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Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 1x19 - "Supernova, Part 1"

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  • Total voters
    77
Omg that was so cool it had so much *pew pew* in it with phasers and torpedoes and lots of different starships!!!!! Fantastic CGI and music!!! It was sooooooo exciting just like Sacrifice of Angels one of my all time favourite Deep Space Nine episodes!!! *Sqweeeeeee*

I learnt recently that Star Trek episodes are allegorical. So let us try to decode the allegory behind this weeks episode!!!!!

A fleet of Starfleet vessels have been compromised by the Living Construct and are destroying each other, with the ships Computer systems being turned against other ships in the fleet. I wonder why this computer virus only seems to affect weapons systems? How about initiating auto destruct or warp core breaches? Surely the Construct could use other ships systems against the vessels and their crew, such as inertial dampeners, structural integrity fields, artificial gravity, tractor beams and even life support?

Starfleet (or whatever it represents in this toon) can not be shown to be having a civil war/cyber war as it goes against the tone of the show, so this could be a child friendly allegorical representation of something going on in the real world? A distress signal is broadcast by our heroes in a desperate plea for help to stop Starfleet from destroying itself so lots of different species send their ships to help, some of these species are quite unexpected such as the Ferengi who normally only have self interest in mind. Some of these non Starfleet ships get damaged and destroyed in the process of trying to help, becoming caught up in the Starfleet on Starfleet cross fire. The cliffhanger was that even this help from all of the other species is not good enough to protect the fleet. Everything is being destroyed. It is a shame that we did not get any interactions from the other ships in this episode, they came across as being a bit like unmanned starship bots which kept ‘spawning’. We did not hear any screaming over intercoms like in First Contact when the fleet faced the Borg which would have created more atmosphere.

We even have a rescued refugee trying to help out and save the day, which shows that good deeds can have unexpected positive repercussions in the future.

Is this all just random writing which I am attempting to make sense of in a nonsensical way or is it indeed an allegory for something, because if it is an allegory… it escapes me. Maybe I am looking too much in to it all, regardless though it was a *lot* of mindless fun. :D

It was sad that the Diviner died, he did not get a chance to redeem himself. I think that this will all make Gwen a lot more stronger in the future though, a bit more of an independent women.

I wonder how the gang will get themselves out of this mess next week? They may need a deus ex machina. I wonder if Q will show up? :shrug:

I give this weeks episode 20/10.
 
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OMG Erin liked my tweet.75BBBF81-654F-4DF7-8849-B2D7813D89BE.jpeg:adore:
It has not been confirmed if this weeks episode was an allegory or not though, but I suppose it could have all just been mindless fun. :D
 
Decoy ships, I like it :techman:
I just noticed that all the windows are elevated a bit - fake red lights glued on top of an empty hull? :D

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How linear of you. Even though he "died", Q is always around.

Yes, I'm aware he could potentially appear at any point either way due to his ability to manipulate time.

Still, it was stated the UFP had 0 contact with Q for 600 since late 26th century... so apparently, there will be at least 600 year gap from late 26th century where the Q won't be communicating with the Federation (De Lancies' Q or any Q for that matter).

Also, Q's appearances were (usually) portrayed as mostly linear on Trek (at least when it comes to his dealings with Humanity and UFP in general).
We weren't given an indication that the Q from PIC season 2 was making a whole bunch of trips back in time to interact with the crew of ENT-D, DS9 and VOY just before he started losing his powers (although its a possibility).

What we do know is that time in the Continuum does pass much faster than it does on the temporal plane Trek humans occupy (less than 10 mins = years in Q time - I'm counting roughly 4 years in human time frame).
So, 30 human years = (about) 6.3 million Q-time years.

Do we have evidence which confirms the premise that Q from ANY point in his life would be able to interact with our Trek heroes?
Say for example that the Q from the year 2371 was the one who started the whole thing in first episode of TNG. .. would the Q from say 2271 be aware of this?

The details of just how 'transient' Q's consciousness is (across space and tme) are debatable (they have control over space, matter and time, but no info to say that they are aware of everything they do in every time frame [past, present or future]).

It would be like Q's future self is also Q's past and present... occupying every point in space and time simultaneously (similar/same to what Warp 10 from 'threshold' does... and yet, we aren't given evidence that this is the case with the Q).
 
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Perhaps they are still on the holodeck? :D
View attachment 31999
Now that would be something! :hugegrin:
But I doubt it.

One more thought about Gwyn's speech: I think the writers could have given her better arguments, like for example implying or stating that the construct would likely go for the Klingons/Ferengi/etc after it got finished with the Federation. As it was, she made a very good speech about why the Federation is appealing to her and to her crewmates (other than Dal... :confused:) and to people like the Brikari refugees, but why would Klingons or Ferengi care about that? They think their own way of doing things is better, obviously.

Sure, the "nicer" Klingons would likely come to the aid of allies (especially those who fight side-by-side in the Dominion war) and the Ferengi may see the Federation as "good for business", but in that case the distress call would have been sufficient. It's a bit like in the Borg episode, where the appeal to friendship was nice but it was ultimately Zero who had the tools to refure the collective.

