The Women That Time (Literally) Forgot in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Star Trek has always played with timelines, but in Starfleet Academy the concept hits home with two fan-favorite characters: Lieutenant Sylvia Tilly and Commander Jett Reno. Both women made their debut in Star Trek: Discovery, only to later traverse nearly a millennium thanks to that infamous time jump—a narrative trick that makes their present-day ages more fascinating than ever.
Tilly: Caught Between Centuries
Fans first met Sylvia Tilly as a bright-eyed cadet at Starfleet Academy. She rose swiftly, becoming an Ensign by the end of her first season, and later, after navigating countless cosmic threats, survived the massive leap to the 32nd century with the rest of the USS Discovery crew. On paper, Tilly is now in her early 30s. But if you measure her life in the linear sense of galactic history, she’s alive nearly a millennium after her birth—an almost unfathomable stretch. What makes Tilly’s story compelling isn’t just the years she’s technically skipped, but how freshly the emotions and traumas of her Academy days remain for her. When she returns to help a new generation of cadets in San Francisco, she still remembers what it was like to stand in their boots, making her both mentor and peer to the young learners under her guidance.
Jett Reno: The Time-Displaced Engineer
Commander Jett Reno entered the series as a tough and sardonic engineer with a storied past. She survived the Klingon War, served aboard the doomed USS Hiawatha, and then became one of Discovery’s sharpest minds. By the time the crew leaps ahead, Reno’s age becomes double-counted: biologically she’s just edging into her fifties, but according to the calendar, she’s witnessed nearly a thousand years pass. That duality is echoed in her mentorship style—she brings a blend of hardened experience and a dry wit that only Star Trek could craft into something both poignant and funny.
The Meaning of «Women That Time Forgot»
This self-appointed title—»women that time forgot»—speaks to more than a quirk of temporal mechanics. In Starfleet Academy’s spring semester, both Tilly and Reno serve as living bridges, carrying the knowledge and cultural sensibilities of a bygone era into a future shaped by their own actions onboard the Discovery. Their unusual perspective provides vital nuance in the show’s examination of trauma, growth, and the weight of legacy. When paired with the immortal Captain Nahla Ake, who herself boasts centuries of life experience, it’s clear Starfleet Academy is intentionally exploring what it means to adapt across generations, not just for its cadets but also for those charged with shaping future officers.
Legacy, Adaptation & the New Frontier
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy leans into these complex relationships between past and future, making Tilly and Reno’s journey feel less like a temporal anomaly and more like a meditation on lasting influence. Instructors who have lived through two distinct centuries wield unique insight—one that can’t be taught in a classroom or simulated in a holodeck program. Their very presence is proof of Star Trek’s commitment to growing with its audience, taking bold narrative risks with character development, and creating new entry points for viewers familiar and new.
For anyone following the evolving canon of Star Trek, the nuanced approach to time and memory in this new series continues to lay groundwork not only for future storytelling, but also for the next wave of aficionados discovering Starfleet’s most enduring mentors.
