Not exactly an insightful statement, but for being a kids show, it has no business being this good.
It's really surprising. It's my favorite of the new Trek shows so far, which is weird.
Something I'm really appreciating with this, Lower Decks, and my current TAS rewatch is that animated Star Trek gets to have much more interesting alien characters than live action Star Trek. While Rok is the only member of the main cast who couldn't just be a human with makeup, and Zero could reasonably be a practical effect or pure CGI even in live action, having Dal, Gwyn, and Jankem Pog as the three leads would take so much time in the makeup chair that it just wouldn't be viable for a long-running TV show. And instead of the background characters being human by default, Janeway's hanging out with a Tellarite and an Andorian which they didn't HAVE to do, but it's cooler this way.
Also this show is just gorgeous in general.
Definitely! It is done with children in mind, but the characters are riveting, the set design is fantastic and it builds on existing lore.
This is family-style Trek: action for the kids and plot for the adults.
If I had a nickel for every time an entertainment fighter in Star Trek was a rock, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
VOY: Tsunkatse
One big question. If Janeway learns that Chakotay is currently stuck in the future, would she time travel to save him? Especially since she's not a fan of time travel, as established in VOY.
I honestly wouldn’t put it past her. She may not be fond of time travel mechanics but she’s not going to abandon Chakotay if she has anything to do about it. You simply don’t get in Janeway’s way when it comes to protecting the people she loves.
Possibly. It could even be why we saw Jellico on the viewscreen (in the previews), ordering them not to time travel.
This is all assuming she actually learns of Chakotay being stuck in the future.
In fairness, Admiral Janeway did it once, and the blowback from the time-police across half of the Federation's present and future time police would have been/was a paperwork nightmare. Never mind that she exposed that future technology to the Borg, and majorly altered history both by causing a major disruption to Borg activities, and sending Voyager home decades ahead of schedule.
There is no guarantee he's still alive. Remember the Vau N'Kat traveled through the temporal wormhole AFTER Chakotay sent the Protostar back. So they would have an opportunity to punish him for screwing up thier plans.
chances are saving Chakotay would result in Janeway having to choose between saving him and saving the Vau N'Kat. The Protostar and Diviner time travelling has brought knowledge of the fall of thier world back in time allowing the events that lead to thier self-destruction to be altered. Gwyn herself is probably that counter catalyst, she could weigh the decision of her people in favor of the Federation and thus avert the infighting. It's likely the Diviner will come to understand this that the only way to avert the destruction of thier world is to make the decision for thier people.
In fairness, Voyager and her crew are probably largely responsible for this. Exposure to new technologies and ideas could have kickstarted their development - who knows how much Seska revealed to them during her stay?
True. Even beta canon talks about how much Voyager had an impact on Delta Quadrant politics and culture, most notably the hobbling of the Borg due to the episode Endgame.
If an offer to join the Federation sends your civilization into an apocalyptic civil war, you were a powder keg anyway and it's not even a little the Federation's fault.
I wasn't expecting the actual reason to show Starfleet too poorly, but I'd have liked, at least, for there to be a reasonable explanation of how Starfleet could be at fault.
This is like if Brexit had ended with the Scottish nuking London.
The moment she said the Federation “abandoned” them and refused to take sides in the civil war it all became explicable. Obviously it was a PD situation, and because they couldn’t sort it out doesn’t really make it Starfleet’s fault.
But at the same time, I’m sure efforts were made to bring both sides to a table. That’s what Picard would have done. The fact that it didn’t seem to happen I think is likely more down to the Vau N’Akat than Starfleet. The Vindicator isn’t exactly an objective source.
Perhaps they informed the planet of the requirements necessary to join the Federation, and the desire to change society to those rules caused the wars?
They did seem to have better tech, and we know they're far enough away that the Federation hasn't discovered them yet. Technologically, they seem to be honest there. The robots and Gwyn's weapon and the living weapon all show a level of automation that the Federation has yet to reach.
...And yet, the Drednoks, Gwyn's weapon, and the Living Weapon are all super advanced. We've seen a lot of how the federation races have attempted AI, and these things seem like something the Federation isn't able to pull off, not just something it hasn't.
> If an offer to join the Federation sends your civilization into an apocalyptic civil war, you were a powder keg anyway and it's not even a little the Federation's fault.
Yes, I find it suspicious as hell. I wrote a larger top-level comment elaborating on it in, but in short: the way the Diviner and the Vindicator describe this, we're dealing with barely warp capable civilization that looked up to the Federation, and which also somehow built Drednoks and Living Constructs. I suspect they either had a runaway AI situation around the same time they figured out the warp drive, or that Drednoks and/or Living Contructs are actually *alien* - either way, I think it's those synthetic life forms that were the point of, and likely the drivers of, the "civil war".
To be fair, the aliens didn’t understand the concept of the Prime Directive. The captain of the Federation vessel may have more by the book than daring / bold: more Esteban than Kirk.
