Has that been said? The ship is just over 10 years old. That’s young for a starship
Agreed, but, I think it was stated by the Prodigy writers that VOY was placed/turned into a museum (much like it happened in the timeline from which future Admiral Janeway came from in 'Endgame').
Given its historic journey (that quite frankly no one else in SF managed to do), I think SF wanted to turn it into a monument.
From my perspective, there were still 190 years left in that ship... and with upgrades/refreshement of the frame over time, the ship would effectively end up feeling like brand new anyway after each major upgrade cycle that involved larger external design alterations (for example) which I think would come about roughly once every 50 - 100 years (so, you can have the same frame/ship which was 'refreshed' and upgraded progressively - and because SF could use replicators and transporters, even the very core of the ship's superstructure can easily be harnessed as raw material and turned into state of the art one - effectively brand new).
Given how advanced UFP is though, removing a ship from active duty for the purpose of cultural enrichment is not a big deal.
They can easily make another one.
My s2 prediction is that the Vindicator will kidnap Gwvn, which will lead to Dal an
d the others to hijack the Protostar class ship in a bid to rescue their friend.
The kids JUST managed to get on SF's good side... I certainly hope they don't try something like that, but instead do so with Admiral Janeway (should Gwyn indeed end up captured by Ascensia).
Once the kids mature more and and get proper training under Admiral Janeway, its possible SF will give them access to the Protostar class ship.
I really thought Janeway was going to show them Voyager at the end, but then there was that rather abrupt cut. You can tell this was made for network tv.
Honestly, the idea didn't really cross my mind.
VOY's time in the limelight was over for the most part, and given that Janeway said she had 'much bigger plans' for them, it stood to reason that she had something else in mind (I'm curious as to what that is).
As for abrupt cuts... Prodigy seems to be 'littered' with those. End scenes of various episodes do just 'end' rather abruptly with even the music cut off.
I wonder if that's intentional to make the cut for a given run time (as maybe they can't go over that) and the production team DID in fact finish the scenes that say have the music 'fade out' along with the final screen (for example) - but if they did cut things in order to meet the run-time requirements, wouldn't it be easier to re-adjust the fade outs to conform to the time limit?
It was a nice episode but I was hoping for some more legacy characters at the academy. Bashir should have defended Dal for the Augment DNA.
Why?
Admiral Janeway was closer to the kids and is an Admiral who knew the situation in detail.
I would have preferred though that she made the argument that Dal had no control over the fact he was genetically modified in the first place, and then pointed out that given everything he did to date, he showed them that he acted in line with SF's principles and ideals.
Also, SF's 'objection' to the kids 'stealing' the Protostar was baseless. They found the ship buried in Tars Lamora and used it to escape slavery... AND they made a conscious decision to 'return' the ship eventually (after doing a few good deeds to try and make up for the fact they were using the ship).
And given their previous experiences with authority and 'larger' organisations, SF should have been more understanding that it took them time to come around to the idea that what UFP offerred was in fact genuine - I think this could have been implemented into the dialogue when VA Janeway was arguing on their behalf.
Starfleet did feel rather useless during that battle. They were just sitting around doing sod all. I think it’s safe to assume the Enterprise wasn’t there. They would have solved the problem in no time.
Given that the fleet was under the weapon's control, it stands to reason that the fleet couldn't really do anything apart from what the Construct told it to do (which is shoot at each other).
My disappointment with SF actually tracks to the previous episode (19) because no one else besides the Diviner, Ascensia or Dreadnok beamed onboard the Protostar (before they activated the weapon).
The crews of all those other ships should have noticed beam-ins to the Protostar that had no known UFP biosigns (aka, the Diviner, Ascensia and Dreadnok) and sent more (actual SF personnell) in.
That was a way too short but beautiful ending to the saga. I didn't realize I loved these kids until I saw their "mom" have to say goodbye to them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about holo-Janeway herself even now, but I do see her as being more of a unique person than I did when this started. She showed a vulnerability I rarely saw with the real Janeway. I got misty-eyed with her final words.
It did feel unexpected how they decided to end things with Gwyn, but I feel it would have been better if Janeway said all 6 of them were accepted under VA Janeway wing... but then Gwyn made her own decision to not join up with them and instead go to Solum to try and unify the Vau'N'A'Kat.
If the show does put the kids as the crew of a Voyager-A, I hope it's not just populated with Voyager alums, though guest appearances would be fantastic. Maybe a pre-Picard flashback Icheb could be part of it. Naomi Wildman, depending on how she aged, could be a cadet or ensign working with them as well. I hope they keep Tysess and Noum, who I'd like to get to know better. I expect Gwyn will end up with them before long.
If I recall correctly, Mulgrew mentioned in one of her interviews that she wanted to bring all of VOY cast to Prodigy at some point.
I think Season 2 will certainly be interesting in this regard... and will feature most of the cast of VOY, but possibly not all of them.
Naomi being back as a cadet.... that would make sense.
The actress who portrayed Naomi was 12 years old by the time VOY ended. So, if Naomi was maturing about 1.7x faster than an average human, she would have been about 16 years old just 2 years and 3 months after VOY returned home.
I think it may have been mentioned that 16 years old is the 'minimum entry age requirement' for SF Academy (for humans that is), and if Naomi was an equivalent age and she still wanted to join SF, then she could be in her third year of Academt training by 2383 and Janeway may decide to assign her under her own command and resume her training in the field with the Prodigies when she goes to that mission to future Solum and rescue Chakotay.
I wonder if we will see Icheb too. Having Manu Intiraymi reprise his role as a voice actor for Icheb would certainly be interesting... but, according to online sources, Icheb dies in 2386 (unnecessarily at that because of ST: Picard writers). So he'd still have 3 years to live I suppose, and we could see him on Prodigy (I'd wish though that Pic S1 didn't just kill him off).
Side note:
It was nice to see the kids in SF finally... and even Zero got a new containment suit (which looks pretty good).
I seriously wonder what the writers will do with the new Protostar class ship though (if anything).
Somehow I doubt the show won't use the ship anymore in S2, although its certainly possible.
