WARNING: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Section 31
Paramount+’s streaming Star Trek: Section 31 movie just introduced Star Trek‘s version of The Hunger Games. Leading Star Trek: Section 31’s cast is Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, the former ruler of the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire who was pulled into the Prime Universe in Star Trek: Discovery. Star Trek: Section 31 opens with young Philippa Georgiou (Miku Martineau) returning to her family after competing in a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly contest set by the Empire to determine its new leader. To secure the Terran throne, either Philippa or her beloved San (James Huang) must complete one final, grim trial.
The central conceit of The Hunger Games pits twenty-four young people against each other in a fight to the death, which is broadcast for the entertainment of the mᴀsses. The Games are a yearly occurrence designed to maintain the Capitol’s тιԍнт grip on the people of Panem. For 73 years, each of Panem’s twelve districts sent two tributes to compete and become the lone survivor. During the 74th Games, Panem’s fascination with the love story between District 12’s tributes, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), prompts a rule change that allows for two victors that year.
Star Trek: Section 31 Made Becoming Mirror Universe Emperor Into The Hunger Games
Philippa Georgiou And San Are Katniss And Peeta Gone Wrong
In Star Trek: Section 31, the prize for winning Star Trek‘s Mirror Universe Hunger Games is becoming Emperor of the Terran Empire. To survive the Terran Empire’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅly, winner-take-all contest, Philippa and San are bolstered by a publicized love story that echoes Katniss and Peeta’s tactic of becoming lovers for the camera. Even Katniss and Peeta’s “Real or not real?” refrain, which helped them stay grounded amidst the Games’ spectacle, has a counterpart in Philippa and San’s “We are one.” But Philippa corrupts the expected response after her victory.
In Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 8, “The Sanctuary”, Georgiou offhandedly remarks, “I killed my mother,” ostensibly as an intimidation tactic. Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) doesn’t buy it, but Star Trek: Section 31 proves that Georgiou was, in fact, telling the truth.
Unlike Katniss and Peeta, however, Philippa has no poisoned berry ace up her sleeve. Instead, Georgiou poisons her family to clinch success—and the coveted тιтle. The Terran contest ensures its victor will be ruthless enough to perpetuate the Mirror Universe’s philosophy of success only through cunning, deceit, and brutality. Any love that Philippa Georgiou once held in her heart must be extinguished along with her family’s lives if she is going to survive. Accepting victory means Philippa burns away her own innocence as surely as Emperor Georgiou burns her sword into San’s face and marks him as a slave.
Emperor Georgiou Became The Villain The Hunger Games’ Katniss Fought Against
In The Mirror Universe And Panem, The Only Options Are Compliance Or Death
Philippa Georgiou’s prize of becoming the Terran Emperor makes her more like The Hunger Games‘ villain, Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland), than fellow victor Katniss Everdeen. President Snow rose from humble origins to seize leadership and maintains control of Panem through the Games’ cruelty. Panem is so corrupt that Snow’s death doesn’t actually change things, but creates a power vacuum to be filled by another dictator. Likewise, Star Trek: Discovery‘s 3rd season Mirror Universe two-parter “Terra Firma” proves the Terran Empire is too poisoned by its twisted ideals for a reformed Emperor Georgiou to change it, even from the top down.
In the Mirror Universe and Panem’s Hunger Games, leaders have little choice but to comply with the established system or die. Philippa Georgiou won Star Trek‘s Hunger Games by complying with its design to turn her into a cold-blooded killer and benefited from being complicit in the Empire’s corruption. However, contact with Star Trek‘s Prime Universe untangled Georgiou’s twisted Mirror Universe ideals so much that the end of Star Trek: Section 31 saw the Emperor willing to sacrifice herself to atone for her atrocious sins. Maybe Star Trek: Section 31‘s Philippa Georgiou is more like Katniss after all.
