After watching tonight’s episode of Discovery (S02E11), Prairie and I came up with what we think is a very possible theory about where this season might go in the next few episodes, and it’s one that impacts a fair amount of the future Trek universe.
Details behind the cut, as this will be in definite spoiler territory, both for tonight’s episode, and potentially for the next three episodes if we’re right (though my last theory didn’t pan out, so keep that in mind).
Theory: We’re seeing the creation of the Borg.
In the scene where Control takes over Leland, it describes how it “assimilated” others, and when Leland says he’s his own man, Control says “struggle is pointless” (a rewording of “resistance is futile”). At which point, he’s injected with nanotechnology (that even has green highlights on the particles) which we see moving through his veins in much the same way we saw Borg nanoprobes infect victims.
By the end of the season, Control will be defeated, but not destroyed. Somehow it will get thrown across the galaxy (perhaps/probably via the spore drive) and back in time (perhaps/probably via the Red Angel suit). It will then spend the next however many years pursuing its drive to collect all the data it wasn’t able to get from the sphere, assimilating first individuals, then societies, then planets, evolving all the while, until it becomes the Borg we meet in TNG.
Full credit: Prairie had the initial spark of this idea (“Oh! This is the Borg!”); we hashed out the details between us after the show.