Star Trek: Prodigy producer reveals where the show actually is taking place

Star Trek: Prodigy has given fans plenty of mysteries.

Star Trek: Prodigy is a show that debuted steeped in mystery. Many of the characters are brand new, and the ones that fans knew about that were coming back, Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay, were not really clear about how they would return.

We eventually found out that Janeway was actually a hologram, an Emergency Command Hologram, first seen in Star Trek: Voyager when the Doctor added that subroutine to his program. Then we found out that Robert Beltran would reprise his role as Chakotay but nothing more was given on that.

Until the episode “Koybaashi”. Since then we had other questions get asked, like what makes the U.S.S. Protostar what it is, and how did it end up in the Delta Quadrant? One question we don’t have to ask anymore is where exactly the events of the show are taking place.

Speaking to TrekMovie.com, Prodigy writer and producer Aaron J. Waltke spoke about exactly where the events of the show are taking place.

"TrekMovie: Another quick clarification, are they now in the Gamma Quadrant?Aaron J. Waltke: I don’t know if they’re actually in the Gamma Quadrant, but they are–gosh, how do I say this without spoiling anything?–they were going towards the Gamma Quadrant. I can tell you definitively that Tars Lamora is on the border of the Delta Quadrant and the Beta Quadrant. So they were kind of going along the border, if that makes sense, riding the border between the Delta and Beta Quadrants, toward the galactic center.TM: So further or closer to Earth?AJW: I think a little bit closer to Earth and a little bit closer to the United Federation of Planets."

The placing of Star Trek: Prodigy allows it to be its own show

While Star Trek: Prodigy isn’t anywhere near Earth or the Alpha Quadrant, it is interesting to see that it occupied space in the Delta Quadrant far closer to the Beta Quadrant than many may have thought possible. Considering Voyager spent only seven years in the Delta Quadrant, which isn’t very long to explore the vastness of space, placing the start of the show there was a good idea.

Moving it to the Gamma Quadrant? Even better. While no area of any quadrant is fully explored or known to the audience yet, the Gamma Quadrant may be the least known of the four. Placing the ship in the Gamma Quadrant really opens up the show to explore different ideas and possibilities while detaching itself from some of the lingering threads of a show like Voyager.

Hopefully, we’ll see some more stuff in the Gamma Quadrant that we haven’t seen yet, while maybe getting a callback or two to Deep Space Nine. That way new fans can see new creatures and have new adventures and old fans can smile nod at a throw-away-reference.