Anika and Liz attempt to change the timeline so Paramount never dropped Prodigy and we got to enjoy each episode week by week … but alas, we did not pay attention in Temporal Mechanics 101.
We’re discussing Star Trek: Prodigy‘s “Who Saves the Saviors”, including…
- Rok-Tahk knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to tattle, and also has done nothing wrong (ever, in her entire life)
- Dal has never watched Star Trek and isn’t about to start now
- We have conflicting feelings about birds, and Liz drops some Doctor Who lore
- Tysses and Noum are the Married Mean Gays that Star Trek has needed for eternity. Yes, we just made that up. But it’s canon in our hearts. And we would subscribe to their podcast.
- This isn’t even the first time Chakotay has abandoned a bunch of kids in the Delta Quadrant!
- Why is everyone so determined to put Janeway and Chakotay in parental roles when it’s clear they would both be very bad at it?
- Jankom represents some of Star Trek‘s best disability rep ever
- Janeway is deeply flawed, and that’s good writing
Transcript
Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast, where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext, and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today, we are discussing the second season episode of Star Trek: Prodigy, Who Saves the Saviors.
Liz: So it’s weird, but I forgot how short these episodes are.
Anika: They are very short. Did you just watch it now? We both just watched it now, yeah.
Liz: Yes, I queued it all up to watch on my lunch break yesterday, and then I was so busy that I worked through my lunch break.
Anika: I didn’t have lunch this week. So that’s how my job is going. But that’s okay. I did get to watch Prodigy today.
Liz: This season is so serialized that this really is just one chapter in a much larger story. It’s hard to — I’m really glad that I did take the time to watch it on its own. They all blend into one.
Anika: Yes. It ended before I was expecting it to end. I was like, wait, doesn’t this happen? I guess not. That’s next week. So, so yes, it was surprising. In that way, I guess it’s exciting that we have all of it. And there were really only — you know, I have Voyager on here because we briefly were at Voyager for, for, you know, 30 seconds, but really we were on Solum the entire time in two different time periods.
Liz: Yeah. We basically check in on Janeway and her crew and Rok-Tahk. And I’m not going to say Rok-Tahk is a snitch, but…
Anika: She’s definitely a snitch.
Liz: She’s a bit of a dibber-dobber.
Anika: We did get to see Janeway’s reaction to the news. Which I take as, “When I brought Dal on board in order to help me out with my secret mission, this is not what I was thinking.”
Liz: She thought she could control him, and she was very wrong.
Anika: That was very wrong. That was not what happened.
Liz: Also, I am not faulting Rok-Tahk for being a dibber-dobber. I think that one of the lessons that young kids have to learn is that there is a time to keep things to yourself and there is a time to seek a trusted adult, and Rok-Tahk has done the right thing and no one faults her for it.
Anika: No, no one faults her for it and really, they did need to know.
Liz: They did.
Anika: Who took — that it was someone on the ship, that it wasn’t an interloper or that weird sphere thing. There are reasons for it to be good that this is who went.
Liz: Yeah.
Liz: And then we just cut to Solum and we spend the whole episode across the two time zones, which I think was executed really well in terms of you could always tell when you were. It was really visually clear.
Anika: Yes, I was going to say that it’s visually very different. The lighting, I don’t know what you call lighting in animation…
Liz: I call it lighting.
Anika: Okay, shading? But was very distinctive.
Liz: I enjoyed that Ma’jel has taken over as the adult in the room and she has the Gwyndala pouring cold water on Dal’s plans role, and the Rok-Tahk science role, but really she’s just her own person. She’s reluctantly enjoying herself a little bit.
Liz:
Anika: Yeah, she really sort of comes into her own here, but this is where we start to get more that Ma’jel is going to be a real character this season and not an antagonist or a proto antagonist. And remember you said that you worried there was going to be a love triangle between Dal, Gwyn and Ma’jel? And it was like, okay, this episode could be setting it up. If I watched this on its own, there are moments here where there it was like, okay, you could start shipping Dal and Ma’jel. I get it.
Liz: He compares her to Gwyn and denies that Gwyn is his girlfriend. On my first watch, I was like, oh yeah, I see what we’re doing. I don’t like it, but I’m going to put up with it and act like I’m okay with it just because that’s how I go along with things.
