Hauran

The Hauran (Arabic: حَوْرَان, romanized: Ḥawrān; also spelled Hawran or Houran) is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, eastwards by the al-Safa field, to the south by Jordan's desert steppe and to the west by the Golan Heights. Traditionally, the Hauran consists of three subregions: the Nuqrah and Jaydur plains, the Jabal al-Druze massif, and the Lajat volcanic field. The population of the Hauran is largely Arab, but religiously heterogeneous; most inhabitants of the plains are Sunni Muslims belonging to large agrarian clans, while Druze form the majority in the eponymous Jabal al-Druze and a significant Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic minority inhabit the western foothills of Jabal al-Druze. The region's largest towns are Daraa, al-Ramtha and al-Suwayda.

From the mid-1st century BCE, the region was governed by the Roman Empire's Herodian and Nabatean client kings until it was formally annexed by the empire in the 2nd century CE. The Hauran prospered under Roman rule (106–395 CE) and its villages functioned as largely self-governing units, some of which developed into imperial cities. The region continued to prosper in the Byzantine era (395–634), during which different Arab tribes ruled the Hauran on Byzantium's behalf, including the Salihids (5th century) and Ghassanids (6th century) until the Muslim conquest in the mid-630s. For much of the Islamic era until Ottoman rule (1517–1917), the Hauran was divided into the districts of al-Bathaniyya and Ḥawrān, which corresponded to the Classical Batanea and Auranitis. Medieval Muslim geographers variously described these districts as prosperous, well-watered and well-populated.

Under the Romans, the grain of Batanea and the wine of Auranitis were important for imperial trade, and throughout its history, the Hauran was the major source of the Levant's grain. The region saw a decline in the 17th century until increased demand for Syrian grain and improved security led to the agricultural revival and re-population of the Hauran in the mid-19th century. The region also historically benefited as a key transit area on the traditional Hajj caravan route to Mecca and later the Hejaz railway. The Hauran remained Syria's breadbasket until being largely supplanted by northern Syria in the mid-20th century, which coincided with its separation from interdependent areas due to international borders and the Arab–Israeli conflict. Nonetheless, it persisted as an important agricultural and commercial transit area into the 2000s. During the Syrian Civil War, which was sparked in the Hauran in 2011, it became a major conflict zone between rebels and government forces in the Daraa Governorate campaign until the government reasserted control in 2018.

The wide availability of basalt in the Hauran led to the development of a distinct vernacular architecture characterized by the exclusive use of basalt as a building material and a fusion of Hellenistic, Nabatean and Roman styles. The durability of basalt is credited for the Hauran's possession of one of the highest concentrations of well-preserved Classical-era monuments in the world. Hauran towns such as Bosra, Qanawat, Shahba, Salkhad, Umm al-Jimal and numerous others contain Roman temples and theaters, Byzantine-era churches and monasteries, and forts, mosques and bathhouses built by successive Muslim dynasties.

## Geography

### Geographic definition

Though its geographic definition may vary, the Hauran generally consists of the following subregions: the Hauran plain, which forms the heart of the region; the mountains of Jabal Hauran (also known as 'Jabal al-Druze' or 'Jabal al-Arab') east of the plain; and the Lajat volcanic field to the north of Jabal Hauran. The region is bound to the north by the Ghouta and Marj plains around Damascus and to the south by the desert steppe of Jordan. Its western boundary is marked by the Ruqqad tributary, which separates it from the Golan Heights (al-Jawlān in Arabic). It is eastwardly bound by the al-Hamad and al-Safa desert steppes. Geographer John Lewis Burckhardt, writing in 1812, defined it as follows:

> To the south of Jabal Kiswah and Jabal Khiyara begins the country of Hauran. It is bordered on the east by the rocky district of Lajat, and by the Jabal Hauran, both of which are sometimes comprised within the Hauran ... To the southeast, where Bosra and Ramtha are the farthest inhabited villages, the Hauran borders upon the desert. Its western limits are the chain of villages on the Hajj road, from Ghabaghib as far south as Ramtha ... Hauran comprises therefore part of Trachonitis and Iturea, the whole of Auranitis, and the northern districts of Batanea.

The plain of Hauran stretches between the Marj plain of Damascus southward into modern-day Jordan where it borders Jabal Ajlun to the southwest and the desert steppe to the south and southeast. To the west is the Golan plateau and to the east are the uplands of Jabal Hauran. The plain has historically been divided into the northern Jaydur and the southern Nuqrah. The former is identified with the ancient Iturea, while the latter is identified with the ancient Batanea (al-Bathaniyya in Arabic). The much larger Nuqrah extends northward to the approaches of al-Sanamayn, being bound to the east by the Lajat and Jabal Hauran. It forms the heart of the Hauran plain. Al-Nuqra is a relatively recent appellation, meaning "the cavity" in Arabic. The Jaydur extends northwest from al-Sanamayn to the minor lava field located at the foothills of Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Shaykh in Arabic).

### Topography

A common feature throughout the Hauran is the basaltic topography, though altitude and soil vary between the Hauran's subregions. The Nuqrah, Jaydur and Jabal Hauran consist of arable land derived from decomposed basaltic, volcanic rock. The Nuqrah is a relatively low plateau measuring roughly 100 by 75 kilometers (62 mi × 47 mi) with an average elevation of 600 meters (2,000 ft) above sea level. Its land is characterized by vast, contiguous tracts of fertile, basalt-derived soil. In contrast to the Nuqrah, the Jaydur's landscape is more fractured and rocky. Its average elevation ranges between 600 and 900 meters (2,000 and 3,000 ft) above sea level, with some volcanic cones reaching above 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) above sea level, including Tell al-Hara. In terms of its landscape and cinder cones, the Jaydur is a topographic continuation of the Golan Heights. The Jabal Hauran was formed by large lava flows into a roughly 60 by 30 kilometers (37 mi × 19 mi) massif of volcanic hills, the highest point of which is over 1,800 meters (5,900 ft) above sea level in the range's center. The Lajat comprises a topography of depressions, rifts and ridges with scattered arable patches, and is characterized by rocky soil and scarce vegetation. Its average elevation is between 600–700 meters (2,000–2,300 ft) above sea level, though some of the area's volcanic cones are over 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) with the highest over 1,150 meters (3,770 ft).

### Climate

Rainfall above the 200 millimetres (7.9 in) mark is characteristic throughout the Hauran, but otherwise climate and precipitation levels vary between its subregions. The relatively frequent rainfall and the abundance of water springs have historically allowed the Nuqrah and Jabal Hauran to become major grain-growing regions. The Hauran plain receives an average 250 millimetres (9.8 in) of rainfall, which allows the plains to support stable, grain-based agriculture. Jabal Hauran receives considerably greater rainfall, which supports more orchard and tree-based cultivation. Jabal Hauran is frequently covered by snow during the winter.

## History

There are records of settlements in the Hauran in the Ancient Egyptian Amarna letters and the Book of Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Bible, when the region was generally known as Bashān. Control of it was contested between the Aramean kingdom of Damascus and the Kingdom of Israel during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. It was ultimately conquered and pillaged by the Assyrian Empire, which held onto it from 732 to 610 BCE. The area is mentioned in the description of the future borders of Israel in Ezekiel 47:16. Bashān later saw security and prosperity under Achaemenid rule; its settlements became better developed and culturally Aramized.

### Hellenistic period

During the Hellenistic period beginning in the mid-4th century BCE, the Hauran was at first a possession of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which saw the region as a buffer zone separating their kingdom from Seleucid Damascus. Its sparse population consisted of semi-nomadic and nomadic groups such as the Itureans and Nabateans and the area remained largely undeveloped. The Seleucids conquered the Hauran following their victory over the Ptolemies in the Battle of Panium near Mount Hermon in 200 BCE. During the decline of the Seleucid Empire, the Petra-based Nabatean Kingdom emerged to the Hauran's south. The Arab Nabateans expanded their presence to the southern Hauran towns of Bosra and Salkhad. By the end of the 2nd century BCE, Seleucid control of the Hauran had become largely nominal and the region became a contested area between the Nabataean Kingdom, the Jerusalem-based Hasmonean dynasty and the Iturean principality based in the northern Golan and southern Mount Lebanon.

### Roman era

#### Herodian period

By 63 BCE the Roman Empire extended its influence to all of Syria and initially charged local princes with keeping order in Auranitis (Jabal Hauran), Batanea (Nuqrah) and Trachonitis (Lajat). However, the districts remained largely in the hands of nomadic tribes. To supplement their meager income, these nomads often raided nearby settlements as far as Damascus, and robbed pilgrims traversing the region. When Zenodorus, a prince entrusted with the Hauran districts' security, collaborated with the nomads, the Romans transferred the districts to their Judean client king, Herod the Great in 23 BCE.

After Herod quelled resistance in the Hauran during the early years of his rule, the brigandage of the nomads largely ceased. Their rebellion resumed in 12 BCE and two years later Herod renewed his efforts to bring the nomads to heel. This resulted in an alliance formed between the nomads of Trachonitis and Auranitis with the Nabateans in Transjordan, which defeated Herod's Idumean troops. Herod ultimately stabilized the area after establishing permanent colonies and a network of forts in the less vulnerable Batanea district, from which Herod's forces could keep order without fear of attack by the nomads of Auranitis and Trachonitis. Through the establishment of security, land distribution and early tax incentives, Batanea prospered under Herod and his successors and became Syria's main source of grain. Auranitis began to similarly prosper during the reign of Philip, Herod's successor in the Hauran.