It's a nice uplifting moment but it does use a bit of kid's show logic, IMO. Same goes for the apparent total destruction of Starfleet that they imply would happen: obviously, not every single ship is going to continue to react to an automated distress signal, especially considering how far lots of vessels would be and how large Starfleet is. To realistically destroy Starfleet, the construct would need to continue to seek out Starfleet installations and even so many ships would be able to evade. Ascencia is mad if she thinks her plan could ever work with just one battle, while the Dominion War had several with casualties that were likely even worse.

Happy Christmas to everyone!
 
I learnt recently that Star Trek episodes are allegorical.
Some are, some are not. It can be dangerous to overuse allegory in a show though, as the in-universe logic (or just good practice in making a fictional story) is ditched to force an allegory that does not fit the subject matter. I'm thinking about the New Caprica arc on BSG, for example, where the situation on the show was twisted into something that didn't really fit the premise/characters, because the writers wanted to make a specific point about the real world. It's often better to make a documentary or a show specifically about the point you want to make, rather than clunkily modify something that already exists but was never meant to be about whatever allegory the writer of the week wants to get out.

A show should be entertaining and consistent first. If they can combine that with an allegory, fine. If not, rather ditch the allegory than the entertainment value of the show.
 
Now that would be something! :hugegrin:
Evil hologram Janeway could have manipulated the holodeck to make it look like Dal and the gang had left, wasting their time while the real Diviner got on with his mission to destroy Starfleet. Real Janeway could have infiltrated the program to save the crew but at the same time used it to warn Dal and the crew about the dangers of the Living Construct. This means that a deus ex machina would not be needed to resolve last weeks cliffhanger, just Admiral Janeway saying “Computer, end program”. This would make the stakes extremely high for the Protostar crew because they would now know of the destruction that was about to unfold because they had actually seen the consequences of the Living construct destroying Starfleet on the holodeck. Events could then continue with a minor reboot to the story so that the gang can come up with a better plan to save Starfleet. This would also all mean that the Diviner is still alive and kicking and very much at large, Gwen may even have more divided loyalties now after getting to know her hologram dad a little bit.

Knowing how destructive the Living construct is after seeing it first hand could trigger Dal to fly the Protostar in to a supernova in order to destroy the Living construct and save Starfleet. A supernova well away from life and civilisation of course so that it does not blow up Romulus and Remus or any other inhabited worlds.

Cool fan fic, huh? :D
 
Yes, I'm aware he could potentially appear at any point either way due to his ability to manipulate time.

Still, it was stated the UFP had 0 contact with Q for 600 since late 26th century... so apparently, there will be at least 600 year gap from late 26th century where the Q won't be communicating with the Federation (De Lancies' Q or any Q for that matter).

Also, Q's appearances were (usually) portrayed as mostly linear on Trek (at least when it comes to his dealings with Humanity and UFP in general).
We weren't given an indication that the Q from PIC season 2 was making a whole bunch of trips back in time to interact with the crew of ENT-D, DS9 and VOY just before he started losing his powers (although its a possibility).

What we do know is that time in the Continuum does pass much faster than it does on the temporal plane Trek humans occupy (less than 10 mins = years in Q time - I'm counting roughly 4 years in human time frame).
So, 30 human years = (about) 6.3 million Q-time years.

Do we have evidence which confirms the premise that Q from ANY point in his life would be able to interact with our Trek heroes?
Say for example that the Q from the year 2371 was the one who started the whole thing in first episode of TNG. .. would the Q from say 2271 be aware of this?

The details of just how 'transient' Q's consciousness is (at least across space and tme) has been debatable (they have control over space, matter and time, but no info to say that they are aware of everything they do in every time frame [past, present or future]).

It would be like Q's future self is also Q's past and present... occupying every point in space and time simultaneously (similar/same to what Warp 10 from 'threshold' does... and yet, we aren't given evidence that this is the case with the Q).

I did forget the reference to Q on DIscovery.
 
Take it with a grain of salt knowing it could just be grabbing a digital model to fill a spot in the Starfleet armada, but who knows?
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Take it with a grain of salt knowing it could just be grabbing a digital model to fill a spot in the Starfleet armada, but who knows?
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
All the Sovereigns in the fleet you can see the nacelles of say '1701-E' on them, I don't think any of them were indented to be the enterprise.

I'm guessing the artist who was tasked to change the saucer from Enterprise to Sovereign forgot to change the nacelles.
 
I wonder why this computer virus only seems to affect weapons systems? How about initiating auto destruct or warp core breaches? Surely the Construct could use other ships systems against the vessels and their crew, such as inertial dampeners, structural integrity fields, artificial gravity, tractor beams and even life support?

Much like an effective biological virus, if you kill the host too quickly you limit your potential to spread. If it blows up every ship it infects immediately then those ships don't have the opportunity to spread the virus to other ships.
 
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