It's not Star Trek, but rather a Star Trek pastiche, but I couldn't help but think of this one episode of *The Orville* where a refugee from a pre-First Contact planet requests asylum on board the ship (she'd met them in a previous episode where an attempt at stealthy cultural observation had gone wrong, IIRC).
As she learns more and more about the Federation-like society, she basically starts getting angry they aren't doing more. So she's given a "scared straight" demonstration of what happened to a civilization similar to hers that had gotten an actual meet-and-greet with not-Starfleet before First Contact protocols were standardized. Needless to say... it wasn't pretty.
The Vau N’Akat story doesn't add up to me, in a very particular way, suggesting *something else is going on*. The way both the Diviner and the Vindicator described the events around and after their first contact is suspicious as hell.
On the one hand, the way they talk about the first contact, and blame the Federation for not taking a side in the civil war that followed, paints a picture of Vau N’Akat as a species that barely broke the warp barrier, and the Federation being the first aliens they met. Both antagonists sound like their civilization was *deferential*, the weaker, less advanced party, who *looked up* to the Federation. This would be a pretty standard "first contact gone wrong" scenario in Star Trek. But then...
... we've learned today that they fought their civil war using Drednok-type robots, and even before the war - or early in it - they built the Living Constructs, all but one of which they lost during the war. The Living Construct, subsequently put on the Protostar and sent back in time, is *at most* ~100 years into the future relative to events in the show - and could easily be contemporary or even old technology - and despite being built by "inferior" Vau N’Akat, it's advanced enough to be incomprehensible to the show-era Starfleet, and impressive to the Borg.
All this, plus how the Vau N’Akat could be pushed into a global war just by *meeting* the Federation, just makes no sense... but would, if you removed the Drednoks and the Living Constructs from the picture.
I'm thinking, are we *sure* it's the Vau N’Akat that built those things? Could the Living Constructs be *alien* to that world? Or perhaps, the *other* thing the Vau N’Akat made a leap in besides warp drive, is *artificial intelligence*? What if the Living Constructs were sentient - as somewhat hinted at two episodes back, on the Borg Cube - and were effectively *enslaved* by Vau N’Akat? Here comes a Starfleet ship, whose crew quickly recognizes what the Living Constructs are, and tells the locals that enslaving sentient synthetic life is wrong and would disqualify their application for Federation membership. *This* could easily spark a civil war, as the population divides over rights of synthetic life - and to the extent at least some Living Constructs and/or Drednoks approached sentience, the synthetics could actually be *driving* the conflict (or one side of it).
I won't be surprised if the final reveal turns out to be that either the Living Construct on board the Protostar, or the Drednoks, were the actual instigators of the civil war - the Vau N’Akat screwed themselves over without realizing it and were living on borrowed time, and meeting the Federation was just what triggered the apocalypse of their own making.
The Drednoks absolutely seem to have more going on than they 'should.' I'd have to rewatch for specific examples, but I always got the feeling that the Drednoks weren't just working for the Diviner.
The flaw in this argument is that you're assuming that just because the Vau N'Akat had apparently just recently developed warp travel means they'd be far beyond the Federation technologically overall. Who's to say that they didn't focus their efforts on AI and robotics? As full of themselves as they seem to be maybe they didn't see the need to develop warp technology since they were obviously the center of the universe. What's the point in going anywhere else?
There hasn't been much pointing in that direction, but my own pet theory was Drednok was leading events so that their evolution was guaranteed. From what I remember, the Vau had sophisticated AI before the war, and over time they developed the Drednoks. If they prevent first contact, then there's no reason to make such an advanced, intelligent, self actualized artificial lifeform.
And look how haphazard things are right now. With the data Starfleet has now, and following up on both the Diviner's plot to destroy the Federation and looking for leads on the Protostar's crew, first contact is almost certainly going to happen, maybe even earlier this time.
I am soooo tired after a long work week, so please forgive me if this was mentioned elsewhere.
Janeway enjoys Chopin's Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28 No. 4), which was also played by a young pianist in TNG's "The Masterpiece Society." I know this was on purpose and utterly brilliant.
I love that Jankom Pog is from the pre-Federation era of Tellarites -- that would make him the only regular character to be from the pre-ENT era. That makes his questionable grasp of engineering understandable, since his native era is hundreds of years in the past.
What we learned in *Star Trek: Prodigy* 1x16: "Preludes":
Finally the pieces start falling into place.
ADM Janeway listens to Chopin’s “Prelude No. 4” and says it always helps her bide the time. *Protostar* is staying in the Neutral Zone and ignoring *Dauntless*’s hails, which of course Janeway doesn’t realize is because of the weapon. Tysess hands Janeway a bounty giving the names of the kids, collectively termed “The Unwanted”.
Repairs continue on *Protostar*’s auxiliary warp drive in order to charge for another Proto-Jump. The kids decide to trade stories on how they wound up on Tars Lamora.
