Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 introduced a distant relative of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), setting up a potential Soong family reunion in Prodigy season 2. Actor Brent Spiner has played multiple branches of Data’s family tree in TNG, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Picard from his 24th-century father, Noonien Soong, all the way back to 2024’s Adam Soong. Other members of the Soong family have been played by Fionnula Flanagan, who played an android replica of Data’s mother, and Star Trek: Picard‘s Isa Briones, who played Data’s twin “daughters”, and the daughter of Adam Soong.
After spending most of season 1 trying to learn more about his origins, Star Trek: Prodigy‘s Dal R’El (Brett Gray) discovered he had a connection to Star Trek‘s Soong family. Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 sees Dal and the former crew of the USS Protostar get commissioned as Warrant Officers under the command of Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). Now part of an official Starfleet crew, Dal has a chance to learn more about his lineage, and could perhaps meet Data himself. Although Data died four years before the start of Prodigy‘s timeline, there are still several ways that the beloved Star Trek: The Next Generation character could feature in Prodigy.
13 Star Trek Legacy Characters In Prodigy Season 1
The USS Protostar’s ragtag young heroes encounter over a dozen Star Trek legacy characters, many voiced by the original actors, in Prodigy season 1.
How Star Trek: Prodigy’s Dal Is Related To TNG’s Data
In Star Trek: Prodigy season 1, episode 15, “Masquerade”, Dal discovered the answers about his origins when the USS Protostar ports at Noble Isle. It’s there that Dal encounters the rogue geneticist, Dr. Jago (Amy Hill) who deduces that he was the result of genetic experimentation. Created from the DNA of 26 alien species, Dal was a unique humanoid hybrid, created by proteges of the late Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner). Arik Soong believed that Star Trek‘s Eugenics Wars were the result of humanity’s irresponsible approach to genetic engineering. Arik later abandoned genetics to focus on robotics, paving the way for his descendant Noonien Soong to build Data and Lore hundreds of years later.
While Dal isn’t a direct descendant of Arik Soong, he is a product of the geneticist’s research, effectively making him a distant cousin of Data. The proteges of Arik Soong weren’t named on screen in Star Trek: Prodigy, but Soong’s research was preserved for posterity in Star Trek: Enterprise. The scientists that created Dal could be rogue geneticists inspired by Arik’s work, or they could even be unseen members of the Soong family. Star Trek: Picard reveals Data’s human half-brother, Altan Inigo Soong, which suggests that there are other members of the scientific dynasty waiting to come out of the woodwork.
Could Data and Dal Meet in Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2?
Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 is set in 2384, long after Data gave his life to save Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in Star Trek: Nemesis. However, there are multiple ways for Data and Dal to meet in Prodigy season 2. Dal has already met holographic representations of a number of legendary Starfleet officers, like Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Lt. Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in the episode “Kobayashi.” There’s no reason that Dal’s search to learn more about the legacy of Soong and his proteges won’t lead him to seek advice from a holographic Data.
It’s also worth remembering that Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 will see the USS Voyager-A travel to an alternative 25th century in search of Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran). Chakotay is currently stranded roughly 50 years in the future, which dates season 2 to 2434. That’s roughly 33 years after Data’s resurrection in Star Trek: Picard season 3, setting up a potential meeting with Dal in Star Trek: Prodigy‘s 25th century timeline. As two unique species serving aboard Starfleet vessels, Data and Dal have a lot in common, which makes a meeting between the two a tantalizing prospect.
