Star Trek: Prodigy will introduce more legacy characters

Star Trek: Prodigy will return later this year for the second half of its first season.

When the first half of season one of Star Trek: Prodigy ended, Admiral Janeway (voiced by Kate Mulgrew) was commanding the USS Dauntless on a mission to find Captain Chakotay (voiced by Robert Beltran) who’d gone missing while he was the captain of the Protostar. The second half of the season will pick up with Janeway’s chase of the Protostar across the galaxy toward Federation space and may even bring in more legacy characters.

According to Prodigy’s executive producer Aaron Waltke in an interview with Trekmovie’s All Access Star Trek podcast, additional legacy characters will definitely be seen (or heard) in the series. Waltke feels it would be disingenuous to not reference the material and the people who have come before Prodigy.

I previously wrote about co-creator Dan Hageman saying almost the same thing at a panel at Star Trek: Mission Chicago. But he didn’t provide as much information about the potential for upcoming characters as Waltke did.

"“We honor where we are in the timeline. And we understand where we are. So there’s gonna be other characters you’re going to run into. But I can’t reveal anything.”"

Legacy characters won’t have cameos in Star Trek: Prodigy, though.

Waltke made it clear, though, that any legacy characters wouldn’t take over the story which belongs to the Prodigy crew, but they wouldn’t be there just to pop in, either. Their presences would serve a special purpose, and they would be there to help the Protostar’s young crew on their journey and would help them grow as characters. He specified that those characters we’ve met in other series would have substantial roles in any episode in which they appear.

"Yeah [more legacy characters are coming]… It would feel disingenuous to never sort of reference any of the stuff that came before. Is there an element of small universe syndrome in that? Perhaps. But I also really love the episode “Relics,” where they just happen to  stumble across Scotty on a ship 100 years later… However, I think that the important thing is not to have those legacy cameos come in and take over the story. Because first and foremost, this is the story of our young Prodigy crew. And if we’re going to bring in a new character, it’s going to be for a very specific purpose. They’re going to have some bearing on their journey and growth as characters… They will have substantial roles in the story."

We don’t know who is coming back or when they’re coming back. It might not even be in the second half of the first season, but perhaps we’ll see some of the crew from Star Trek: Voyager make their way onto the Protostar. It’s something to hope for anyway!