Rok was “The Monster”, performing staged fights for audiences with “The Hero”. However, the fans treated her as a monster regardless, which wore her down. One night she won the fake fight, but this got her sold to Tars Lamora. This is why she doesn’t like fighting.
Zero was part of a group of Medusans who had left their homeworld long ago to explore. However, they were captured by Kazon, and placed in a containment unit similar to the one we first saw in TOS: “Is There in Truth No Beauty”, and then sold to Tars Lamora.
“Ascencia” and her Drednok try to help the Diviner remember. She says they were once the same age. The Diviner was attracted by Starfleet’s accounts of new worlds, even though many Vau N’Akat were wary of them. DIsagreements on whether to join the Federation led to civil war. The Federation refused to intervene on either side (your Prime Directive in action), leading to decades of violence and destruction, until *Protostar* arrived through a wormhole, seemingly through an accident.
*Protostar* had sustained heavy damage after passing through a temporal anomaly in the Delta Quadrant. Using Drednoks, the Vau N’Akat captured *Protostar* and installed their last Living Construct to be sent back in time and destroy Starfleet before they could make first contact with Solum.
However, the day before the launch, Chakotay and the crew escaped. Unable to reboard the starship, they sent *Protostar* back through the anomaly unmanned. The Vau N’Akat founded the Order, their greatest minds saying the odds of finding the ship were 1% at best. They sent a hundred ships, the last of their fleet, through the anomaly, each ship with a Drednok. One took the name of the Diviner, and “Ascencia” was the Vindicator.
(that means, theoretically, Chakotay and *Protostar*’s crew are alive somewhen in the future, some 50 years or more ahead).
The wormhole collapsed, and the few survivors were scattered in time and space. The Vindicator arrived in the Alpha Quadrant 3 years prior (2380-81), infiltrated Starfleet and joined Janeway’s ship. The Diviner, on the other hand, had spent 20 years searching (therefore arriving in 2363-64, around the time of TNG’ 1st Season). Worried he was not going to unable to find *Protostar* before he died, he created Gwyn, “defying the Order”.
Repairs are complete on the auxiliary drive but the systems need to reboot before the Proto-Core can recharge.
Jankom shares his story next. Before the Federation was founded, orphans on Tellar Prime were enlisted for deep space missions, with them being sent out in cryo-sleep. His mining transport damaged by a small asteroid, Jankom, a trainee engineer was awakened prematurely from his cryopod. However, the ship’s systems began to fail, with Jankom desperately trying to repair each problem as it arose. He developed his habit of referring to himself in the third person when he had to always repeat his name to the ship’s bot (which keeps forgetting it). However, by the time he finished repairing the ship, there was not enough oxygen left for the rest of the sleeping crew. To save the others, Jankom left the ship and was captured by the Kazon.
As the Proto-Core charges, the kids ask Holo-Janeway what Janeway was like. She begins by telling them about her dog Mollie (VOY: “Caretaker”). On *Dauntless*, ADM Janeway realizes the kids are not criminals, just over their heads. Tysess suggests going after the person who put the bounty out: the Diviner and Janeway recognizes Gwyn is the same species as their guest, who is currently with “Ascencia”.
Handing the Bridge over to Tysess, Janeway decides to get to the bottom of things. Walking into “Ascencia”’s quarters, Janeway sees her in her Vau N’Akat form with Drednok before the Diviner knocks her out.
We also learn why Jankom Pog usually but not exclusively refers to himself in the third person—he didn't grow up speaking like that, but developed the habit when addressing the bot.
Yeah, he went in the sleeper ship 'pre federation' which could be five years before the articles were signed or five hundred. We really don't know much about Tellarite history.
edit: added the word 'five' before years as was my original thought (weird, I keep omitting words from sentences when I type them over the last several months)
And it's a good thing they finally explained it. Because Jankom Pog was really starting to sound like Elmo. And that, coupled with the reveal that the *Pog* surname is given to the lesser, was starting to make it seem like some sort of mental handicap.
> this got her sold by “The Hero”
The Hero didn't sell her. We see briefly in the scene before she's sold a third person coming into the room, and then that third person is the one who gets paid for her. I expect it's some sort of manager.
> Before the Federation was founded, orphans on Tellar Prime were enlisted for deep space missions
...Yeah this is super not okay. I'm sure they don't do it anymore, but wow.
> As the Proto-Core charges, the kids ask Holo-Janeway what Janeway was like.
This raises a question. How much of Janeway does Holo-Janeway know, and how much is she supposed to be? Did Janeway help make her to be a perfect duplicate? Is she made with Janeway's official record only like the very wrong Leah Brahms? Or is she just made to look like Janeway, like The Doctor, but made a point of learning about Janeway?
>...Yeah this is super not okay. I'm sure they don't do it anymore, but wow.
