Star Trek: Discovery won’t be returning to Paramount+ until sometime in April, but attendees at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) TV and Film Festival will get the first chance to experience the Season 5 premiere.
 
The festival is scheduled for March 8-16 in Austin, Texas; while no specific date/time has yet been announced for the Discovery screening, the premiere episode — titled “Red Directive” per WGA listings — will debut several weeks ahead of the public release.
 

 
The SXSW announcement also brings us the first episode synopsis of Season 5, giving the first specifics about the galaxy-wide treasure hunt that will span the concluding season — and giving us context for a ship seen in July’s “look ahead” featurette.

Captain Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery are sent to retrieve a mysterious 800-year-old Romulan vessel; until the artifact hidden inside is stolen, leading to an epic chase. Meanwhile, Saru is offered the position of a lifetime, and Tilly’s efforts to help pull her into a tangled web of secrecy.

 
We also got to see an extended scene from inside this derelict ship in the five-minute preview shared at San Diego Comic Con back in July:

Despite being set in the far far future, the series looks to be connecting itself back to the more well-known era of Starfleet adventures — 800 years before Discovery’s current setting (the 3190s) is the late 24th century, and if taken literally this would be a Romulan ship from the era between Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Picard.

What big Romulan event happened during that time period? Most notably, the destriuction of the Romulan homeworld after its star went supernova, as depicted in the flashback scenes of 2009’s Star Trek film; the surrounding evacuation efforts and post-nova fallout served as driving events through the first season of Star Trek: Picard.

As for the rest of the episode synopsis, it seems that Saru (Doug Jones) and Tilly (Mary Wiseman) will be sharing a storyline, bringing the pair back into each others’ orbit after the young Lieutenant’s transfer to Starfleet Headquarters in Season 4.

Saru is offered the position of a lifetime, and Tilly’s efforts to help pull her into a tangled web of secrecy.

As we move into the Spring there’s sure to be much more information about Season 5, so keep your sensors locked on TrekCore for all those details as they arrive — in the meantime, let us know what you think about the “Red Directive” synopsis in the comments below!