We’re slowly but surely ticking off the things we need to hear to believe that the Star Trek sequel will really, finally be shooting soon, even with musk-centric tweets swapped between Simon Pegg (Scotty) and John Cho (Sulu). So far, we’ve got a script in the process of being refined, JJ Abrams on deck to direct and the distinct possibility that Benicio Del Toro will play the villain. Now comes word across subspace that Alice Eve is Abrams’ pick for a new role.

This being a Bad Robot production, nothing has yet leaked out about who or what (she could be a sexy killer robot!) Eve will play, but according to Variety’s sources, it’s likely that it’ll be a new character in the Trek universe. That said, we didn’t see Yeoman Rand in the first film, did we?

With Eve in place – and Del Toro likely – the cast is slowly filling out beyond returning stars Pegg, Cho, Chris Pine, Anton Yelchin, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and a squad of red shirted types who should probably be very worried about their immediate future.

With shooting set to start in January, Star Trek 2 is scheduled for May 17, 2013. The first person to make the comment (or write the headline) “phasers set to stunner” over the Eve casting will be chucked out of an airlock.