The Protostar lands a lot in Star Trek: Prodigy but why?
Star Trek’s latest show, Prodigy, has featured a lot of similarities to its predecessor series, Voyager. The two shows are tied together far beyond the appearance of characters and cast members of the former show. While talent like Kate Mulgrew and Robert Beltran has appeared on both of the series, reprising a hologram version of Kathryn Janeway and the original Chakotay, the two shows are tied together far beyond those characters.
The design of the ship, the core premise, even the exploration of the Delta Quadrant all have tied the two shows together, making Prodigy a spiritual sequel to Voyager in a lot of ways.
The two shows share something else in common. While both ships, the Protostar and Voyager, look alike, they also both function alike. One key characteristic of the Voyager has found its way over to the Protostar.
That feature is its ability to land far more regularly than other ships in Star Trek.
Just as Voyager was designed to do so on some occasions, the Protostar was designed to do so regularly as an experimental exploratory vessel alone in deep space! Think of it like a hybrid between a ship and a shuttle.
— Aaron J. Waltke (@GoodAaron) January 28, 2022
Landing isn’t common in Star Trek
Ship’s don’t land that often in Star Trek. In the original show, it was due to budgetary limitations, hence the creation of the teleporters. In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, it was due to logistics. The Enterprise-D was literally three times the size of the original Enterprise, while Deep Space Nine was set on a space station.
When space stations “land” on a planet, we usually call that “crashing”.
So it isn’t that surprising that fans aren’t used to ships landing. Voyager did a few times, most notably when the Kazon hijacked the ship and left Kathryn Janeway and the crew stranded. Yet, Voyager is quite small, at least compared to the Enterprise and Deep Space Nine. So it’s not surprising that it was designed to be able to do just that.
The Protostar is about the same length and height as Voyager but is far lighter, due to the lack of decks on it compared to Voyager. So seeing Prodigy land isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Plus it’s animated, so the budget is far more manageable.