Star Trek: 10 Things We Now Know About Agent Daniels (aka Kovich)

Dating at least as far back as the vaudeville era, there is one place that has come to serve as an exemplar, practically a metonym, for 'mainstream (middle) America': the city of Peoria (Illinois). If it 'plays well' there, it will likely 'play well' across the United States. If we mention the 'Land of Lincoln,' then it's because a certain Daniels was born in Illinois, too.

At first glance in Cold Front, Daniels was the everyman, the crewman who served breakfast to Captain Archer and the canapés at the Borothan reception. Daniels was just your regular Joe from Illinois, albeit a spacefaring one. Like the very idea of 'Peoria' as substitute for a certain kind of 'USA,' 'crewman of the NX-01' was always a vaudeville act in place of another: Temporal Agent extraordinaire.

It's not without similar symbolism, beyond the link to The Chase itself, that much later, Doctor Kovich had a 'Kurlan naiskos' in his possession in Red Directive. The individual as "community of individuals," as Captain Picard put it about the archaeological artefact, the macro into the micro and vice-versa, was never more true than for Daniels, "more or less" human. Even the etymology of his name, presumably his last, and far from reporting to Captain Archer, would indicate that only the macrocosmic of a higher power — such as time itself — could judge him. He did make up the bit about the brother, though!

Even by the 22nd century, Illinois will be somewhat different from today, but then, as Daniels tells a questioning Commander Tucker in Cold Front, "Oh, I'm from a place called Illinois, sir. Just not the one you're familiar with". In the pre-Burn period of the 31st century, and leaving the Temporal Wars out of it for a moment, Earth, and the Illinois upon it, as we learnt from Star Trek: Discovery, would have been a hub for up to the diversity of 350 Federation member worlds. Not 'will it play,' but 'what will play in Peoria,' if Peoria can be said to exist at all.