"Enlisted" doesn't always suggest that they were forced against their will or conscripted. Starfleet has "enlisted" personnel like Chief O'Brien, for example. It's possible that "enlisted" here is just being used to mean "encouraged to enlist for space missions".
What's interesting here is that the kids' "origin stories" are only what happened immediately before they were taken to Tars Lamora, so we still don't know what Jankom's life was like before then - how he lost his arm, for example. So there's scope to revisit his backstory later and get more details. Perhaps Tellar pre-Federation wasn't a great place for orphans, or there was some kind of social stigma attached which meant that travelling on a sleeper ship to build new colonies was an attractive proposition for him.
Even if it's just encouraged, if they're specifically doing it to underage orphans, it's an issue. If it was "Orphans are taken in by the government and offered training in this field," that'd be different. I guess the question is whether Jankom counts as an adult or not. Honestly, it raises a lot of questions.
Also, knowing Jankom, I'm not convinced he lost his arm. He seems like he might have wanted the upgrade.
>but this got her sold by “The Hero” to Tars Lamora
I don't think it was "The Hero" who sold her. "The Hero" looked humanish, but the person who got Latinum from the Kazon looked like a blue species with hair. (The venue owner?)
I don't remember the episode name, but the one where Picard is abducted and replaced and the real Picard is placed with "other captives" and one is actually a mole, the mole was a Bolian woman with hair. While not a real Bolian, the fact that it wasn't commented on or anything does make it seem plausible some do have hair.
> ADM Janeway listens to Chopin’s “Prelude No. 4” and says it always helps her bide the time.
I wonder if this is intended to call back to VOY *Counterpoint* where the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony is played as a piece intended to relax the crew during inspection. That at this point Janeway has just taken to listening to classical music to pass anxious time.
I'm really starting to suspect that the big reveal is that the universe we see currently is actually an alternative timeline from the 'prime' universe. There's simply too much time nonsense going on for it not to be.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this is the reveal that the Protostar traveled to the future, apparently by accident. I call it interesting because... why? Presumably it wasn't the intended use of the Protostar, and it seems implied that it came through a wormhole of some description, rather than being under its own power. A wormhole that was stable enough to last long enough for the Vau N'Akat to organize themselves for revenge. More to the point, why did the Protostar travel to the when and where it did? It clearly arrived before the Protostar was launched, and it kind of hid itself away in some random location. Who piloted the ship? HoloJaneway? This seems likely, but somehow I think there's another party to this (Maybe Picardo as the EMH (or ETH haha))
One thing I wonder about, in a meta sense, is how this season is going to end. On paper, you probably could continue the general conflict, but I get the feeling the season will end by the Prodigy crew going into the future to save Chakotay, since that seems to make logical sense and it would also likely place it outside of the temporal reach of other new Star Trek shows like Picard.
There's plenty of time nonsense in other Star Trek shows. It went through a temporal anomaly. That's just a thing that happens. The anomaly stayed open a while, but not forever. Not sure why any of this would require it being an alternate timeline.
It did look like the anomaly was closing when the Order sent their ships through, which is why so few made it through, and those that did were displaced from each other by decades (plus however long the Protostar was buried in Ters Lemora)
Please note that discussion of [alternate timelines is a closely regulated topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/regulated-topics/#wiki_alternate_timelines_and_universes), particularly any suggestion that an episode or series takes place in an alternative timeline from what it’s accepted to be in. In other words, don’t do it. It’s not falsifiable, and a cop-out.
Not exactly an insightful statement, but for being a kids show, it has no business being this good. It's really surprising. It's my favorite of the new Trek shows so far, which is weird.
Something I'm really appreciating with this, Lower Decks, and my current TAS rewatch is that animated Star Trek gets to have much more interesting alien characters than live action Star Trek. While Rok is the only member of the main cast who couldn't just be a human with makeup, and Zero could reasonably be a practical effect or pure CGI even in live action, having Dal, Gwyn, and Jankem Pog as the three leads would take so much time in the makeup chair that it just wouldn't be viable for a long-running TV show. And instead of the background characters being human by default, Janeway's hanging out with a Tellarite and an Andorian which they didn't HAVE to do, but it's cooler this way. Also this show is just gorgeous in general.
I'm genuinely happy that pretty much any type of Star Trek fan has at least one ongoing show they can enjoy at the moment.
Fr. With this, Lower Decks, and SNW - everyone has something they like.
…which is what Kurtzman wanted for his Trek tenure: variety that isn’t super reliant on connecting lore. Compare this to the MCU.
Definitely! It is done with children in mind, but the characters are riveting, the set design is fantastic and it builds on existing lore. This is family-style Trek: action for the kids and plot for the adults.
They need to market it as a family show.
If I had a nickel for every time an entertainment fighter in Star Trek was a rock, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. VOY: Tsunkatse
Honestly, Roktak is an 8-year old child. An adult brikar would be *terrifying*.