#### Post-annexation

By the early 2nd century CE, the last vassal kings of the Hauran region, Agrippa II (r.  53–100 CE) of the Herodian Tetrarchy and Rabbel II (r.  70–106 CE) of the Nabatean Kingdom, had died and Rome under Emperor Trajan (r.  98–117) no longer saw the need for local intermediaries. The deaths of the Herodian and Nabatean monarchs in relatively quick succession provided an opportunity for the Romans to absorb their domains. In 106, the empire formally annexed the entire Hauran, incorporating its southern part in Arabia Province and its northern part in Syria Province. The provincial boundary followed the boundary just north of the Adraa–Bosra–Salkhad line that had separated the Herodian and Nabatean kingdoms. This administrative division remained intact for much of the 2nd century. This period, under the Antonine emperors who ruled until 180 CE, saw consistent stability, development and prosperity.

During the late 2nd century, imperial order gradually weakened and political instability ensued. In 244 a native of the Hauran, Philip the Arab, became emperor and turned his hometown of Shahba (Philippopolis) into an imperial city. Though Shahba and Auranitis prospered, the general state of the empire was marked by decline. Philip was killed in 249 and Auranitis was largely abandoned in the late 3rd century. By the early 3rd century, Auranitis, Batanea and Trachonitis had been annexed to Arabia, bringing the entire Hauran under the jurisdiction of a single province. This also coincided with the completion of the north-south Via Nova Traiana road connecting the Red Sea-port of Ayla with Bosra, the provincial capital, and an east-west road connecting the cities of the Adraa–Bosra–Salkhad line. Commenting on this development, historian Henry Innes MacAdam writes:

> For the first time since the Hellenistic age the Hawran in its entirety came under one administrative system. The road network and the settlements it linked were the framework upon which the economic and social infrastructure of the region was built. Secure towns and safe, well-maintained roads meant that internal and external commerce could flow freely. The wine and grain of the Hawran were marketed, we may assume, far and wide.

After Rome's annexation, the rural villages of the Hauran exercised considerable self-rule. Each village had common areas and buildings, a law council and a treasury. Between the late 1st and 5th centuries, several underwent urbanization and became cities, including Qanawat (Canatha), al-Suwayda (Dionysias), Shahba (Philippopolis), Shaqqa (Maxmimianopolis), al-Masmiyah (Phaina) and Nawa (Naveh). The inhabitants were generally wealthy landowners whose large dwellings housed their extended families. Among the inhabitants were Roman army veterans who upon returning to their villages in the Hauran invested money in land, houses, tombs, temples and public buildings and filled high-ranking local positions. Agriculture was the main economic sector, with Batanea and Auranitis mainly producing grain and wine, respectively, both of which were important to imperial trade.

Much of the settled population consisted of Arameans, Jews and a larger Arab population, consisting of Nabateans and Safaitic groups. These groups continued to use Semitic languages, mainly Aramaic and an early form of Arabic at the colloquial level, though the Hellenization process was well underway and by the 4th century Greek supplanted the Hauran's native languages at the official level. Though the particularly wealthy and army veterans engaged in Hellenistic activities, such as visiting theaters and bathhouses, much of the population held on to Arab and Aramaic traditions and worshiped their native gods.

### Byzantine era

Arab groups, including from South Arabia, continued to migrate to the Hauran well into the Byzantine period. During the 4th and 5th centuries, when direct imperial rule was weakened and nomadic groups overran the Sinai and the Euphrates valley, the Byzantines turned to certain powerful Arab tribes to maintain internal order and guard the Hauran. Beginning in the 4th century, this role was played by the Lakhmids, and by the Salihids for much of the 5th century. These groups protected the population in return for payment in gold and corn.

#### Ghassanid period

In the early 6th century, the Salihids were replaced by the Ghassanids. A major component of the Azd tribal confederation, the Ghassanids established themselves in Arabia Province and like the Salihids, embraced Christianity. They became formal military allies of the Byzantines in 502, contributing troops in the wars with Sassanian Persia and the Persians' Lakhmid vassals. In 531, the Ghassanid chieftain al-Harith ibn Jabalah was decreed 'phylarch of all Arabs' in the empire, but by 582 his son (and the last powerful Ghassanid phylarch) al-Mundhir III was arrested and exiled. This led to a rebellion in the Hauran and a siege on Bosra led by al-Mundhir's son al-Nu'man VI, which only ended when the latter was allowed by the Byzantines to reestablish the Ghassanid phylarchy. This only lasted until al-Nu'man was exiled in 584, after which the empire dissolved the phylarchy into numerous, smaller Ghassanid and other Arab Christian units. Some of these units continued to fight alongside the Byzantines, but their overall power had diminished, leaving the area more vulnerable to invasion. In 613, the Sassanian Persians invaded Syria and defeated the Byzantines in a battle between Adraa and Bosra.

The Byzantine era in the Hauran was marked by the dual processes of rapid Arabization and the growth of Christianity. The region's Ghassanid rulers were semi-nomadic and established permanent encampments throughout the Hauran, chief of which was al-Jabiya, but also Aqraba, Jalliq, Harith al-Jawlan and others. They were entrusted by the Byzantines to secure the Hauran's agricultural production and stave off nomadic marauders. The region prospered under Ghassanid supervision and the tribe itself built or patronized secular and religious architecture in the region's villages, including churches, monasteries and large homes for their chieftains. Although a Christian presence in some cities of Auranitis was established in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, by the 5th century nearly all the villages in the Hauran had churches, most of them dedicated to saints favored by the Arabs. The Ghassanids played a significant role in promoting Monophysite Christianity in Syria which was viewed as heretic by the Chalcedonian Church embraced by most Byzantine emperors.

### Early Islamic era

The advent of Islam in Arabia and its expansion northward to Syria was countered by the Byzantines and their Arab Christian allies. However, the region's defenses had been significantly weakened as a consequence of the Ghassanids' decline in status in 582–584. The first Arab Muslim forces arrived in the Hauran in April 634 and Bosra was conquered by them in May. Following the decisive Muslim victory in the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, all of the Hauran came under Muslim rule. The Umayyad dynasty took control of the expanding Islamic caliphate and relocated its capital from Medina to Damascus and were supported by the people of Hauran. After the death of the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya II and the ensuing chaos of succession, the Umayyads' Arab tribal allies in Syria convened a summit in the Hauran town of al-Jabiya, where they chose Marwan I to be the next caliph, in opposition to the ascendant Mecca-based Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. Following the Abbasids’ toppling of the Umayyads in 750, the Arab tribes of Hauran rose in a rebellion that was put down by the Abbasid general Abd Allah ibn Ali.

During the early Muslim period (7th-10th centuries), the Hauran formed part of the military district of Damascus, itself a part of the larger province of Bilad al-Sham. The Hauran subdistrict roughly corresponded to the ancient Auranitis and its capital was Bosra, while the Bathaniyya subdistrict corresponded to the ancient Batanea and had Adhri'at as its capital. Settlement within the Hauran continued and in some cases "thrived" in the early Islamic period, with "no perceptible change in activity or cultural patterns under the Umayyad caliphs", according to historian Moshe Hartal. According to the 10th-century Muslim geographer Istakhri, the Hauran and Bathaniyya were "...two great districts of the Damascus Province. Their fields are rain-watered. The frontiers of these two districts extend down to... ...the Balqa district and Amman".

The Abbasid period in Hauran was marked by numerous damaging raids from the Qarmatians of eastern Arabia in the 10th century. After 939, the Hauran and Bathaniyya districts came under the direct rule of the Egyptian-based Ikhshidid dynasty, nominal governors of the Abbasids. During this period, the large Arab tribe of Banu Uqayl, formerly allies of the Qarmatians, migrated to the Syrian steppe extending from the Hauran northward to Upper Mesopotamia. After 945, the de jure Ikshidid ruler Abu al-Misk Kafur assigned the Uqaylid sheikhs (chieftains) Salih ibn Umayr and Zalim ibn Mawhub with keeping order in the Hauran districts. This ended when the Fatimids conquered southern Syria in 970 and the Uqayl were consequently chased out of the Hauran by the Fatimid-allied tribes of Banu Fazara and Banu Murra. The villages of Hawran and Bathaniyya were rehabilitated by Abu Mahmud Ibrahim, the nominal Fatimid governor of Damascus, in the early 980s, after the damage inflicted on the area by the Fazara and Murra.

### Middle Islamic era

The arrival of the Crusaders in the coastal regions of Bilad al-Sham in 1099 had repercussions for the Hauran and the region was periodically targeted by Crusaders in plundering campaigns. These occurred when the Crusaders captured Muslim-held fortresses in the Hauran or passed by the region after raids against Damascus. In the early 12th century, the entire Hauran was assigned by the Burid emir of Damascus to the Turkish general Amin al-Dawla Kumushtakin as an iqta (fief), which he held until his death in 1146. Under his patronage the region, and Bosra in particular, saw a renewal of building activity after a roughly 300-year hiatus. The population of the Hauran at the time was largely Greek Orthodox.

