Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 1x09 - "A Moral Star, Part 1"

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Definitely gonna get some lore drops next week! Still, the “nothing’s more Starfleet than that” speech made me tear up.

Those look like provisional uniforms, which would be different shades of dark and light grey, following TNG and Lower Decks precedent. When Janeway changed her uniform to match, it had stripes of command red on the shoulders and sleeves. Kinda like a natural next step of the First Contact uniforms with mostly grey and black and color around the collar.

They're a bit similar to the VOY flight suits

They were pretty fragile on Voyager and DS9, too!

They survived a massive explosion surprisingly well. What happened to them in DS9?
The picture doesn't work.

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

Ok, am I missing something or did holo-Janeway drop the ball on here completely? The Diviner demands the Protostar return within 1 day or he'll kill all the mining slaves. The crew treats this as their Kobayashi Maru and holo-Janeway agrees, saying that if they jump to the Federation and ask for help it's not enough time to save the miners, if they go back to the lying, slaving, murderous Diviner it's obviously a trap, and if they do nothing the miners will die. Let's break this down.

1. Even if the Protostar ask the Federation for help, the Fed won't help. The civil war between Gwyn and her father is an internal Tars Lamora matter, and by the Prime Directive the Federation cannot get involved. All the Fed will do is take the Protostar back and put the kids in an orphanage or something. Why doesn't holo-Janeway say that?
   
   
2. Real world countries, institutions, etc. have a policy not to negotiate with terrorists, and I'd imagine the same principles apply to the Federation--I think we've seen that before in Trek. Why didn't holo-Janeway immediately cite this, and stop the kids from going back
   
   
3. Ironically the option that deep down everyone wants, to stay on the ship and do nothing, is probably the only correct one. While holo-Janeway may prefer that they return the Protostar to the Federation, legally as the kids aren't Federation citizens they have no obligation to. And as mentioned above, the Fed can't get involved in the Gwyn/Diviner dispute anyway per the Prime Directive. The ridiculous idea of sending the kids back to negotiate with a dangerous dictator should have been ruled out immediately. If the kids had already made up their minds on not returning the ship to the Federation, then Janeway should have protected the kids by advising them to do nothing.

Holo-Janeway says she has the crew's best interests at heart, but nothing in this episode reflected it, just more of her propaganda about Starfleet that ironically wouldn't apply because the real Starfleet almost definitely would not get involved.

You are forgetting that they are all (or were) part of the very community that is requesting they return, so “non-involvement” doesn’t apply at all. Legally speaking, they aren’t officially Starfleet, either, and Janeway knows this, so the question is moot.

I also think this is a very narrow and inaccurate interpretation of a lot of Starfleet regulations that I can’t see any Star Trek show doing. There have been lots of exceptions involving refugees and people requesting asylum or aid, etc. The Prime Directive also has specific exceptions to going back and rectifying things that have already involved Starfleet property and personnel.

I don’t think we should celebrate Picard or Kirk heroically sitting back and letting people be murdered over a situation they were already involved in because of some vague policy interpretations, which are defied as often as they are cited. Captains always think outside the box and find a solution. Picard and Janeway both willingly threw themselves to the Borg, the Vidiians, etc. multiple times to help the helpless, some of whom they just met. They just had to be clever, which is precisely what the Prodigy crew did.

 

[thribs]

That was a very abrupt ending.
Uniforms look like something from STO. I think I have something similar with my character. I think they’re cadet uniforms.

 

[Yistaan]

Can you imagine Picard or Kirk heroically sitting back and letting people be murdered because of some vague policy interpretations?

Yes. Picard was going to let the entire population of Boraal II die in the name of the Prime Directive and was not pleased when Nikolai Rozhenko saved them via transport to a holodeck. Homeward (episode) | Memory Alpha | Fandom And as Nikolai showed, saving them was far less dangerous than sending kids to negotiate with a dictator.

 

[NCC-73515]

Ok, am I missing something or did holo-Janeway drop the ball on here completely? The Diviner demands the Protostar return within 1 day or he'll kill all the mining slaves. The crew treats this as their Kobayashi Maru and holo-Janeway agrees, saying that if they jump to the Federation and ask for help it's not enough time to save the miners, if they go back to the lying, slaving, murderous Diviner it's obviously a trap, and if they do nothing the miners will die. Let's break this down.

1. Even if the Protostar ask the Federation for help, the Fed won't help. The civil war between Gwyn and her father is an internal Tars Lamora matter, and by the Prime Directive the Federation cannot get involved. All the Fed will do is take the Protostar back and put the kids in an orphanage or something. Why doesn't holo-Janeway say that?
   
