Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 1x06 - "Kobayashi"

Well, Murf certainly seems impervious to swallowing photon grenades that go off inside him... but this could mean a few things:
1. Murf can swallow a large number of potentially dangerous compounds/substances and be fine (which only shows his INSIDES are extremely durable or are able to withstand vaporization effects).
2. His outsides might not be indestructible (similar to how a Bolian has protective coating inside their bodies to be able to drink a corrosive acid and be perfectly fine [as Tuvok pointed out to Neelix early on in VOY]) - so Murf could potentially still be vaporized by the photon grenades or phasers from the outside... or a simple phaser set to kill would end his life.

 

If it's a ship from the future then I guess that means they can't go back to the Federation without risking the timeline and changing events.

 

Gwyn: We can't risk the timeline and change events!

Dal (blasts the real Chakotay with a phaser): Too late.

Gwyn: What have you done????!!!!

Seven of Nine: He's fulfilling his destiny. Become my apprentice Dal, learn to use the vigilantism of the Fenris Rangers!

 

Chakotay being a captain of the Protostar doesn't suggest the far future though.

Could be that the Protostar was launched just a couple of years after VOY came back from the D.Q, and got stuck over 17 years into the past (remember that Diviner's bug terminator mentioned 'years' of failed attempts at finding the Protostar by others during the '17 years ago' sequence).

That would suggest the Protostar was flung about 20 odd years (maybe 25 years) into the past right after it was launched.
It could have encountered a temporal anomaly of some kind and wham... it was thrown into the past - this could have been done by someone during the Temporal Wars to prevent UFP from developing the Proto drive further... or it was just a random occurrence.

So, nothing would necessarily change for the Federation timeline-wise because even if the kids return to UFP in the next episode, the Protostar could have already been registered as 'missing' or 'lost' for a few years.

A bit of timeline:

- VOY was launched in 2371.
- VOY returned to Federation space in 2378.

- 2383 (5 years after VOY's return) is the year Prodigy is taking place (what we are currently observing).

- 2380 to 2381 could have been when Protostar was launched and shortly after ended up missing - gets thrown over 17 years into the past.

If we substract 17 from 2383, we get the year 2366 - this is when Gwyn was made (during TNG era - and ENT-D was launched in 2363)... but the dialogue suggests that many others tried finding the Protostar (and failing) for years up until that point.

So, based on what was said, the USS Protostar was thrown over 17 years into the past... possibly as far back as to 2363 (when ENT-D launched) or 2360, suggesting a a throwback of about 20-23 years... and fits into the timeline perfectly fine with the ship being searched for 'years' before Gwyn was made.

So, if we see a flesh and blood Chakotay in Prodigy, he will probably have grey hair and possibly some mental health related issues depending on what kind of environment he was in (probably not too fit to assume command so he will be relying on the kids to take him back to Federation space).

Speaking of which... that Transwarp jump of 4000 Ly's had the USS Protostar ending up in the Gamma Quadrant it seems... its possible Chakotay and his original crew ended up there... and could be prisoners of the Dominion (which would also tie into DS9, but its unnecessary to think this is how the Dominion got its info on A.Q technology because they had ample opportunities to take prisoners, capture ships and their databases from the first 2 years of the Wormhole opening - in fact, I actually think this is how the Dominion was able to have its polaron weapons bypass Federation shields... stolen intel basically from the first AQ species launching expeditions into the GQ in the first 2 years of Wormhole opening).

The holo - recording had recorded holo Janeway saying they are being boarded... that could suggest the Dominion, or another foreign power tried boarding the ship before Chakotay activated the Proto-drive in an attempt to keep it out of their hands (but not before he himself was beamed out), and ending up inside Tars Lamora.

Episodes are a bit short... but they make up for having a higher number of episodes in a season.
Will be interesting to see what actually happened (seeing how everything I mentioned is pure speculation).

 

Chakotay also mentioned some sort of anomaly

 

Maybe the Protostar is like Captain Kirk's birthday gift glasses. The crew meet the real Chakotay in the future and he takes command, the events in the hologram happen, then the ship gets sent back in time and crashes all over again in a perfect stable time loop, an ontological paradox. The USS Protostar thus has no origin. That's why there's no mention of it and its tech in Discovery. Starfleet never actually created it.

