Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy 2x10 - "The Devourer of All Things, Part 2"

[Uhura's Song]

Another excellent episode. 9-10 for the last 3 in a row. Fantastic end to the first half.

 

[aquova]

There was a bit of a missed opportunity for Wes to comment on Ma'Jel being in Nova squad. However, it was a pretty solid episode overall. I suspect we'll run into Mr. Crusher again before the season is done.

 

[Shawnster]

Did anybody have a room like Gary Seven's room IRL?

I wasn't born of that era, but some of us fellow TrekBBS folks lived through that, so I'm wondering if any of you remember if some of your rooms resembled "Gary Seven's" room?

Obviously not in it's entirety, but some parts of your rooms would have furnishings or knick knacks that he had in that room?

Also, Janeway's knowledge of how to defeat "The Loom" should be required knowledge to spread to all Temporal Agents along with StarFleet.

Yes. The room in this episode looked very close to the room from TOS "Assignment Earth" which was set in then current-day 1968. The office looked real. Looked normal.

If you want more of the late 60s/early 70s decor vibes, check out Mad Men or For All Mankind season 1. If you are really interested, find some legit shows from the time like Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show, The Jeffersons, etc... We've watched/rewatched all those shows in the past 10 years or so. It's been a blast from the past.

I was born in 1971, so 1968 is just before my time. Still, people don't remodel or redecorate all that often, so many homes in 1978 looked similar to how they looked in 1968. I loved lava lamps as a kid, we had a desk phone exactly like the one in this episode, I spent most of my childhood in cheap faux wood grain paneled rooms.

 

[Deks]

Early in the season, we also saw/heard Gwyn's advisor (on the shuttle) being killed, with an implication that the mother vessel of the shuttle was also lost (as Janeway mentioned they lost contact with it). Possibly the work of either Asencia's Rev-## vessel, or of already existing Vau N'akat vessels (though it is doubtful those could detect, reach and then overwhelm a starship by themselves, unless Starfleet was caught napping).

I don't think there was a mother vessel to which that shuttle was attached to.
It was just the shuttle itself if I'm not mistaken.

Indeed. I wonder if the first death, the "redshirt" on the planet who got a name only shortly before he was devoured, was a bit of an inside joke at the meta treatment of redshirts (who usually got introduced in the episode they were killed and promptly forgotten afterwards, never to be mentioned again).

Loved Janeway finding a way to hurt the loom. All the others were firing and firing, but it never did anything. She wasn't taking sh*t from anyone this episode, not from admirals and not from time-devouring monsters.

Her shuttle is more heavily armed than the Defiant, it fires an entire spread of quantum torpedoes,...

Majel got to experience Zero in their present form. Nice, but wonder how that turns out when Zero will likely return to original form later in the season. She's a good addition to the wayward crew.

The shuttles of the Voy-A certainly seem more formidable... but to be fair, we seldom got to see shuttles in their full glory... and when we did, they DID kinda display some impressive feats - after all, they ARE mini starships and sport a full array of what is essentially same technology, just downscaled.

I would imagine that this time around they got extras in the form of mini Quantum torpedoes.
Most shuttles before this only had phasers (Delta Flyer excluded of course).
So its likely Janeway insisted that SF better equips their shuttles to reduce possible casualties.

Also, Janeway matching her weapons to the Loom's frequency was a good call-back to how modulating frequencies can have a devastating effect on a foe - but that implies they managed to get some decent sensor scans of the Loom and to detect their phasing frequency.

 

[Wouter]

I don't think there was a mother vessel to which that shuttle was attached to.
It was just the shuttle itself if I'm not mistaken.

In S2e4, Tysess says that Starfleet lost contact with "Gwyn's diplomatic ship", the Sacagawea.

