Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 1x08 - "Time Amok"

[Commander Troi]

I really love this show! I want to hug it and squeeze it and call it George.

It was a little trek-no-babbly though, and I think younger kids might have a lot of this stuff go over their head

I disagree. I was watching TOS pretty young and I figured a lot of it out from context. Plus, the visual Janeway showed Rok helped *me*, so it probably helped kids too.

“Close but not quite”
Interesting hint by Deathlok there. If it wasn’t him who corrupted the Protostar, was it someone else of his kind?

Ooh, I missed that. Good catch.

There is another option (though this one might be out there)... what if Chakotay IS Dreadnock?... Or part of him ended up in Dreadnock?

THAT is a chilling thought!

the Murf doll

OMG right?!? My heart!

It's pretty clear to me now that Janeway really is just a training advisor. Anything else is out of her wheelhouse. Apparently she wasn't just being coy when she identified the kids as cadets. She doesn't have unfettered control of the ship. She's smart enough to be adaptable to circumstances, but she's not a magic bullet.

That's one of the more complicated temporal anomalies that Star Trek has ever shown, I think. But it did a pretty good job of explaining it.

I'm really pleased with Rok-Tahk's growh in this episode. And also a bit horrified by the fact that she was alone for an unspecified amount of time -- probably a few months, at least. That's one more traumatic event to add to the pile.

I think it's good that Janeway isn't a magic bullet. That puts the responsibility - and spotlight - on the kids, where it belongs.

Janeway not answering how long Rok-Tahk was alone said volumes. It really broke my heart. BUT... how many 8 year olds of *any* species could learn all that stuff! (Maybe a Vulcan. ) I felt SO proud of her!

I am curious - if it was more than a year, has she aged? I'm thinking no because of the reset (ie., Jankom isn't blown up).

Interesting notes:

-Drednok can replicate himself (or only his body and transfer himself there? Not totally sure here) with a Federation replicator
-Drednok knows the ship well and knows Chakotay’s codes!!!!
-His relationship with the Diviner seems like a more or less reluctant servant here.

Looking forward to next week…Am I the only one to get a Terminator vibe from that last shot?

The long-distance replication was deeply spooky. I wondered too if it's a "clone" or if he can transfer his consciousness. I was pretty freaked when he used those codes too - Chakotay had to have been a prisoner for at least a little while. The Drednok/Diviner relationship is quite the mystery - sometimes it seems one way, sometimes another. It's very interesting (to me). Yes, I got that vibe too. ::EEK::

I wonder if Dal and Gwen will end up splitting captaining duties, in some non traditional structure?

I think that would actually work well. This is far from a traditional crew, and a small crew at that. Specific jobs like Science Officer, Captain, etc., may not be the best choice here.

- The team (especially Gwyn) needs to find a way to prevent future takeovers and intrusions from Dreadnok and the Diviner. I realize they know the ship better than our young crew, but this incident should put it front and center that as long as those two have access to command codes and computer systems even from light years away, they'll never be safe.

Yep. They need to put their collective heads together and figure a way to lock the Bad Guys out!

I think episodes like this show the limitations of being a 24-25 minute show. After an episode of Lower Decks it feels…over. Like they get in everything they wanted and told a complete story. After an episode of Prodigy it feels unfinished, like there is more to do, more to see.

For me, that means that I really love the show because I want more and I want it NOW.

So, the way I see it is that Dreadnok already had Chakotay's access codes from interrogating him... and its also possible he left a backdoor into Protostar systems from the first time he was onboard and attacked Chakotay and his crew - the Va'uk'nat code was in the system after all which messed up Holo Janeway's memories etc. - its possible this served as a backdoor entry into the ship's computer.

Plus, these are kids... point being, they don't have in-depth knowledge of cybersecurity... but I would imagine they don't have to have that because they could just give a few words to the computer to examine any possible entry points to the mainframe from external sources and to try and plug those 'holes' up.

Good point about the backdoor, but he still had the access code. I'm not sure plugging the "holes" will be that simple, but we'll see.

Anyone else notice that the Drednok clone had the same colour scheme as the shuttle/rover?

Good catch! It must be based on the existing settings in the vehicle replicator.

It was nice that they "lampshaded" the distance when the Diviner got the coordinates from Nandi.

One thing I keep coming back to is the name Diviner. Merriam-Webster says, "divination: 1: the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers; 2: unusual insight: intuitive perception." Could this be a clue to who he was before all this started for him?

 

[jackoverfull]

I am curious - if it was more than a year, has she aged? I'm thinking no because of the reset (ie., Jankom isn't blown up).

she sounded more mature in the last scene to me, say 11/13 human years old.

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

I am curious - if it was more than a year, has she aged? I'm thinking no because of the reset (ie., Jankom isn't blown up).

she sounded more mature in the last scene to me, say 11/13 human years old.

‪‪I had wondered the same thing, if she didn’t go from an 8 year old, to a teenager like the others. And ‪‪though her consciousness has matured possibly several years, even while in the anomaly ‪‪I don’t know that she had physically aged, as Hologram Janeway observed:

You haven’t aged, but you’ve certainly matured.

Hologram Janeway said that while Rok was still trapped in slowed down time, which makes me think she was still the same age physically even then.

 

[Commander Troi]

Yeah, I got the same impression.

 

[Shawnster]

Rok seemed better suited for Ops. 24tg century ships did not seem to have a dedicated science post and Rok doesn't seem like pure science. She seemed more like someone who can take all the parts/data and put them together.

