Star Trek: Discovery (TV Series)

Context Is for Kings (2017)

Jason Isaacs: Captain Gabriel Lorca

Photos 

Quotes 

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : I did choose you, but not for the reasons you think. Your assumption that the Klingons were waiting in ambush at Binary Stars was predictive. You chose to do the right thing over what was sanctioned, even at great cost to yourself. And that is the kind of thinking that wins wars. The kind of thinking I need next to me. Universal law is for lackeys. Context... is for kings. Now, what's it to be, Michael? What's in your future?

  [offering her a fortune cookie] 

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : What do you wish for? Atonement? Redemption? Maybe... the reassurance that the captain you lost didn't die in vain? You helped start a war. Don't you want to help me end it?

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : No matter how deep in space you are, always feel like you can see home. Don't you think? Maybe it's just me. Forgive the lighting, or lack thereof. Recent battle injury. There's nothing they can do if I wanna keep my own eyes, and I do. I have to suffer light change slowly. I like to think it makes me mysterious. No? Captain Gabriel Lorca. Welcome to Discovery.

• Michael Burnham : I'm not here by accident. I think you brought me here. I think you've been testing me.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : And why would I do that?

  Michael Burnham : You're developing some kind of experimental technology, some kind of spore-based biological weapon.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Oh?

  Michael Burnham : The kind of weapon that is explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Protocols of 1928 and 2155. And you need someone to help you. Enter me. A mutineer who intended to wage unsanctioned war on the Klingons. A trained officer who's been banished from Starfleet, and someone who would presumably do anything to get out of their life sentence in prison, including illicit weapons tests, like whatever went wrong on the Glenn.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Enter you, indeed.

  Michael Burnham : I'm not who you think I am. Before I was a mutineer, I was a first officer in Starfleet. I'll never bear that rank or any other again. But it is who I am and who I will always be. It is by the principles of the United Federation of Planets that I live. And by them, I will most certainly die.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : I know who you are, Michael Burnham. I know exactly who you are. Yeah. I know you love being right. But I suspect that you hate being wrong even more. So let me stop you going down a path you'll regret.

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : Mycelium spores. Harmless. Harvested from the fungal species prototaxites stellaviatori, which we grow in our cultivation bay. But you know that, 'cause you broke in. We're not creating a new way to kill. We are creating a new way to fly. An organic propulsion system. The Glenn was traveling on these when disaster struck. You yourself have jumped across the mycelial network. Nothing bad happened; just the ship's walls got a little damp, that's all.

  Michael Burnham : Black alert.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Now, Discovery's leaps have measured only in the hundreds of kilometers. A sad statistic which is a source of some tension between myself and Lieutenant Stamets. But our more advanced sister ship, before she crashed, was traveling back and forth from the Beta Quadrant, 90 light years away, in 1.3 seconds.

  Michael Burnham : How do you travel on spores?

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Imagine a microscopic web that spans the entire cosmos. An intergalactic ecosystem. An infinite number of roads leading everywhere.

  Michael Burnham : The veins and muscles that hold our galaxy together.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Now, if the Discovery can be anywhere and gone in an instant, that's how you beat the Klingons. That's how you win the war. And we must win the war. But that's just the beginning. Imagine the possibilities. Want to see where they're going? Where they've been? Or where they could take us? Hold tight.

  [he presses a button, and Michael appears to disappear from Discovery and re-appear on other planets] 

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Blink: you're in Illari. Blink: the moons of Andoria. Blink: you missed Romulus. All those planets, all those places, all those species seen and yet to be seen. And you're home like it never happened.

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : Michael Burnham. *The* Michael Burnham on my ship. When I saw your name on the shuttle manifest, I... re-read your file, pulled up your court martial transcripts, and... you're something.

  Michael Burnham : Captain, what am I doing on this ship?

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : I guess you might have to ask that storm out there.

  Michael Burnham : I received no warning that I'd be transferred to another prison facility, which is customary. And my shuttle changed course halfway through the journey.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Maybe the universe hates waste.

  Michael Burnham : Sir?

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Question is... what am I gonna do with you? I put you in the brig, someone's gonna die, and I don't have the time for that kind of distraction.

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : You have training in high-level quantum physics, don't you? My engineers tell me it's gonna take three days to clear the lightning bugs out of the prison shuttle. I have something on deck that requires every trained mind available. You're gonna help us out.

  Michael Burnham : No.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Excuse me?

  Michael Burnham : No thank you. Respectfully, I owe a debt for my crime, and it'd be best... I'd prefer to serve my time without getting involved.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : You think I care what your preferences are? Until your vessel's repaired, you'll be assigned to quarters and put to work. I'm not a chauffer. There's no free rides on my ship. You were once a Starfleet officer. I will use you or anything else I can to achieve my mission.

  Michael Burnham : And what mission is that, sir?

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : To win the war, of course. Send everyone home. Safe and happy.

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : Michael Burnham, I would like to extend an official invitation to you to join the Discovery and be a member of our crew.

  Michael Burnham : Sir, I've been court martialed and convicted...

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Don't worry about Starfleet. They gave me discretion to fight this war however I saw fit.

  Michael Burnham : I'm afraid I can't take you up on your offer.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : You hell-bent on self-persecution?

  Michael Burnham : That's not it. Not all of it, anyway.

  Captain Gabriel Lorca : Why wouldn't you stay?

  Michael Burnham : Let me answer your question with a question. Why do you want me to stay?

• Captain Gabriel Lorca : So, is our new guest settled in?

  Commander Landry : Aye, sir. Snug as a bug in a rug.