Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 1 - "Strange New Worlds"
The premiere of Number One, Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), and solve a difficult First crisis - by becoming an alien.
While starships, phasers, tricorders, and transporters are the most heralded Star Trek technologies, perhaps the most underrated is the ability to surgically alter a Starfleet Officer into an alien. This is commonplace in Star Trek starting with The Original Series when Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was turned into a Romulan in "The Enterprise Incident." Since then, many Star Trek heroes have gone undercover as aliens. For example, Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) was also turned into a Romulan in Klingons on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's easy and painless for humans to not only be surgically turned into an alien on Star Trek but also to be reverted back with no ill effects. This includes Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) reclaiming his full humanity after the Borg turned him into Locutus in TNG.
However, in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' timeframe circa 2259, the technology to surgically alter humans into aliens is still new, and it's the expertise of Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush). One of her duties as part of the Enterprise's medical team is to "make disguises," but this early version of surgical DNA alternation is both dangerous and painless. In Strange New Worlds' premiere, Captain Pike, Spock (Ethan Peck), and La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) needed to be surgically altered so that they can infiltrate the planet Kiley 279 and rescue Number One. Although Chapel's DNA resequencing worked, it came with serious caveats: it required an anesthetic to numb the incredible pain surgical alteration caused, and, in Spock's case, the effects were only temporary. Spock's Vulcan DNA rebelled and he began to transform back into his true self. The Enterprise's Science Officer required an additional serum beamed directly into his bloodstream to maintain his disguise.
Strange New Worlds giving Christine Chapel this particular skill ingeniously grants her a greater purpose beyond just being the nurse to Dr. M'Benga's (Babs Olusanmokun) Chief Medical Officer. It also means that Chapel is a pioneer in this field and her remaining on the USS Enterprise after Strange New Worlds ends helps illuminate how Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), becomes so proficient in surgical alterations in TOS. Chapel's surgical alteration also ties to Star Trek: Discovery season 1 because the Klingons seemingly had this tech before Starfleet. The Klingon named Voq (Shazad Latif) was surgically altered into the human Lt. Ash Tyler and infiltrated the USS Discovery. It can be conjectured that Starfleet set out to master surgical alteration after Tyler/Voq was uncovered.
The fact that Nurse Chapel's surgical alteration technology is still new, dangerous, and flawed enhances how Strange New Worlds' Enterprise is on the bleeding edge of the final frontier. As a prequel, Strange New Worlds is having fun reintroducing familiar Star Trek characters and concepts such as DNA resequencing. It's fascinating to see something like Starfleet Officers being painlessly turned into aliens as a new idea that is fraught with peril in Strange New Worlds, as opposed to how something so miraculous is matter-of-fact and somewhat taken for granted in the Star Trek series canonically set after Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.