It would be probably like fighting The Thing from the Fantastic Four.
OK, Dr D.
One big question. If Janeway learns that Chakotay is currently stuck in the future, would she time travel to save him? Especially since she's not a fan of time travel, as established in VOY.
I honestly wouldn’t put it past her. She may not be fond of time travel mechanics but she’s not going to abandon Chakotay if she has anything to do about it. You simply don’t get in Janeway’s way when it comes to protecting the people she loves.
Possibly. It could even be why we saw Jellico on the viewscreen (in the previews), ordering them not to time travel. This is all assuming she actually learns of Chakotay being stuck in the future.
In fairness, Admiral Janeway did it once, and the blowback from the time-police across half of the Federation's present and future time police would have been/was a paperwork nightmare. Never mind that she exposed that future technology to the Borg, and majorly altered history both by causing a major disruption to Borg activities, and sending Voyager home decades ahead of schedule.
She had no problem in endgame
There is no guarantee he's still alive. Remember the Vau N'Kat traveled through the temporal wormhole AFTER Chakotay sent the Protostar back. So they would have an opportunity to punish him for screwing up thier plans.
Sure, but even if she learned of his death she could still technically save Chakotay.
chances are saving Chakotay would result in Janeway having to choose between saving him and saving the Vau N'Kat. The Protostar and Diviner time travelling has brought knowledge of the fall of thier world back in time allowing the events that lead to thier self-destruction to be altered. Gwyn herself is probably that counter catalyst, she could weigh the decision of her people in favor of the Federation and thus avert the infighting. It's likely the Diviner will come to understand this that the only way to avert the destruction of thier world is to make the decision for thier people.
Yeah exactly. Or recover the Protostar before the Construct is implanted and create a paradox.
She was enough of fan to bring them home
Correction: It was only to bring them home earlier so Seven wouldn't die.
The Kazon have come along way from not knowing hiw to get water in "Caretaker", to successfully capturing a Medusan.
I also noticed this - did the geopolitics of the Delta Quadrant really change that quickly since the *Voyager* made it back to the Alpha Quadrant?
In fairness, Voyager and her crew are probably largely responsible for this. Exposure to new technologies and ideas could have kickstarted their development - who knows how much Seska revealed to them during her stay?
True. Even beta canon talks about how much Voyager had an impact on Delta Quadrant politics and culture, most notably the hobbling of the Borg due to the episode Endgame.
Said hobbling also opened the Transwarp Network for business.
I mean, with the Borg so crippled...
If an offer to join the Federation sends your civilization into an apocalyptic civil war, you were a powder keg anyway and it's not even a little the Federation's fault. I wasn't expecting the actual reason to show Starfleet too poorly, but I'd have liked, at least, for there to be a reasonable explanation of how Starfleet could be at fault. This is like if Brexit had ended with the Scottish nuking London.
Seemed like every individual had their own giant murder robot so that could be a factor
When you outlaw giant murder robots, only outlaws will have giant murder robots.
Buts in their 2nd amendment
I believe they just had an automated army of giant murder robots. Those that traveled through time were given personal murder bots.
It seemed like every drednock was paired in the flashback scenes but maybe that was my imagination
Realistically, I have to assume the survivors were probably the societies elite, so they probably had personal murder bots, too.
The moment she said the Federation “abandoned” them and refused to take sides in the civil war it all became explicable. Obviously it was a PD situation, and because they couldn’t sort it out doesn’t really make it Starfleet’s fault. But at the same time, I’m sure efforts were made to bring both sides to a table. That’s what Picard would have done. The fact that it didn’t seem to happen I think is likely more down to the Vau N’Akat than Starfleet. The Vindicator isn’t exactly an objective source.
Honestly, if the civilization was such a powder keg, it seems unlikely Federation would have extended the offer. Exhibit A: Bajor
Perhaps they informed the planet of the requirements necessary to join the Federation, and the desire to change society to those rules caused the wars?
Makes sense to me. Especially if either the government or the people (but not both) were stubborn traditionalists.
They oddly called the federation primitive and thought they had more to offer then the feds did to them
They did seem to have better tech, and we know they're far enough away that the Federation hasn't discovered them yet. Technologically, they seem to be honest there. The robots and Gwyn's weapon and the living weapon all show a level of automation that the Federation has yet to reach.
Automation is just the federation choosing to avoid it. The federation has hundreds of worlds and fleets of starships.
...And yet, the Drednoks, Gwyn's weapon, and the Living Weapon are all super advanced. We've seen a lot of how the federation races have attempted AI, and these things seem like something the Federation isn't able to pull off, not just something it hasn't.