The last recorded appearance of the Crusaders in Hauran was in 1217. The Ayyubids had conquered the region in the late 12th century, but their rule collapsed in Syria following the Mongol invasion in 1260. That year the Mongols were defeated by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut and Syria, including the Hauran, came under Mamluk rule.

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the Hauran continued to be administratively divided into the Hauran and Bathaniyya districts of Damascus. In general, both districts were well-populated and prosperous, benefiting particularly from grain production. Though mostly Muslim, a significant portion of the inhabitants were Christians. A contemporary Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (died 1229) described the Hauran as "a large district full of villages and very fertile".

Following its incorporation into the Mamluk Sultanate, the Hauran continued to be divided into the two districts of the Bosra-centered Hauran and the Adhri'at-centered Bathaniyya. However, within the region were the two smaller administrative units of Salkhad, a fortress town typically held by a high-ranking Mamluk emir, and Zur’, which corresponded with the Lajat. Under the Mamluks, the region's strategic importance stemmed from its position on the barid (postal route) between Gaza and Damascus and Bosra's role as a major marshaling point for the Hajj caravans going to Mecca. The arrival of nomadic clans from the Banu Rabi'a tribe in the 14th century caused instability in the region, but they eventually became settled inhabitants.

### Ottoman era

#### Grain cultivation and Hajj caravan transit

The Hauran was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire following its conquest of Mamluk Syria in 1517. In the early Ottoman era, during the 16th and 17th centuries, there were numerous agrarian, primarily grain-growing villages in the Hauran plain and the western slopes of Jabal Hauran. Most of the inhabitants paid taxes on wheat and barley. The Hauran had long been a major grain-producing region and officially, its land belonged to the Ottoman state and its inhabitants were required to pay taxes and be conscripted into the army. However, as state authority receded, the region effectively became autonomous. An exception to this virtual autonomy came during the annual thirty- to sixty-day Hajj season, during which the state mobilized its forces to organize, protect and supply the annual Muslim pilgrim caravan to Mecca and Medina; In the 18th century, the Hajj route was moved westward from Bosra to Muzayrib, which became the caravan's marshaling point in the Hauran.

Instead of their direct involvement in the Hauran, the authorities entrusted its affairs to the Damascene aghawat, who commanded small, mobile units of mounted irregulars. In return for the political and economic influence they were allowed in the Hauran, the aghawat secured revenue from the region's population to fund the Hajj caravan, escorted the caravan and other travelers and policed the region. The principal restriction on the power of the aghawat was resistance from the Hauran's inhabitants. Thus, the aghawat sought to become more indispensable to the local population. To that end, they often mediated between the settled inhabitants of the plain and the Bedouin nomads, and between the Hauran's population as a whole and all outside powers, including the state. According to historian Linda S. Schilcher,

> This hinterland political system had its own internal checks and, of course, its strains, but it appears to have existed with a fair degree of equilibrium for a very long period of time. The low pressure of population on the land and the natural economies that existed between steppe and cultivated plain and between town and countryside appear to have contributed to this relatively stable situation.

#### Increased Bedouin pressures and Druze influx

As state authority receded in the Hauran, Bedouin tribes from the Anaza confederation increasingly took advantage of the security vacuum. The Bedouin encamped in the Hauran in the spring and retreated into the desert as soon as the autumn rains began. The Anaza's entry into the Hauran caused the exodus of the semi-nomadic tribes of the Banu Rabi'a confederation. The largest tribes that encamped in the Hauran were the Wuld Ali (also known as Awlad Ali), who arrived in the early 18th century, and the Rwala, who arrived in the late 18th century. Both were part of the Anaza confederation. Smaller tribes included the Sardiyah, the Sirhan and the Sulut. The Sulut, which was based in the Lajat wilderness, was the only Bedouin tribe that remained relatively stationary.

The Bedouin used the Hauran for access to water, to graze their camels and sheep and to stock up on supplies for the winter. They traded their livestock and meats for grains from the plainsmen, and wares from other Syrian merchants. The Hajj caravan was a major source of income for the Bedouin, who supplied the pilgrims with protection, logistical support, meat and transportation. Bedouin depredations against the locals included the imposition of the khuwwa (tribute), ostensibly in return for protection. The Bedouin also launched occasional raids and their flocks often grazed on the plainsmen's fields.

In addition to the Bedouin, the 18th and 19th centuries also witnessed large migrations of Druze from Mount Lebanon to the Jabal Hauran, which gradually became known as the Jabal al-Druze ('mountain of the Druze'). Their arrival pushed the mountain's previous inhabitants to the Hauran plains and introduced a new element of instability to the region. A small group of Druze led by the Alam al-Din family first arrived in 1685. A much larger wave arrived in the region as a result of the intra-Druze Battle of Ain Dara in 1711. The new arrivals were concentrated in the northwestern corner of Jabal Hauran and the Lajat and established roots in abandoned villages with extensive ancient ruins. The area was chosen by the Druze because it was well-watered, defensible and relatively close to the Druze settlements in the Damascus countryside and Mount Hermon. The paramount leaders of the community between 1711 and 1860 were the Najran-based Al Hamdan family.

Persistent migrations of Druze from Mount Lebanon, Wadi al-Taym and the Galilee, caused by the increased turbulence they faced, continued throughout the 18th century: historian Kais Firro stated that "each sign of danger in their traditional lands of settlement seemed to instigate a new Druze migration to the Hauran". During the final years of the decade-long Egyptian administration of Syria, the Druze of Jabal Hauran launched their first revolt against the authorities, in response to a conscription order by Ibrahim Pasha. By then, their numbers in the region had been swollen by migration. The 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war between the Druze and Christians and the resulting French military intervention caused another large exodus of Druze to Jabal Hauran.

The Hauran plains declined economically and demographically during the 17th and 18th centuries. Factors that caused this decline included the taxation of the peasantry by both the government and the Bedouin, periodic raids by the Bedouin and the encroachments of their livestock, and occasional strife with the neighboring Druze, Ottoman irregulars and between themselves. Many southern plainsmen migrated to the northern Hauran plain, where the soil was more productive in comparison to the drier south and was less often overrun by the Bedouin and their herds. According to the historian Norman Lewis, southern Haurani plainsmen "had been moving northwards for generations". Thus, by the start of the 19th century, the northern plains contained several full or half-empty villages, while the south had been all but deserted, with the exception of the larger towns of Daraa (Adhri'at), Bosra and al-Ramtha.

#### Regional revival and centralization

During the 1850s, increased demand for grain in the Damascene and European markets led to a resurgence of grain cultivation in the Hauran. This in turn brought about the mass resettlement of abandoned villages and the establishment of new settlements. By the end of the decade, resettlement caused a scarcity of grazing lands for Bedouin livestock.

The civil war of 1860, which spilled over into Damascus, where thousands of Christians were massacred, spurred the Ottomans to expand their centralization efforts in Syria. Prior to 1860, the Hauran had been largely excluded from the Tanzimat centralization reforms. In January 1861, the provincial governor, Fu'ad Pasha. attempted to integrate and reorganize the region. There followed other largely unsuccessful attempts by four successive Ottoman governors. At the time, the Hauran's leadership consisted of the chiefs of the largely pacified clans of the plains, such as Al Miqdad and Al Hariri; the more rebellious chiefs of the Druze clans of Jabal Hauran, such as Al Hamdan and Bani al-Atrash; and the chiefs of the Bedouin tribes of Rwala, Wuld Ali, Sirhan and Sardiyah, whose herds seasonally grazed the Hauran plains.

The centralization efforts, backed by the Damascene aghawat, faced stiff resistance. They were opposed by both the Druze of Ismail al-Atrash and a coalition he formed, that included the Bedouin and many of the Haurani plainsmen. This coalition was defeated in 1862 and the government came to terms with al-Atrash, entrusting him to collect taxes from the entire Hauran and to pay heavy fines in place of conscription. Though this did not translate into the ultimate goal of integrating the Hauran, and the Bedouin continued their rebellions in 1863–1864, it still ended the region's virtual autonomy.

Not until the appointment of Rashid Pasha did centralization efforts take hold. Rashid sought to change the general view in the Hauran that the government was an alien power that was only intent on collecting taxes and conscripting its youth. He accomplished this change by according the chiefs of Wuld Ali and Rwala adequate grazing lands; granting the leaders of the plainsmen and the Druze certain privileges and state functions; and replacing the aghawat as the state's intermediaries with the locals, whilst still utilizing them for military campaigns in Transjordan and facilitating the Hajj caravan. Tax concessions were also granted, but an Ottoman military presence was retained, as Rashid Pasha viewed it as a stabilising force. As part of the Hauran's reorganization, a new administrative district, the Hauran Sanjak, was formed, which included Jabal Hauran, the Nuqrah and Jaydur plains, the Golan plateau, the hilly Balqa plain and Jabal Ajlun.

Rashid Pasha also pressed wealthier Syrians to take advantage of the 1858 Land Code and auctioned massive tracts of state land. From 1869, many Damascene merchants and landowners and entrepreneurial Haurani farmers invested in these lands, which increased agricultural production. With these investments came a reinforced military presence and a consequent reduction in Bedouin raids. These combined factors caused the peasantry to “feel themselves more protected and risk further settlement", according to German archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher.

