Preludes (episode)

A Starfleet admiral digs into the past of the Protostar crew. Meanwhile, The Diviner recalls his life's mission.
== Summary ==
=== Act One ===
On the , Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway is sitting in her ready room when Commander Tysess reports that the is still not responding to hails. When Janeway complains that they don't know about the kids who stole the Protostar, Tysess responds that that's not true and hands the admiral a PADD which displays bounty information – names and images – of the escaped prisoners.
Meanwhile, the Protostar crew continues to make repairs on the proto-drive so they can safely leave the Romulan Neutral Zone. Still smarting over the revelation that he's a hybrid – or as he calls it, a "failed experiment" – Dal lashes out at everyone. Jankom tells Dal that they all have a sob story. Though Dal sarcastically asks who can top his, he does concede that Gwyn – whose father the Diviner hunted them down – may have him beat. Zero points out that they all have things in their past they'd like to forget. Knowing that Rok's past is something she'd particularly like to forget, Zero and the others coax the story out of her, believing it would make her feel better.
Rok tells the group that, early in her life, she performed as a stage fighter. Due to her physique, she portrayed The Monster and did "battle" against the Hero. Initially happy with her lot, she grew disenchanted with her role, especially when it became clear that members of the audience were afraid of her. One day, she sabotaged the show so that she would be the hero. Unfortunately, her patron was not amused and sold her to a Kazon slaver as "people didn't come to see a Monster be a Hero"
After her story, Rok tells everyone not to feel bad because if it hadn't happened, she never would have met the rest of the crew. Gwyn correctly guesses that Rok's past is the reason why she's reluctant to fight.
Zero says they should get back to work, but their arm falls off when they attempt to pick up a tool. As Jankom welds Zero's suit back together, Gwyn and Dal ask Zero how a Medusan ended up in the Delta Quadrant.
Zero states that they were part of a group of Medusans who left Medusan homeworld long before the 24th century to explore the galaxy. Zero says that they remembered feeling so free as the group explored a beautiful planet. Curious about a mysterious light, Zero left to investigate its source. They came across an opaque box, in front of which were a team of Kazons wearing protective visors. The rest of the Medusans fled aboard their ship as Zero was overtaken by the Kazon, who used energy weapons to incapacitate them.
=== Act Two ===
Meanwhile, on the Dauntless, Asencia tells the Diviner about their shared past. She and the Diviner were the same age and had both witnessed the first contact of the Federation with Solum. However, she didn't share his enthusiasm for the opportunities seemingly brought by Starfleet. Decades later, they were both the few survivors of the Vau N'Akat civil war caused by their contact with the Federation. They also witnessed the arrival of the Protostar on Solum through a temporal anomaly. The damaged ship was stormed by Drednoks and Captain Chakotay was captured alongside his first officer, Adreek-Hu. The Vau N'Akat then installed their last living construct on the Protostar, hoping to send it to the past and destroy Starfleet before first contact could occur. However, on the eve of the launch, the two Starfleet officers escaped. Unable to disarm the Living construct or board the ship, Chakotay remotely sent the crewless vessel back through the anomaly to prevent the Vau N'Akat from using the weaponized Protostar. Desperate to find the Protostar so they could utilize the weapon, the Order was created and sent one hundred agents through the temporal anomaly. Now known as The Vindicator, she managed to survive the anomaly's collapse, unlike the majority of the Order's agents, and arrived in Federation space in 2381, whereas the Diviner arrived in 2363.
=== Act Three ===
Back on the Protostar, the proto-drive is finally fixed and, as the crew wait for the system to reboot, Zero points out they haven't heard Pog's story.
Pog reveals that, as was the custom prior to the founding of the Federation, Pog, an orphan was sent out on a deep space mission on a Tellar sleeper ship. However, his cryo-stasis chamber malfunctioned, and he woke up prematurely sometime before 2383. Upon awakening, he was approached by a floating robot who called itself a "Miner Transport Emergency Assistant" that demanded that Jankom state his "full name and query." Jankom introduced himself by his full name and asked to be put back into cryosleep. However, the MTEA, which Jankom ended up calling Boxy, refused the request and stated that an emergency was in progress. When Boxy denied the request to wake an engineer, Jankom, a trainee, decided to fix the ship himself by a process he called percussive maintenance. While conducting repairs, Jankom continually used his full name so that it'd register with Boxy, which resulted in him developing a habit of referring to himself in the third person. When he finally finished, Boxy informed him that there was not enough oxygen left for the thirty crewmembers to reach their destination. So, Pog sacrificed himself by leaving the ship aboard an escape pod. Before departing, he asked Boxy to tell the crew what he'd done, but Boxy responded by asking his name. Alone in the escape pod, Pog was eventually captured by Kazon slavers.
Zero observes that Jankom saved all those Tellarites, and they'd never know, while Gwyn states that this classified him as "royalty." Rok and Murf hug Jankom, and Dal agrees that they all have a past; Gwyn replies that together, they could have a brighter future.
Back on the Dauntless, Janeway laments to Tysess that the Protostar crew aren't criminals; they're just kids who got in over their heads. At Tysess' suggestion, Janeway looks into who asked for the bounty. When Janeway discovered that it was "The Diviner", she expands the image of Gwyn and wonders if the images could jolt their patient's memory. Learning that The Diviner is in Ensign Asencia's quarters, Janeway gives Tysess the conn and orders security to look up information on The Diviner.
Janeway walks into Asencia's quarters and finds her, undisguised, with Drednok. To preserve his mission, The Diviner suddenly hits Janeway from behind, knocking her unconscious.