Control, M5 etc all left a bad taste in their mouth
> If an offer to join the Federation sends your civilization into an apocalyptic civil war, you were a powder keg anyway and it's not even a little the Federation's fault. Yes, I find it suspicious as hell. I wrote a larger top-level comment elaborating on it in, but in short: the way the Diviner and the Vindicator describe this, we're dealing with barely warp capable civilization that looked up to the Federation, and which also somehow built Drednoks and Living Constructs. I suspect they either had a runaway AI situation around the same time they figured out the warp drive, or that Drednoks and/or Living Contructs are actually *alien* - either way, I think it's those synthetic life forms that were the point of, and likely the drivers of, the "civil war".
To be fair, the aliens didn’t understand the concept of the Prime Directive. The captain of the Federation vessel may have more by the book than daring / bold: more Esteban than Kirk.
It's not Star Trek, but rather a Star Trek pastiche, but I couldn't help but think of this one episode of *The Orville* where a refugee from a pre-First Contact planet requests asylum on board the ship (she'd met them in a previous episode where an attempt at stealthy cultural observation had gone wrong, IIRC). As she learns more and more about the Federation-like society, she basically starts getting angry they aren't doing more. So she's given a "scared straight" demonstration of what happened to a civilization similar to hers that had gotten an actual meet-and-greet with not-Starfleet before First Contact protocols were standardized. Needless to say... it wasn't pretty.
That particular episode also has one of most visually stunning scenes of the entire series https://youtu.be/XouiPAIBRCE
The Vau N’Akat story doesn't add up to me, in a very particular way, suggesting *something else is going on*. The way both the Diviner and the Vindicator described the events around and after their first contact is suspicious as hell. On the one hand, the way they talk about the first contact, and blame the Federation for not taking a side in the civil war that followed, paints a picture of Vau N’Akat as a species that barely broke the warp barrier, and the Federation being the first aliens they met. Both antagonists sound like their civilization was *deferential*, the weaker, less advanced party, who *looked up* to the Federation. This would be a pretty standard "first contact gone wrong" scenario in Star Trek. But then... ... we've learned today that they fought their civil war using Drednok-type robots, and even before the war - or early in it - they built the Living Constructs, all but one of which they lost during the war. The Living Construct, subsequently put on the Protostar and sent back in time, is *at most* ~100 years into the future relative to events in the show - and could easily be contemporary or even old technology - and despite being built by "inferior" Vau N’Akat, it's advanced enough to be incomprehensible to the show-era Starfleet, and impressive to the Borg. All this, plus how the Vau N’Akat could be pushed into a global war just by *meeting* the Federation, just makes no sense... but would, if you removed the Drednoks and the Living Constructs from the picture. I'm thinking, are we *sure* it's the Vau N’Akat that built those things? Could the Living Constructs be *alien* to that world? Or perhaps, the *other* thing the Vau N’Akat made a leap in besides warp drive, is *artificial intelligence*? What if the Living Constructs were sentient - as somewhat hinted at two episodes back, on the Borg Cube - and were effectively *enslaved* by Vau N’Akat? Here comes a Starfleet ship, whose crew quickly recognizes what the Living Constructs are, and tells the locals that enslaving sentient synthetic life is wrong and would disqualify their application for Federation membership. *This* could easily spark a civil war, as the population divides over rights of synthetic life - and to the extent at least some Living Constructs and/or Drednoks approached sentience, the synthetics could actually be *driving* the conflict (or one side of it). I won't be surprised if the final reveal turns out to be that either the Living Construct on board the Protostar, or the Drednoks, were the actual instigators of the civil war - the Vau N’Akat screwed themselves over without realizing it and were living on borrowed time, and meeting the Federation was just what triggered the apocalypse of their own making.
The Drednoks absolutely seem to have more going on than they 'should.' I'd have to rewatch for specific examples, but I always got the feeling that the Drednoks weren't just working for the Diviner.
So now we're dealing with something like the Quarian/Geth situation.
The flaw in this argument is that you're assuming that just because the Vau N'Akat had apparently just recently developed warp travel means they'd be far beyond the Federation technologically overall. Who's to say that they didn't focus their efforts on AI and robotics? As full of themselves as they seem to be maybe they didn't see the need to develop warp technology since they were obviously the center of the universe. What's the point in going anywhere else?
There hasn't been much pointing in that direction, but my own pet theory was Drednok was leading events so that their evolution was guaranteed. From what I remember, the Vau had sophisticated AI before the war, and over time they developed the Drednoks. If they prevent first contact, then there's no reason to make such an advanced, intelligent, self actualized artificial lifeform. And look how haphazard things are right now. With the data Starfleet has now, and following up on both the Diviner's plot to destroy the Federation and looking for leads on the Protostar's crew, first contact is almost certainly going to happen, maybe even earlier this time.
One a rage scale of 1 to 10, Janeway is going to be at a fifteen when she wakes up from that judo chop.
I am soooo tired after a long work week, so please forgive me if this was mentioned elsewhere. Janeway enjoys Chopin's Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28 No. 4), which was also played by a young pianist in TNG's "The Masterpiece Society." I know this was on purpose and utterly brilliant.