Anika: Right, right, right. It was there. It was interesting. And then it’s not there. And that’s one of those things where I’m like, you know, if there was a week in between this episode and next episode, maybe we would have had discussion of that. Maybe there would be a few little drabbles about Ma’jel and Dal. And it’s not like we can’t still do that. But the fact that it’s immediately quashed makes it harder to do it.
Liz: In an alternate universe, there would be like 15 Ma’jel/Dal fics, and then someone would start shipping Ma’jel/Gwyn out of spite. And I would support all of these.
Anika: Right. Exactly. And I would like that universe to exist.
Liz: What we need to do is travel back in time, stop Nickelodeon from dropping Prodigy, and just let the timeline proceed from there. Nothing bad can ever come from messing about with the timeline.
Liz:
Anika: I imagined, you know, Gru doing his board, step one, step two.
Liz: Yeah. Yep.
Anika: That’s how well our planning is going.
Liz: Question mark, question mark, question mark, profit.
Anika: Dal definitely follows the Gru planning board way of doing things.
Liz: Dal has not watched Star Trek ever in his life and refuses to start now. And I respect that.
Anika: Just gonna say that’s very valid of him. It’s delightful.
Anika:
Liz: I understand people find that frustrating with him as a character, but I really appreciate having someone who, in what has become a very self-referential universe, just refuses to engage. He is here, he is now, he is looking to the future, and he’s not a canon guy, he’s not a history guy.
Anika: Right, yes. That’s it. You said has become so self-referential. And even in prequels, quote unquote, we have characters who know the canon. And represent the canon, and are the technobabble experts that tell us what we need to know. Dal is the anti-that. And it’s fun. I think it’s fun.
Liz: Most Star Trek characters know that they’re in Star Trek on some level, you know, they’re citizens of the Federation, they have those values, they have been raised on the history of the Enterprise and James Kirk and Spock and all of that. And Dal is like, hmm, no, thank you. Even after his time in the Academy Prep School, he’s still not really engaging with that history. And I love that. It’s not how I would work because I’m a history nerd, but I love that we have this character who is so different from me.
Anika: I was like, yeah, that’s kind of how I was as a child. Where I had this — I remember vividly when I was like, you know, 11. And everyone was telling me that I had to respect my elders because they were my elders. They didn’t have to earn my respect. I just was expected to respect them, but I had to earn their respect. And I was like, wait a minute, why, why is it like this? And I said, if I have to earn respect, I think you should have to earn respect too, because I don’t know you people just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean that you’re automatically better. I was a brat. I was really a terrible child.
Liz: You felt safe. You were a child who felt safe pushing those boundaries.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: I was very much a Rok-Tahk and I’m very much a Ma’jel. I am the one going, oh, no, we really shouldn’t do that. And this is why. And these are all the reasons why. And you’re going ahead, going, hey, no, we should absolutely start a podcast.
Anika: Exactly. What if we did it and then figured it out?
Liz: Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Your approach is totally working for us. This is a very small thing in the whole episode, but in the climax when they’re doing the distraction and Dal is like, look how distracting I am. And I’m like, honey, but Zero is making pew, pew, pew noises as they fire their phaser. And this is why Zero is perfect.
Anika: I noticed that both times that I watched it and this time I put on the subtitle so I didn’t miss anything, and so I knew how to spell Adreek. And it was really delightful to read. It was like, “Pew pow, pow, pow pew!”
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: Like, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful, Zero. You’re perfect.
Liz: This is not a massive Zero episode, but there are several points where I thought Angus Imrie just did a great job in small moments. And I loved that. I really enjoy this whole ensemble. They’re all so good, except Robert Beltran.
I’m going to say very complimentary things about his work later this season. I think there is a reason that his performance at this stage is quite flat, which we’ll get into later because it’s a spoiler. But when Dal says, “Your voice paints a vivid picture,” I was like, this is the meanest thing anyone has ever said about Robert Beltran’s voice acting.
Anika: The prison scene where the kids are trying to press Chakotay and Adreek to escape while not letting on who they are. Or that they know anything or that they know anything about them. And they’re alternately okay and terrible at it.
