Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy General Discussion Thread

[Christopher]

Okay, can we talk about "Terror Firma" now? Apparently the mysterious drive system is "proto-warp" powered by a gravimetrically contained protostar -- never mind that a protostar is hundreds of thousand of kilometers across and hasn't even begun fusing hydrogen yet and is thus not much of a power source. And it's probably one of those alternative drive systems that didn't pan out in the long run, according to Burnham in DSC season 3.

And somehow a Klingon ship managed to reach Murder Planet Larry in the Hirogen system. How do they all keep getting out here? Or is this the final fate of the Klingon generation ship from VGR: "Prophecy"? It didn't look like a K'tinga-class ship, though.

If Zero was right and Larry was a life form instead of a planet, I guess that rules out my assumption that it was the Hirogen's original homeworld that was overrun by the superorganism, driving them off. Unless the superorganism ate the whole planet and replaced it.

I figured this would be the episode where Gwyn finally switched sides, and so it was. Still, they're advancing the storyline very gradually. The Diviner said something about the ship offering "salvation," and felt he had no choice but to pick it over his daughter. So what is it that he's trying to save? And now that the ship has jumped far away from him, how long will it be before we get any answers?

 

[Mudd]

So, we've established then that the Tellarite ship should be most reasonably assumed to be a pre-warp vessel. It's what makes sense.

 

[cooleddie74]

Sleeper technology seems to be the thing in the Trek universe when a species hasn't yet developed faster-than-light engines for their spacecraft. Earth had sleeper ships at least 67 years before warp drive so maybe the Tellarites had similar vessels generations before their own warp breakthrough.

And the Tellarites more likely than not had warp before we did.

 

[Christopher]

Sleeper technology seems to be the thing in the Trek universe when a species hasn't yet developed faster-than-light engines for their spacecraft.

In local space, yes, but in this context, we're talking about a distance scale a hundred or a thousand times greater, a scale on which even warp travel would take generations.

 

[cooleddie74]

Gotta be a wormhole or spatial anomaly, then. No way they dispatched a sleeper ship for a trip that would take centuries or even longer. One of those convenient anomalies that sweeps a primitive space vessel to a location far more distant than its crude engines could ever achieve on their own.

Or the ship was abducted for the free labor on board.

 

[Tim Thomason]

My presumption is that this is in a region of space closer to the Beta Quadrant than shown before. Klingons, Tellarites, Caitians, and maybe even some humans, arrived via warp sleeper ships from the 21st and 22nd centuries, when that was more common. Lurians and Medusans may have done so as well, or they may be from this area and their presence in the Alpha Quadrant is a reverse sleeper ship scenario. That Kazon may have left his tribe generations prior. He was just a rogue slaver, after all.

The Protostar on the Protostar might be in some type of dimensional pocket. Otherwise, stripped to its very core core to fit within the gravimetric engine or whatever. It's nice that exotic material is coming into play, and has shades if Romulanism and their use of a quantum singularity.

 

[Christopher]

Gotta be a wormhole or spatial anomaly, then.

Or a warp-capable sleeper ship, as I've been saying. There's no reason a ship can't be both warp-capable and a sleeper ship, if the journey is so far that it would take decades or centuries even at warp. Heck, it's basically the same principle as the Kelvans putting the Enterprise crew "to sleep" by turning them into styrofoam cuboctahedrons.

My presumption is that this is in a region of space closer to the Beta Quadrant than shown before.

Dal said in the first episode that he'd seen a star cluster called the Window of Dreams, which was mentioned in Voyager's season 7 episode "Body and Soul." By season 7, Voyager had traveled across the entire width of the Delta Quadrant and was pretty much right up close to the Delta/Beta border, only about 35,000 light years from the Federation by that point. So if the prison asteroid is in that same part of the quadrant, it's actually closer to the Klingons, Tellarites, Lurians, Caitians, etc. than it is to Kazon space.

The Protostar on the Protostar might be in some type of dimensional pocket.

It would have to be. But again, a protostar isn't actually generating energy yet, except heat from gravitational compression. So it's pretty lame as a power source. The energy required to generate and sustain a shrinky dimensional pocket like that would be far greater than the energy you'd get out of a protostar.

I guess we could forgive a bit of fudged terminology and assume it's an actual star undergoing fusion, which would sustain the dimensional pocket that held it. Maybe they had to confine it while it was still a protostar and not too hot to handle, and the compression accelerated its development enough to begin fusion, or something. Seems insanely complicated, though. A quantum singularity would make much more sense.

Otherwise, stripped to its very core core to fit within the gravimetric engine or whatever.

