Star Trek: Prodigy Offers First Clue to Chakotay's Fate

01/13/2022 09:00 am EST

Star Trek: Prodigy returns his week with its latest episode, "First Con-tact." Following last week's epic, Easter egg-filled tribute episode, the latest Star Trek: Prodigy sees the Protostar crew engaging in a longstanding Star Trek tradition by embarking on a first contact mission. Things do not go to plan -- or at least not to the plan that most of them thought they were enacting. But while the crew is planetside, Hologram Janeway continues her investigation into the fate of the Starfleet officers previously operating aboard the Protostar. She doesn't remember that crew, captained by Chakotay, the real Janeway's former first officer aboard the USS Voyager. However, examining the recently recovered recording of them in action may have revealed a clue to their fate. SPOILERS follow for the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "First Con-tact."

"First Con-tact" finds Dal reuniting with Nandi, the Ferengi who raised him. She convinces Dal to lead the crew on an ill-advised mission to a planet that's never received extraplanetary visitors, disregarding Janeway's warnings about breaking the prime directive.

While they're away, Janeway keeps replaying the clip that Gwynn discovered in the last episode. The clip shows Chakotay commanding the Protostar. Janeway tells him to send a warning because someone is boarding the ship. Then someone begins forcing the bridge doors to open.

At first, Janeway doesn't notice anything else, but she continues to play the clip again. Eventually, she catches a glimpse of something. Zooming in on the doors as they open reveals who is opening them: Drednok. He's the robotic being working with the Diviner who pursued the Protostar during its escape from Tars Lamora. Janeway, confined to the Protostar with her memory wiped, doesn't recognize Drednok when she sees him.

It's unclear how the Diviner managed to lose the Protostar on Tars Lamora after Drednok managed to board it. Perhaps the crew repelled Drednok and then hid the ship. But either way, there's still the question of what happened to Chakotay next. Could Drednok have captured him and brought him to the Diviner? If that's the case, he may still be alive in Tars Lamora. Otherwise, he may have escaped and been lost in the Delta Quadrant or killed in action.

When ComicBook.com asked Star Trek: Prodigy's creators about Chakotay's role in the series ahead of its premiere, they remained guarded. "All we can tell you is that obviously Chakotay plays a big part in hologram Janeway's memory banks, so to speak," Dan Hageman said. "And so there's a relationship there um that I think all fans want to see more of, they want to see how it evolves. So I think that's something that is interesting."

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. New episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy debut weekly on Thursdays on Paramount+.

Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Paramount. Sign up for Paramount+ by clicking here.