Who Is Captain Batel In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?

Although maintaining romantic relationships can prove challenging for Starfleet captains, Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" seems to have found his ideal match in fellow commander Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano). Like her significant other, Captain Batel is a highly competent and respected captain of her own ship, the USS Cayuga, until its destruction at the hands of Star Trek's villainous predator race the Gorn in the Season 2 finale, "Hegemony." But as we learn at the end of Season 3, she was always destined to be the Beholder, an immortal being charged with guarding the Vezda prison on the old Q home world throughout all of eternity. 

As seen in a brief onscreen graphic in "Hegemony," Batel first takes command of her starship in 2245. 15 years later, she is under consideration for promotion to commodore, ultimately getting passed over for the gig. In "Among the Lotus Eaters," she and Pike conclude that the Starfleet promotion snub was likely Vice Admiral Pasalk's (Graeme Somerville) political retaliation for Batel failing to successfully prosecute Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) after her appointment as judge advocate prosecutor in the first officer's court martial.

Although things turn around for the captain when the imminently retiring Pasalk offers her his own job as head of Starfleet Judicial in "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans," Batel ultimately gives up her human existence when she takes her place as the Beholder in the closing episode of Season 3, "New Life and New Civilizations."

Marie Batel's encounter with the Gorn in the Battle of Parnassus leaves her infected with Gorn eggs, a condition typically fatal to humans. Through a terrifying process of trial and error involving a handful of experimental treatments, Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) and Spock (Ethan Peck) manage to save her life with the chimera blossom, leaving Batel's genome infused with the DNA of both Gorn and Illyrians, the race of genetically modified humanoids Una Chin-Riley belongs to. 

Her updated genome contains the genetic memory of the Gorn and every Illyrian adaptation, making her the perfect being to fight the Vezda, a fact confirmed when Nurse Chapel identifies Marie's genome as identical to that of the statue in the Vezda prison. Fated to become the Beholder, existing outside of normal space and time in a place where cause predates effect, Batel's destiny is set from the moment Spock and Nurse Chapel treat her with the chimera blossom. 

Although Pike and Batel had always led separate lives, their deep mutual respect for each other and commitment to carving out time for their relationship were couple goals. Sadly, Batel's fate cuts her time with Pike short, just as Pike himself accepts that his own long-determined fate might not be set. But as she stands in the prison preparing to take on the Vezda, Batel and Pike are granted a vision of a long life together, with marriage and a child, that allows her to channel her love, imprison the Vezda, and save the universe — for now.