10 Moments Of Star Trek Foreshadowing You Never Noticed

Foreshadowing is used in plots to give a warning or indication to audiences of what's to come, and it's used in Star Trek quite frequently.

Sometimes, it can be used in a very obvious way, for example, look at the scene from the Star Trek: Discovery episode Light And Shadows where Airiam got infected with a virus in her cybernetic brain. As she analysed the computer breach on her screen, a bunch of flashing red lights appeared and, as the camera cut to her face, she was obviously under some sort of trance from it. This clearly set up the plotline of her getting infected by Control and forced to betray Discovery.

Instead, this list will be focusing on moments of foreshadowing that many people may not have noticed. Either casual conversations that seem random at first, but later get revisited in a big way, or story plots that don't get fully resolved until several episodes later.

The Talosians from the Original Series pilot episode The Cage possess some of the most advanced telepathic abilities we've seen in the franchise. Among other abilities, they can search through the memories, fears, and desires in someone's mind and make them appear real through complicated illusions.

During the scene in Pike's quarters, he talked to Dr. Boyce about what was on his mind. He was thinking a lot about a battle on Rigel VII, specifically when he was trapped in a deserted fortress fighting an enemy warrior. In the same scene he told Boyce that he longed to return to his home, a beautiful town surrounded by miles of parkland where he used to ride horses in his youth. Then, he thought aloud about how his life would've gone if he had decided, for example, to live on a world like Orion rather than joining Starfleet. Later, when the Talosians captured him, these three thoughts were turned into reality. He first appeared back on Rigel VII, then at his old idyllic home on Earth (complete with horses), and finally in a fantasy where he lived on Orion.

This scene in Pike's quarters was a brilliant bit of foreshadowing that illustrates to audiences how the Talosians are able to scan someone's mind and recreate their thoughts.