Into the 1870s and 1880s, the peasants of the Hauran, including the Druze, persisted in their agitation against the central government, European commercial interests and their own leaders. However, increased security in the plains as well as an end to Bedouin tribute collection were both largely secured and continued into the 20th century. To illustrate the extent of the Hauran's cultivation in the mid-1890s, Schumacher noted that "no hectare of good land was without its owner". The central plain had become entirely cultivated or settled, Daraa and Bosra grew significantly and many of the hamlets established or reestablished in the 1850s had become large villages. In 1891-95, Zionist organisations, helped by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, acquired 100,000 dunams of land in Saham al-Jawlan and established there a Jewish village, but in 1896 the authorities evicted the non-Ottoman Jewish families. In 1904, the annual Hajj caravan and Muzayrib's role in it was replaced by the construction of the Hejaz Railway.

### French Mandatory period

At the end of World War I, the Hauran was captured and held for about two years by the Arab army of Emir Faisal, until French forces occupied Damascus in July 1920 to enforce French Mandatory rule in Syria. A revolt broke out in the Hauran in response to the French occupation. Following the crushing of the Great Syrian Revolt, which began in the Hauran, the area experienced increased prosperity and security, as its inhabitants were now protected from incursions by Bedouin tribes.

Under French Mandatory rule, the Hauran plains formed an eponymous district within the State of Damascus, while the Jabal Hauran formed the Jabal Druze State. Its total population was 83,000 and included 110 villages. Its principal population centers were the small towns of Daraa, Bosra, Izra and Nawa. The district was subdivided into two qadaat (subdistricts), the southern one centered in Daraa and the northern one in Izra.

### Post-Syrian independence period

In the period following Syria's independence from France in 1946, the Hauran developed into "a busy and prosperous region", according to the historian Dominique Sourdel. It remained a significant source of the country's grain and point of transit between Syria and Jordan. It was often a place where Bedouin came to trade their wool and butter for other commodities. However, following World War II, the Hauran also lost much of its importance within Syria's national economy. Though it continues to supply grain to Damascus, its role as the 'granary of Syria' was eclipsed by the country's northern and northeastern regions. Grain production in the Hauran has been limited by dependence on rain and underground reservoirs. Moreover, the region's economic potential has been curtailed by the creation of international borders and the Arab–Israeli conflict, which have separated it from previously interdependent areas that are located today in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. In particular, the dual loss of Palestine as an alternative market to Damascus, and of Haifa as the Hauran's main economic outlet to the Mediterranean Sea, have also contributed to its economic decline.

Unlike other rural regions in Syria, most land in the Hauran was not concentrated in the hands of large owners, being owned instead by small or medium-sized proprietors. Thus, the region was not as affected by the Agrarian Reform Law passed in 1958 during the United Arab Republic period (1958–1961) and enforced by the Ba'ath Party government in 1963, which effected land redistribution and mostly targeted large landowners. According to historian Hanna Batatu, parts of the Hauran, such as the area within and around Bosra, were practically self-governing during the presidency of Hafez al-Assad (1970–2000). Politically, many of the clans that dominated local politics under the French continued to do so under the Ba'ath. Economically and socially, however, the higher levels of leadership within the clans declined and lower-ranking members gradually became more influential.

During the presidency of Bashar al-Assad (2000–present), the Hauran has remained an important agricultural region. Its principal city, Daraa, is a major transit hub for commercial traffic between Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as for smuggled goods between these countries.

#### Syrian Civil War

The Syrian Civil War was sparked in the Hauran town of Daraa on 6 March 2011 when anti-government demonstrations were organized in response to the detention and alleged torture of a group of teenagers by the local branch of the security forces. As the revolt spread in the Hauran, anti-government forces utilized their clan networks that extended to Jordan and Arab states of the Persian Gulf, smuggling funds and weapons to sustain the rebellion. According to historian Nicholas Heras, "the major tribes of Dar\`a are reported to share common grievances... ...against the al-Assad government in Dar\`a". During the course of the war, they formed loosely-coordinated rebel militias, fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army-affiliated Southern Front, which claimed it had the allegiance of some fifty armed groups with a collective strength of 30,000 fighters. Anti-government Salafist armed groups, such as the Nusra Front, also gained increasing influence, at times either challenging or cooperating with the Southern Front.

Until 2018, rebel groups controlled large areas on either side of the main north-south Damascus-Daraa highway and the Nasib border crossing, though the Syrian Army (SAA) and its affiliates controlled the highway corridor itself. Meanwhile, the pro-government Druze Muwahhidin Army largely stayed out of the fighting and secured Jabal al-Druze. In June 2018, the Syrian government launched an offensive to recapture the rebel-held areas of the Daraa and Quneitra governorates. By the end of the following month, the entire Hauran was under government control, including a pocket of territory in the Yarmouk basin that had previously been held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Although some rebels and their families opted to relocate to rebel-held Idlib, most rebel factions surrendered in reconciliation deals with the government and remained in their hometowns. A number of rebel groups also joined the Syrian Army offensive against ISIL.

## Demography

### Religion

The population of the Hauran region is religiously heterogeneous. The largely agrarian Sunni Muslim Arabs form a majority in the Hauran plain in Syria and Jordan and are known as Ḥawarna (singular: Ḥawrānī). In addition to the indigenous Ḥawarna, the plains are also populated by communities of former Bedouin tribes who gradually became settled, and Circassians who arrived over fifty years prior to the end of the 19th century.

The Druze form a majority in the Jabal Hauran, which is part of the al-Suwayda Governorate. There is a significant Christian population, both Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic (Melkite), in the Hauran region as a whole, though most Christians are concentrated in the towns and villages straddling the western foothills of Jabal Hauran. A sizable Twelver Shia Muslim community, whose origins are from the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, make up about 40% of Bosra's population.

### Clan structure and geographic distribution

The social structure of the Hauran plain is characterized by networks of large extended agrarian clans, such as the Hariri, Zu'bi, Miqdad, Abu Zeid, Mahamid, Masalma and Jawabra. The Zu'bi are the largest clan, inhabiting some sixteen villages in the Daraa and Izra districts. They also have an extensive presence across the border in the Irbid Governorate, particularly in the cities of al-Ramtha and Irbid. They form the predominant group in the city of Daraa and many of its surrounding villages. Altogether, they number some 160,000 members in southern Syria and northern Jordan.

The second largest clan are the Hariri, who generally inhabit eighteen villages, including many that are inhabited by the Zu'bi. They are mostly concentrated just north of Daraa in Abtaa, Da'el, and al-Shaykh Maskin. The Miqdad are predominant in many of the villages southwest of Daraa. They are also the largest clan in the city of Bosra, but are predated there by the smaller al-Hamd clan. The tribesmen of Nu'aym (or Na'imeh) are predominant in the towns of al-Shaykh Maskin, Jasim and Nawa in the Izra District, the villages of north-central al-Sanamayn District and in the Quneitra Governorate. Smaller clans such as the Rifa'i are concentrated in Ataman and Nasib, while the Masalma, Mahamid and Abu Zeid are concentrated in Daraa city.

Among the settled Bedouin are many Anizah tribesmen who made Daraa their home alongside the city's established agrarian clans. In addition, members of the Shammar Arab tribe from northeastern Syria have migrated to the city, mainly for economic reasons.

Like the agrarian Sunni clans of the plains, the Druze in Jabal Hauran were traditionally organized in a hierarchical clan order that saw a disparity in the distribution of social influence and prestige. The Bani al-Atrash are the leading clan and predominate in some sixteen towns and villages, mostly in the southern parts of Jabal Hauran. In the northern parts, the Bani 'Amer predominate in eleven villages, while the other major clan in the northern Jabal Hauran was the Halabiya family. Though the Bani al-Atrash and Bani ‘Amer were the more powerful clans in the governorate, members of the Banu Assaf of Attil, Salim and Walghah and Bani Abu Ras of al-Ruha historically dominated the judiciary, while the Hajari, Hinnawi and Jarbu families historically provided the Druze community's religious leadership in Qanawat.

## Architecture

The Hauran has its own vernacular architectural tradition, known as the Hawrani style, which is characterized by a number of distinctive factors. One of these is the exclusive use of basaltic stone for building material. Known for its hardness and black color, basalt is readily available throughout the region and until recent decades, was used for nearly all construction work done in the Hauran. Due to a lack of timber, basalt took the usual place of wood and was used for doors, window seals and ceilings. The reliance upon basalt in the Hauran "formed a truly lithic architecture“, according to the architectural anthropologist Fleming Aalund.

The tensile strength of basalt enabled the "development of unusual building techniques", according to historian Warwick Ball. Among these methods was the cutting of long, narrow beams from basalt to roof large areas spanning 10 meters (33 ft) or longer. Because of the size restrictions of the beams, a distinctive system of traverse, semi-circular arches was devised to support the roof. Corbels, typically no longer than 4 meters (13 ft), were used to expand the intervals between the arches and the walls. This method "gave rise to the distinctive, cantilevered 'slab and lintel' architectural style that is peculiar to the black basalt areas of the Hauran", according to Ball.