Liz: Oh, that’s so bad.
Anika: They’re never good at it. Once in a while, it’s like, okay, that was acceptable. But mostly they’re just really, really bad at it. And that was one of the moments where I was like, Dal, that is such a lie. Such an obvious lie. Even Chakotay and Adreek share a look. [Dal’s like] “I definitely didn’t sell that. That’s a lie.”
Liz: I’m not going to say it’s a good thing that Dal was sold into child slavery, but I am going to say it’s good that he’s wound up in Starfleet because he was not going to make it as like an independent hustler, scammer, businessman out on his own. Because he was raised by a Ferengi, but he doesn’t have the lobes for it.
Anika: So let’s talk about Chakotay and Adreek.
Liz: I love Adreek. Obviously, I hate that he’s a bird because I have a complicated relationship with birds and their horrible beaks and their beady eyes and their gross feathers and their scaly claws.
But I love that his name is Adreek because he is named after Adric, who was the first real child companion in Doctor Who in the late 70s. [Actually he was introduced in 1980.] I think it’s fair to say that every single criticism you can ever make of Wesley Crusher can be magnified a thousand times for Adric. And it would probably be true. He was not a well-written or well-acted character. And when this child character was violently killed off, it was like a great moment for fandom. Prodigy, its writers really understand the context of kids in science fiction and how unpopular they are. And especially the child prodigies, because Adric’s whole thing was that he was a maths genius. And naming a character after Adric just feels like such a great nod to a controversial character whose time had not yet come.
Anika: Wow, I didn’t know any of that.
Liz: See, that’s why I’m here.
Anika: Thank you for sharing that amazing context.
Liz: I’m here to bring the history.
Anika: I’m here to say I love birds. I have a pair of mourning doves that live in my tree and they come down and eat on my grass and they just hop around my yard and I love them. I had a hawk this week. Absolutely beautiful. You can see him on my Instagram. The birds have been nice to me lately. I was like, maybe it’s an Adreek thing. Adreek is calling the wonderful birds to me, because I completely agree. I look at him and it’s like, wow, that is a bird man. That is a Star Trek bird man and it’s hard to take seriously.
Liz: Yes. I should say, I like birds as long as they’re a certain distance away from me. Like the wild parrots in my yard, the pigeons that sit and look fat in my garden, they’re all great. I just don’t want birds to come near me because I’m a little bit scared of them.
Anika: That’s fair. I think that’s fair. You don’t want to be a Disney princess.
Liz: No. Oh my gosh. This one time I went to the zoo, and in the parrot enclosure, like ,the birds just came and sat on me and it was horrifying.
Anika: Oh no, I love that. I love the enclosures and you get the little sticks and you can feed them and then it’s it’s, that’s wonderful.
Liz: They were touching me with their claws. So I do not ship me/Adreek is what I’m saying, but I respect him as a character. I like that he is very much a straight man to Chakotay because Chakotay is usually the straight man to literally everyone.
Anika: True.
Liz: I’m not saying they’re a funny duo. They have to be the worst comedy duo in the entire Federation, but I like the dynamic.
Anika: I like when Jankom is making all his many bird puns. And it’s just, it’s like the eighth one, and Chakotay looks at Adreek, going, “But that one was kind of good.” That was delightful.
Liz: Chakotay is a-okay with people making racist jokes about his first offer.
Anika: Which is awful, but also kind of Chakotay. And also, you said you don’t ship Adreek/you.
Liz: No, I don’t.
Anika: Do you ship Adreek/Chakotay?
Liz: I absolutely do.
Anika: Just wanted to make sure.
Liz: We will get into that later in the season, but I definitely have questions about whether or not they’ve explored each other’s bodies. And as I think I’ve said, there are very, very few captain/first officer relationships that I do not on some level ship. One of the others is Janeway/Tysses, because I do think Tysses is married to Noum.
Anika: And he won’t break that?
Liz: Yeah, yeah, look. They’re clearly very dedicated to each other. In my headcanon that I’ve made up.
Anika: I like it. It would be a call back to the beginning of Starfleet and the Federation.
Liz: No, that’s what I mean.
Anika: The races that don’t get along. It’s lovely. It’s beautiful.