She and Zero seem to share science similar to how Tuvok and Seven shared science.

 

[cooleddie74]

And how Data and Geordi split the duties of reporting on science on the Enterprise-D bridge.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One question:

Drednok 2 was blown into space. So how could there be wreckage of him left on the Protostar at the end of the episode?

 

[AnimationAdmiral]

One question:

Drednok 2 was blown into space. So how could there be wreckage of him left on the Protostar at the end of the episode?

Given the ship exploded multiple times, everything was reset to their original place when the tachyon anomaly was reversed, including the half constructed Drednok.

 

[shapeshifter]

One thing I keep coming back to is the name Diviner. Merriam-Webster says, "divination: 1: the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers; 2: unusual insight: intuitive perception." Could this be a clue to who he was before all this started for him?

Someone from VOY, I'd bet. Some defeated but not destroyed foe...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We have never seen any Vau N'Akat on VOY (or anywhere else) so that would probably not happen.

 

[Deks]

Janeway said that for Rok, time moved extremely slow... to the point where it would feel like an 'eternity'.
Another thing is that Janeway observed was: 'Look at you kid. You haven't aged, but you certainly matured'.

To me this line implies that Rok in fact did NOT age. So she effectively had a LOT of time on her hands (proverbial eternity) to learn about things, but without biological ageing taking place.
This would be similar to slowing down time so you can still interact with the environment but not be affected by ageing (which is convenient considering the premise that Rok's metabolism certainly seemed to have been functioning correctly given the fact she ate a LOT of food in all that time - otherwise, she wouldn't have been hungry in the first place - and if her metabolism worked as usual, then she would have in fact aged - but probably not by much).

Plus, the message from Gwyn played just fine (in real time) for Rok, which I don't think it should have (unless Gwyn adjusted it to Rok's time frame) ... and Rok shouldn't have been able to interact with the replicators or the computer the way she had if time on the ship slowed down (as we saw with the wrench and stuff floating in mid air extremely slow).

I guess we need to chalk some of it up to 'space magic' in how 'selectively' this anomaly behaved (in universe wise). Then again, its a temporal anomaly... so this kind of thing is probably possible.

Rok also mentioned it took her 276 tries to get holo-Janeway back online (and she made 130 scratched lines on the glass which are 'typically' associated with days).
The scratches could have been an equivalent of the amount of days she spent alone (and time she used to learn things)... the rest (more recent) time would have been spent building the Warp matrix and bringing Janeway back online (so, the first 100 days, she would have been studying meticulously... but the last 30 days, she would try to bring Janeway back online (which would amount to 9.2 attempts per day).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Rok probably wasn't alone for that long...she'd have gone space-crazy from loneliness if she had.

Weeks, perhaps months. But I'm sure that's it.

 

[Deks]

Rok probably wasn't alone for that long...she'd have gone space-crazy from loneliness if she had.

Weeks, perhaps months. But I'm sure that's it.

It was implied she was alone for 'too long'.
There were 130 scratches on the glass... if they were meant to be days, that would amount to about 4.3 months.

And if she was alone for 276 days, that would be roughly 9.2 months.
I don't think Rok would have necessarily gone space-crazy from the loneliness... and would she have had enough time to learn things like quantum science and 'so much math' in just 4.3 months?
She was a kid with practically no exposure to anything of relevance that was science related. So suddenly jumping from nothing to a huge knowledge base in 4.3 months is a bit of a stretch, is it not?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Maybe she's a genius like Saru who's able to learn things incredibly fast. Maybe she was alone for centuries but her species doesn't go space-crazy from loneliness.

 

[Commander Troi]

No matter what, Rok's an amazing kid.

 

[Deks]

Maybe she's a genius like Saru who's able to learn things incredibly fast. Maybe she was alone for centuries but her species doesn't go space-crazy from loneliness.

Centuries might be pushing it... but its an intriguing possibility.
I considered the premise Rok might actually be capable of incredibly good recall, which would certainly speed things up for her in the learning department (but nothing of the kind was mentioned for her so I don't think we can assume that). For now,
I think its more likely she was alone for a year or a few... possibly less... plus with her being a kid, she would retain things she shows interest in like a sponge as is (no need for hyper recall really when you have ample amount of time at your disposal to learn stuff with a sponge like absorbant brain of a kid).

 

[Charles Phipps]

Even if it was months rather than years, I'm of the mind without the holodeck that Rok would probably be crazy.

On the plus side, I'm now sure she views holograms as real people since they've been her companions for who knows how long.

But with holograms, she probably was able to stay reasonably well adjusted.

 

[Danja]

Beautiful ...

Knocked it out of the park. Got me in the feels!

It was implied she was alone for 'too long'.
There were 130 scratches on the glass... if they were meant to be days, that would amount to about 4.3 months.

And if she was alone for 276 days, that would be roughly 9.2 months.
I don't think Rok would have necessarily gone space-crazy from the loneliness... and would she have had enough time to learn things like quantum science and 'so much math' in just 4.3 months?
She was a kid with practically no exposure to anything of relevance that was science related. So suddenly jumping from nothing to a huge knowledge base in 4.3 months is a bit of a stretch, is it not?

You can accomplish anything if you push yourself to do it (and staying alive is a VERY good reason).

 

[Lord Garth]

I just watched this episode today. I give it a 10. The crew really came together and they got to solve a Star Trek mystery battling against time.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

"Battling against time." As in getting the job done before the ship explodes, or as in battling the effects of a temporal anomaly?

Or both?

I liked it enough to give it a 9.