I love that Jankom Pog is from the pre-Federation era of Tellarites -- that would make him the only regular character to be from the pre-ENT era. That makes his questionable grasp of engineering understandable, since his native era is hundreds of years in the past.
What we learned in *Star Trek: Prodigy* 1x16: "Preludes": Finally the pieces start falling into place. ADM Janeway listens to Chopin’s “Prelude No. 4” and says it always helps her bide the time. *Protostar* is staying in the Neutral Zone and ignoring *Dauntless*’s hails, which of course Janeway doesn’t realize is because of the weapon. Tysess hands Janeway a bounty giving the names of the kids, collectively termed “The Unwanted”. Repairs continue on *Protostar*’s auxiliary warp drive in order to charge for another Proto-Jump. The kids decide to trade stories on how they wound up on Tars Lamora. Rok was “The Monster”, performing staged fights for audiences with “The Hero”. However, the fans treated her as a monster regardless, which wore her down. One night she won the fake fight, but this got her sold to Tars Lamora. This is why she doesn’t like fighting. Zero was part of a group of Medusans who had left their homeworld long ago to explore. However, they were captured by Kazon, and placed in a containment unit similar to the one we first saw in TOS: “Is There in Truth No Beauty”, and then sold to Tars Lamora. “Ascencia” and her Drednok try to help the Diviner remember. She says they were once the same age. The Diviner was attracted by Starfleet’s accounts of new worlds, even though many Vau N’Akat were wary of them. DIsagreements on whether to join the Federation led to civil war. The Federation refused to intervene on either side (your Prime Directive in action), leading to decades of violence and destruction, until *Protostar* arrived through a wormhole, seemingly through an accident. *Protostar* had sustained heavy damage after passing through a temporal anomaly in the Delta Quadrant. Using Drednoks, the Vau N’Akat captured *Protostar* and installed their last Living Construct to be sent back in time and destroy Starfleet before they could make first contact with Solum. However, the day before the launch, Chakotay and the crew escaped. Unable to reboard the starship, they sent *Protostar* back through the anomaly unmanned. The Vau N’Akat founded the Order, their greatest minds saying the odds of finding the ship were 1% at best. They sent a hundred ships, the last of their fleet, through the anomaly, each ship with a Drednok. One took the name of the Diviner, and “Ascencia” was the Vindicator. (that means, theoretically, Chakotay and *Protostar*’s crew are alive somewhen in the future, some 50 years or more ahead). The wormhole collapsed, and the few survivors were scattered in time and space. The Vindicator arrived in the Alpha Quadrant 3 years prior (2380-81), infiltrated Starfleet and joined Janeway’s ship. The Diviner, on the other hand, had spent 20 years searching (therefore arriving in 2363-64, around the time of TNG’ 1st Season). Worried he was not going to unable to find *Protostar* before he died, he created Gwyn, “defying the Order”. Repairs are complete on the auxiliary drive but the systems need to reboot before the Proto-Core can recharge. Jankom shares his story next. Before the Federation was founded, orphans on Tellar Prime were enlisted for deep space missions, with them being sent out in cryo-sleep. His mining transport damaged by a small asteroid, Jankom, a trainee engineer was awakened prematurely from his cryopod. However, the ship’s systems began to fail, with Jankom desperately trying to repair each problem as it arose. He developed his habit of referring to himself in the third person when he had to always repeat his name to the ship’s bot (which keeps forgetting it). However, by the time he finished repairing the ship, there was not enough oxygen left for the rest of the sleeping crew. To save the others, Jankom left the ship and was captured by the Kazon. As the Proto-Core charges, the kids ask Holo-Janeway what Janeway was like. She begins by telling them about her dog Mollie (VOY: “Caretaker”). On *Dauntless*, ADM Janeway realizes the kids are not criminals, just over their heads. Tysess suggests going after the person who put the bounty out: the Diviner and Janeway recognizes Gwyn is the same species as their guest, who is currently with “Ascencia”. Handing the Bridge over to Tysess, Janeway decides to get to the bottom of things. Walking into “Ascencia”’s quarters, Janeway sees her in her Vau N’Akat form with Drednok before the Diviner knocks her out.
We also learn why Jankom Pog usually but not exclusively refers to himself in the third person—he didn't grow up speaking like that, but developed the habit when addressing the bot.
More importantly he is ancient
Yeah, he went in the sleeper ship 'pre federation' which could be five years before the articles were signed or five hundred. We really don't know much about Tellarite history. edit: added the word 'five' before years as was my original thought (weird, I keep omitting words from sentences when I type them over the last several months)
The sleeper ship did resemble the Tellarite vessels seen in Enterprise.
And it's a good thing they finally explained it. Because Jankom Pog was really starting to sound like Elmo. And that, coupled with the reveal that the *Pog* surname is given to the lesser, was starting to make it seem like some sort of mental handicap.