Liz: That they host the best dinner parties because they’re so mean to everyone.
Anika: You know, you’re correct, because Noum is like culturally mean.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I mean, they’re both culturally mean, but they’re culturally mean in like he’s pugnacious about it. He is very in your face. And Tysses has that biting wit.
Liz: Yes. Tellerites are pugnacious and Andorians are snide. And frankly, if they started a podcast, I would subscribe.
Anika: Can we please petition that? Even if it was just like three or four episodes of just a little fun, ridiculous… I would love that so much. I would pay money.
Liz: Jason Alexander and Daveed Diggs have nothing else going on, right?
Anika: They definitely want to do this for us.
Liz: For us, yes. Back to Chakotay. In the prison, he says of the kids, it’s not as if we can leave them behind. And then in the climax, he abandons a bunch of children in the Delta Quadrant. And it’s not even the first time he’s done that. Chakotay has form. Like, Janeway and Paris’s salamander babies. Basically, Chakotay sees some kids who are in some way closely connected with Janeway. And he’s like, no, no, thank you. They will not be part of my life. I will do everything I can to avoid them.
Anika: Exactly. It’s pretty harsh.
Liz: Everyone’s like, oh, Chakotay is such a dad. Janeway is such a mom. And it’s like, no, neither of these people wanted children. They tried to avoid it. Janeway tried to arrest these children.
Anika: And like we said last week, even when she brings them on board her ship, it’s not – like, she pulls a Picard.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: She’s like, Doctor, that’s on you. You do that.
Liz: Yeah, someone else is dealing with these children. I am honestly going to explode on Tumblr sometime in the near future because I am so sick of the reductive “Janeway’s the mom, Chakotay’s the dad” talk that’s happening. I get that people want that, but have you considered watching what’s actually happening on the screen in front of you?
Anika: I mean, not to psychoanalyze Chakotay and Janeway, but I can totally see why they don’t want kids.
Liz: Oh, yeah, no.
Anika: Their childhoods did not result in that, in a desire to have children or even really be mentors. Janeway does well with Naomi, but she only gets small doses.
Liz: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Anika: And she’s only one kid and she’s like super accelerated and genius. She absolutely pawns her off on other people all the time.
Liz: She actually really struggles with the idea that other people have priorities and autonomy that she hasn’t given them. This is her relationship with Seven, it’s her relationship with the Doctor, it’s even her relationship with Harry Kim.
The great thing about her relationship with Dal is that it has never crossed Dal’s mind that he doesn’t have autonomy and so doesn’t look to Janeway for that level of approval. It simply doesn’t occur to him. This is a deeply fascinating flaw in her as a character. I love it, but it’s good that she doesn’t have biological children that she’s had to raise from infancy.
And Chakotay, as we know, is the abandoned responsibilities and switch sides at the drop of a hat guy. Like, literally — I’m not saying he’d be a deadbeat dad, but he has just abandoned children in the Delta Quadrant for the second time. And I love these characters. I think they’re a great couple, but it’s not necessarily because they’re wholly good for each other. They’re just compatible in ways that aren’t necessarily healthy.
Anika: People prompt me to write fics.
Anika: And I have had for, I’m going to say four years, one in my inbox that is Janeway and Chakotay have a kid.
Liz: Oh.
Anika: And I have just sort of stared at it over and over again. And until this moment, I didn’t realize why I couldn’t write it. But this is why I couldn’t write it because it’s just like, how about they don’t have a kid? And I literally give everyone babies. It is legitimately my favorite thing to do is to make up little kid characters.
Liz: I have actually written a lot of Janeway, Chakotay, kid fic or usually adult kid fic in my life, because that is how I roll. And I’ve been in this fandom game for a long time. And even in the late 90s or the early 2000s, as a teenager, I was like, their kid is not going to be okay.
Anika: And, you know, just to bring back the lizard babies, I have plotted out the lizard babies are de-lizard and grow up on Voyager. And Tom Paris absolutely raises them.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: Like, they get a joining quarter so they can see mom, but 100% Tom Paris raises those babies.
Liz: She is the non-custodial parent.
Anika: Exactly.
