Star Trek: 10 Reasons Prodigy Is The Best Series Of The Kurtzman Era
9. ProtoWarp
Revealed right at the end of episode five, the crew of the latest series lead starship discovered that the USS Protostar isn't named by accident.
In Starstruck, Tellarite Jankom Pog and Medusan Zero wondered what was nestled between the unusual twin warp core configuration. A unique piece of machinery, it turns out that the ship has a protostar at the heart of its propulsion system. In previous incarnations of the franchise, the show has pushed that warp limit with both success and failure; we're looking at you, Threshold.
USS Voyager's tilting warp engines were supposedly designed to combat the effects of the warp five speed limit (TNG's Force of Nature) but the Protostar takes it to another level. Trouncing even Discovery's roulette wheel spore drive, the Protostar has a real game-changing killer feature.
Dropping the nacelles below the saucer line and opening up a third jet-engine exhaust point, ProtoWarp doesn't jump the ship from one point to another, rather it takes the starship to a high velocity speed and out of reach of the Diviner. In its first activation the Protostar warps over 4000 light years, taking it clean into the Gamma Quadrant.