Everyone's loving Stacey Abrams' 'Star Trek' cameo, want her to be Earth's president for real

Spoilers ahead:

Georgia's Stacey Abrams might be running for governor of Georgia but in the "Star Trek" world, she's the President of United Earth. Yes, you heard that right. Abrams surprised fans when she made an appearance during the Season 4 finale of “Star Trek: Discovery.” It's not just the fans, but also the cast that was taken aback as most weren't told about Stacey Abrams making an appearance as the President of United Earth. Season 3 of the series ended with Earth no longer being a member of the federation. Abrams' character helps reverse that and has Earth rejoin the federation in a powerful scene, reported HuffPost.  

Director-producer Olatunde Osunsanmi said “everybody’s head exploded” when Abrams came on to the set “because 90% of the crew didn’t know she was coming. You could just see necks break like, ‘What?! Stacey? What is going on?’ She killed it.” The cast was fangirling around the gubernatorial candidate. Sonequa Martin-Green, who stars as USS Discovery Captain Michael Burnham in the Paramount+ series, told Deadline, “We spent so much of our time fanning out and pretending to be cool in her midst. She’s a legend in the making and a civil hero, and she was an absolute delight to work with ... and she whipped out some acting chops too! It was an honor for me as a Black woman to stand with her in the story.”

Abrams herself is a huge "Star Trek" fan and is said to have quoted a dialogue from the long-running franchise when she was first contacted for the role by a representative of the program. She told the New York Times that she binged on the series. “I love 'Voyager' and I love 'Discovery' and, of course, I respect the original but I revere 'The Next Generation,'” reported The New York Times. Michelle Paradise, the executive producer and co-showrunner, said Stacey Abrams' casting has been a long time in the making. “We realized we’d need someone to bring that moment to life, an Earth president to say those words—that Earth wanted to rejoin—and honestly, there’s no one better for that than Stacey,” said Paradise. When asked why Abrams, Paradise replied, “When the time came to start talking about the president of Earth. It seemed like, ‘Well, who better to represent that than her?” reported Variety.

Stacey Abrams carries the scene with ease and wears the character like a glove. In the scene, Abrams walks out to meet the Federation President Laira Rillak. When the latter invites her to a meeting to discuss Earth rejoining the federation, she says “there’s nothing to discuss,” hinting at trouble in the plan to rejoin the federation. But Abrams continues, smiling, “United Earth is ready right now to rejoin the Federation, and nothing could make me happier than to say those words.”

Stacey Abrams was lauded for her work in boosting voting rights and getting more people to vote in the state in the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections. Many singled her out as responsible for swinging the state for Biden. "The issue of preserving democracy is one of scale and of intent," she said at the time, reported CNN. "And we are responsible for doing our small part here. And we should be led by the example of the atrocities that are happening there." She has devoted years to expanding the electorate and boosting turnout in Georgia, which has been a bastion of the GOP. Her campaign and its allies registered more than 200,000 new voters in the run-up to the 2018 election, reported Politico. Abrams is a former Democrat Georgia state house representative and has said she wants to be U.S. president by 2040. For now, she'll have to contend with running for governor in 2022 while holding the position of "President of United Earth."