The fusion of Nabatean, Hellenistic and Roman styles also characterizes the architecture of the region. Hawrani-style architecture is dated to at least the 1st century CE, when the Nabateans moved their capital from Petra to Bosra. The Nabateans were avid builders who had their own distinctive architectural tradition. After the Romans annexed the Kingdom of the Nabateans in 106, the area experienced a building boom that lasted until the onset of strife and instability in the mid-3rd century. Though the Romans greatly influenced the region's architecture, the Hauran's Nabatean inhabitants largely maintained their own building traditions, particularly in the smaller towns.

The architecture of the Byzantine era was influenced by the spread of Christianity and the consequent construction of churches and monasteries, the majority dating between the 4th century and early 6th century. Surveys of the region indicated that a long period of uninterrupted building activity took place in the Hauran between the Nabatean period in the 1st century to the Umayyad period in the 7th century. The region's pre-Islamic architectural tradition became the basis for later Islamic buildings in the Hauran, particularly in Bosra in the 12th–14th centuries. However, the Muslim patrons of these works also introduced outside elements, mostly inspired by Damascene architecture, to give their projects their own stately character.

### Archaeology

The Hauran is distinguished by the large-scale preservation of its ancient structures. This preservation extends to public and religious buildings, but also to simpler structures, such as village dwellings. The durability of basalt is generally credited with their well-preserved state. As a result, there are some 300 towns and villages in the Hauran containing ancient structures, almost as high a concentration as the Dead Cities of northwestern Syria. In the words of 20th-century archaeologist Howard Crosby Butler,

> There is no other country in the world where the architectural monuments of antiquity have been preserved in such large numbers, in such perfection, and in so many varieties as in North Central Syria [the Dead Cities] and in the Hauran. There are many places where the minor details of buildings, such as wall-paintings and mosaics, are in a better state of preservation; but there is no [other] region where numbers of towns of undoubted antiquity stand unburied, and still preserving their public and private buildings and their tombs in such a condition that, in many cases, they could be restored, with a small outlay, to their original state.

When Classical-era sites were largely resettled in the late Ottoman era, many of the Hauran's ancient monuments were converted into houses.

### Surveys

The earliest surveys of the Hauran's archaeological sites were taken in the 19th century by the French archaeologist Melchior de Vogüé between 1865 and 1877, S. Merrill in 1881 and Gottlieb Schumacher in 1886 and 1888. The most thorough and abundant documentation was recorded in surveys carried out by Butler and his team from Princeton University in 1903 and 1909 and then published periodically between 1909 and 1929. In 1913, Butler also surveyed Umm al-Jimal, which contained numerous ruins, some as high as three storeys high. The period in which these surveys were carried out coincided with the Hauran's mass resettlement. This resulted in the partial damage of some sites due to their occupation as homes or as a source of masonry for new buildings, a process which continuously increased in later years.

Renewed interest in the Hauran's ancient sites began in the 1970s. Umm al-Jimal was surveyed between 1972 and 1981 by the American archaeologist Bert de Vries and reports from that expedition were published in 1998. Surveys of the Hauran plain in Syria were carried out by French expeditionary teams led by François Villeneuve in 1985 and Jean-Marie Dentzer in 1986. Early photographs of Hauran's archaeological sites, taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the German explorer and photographer Hermann Burchardt, are now held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.

Region in Syria and Jordan


Star Trek: Discovery (season 1)

The first season of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery is set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series in the 23rd century and follows the crew of the starship Discovery during the Federation–Klingon war. The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment, and Living Dead Guy Productions, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts serving as showrunners, and Akiva Goldsman providing producing support.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, first officer of the USS Shenzhou and later the Discovery, along with Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Jason Isaacs. The series was announced in November 2015, and Bryan Fuller joined as showrunner the next February. He brought on Berg and Harberts to support him, and they took over as showrunners when Fuller left the series in October 2016 following creative disagreements with CBS. The season's war storyline was intended to represent the divide between different political factions of the modern United States, with effort put into redesigning the Klingon species and developing their culture and biology. Filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from January to October 2017, with additional filming on location in Jordan for the series premiere. The crew, including the visual effects team—led by Pixomondo—and composer Jeff Russo, aimed for the series' production values to match that of a feature film. The season features several guest stars taking on roles from The Original Series.

The first episode was broadcast on CBS and released on the streaming service CBS All Access on September 24, 2017. The rest of the 15-episode season was released weekly on All Access in two chapters: the first ended on November 12, and the second was released from January 7 to February 11, 2018. The season led to record subscriptions for All Access, and generally positive reviews from critics who highlighted Martin-Green's performance, the production values, and new additions to Star Trek canon. Some criticized the writing. The season was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. A second season was ordered in October 2017.

## Episodes

In March 2018, a "secret scene" was released depicting an alternative ending to the season finale, in which Mirror Georgiou is approached by an operative of Section 31. This storyline is further explored in the second season.

## Cast and characters

### Main

- Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham
- Doug Jones as Saru
- Shazad Latif as Voq / Ash Tyler
- Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets
- Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly
- Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca

### Recurring

- Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou
- Mary Chieffo as L'Rell
- James Frain as Sarek
- Kenneth Mitchell as Kol
- Jayne Brook as Katrina Cornwell
- Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber

### Notable guests

- Mia Kirshner as Amanda Grayson
- Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd
- Katherine Barrell as Stella Mudd
- Clint Howard as an Orion drug dealer

## Production

### Development

On November 2, 2015, CBS announced that a new Star Trek television series would premiere in January 2017, "on the heels" of Star Trek: The Original Series' 50th anniversary in 2016. The series would be developed specifically for the streaming service CBS All Access. Bryan Fuller was hired to be showrunner and executive producer in February 2016, as well as co-creator with Alex Kurtzman. Fuller began his career writing for the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, and had publicly called for Star Trek to return to television for years after the end of the previous series, Star Trek: Enterprise, in 2005. When Fuller first met with CBS about the series, the company did not have a plan for what the show would be. He proposed an anthology series where each season would be a standalone, serialized show set in a different era, beginning with a prequel to the original series. CBS told Fuller to start with a single serialized show and see how that performs first, and so he began further developing the prequel concept. In June, Fuller announced that the first season would consist of 13 episodes, and a month later, at Star Trek's 50th anniversary San Diego Comic-Con panel, he revealed the series' title to be Star Trek: Discovery. He also said it would be set in the "Prime Timeline" alongside the previous Star Trek series, rather than in the alternate "Kelvin Timeline" that the concurrent Star Trek film series was set in.

At the end of July, CBS hired David Semel, a veteran television procedural director who was under an overall deal with the studio, to direct the first episode for Discovery. Fuller did not approve of this decision, believing that Semel was "wrong for the job" and wanting a more visionary director to establish the style of the series. Fuller had personally reached out to Edgar Wright to direct the first episode before CBS hired Semel. As development and pre-production on the series continued, Fuller and Semel "clashed" on the direction of the show. The series was also starting to overrun its per-episode budget. Fuller was attempting to design new sets, costumes, and aliens for the series while heading the series' writers room and also spending considerable time addressing his commitments as showrunner of another new series, American Gods. This caused frustration among CBS executives that were pushing for a January 2017 debut. By August 2016, Fuller had hired Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, who he had worked with on his earlier series Pushing Daisies, to serve as co-showrunners with him on Discovery. A month later, Fuller and Kurtzman asked CBS to delay the series' release so they could realistically meet the high expectations for the series, and the studio announced that the series premiere had been pushed back to May 2017. The pair said in a statement that "these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of."

A few weeks after the delay was announced, Fuller met with Sonequa Martin-Green about portraying the series' lead, a character that had been surprisingly difficult for the production to cast. Fuller felt he had "found the crucial piece of the puzzle", but the actress would not be released from her contract at AMC until her character's death on The Walking Dead was publicly revealed. This episode was not set to air until April 2017, meaning Discovery would have to be delayed again if Martin-Green was cast in the series. At the end of October, CBS asked Fuller to step down as showrunner. They announced that the production was being restructured to keep Fuller actively involved with the series, but not on a day-to-day production level as he shifted his focus fully to American Gods: Berg and Harberts were made sole showrunners of Discovery, working off a broad story arc and overall mythology established by Fuller; Kurtzman and Fuller would continue as executive producers, with Fuller still helping the writers break stories; and Akiva Goldsman would join the series as a supporting producer—similar to the role he held on Fringe alongside Kurtzman—to help the showrunners and other producers "juggle the demands of the series". In a statement, CBS reiterated that they were "extremely happy with [Fuller's] creative direction" for the series, and were committed to "seeing this vision through". However, some elements of the series that came directly from Fuller were soon dropped, including some "more heavily allegorical and complex story" points and some of his design plans. Fuller later confirmed that he was no longer involved in the series at all, which he said was "bittersweet ... I can only give them the material I've given them and hope that it is helpful for them." By the end of the year, Martin-Green had indeed been cast as the series' lead, and in May 2017, the episode order was expanded to 15. That June, CBS announced a new premiere date of September 24. The season was divided into two chapters, with an airing break after the ninth episode to allow time for post-production on episodes in the second half of the season to be completed.

