Let’s face it: Star Trek movies have been, well, unreliable investments of hope since Star Trek Beyond left theaters in 2016, with several rounds of well-maybe-this-time news stories bubbling up — only to have each bubble burst along the road.

From the early announcement of a Chris Pine-helmed Star Trek 4 that fell apart due to financial negotiations, to a never-really-embraced-by-fans Quentin Tarantino take that was rumored to be based upon “A Piece of the Action,” to Fargo and Legion writer Noah Hawley’s own take on a new film that ran out of gas last year.

But we’ve got a new one for you today, about a new ‘original story’ for a Trek film — this time coming out of the Star Trek: Discovery writer roster.

Revealed today by Deadline, Star Trek: Short Treks and Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vazquez has been tapped by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production team to script an original movie set in the Star Trek universe.

Per Deadline:

Vazquez has written on Star Trek: Discovery, and insiders said this is a blind deal for an original movie that she hatched, one that expands her role in the Trek Universe.

Little — well, nothing — is known about Vazquez’ story, which if produced would make her the first female writer credited on a Star Trek film in the franchise’s 40+ years of big-screen adventures.

If Abrams is involved, may be set in the Kelvin Timeline — the home of Chris Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, and so forth — but as an “original movie,” it honestly could take place in any time, place, or dimension around the United Federation of Planets.

As for Vazquez, she made her first contribution to the Star Trek universe as the writer of the Captain Pike Short Trek “Ask Not” in 2019, and later worked as a consulting producer on the third season of Star Trek: Discovery (with a teleplay credit on “Terra Firma, Part 2”).

She’s also served on the writing staff at The CW’s Nikita, ABC’s Once Upon a Time, Hulu’s Runaways, AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead, and has just started a run on Marvel Comics’ latest America Chavez comic, America Chavez: Made in the USA.

Back in 2008, during the last big Writers Guild of America strike, Vazquez authored an essay about her chosen career where she described growing up in a home where Star Trek aired during her childhood, how that — along with other shows and films — influenced her life choices.

My father named me after a Star Trek character. Kalinda appeared in only one episode of the Original Series, in which my namesake, a member of an alien posse, attempted to overtake the Enterprise and her crew. Needless to say my intimate relationship with television was damn near a birthright.

I remember watching Star Trek as a child — in awe of the fictional universe that so inspired my father, he was compelled to name his first born after one of it’s characters. (That’s one hell of an influential fictional universe.)

My father’s love for TV and film – and good story telling in general — was either contagious, genetic or both. I loved these mediums for their entertainment value – but I also loved them because they made me think about things I might not have thought about before.

The really good bits –say the ending of Close Encounters of a Third Kind or a particularly salient argument between Archie and Meathead on All in the Family— even challenged the way I looked at the world. It didn’t take long for me to realize the more stories I consumed, the more my imagination grew, and the more I wanted to create some stories of my own.

Discovery executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise offered her best wishes on Twitter shortly after the news broke.

While some Discovery-era Star Trek naysayers may still believe (or wish) that the modern show are part of the Kelvin Timeline — the alternate universe setting of Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond — the latest season of Discovery for the first time mentioned the existence of that separate timeline, one where Chris Pine captains the Enterprise instead of William Shatner.

So if Vazquez is writing a script for that side of the Star Trek divide, it may maintain a wide berth from all of the ongoing Star Trek television production — including the cast. (But who knows, multiversal storytelling is all the rage these days if all the rumors about the next Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and The Flash movies are true.)

Either way, we’re a long way from knowing exactly what this Trek will be about.

We’ll continue to bring you all the latest news on Star Trek film development — or whatever tidbits seem to make their way to the public, at least — as it breaks!