Confusion about the timeline....

[Roald]

I'm still confused.... The Protostar was launched in the late 23rd century, not far from where PRO itself takes place...

If the Protostar and The Diviner/Dreadnok went back decades in time (not once, but twice I guess), isn't it weirdly and virtually impossibly coincidental that the Protostar is discovered at around the same it originally went missing......?

Why did the writers even opt for the time travel element.....? It makes it unnecessarily complicated......

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

It's a bit of coincidence, but not a ridiculous one. I mean it's not like they found it on the day it went missing.

Randomly running into Dal's mother right after a random proto-warp jump across the quadrant, that's an impossible coincidence.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm still confused.... The Protostar was launched in the late 23rd century, not far from where PRO itself takes place...

Don't you mean the late 24th century?

 

[Roald]

Don't you mean the late 24th century?

Correct, late 24th… now I’ve made it even MORE confusing

 

[Captain's Coffee]

You know, very early on during her tenure as captain, Janeway said "Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache" and the writers kind of took that as a challenge. So, I'm not surprised that time travel is involved when Janeway is involved.

 

[Markonian]

So, Protostar is launched in the 2380s.
Serves for decades.
Some 50 years into the future, Federation first contact with the Vau N’Akat.
Sometime later, Protostar visits Solum.
Sometime later, the Vau destroy themselves in a civil war.
Diviner travels into the past to capture Protostar before first contact.
It goes wrong, and both end up in the 2350s.
2380 again, the kids capture the Protostar and are on the run from Diviner.

right?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IIRC, it was another Starfleet vessel (not the Protostar) which made first contact with Solum.

 

[Dukhat]

You know what's weird? When I first started watching PRO, I got the impression that it took place in the very far future, and that the Protostar and the Janeway hologram had been buried for centuries. It seemed like there were lots of clues pointing to this scenario. But then later we find out that it takes place in 2384 and we have all these time-travel shenanigans to explain what happened. I wonder if the premise of the show changed during its development?

 

[Markonian]

You know what's weird? When I first started watching PRO, I got the impression that it took place in the very far future, and that the Protostar and the Janeway hologram had been buried for centuries. It seemed like there were lots of clues pointing to this scenario. But then later we find out that it takes place in 2384 and we have all these time-travel shenanigans to explain what happened. I wonder if the premise of the show changed during its development?

I had a similar feeling before the details of the series were announced, because it reminded me of the script for Star Trek: Final Frontier (the abortive animated series), where the Federation is an isolationist society following an Omega-particle attack and another war with the Romulans. In the first ep, the the Enterprise allows alien refugees to keep going with a 150-year-old Federation ship they found, the Galaxy-class USS Venture.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Weird that 2384 Protostar looks much more advanced than 2401's Stargazer. Holotech panels everywhere, protowarp drive, industrial replicator on board...

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The Protostar definitely looks like it'd be more expensive to pull off in live action. We don't know that the Stargazer doesn't have an industrial replicator on board though. In fact the Enterprise D could've had one, plus it displayed holograms on consoles sometimes when they felt like it.

 

[JoseNoodles]

Weird that 2384 Protostar looks much more advanced than 2401's Stargazer. Holotech panels everywhere, protowarp drive, industrial replicator on board...

It's probably a test bed for all kinds of technology, maybe only some of which made it onto the wider Starfleet.

 

[dupersuper]

Weird that 2384 Protostar looks much more advanced than 2401's Stargazer. Holotech panels everywhere, protowarp drive, industrial replicator on board...

Well, the protowarp drive is part of the experiment (that,. like so much Trek tech, will never be heard of again...), but there's no reason to think that the Stargazer doesn't have an industrial replicator. We've just seen the bridge and some hallways and such.

 

[at Quark's]

Haven't seen this series yet, but my first association with the term 'protowarp' would be a drive system more primitive than warp, a prototype or even predecessor to warp. It's obviously supposed to be more advanced though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Haven't seen this series yet, but my first association with the term 'protowarp' would be a drive system more primitive than warp, a prototype or even predecessor to warp. It's obviously supposed to be more advanced though.

Bizarrely enough, it's named thusly because it's powered by an artificial protostar.

 

[Deks]

Weird that 2384 Protostar looks much more advanced than 2401's Stargazer. Holotech panels everywhere, protowarp drive, industrial replicator on board...

ST: Picard ship designs are more or less straight out of Star Trek Online (some of those follow sharper lines and are less smooth overall).
In fairness, I wasn't a fan of the refit Stargazer design. It has a lot less 'flow' (far more interruptions) to its design compared to previous ships.
Even the orginal Constellation class 'USS Stargazer' had more sensible connection points for it nacelles (despite being angular)... whereas in ST: Picard, the upgraded ship seems to have unnecessary angular bits upon bits upon bits - and despite the fact the class of ships looks pretty much the same as a previous one, its apparently a completely NEW class of ships (take the Nebula class for example... slight hull changes end up being named a different class, whereas it would make more sense its the same class of ship just upgraded or in a slightly different configuration depending on the mission profile it was originally assigned to).

Same with another ship design seen in ST: Online. It was a adapted to be a different class of ships in the 23rd century (which made no sense to me). The visual differences between the two ships were too subtle to make them a different class of ships.
It would have made sense to make them the same class of ship and say the 25th century version from ST:Online (as used in the 23rd century) was a contemporary upgrade of that same class of ship from 150 years ago.