### Writing

Fuller wanted to differentiate the series from the previous 700+ episodes of Star Trek by taking advantage of the streaming format of All Access and telling a single story arc across the entire first season. He and the writers had completely planned this arc by the end of June 2016. Fuller said the original series episode "Balance of Terror", one of his favorites, would be a "touchstone" for the season's story direction. In August, Fuller teased that the story arc revolved around "an event in Star Trek history that's been talked about but never been explored", 10 years before the events of the original series. This was later revealed to be the Federation-Klingon cold war. Goldsman explained that this story would be told over the course of the first season and end with the creation of the Neutral Zone, allowing a new story to be told in potential future seasons. He described the events explored by the season as "sufficiently inexact [in previous Star Trek stories] that we can now fill in how we got there." He acknowledged that this time period has been widely covered by previous Star Trek novels, and explained that the series' writers considered these novels to be non-canon.

The writers felt that a traditional series might have begun with the series' protagonist, Michael Burnham, boarding the USS Discovery and then revealed her backstory through flashbacks. For Star Trek: Discovery, they wanted to take a different approach and begin with a prologue that explored Burnham's initial actions and her relationship to Captain Philippa Georgiou. Feeling that at least "two hours" were needed to convey this, the first two episodes of the season (released as a two-part premiere) cover this prologue, with the season's main story beginning with the third episode. The third episode was considered to be the series' equivalent of a pilot episode, and begins six months after the second. This time jump was inspired by film sequels that begin with significant events having transpired since the previous instalment such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The third episode reveals that the season's story involves the development of a new form of space travel that could win the war for the Federation. When it was noted that this form of travel is not known in the previous Star Trek series (set later in the timeline), actor Jason Isaacs stated that the writers were aware of this, and were "very clear, in not a cop-out way, to both incorporate this stuff which is exciting and very visual, to make sure that it didn't rankle canon." The season's story is split into two "micro-arcs", covering the first nine episodes and then the rest of the season, with a break in airing between the two. It finishes with the end of the war, which comes down to an agreement between two characters. These negotiations are made entirely by female characters, which was an intentional choice that Kurtzman felt was justified by the Me Too movement. The writers felt this was true to the spirit of Star Trek, and allowed them to move beyond the war storyline that Fuller had established for the show. The second season is then set-up with the appearance of the USS Enterprise from previous Star Trek media. Harberts explained that the writers knew they would have to acknowledge the existence of the Enterprise at some point due to the series' place in the timeline, and after Fuller left they decided to just "tell this story now" with the second season.

Because of the season's focus on Klingons and their culture, the producers decided that members of the species would speak their own language with subtitles throughout the show. Berg said this was "very important for us ... They have their own pride. They have their own interests and talent." Klingons historically represented the Soviet Union, and were portrayed as becoming friendlier with the protagonists of Star Trek as the real Cold War ended. For Discovery, the Klingons and Starfleet are intended to represent different factions within the modern United States, with Harberts explaining that the writers wanted to introduce two different points of view and explore their differences. He said the season is ultimately about "finding a way to come together". Berg added that one of the main themes being explored for the season was the "universal" lesson of "you think you know 'the other,' but you really don't". The showrunners stated that where previous Star Trek series revolved around the relationships between central male characters, Discovery focuses more on female characters. They described a "friendship structure" that goes from Captain Georgiou to First Officer Burnham to Cadet Tilly. They also explained that the two main Starfleet captains in the series, Georgiou and Lorca, are "metaphors for how people and institutions act in times of conflict", with Georgiou responding to war as would be expected of a traditional Starfleet officer, but Lorca representing a more "complicated version of a Starfleet captain who can almost only exist during a time of war".

### Casting

In addition to Martin-Green as protagonist Michael Burnham, the season's main cast includes Doug Jones as Saru, an alien lieutenant commander; Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler, a former prisoner of war; Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets, an astromycologist; Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly, a cadet; and Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca, captain of the USS Discovery. Isaacs was just cast for one season. Not all of the show's characters are introduced in the first episode as would be done in a traditional television series, with the writers taking advantage of the serialized format to take their time introducing each character over several episodes. Tyler is eventually revealed to actually be the Klingon Voq disguised as a human. Voq was initially credited as being portrayed by the actor "Javid Iqbal", who was invented for the ruse to hide the fact that Latif was portraying both Voq and Tyler. The name Javid Iqbal comes from Latif's father.

In November 2016, series' writer and consulting producer Nicholas Meyer mentioned that Michelle Yeoh had been cast in Discovery, and she was soon confirmed to be portraying Captain Georgiou of the USS Shenzhou. A month later, Mary Chieffo was cast as the Klingon L'Rell. In April 2017, Kenneth Mitchell was cast as Kol, who Latif was originally cast as before he was recast as Voq. That July, Rapp revealed that Wilson Cruz, whom Rapp had previously worked with on the musical Rent, would portray Stamets' love interest Hugh Culber. Jayne Brook also has a recurring role in the season, as Admiral Katrina Cornwell. Additionally appearing throughout the season in "co-starring" roles are Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer, Ali Momen as Kamran Gant, Chris Violette as Britch Weeton, Romain Waite as Troy Januzzi, Sara Mitich as Airiam, Oyin Oladejo as Joann Owosekun, Ronnie Rowe Jr. as R.A. Bryce, Conrad Coates as Terral, and Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys. Tasia Valenza and Julianne Grossman provided the computer voices for the Shenzhou and the Discovery, respectively.

Fuller said in August 2016 that the series would eventually include characters from previous Star Trek media, but he wanted to establish its own characters in the first season. He did express interest in including the character Amanda Grayson from The Original Series, saying, "there's much to be told about that". She was later confirmed to be appearing in the season due to Burnham having been adopted by Grayson and her husband Sarek in Discovery's backstory. James Frain was cast as Sarek by January 2017. Rainn Wilson was cast as another original series character, Harry Mudd, that March. In September, Harberts revealed that Mia Kirshner had been cast as Grayson. Katherine Barrell portrays Mudd's wife Stella. Clint Howard, who appeared in several previous Star Trek series, has a role in the season finale as an Orion drug dealer. The role was written specifically for Howard, who is friends with Goldsman.

### Design

#### Sets and starships

Mark Worthington and Todd Cherniawsky served as initial production designers for the series, with Tamara Deverell taking over around the sixth episode. She was the first female production designer for the Star Trek franchise. After CBS told the writers to add an excursion to a planet for an upcoming episode, which became the visit to Pahvo, Deverell had 10 minutes to pitch a design for the new sets. She came up with the idea of a yurt consisting of membranes, based on a mathematical structure, which was added to a forest using visual effects. For the second half of the season, Deverell had to redesign the Mirror Universe, a classic location from previous series. Deverell said the previous depictions had "just slapped a logo on the wall" to represent the Mirror Universe's Terran Empire, but for this series her team created a multi-dimensional version of the Terran Empire logo and then augmented sets with new mirrors to further distance them from the Prime Universe sets. For the flagship spaceship of the Terran Empire, the ISS Charon, Deverell used a "monolithic, Brutalist, concrete form" for her designs.

The design of the USS Discovery is based on an unused Ralph McQuarrie design for the USS Enterprise from the unproduced film Star Trek: Planet of the Titans. The USS Shenzhou was designed to look older than the Discovery, and was compared more to a submarine from The Hunt for Red October (1990) than previous Star Trek spaceships. The Shenzhou is a Walker-class starship, a new designation created for the series that is named for test pilot Joe Walker. Sets for the Shenzhou and the Discovery's interiors were built for the series, described as a "tangle of corridors and rooms". Because the bridge of the Shenzhou is on the bottom of that ship, the set for that room was built 12 feet (3.7 m) off the ground and upside down, and became a challenge for the crew to work in. In some cases, such as the transporter rooms and corridors, the same sets were used for both ships. These were dressed differently, with alternate lighting, graphics, and paint. The "turn over" process from depicting on ship to another within a set took up to a week.

#### Costumes

Fabric for the Starfleet uniforms seen in the series were custom-dyed in Switzerland; the costumes were cut and assembled in Toronto by costume designer Gersha Phillips and her department. For officers in combat situations or hazardous away missions, jumpsuit-versions of the main uniform were paired with armored vests. Also designed for the series was a Starfleet long haul space suit, which was built in the United Kingdom from sections of high-density foam that were then covered in fiberglass. Phillips designed traditional Vulcan robes for Sarek which were meant to reflect his devotion to logic and "serious intellectual pursuits". Vulcan pendants celebrating "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" were 3D printed and hand painted. For Harry Mudd's costume, primarily made of leather, Phillips was inspired by Adam Ant.

#### Klingons

Fuller had "really, really wanted" to redesign the Klingons, which he felt had inconsistent designs throughout the franchise's history. He wanted to portray the race as "sexy and vital and different" rather than "the thugs of the universe", and spent months working with prosthetics designer Neville Page and production designer Mark Worthington on the new look. Page was aware that changing the look of the Klingons would be controversial with Star Trek fans. The idea was to bring a fresh take to the Klingon race by creating a "high level of sophisticated detail—for a race that had long been perceived as brutal, one-minded, and simplistic".

