By the point Voyager returns residence from the Delta Quadrant on the finish of its seven-season run, Kathryn Janeway has seen extra in her tour of responsibility than most Starfleet captains see of their lifetimes (even when she and her crew received to skip out on that complete, y’know, cataclysmic interstellar conflict factor). So it is smart that she rapidly shoots up Starfleet’s ranks into Admiralty, and is obtainable a bunch of plush positions—but it surely additionally is smart that she’d insist on returning to her personal robust little ship.

A type of plush positions nearly grew to become a factor in Star Trek: Prodigy’s second season, which lastly begins streaming on Netflix right now after a lengthy, unusual street to launch noticed it ushered away from Paramount. Within the new season, with Prodigy’s younger alien heroes having made their technique to Starfleet and helped save the day—incomes their place among the many subsequent era of Academy cadets—they’re tasked with becoming a member of Admiral Janeway on a harmful rescue mission to search out her former first officer and the lacking captain of the experimental ship Protostar the youngsters spent season one racing round in, Chakotay. To take action, Janeway heads out on a newly refitted Voyager-A, however she nearly commandeered a much more prestigious vessel within the type of Starfleet’s flagship, the Enterprise.

Prodigy is ready round 2384, which implies on the time the Enterprise in operation is both the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E—though a ship with its registry is seen in Prodigy’s season 1 finale having been closely broken, if not destroyed outright—or its observe up, the Odyssey-class Enterprise-F. They’re each fairly superior ships, so far as the Enterprise goes, however… they’re no starship Voyager. I could also be barely biased, however hey, so is Kate Mulgrew herself, as she ought to be: as a result of apparently when instructed that Janeway might commandeer the Enterprise in Prodigy, the actress behind her flatly refused.

“There was a second the place we have been enjoying with the concept [season 2’s ship] could possibly be the Enterprise as an alternative,” Prodigy co-creator Dan Hageman instructed IGN in a brand new interview. “We [asked] Kate, ‘What do you assume for those who’re the brand new captain of the Enterprise,’ and she or he was not thrilled. She’s like, ‘I’d relatively or not it’s the Voyager.’”

Placing apart that Voyager is without doubt one of the all-time nice Star Trek ship designs, giving Janeway a refit of her home-away-from-home within the Delta quadrant on a mission to relocate Chakotay of all individuals simply is smart, for the sentimentality of all of it. Plus, in-universe, the Voyager herself at this level is an admired and beloved ship in its personal rights, a champion of Starfleet’s exploratory beliefs in having survived one of the best a part of a decade in a far-flung sector of the galaxy with little in the best way of Federation help. It’s solely becoming that Janeway get an opportunity to finally see what Starfleet might do in a souped-up refit of her most beloved ship, relatively than simply handing her the Enterprise prefer it’s a prize for passing into Admiralty.

Positive, a vaunted Admiral is “worthy” of the flagship, however perhaps we ought to be asking: is the Enterprise worthy of Kathryn Janeway?

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