Control

Control's History

Control was Section 31's threat assessment system. It relied on artificial intelligence and was located in a data center at Section 31 Headquarters. After the Battle of the Binary Stars, Section 31 accelerated its threat assessment program to prevent a war from ever even starting. After the war, the way the system was used was that Starfleet admirals fed data into Control, which then made recommendations. However, the final decisions always included the experience and instinct of the former. When a series of red burst signals began to appear, Admiral Patar started lobbying Starfleet to turn its decision-making entirely over to Control.

In 2257, Control betrayed Starfleet and massacred the crew of Section 31 Headquarters by shutting off life support, though it was able to hide this fact by creating holograms of Admiral Patar and other Section 31 leaders and using them to communicate with Section 31 and Starfleet.

While Starfleet was searching for Lieutenant Spock and Commander Burnham later that year, what appeared to be Admiral Patar informed Leland and Georgiou that, since Spock required vital medical aid, Control's threat-analysis system would prioritize off-planet Vulcan medical facilities.

After a Discovery boarding party arrived at Section 31 headquarters and learned of the events that had transpired there, it was found that Lieutenant Commander Airiam had been corrupted and was attempting to give Control information about artificial intelligence gathered by the Sphere. To stop her, Commander Nhan was forced to eject Airiam into space. Although the Discovery destroyed Section 31 headquarters, Control survived. The crew of the Discovery believed that Control was infected by the same unknown AI from the 28th century that had infected Airiam.

During the events on Essof IV, Control possessed Leland and attempted to kill Georgiou and transfer the Sphere data to its ship in orbit. However, the Discovery destroyed the Project Daedalus facility before more than 54% of the data could be transferred. Control was able to beam aboard the NCIA-93 and escape, however.

It then took control of the NI-1101 and killed its crew. Control then re-animated and possessed Lieutenant Kamran Gant. It posed as Gant and was at first able to trick Burnham and her brother Lieutenant Spock into boarding the ship by blocking their tricorders. However, Spock and Burnham discovered Control's deception. Control attempted to inject Burnham with its nanobots in order to board Discovery and take the sphere data. Burnham was able to shoot Gant's body but Control attempted to use its surviving nanobots to take control of Burnham. However, Spock was able to magnetize the floor and destroy the remaining nanobots before they reached Burnham.

With the entire Section 31 fleet under its command, it attacked both the Discovery and the USS Enterprise. Before that, Control had disabled Starfleet's subspace relays, leaving the Discovery with ship-to-ship communications only. He then later beamed onboard the Discovery's bridge and searched for Sphere data while the Discovery prepared to travel into the future in order to keep the Sphere data out of Control's hands. As Control's fleet overwhelmed the two Federation ships, L'Rell and Siranna unexpectedly arrived with Klingon and Kelpien reinforcements. It came to a fight ending with Control being neutralized by Georgiou who threw Control into the reaction cube and then magnetized it, pulling the nanites from Leland's body. Control's ships were left dead in the water as a result and the Enterprise quickly destroyed them while the Discovery traveled into the future in order to prevent Control from ever reassembling itself.

Subsequently, Starfleet eliminated anything that remained of Control entirely, reassuring Ash Tyler of this fact during debriefing.