Star Trek: Everything We NOW Know About The Burn

10. When Did The Burn Happen?

The event known as the Burn took place in 3069, reducing vast regions of the Milky Way Galaxy to isolated pockets in an instant. Theta Zeta was eventually discovered as the origin spot, having been the focal point and focusing lens for a scared young Kelpian.

As much as the Burn had always been a tragedy, with countless lives lost in the explosions, it was an unintentional, devastating result of a child's trauma. In 3064, the KSF Khi'eth was engaged in the search for new sources of dilithium. The ship suffered a catastrophe, eventually crashing on the planet in the Verubian Nebula.

Doctor Issa, one of the Kelpian scientists aboard, was pregnant at the time of the crash. Her child, who would be named Su'Kal, absorbed the planet's radiation in-utero, resulting in a symbiotic relationship with the dilithium-rich world. Roughly five years later, Su'Kal, having spent that time in a holographic simulation programmed by his mother, deactivated said program and saw his mother die from radiation poisoning.

The child, understandably, was devastated, crying out into the void. Unfortunately for dilithium users everywhere, this cry led to a subspace shockwave. It rendered all active dilithium in the galaxy inert, which had cataclysmic results. As most warp drives relied on dilithium to regulate the matter-antimatter reactions in the core, thousands of core breaches tore through space, killing millions. 

Dilithium reactors on planet surfaces also exploded, rendering several worlds uninhabitable, such as Qo'Nos. 

It is still unknown exactly how many people died as a result of the Burn.