Liz: And what’s funny about Janeway is that unlike just about everyone else in her crew, she had an idyllic childhood with a functional family and two parents who loved her. But she was also raised in the cult of Starfleet, and that does a certain amount of damage to a person.
Anika: So we’re a little bit off topic.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: So let’s get back to time travel.
Liz: I will save my discussion of how Janeway as a parent would be like Charles Vance, and just constantly feeling bad that she wasn’t there for her kid, but also not doing anything about it.
Anika: Throwing Charles Vance under the bus while we’re at it! I love it.
Liz: The cult of Starfleet!
Anika: The cult of Starfleet.
Liz: The only other thing I have to say about this part of the timeline is that I completely agree with your note about Jankom continuing to be great disability rep.
Okay, this is a trope that really annoyed me for a couple of years in Australian fantasy and science fiction for young people, where the heroine would prove how cool and spunky she is by taking a disabled or elderly person’s walking stick away from them. They’re doing something to annoy her. : She takes it away from them. They’re like, “Get back here, you child!”
And I was like, this is terrible. This is a really, really bad trope. And to depict it in literature for kids, who are very imitative — and this was for younger readers — is just really bad. And so I’m delighted that (a), it’s the bad guys who take Jankom’s prosthetic away from him. And (b), that actually doesn’t stop him. He has wired his mitt to be remote controlled, and all he needs is a janky, broken tricorder.
Anika: Right. And it’s also not written in a way that is like, we needed him to be disabled in order to do this. Jankom being clever was the point of it.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Not the fact that he was disabled.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: It was just so well done.
Liz: Again, I think Jankom is very underused this season, but I really love how he is used when he gets to have his moments.
Anika: And also I have here, “Jankom politely disagrees.” I really just love Jankom having confidence.
Liz: He’s so great.
Anika: And we said that he’s clearly gotten therapy, because he is polite and he does like reign it in, but also it hasn’t lost his personality. I just really liked the way he said. “Jankom politely disagrees.” That was really good.
Liz: He’s learned to assert himself without being an asshole about it. And frankly, there are adults who are still struggling with that lesson. So good for you, Jankom.
I realize that we’re not in a place where we’re likely to ever get more tie-ins, but I would love a short middle grade book about how Jankom got from there to here. Jankom’s Adventures. Honestly, a short book with a chapter or a section for every kid in prep school. Call me. Call me, Paramount. I can make some suggestions and also I would like to write Rok-Tahk.
Anyway, let’s talk about Solum in the present day and Gwyn’s Fairly Bad Day.
Anika: Oh, Gwyn. She was doing so well and then her teammates let her down. It was very sad. It was necessary. This is the plot. But it was very sad.
Liz: In fairness, I don’t think the kids could have realistically prevented Chakotay and Adreek from leaving. In the heat of the moment, they had no way to stop that disruptor from ending up where it did.
Anika: No. It was more they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Liz: I like that this is a series that allows the kids to make mistakes and bad decisions. And these are not frictionless characters with no agency or who only use their agency to make the right choice.
Anika: It’s actually a series that allows everyone to make mistakes. They’re called out as mistakes and then they move on with their lives.
Liz: Yeah. No one’s dwelling. No one’s holding a grudge except for Asencia, who is clearly, you know, in the wrong.
Anika: The villain, I would say.
Liz: I’m starting to think she might not be a good person.
Anika: Oh, um…
Liz: Getting a theory.
Anika: What’s giving you that idea?
Liz: Look, it’s pretty subtle.
Anika: I wanted to point out that Ilthuran…
Liz: Congratulations on saying his name correctly.
Anika: They call him Stargazer and I was like, okay, that’s your name. That’s your name. That’s what I’m calling you from now on. I’m never saying Ilthuran again. Stargazer is a good name. It is a very descriptive name, like, you know, Skywalker. It sort of had some tragedies in Star Trek. So we’re reclaiming it.
Liz: Among other things, I know that this season of Prodigy was well and truly underway in terms of writing when season two of Picard was being done. And so I’m pretty sure that Prodigy had Stargazer first. And we can get into how I suspect that later in the season because it is a spoiler.