 

Yeah, seems like the likely culprit for the time travel, or maybe a combination of the anomaly and the protowarp? Probably just the anomaly they’re encountering in the recording of Chakotay.

 

The audio clips from TOS are really obviously lower quality than everything from TNG onwards. They had the same issue in Discovery.

 

What would the reason for that be? I've been watching remastered TOS and they all sound pretty clear to me. Where are they getting these clips from?

 

Shut up I'm not crying you're crying

 

Re: The use of Odo according to the author of the episode, Aaron Waltke:

This wasn’t something that bothered me at all. ‪‪I had figured that sure, he wasn’t a member of Starfleet, but he ran security for a Starfleet operated facility for years, and served on the bridge of a Federation ship on significant missions during the Dominion War. Didn’t seem unrealistic to me to begin with, but it was kind of cool to see the writers had put the same kind of thought into it.

 

I'm so happy this show is back. It's fun. I like that Dal is finally learning what it takes to be a captain. While I'm not a huge fan of fan service, I appreciated it here. Yeah, I'm a mass of contradictions. But, at least, I admit to my own hypocrisy. Or my own humanity.

 

Discovery basically established that the Vulcan Science Academy education was interchangeable with Starfleet Academy for Burnham. Especially if Bajor ultimately joined the Federation, Odo could basically have been commissioned as an officer with his Bajoran military background substituted for Starfleet's.

 

There's enough time between the (end of DS9) 2375 and (when ST:Prodigy S1 takes place) 2383 for Bajor to join the UFP.

Hypothetically, Odo could've accepted a official commision assuming he returned from the Gamma Quadrant in those 8 years.

The program might've figured out a different way to screw him over if it wasn't for him accidentally tapping the torpedo button with the heel of his shoe.

I think Gwyn is "Closer" to being Captain, but none of the kids are ready for that job, they're still untrained children fooling around in a stolen StarShip.

Is it me, or whatever Murf is made out of makes him one of the toughest biological beings that isn't on a "God Tier"

Swallowing multiple Photon Grenades and coming out "Fine" is quite the miracle when you think about it.

 

And remember, Murf is supposed to be a very deep cut reference to earlier Trek that we have yet to recognize, or at least say so out loud in forums like this. There could be very good reasons why his body can withstand such punishment and slide away with no visible aftereffects.

 

Doctor Who has now entered the chat.

 

I honestly forgot Nichelle Nichols wasn't dead as well. Though she's had dementia for four years now and is essentially gone as far as we're concerned.

 

A good episode. The recreation of the Ent-D and the characters was nice. As others have pointed out the audio clips didn't always mesh 100% with what was happening and the TOS audio is of a different quality owing to its age. It was nice to hear Gates McFadden deliver new lines. While Dal learned some things about leadership from this experience, I think he also missed a lesson about dealing with failure in his obsession to "beat" the test. I guess some timey-wimey stuff is afoot. It would be interesting if the Chakotay we saw was from that alternate timeline where Voyager crashed using the quantum slipstream. Maybe the Protostar was part of a recovery mission to find Voyager before Chakotay and his crew had to abandon ship, and the ship somehow ended up in the regular timeline in the past. That might explain holo-Janeway, and the Kobayashi Maru simulation potentially having the option to select crew from not only the Prime-verse's past, but also it's future (I saw the 29th Century and 31st Century combadge designs) and even alternate universes (I also spotted that alternative TNG combadge with four bars used in "Future Imperfect" and "Parallels".) This ship may done quite a bit of traveling. Lastly, I wonder if they are in the Gamma Quadrant proper or just getting closer to it.

 

The Kobayashi Maru was playable in the old 1990s Starfleet Academy game (and its console ports) and recently a browser based version was made available too. Specifically for the browser version which I don't have much experience with, are any of Dal's unorthodox tactics actually possible to attempt? :O

 

There may not have been enough time in universe for Nog to make a name for himself yet. Though we know it will happen eventually, per Discovery.