Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy General Discussion Thread

[137th Gebirg]

I'm just curious why late-24th century Medusans are flying around in a creaky old mid-23rd century vessel. I guess their advanced navigational skills preclude them from needing more advanced tech to fly? Unless Zero has been in captivity for a hundred years maybe...

 

[Tuskin38]

I'm just curious why late-24th century Medusans are flying around in a creaky old mid-23rd century vessel.

It was mentioned in the episode that they split off a long time ago, they probably just had no way to upgrade.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I was also somewhat confused by the Deviner's flashback of Starfleet's first contact. The dialogue and scenes with Chakotay implied it was the Protostar that arrived, but the external shots clearly showed a four-engine Prometheus class. I guess the pointy silhouette the two ships shared confused the artists? A shame, as they've been pretty dead-on with Trek lore to-date. Seems to have been an honest mistake. Nice to see a Promy again, anyway, even if in error.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm just curious why late-24th century Medusans are flying around in a creaky old mid-23rd century vessel. I guess their advanced navigational skills preclude them from needing more advanced tech to fly? Unless Zero has been in captivity for a hundred years maybe...

They probably found one design and said "Eh, close enough." It's only really Starfleet that's like "Throw 100 different ship designs at the problem!"

 

[Christopher]

Sleeper ships by definition don't have faster-than-light capability, or at the very most a very low warp capability that will still require a travel of many years between star systems.

Yes, obviously we're talking about the latter, a journey of roughly 40,000 light years from the Alpha to the Delta Quadrant, which would take hundreds of years for a 22nd-century warp ship. We've seen at least one warp-capable sleeper ship in Trek before, in TNG: "The Emissary." The definition is not about the engine type, it's about the duration of the mission and the use of hibernation to make it feasible.

I'm just curious why late-24th century Medusans are flying around in a creaky old mid-23rd century vessel. I guess their advanced navigational skills preclude them from needing more advanced tech to fly? Unless Zero has been in captivity for a hundred years maybe...

The idea behind the design of the Medusan ship in TOS-R was that the ship was made from Federation components because an incorporeal species might not have technology of their own. It follows that they might have little need to upgrade their technology.

Besides, thanks to TNG's reuse of movie miniatures, we've seen that many Starfleet and Klingon designs were unchanged over a span of 80-90 years.

I was also somewhat confused by the Deviner's flashback of Starfleet's first contact. The dialogue and scenes with Chakotay implied it was the Protostar that arrived, but the external shots clearly showed a four-engine Prometheus class. I guess the pointy silhouette the two ships shared confused the artists? A shame, as they've been pretty dead-on with Trek lore to-date. Seems to have been an honest mistake. Nice to see a Promy again, anyway, even if in error.

No, they were two separate ships decades apart. The Prometheus-class ship made first contact with the Vau N'Akat, leading to the civil war that devastated the Vau N'Akat civilization. Decades later, the Protostar showed up through a temporal anomaly and gave the survivors of the civil war a chance to go back in time and prevent the original contact.

 

[Wouter]

Sleeper ships by definition don't have faster-than-light capability, or at the very most a very low warp capability that will still require a travel of many years between star systems.

I don't think that's part of the definition. The sleeping part merely allows the vessel + passengers to travel far further (at the cost of having lots of time pass outside it) for the same propulsion capacity. Even a vessel with Voyager-like warp capacity could use sleeper facilities to reach the far ends of the Delta quadrant from Federation territory.

edit: not too mention, Jankom Pog even had to fix the broken warp core as one of his many tasks!

 

[Tuskin38]

Decades later, the Protostar showed up through a temporal anomaly and gave the survivors of the civil war a chance to go back in time and prevent the original contact.

Yes, but they used an image of a Prometheus to represent the Protostar in that scene.

 

[137th Gebirg]

That’s exactly what confused me. The editing in that scene was a bit off. Beautiful artwork used, though.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Well, you were right about it being a sleeper ship, but not about it being sub-warp. The ship depicted was an Enterprise-era Tellarite cruiser, which was warp-capable. As I pointed out before, a sublight sleeper ship would've taken at least tens of thousands of years to reach the Delta Quadrant.

