Star Trek: Voyager characters returning in Star Trek: Prodigy, there are other more subtle nods to the adventures of Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her crew aboard the USS Voyager - one of which is a direct canonical reference to Star Trek: Voyager's finale.

Mulgrew played her ship's fearless leader throughout Star Trek: Voyager cast was rarely exposed to time travel, although they did have a handful of time-bending storylines. Star Trek: Voyager's "Endgame" brought the show to its conclusion with just such an adventure, and Star Trek: Prodigy quietly acknowledges one of Voyager finale's smallest predictions about Starfleet's future.

Starfleet's Combadges In Star Trek: Prodigy Match Future Janeway's From "Endgame"

iral Janeway in "Endgame" had a never-before-seen combadge design

Starfleet uniforms and combadges are often era-dependent in Star Trek, although they can and do also differ between ships. The Starfleet uniforms in Star Trek: Prodigy are, understandably, a unique design. However, the officers' combadge design in the show first appeared onscreen in 2001. When an alternate version of iral Janeway travels back from the future to change history in "Endgame," her combadge design differs from that of her temporal counterpart and the rest of the Voyager crew. Brilliantly, Star Trek: Prodigy has brought back the design, establishing Future Janeway's combadge as the standard in the years that followed "Endgame."

Star Trek: Prodigy could simply have kept a more recognizable design in play, as the show only takes place five years after "Endgame," and combadges aren't always updated quite so often.

Star Trek: Prodigy's Janeway wearing the same badge as her future self from "Endgame" is an excellent piece of fan service. The show could easily have ignored Star Trek: Voyager's prediction and come up with its own design for the Starfleet combadges. Alternatively, Star Trek: Prodigy could simply have kept a more recognizable design in play, as the show only takes place five years after "Endgame," and combadges aren't always updated quite so often. Future Janeway was also much older than Mulgrew's character in Prodigy, so the franchise still had a while until it had to acknowledge the badge change.

Star Trek: Prodigy's New Combadges Could Be The Result Of A Causality Paradox

Future Janeway's badge now never existed (& yet inspired a design in the past?)

The combadges in Star Trek: Prodigy are a little bit of a head-scratcher. In the original timeline, that Future Janeway travels back from, the badges will have organically been redesigned over time, with no intervention or influence from other points in the Star Trek timeline. That perhaps isn't the case now, thanks to Future Janeway's intervention. After her temporal manipulation, the first time the combadge design shows up from a chronological standpoint is in "Endgame," rather than in Future Janeway's native time. So, Prodigy's combadges could be said to have been inspired by a design that never actually existed.

It's possible Future Janeway's combadge design was rolled out across Starfleet in tribute to her. While this would mean quietly celebrating the Temporal Prime Directive, Present-Day Janeway would likely have enough pull to convince Starfleet to do so. Alternatively, one theory could avoid the paradox altogether. The new combadge design may have already been prepared and was about to be put into active use in "Endgame." Because Star Trek: Prodigy is set so soon after Star Trek: Voyager's finale, the changeover between badges may have been almost immediate, which would explain why Future Janeway had the same one.