I believe he is indeed talking about a ship, rather a small shuttle, because of the following:
-he says "ship" and I would think Tysess tends to be precise in his reporting
-a pretty standard shuttle craft, as shown in episode 2, wouldn't warrant a description of being "diplomatic". A ship though, could have accomodation and/or crew specific to diplomatic missions. If it was just a shuttle, "Gwyn's shuttle" would have been far more precise as a description
-in S2e1, during Dal's and Gwyn's long distance call, we see some of her surroundings and there seems to be a big/wide window behind her. This doesn't seem to match interior nor exterior shots of the shuttle she is on in S2e2. I also got the impression during that conversation that she was alone in the room shown, as I think her behaviour would have been more formal if she had been sharing the space with the woman shown on the shuttle in S2E2.
-if the small shuttle shown in S2E2 has a name, it likely wouldn't have been known to Starfleet officers from another vessel many lightyears away. I'd imagine that even a runabout name like "Rio Grande" wouldn't have meant anything to the Ent-D crew during TNG seasons 4/5; they would have said something like "contact with Sisko's runabout was lost" rather than "Sisko's ship the Rio Grande was lost".
-Waltke did mention in a fairly recent interview (shortly before S2 debuted on Netflix) that his take was that Gwyn wasn't sent alone but that she went in a ship with support personnel, a view that seems to be entirely in line with how it was depicted in early season 2 (it was heavily implied that Gwyn had been trained/drilled for the scenario, though Starfleet's instructors evidently failed to think about Ascencia possibly showing up beforehand)
-even without Waltke's statement, it seems very unlikely in-universe that a small shuttle would make a massive voyage from Federation space to Solum alone, with just 2 people on it.

 

[Deks]

In S2e4, Tysess says that Starfleet lost contact with "Gwyn's diplomatic ship", the Sacagawea.

I believe he is indeed talking about a ship, rather a small shuttle, because of the following:
-he says "ship" and I would think Tysess tends to be precise in his reporting
-a pretty standard shuttle craft, as shown in episode 2, wouldn't warrant a description of being "diplomatic". A ship though, could have accomodation and/or crew specific to diplomatic missions. If it was just a shuttle, "Gwyn's shuttle" would have been far more precise as a description
-in S2e1, during Dal's and Gwyn's long distance call, we see some of her surroundings and there seems to be a big/wide window behind her. This doesn't seem to match interior nor exterior shots of the shuttle she is on in S2e2. I also got the impression during that conversation that she was alone in the room shown, as I think her behaviour would have been more formal if she had been sharing the space with the woman shown on the shuttle in S2E2.
-if the small shuttle shown in S2E2 has a name, it likely wouldn't have been known to Starfleet officers from another vessel many lightyears away. I'd imagine that even a runabout name like "Rio Grande" wouldn't have meant anything to the Ent-D crew during TNG seasons 4/5; they would have said something like "contact with Sisko's runabout was lost" rather than "Sisko's ship the Rio Grande was lost".
-Waltke did mention in a fairly recent interview (shortly before S2 debuted on Netflix) that his take was that Gwyn wasn't sent alone but that she went in a ship with support personnel, a view that seems to be entirely in line with how it was depicted in early season 2 (it was heavily implied that Gwyn had been trained/drilled for the scenario, though Starfleet's instructors evidently failed to think about Ascencia possibly showing up beforehand)
-even without Waltke's statement, it seems very unlikely in-universe that a small shuttle would make a massive voyage from Federation space to Solum alone, with just 2 people on it.

Actually, I think the Sacagawea IS in fact a shuttle.

Shuttles were referred to as ships too in-universe, so dialogue wise, I don't think its an issue.

A diplomatic ship being a shuttle makes sense if you ask me. Its small, fast (probably equipped with Quantum Slipstream to get to Solum quickly), and it was the only vessel that was actually seen destroyed visually.

At the end of S1, Gwyn departs Earth to go to Solum in a shuttle when it warped. In S2, we only ever see a shuttle... but never a larger ship.

