Star Trek: Prodigy may just use time travel to explain a major plot thread

Star Trek: Prodigy introduced some plot points that convolute things.

Star Trek: Prodigy may have mucked up the timeline a bit when they created the U.S.S. Protostar, a ship that Starfleet created and was once captained by Chakotay of Star Trek: Voyager fame. The only problem is that the ship was something that was being searched for 17 years prior to the events of the show.

This has posed a problem for some, as the show is only taking place five years after the events of Voyager. With so much Voyager in this show, it’s hard to fathom that the Protostar was created five years before Voyager went to the Delta Quadrant.

TrekMovie.com had similar questions for series writer and producer, Aaron J. Waltke.

"TrekMovie: You also pack in a lot of your own lore, including more on the history of The Diviner, Gwyn, and The Protostar. So, in the flashback, The Diviner was looking for something called “Protostar” before the launch of the USS Protostar or even before the USS Voyager went to the Delta Quadrant? Is that right?Aaron J. Waltke: Yes. There’s only so much I can say without spoiling. But what I will say is you are right, and that the timeline is very wibbly-wobbly, and convoluted. But that’s also not the first time that’s happened in Star Trek. But there is a reasonable explanation for it, and you’ll probably figure it out. But I will confirm that The Diviner was looking for the USS Protostar 17 years ago, and several years before even Voyager had left.TK: Ah, so it rhymes with fime fravel?AJW: [Laughs] You might say that, yes."

Star Trek: Prodigy playing around with time travel is iffy

Time travel is always hard to pull off because it’s, as we see it, an impossibility. With no set rules, and no real way of figuring out how it would actually work, that has left many writers to interpret their own way with how traversing time and space would play out.

It’s given us great time traveling stories like Back to the Future, that keep it simple, and overly convoluted ones, like in Avengers: Endgame. For Prodigy to stick their toes in the time travel whirlpool is going to be a tricky beast to navigate. They probably should’ve reworked the story before it got to the point of “let’s just say time travel.”

Regardless, the prospect of time travel in Prodigy does open up the show to a lot of potential story ideas, and hopefully, they’re able to pull it off. Otherwise, it could cause some serious issues with the show.