Kathryn Janeway name-drops old school Star Trek: The Next Generation alien

Star Trek: Prodigy name-dropped an old school The Next Generation alien.

Star Trek: Prodigy is a banger of a show. It’s light and fun, but also has that Trek-depth that a series needs to have. All while rocking unique art designs and featuring some great characters; both old and new alike. One of the standout characters that returned was Kate Mulgrew’s, Kathryn Janeway.

Janeway is actually two different characters this time around, an Emergency Command Hologram in Janeway’s likeness that helps the Protostar crew, and the Vice Admiral Janeway we see chasing the Protostar.

In one of the more recent episodes, we see Janeway and her crew of the USS Dauntless arrive at Tars Lamora and find the Diviner incapacitated. In an audio file uploaded to Instagram, Janeway recants that the Diviner, an alien who she knows very little about, reminds her of the classic TNG aliens the Zalkonians;

"According to the log, Dr. Noum believes the Diviner’s ‘physiology may possess energy-based psychokinesis, not unlike some Zalkonians.’"

Who are the Zalkonians

Star Trek: Prodigy fans may not know who the Zalkonians are, which isn’t surprising as they are a deep-cut alien from about 30-odd years ago. In the 25th episode of season three, entitled “Transfigurations”, the crew of the USS Enterprise-D met an alien race that was in the process of becoming beings of pure energy.

The end of the episode saw the aliens become a whole new species and fly off into space, and I’m going to hazard a guess that it isn’t going to happen this time around with the Diviner.

Still, considering Prodigy is becoming a show with deep cuts in it (Denobulans, Thadiun Okona, Odo), this is a very on-brand move to reference a little talked-about alien race from 1990.