I like that the Vau N’Akat are straight up nativists. If you weren’t born on Solum, then you are not one of us. I mean, I don’t like that, but I think it’s…
Anika: They have, yeah, that they have a reasoning.
Liz: Yeah, it’s a good bit of world building. And as America goes through another nativist phase, it’s like I think this is really good allegorical Trek in the classic sense in that it is telling a story that will resonate with young people, whether that’s Zero is a trans narrative or the state of Solum and its xenophobic death cult. It’s a really good…
Anika: And how Gwyn, who is Vau N’Akat, is caught in that. Because she’s not, she’s not Vau N’Akat enough.
Liz: And if young viewers are old enough to remember the business with Barack Obama’s birth certificate, it really is kind of that. Like, come on, guys. Later in the season, I will talk more about the allegorical aspects and how I think, you know, I’ve complained that allegory is a cop-out, but I don’t think it is in this case.
Anika: I think it’s better in children’s media than it is in, like, I want more from Strange New Worlds.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: But if Prodigy is being aimed at nine- to twelve-year-olds, then this is the appropriate place for that.
Liz: And also, Prodigy tells a story which is a trans allegory with Zero, but Zero is actually a non-binary character. They’re walking the walk as well as talking the talk.
I will say I did not love the Egyptian style art for the ancient Vau N’Akat, just because I think that’s an idea that’s been used in science fiction for a long time.
Anika: Right.
Liz: It’s a bit of a cliché.
Anika: I’m over it. The idea that Egyptians were actually aliens.
Liz: It’s not really what they’re saying, but it’s kind of echoing that.
Anika: It’s leaning on… I liked it better when we were… I mean, they’re definitely also leaning on Jackson Tolkien elves.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: So I get it. I get why. And I’m the person who sees all those things and likes them. I like it when things connect in that way, because the way that things connect are what’s true to humanity in a way, you know?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: So I like that, but I’ve never liked the… It’s just offensive to Egyptians.
Liz: No, that’s what I was going to say.
Anika: The concept that aliens created all their stuff is bad. That’s bad. I think we should not do that anymore.
Liz: And that’s not what Prodigy is doing, but I do feel a way about taking the aesthetics of an ancient culture of mostly people of color and going, oh yeah, we’re just going to borrow that for our aliens.
Anika: And I mean, it’s kind of like Naboo. I love Naboo, but I don’t love how culturally appropriate it is.
Liz: No, that’s it. That’s it exactly. And it just feels a bit visually inconsistent with everything else we see about Solum. I wish that they had gone with more of a Norse Viking Celtic vibe. I think that would have been a bit more visually consistent.
Having said that, I really do appreciate the attention to detail in recreating Egyptian murals and glyphs. The artwork is beautiful. I just don’t like the concept.
Anika: Once again, the series is stunning.
Liz: Oh my god.
Anika: Every frame of the series is so beautiful. When we go down into that test…
Liz: Amazing.
Anika: It’s just gorgeous down from there.
Anika: The attention to detail to the dust is amazing to me.
Liz: Gwyn versus Asencia and hope versus fear and Gwyn as a newcomer to Solum connecting with its history, and “the source of our heirlooms” is just great. I love all of that.
Anika: And there’s this idea that to have hope is to be naive. And I like when characters are actively hopeful. Asencia is just trying to destroy Gwyn. That’s all she wants. And Gwyn is not trying to destroy Asencia. She’s trying to complete the tasks and win the game and prove herself. And there’s just this belief in herself and in her mission that drives her that I just think is powerful.
Liz: It strikes me that Asencia really is one of those people who is sort of like, you know, “Trump is going to win. There’s no point in voting. There’s no point in doing anything. We might as well just give up and go along with it.” And I’m like, ma’am.
Anika: Asencia literally says she’s not trying to avoid the civil war. She’s just trying to win it.
Liz: She’s an accelerationist.
Anika: Gwyn’s actively trying to avoid the civil war. That is her goal, her stated goal. And Asencia is like, yeah, we can’t, but I’m going to make sure that my side wins because I was right all along. And you and your dad aren’t going to stop me this time.
