Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 1x17 - "Ghost in the Machine"

Ah, so Brent Spiner cannot voice act him then. How about Brian Brophy?

 

I mean, I would hope the goal of all writers is to produce good stories. As for Lower Decks it gets a different feel largely because it is a comedy. Orville, well, I haven't watched it since Season 2 annoyed me so I'll take your word that it works over there.

Who?

 

He played Bruce Maddox in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they recast him in Picard. He might not act anymore though.

 

Twas a joke. We had a whole thread about this particular individual. Chuck Norris called-he wants his bit back.

 

Yeah I remember it. He could play a Maddox ancestor though one day. No reason why he cannot play a toon Maddox either.

 

Excellent, thank you for confirming what my creaky old brain successfully remembered from decades ago! It's sometimes a stretch for me these days.

So, yeah, Dal has a long bout of ice-skating uphill awaiting him if he applies for Starfleet. Even though his situation is quite similar to Bashir's, being augmented without his consent, Bashir at least already had a long career as a doctor and officer. Dal's resumé pretty much only consists of stealing a starship and blowing up a deep-space outpost. Not exactly what one might consider officer material. If he does make it in, VADM Janeway will need to pull some pretty tough strings to make it happen, making Seven's recruitment into Starfleet look like a walk in the park.

 

Save for timing, cost, and experience of doing voice acting.

 

He can do it over Zoom or Skype.

 

No, he was created by his protégés.

Something I noticed right away in the episode, is the way Rok-Tahk describes the holodeck comes right from the TNG Technical Manual.

 

Ok, well, the inner audiophile in me just died a little so...I'll just say that voice acting is an art in of itself and would prefer proper equipment and a trained voice actor and just leave it at that.

 

Yes, because it needs to sound good on cinema screen televisions too in surround sound. He might also have a bassy voice so it would need a subwoofer.

 

Husky and Bassy, definitely would need a subwoofer. He will be older now too so his voice may have changed somewhat with deeper tones and timbre.

 

25 years on from Next Gen and holodecks are still malfunctioning and endangering lives? That's why they abolished money, isn't it? So they can't get sued.

 

To be fair, this one turned out not to be a holodeck malfunction but deliberate sabotage.

 

I have similar feelings. Around halfway through, I was thinking this was maybe the worst Prodigy episode yet (though still enjoyable), but by the end I thought it was actually very good, because of the resolution and the connection to the overarching plot. Moreover, things that seemed gratuitious before, like the violence in Jankom's program, suddenly made sense because (in this case), the construct wanted to make it clear that the safeties were off (to motivate them to continue playing the game, I suppose).

Allthough I suspected already before the episode that holo-Janeway was orchestrating things, I was still surprised at the why and how of that. It was a weird episode in many ways, but very creative and allthough we've had many holodeck stories, I don't think we have ever gotten something quite like this (especially because this episode's plot was driven directly by the overarching plot of the series, and vice-versa).

What I disliked were mostly two things:
1. That it ended (typical for most Prodigy episodes - I want more and I want it now...)
2. That we didn't get a glimpse of the situation on the Dauntless - damn cliffhanger

Besides that, I wasn't wild about Murf singing - very weird scene that. But the rest of the holodeck antics actually were fine. I especially liked the glimpse into Zero's mind, and Zero was again the hero this episode, figuring things out the way it happened.

There have been several suggestions offered on this thread, and there may be another possibility. The Living Construct is not a dumb weapon, it adapts to circumstances and based on this episode, it can discriminate between targets (it's not a "destroy everything Starfleet in sight, all the time" thing). I think it's possible that the Construct has received orders from the agents of "The Order" on board the Dauntless, considering that those get just what they need at exactly the right moment: the Protostar within transport range, while the Protostar's crew would be nicely subdued. Presto, they can beam over, take control of the ship and destroy Starfleet and they don't even have to fight/hurt Gwyn to do so.

In that case, its actions make sense: keep the crew occupied (but not to the point that Gwyn is badly injured or worse) and go to the Dauntless but make no attempt to infect it yet (because the Vau n'akat agents are on board, and because those don't want to give their trump card away yet by targeting the Dauntless- they want to infect/destroy multiple Starfleet vessels at once).

It's also possible that the weapon did not get specific instructions from Asencia and/or Diviner, but it is sufficiently intelligent (and acting within a set of pre-defined conditions) to follow a similar gameplan (though in that case, it presumably would want to infect the Dauntless unless it can also detect the presence of Vau N'akat on board).

This is also the first time that members of the crew have explicitly stated they would no longer attempt to reach the Federation, which is worse (from the POV of the construct) than the situation at Denaxi Depot (especially if it could detect the presence of Asencia and the Diviner nearby).

That the holodeck simulation ended when the crew was in grave danger, indicates that the construct ultimately did not want to harm them, or probably rather that it did not want to harm the Vau n'akat among them (or had instructions to that end). Otherwise, all of them drowning should have been just fine for the construct.

Instructions are probably more likely, as the construct otherwise did not hesitate to attack Gwyn on CR-721.

One thing I don't quite understand about the earlier simulations in leaving the Neutral Zone is that they never seemed to consider simply using the Protodrive, even though they made a big deal of repairing it last week. Are they concerned that the Dauntless would right away be able to follow? Or does it need a long run at high warp before it can "fire"?

The Hageman's and/or Aaron Waltke have stated in interviews that they consider this the last prejudice in the Federation, so acceptance of Dal will probably be a major arc in later parts of Prodigy. I don't think they will welcome him with open hands, though VA Janeway likely will.

Yes, and even more so, it was nothing less but the Living Construct in action - on the very ship it's on. It shows that other proposed options, like flying the ship into a star, would probably not work either as the construct protects itself (and would probably seize control from the crew to do so). The construct infected holo-Janeway, who programmed the holodeck to do what it did. There's no evidence it malfunctioned at all. The glitches, as they appeared to the teens, may have been caused by the part of holo-Janeway that would attempt to resist the construct (to subtly warn them something is not right).

Other things that are striking:
At least Zero, Dal and Gwyn can read (and very likely Jankom and Rok as well), the old-fashioned way. And they know about morse code, too, and even attempt to implement it (though firing phasers to do so doesn't seem the best idea). Apparently there was a good school at Tars Lamora

 

I kinda got the impression that Murph was lip-synching the song and it was the holodeck producing the voice.
We've never heard Murph speak English.
(or any other language but his own beeps and squawks)

 

Yeah Zero even says 'or just good lip-syncing'

 

Yes, but it does show that Murf can operate the holodeck (or that holo-Janeway does it for him - also weird). And that he is significantly more intelligent than thought, though he can't express himself normally. It does seem inconsistent with his very toddler like behaviour in "Masquerade".

 

Or perhaps Murph just went through all the available programs and hit upon the lounge singer at one point and decided he liked it.
We've already seen Murph operate consoles on the ship, so we know its possible for him to comprehend their function, the holodeck would be comparably easy since it is designed in such a manner that even a child could operate it.