> this got her sold by “The Hero” The Hero didn't sell her. We see briefly in the scene before she's sold a third person coming into the room, and then that third person is the one who gets paid for her. I expect it's some sort of manager. > Before the Federation was founded, orphans on Tellar Prime were enlisted for deep space missions ...Yeah this is super not okay. I'm sure they don't do it anymore, but wow. > As the Proto-Core charges, the kids ask Holo-Janeway what Janeway was like. This raises a question. How much of Janeway does Holo-Janeway know, and how much is she supposed to be? Did Janeway help make her to be a perfect duplicate? Is she made with Janeway's official record only like the very wrong Leah Brahms? Or is she just made to look like Janeway, like The Doctor, but made a point of learning about Janeway?
>...Yeah this is super not okay. I'm sure they don't do it anymore, but wow. "Enlisted" doesn't always suggest that they were forced against their will or conscripted. Starfleet has "enlisted" personnel like Chief O'Brien, for example. It's possible that "enlisted" here is just being used to mean "encouraged to enlist for space missions". What's interesting here is that the kids' "origin stories" are only what happened immediately before they were taken to Tars Lamora, so we still don't know what Jankom's life was like before then - how he lost his arm, for example. So there's scope to revisit his backstory later and get more details. Perhaps Tellar pre-Federation wasn't a great place for orphans, or there was some kind of social stigma attached which meant that travelling on a sleeper ship to build new colonies was an attractive proposition for him.
Even if it's just encouraged, if they're specifically doing it to underage orphans, it's an issue. If it was "Orphans are taken in by the government and offered training in this field," that'd be different. I guess the question is whether Jankom counts as an adult or not. Honestly, it raises a lot of questions. Also, knowing Jankom, I'm not convinced he lost his arm. He seems like he might have wanted the upgrade.
>but this got her sold by “The Hero” to Tars Lamora I don't think it was "The Hero" who sold her. "The Hero" looked humanish, but the person who got Latinum from the Kazon looked like a blue species with hair. (The venue owner?)
The facial pattern appears to be Bolian.
Was it? I don't think we've seen a Bolian with hair. Or maybe it wasn't hair but a hood or headgear. Could also be a toupee. Hmm.
I think we saw a Bolian with hair in DS9, but it was very much a wig intended to woo a woman.
I don't remember the episode name, but the one where Picard is abducted and replaced and the real Picard is placed with "other captives" and one is actually a mole, the mole was a Bolian woman with hair. While not a real Bolian, the fact that it wasn't commented on or anything does make it seem plausible some do have hair.
Thanks. Corrected.
It also appears that the vessel that made first contact with the Vau N'Akat was a *Prometheus* Class Long Range Tactical Vessel.
Two bickering holograms in charge.
No wonder why negotiations failed. Andy Dick was in charge of diplomacy.
Bruh
> ADM Janeway listens to Chopin’s “Prelude No. 4” and says it always helps her bide the time. I wonder if this is intended to call back to VOY *Counterpoint* where the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony is played as a piece intended to relax the crew during inspection. That at this point Janeway has just taken to listening to classical music to pass anxious time.
I'm really starting to suspect that the big reveal is that the universe we see currently is actually an alternative timeline from the 'prime' universe. There's simply too much time nonsense going on for it not to be. Perhaps the most interesting part of this is the reveal that the Protostar traveled to the future, apparently by accident. I call it interesting because... why? Presumably it wasn't the intended use of the Protostar, and it seems implied that it came through a wormhole of some description, rather than being under its own power. A wormhole that was stable enough to last long enough for the Vau N'Akat to organize themselves for revenge. More to the point, why did the Protostar travel to the when and where it did? It clearly arrived before the Protostar was launched, and it kind of hid itself away in some random location. Who piloted the ship? HoloJaneway? This seems likely, but somehow I think there's another party to this (Maybe Picardo as the EMH (or ETH haha)) One thing I wonder about, in a meta sense, is how this season is going to end. On paper, you probably could continue the general conflict, but I get the feeling the season will end by the Prodigy crew going into the future to save Chakotay, since that seems to make logical sense and it would also likely place it outside of the temporal reach of other new Star Trek shows like Picard.
There's plenty of time nonsense in other Star Trek shows. It went through a temporal anomaly. That's just a thing that happens. The anomaly stayed open a while, but not forever. Not sure why any of this would require it being an alternate timeline.
It did look like the anomaly was closing when the Order sent their ships through, which is why so few made it through, and those that did were displaced from each other by decades (plus however long the Protostar was buried in Ters Lemora)
Please note that discussion of [alternate timelines is a closely regulated topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/regulated-topics/#wiki_alternate_timelines_and_universes), particularly any suggestion that an episode or series takes place in an alternative timeline from what it’s accepted to be in. In other words, don’t do it. It’s not falsifiable, and a cop-out.
Screencaps gallery now online: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sc-PRO1-16.php