Same thing in ST: Lower Decks. The Obena class makes a lot more sense as a 2380-ies refit of the Excelsior class... but instead, its a completely different class of ships which was made in the late 24th century?

It seems unnecessarily wasteful (and confusing) to be honest. You have existing Exelsior class ships and advanced technology (replicators and transporters) which can effectively reshape anything you have, and they decide to retain 80% of the Excelsior design and then just slap on a more oval saucer, Sovereign class nacelles and deflector on it?

Nothing against the design as such, however I'm just saying it makes more sense as a late 24th century (aka 2380-ies ) Exelsior refit, rather than a new class of ships.

The Protostar on the other hand follows more of an evolution of pre-existing ship designs (retaining a flow from one section to the other) while sharpening up some parts of it (but retaining overall smoothness to the design).

 

[Markonian]

Prodigy is out in the UK now, and I've got up on the available eps.
So, Solum is fine and andy in 2384.
Fifty years after first contact, it's gone Triannon.

So the timeline is:
2383: USS Protostar launched.
2384: Solum is unaware of aliens.
<unknown amount of time>
First Contact between Federation and Vau N'Akat.
FC+50 years: Solum is a cinder and the Vau N'Akat nearly extinct. The end.
- The Protostar is involved at some point?

TIME TRAVEL:
The "I blame the Federation for anything" Diviner from FC+50 captures the Protostar, instills it with the anti-Starfleet virus, and travels back in time.
2383-A: shenanigans with Chakotay's Protostar. Perhaps only here the ship is captured?
2360s: capture goes wrong, Chakotay's crew goes MIA, both the Wiener and the Protostar remain on Tars Lamora

NOW: 2383-84
* the events of the show

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

Chakotay also reports going through an anomaly before he is boarded by Drednok. So I suspect he and the Protostar accidentally went through a temporal wormhole shortly after their launch in 2383 and wound up in post-destruction future Solum, then the Diviner took the ship back through the time anomaly but both got lost in time somehow.

 

[Dukhat]

ST: Picard ship designs are more or less straight out of Star Trek Online (some of those follow sharper lines and are less smooth overall).
In fairness, I wasn't a fan of the refit Stargazer design. It has a lot less 'flow' (far more interruptions) to its design compared to previous ships.
Even the orginal Constellation class 'USS Stargazer' had more sensible connection points for it nacelles (despite being angular)... whereas in ST: Picard, the upgraded ship seems to have unnecessary angular bits upon bits upon bits - and despite the fact the class of ships looks pretty much the same as a previous one, its apparently a completely NEW class of ships (take the Nebula class for example... slight hull changes end up being named a different class, whereas it would make more sense its the same class of ship just upgraded or in a slightly different configuration depending on the mission profile it was originally assigned to).

Same with another ship design seen in ST: Online. It was a adapted to be a different class of ships in the 23rd century (which made no sense to me). The visual differences between the two ships were too subtle to make them a different class of ships.
It would have made sense to make them the same class.

Same thing in ST: Lower Decks. The Obena class makes a lot more sense as a 2380-ies refit of the Excelsior class... but instead, its a completely different class of ships which was made in the late 24th century?

It seems unnecessarily wasteful to be honest. You have existing Exelsior class ships and advanced technology which can effectively reshape anything you have, and they decide to retain 80% of the Excelsior design and then just slap on a more oval saucer, Sovereign class nacelles and deflector on it?

Nothing against the design as such, however I'm just saying it makes more sense as an Exelsior refit (aka 2380-ies refit) rather than a new class of ships.

The Protostar on the other hand follows more of an evolution of pre-existing ship designs (retaining a flow from one section to the other) while sharpening up some parts of it (but retaining overall smoothness to the design).

Yep. Of all the post-TNG shows being produced, Prodigy seems like the only one that follows some sort of logic to starship design after the TNG films and VOY.

 

[Deks]

Chakotay also reports going through an anomaly before he is boarded by Drednok. So I suspect he and the Protostar accidentally went through a temporal wormhole shortly after their launch in 2383 and wound up in post-destruction future Solum, then the Diviner took the ship back through the time anomaly but both got lost in time somehow.

Actually its more likely that the anomaly Chakotay encountered was the Diviner who originally traveled back through time to 2381 or 2382.
Drednok boards the Protostar, manages to subdue both Janeway Holo and Chakotay temporarily and install the anti-SF virus software.
Chakotay and his crew manage to wrestle back control and beam Drednok back to the Diviner's ship, but something goes wrong and both ships are pulled through the temporal anomaly to 2360-ies (about 20 odd years I'd say... roughly to 2361).

Chakotay and the Protostar are ahead of the Diviner and ends up hiding the Protostar inside Tars Lamora and abandoning ship (probably because they were forced to because I don't see why they would willingly abandon the ship in that case - unless it was to keep out of way of history and avoid contaminating the timeline - but that could be done whilst keeping the ship). Diviner only knows the ship is inside the massive asteroid but cannot pinpoint its location due to the extremely dense deposits of Chimerium.

The Protostar then waits for over 20 years unpowered until the kids discover it in 2383 and the whereabouts of Chakotay or the rest of his crew are unknown... I hope they are alive... and managed to survive in stasis or something (you know, just wait things out as opposed to ageing as they would - perhaps they're in a hidden and as of yet undiscovered section of the ship - or possibly transporter buffer which was isolated from the rest of transporter function).