The crew decide to destroy the Protostar to save Starfleet.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: When Admiral Janeway tells the prodigies that all but one of them got into Starfleet, Dal assumes that, being an augment, he didn't get in. Janeway then tells him that he did; it's Gwyn who's not joining them, since she's going to Solum instead.
- Big Damn Kiss: Dal and Gwyn get a proper one after their first attempt was spoiled in the previous episode, a final goodbye before she leaves for Solum.
- Bittersweet Ending: Holo Janeway and the Protostar have been destroyed, Gwyn leaves the others to go to Solum and unite her people, and the other prodigies won't be accepted into Starfleet Academy. On the other hand, Admiral Janeway pulls strings to make them Warrant Officers under her command, hinting that she's got big plans for them, and there's hope for Chakotay and the Protostar to be saved.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Holo Janeway uses Dal's "Go fast!" command for warp travel as her last words before engaging and detonating the protocore.
- Brick Joke: Cross-series example. In the Lower Decks episode Grounded, Mariner complains that the Golden Gate bridge is useless because no one drives anymore. This episode shows that the bridge has been converted to a solar farm.
- But Now I Must Go: Gwyn chooses to find Solum in the present, which means she has to leave her friends behind.
- Continuity Nod: Dal uses Gwyn's Malaproper phrase "cat boots" from the first episode, which she corrects to "cahoots".
- Dead Man Writing: In place of her program, Holo Janeway leaves a message for the crew on the isolinear chip, a final goodbye as well as encouragement for them to reach Starfleet without her help.
- Face Death with Dignity: Holo Janeway only briefly hesitates when she realizes she won't be able to come with the crew, and only because she knows in that moment they won't go if she allows them to learn the truth.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The shuttlecraft that rescues the crew after they crash-land in the bay bears the registry number "NCC-74656-A". "74656" is the registry number for Voyager, suggesting the "big plans" Janeway has in store for our heroes is a newly-commissioned Voyager-A instead of another Protostar-class.* It also serves as a Call-Forward to the Voyager-J seen in Star Trek: Discovery, and it was mentioned in a Freeze-Frame Bonus in Star Trek: Picard that the original Voyager was decommissioned upon returning to Earth (destined to become a museum, according to Admiral Janeway from the alternate future in "Endgame"). Picard later confirmed she was placed in the Fleet Museum with the Enterprise-A and the Excelsior.
- Going Down with the Ship: Dal initially offers to stay behind to detonate the proto-core, but Holo-Janeway points out it would be far more sensible to simply copy her and let the original do the job. However, she realizes that her program is too large to be stored on a single isolinear chip, so she stays behind for real and lets the crew think she's coming along so they won't object.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Hologram Janeway. Worth noting that Dal also makes the offer.
- Loophole Abuse:
- Part of Janeway's argument to allow Dal into Starfleet is that, while he is technically an Augment, it's plainly obvious that he wasn't actually engineered to be superior.
- It's decided that it ultimately wouldn't be fair for the crew to jump ahead in line when many other promising applicants to Starfleet went through the proper procedures to be accepted, so Janeway pulls strings to get the crew posted as warrant officers under her command.
- Mama Bear: Both Janeways. The hologram sacrifices herself to protect her young charges; the Vice Admiral not only refuses to hear any ill spoken of them, but she also impassionedly defends them before a Starfleet tribunal.
- More Expendable Than You: Holo-Janeway tricks Dal into letting her sacrifice herself, when he initially felt obliged to.
- Obi-Wan Moment:
- Captain Trij gets one when she places her ship between two Federation ships, despite her shields collapsing. Fortunately, the Living Construct is destroyed just in time.
- Holo Janeway gets one of her own when she realizes her program has expanded too much to copy onto a single isolinear chip.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The crew somehow manage to fly themselves to Earth in a barely functional shuttle with no navigational computer.
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Janeway gives an impassioned speech defending the kids when Starfleet seeks to punish them for their possession of the Protostar and the antics they got into trying to get to Starfleet.Janeway:[...]But, one year ago, not one of them had ever heard of the United Federation of Planets. Yet, through fate engineered by their own ingenuity, they set their compass to Starfleet and, without their intervention, I cannot say with certainty if all of us would be sitting here right now.
Jankom: Go get 'em, Janeway!