After the belittling lecturing of your previous replies to him and snobbish attempts to shut down any opinion that differed from your own as a PROFESSIONAL WRITER, you couldn't have just given him a straight mea culpa and leave it at that? You had to prop yourself up as being the one who was actually correct, point out where he was wrong, and even toss in a variation on your classic "As I said..." catchphrase?

 

[137th Gebirg]

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

Yes, but they used an image of a Prometheus to represent the Protostar in that scene.

yeah, that looks like an animation error, or an error in Asencia’s projection at least.

It helps if you consider the distinction between the 2D graphic historical recreation images that Drednok is recreating versus the 3D sequence, which seems to be the Diviner’s actual memories of the event.

 

[Wouter]

One of the Youtube videos covering the Prodigy episodes mentioned that it was (according to them) stated that Zero was the first captive at Tars Lamora, and they were wondering how it was possible that Gwyn was there.

Now, I don't recall any mention whatsoever about Zero being the first captive at Tars Lamora (or why Zero got his name/number). Indeed, the sequence in "Preludes" suggests Zero was taken maybe 2,3 or 4 years before the series started (judging by the slightly younger look of Gwyn when Zero was handed over). Are they mistaken or did I totally miss this supposed info?

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

One of the Youtube videos covering the Prodigy episodes mentioned that it was (according to them) stated that Zero was the first captive at Tars Lamora, and they were wondering how it was possible that Gwyn was there.

Now, I don't recall any mention whatsoever about Zero being the first captive at Tars Lamora (or why Zero got his name/number). Indeed, the sequence in "Preludes" suggests Zero was taken maybe 2,3 or 4 years before the series started (judging by the slightly younger look of Gwyn when Zero was handed over). Are they mistaken or did I totally miss this supposed info?

sounds like an assumption. Maybe they are jumping to that conclusion based on their designation being “Prisoner Zero”, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything in an alien mining colony.

 

[Wouter]

sounds like an assumption. Maybe they are jumping to that conclusion based on their designation being “Prisoner Zero”, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything in an alien mining colony.

That's what I thought, a baseless assumption. It's "fugitive zero" anyway, so maybe he was the first ever escapee (the short lived attempts of Dal probably don't count).

 

[Unicron]

Sleeper ships by definition don't have faster-than-light capability, or at the very most a very low warp capability that will still require a travel of many years between star systems. My guess is the Tellarite sleeper ship just has a resemblance to ENT Tellarite cruisers in the same way a lot of Federation and even pre-Federation ships have similar outlines, shapes and colors because they come from a certain culture. Maybe a lof of Tellarite spacecraft have a similar shape and design?

Heaven knows Klingon ships throughout the centuries seem to share a basic feel.

I recall one of the FASA modules has a modern design representing the original Woden from "The Ultimate Computer," which was designed by a guy who was majorly into history and particularly liked the DY series of old transports. So he deliberately made a contemporary class that was based on them, at least visually.

 

[mithril]

Yes, obviously we're talking about the latter, a journey of roughly 40,000 light years from the Alpha to the Delta Quadrant, which would take hundreds of years for a 22nd-century warp ship. We've seen at least one warp-capable sleeper ship in Trek before, in TNG: "The Emissary." The definition is not about the engine type, it's about the duration of the mission and the use of hibernation to make it feasible.

I don't think that's part of the definition. The sleeping part merely allows the vessel + passengers to travel far further (at the cost of having lots of time pass outside it) for the same propulsion capacity. Even a vessel with Voyager-like warp capacity could use sleeper facilities to reach the far ends of the Delta quadrant from Federation territory.

edit: not too mention, Jankom Pog even had to fix the broken warp core as one of his many tasks!

even earth used warp capable sleeper ships early on. Harry Kim had an Uncle Jack had an uncle that piloted a sleeper ship on a long distance science mission in 2210. the ship traveled for 6 months carrying a science crew in suspended animation, on arrival they found the star they were studying (Beta Capricus) didn't actually exist but was an echo of a distant galaxy. forcing the ship to go back home, resulting in the scientists waking up a year after they went under thinking they never left. (i've generally assumed the choice of it being a sleeper ship was to allow a large science team on a smaller ship. a 6 month trip isn't all that far at 2210 warp speeds, but given they only had one guy awake to pilot the ship i'm guessing they didn't have access to a big ship, so were trying to cut down on the supply needs for the trip to maximize the size of the science team that could be brought)

and lets not forget about the IKS T'ong in TNG "The Emissary", where the crew of a klingon ships went into stasis for decades on a mission. presumably they were limited to fairly slow warp speeds at the time. (perhaps the early cloaking device limited warp travel speed worse than the TNG era ones do?)

