We’ve had many fast starships before in the star trek universe,
with each vessel getting as close to the warp ten threshold as possible…
yeah Threshold…
but recently it seems another ship has come to take the place of the fastest Starfleet ship,
with a unique propulsion system, an interesting crew, and some time travel involved…
No, it's not the USS Discovery, but the USS Protostar, so let's take a look at this ship now that season 1 has ended and give it a classic Star Trek Ship Breakdown!
Now yes, we know we have done two prior breakdowns of the Protostar class,
but now with Season 1 being over and knowing the full story of the USS Protostar NX-76884 and seeing its capabilities, it is worth a new video looking at this unique ship in Starfleet.
And why not? Here we go!
Originally, the Protostar class was a single prototype ship, created in the 2380s as a somewhat second contact ship,
akin to the California class of Starships, but for righting the wrongs of first contact that may have happened during the USS Voyager’s journey through the Delta Quadrant in the 2370s.
The Protostar would eventually become a full class in the year 2384.
The USS Protostar has a default Starfleet design, with a saucer section and twin nacelles attached to a secondary hull.
The saucer is elongated, similar to the Prometheus-class and sovereign-class starships.
However, the design of the bridge is different for the Protostar, with a clear canopy allowing for a larger degree of visibility while on the bridge.
The secondary hull of the ship flows from its saucer,and from the rear you can see where the third nacelle comes out, as it is partially visible when not extended.
The deflector of the ship is in its usual position, beneath the saucer of the ship, however instead of attached to the forward facing section of the secondary hull of the ship,
it is literally beneath the saucer.
This deflector is of a unique design, much thinner than many deflectors we see in Star Trek ships.
The Protostar is not a big ship. Only being six decks in height. The length of the vessel was said to be 139 metres.
The underside of the saucer, where the deflector would normally sit has a cargo entrance, and the main egress of the ship.
This cargo ramp allows for the Prodigy to deploy vehicles built by the ship's Vehicle Replicator, whether that be shuttles, buggies or even aquatic vehicles.
The Bridge, as seen from the exterior, is very unique, without a conventional viewscreen and instead a large transparent roof dome that covers the entire bridge.
However this large viewscreen roof canopy on the bridge does feature overlay systems to display a variety of systems when needed.
The captain's chair and bridge consoles utilised holographic displays as well as conventional consoles.
These would obviously be a precursor to the holographic displays seen during the Picard era at the turn of the Century.
The captain’s chair controls were also far more comprehensive than any seen in previous starfleet ships, giving easy access to a massive variety of functions.
This makes sense as the Protostar could be operated with a minimal crew, so many operations feeding to the captain's chair does follow suit.
The ship had holographic emitters throughout the ship, allowing for holographic crew like the Emergency Training Hologram,
modelled after Captain Kathryn Janeway who could assist with operations throughout the ship.
These holographic emitters could also create holographic consoles of any type, whose inputs would be interpreted to the actual consoles in order to operate the vessel.
The ship would have sleeping quarters, with a specific spacious captain's quarters whereas the other crew quarters on the ship would be communal living,
featuring bunk beds.
The ship was equipped with a brig, labelled as a holding cell on the ship diagram and was located in the starboard side of the ship.
The medbay of the protostar was relatively small, and not suited for major injuries which would still require more specialised medical locations.
A communal mess hall would be available on the ship to feed the ship's crew, and be equipped with food replicators as norm on starfleet starships.
It did not appear that there was any location for more fresh cooking such as a kitchen.
So, unforutanely for Nelix, he's not going to like this ship.
A holodeck would be located on the ship to provide entertainment for its crew, but the holodeck would be different from other conventional holodecks, being domed in structure.
As previously stated, the prototype vessel of this class featured the inclusion of a Hologram training advisor, which was modelled after famous Starfleet Captain Kathryn Janeway.
This hologram was programmed to assist the crew of the Protostar on their mission through the Delta Quadrant,
having the experiences of Janeway who was the captain of the original ship to go through the Delta Quadrant.
The hologram did not have access to any essential systems however, and would need to be granted such access by a commanding officer of the vessel to utilise such systems.