I want to talk about the dust and how it turns into the heirlooms and it’s the source of our heirlooms, as Gwyn said. The concept of the heirlooms, it sort of built more in this season. She had it all of last season and it was clearly tied to her and it was from her dad. It was an inheritable thing. But now it’s like, it’s not just your family legacy, it’s like your family blood, almost. It’s like a part of you. And so I liked the way that they were able to use the dust around them to build their heirlooms and make them more powerful and make more of them.
I keep saying dust. I got extreme His Dark Materials vibes out of this whole concept. And it’s kind of cool to think about. So in the His Dark Materials universe, the manifestation of your soul is an animal. On Solum and with the Vau N’Akat, the manifestation of your soul is a weird metal thing that you can turn into stuff. And I was like, this is kind of cool. I like it. I like this steampunk version of daemons.
Liz: I agree. But also I think that if Gwyn had a daemon, it would be an otter. I think because they have little noses and Gwyn has a little nose.
Anika: Gwyn does have a little nose. That’s true. Gwyn is so much of a dryad type to me. It’s hard for me to think of her an animal at all. It’s like, she’s a plant person.
Liz: No, that is absolutely true.
Anika: I like to see connections like this, and this, because it’s the same sort of thing where this is a story for kids, and it’s about young people who are going through that transition from childhood to adulthood, and that’s when you’re most powerful.
Liz: But you’re also most vulnerable.
Anika: Yes, I love the inclusion of young Asencia.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: In this whole season, but I love that we see her and she’s looking at her older self and she’s just like, I don’t think I like this. I don’t think I want that to be me. I really like that in this timey wimey twisty universe where we get to see Stargazer young and he’s way better. It’s like people aren’t one thing and they’re not destined to be one thing. They have the potential to be everything.
Liz: Yeah, and Gwyn is saying you can change. Asencia doesn’t want to hear that, but young Asencia needs to hear it.
Anika: Right. It was such a smart choice to include her and have her not be a minion of herself.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: But to be an observer who is paying attention and making her own decisions.
Liz: And it’s interesting that she’s sort of in the orbit of the Council and Asencia, but they’re not interacting. It’s like, you’re here because we need to keep an eye on you, but we’re not including you in any meaningful way. And Asencia is not acknowledging her younger self at all.
Anika: Do you know what that’s a lot like?
Liz: No.
Anika: Dal.
Liz: Yes! Close to power, but not allowed to be part of it, not included, not this is… Okay, while I was Googling stuff to add to the show notes and confirm spellings and things, I saw a post from 2022 that was like, the destruction of Solum is Janeway’s fault. And I was like, that is absolute nonsense.
Anika: Why is everything always Janeway’s fault?
Liz: Because she’s a woman.
Anika: I just, it’s, yeah.
Liz: But I am going to say, in keeping with everything I’ve said about Janeway this episode, it is kind of a little bit her fault. Not Solum, but Dal.
Anika: Yes, but again, that is a flaw. And it’s good for mentors to have flaws. It’s good for heroes to have flaws. It’s good for beloved Star Trek characters to have flaws.
Liz: It’s a flaw. It’s not bad writing. It’s good writing.
Anika: Yes, exactly.
Liz: And I think that if Dal sat down with, say, Harry Kim, Harry could tell him some things about what it’s like to actually be Janeway’s special boy. And maybe that’s actually not the position you want to be in.
Anika: Maybe you don’t want to have your growth stunted for seven years.
Liz: Yeah. And I’m not even talking about the promotion thing, because that’s like, I feel like blaming Janeway for that is silly. It’s clearly Rick Berman’s fault. But, you know, “Oh, no, my special boy is having a sexual relationship that I personally don’t approve of” is getting into r/JustNoMIL territory. It’s not a healthy relationship.
Anika: No, no. It’s weird how often Janeway gets involved in her officers’ relationships when her whole deal is, I can’t have relationships with my crew.
Liz: It’s like, you’re kind of sublimating there, Kathryn.
Anika: Yeah, like something going on here.
Liz: Yeah, maybe you should fuck a hologram about it.
Anika: Can we please make that a t-shirt?
Liz: Yes, I will get my pro Canva account and apply the very finest typefaces.
Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.com, including links to our social media, credits for our theme music, and, increasingly, transcripts of our episodes. And can I just say that Apple Transcripts is really not coping with the word Vau N’Akat.
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