Assigned to the Enterprise NX-01 as a simple crewman, the man known as Daniels had always been a bit of a mystery. Even when he was revealed to be a time traveller from the 31st century trying desperately to avert the complete destruction of the timeline.
Hang on. Maybe we should start from the beginning. If there is such a thing…
The Temporal Cold War was a devastating event in Federation History. By the 31st century time travel as relatively easy and routine. Sure,. It’s always seemed easy and routine with a Vulcan plotting a course or a random Borg incursion of the past. But the 31st century is essentially Back To The Future Part 2 but with entire governments taking the Deloreon and not just old man Biff.
With time at heir fingertips, war wasn’t just who has the biggest gun. But who could mess up the past more. It wasn’t a new concept in Star Trek. The Borg tried to manipulate history in First Contact. Annorax wiped out entire timelines in Voyagers Year of Hell esacalating a bad situation to worse for Captain Janeway. In the 31st century it was an all out war to see who could do the worst damage, and with them Federation being such an influential power, one of those factions decided to tamper with time to stoip the Federation even beginning.
And that happened with the first Starship, the Enterprise. No bloody A, B, C or D. No 1701 either. Just the NX-01. Captain Archers ship, the first to nosedive into the unknown.
Posing as a simple crewman at first, Daniels was Archers steward. Through temporal interference, Daniels protected the timeline and brought Archer into the bigger picture. Not only helping defeatt he Cabal aiming to mess with history and wipe out the threat of the Federation in the future, but showing Archer what that future was: The legacy of the Enterprise.
Giving too much away would be a spoiler to anyone who hadn’t watched the highs and lows of the Enterprise series. But in short, Daniels was a key part of a story that would run for the foundation of the show. An honourable soldier fighting to maintain the integrity of his past and ensure he and the Federation wouldn’t be wiped out.
Often seen as the black sheep of the family, Enterprise as a show would always be given the nod of approval in recent years. Admiral Caldwell would note the NX-01’s missions in Discovery. The Kelvin Timeline shared a history of that era and based an entire films antagonist around an Enterprise concept. And now we know what happened to Daniels after Archer restored the time travellers personal timeline…
Discovery’s jump to the 32nd century was intentional. It was said from the outset of the time shift that the idea was to go beyond any canon the show presented and not overwrite it. The temporal cold war was such a dominant storyline that it was a key point that came up fairly quickly; time travel was banned after the Temporal Cold War and Discovery – a time travelling ship – was at risk. Yet one person survived that war…
Much like Daniels, Kovich was a man of mystery. Dressed in ‘vintage’ fashion, having an affinity for paper and being a mysterious expert of all time incursion – including the Terrans and the Kelvin timeline – Kovich became a fast fan favourite as a shadowy oddball who had all the answers. In his first appearance he was a bit of a tease towards who he really was. While the Discovery crew were debriefed by a suspicious 32nd century Starfleet upon their arrival to the future, Kovich was clearly an outsider to Admiral Vance’s command interrogating the Terran Georgiou.
From there he was merely a specialist in the weird, making his purpose in the first season as a catalyst to have Georgiou leave the ship with his expert knowledge hinting at her demise due to the temporal shift drifting too far to survive. A strange anomaly that seemed to be an expert at everything the plot needed. Whether it was an expert on Terrans and timelines, having surprising knowledge about medicine and artificial intelligence or even helping in the reopening of Starfleet Academy.
His role within Starfleet was always intentionally non descriptive. The man with no uniform but enough authority to be working alongside Fleet Admiral Vance. And for Discovery’s final season, his role became even more vague as a specialist leading a ‘Red Directive’ mission with his own authority and autonomy. It was only when the mission was over that he let the mask slip and he finally gave Burnham a little bit of insight into who he really was; Agent Daniels.
Discovery’s never been shy in giving Enterprise it’s due. For Daniels to still be around is not only a nice link but a hint at what was to come.
Despite being cancelled and scrambling together an ending, the original scenes featured Burnham and Book reuniting and taking on more missions from Kovich. According to an interview with Variety, the ending we got was a quick scrambled together verison of the plan for season 6 – bringing Discovery together with the Short Trek Calypso. And who better to be a guardian of time than Daniels-Kovich?
Alas, we’ll never see what happened next. But at least we know Daniels survived the Temporal Cold War. Maybe the only survivor. And however he ended up at Starfleet Command a couple of centuries later, we can only imagine…
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