What made the USS Protostar unique was its propulsion system, which not only came with two warp cores - allowing the ship to attain at least warp 9 -
but was also equipped with a “Protostar Engine.”
This was, of course, an experimental propulsion system which harnessed the powers of a miniature protostar, which when used would let the ship achieve “proto-warp”.
When the Proto-drive is activated, a third nacelle appears from the drive section of the ship, retracting the two primary nacelles into a lower position.
It also seems that conventional warp trail tracking systems could not track a ship that had gone to proto-warp.
The ships nacelles, at least the two main ones, seemed to consist of 12 warp coils each.
The Protostar engine used Gravimetric Protostar Containment in order to contain the protostar within the ship safely.
Such containment technology is very similar to that used by the Romulan Star Empire, who utilised artificial singularities to power their ships.
Whether this gravimetric protostar containment is actually a similar idea to the Romulans,
perhaps traded during the Dominion War when the Romulans and Federation briefly and tenuously allied, is unknown.
The Gravimetric Protostar Containment utilised a lot of the ships power supply, and could only be deactivated by someone with command level authorisation.
This could imply that there would be bad consequences if the containment system for the protostar failed, such as the protostar inside going supernova, which could destroy an entire star system.
Aside from the experimental propulsion system, the ship also had a standard transwarp drive, conventional impulse engines and RCS thrusters.
The Protostar type possessed a sufficient tactical array, including three phaser arrays
(covering the dorsal saucer firing arc, ventral saucer arc, and ventral aft secondary hull arc), pulse cannons, and fore and aft torpedo bays loaded with type 6 photon torpedoes.
It was protected by deflector shields and polarised hull plating.
The deflector shields of the ship were unconventional to similar federation ships of the same era, with shields hugging the hull instead of generating a shield bubble around the ship.
However it seems that this shield system could shunt excess energy when targeted, making it resilient to energy based weaponry.
Just like the ship the Protostar was righting the wrongs of, the Protostar could land on planets just like the USS Voyager.
It was equipped with a single large landing strut beneath its centre of gravity.
Which is pretty cool!
The protostar was equipped with a Vehicle replicator which allowed the vessel to create a variety of auxiliary vessels for its missions,
keeping in mind the small size of the ship not being able to fit multiple different types of craft.
One of these auxiliary vehicles was a buggy, which would allow for fast movement on planetary surfaces,
with a shuttle also being programmed into the ships systems, as well as an aquatic vessel which allowed for exploration of planetary ocean bodies.
These are the only auxiliary vessels seen constructed by the vehicle replicator, though it could replicate other things if provided with their schematics,
such as even advanced robots such as a Drednok type robot.
The ship also came equipped with escape pods, but only 12, which were located in banks of six on the underside of the saucer section.
The ship was originally launched in the early 2380s under Captain Chakotay and his Aurelian First Officer Command Adreek Hu.
The purpose of their mission and of the protostar itself was to return to the Delta Quadrant
and right the wrongs that may have been caused by the original journey of the USS Voyager in the previous decade of 2370.
However on the vessel's maiden voyager, the ship encountered a temporal anomaly, a wormhole which transported them to the year 2536 in orbit of the planet Solum.
This planet had Starfleet make contact with it in the 2380s, and in the past 50 years since then, had split into two factions.
One wanting to remain isolationist and the other wanting to join the larger galactic community.
This split in their society caused a civil war, which essentially destroyed their planet,
utilising their own weapons against each other from their robotic warriors known as Drednok units, and their Living Construct weapons which could assume direct control of systems.
With a Starfleet ship appearing after this civil war, with some among them believing starfleet was responsible for the civil war and not their own society,
would capture the USS Protostar with their remaining fleet of Rev-Type starships, and over the course of around 72 days
the Vau N’akat would infect the Protostar using their last Living Construct, and plan to send it back through the temporal wormhole to a time when Starfleet had not made first contact with it.
This Vau N’akat plot was foiled by Captain Chakotay and Commander Adreek-Hu,
who managed to escape confinement and send the protostar back further in time, and with it somehow ending on on the planetary body of Tars Lemora,
surrounded by Chimerium, a sensor blocking mineral which hid the protostar.
Sadly, we do not know the current status of Captain Chakotay or the original Protostar crew.