 

[Christopher]

i've generally assumed the choice of it being a sleeper ship was to allow a large science team on a smaller ship.

Yes, that's one of the main advantages. I recently read an article about how NASA is actively researching human hibernation, since it might be the only way to send large crews to Mars without needing to haul a prohibitive mass of food and water along.

https://www.wired.com/story/mars-hiberators-guide-to-the-galaxy/

And we've seen FTL sleeper ships in other fiction, like the Alien franchise.

and lets not forget about the IKS T'ong in TNG "The Emissary", where the crew of a klingon ships went into stasis for decades on a mission. presumably they were limited to fairly slow warp speeds at the time.

I always figured the idea was that it was a very long-range mission, deep into unexplored space. Maybe they were searching for the Sword of Kahless?

Or maybe they were a contingency just in case the Empire lost the war. Maybe they expected to be wiped out if they were defeated, and wanted some Klingons to survive to perpetuate the species and/or avenge their destruction.

 

[Wouter]

Interview with the voice actress for Asencia: https://www.cbr.com/star-trek-prodigy-jameela-jamil-interview/

An excerpt:

Jameela, with the truth about Asencia now out, what else can you tease for this next set of episodes for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1?



She is so much more intense than you can imagine. Just when you think she's reached the peak of her intensity or pettiness, she'll surprise you again. [laughs] I think you're also going to be surprised by how much of it you can see from her perspective and empathize with her at times. I think she's so vile at first that it takes a minute, but the more we dig into her backstory, she kind of breaks you down, and it becomes confusing for a while, at least as to where she should stand with all of this

 

[Timofnine]

Well, you were right about it being a sleeper ship, but not about it being sub-warp. The ship depicted was an Enterprise-era Tellarite cruiser, which was warp-capable. As I pointed out before, a sublight sleeper ship would've taken at least tens of thousands of years to reach the Delta Quadrant.

The ship might not even have travelled by warp to the Delta Quadrant even if it had warp capability, it could quite easily have fallen through a wormhole. Alternatively a species such as the Nacene could have ‘wished’ the sleeper ship in to the Delta Quadrant, as Neelix might have said. Whether the Tellerite sleeper ship was warp capable or not is irrelevant, there are *many* possibilities as to how it found its way in to this area of the galaxy. Q may even have had a hand to play, but I can’t think of a reason why Q would be interested in a Tellarite sleeper ship. Until the Tellarite vessels logs are recovered, we may never know.

I am also not sure if the technology exists even in the 24th century to power a warp drive for such an extended period of time, never mind in the 22nd century. I do not think that Tellarite warp technology was more advanced than the Federation in this era, but I could be wrong. Enterprise era warp drives were only capable of a maximum of warp 4.5 and that was from the latest model starships, I’m sure that the warp standard for most ships was probably around one half to two thirds this speed so the journey would have probably taken the sleeper ship far more than double the length of time that it would have taken the USS Voyager to traverse a similar distance at warp 9.975 in the late 2300’s.

We also have to consider the various obstacles that would have been in the way of the sleeper ships journey to the Delta Quadrant. Just how far in to this quadrant did the Tellarite ship go? Did it have to traverse Borg Space at all? It is also possible that the sleeper ship could have accidentally followed in the wake of a Borg Cube and travelled through a transwarp conduit.

 

[Wouter]

I think we can be sure the vessel is supposed to be warp-capable. In Jankom's story in "Preludes", Boxy says "Oooooops - cracked warpcore". It's easily missed as it is in Boxy's rapid-fire section, testing poor Jankom to the limit.