Star Trek: Discovery, which is finally set to debut this September, has a lot riding on it. As the latest edition of a 50-year-old and endlessly beloved science fiction franchise, the highly anticipated project marks CBS’s first return to the legendary cultural touchstone in more than 15 years.

The last Star Trek series to hit the airwaves, 2001’s Star Trek: Enterprise, was lackluster. But so far, Discovery has shown every sign of being a lovingly crafted and thoughtful prequel, in spite of numerous production delays.

The show is executive-produced by Bryan Fuller, who also served as its original showrunner. Though Fuller ultimately stepped down from his showrunning duties to focus more on his recent Starz series American Gods, he contributed numerous narrative and production elements to Discovery, including writing its opening episode.

Fuller’s departure may be what spurred the series’ two major scheduling delays. Discovery was first announced way back in November 2015, and was originally supposed to lift off in January; then it was delayed until May, and then it was delayed again until September. But the series’ new showrunners, Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg (Roswell), claim their crew’s care for the show’s world building and painstaking visual detail is primarily responsible.

Will their efforts pay off? We’ll find out when Discovery premieres on Sunday, September 24. Until then, here’s everything we know about the series so far.

After the series’ debut on CBS, watching Star Trek: Discovery will require a subscription to CBS All Access

Discovery will ultimately air exclusively on CBS’s streaming service, CBS All Access. But the hour-long series premiere will also air on CBS proper, after the season 50 premiere of 60 Minutes.

The show’s 15-episode first season will be split into two parts, with the first eight episodes concluding with a midseason finale on Sunday, November 5. The remaining seven episodes will air beginning in January 2018.

CBS All Access will also air a companion aftershow to Discovery called Talking Trek.

Discovery is a prequel that most likely deals with a major moment in Star Trek history: the brokering of uneasy peace between the Federation and Klingons

Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the original Star Trek series, which makes it the latter of the franchise’s two prequel series. (The other prequel, Star Trek: Enterprise, is set significantly earlier, a century before the original 1966 Star Trek series.)

The series’ first trailer, released in May, introduced our protagonist, Michael Burnham (more on her below). But it also revealed a young Spock and his father Sarek, along with more Vulcans, Romulans, and a group of battle-ready Klingons. It was the conflict with the Klingons that drew the most attention — and for good reason.

Prior to the trailer’s release, Fuller had hinted that Discovery could revolve around a commonly discussed event in Star Trek history. "There's an incident, an event, in the history of Starfleet that has been talked about [in previous Star Trek series] but never fully explored,” he teased at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in August 2016.

The show’s latest trailer, unveiled at Comic-Con in July, builds on this idea, by previewing Discovery’s hero’s journey, the Klingon empire, and an unfolding war:

Just like Discovery’s first trailer, it hints at tensions between the Klingons and the Federation as they each adjust to what seems to be a period of diplomatic upheaval amid the efforts of the Klingon Empire to regain its intergalactic dominance.

It also reintroduces us to Burnham (The Walking Dead’s Sonequa Martin-Green) and gives us a first look at the captain of Discovery’s titular starship, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs).

“You helped start a war,” Lorca intriguingly tells Burnham near the end of the trailer. “Don’t you want to help me finish it?”

Fans seem to agree that the two trailers indicate a focus on the early conflict between the Klingons and the Federation that preceded their long, tense detente throughout the first Star Trek series. Multiple Instagram posts promoting Discovery in Klingon also lend themselves to this interpretation. Translated from Klingon, the full dispatch reads, “Light the fire,” which would seem to be a Klingon motto or mission statement.

It’s worth noting that the Discovery series will have no connection or continuity with the controversial recent fan film Prelude to Axenar, which is set during the same approximate time period. Nor will it have any connection to the rebooted series of Star Trek films that debuted in 2009 (officially dubbed the “Kelvin Timeline”), as Discovery and the rebooted films essentially exist in different universes.

Discovery, like all the other Star Trek TV series and all the Star Trek films made prior to the 2009 reboot, is set in the “Prime Universe.”

The protagonist of Discovery isn’t your ordinary Starfleet hero

When Discovery’s first official promotional photo was released in May, it featured Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou, the commander of the USS Shenzhou, standing alongside her prodigy, the aforementioned Michael Burnham.

The series’ first trailer showed us Captain Georgiou and Burnham discussing Burnham’s possible promotion to first officer of the Discovery, setting her up to be our guide and primary witness to the intergalactic political turmoil that defines the world in which Discovery takes place.

And a new poster released in conjunction with Comic-Con makes it even clearer that the show will focus on Burnham, rather than Captain Lorca. Discovery will be the first series in the Star Trek franchise to have a main character who’s not (yet) the leader of their respective crew. But as the series progresses, it’s safe to assume that Burnham will learn the qualities of leadership that she’ll need to attain that role.

Other known details about Burnham include the recently announced fact that she’s the adopted sister of Spock, and was raised by Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda.

This contextualizes a number of points Martin-Green discussed with Entertainment Weekly in an early interview about Discovery following the release of the series’ first trailer in May. At the time, the magazine revealed that while Burnham is human and not Vulcan, she “deliberately” has a man’s name, is closely connected to Vulcan culture and society, and is “the first human to attend the Vulcan Learning Center as a child and then the Vulcan Science Academy as a young woman.”

