by Avery Kaplan
There’s plenty to love about Star Trek: Prodigy, which is already living up to its name after just ten episodes. Between the return of our favorite Star Trek: Voyager characters, the introduction of an irresistible new cast, and a rich exploration of some of the themes and core concepts that are universal to all Trek shows, Prodigy has really hit the ground running.
One example is the introduction of the concept of M-Class Planets in “Dreamcatcher,” and another is the examination of the principles that inform First Contact in “First Con-tact.” With the introduction of these ideas to Prodigy’s new young viewers, they now will fully understand them when they reappear in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
But in the eighth episode of the first season of Prodigy, “Time Amok,” which was released for streaming on Paramount+ on January 19th, 2022, the crew of the Protostar learns one of the most fundamental lessons that is taught by the Trek universe: we won’t get to personally experience the utopia promised by the Federation, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth contributing important parts of the foundation that will help humanity as a whole eventually achieve it.
Time Out of Joint
In the opening scenes of “Time Amok,” the Protostar encounters a Tachyon storm. The Tachyon storm reacts with the Proto-drive, resulting in a temporal anomaly – to borrow a phrase from Mariner, a “Starfleet classic.” The resulting anomaly causes each member of the crew to be thrown into their own distinct temporal phase, unable to communicate with each other, or even detect one another’s presence.
Fortunately, as a hologram, Hologram Janeway is able to transcend temporal phases, traveling from one crew member’s time frame to the next. However, while she avoids admitting just how dire the situation has become to the innocent Rok-Tahk, Janeway finds that Zero is already entirely self-aware.
Shortly upon arriving in Zero’s temporal phase, Janeway discovers that the Medusian has a plan: to construct a makeshift warp-matrix, thus stabilizing gravity and restoring the Proto-drive. But when Janeway reveals that Rok-Tahk was on the slow-moving side of the oscillating time wave, Zero realizes that their time is too short to see their vision come to fruition.
To put it bluntly, they simply do not have enough time to construct the warp-matrix before they die. And that’s just what happens: after Zero has completed the plans for the warp-matrix, the Proto-drive explodes. But Zero has the wisdom to realize that this mission could not be accomplished alone, declaring that, “although we are divided by time, we can work together.”
While we are not separated from subsequent generations of humanity by virtue of being divided into distinct temporal phases, we are separated from them by chronology. Although we may be divided by time in a different way, we can nevertheless work together in order to accomplish the greater goal of assisting future generations in reaching the stars and ushering humanity from its infancy and into the next stage of our collective development.
But it is impossible to escape the fact that, for those of us trapped here in the time period in which the Bell Riots are transpiring rather than the time period in which humans are undertaking our “wagon train to the stars,” seeing Trek’s promise of the future fulfilled is never going to happen firsthand. Humans only live so long, after all.
RELATED: Read our recaps of Star Trek: Prodigy!
The Voyage Home
At the conclusion of “Time Amok,” the entire crew of the Protostar is reunited in the same temporal frame thanks to the incredible efforts of Rok-Tahk, whose experience of time slows to an ultra-slow trickle, allowing her to become a well-rounded autodidact capable of constructing the warp-matrix herself.
However, while the nature of a Trek narrative means that we get to see all of our heroes safely reunited thanks to their efforts, it’s important to note that Zero clearly did not expect to be revived after they were blown up by the exploding Proto-drive at the conclusion of their “time phase.” As they head into the explosion, they think that’s the end of the line for them.
In addition to lamenting that they couldn’t accomplish more in the time in which they were allotted, Zero’s final thoughts are not of themself, it is of their friends. “I wish I could tell everyone how much they mean to [me],” Zero says as they are engulfed by the explosion and experience death (as an aside, this makes me wonder whether or not the entire Protostar crew sans Rok-Tahk has now seen the Black Mountain, but that’s a question for another day).
This is not the only time that Trek has shown us a scientist who is capable of thinking outside their own frame of temporal reference, allowing them to transcend the harsh reality of mortality and experience the future utopia of Starfleet for themselves.
At the conclusion of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the forward-thinking scientist Doctor Gillian Taylor is rewarded for her vision by being allowed to travel to the future that she would never have lived to see. Once there, her commitment to truth is rewarded: she not only gets to become a full-fledged member of Starfleet, she also gets to live in a more enlightened time, when the humpback whales George and Gracie are not at risk of being killed at the hands of poachers.
But in spite of the fact that Dr. Taylor does get to travel to the 2260s, it nevertheless does not seem likely that she gets to see the complete fulfillment of the promise that her work at the Cetacean Institute had brought to the future: as a human, it is unlikely that she would have survived long enough to see the sophisticated Cetacean Ops programs that viewers finally got to witness for themselves in the second season finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks, “First First Contact.”
Human progress is an ongoing proposition, and it will always be essential for the current generation of humanity to help invest in a future from which they will not personally see the benefit. But by adopting a more selfless attitude, like the one displayed by Zero as they faced what they believed to be their death, we can help build the foundation for the future, even if we won’t get to see it firsthand.
RELATED: Bonnie Gordon Speaks the Protostar’s Truth on Star Trek: Prodigy
Shining Voyager, Far From Home
What role do stories play in paving the path to our shared future?
VOY addressed the question in the twenty-second episode of season six, “Muse.” In that episode, B’Elanna Torres found herself stranded on a planet that bore more than a passing resemblance to ancient Greece. As the result of an association with one of the planet’s locals, Kelis the poet, Voyager’s exploits become the inspiration for a series of plays that are performed for Kelis’s patron.
Over the course of the episode, we see how the plays performed by Kelis and company eventually dissuade their patron from continuing to participate in a violent conflict. This goal accomplished, Kelis vows to continue the work that has been begun by his plays (“as long as our patrons remain wise and compassionate,” of course). As long as the stories can continue – and continue to inspire — eventually, Voyager will arrive at “the gleaming cities of Earth, where peace reigns and hatred has no home.”
In the same way that continuing the plays written by Kelis brings the promise of a utopian Earth, so too does continuing the stories of Trek provide the opportunity to inspire more generations to reach towards the vision that is embodied by the Federation’s future.
Eventually, as a collective, we can reach that destination, even if as individuals, we will only get the chance to experience this utopia through the window provided by story. But just like Dal catching a glimpse of the Window of Dreams through the porthole of Nandi’s ship, that view can still be something to behold and to sustain us as we help ensure subsequent generations reach the stars of which we can only dream.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/mike-mcmahan-star-trek-lower-decks-interview/
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