If there was a big ship, I suspect that we would have seen it (and given the kind of attention to detail Prodigy has been doing, I don't think it would have forgotten to put a bigger ship at the screen for us to actually see).

Given how First Contact unfolded in the alternate future, I think SF was being cautious here and didn't want to look imposing or threatening, so it would make sense to send a shuttle and minimize casualties if any issues arise.

 

[Wouter]

Actually, I think the Sacagawea IS in fact a shuttle.

Shuttles were referred to as ships too in-universe, so dialogue wise, I don't think its an issue.

A diplomatic ship being a shuttle makes sense if you ask me. Its small, fast (probably equipped with Quantum Slipstream to get to Solum quickly), and it was the only vessel that was actually seen destroyed visually.

At the end of S1, Gwyn departs Earth to go to Solum in a shuttle when it warped. In S2, we only ever see a shuttle... but never a larger ship.

If there was a big ship, I suspect that we would have seen it (and given the kind of attention to detail Prodigy has been doing, I don't think it would have forgotten to put a bigger ship at the screen for us to actually see).

Given how First Contact unfolded in the alternate future, I think SF was being cautious here and didn't want to look imposing or threatening, so it would make sense to send a shuttle and minimize casualties if any issues arise.

Examples of shuttles being referred to as ships in-universe?

Calling a shuttle a diplomatic ship seems a big misnomer for me, considering a shuttle has little carrying capacity (for cargo and passengers), is not comfortable for long voyages, has almost no defenses, isn't adequate to allow visits by foreign dignitaries and is not good for "showing the flag". If anything, the Enterprise-D could be termed a diplomatic ship because it often was doing exactly that kind of work: receiving or ferrying ambassadors, show the flag (and the resources) of the Federation, be involved in peace missions etc.

Moreover, shuttles generally aren't fast at all in ST universe, even relatively fast shuttles like the delta flyer still don't hold a candle in warp speed to vessels like the Intrepids, and most are much slower than the DF. It also seems unlikely to me Starfleet would equip a shuttle with a slipstream drive, when only experimental ships like the Dauntless and recently modernised ships like Voyager-A have it. I think it was even said in an interview about season 1 that Starfleet had only 2 or 3 vessels equipped with such drives. Are they even able to miniaturise the tech at this point, to the point they can fit it in what looks like a standard shuttle?

I don't think it's surprising we didn't see a big ship, even if if was there: animation is expensive and rendering another ship model (couldn't be the Dauntless or the Voyager-A or the Protostar) and even other starfleet personnel would have used up budget necessary for other things.

However, I think we see the interior of a ship in this screenshot: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/epics/PRO-S2/S2E1/PRO-S2E1-235.jpg (from this page: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sc-PRO2-1.php). Note the wide but rather short/narrow (in the vertical sense) window behind Gwyn, which doesn't correspond with the interior and exterior shots of the shuttle (which only seems to have a wide and high front window, arching to cover the front from three sides) as shown in the screenshots on this page: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sc-PRO2-2.php. Moreover, as I wrote earlier, Gwyn to me seems to act like she has privacy in this pretty large room.

For such a long distance trip - Solum is somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and probably not in the part closest to the Federation - a shuttle seems like the worst choice imagineble. Using a conventional but fast starship (something like an Intrepid) and sending it through the transwarp hub would make way more sense. This vessel could easily lauch a shuttle from outside the system of Solum, in order not to be detected while the vessel is still there to offer support if things go wrong.

The latter is what it probably did, go investigate why its shuttle didn't return and didn't respond, and ended up getting ambushed by Ascencia and her REV vessel and/or any recently constructed vessels/weapons she may have access to at that point.

Edit: OK, looking at some more screenshots from shuttles used this season (they always used the same model at least for the exterior) there could be a small side window present. Still, the interiors don't seem to match with Gwyn's room/space.

The screenshots from the first episode also reminded me that Dal and co also left Earth on a shuttle, just as Gwyn did, but they sure didn't stay on it for the rest of their trip(s).