Janeway: The Protostar, named after the early stage of the formation of a star. Powered by it, we designed a ship that could explore the far reaches of our understanding... in hopes of finding others who share our ideals, so that we may create a stronger alliance. Stack up those tests, the psyche evaluations, interviews; they don't hold a candle to what this crew has been through. And concerning the Augment whose name you've conveniently forgotten, his name is Dal R'El. Is he genetically engineered? Yes. Was he enhanced in every way? Look at him, of course not. But, his heart is bigger than any in this room. I should know. The Federation is made up of over 150 member species; Dal's DNA includes 26 of those. So I ask you: is there a better living embodiment of what our alliance represents? - Percussive Maintenance: A quick gag in the denouement subverts this when Jankom gets ready to drop a hammer on a simulation, only to then shift his arm into a set of pincers that he uses to precisely unscrew a bolt, showing that Jankom is taking his education (somewhat) seriously.
- Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: The proto-core detonation requires someone be present to manually activate it, as they can't set it on remote in the limited time they have. Dal volunteers to do it, convinced Starfleet won't take him in because of his status as an augment, but Holo Janeway takes on that job, letting the crew believe they can take a copy of her with them in a shuttle.
- Relocating the Explosion: Dal suggests self-destructing the Protostar to stop the Living Construct, but the idea is shot down because releasing a literal protostar would essentially be dropping a supernova in the middle of the fleet and they could never fly far enough for anyone to survive. Rok then gets the idea to get the protodrive operational and detonate the core while in protowarp, spreading the energy across lightyears of space where no one will be affected.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
- Holo Janeway uses the Protostar's explosion to generate a temporal rift to the future, after the Protostar was captured but before it was sent back in time. This will allow Starfleet to mount a rescue.
- Gwyn decides to find her people and serve as an ambassador to the Federation, correcting the problems that led to Solum's civil war in the first place.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Zero is given a new containment suit built to Federation standards, which means Zero now has proper hands instead of one hand being a claw and their mismatched armor is replaced with a shiny white shell that is professionally built.
- Status Quo Is God: Played with. The Protostar is destroyed, but temporal shenanigans mean a past version of it can be rescued before the Vau N'Akat booby-trap it. On top of that, Janeway reveals that Starfleet has commissioned a Protostar-class, debuting an identical vessel to the crew. However, when asked if that will be their ship, Janeway cryptically says she has "bigger plans", and a Freeze-Frame Bonus suggests Janeway has a more personal choice in mind.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The kids are not immediately accepted into Starfleet Academy, as it is decided that it would be unfair to give them the slots intended for people who had gone through the proper application process. The kids (even Dal) will be allowed to attend, however they must go through that process, which will likely take months or even years to do properly.
- Take a Third Option: The kids assumed that Starfleet would either accept them into the Academy, or reject them completely. Instead, they are accepted into Starfleet as warrant officers (enlisted personnel) until they can properly enroll at the Academy.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Holo Janeway's recording predicts the rough reactions of the crew to her message as she gives it.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: The timeline is gonna be a pretzel after this episode. Gwyn decides to redo First Contact with Solum and prevent the civil war, while the destruction of the Protostar has created a temporal rift that will allow Starfleet to rescue Chakotay and an earlier version of the Protostar before it was ever sent back. So Gwyn is created by an incident that will never come to be if Chakotay is saved, and Chakotay will never need to be saved if Gwyn succeeds, which would also mean she's never born. The Vulcan officer's explanation suggests this is similar to the Kelvin timeline of the reboot films, allowing two distinct timelines to exist without affecting each other. The log from Janeway on the official Instagram reveals the whole thing is now under the rules of the Temporal Prime Directive, meaning no one is allowed to touch it.
- Uncertain Doom: Remember how the Enterprise-E and the Defiant were among the ships being torn apart from last episode? So ... did they survive or not?
- The Enterprise-E herself was thrashed within an inch of destruction in Nemesis as well, and survived that after being towed back to drydock. Eventually, with the Enterprise-F from Star Trek Online being announced to be making its canon debut in Picard's third and final season, the show's Instagram page later revealed that the -E did indeed survive past this event and was taken out of service two years later (in 2386).
- Whether or not the Defiant got away was initially left up in the air. Her predecessor, the original Defiant being "adrift, but salvageable" in First Contact and then back in service in DS9 comes to mind, even if it was just a blatant case of Status Quo Is God. Eventually, the Defiant being a museum ship at Athan Prime in Picard's episode "The Bounty" put the question of her survival to rest.
- Wham Episode: The Protostar is destroyed, and Holo Janeway along with it. With her last act, Holo Janeway creates a temporal rift to the future, one where she, Chakotay and the Protostar have yet to be sent back to the past. The crew joins Starfleet under Janeway's command to find them, though Gwyn leaves to find Solum so First Contact won't be as disastrous this time around. There's also the Uncertain Doom of assembled starships, possibly including the Enterprise-E and the Defiant, the protagonist Starfleet ships in previous series, although both were ultimately averted.
- Wrongful Accusation Insurance: The crew is guilty of countless violations of Federation law, but given the circumstances, the charges are dropped after an impassioned speech from Janeway.