Page first designed a generic, "realistic" Klingon skull, inspired by real biology, and then developed the different Klingons from that base in an evolution-based approach. The skull design includes spaces for "extra sensory receptors" running from the top of the head to the back, as Page wanted to show the Klingons to be apex predators with heightened senses. To not cover these receptors, the Klingons are depicted as being bald in the series, which is a design decision that was mandated by Fuller. It was important to the producers to show diversity within the Klingons, so the series depicts both light and dark skinned members of the species, and features different clothing, weapon, and armor designs for each of the 24 Klingon houses. Glenn Hetrick, co-founder of Alchemy Studios with Page, explained that the Klingon Empire covers many planets beyond the homeworld of Qo'noS and so different subsets of the species would have evolved on those different planets, each with different environments and cultures.

Hetrick and Page created armor and weapons with 3D printing and aluminum casts made from hand carved moulds. Some props, such as helmets, were designed to be augmented with visual effects. Weapons like Klingon ceremonial blades and gun-like disruptors were reimagined versions of previous props from franchise, especially Star Trek: The Next Generation. The overall design for Klingon weapons, helmets, and armor was based on the culture notes created for the species in the original series, which included influences from Middle Eastern, Mongolian, and Byzantine culture. Several motifs recur throughout the designs for the Klingons' weapons and armor, including their skulls and vertebrae, images of Klingons "poised to thrust themselves into the honor of battle", and images of Klingons sacrificing themselves in battle. The latter is similar to the emblem of the Klingon Empire.

Phillips and Suttirat Anne Larlarb created the clothing worn by the Klingon T'Kuvma and his followers, inspired more by "ancient Klingon ways" than the costumes seen previously in Star Trek. T'Kuvma wears a tunic created from three different types of leather and a chest plate made with 3D printed beads, decorated with Swarovski crystals. Costumes for his followers were created with individually stained, painted, modelled, and hand-pressed pieces of leather. Each suit took ten costumers 110 hours to complete. Different colored leather was used to differentiate males and females. A notable set of armor created for the season is the Torchbearer armor, which is worn in a ritual to unite the Klingon houses. It was made from 100 individually 3D printed pieces. When first describing the Torchbearer armor, Fuller referred to baroque and samurai styles. Kol, a member of the house of Kor that appeared in the original series, wears more leather and a different set of armor that is closer to those worn previously by Klingons in the franchise. US\$3 million was spent on a "massive" ship set for T'Kuvma's house, known as the "Klingon sarcophagus ship", which was designed to look like an alien cathedral. The outside of the ship is covered in coffins ranging from days old to hundreds of years old. The set was 40 feet (12 m) tall, 100 feet (30 m) long, and 50 feet (15 m) wide, and included multiple levels, mezzanines, and cantilevers. The set also included Klingon text and glyphs inspired by the novel The Final Reflection, which helped develop Klingon culture and language. Other details that were taken from the novel include the strategy game Klin zha and Klingon bloodwine cups. Research was done on how written languages evolve to accurately depict the ancient form of Klingon written on the ship. Instead of physical displays like Starfleet's ships, the sarcophagus ship uses holographic displays created with visual effects.

The Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS is visited in the season finale, though the town depicted is an Orion outpost. The production team attempted to reuse existing sets given any new sets would potentially not be reused. The graveyard chamber from the sarcophagus ship set was turned into an Orion sex cabaret, with other sets including a Klingon drinking tent and street stalls. The Orion elements were inspired by Indian architecture, with fabrics from Morocco and other "far east" countries, as these were the inspirations for the original Orion designs in previous Star Trek series. Deverell described the sets as "lush like a bordello in the 1800s. We were allowed to go crazy."

### Filming

Filming for the season began at Pinewood Toronto Studios on January 24, 2017, with cinematographers including Guillermo Navarro, working on the pilot, and Colin Hoult. Set construction had initially been set to begin within a month of June 2016, for a filming period of that September to around March 2017, but by that September, production was not expected to begin until November. After Fuller stepped down as showrunner, set construction was expected to be completed by the end of 2016, with filming to begin "shortly thereafter". By mid-May 2017, filming for scenes set on an unidentified planet had taken place on location in Jordan. Some of the series' sets took over six weeks to create, and new sets were being built up until the end of production on the season. Some episodes for the season were restricted to a few existing sets, making them bottle episodes, though Harberts said the series would not do anything "as bottle-y as 'everyone is stuck in the mess hall!'" Additional location shooting took place around Ontario, Canada, including at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto which stood in for the Vulcan Science Academy, and in the Hilton Falls and Kelso Conservation Areas for the forest planet Pahvo. Filming for the season concluded on October 11, 2017.

For the visual scope of the series, Kurtzman felt that the show had to "justify being on a premium cable service". The showrunners were particularly inspired by Star Trek: The Motion Picture and its "wider scope", with Harberts explaining that the first season was shot in a 2:1 aspect ratio which "just lends itself to a very lyrical way of telling the story." He added that some of the series' visuals were influenced by the modern Star Trek films from J. J. Abrams. Some of these influences, per Goldsman, are "the ability to be creative cinematically...the intimate discourse, the humanistic storytelling with the giant canvas that is Star Trek. A more kinetic camera, a more dynamic way of existing". The producers worked closely with pilot director David Semel to make the series look as cinematic as possible, including filming the bridge of Starfleet's ships in such a way as "not to shoot in a sort of proscenium box...to be able to get the camera into spaces where, you know, to shoot it in interesting ways, which is a combination of choreographing a scene to motivate the camera moving, and also lighting." The cinematographers wanted to emphasize on-set sourcing, with lighting built in wherever it would naturally appear to help create a more realistic feel, and distance the series from the "stage" feel of The Original Series.

Robyn Stewart, an expert in the Klingon language, and linguist Rea Nolan worked closely with the Klingon actors to ensure they could both speak and understand their lines in the language, having the actors practice while their makeup and prosthetics were being applied, which took three hours each day. They would first rehearse their lines in English, and worked to "inhabit [the lines] emotionally". Chieffo felt that "it makes sense that when we are speaking to each other we are speaking in our native tongue and really adding a fluidity and nuance", while Mitchell said, "It's an incredibly complex language ... it feels alien. Because it is incredibly difficult and I don't speak the language it takes a lot of muscle memory to memorize each separate syllable over and over and over." For a sequence where L'Rell and Tyler are shown having sex, Chieffo required full-body prosthetics which took four hours to apply. Though these are only seen for around 30 seconds in the episode, Chieffo felt strongly that she film the scene rather than a body double.

### Visual effects

The season has 5000 visual effects shots, which visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman said was similar to one feature-length film. He said the department was aiming for "high-end" effects, similar to those seen in films, and the number of visual effects in each episode was always driven by the story. Pixomondo was the primary visual effects vendor, with Spin VFX and Crafty Apes also working on the show. The shot that went through the most iterations during the season was a simple composite of computer screen graphics onto an on-set monitor, with 146 different iterations of the graphics tried before the final design was chosen.

### Music

Composer Jeff Russo wrote several themes for the series, in addition to the main title theme, but not necessarily for the different characters in the show as would often be done. Instead, Russo wanted to focus on the emotions of the characters over the story beats, for instance, "Even when you are shooting, you're still feeling, so why not play that as opposed to 'Oh my god, he's got a gun'". Like the rest of the series' departments, Russo's aim was to make the score feel as cinematic as possible.

For the Kasseelian Opera that Stamets talks about later in the season, Russo did not want to attempt to make a "futuristic opera", believing instead that "opera is opera" and that it should have the same style as what is heard during the present day. For the seventh episode, source music from Wyclef Jean is used which Russo compared to people in the current day listening to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Singer Ayana Haviv recorded arias for the opera, and in a "moment of inspiration" Russo asked her to sing the vocal section of the original Star Trek theme. Russo and Kurtzman responded positively to her rendition, and Russo arranged the theme for the series' 74-piece orchestra to play over the end credits of the season finale after the USS Enterprise appears. Haviv altered her voice for the final recording to match the original 1960s style of the theme.

A soundtrack album for the first chapter of the season was released digitally on December 15, 2017, by Lakeshore Records. Another, for the second chapter, was released digitally on April 6, 2018. CD versions of both albums were set for release in 2018, along with a vinyl release combining selections from both chapters and titled "Intergalactic Starburst" Vinyl. All music composed by Jeff Russo:

## Marketing

With the announcement of the series' title in July 2016 came a promotional video giving a first look at the USS Discovery. The video did not feature final designs, as the producers had put it together in three weeks to show the concepts for the series to fans. In January 2017, a YouTube video presented by Alcatel was released, using 360° technology to showcase digital models of previous Star Trek ships. The first full trailer for the series was released in May 2017. Chris Harnick of E! News said the trailer was gorgeous and cinematic, and added, because of the appearances of both Sarek and the Klingons, that "this is the Star Trek you know and love." Aja Romano at Vox called the trailer's visuals "sumptuous [and] modern, but still very much in keeping with the aesthetic of previous Trek series". She did note that the series' plot was not conveyed in the trailer.

