Finished Prodigy
Jun. 15th, 2025 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly1. They spend a lot of time building up how Gwyn is a paradox because if the Protostar doesn't make it to Tars Lamora, she doesn't exist and none of the other kids meet. They're all paradoxes, she's just the most paradoxical one.
What they don't address is that in this new timeline, nobody sends the Protostar to the past in the first place. And if you take a really fucking big picture you can see how it mostly works out, but they might've spent some time addressing this in show.
2. Looking back, those kids collectively left a lot of people behind. Not their fault, nothing they could do - but wow. There's Jankom's original ship of conscripted orphan colonists, still adrift somewhere in space, there's Rok's human friend who clearly is no more free to leave than she ever was, there's all the people from Tars Lamora - sure, they have a ship and they're not on the mine anymore, but wow, they're all trapped on a ship together with no plan! It was hard enough for the original group to figure it out, how is a few thousand more of them going to manage? (And somebody ought to go back to the death planet and plant a beacon or two in orbit, I'm thinking.) Given enough seasons, we could absolutely go back and save all those people, though Rok's friend would probably die of old age by the end of the episode.
3. Also, the tribbles. Are those giant carnivorous tribbles sapient? Bribble could talk to them, so... maybe? Do you think she misses her tribble family even while she hangs out with her space explorer family? Is Bribble sapient? Should she get an AAC too, like obviously Murf ought to?
4. So, I know they were tying a lot of this season to Picard, which I never intend to watch because I just like Icheb too much. I also know that clearly they were making a commentary on American politics, which is 50% everything Trek is about and 50% "I remember that this sort of thing is what ate the plot of Enterprise", but what I'm thinking is that their commentary makes me... uneasy.
Look, I get what they're saying aboutAmerica's The Federation's responsibility to explore and help others. That's been the theme of the show since the Cold War The TOS era. But, both in the show and in real life, that help has not always been so helpful or without strings attached. Which is in this show, by the way. I mean, who the fuck approved Solum for first contact? In both the pre-show timeline and the Ascencia Overlord timeline their society was extremely quick to go on a total war footing, and the two survivors we meet are marked by their unwillingness to consider any approach other than the complete and utter destruction of the Federation. FFS, Ascencia was an Ensign in Starfleet, and absolutely at never point learned anything about how to accomplish her actual primary objective of saving her planet? JFC. This did not come up out of nowhere. They talk a good talk about how peaceful their society was before... but those cracks must've already been there or they would not have been so readily exploited.
But somebody made the call to go ahead anyway, even though this society was plainly not ready for any sort of first contact with anybody. And somebody else agreed to let them tear themselves apart, not our problem. And now the show is trying to sell us on the idea that the Federation is an unalloyed force for good in the universe, but it doesn't really work in the show, which only serves to point out all the ways it doesn't quite work in the analogy as well. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it all as an ideal... but when it's too obviously about the real world and they too obviously show the failure mode, all I can think is that Afghanistan isn't one bit better off for our involvement there.
5. Rant aside, I also feel like Ma'Jel's two squadron buddies got shafted. The new Protostar, redesignated as a training ship, could absolutely have put two more beds in there. It's a big enough ship. (Actually, given that the Academy is closed for the time being I feel like Janeway could've contrived to cram a whole second and third shift in there. Three times the training, very cost effective!)
What they don't address is that in this new timeline, nobody sends the Protostar to the past in the first place. And if you take a really fucking big picture you can see how it mostly works out, but they might've spent some time addressing this in show.
2. Looking back, those kids collectively left a lot of people behind. Not their fault, nothing they could do - but wow. There's Jankom's original ship of conscripted orphan colonists, still adrift somewhere in space, there's Rok's human friend who clearly is no more free to leave than she ever was, there's all the people from Tars Lamora - sure, they have a ship and they're not on the mine anymore, but wow, they're all trapped on a ship together with no plan! It was hard enough for the original group to figure it out, how is a few thousand more of them going to manage? (And somebody ought to go back to the death planet and plant a beacon or two in orbit, I'm thinking.) Given enough seasons, we could absolutely go back and save all those people, though Rok's friend would probably die of old age by the end of the episode.
3. Also, the tribbles. Are those giant carnivorous tribbles sapient? Bribble could talk to them, so... maybe? Do you think she misses her tribble family even while she hangs out with her space explorer family? Is Bribble sapient? Should she get an AAC too, like obviously Murf ought to?
4. So, I know they were tying a lot of this season to Picard, which I never intend to watch because I just like Icheb too much. I also know that clearly they were making a commentary on American politics, which is 50% everything Trek is about and 50% "I remember that this sort of thing is what ate the plot of Enterprise", but what I'm thinking is that their commentary makes me... uneasy.
Look, I get what they're saying about
But somebody made the call to go ahead anyway, even though this society was plainly not ready for any sort of first contact with anybody. And somebody else agreed to let them tear themselves apart, not our problem. And now the show is trying to sell us on the idea that the Federation is an unalloyed force for good in the universe, but it doesn't really work in the show, which only serves to point out all the ways it doesn't quite work in the analogy as well. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it all as an ideal... but when it's too obviously about the real world and they too obviously show the failure mode, all I can think is that Afghanistan isn't one bit better off for our involvement there.
5. Rant aside, I also feel like Ma'Jel's two squadron buddies got shafted. The new Protostar, redesignated as a training ship, could absolutely have put two more beds in there. It's a big enough ship. (Actually, given that the Academy is closed for the time being I feel like Janeway could've contrived to cram a whole second and third shift in there. Three times the training, very cost effective!)