Further, Discovery’s two trailers both hint at Burnham’s importance to the brokering of peace between various alien races that have clashed in earlier Star Trek series. In the first trailer specifically, Sarek tells Burnham, “Great unifiers are few and far between.” He seems to think Burnham could be such a unifier — and her interspecies heritage is obviously a significant part of that.

Discovery’s cast features some unprecedented additions and signals a new approach to telling the story of the ship’s crew

The full cast of Discovery includes, naturally, a whole lot of Klingons. But there are several surprises on board the starship, starting with the captain’s demoted importance. Discovery’s captain may not be the show’s main character — he wasn’t even introduced in the first trailer — but given his role, he’s still crucial to the series.

Discovery will also boast the first openly gay character in franchise history (discounting the somewhat controversial outing of Lt. Sulu in the 2016 reboot film Star Trek: Beyond). Anthony Rapp, best known to audiences as Mark from the original Broadway cast (and subsequent film adaptation) of the musical Rent, will play a science officer on the Discovery, the fungus expert Lt. Stamets.

Rapp, who is openly gay himself, stated in a March interview with Metro Weekly that he was “honored” to play the part and “to be a part of a piece of work that’s part of the cultural pantheon.” Then, at Comic-Con, Rapp broke the news that Stamets will not only be the first openly gay member of Starfleet, but the first to have a boyfriend: a medical officer named Dr. Hugh Culber, played by Wilson Cruz (He’s Just Not That Into You).

Finally, there will be a brand new alien on board. Veteran character actor Doug Jones will play the Discovery’s alien science officer, Lieutenant Saru (pronounced “suh-roo.”) Jones has described his character as “a new breed of alien that you’ve never seen on the series before, or in any of the movies.”

Among the returning characters from previous Star Trek series will be the aforementioned Vulcan leader Sarek, now played by James Frain, and the classic Trek character Harry Mudd, now played by The Office’s Rainn Wilson. (Wilson has described the script for his debut episode as “really good.”)

The rest of the full announced cast is quite extensive — here’s a breakdown of their various roles aboard their various vessels:

Officers of the Discovery:

Shazad Latif (Penny Dreadful) will play Lt. Tyler, a Federation Starfleet officer.

Rekha Sharma (The 100) will play Discovery security officer Commander Landry.

Mary Wiseman (Longmire) will play Cadet Tilly, a final-year Starfleet Academy trainee assigned to the ship.

Terry Serpico (Army Wives) will play a Starfleet officer named Adm. Anderson.

Officers of the Shenzhou, which is prominent in the first episode, and may be a recurring presence over the series:

Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock) will play Dr. Nambue, the Shenzhou’s chief medical officer.

Sam Vartholomeos will play Ensign Connor, a junior officer in Starfleet Academy.

Klingons:

Chris Obi (American Gods) will play a unity-seeking Klingon leader named T'Kuvma.

Kenneth Mitchell (Jericho) will play commanding Klingon officer Kol.

Clare McConnell will play a Klingon politician named Dennas.

Mary Chieffo will play a Klingon named L’Rell.

Damon Runyan (Supernatural) will play a Klingon leader named Ujili.

Finalizing the look of the Discovery itself may have contributed to the show’s production delays. But fans are cautiously optimistic — and obsessive — about the results.

After Fuller left his position as Discovery’s showrunner in October of 2016, the series suffered several setbacks and delays. And as new showrunners Harberts and Berg explained to EW, once they came on, they had to wait for Martin-Green to make her season finale exit on The Walking Dead so that she could join the show.

But another aspect of the delays, according to Harberts and Berg, was the sheer care and detail that went into crafting Discovery’s sets, props, and costumes to make the world of Star Trek feel real and lived in.

Harberts cited the “artistry and custom craftsmanship that go into every prop, every costume, every set,” while Berg praised the show’s visual detail. “I’m so proud of what’s on screen, it’s so beautiful and it’s taking world-building to a whole new level,” she said.

At San Diego Comic-Con in 2016, fans got to see some of that detail for themselves. A special preview of the Discovery shown at the convention featured the ship in one of Star Trek’s famous spaceship reveal/flyover sequences:

And at the 2017 convention, attendees were invited to view a special Discovery exhibit featuring many props and costumes pulled straight from the show’s set, including captain’s uniforms and the actual captain’s chair from the ship’s bridge.

What about phasers and communicators? The #StarTrekDiscovery exhibit at #sdcc also has those. pic.twitter.com/gfdLIItsSM — Chris E. Hayner (@ChrisHayner) July 21, 2017

All in all, fans seem cautiously hopeful about the series and its look, though some have criticized its changes to the original visual designs of characters and starships. On the one hand, this is par for the course with such a long-running, beloved franchise. But on the other, with Discovery being the first Star Trek TV series to debut in more than 15 years, the franchise’s future on television largely hinges on its success. Thus, it seems that not alienating an obsessively critical fan base and attempting to overdeliver on the final product is worth a delay or two. At any rate, come September, we’ll get to judge the results for ourselves.