The core of a star is thousands of kilometers across. A piece of it only 4-5 meters wide would basically just be a tank of compressed hydrogen. Starships already have plenty of those to feed their fusion reactors.

 

[Mudd]

Or a warp-capable sleeper ship, as I've been saying. There's no reason a ship can't be both warp-capable and a sleeper ship,

And, Occam's Razor goes in the trash, given that there are so few examples of FTL sleeper ships extant that the concept itself strongly implies sublight travel.

 

[cooleddie74]

I'm going with no warp technology and the vessel was abducted or swept into a wormhole or some other anomaly. The Charybdis launched from Earth in 2037("The Royale(TNG)") didn't have warp drive at all neither did it come with cryogenic technology for long-term travel yet wound up far, far from our solar system thanks to being abducted by aliens who studied its crew.

That vessel had only early 21st century sublight technology and still made it an impressive distance for a ship of its era.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Either it fell into a random wormhole or got accidentally caught up in the warp bubble of a larger ship passing by without being noticed. As soon as the larger ship dropped out of warp, the resulting momentum flung the sleeper ship in the same direction at a higher rate of speed, carrying it deeper out into space. Either way, I think much ado has been made about a simple throw-away line. The whole concept can be quite easily explained in many ways.

I'm honestly surprised more heartburn hasn't been caused over the "Hirogen System" being devoid of life - particularly the Hirogen - aside from a psychotic person-eating planet, of course.

 

[Christopher]

I'm honestly surprised more heartburn hasn't been caused over the "Hirogen System" being devoid of life - particularly the Hirogen - aside from a psychotic person-eating planet, of course.

There's no conflict there, because we know the Hirogen have been nomadic for at least a thousand years. That means they probably abandoned their home planet that long ago. Perhaps the superorganism is what drove them out of the system and forced them to become nomads in the first place. Or maybe it moved in after they'd already left, taking advantage of their absence.

 

[cooleddie74]

Abandoned or hunted all other life forms of consequence in their system to extinction. Maybe both.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm honestly surprised more heartburn hasn't been caused over the "Hirogen System" being devoid of life

Since the Hirogen struck me as highly nomadic I don't see the reason for any consternation. Not that that would stop Trek fans, but in this instance the reaction seems actually appropriate.

 

[cooleddie74]

They might have rendered their own homeworld uninhabitable by destroying its ecosystem with relentless high-tech hunting exercises, necessitating finding other worlds to use for resources.

 

[137th Gebirg]

But claiming it to be the "Hirogen System" implies this is their homeworld. As this is the only Class-M planet in the system, how could any species possibly evolve on a world that manipulates and devours other sentient beings, nomadic or not? Did the planet evolve into self-awareness after the Hirogen left? One would think something like that would take a really long time to happen. Unless, of course, it was another one of Q's experiments (or any number of other ascended life forms in the universe, I guess).

 

[Christopher]

But claiming it to be the "Hirogen System" implies this is their homeworld.

Was their homeworld. They've been nomads for at least a thousand years.

As this is the only Class-M planet in the system, how could any species possibly evolve on a world that manipulates and devours other sentient beings, nomadic or not?

As I've already suggested, the superorganism could've infested and taken over the Hirogen's planet, either driving them off of it or colonizing it after they abandoned it. Whereupon it consumed so much of the planet that it basically became one with it.

 

[fireproof78]

But claiming it to be the "Hirogen System" implies this is their homeworld.

And? Homeworld doesn't mean permanent occupancy, especially after so many years in the future.

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

It’s a logical inference the only planet in the system with life is the Hirogen’s home planet, but it’s not the only logical possibility.

With the Hirogen’s history of being the apex predator, with hunting as their primary drive and ethos, it’s reasonable to assume they hunted the other species on their home world until there was nothing left, and the ecosystem crumbled, leaving their home world devoid of any life a few thousand years later.

 

[cooleddie74]

There could be other planets in the Hirogen system anyways that we haven't yet seen and might never see. We didn't even learn that there was an inhabited or at least habitable Cardassia III in the Cardassian system until "Prophet Motive(DS9)."

 

[Tim Thomason]

As I've already suggested, the superorganism could've infested and taken over the Hirogen's planet, either driving them off of it or colonizing it after they abandoned it. Whereupon it consumed so much of the planet that it basically became one with it.

They probably, foolishly, thought they could hunt this vine creature in some sort of hunting camp, and it drove them off the planet and eventually ate everything.

I thought the Hirogen connection might tie into the conclusion (contacting the Hirogen? being rescued by them?), but it looks like it's just interesting flavoring.