Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals A Dire Prophecy For Kirk That Comes True In A Star Trek Movie

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Thursday's "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

This week on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," the Enterprise crew was haunted by ghosts on an abandoned starship... and Kirk received an ominous warning about his child's future.

Thursday's episode found Paul Wesley's Kirk, Spock, and La'an boarding the Griffin, an old ship that was thought to be lost and now seemed to be inhabited by the spirits of its dead crew members. The ship became a house of horrors for the trio, with Spock getting his pointy Vulcan ears sliced off (!) and La'an lashing out at dangerous visions — and eventually stabbing Kirk as a result.

Kirk may have gotten the worst of it, though: He could only watch as his brother Sam was sucked out into space and killed. That was just a hallucination, thankfully, but what a deluded La'an told him is unfortunately true. Infected by the same space madness that afflicted the Griffin's chief security officer Rose Harper, La'an told Kirk that "your little boy is going to die just like you: at the end of a blade, bleeding out in a dark corner of space."

It's no idle threat, either: "Star Trek" fans may remember that Kirk's son David Marcus dies in precisely that manner in 1984's "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."

Kirk alluded to his son earlier in this week's "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," saying that he has a newborn son named David now, but Kirk has split up with David's mother Carol Marcus. We met David as an adult in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," played by Merritt Butrick. David was a Federation scientist who followed in his mother Carol's footsteps and worked with her on Project Genesis, which could bring life to barren planets. David was estranged from his father for most of his life, but he and Kirk bonded in "Star Trek II," and Butrick returned to reprise the role of David in 1984's "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."

In "Star Trek III," David and Vulcan officer Saavik were sent to the planet created by Project Genesis, but were taken hostage by Klingons. The Klingons intended to sacrifice one of them and initially chose Saavik, but David stood up to defend her... and was stabbed to death by a Klingon guard.

So Kirk may just dismiss the events of this week's episode as a mere ghost story — but years later, that premonition from La'an turns out to be very real indeed.