Yes, I have a lot of responsibility in this station of mine.’

Gradually, because she’s not completely there yet, I’m sitting comfortably in my chair, as an operations officer.

Star Trek Magazine #77 is on sale now in the US and Canada, and comes to the UK and Europe in December.