== Memorable quotes ==
"All your stories, everything you shared, I guess we all have a past."
"And together, a brighter future."
:- Dal and Gwyn
"We never asked Murf. Got anything to share?"
:- Dal to Murf, who only responds with chittering
"What about you, Janeway?"
"What about me?"
"What was Janeway like -- eh, before she was a hologram?"
"Yeah! We'd love to know."
"Well, now, have I ever told you about Mollie?"
"Who's Mollie?"
"She was the runt of the litter."
"Sounds like Jankom."
"Hang on!"
:- Zero, Hologram Janeway, Dal, Jankom, Rok, and Gwyn
"Kidnapped, sold, traded -- They're not criminals, they're just some kids who found themselves way over their head."
:- Admiral Janeway, after reading the bounty on the Protostar crew
== Background information ==
=== Title ===
* The title was announced by Paramount+ in . 
=== Production ===
* The episode aired on on in Poland, ahead of US release.
* Like , which was aired by in some European countries such as Croatia and Hungary ahead of US release, this episode was originally scheduled to be aired there on . However, other programming was aired instead on that day.
=== Continuity ===
* This episode featured several starship classes that had previously appeared on past series, including the Tellarite cruiser featured in , a Medusan vessel from the remastered version of the episode , and a ship, which was first introduced in the episode .
* The Kazon in Zero's story are shown wearing the same red-tinted protective visors that Spock and Miranda Jones wore in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" that allow humanoids to look upon Medusans without going insane.
* Jankom mentioning that he came to the Delta Quadrant on a Tellarite sleeper ship was first established back in .
* Holo Janeway refers to Vice Admiral Janeway's former Irish Setter Mollie as "the runt of the litter", the same description Chakotay used in .
* Although there is no official stardate within the episode itself, a log by Janeway on the "Star Trek Logs" Instagram account dated the episode to Stardate 61396.4. 
== Links and references ==
=== Cast ===
* Rylee Alazraqui as Rok-Tahk
* Dee Bradley Baker as
** Murf
** Kazon #1
* Brett Gray as Dal
* Angus Imrie as Zero
* Ella Purnell as Gwyn
* Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog
* John Noble as The Diviner
* Jimmi Simpson as 
;And
* Kate Mulgrew as "Hologram Janeway / Vice Admiral Janeway"
* Robert Beltran as Captain Chakotay
* Brook Chalmers as Maximillion
* Daveed Diggs as Commander Tysess
* Zehra Fazal as Boxy
* Bonnie Gordon as
** Ship Computer
** Sleeper Ship Computer
* Jameela Jamil as Asencia
* Tommie Earl Jenkins as
** Adreek-Hu
** Kazon #3
* Ben Thomas as
** Blue Caitian
** Kazon #2
=== Uncredited co-stars ===
* Brook Chalmers as Rok-Tahk 
=== Background characters ===
* 
* Bolian patron
* Drednoks of the Order
* Kazon trader
* Klingon spectators
* Medusan explorers
* Tellarite crewmembers
* Vau N'Akat
=== References ===
2363; 2381; 25th century; age; air; allegiance; Alpha Quadrant; anger; arboretum; armor; Augment; Aurelian; auxiliary warp drive; Bajoran; "bide our time"; Bolian; boulder; bounty; bowl; Brikar; Brikar language; Caitian; camouflaged predator; canyon; (title); cargo container; ; combadge; communications; containment suit; crew; criminals; cryo-sleep chamber (aka cryopod); cyborg; DataPADD; daughter; ; ; deep space mission; Delta Quadrant; Drednok; engine room; engineer; enlisted; ensign; escape pod; fan; fear; Federation; fighting; fire suppression system; first contact; fleet; food; funny; genetic experiment; grasshopper-like creature; hero; holodeck; hologram; hope; hybrid; identities; "[in] way over their heads"; individual; Kazon (Kazon-Relora); Kazon ship (unnamed (x2)); ; Klingon; language; LCARS; litter; living construct; Medusan; Medusan homeworld; Medusan vessel (unnamed); Mellanoid slime worm; mind; Miner Transport Emergency Assistant; Mollie; money; monster; ; name; non-Federation; "nothing ventured, nothing gained"; nutri-goop (aka "goop"); ; orphan; oxygen; percent; percussive maintenance; ; Prelude No. 4; pressure gauge; primitive; prisoner; progeny; (unnamed); promises; proto-core; proto-warp (aka proto-jump); ; ; query; ramp; ravine; reboot; retribution; Rev-12; (unnamed); Romulan Neutral Zone; runt; salvation; shackles; show; sky; sleep; sob story; soldier; Solum; spacecraft; spaceship; spear; Starfleet; Starfleet uniform (early 2380s); Starfleet uniform (late 2360s-early 2370s); story; subspace transmission; sword; Tal Shiar; Tars Lamora; Tellar Prime; Tellar sleeper ship (unnamed); Tellarite; Tellarite engineer; temporal anomaly (aka time anomaly); thief; thing; toilet; toilet plunger; tomato; tomato juice; trader; trainee; ; Vau N'Akat; Vau N'Akat civil war; ; violence; visor; warp core; warrior; ; weapon; welding; word; world; wormhole; wrench; years
==== LCARS references ====
alignment target; carrier beam; channel selector; computer readout; coordinate selector; cross-section; heat exchange; ; power beam; roll; selector grid; velocity; ventilation
==== Meta references ====
=== External links ===
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pl:Preludes