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

"Experto credite, Captain," Kovich tells Burnham in …But to Connect, i.e. 'believe one who has had experience'; 'trust the expert'. In this case, the expertise was "a background in cognitive science with a speciality in artificial sentience and intelligence". Kovich was consulting at the request of Admiral Vance when Zora started to refuse orders.

By the time of his appearance in Star Trek: Discovery, Daniels was Kovich was 'Doctor'. What of, exactly, was never made clear. At the start of Terra Firma, Part 1, Doctor Culber told (Doctor) Kovich, "I wasn't aware you had any medical training," to which Kovich replied, "Yes, well, I guess I'm a man of widely varying interests". Kovich was either medical doctor, but not practising as to cross Culber's radar, and/or had at least one PhD or equivalent, or was simply using 'Doctor' as part of the code name.

Whatever his qualifications, Daniels/Kovich was very much the 'expert' on as wide a variety of subjects as he said he was. All the way back in Star Trek: Enterprise's Shockwave, Part I, he told Captain Archer how to make a set of quantum beacons in just two hours, and in Part II, he re-configured Archer's communicator to talk through time, making that one high school teacher, who had at that stage never existed, very proud.

Kovich also got to demonstrate his boyhood-begun knowledge of all things Terran when he informed the ex-Emperor in Die Trying that her Empire had fallen long ago, and that there had been no crossing between universes in over 500 years. There's also the little matter of the Terran dagger in the office, Kovich's office. Not content with knowing about one parallel realm, Kovich was also privy to classified files on the 'Kelvin' universe and was highly versed in the side effects of temporal and interdimensional travel, as he discussed with Doctor Culber in Terra Firma, Part 1. It's almost as if Kovich was some kind of major player in the Temporal Wars!

Then, of course, there are the Red Directives, the first of which that we know about (Rayner had already done seven), like the Infinity Key, seemed to begin and end with Kovich. Given the future and a thousand years were involved, we can only suppose that Kovich also had some involvement in the crimson command behind 'Calypso'. Daniels also had precedent for red — the colour on his NX-01 uniform. That, however, time travel obliging, is more likely an effect without a cause.