In July 2017, Discovery had an extensive presence at San Diego Comic-Con, including a panel featuring Martin-Green, Isaacs, Jones, Latif, Wiseman, Rapp, Frain, Kurtzman, Berg, Kadin, Harberts, and Goldsman, and moderated by Wilson. Footage from the series was screened at the panel, with a new trailer released online soon afterwards. CBS also created an immersive art experience at the Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts Gallery, featuring the USS Discovery's captain's chair and other props, costumes, and sketches from the series, as well as limited edition posters and a shop selling Comic-Con-exclusive items. Pedicabs inspired by the series gave free rides through the Gaslamp District, while a "#TrekDiscovery Challenge" competition saw fans have to take pictures with "authentically costumed Trek ambassadors", one each representing the crews of the five previous Star Trek series, as well as the captain's chair at the art gallery, and post them online with the hashtag \#TrekDiscovery to be eligible to win a Roku streaming stick and a subscription to CBS All Access. At the convention, Gentle Giant Studios revealed that they had gained the license to create mini-busts and statues based on the series, and planned to particularly focus on the series' Klingons. At the beginning of August, an afternoon of four panels at the Star Trek Las Vegas event was dedicated to the series, featuring producers and writers, actors who were not present at Comic-Con, creature designers, and writers involved with related books and comics.

By the beginning of September, promotion was taking place around the world: Isaacs was involved in the Blackpool Illuminations festival in the UK; cast and crew promoted the series at the Fan Expo Canada; a USS Shenzhou-themed photobooth, that took pictures of fans as Klingons, was in operation at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin; and an outdoor campaign of posters and billboards was underway, including a large billboard on the roof of an LAX Airport building. The night before the premiere, a model of the USS Discovery was flown above the Hudson River on Manhattan's west side. Created by Remarkable Media, the 50 feet (15 m) skeleton rig was covered in LEDs and suspended from a Black Hawk helicopter. On October 7, panels for the series were held at both the PaleyFest television festival and at New York Comic Con.

## Release

### Broadcast and streaming

Star Trek: Discovery premiered at the ArcLight Hollywood on September 19, 2017. The first episode aired in a "preview broadcast" on CBS in the United States on September 24, and was made available for free on CBS All Access along with the second episode (which required an All Access subscription). Subsequent first-run episodes, making up the first chapter of the season, were streamed weekly on All Access through November 5. The second chapter streamed from January 7 to February 11, 2018.

CBS Studios International licensed the series to Bell Media for broadcast in Canada, and to Netflix for another 188 countries. In Canada, the premiere was broadcast on September 24, 2017, on both the CTV Television Network and on the specialty channels Space (English) and Z (French) before being streamed on CraveTV, with subsequent episodes just broadcast on Space and Z before streaming on CraveTV. In the other countries, Netflix released each episode of the series for streaming within 24 hours of its U.S. debut. This agreement with CBS also saw Bell and Netflix acquire all previous Star Trek series to stream in their entirety.

In August 2020, CBS announced that it would be broadcasting the full first season of Discovery beginning on September 24, 2020, alongside other older or acquired series, due to the lack of television content available to the network due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also in September, ViacomCBS announced that CBS All Access would be expanded and rebranded as Paramount+ in March 2021. Existing episodes of the season remained on Paramount+ along with future seasons of the series. In November 2021, ViacomCBS announced that it had bought back the international streaming rights to Discovery from Netflix effective immediately. In July 2023, Bell Media announced that the series would be leaving Crave (CraveTV) over the following month. It would continue to be broadcast on CTV Sci-Fi (Space) and past seasons would remain available on CTV.ca and the CTV app.

### Broadcast breach

After reviewing the episode "Choose Your Pain", Space chose to air it uncensored despite its use of the word "fuck" and depictions of violence. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council received an official complaint about this given the channel aired the episode before 9 pm, since series intended for adult audiences should be shown after that time according to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics and Violence Code. The complainant, the council, and Space itself acknowledged that the use of the word was unexpected given the franchise's "51 year track record of being fairly clean with regards to its content." The Council found Space to have breached the regulations in not censoring the episode or scheduling it post-watershed, and required the channel to air an announcement stating as such twice during the week following April 19, 2018. At the time, Bell Media accepted the decision and agreed to comply with the ruling, but did not indicate any intention to change their approach to broadcasting future seasons of the series.

### Home media

The season was released on DVD and Blu-Ray formats in the U.S. on November 13, 2018. The release included two hours of bonus features, including deleted and extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes featurettes. On November 2, 2021, a home media box set collecting the first three seasons of Discovery was released, with more than eight hours of special features including behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted and extended scenes, audio commentaries, and gag reels.

## Reception

### Ratings and viewership

According to Nielsen Media Research, the CBS broadcast of the first episode was watched by a "decent" audience of 9.5 million viewers. The premiere of the series led to record subscriptions for All Access, with the service attributing its biggest day, week, and month of signups to the debut of Star Trek: Discovery. According to "app analytics specialist" App Annie, the premiere of the series caused the number of downloads of the All Access mobile app to more than double. Following a 7-day trial period for new subscribers, revenue from the app for CBS doubled on October 1 compared to the average in-app revenue during the previous 30 days.

### Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 82% approval rating for the first season, with an average rating of 7/10 based on 371 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Although it takes an episode to achieve liftoff, Star Trek: Discovery delivers a solid franchise instalment for the next generation—boldly led by the charismatic Sonequa Martin-Green." The average rating for each of the season's individual episodes is 89%. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 72 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture praised the series' premiere, feeling it "stands tall alongside the best-regarded incarnations of the Trek franchise... with an almost entirely new slate of characters... and casts them with actors you can't help but like". Writing for Vox, Emily VanDerWerff noted "the best thing about Discovery is that Michael Burnham, played beautifully by Martin-Green, does stuff. She gets in trouble. She breaks rules. She violates Starfleet protocol. She has emotions that get the best of her, even as she knows they shouldn't. She is, in other words, very human". Overall, she declared that "Star Trek is best when it's hopeful, but hope shines brightest amid horror. On some level, Discovery knows both of those things". Writing for TVLine, Dave Nemetz graded the premiere episode a B+, saying, "The nail-bitingly tense premiere delivered a cracking good action story, eye-popping special effects and a number of gasp-worthy twists" that was worth the wait. Maureen Ryan of Variety, after watching the first two episodes, said the series "has yet to prove itself a worthy successor to The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. But there are reasons to hope that Discovery will be a promising addition to the Trek canon".

Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge criticized the "extended prologue" approach, but called the two-part premiere "surprisingly satisfying". He praised Burnham as a "far more rounded, human character than any of the previous captains, with some serious trauma from a Klingon attack in her youth that's left her predisposed to hate the warrior race. And while Star Trek has plumbed the 'main character has demons' well in the past—most notably with Sisko in Deep Space Nine, and Picard in the later films, when it comes to the Borg—Burnham feels far more compelling for not being a flawless human being in other respects, as her series-protagonist predecessors were." Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Darren Franich gave the two-part premiere a B grade, praising Martin-Green's performance as the lead and the production design as well as commenting on the "undeniable appeal" of the "introduction of a new ship, the revelation that we're watching that ship's final voyage, the cliffhanger possibility that our new hero is a fallen angel." However, he felt that the series' third episode retroactively made the two episode prologue "feel even more overextended". Patrick Cooley of cleveland.com criticized the dialogue and "wooden, bewilderingly stupid" characters in the first two episodes. Brian Lowry from CNN called the first three episodes "Star Trek Lite", criticizing the bridge crew and lore, and describing the series as an "unspectacular addition" to the franchise that was mostly designed "to entice new subscribers to CBS All Access."

Discussing the season as a whole, Seitz praised it as the strongest first season of any Star Trek series since the original and defended it against fan criticisms, believing that most complaints about the series could be applied to all Star Trek series or were about intentional differences from those prior series that Seitz saw as "honorable attempts" to modernize the franchise "while still keeping the whole thing recognizably Trek." Seitz in particularly praised the more serialized storytelling, visual effects, original characters like Burnham and Saru, existing characters like Frain's Sarek and Wilson's Harry Mudd, and the themes of science vs. war that the series explored. On the latter, Seitz felt Discovery improved on the efforts of the J. J. Abrams Star Trek films. Discussing the "hits" and "misses" of the season, Witney Seibold of IGN praised the characters, effects, and design as "hits", but criticized as "misses" the tone and storytelling for respectively being too busy and having too many subplots. Gartenberg criticized the writers for over-using science fiction tropes, repeating plot elements, inconsistently portraying characters' attitudes, and for being unsubtle with the values of Starfleet in the finale. He was optimistic for further seasons though, feeling that the end of the season left "the entire slate of the show ... wiped clean for whatever comes next." At Mashable, Chris Taylor felt the Klingons' prosthetics made it difficult to see the actors' emotions, the development of the characters Tyler and Lorca was wasted, the rest of the bridge characters were not explored enough, and the ending of the Klingon war storyline was rushed in the season finale before the Enterprise reveal "left us on the oldest, safest, most recognizable piece of Trek fan service ever."

### Accolades

Netflix listed Star Trek: Discovery fourth in its list of series most watched together by families in 2017. Martin-Green was named TVLine's Performer of the Week for her performance in "The Wolf Inside", in which Burnham is "put through the emotional wringer with a barrage of jaw-dropping twists, giving Martin-Green an opportunity to deliver her finest performance of the season." In January 2019, Comic Book Resources rated Discovery's first season as the ninth best season of all Star Trek series so far, comparing its high production values to a feature film and calling Michael Burnham "the most interesting character Trek has provided us in generations".

First season of Star Trek: Discovery