   
2. Real world countries, institutions, etc. have a policy not to negotiate with terrorists, and I'd imagine the same principles apply to the Federation--I think we've seen that before in Trek. Why didn't holo-Janeway immediately cite this, and stop the kids from going back to Tars Lamora? The Diviner is a lying, enslaving, murdering tyrant, and he cannot be trusted. Holo-Janeway has known for some time now that these are not Starfleet cadets but alien minors, but last episode she said she was still programmed to protect them as her crew. So why doesn't she? She should have forbidden them from returning to the Diviner and cited policies of not negotiating with terrorists. Instead, she gives them a pep talk about how going back to rescue the miners is in the spirit of Starfleet, etc., knowingly endangering these kids (and in reality, Starfleet probably would not get involved for the reasons I mentioned above). And indeed, the Diviner tries to murder them. This is just as bad as that other Star franchise having Qui-Gon Jinn take kid Anakin into a war zone.
   
   
3. Ironically the option that deep down everyone wants, to stay on the ship and do nothing, is probably the only correct one. While holo-Janeway may prefer that they return the Protostar to the Federation, legally as the kids aren't Federation citizens they have no obligation to. And as mentioned above, the Fed can't get involved in the Gwyn/Diviner dispute anyway per the Prime Directive. The ridiculous idea of sending the kids back to negotiate with a dangerous dictator should have been ruled out immediately. If the kids had already made up their minds on not returning the ship to the Federation, then Janeway should have protected the kids by advising them to do nothing.

Holo-Janeway says she has the crew's best interests at heart, but nothing in this episode reflected it, just more of her propaganda about Starfleet that ironically wouldn't apply because the real Starfleet almost definitely would not get involved.

1. abducting federation member kids and other kids to let them work as slaves means the PD doesn't apply. the diviner isn't technologically inferior. using kids as slaves isn't an internal matter.
2. SF always negotiates. why didn't janeway let all these miner minors die? yeah, good question.
3. the kids did want to go back.

 

[Yistaan]

1. abducting federation member kids and other kids to let them work as slaves means the PD doesn't apply. the diviner isn't technologically inferior. using kids as slaves isn't an internal matter.
2. SF always negotiates. why didn't janeway let all these miner minors die? yeah, good question.
3. the kids did want to go back.

It's unlikely the kids are federation members. They haven't even heard of it.

Picard refused to get involved with the klingon civil war even though duras was obviously bad.

In the real world we don't negotiate with terrorists. David marcus died because kirk wouldn't negotiate with kruge over genesis.

 

[thribs]

Maybe they’re the cadet versions of the Odyssey uniforms.

 

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It's unlikely the kids are federation members. They haven't even heard of it.

Picard refused to get involved with the klingon civil war even though duras was obviously bad.

In the real world we don't negotiate with terrorists. David marcus died because kirk wouldn't negotiate with kruge over genesis.

look up tellarites and founding members.

data rescued sarjenka. janeway rescued that one planet from early S1. picard rescued his crew's kids. picard rescued wes. read the MA article on the PD.

sf always negotiates. trek is not the real world. picard negotiated as much as he drank tea.

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

As I mentioned above, the Prime Directive has specific exceptions around rectifying incidents if Starfleet equipment or personnel are already involved in causing the disaster, which the Protostar absolutely was.

 

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Homeward clearly and obviously had the issue of a technologically far inferior culture that did not know of alien life or warp drive. Is that the issue here? Certainly not.

 

[ToddCam]

I really like the uniforms.

 

[Yistaan]

Homeward clearly and obviously had the issue of a technologically far inferior culture that did not know of alien life or warp drive. Is that the issue here? Certainly not.

Picard also refused to interfere in the klingon civil war despite duras being bad

 

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Picard also refused to interfere in the klingon civil war despite duras being bad

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/sta...moral-star-part-1.310348/page-2#post-14021208

seriously, inform yourself about the topic before going through another unconnected circle:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_Directive

 

[Yistaan]

Even if starfleet was obligated ti save the miners, the kids aren't Starfleet. Holo janeway shouldn't have let them go alone. Period

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

I really like the uniforms.

Me too! ‪‪I think they look fantastic on the kids.

 

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Even if starfleet was obligated ti save the miners, the kids aren't Starfleet. Holo janeway shouldn't have let them go alone. Period

in your version of this story, all the kids on the asteroid would die, including cute little kitty kid. and you'd call it star trek, I suppose. XD

 

[Yistaan]

in your version of this story, all the kids on the asteroid would die, including cute little kitty kid. and you'd call it star trek, I suppose. XD

Child endangerment is itself a crime and the protostar crew are kids

 

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did you not see the end? they went in prepared with a plan XD

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

Child endangerment is itself a crime and the protostar crew are kids

I’m gonna be honest, your arguments all feel like they are in bad faith. If you are truly advocating that the show would be better and it would be a better message if the heroes sat back and let people die for a situation they were partly involved in creating, I do not want to watch the same Star Trek you do. From what I’ve seen everywhere else you’ve posted this same message, no one else wants your version of Trek either.

 

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We also finally see that Dal can use his head-tail to hold things - I was wondering if it has a purpose. He might be able to fire 3 phasers at the same time XD