Hopefully, we'll learn more about them in Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2.
The ship would be sent back with no crew, so how this happened, is a mystery for another time.
But the time the protostar was sent back to was around the year 2366, with a fleet of 100 Vau N’akat ships also being sent back in time to locate it,
with the protostar having their last remaining Living Construct and best hope to destroy the Federation before Starfleet finds solum and initiates first contact.
One of these Vau N’akat, called the Diviner, would find out the protostar was on Tars Lemora,
and set up a mining colony on the planetary body to locate it, not knowing exactly where the ship is.
Resources from this mining colony would be used to buy more slave labour, which the Diviner would refer to as the “unwanted”.
In 2383, it was accidentally discovered by Dal R'El and Rok-Tahk, two of these “unwanted”. Who with the help of other unwanted Jankom Pog, Zero and Murf,
would kidnap the diviner's daughter Gwyn, and escape the prison colony.
Gwyn would learn the truth about her father and aid the protostar crew in their new mission,
to return the Protostar to Starfleet and also request asylum from The Diviner, who now pursued them aboard his Rev-12 starship.
However Starfleet would also pursue the Protostar, who would go looking for the missing Captain Chakotay and Protostar in the Delta Quadrant using their new Dauntless Class ship
which utilised quantum slipstream technology and was designed by Voyager-Alum b'elanna Torres.
The new motley crew onboard the Protostar would go on numerous missions of first contact, such as with the Cymari species, second contact,
such as with the Culture-Contaminated Enderprizians, and even encounter borg cubes after finding out about the Living Construct aboard their ship and the threat it posed to starfleet.
The living construct aboard the Protostar would destroy a Communication Outpost on the edge of Federation Space in the Beta Quadrant.
. Our crew would find multiple ways to try and deal with this, trying to find someone who could take them to warn the Federation, such as Thadiun Okona,
Hiding out in the Neutral Zone and even going through multiple Holo-scenarios to find a solution, but none of these would work.
The living construct had actually corrupted the code of the Hologram training advisor, who would gain command authorisation and send the protostar to the heart of Federation Space in the Gamma Serpentis System,
where it would meet a Starfleet armada of Centaur Class, Akira Class, Defiant Class and Sovereign class starships.
Including the USS Enterprise-E.
A Vau N’akat spy, within Starfleet, posing as the Trill Ensign Ascencia aboard the USS Dauntless, but truly called The Vindicator,
would find her way aboard the Protostar and activate its communications to spread the living constructs virus to all the Starfleet Armada and cause what could have been the destruction of Starfleet.
After dealing with somewhat dealing with The Vindicator by Gwyn and The Diviner, who turned away from the Vau N’akat mission to help his daughter,
the Hologram training advisor free of the living constructs corrupting influence, would pilot the Protostar away from the fleet and not only activate its protowarp,
but detonate the protostar within, spreading the damage throughout multiple light years and saving everyone.
Including the crew and the Starfleet Armada.
This would not be the end of the Protostar however, as a new USS Protostar would be commissioned as an Actual Protostar Class a month after this incident,
presumably from a ship that was already constructed, with the story of the Protostar class only just beginning.
Early concept art of the Protostar would be developed by John Eaves, with eventual "design and form" done by Gia Nguyen and Ben Hibon.
This would have been back in 2019, and originally Gia and Nuen Design studio were assigned to create the bridge of the Protostar,
but eventually ended up creating the whole vessel. The textures for the vessel were done by Nikie Monteleone
It seems that the vessel design came about from designs of extremely fast cars, mirroring the fact that the protostar is an extremely fast ship.
Original designs for the protostar aren’t too far from the final product, with its arrowhead saucer and nacelle position,
however some details in these original designs aren’t present, such as a curve structure connecting the nacelles, different nacelle pylons, and other small differences.
The registry of the original protostar, NX-76884, seems to be derived from Prodigy producer and screenwriter Aaron Waltke,
with his birthday of 8 August 1984, though with Waltke’s eye on lore, it isn’t 881984 to keep with the current registries of the 2380s
unlike Bryan Fuller wanting the new ship of Discovery to have a registry of 1031 for Halloween, despite being a newer ship than the Enterprise and its 1701.
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For now, I’ve been Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!