Rachael Ancheril (Commander Nhan) is officially a series regular (2025)

(And people were wondering if her character was even in Season 3...)

Gotta have a Security Chief and the third time's a charm.

Landry -->
Tyler -->
Nhan -->

Yes! I didn’t expect it, but she’s come to be one of my favourite characters. She gets along with everyone and enjoys her time on Disco. I especially appreciate how Georgiou has developed a respectful and genuine rapport with her. They bought side by side last season, and I hope a friendship emerges from that.

I had to IMDB her name, when I saw it in the credits (on 2nd viewing). Suspected it could only have been her, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

I like her, as an actress. I think I still need time to get to know Nhan, but what we’ve seen of her so far is quite promising.

My lady thinks I’m seeing things, but I’m convinced she and our beloved Emperor Georgiou have an insane about of sexual chemistry on screen.

I've very pleased to hear this.

RAMA

KepperC said:

(And people were wondering if her character was even in Season 3...)

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Saru has some pretty fancy ideas on command. He puts Nhan in charge of the repairs, Rhys in charge of the bridge and, umm, hey, what is Nilsson doing? Is she only good for pressing spore drive buttons? Reno just sort of pesters everybody again, despite supposedly having permanent residence aboard (she implies she was there at Terralysium the last time around).

I'd much rather see Nhan established as the clear-cut Chief, whether it be Chief of Security or Chief Engineer. But I hope the writers aren't too attached to what appears to have been an in-universe mistake in "Brother", with garbled comms and a clueless Discovery transporter operator making the heroes think Nhan's red shirt had something to do with engineering.

Timo Saloniemi

DigificWriter said:

Nhan was an engineer on the Enterprise, but transferred to security when she joined the crew of Discovery.

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In the novel The Enterprise War she is identified as the Enterprise's chief of security, which the author says is what the show's writers told him she was. Apparently the reference to her being an engineer in Brother was a genuine mistake.

The problem there is that Nhan holds very high rank, so basically she would have to be the Chief Engineer. Yet Pike's ship has another Chief Engineer in "An Obol for Charon", and apparently a longtime one who has been griping about the holocomms for quite some time before our first encounter with Nhan in "Brother".

Having Nhan be Pike's Chief of Security is not a problem: when Pike beamed over with "somebody from sciences and engineering", communications were garbled, and things in flux in general. Indeed, it would make sense for Pike to bring over a Security specialist for the discussion of the security threat, but not for him to yank his Engineering specialist away from her duties in the middle of an engineering crisis.

Timo Saloniemi

Timo said:

The problem there is that Nhan holds very high rank, so basically she would have to be the Chief Engineer.

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Not really.

Others' mileage may vary, but I go by a combination of Canon on-screen sources and non-Canon sources until/unless the former directly contradicts the latter, and Memory Alpha cites both Canon and non-Canon sources in listing Nhan as both an engineering officer and a security officer/security chief on the Enterprise, so that's what I go with.

Blooded said:

I’m convinced she and our beloved Emperor Georgiou have an insane about of sexual chemistry on screen.

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I think it's set-up for the Section 31 series, where Georgiou, Nhan and Linus go off and do their own thing.