War approaches as Outlander drops full first trailer for Season 5

The time is nigh to re-enter author Diana Gabaldon‘s epic and romantic tale of time-crossed lovers as Outlander returns for a fifth season. After releasing some first footage at New York Comic Con, the Starz series has dropped its full first trailer for the season, which sees the author return to scripting duties for the first time since Season 2.

Now, still in a burgeoning America after the events of the fourth season, Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) will experience every kind of time-displaced hardship they could ... but also plenty of steamy encounters, as the pair teased at their SYFY WIRE panel. "They support each other through some tough, tough times," Balfe said. "Together, they're really strong,” Hueghan chimed in. “We had a scene just the other day. ... we made love, without making love." So fans have that to look forward to as war approaches.

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“If war approaches,” Jamie counsels, “it would be safer in your time.” Will these time travelers interrupt the American Revolution? Or will they willingly allow their loved ones to enter into the bloody conflict ... and on the wrong side, no less?

It’s going to be a lot of tricky needles to thread as they dodge bayonets and musket fire alike, but these savvy characters have already gotten through so much — what’s one war to navigate? At least those eternal abs are still intact, as fans can see in one of the final trailer shots. And there’s at least one more visual element from the books coming to this season.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Matthew B. Roberts broke down how the show’s production designer, Jon Gary Steele, brought the actual fiery cross to the adaptation of the fifth book, The Fiery Cross.

“We had Gary come up with maybe 10 different designs,” Roberts said of the cross. “We didn’t want it to be a religious symbol. We wanted it to be a Scottish symbol. This is the one we collectively picked because, well, to tell you the truth, it looks cool.” The Celtic-esque cross was always going to be favored over the traditional, contemporarily recognized Christian cross, which (when ignited) carries its own baggage.

Now, this burnt cross will signify coming war. “In the traditional clan burning of the cross, they would douse it with sheep’s blood, burn it, and put it out. Then they would take that burnt cross through their lands, and that would call people to war.”

Outlander returns, and brings conflict with it, to Starz on Feb. 16.