So we recently got a very brief look of the new vessel that will be the ship or Star Trek
Prodigy, the USS Protostar and while we get no information on it, I’m still going to
make some rampant speculation anyway because I gotta admit it; it’s a real nice looking
ship. First off, from the design, it looks to be
for the era of ships post Borg or in response to the Dominion War. This is when we saw designs
like the Sovereign and Akira crop up, sleeker profiles and more refined in space than the
ostentatious Galaxy classes, or clunky Excelsiors. So, presuming nothing has changed, the setting
for the show takes place in 2383 as mentioned by Dan Hageman and is set in the Delta Quadrant.
We also know that there is a Holographic Training Program in the form of Captain Kathryn Janeway
that dates the construction of the Protostar as sometime post Voyager’s return to the
Alpha Quadrant, 2378. Now, in some books, Janeway was a captain in rank before Voyager,
but considering we don’t see the implementation of holographic crew really before the launch
of Voyager, I doubt this holoprogram is based on an early Janeway. So this ship was likley
sometime between 2378 and 2383 and we can tell more from the registry.
For a start, it’s an NX registry which indicates the prototype for its class, such as the Defiant
or Prometheus. Additionally, these vessel were the namesake for their class of vessel,
suggesting that the USS Protostar would be a Protostar-class starship. Registry NX-76884,
also shows us that it’s from around the same time as the Intrepid lineage of Starships,
or just after, although judging a vessel by its licence plate alone is iffy.
The USS Cerritos, of Lower Decks has the registry NCC-75567 and is a California Class Starship
in operation since roughly 2380, probably earlier, but the USS Titan, a Luna-Class is
NCC-80102 and these vessels are newer, but existed from at least 2379.
So here’s my theory on the origin of the USS Protostar. I think it was a vessel constructed
immediately after Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, based on the technology
that Janeway and her crew scavenged from the other side of the galaxy along their historic
voyage. Look at it this way, Voyager rocks up full of the big heroes that they are and
their return is celebrated, big happy. This ship itself in the meantime, now not only
has a combination of Borg tech, but even schematics for a partially working Slipstream drive and
completely compatible future Starfleet technology, thanks to Admiral Janeway’s temporal Prime
Directive violation. Even if we ignore that last one, say that Starfleet just classifies
the anti Borg torpedoes and Super Armour, there is a wealth of legitimate information
on that vessel for Starfleet R and D to reverse engineer.
So the prototype for these Delta Quadrant specific vessel is created and a hologram
of Janeway, the only captain to have made such a trek is created to act as an advisor
on the Quadrant as she herself is busy being promoted to Admiral and ordering Picard around.
So I’m thinking that this Prototype will have some of Voyager’s enhancements on the
vessel. Either that or its literally just a training ship, but then why the NX registry?
This ship itself is a rather small one, form the size of the lowered landing platform and
the new bridge design. Looking at the bridge dome, of course first thing I see is that
it’s all transparent or one-way anyway. I honestly, kind of like it, even though it
makes my 21st century brain go “noo…glass go smash easy and space go whoosh.” I mean
it’s trek materials, so I doubt it’s going to be an issue. Internally, the vessel looks
very shiny and new, with semi-holographic displays, which would be creeping into use
around this time, as seen in Picard, which is 2399 and referenced in an alternate future
from the 25th century. It’s still LCARS, but mostly blue, which has been a hallmark
of Lower Decks too, and the layout seems to resemble Starfleet standard. I don’t see
any phaser strips, so perhaps it just wasn’t a focus for the mission profile, or they recessed
like the Defiant’s Pulse Cannons. The nacelles are “chonk!” and the whole thing has a
low profile. This means little in space, but Star Trek vessels travel at warp by creating
subspace bubbles and the less efficient the bubble the more subspace drag it creates,
limiting velocity. In apocrypha, this was the reason for Starfleet
beginning to slim down their vessels, see my video on “Variable Warp Geometry” for
more, but it basically reduced the environmental damage to subspace that warp could do. In
short, this ship looks like it’s made for speed, as if one of the principle designers
was Tom Paris, so I’m hoping it’s a slipstream drive vessel? That would be awesome and it
does remind me of the Dauntless, even though that was a fake vessel.
The last thing I want to mention, is that apparently this series will take place in
the Delta Quadrant, but it must have a lot of ties in the Alpha, because we have several
crewmembers local to the Alpha Quadrant lore. Rok-Tahk is a Brikarian, an alpha quadrant
race from the books such as the Excalibur series, Zero is a Medusan, Jankom is a Tellarite
and Gwyn is a new species, a Vau N’Akat who speaks several languages including Klingonese.
So if we start in the Alpha Quadrant, and end up in the Delta within the lifetime of
one crew, it’s going to involve rapid travel from either the Borg transwarp conduits or
a Quantum Slipstream Drive equivalent. So there we have my predictions for Star Trek
Prodigy, or more specifically, the nature of the USS Protostar NX-76884. Let me know
what you think, and I’m pretty excited to see this vessel in action. I just want to
know how a Starfleet prototype ends up in the hands of a bunch of adolescents and what
the Holo-Janeway thinks about all this? Surely she’d be programmed to return Starfleet
property if she can, although Kate Mulgrew did describe the vessel as “defunct”…
so maybe it is busted. Thanks for watching this speculative video,
and I hope to see you next time and I’ll see you later. That’s the same thing. I’m
tired. Goodbye!