The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1, Episode 15, "Masquerade," now streaming on Paramount+.

The question of Dal's heritage is one of the overriding plot points in Star Trek: Prodigy. He himself doesn't know where he comes from or what species he belongs to, and even the Starfleet database doesn't have any idea. However, Season 1, Episode 15, "Masquerade" provides some answers, as a sinister geneticist reveals his origins as an artificial creation in a lab.

How or why someone would create Dal is still a mystery, but the revelation connects a name to it all: Arik Soong, a noted geneticist in the 22nd Century involved in some decidedly shady science. In fact, the entire Soong family has a dubious reputation for Frankenstein-style experiments. Prodigy just connected them quite firmly to Dal.

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Who Are The Soongs in Star Trek?

Brent Spiner as Adam Soong talking to someone on Star Trek: Picard.

The Soong family has a history stretching through the whole of Star Trek (largely as an easy way to keep casting beloved franchise staple Brent Spiner). Arik Soong, referred to in "Masquerade," first appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise Season 4, Episode 4, "Borderland." He was an avowed geneticist who believed that augmentation could produce a superior human. Similar thinking also produced Khan Noonien Singh and the Eugenics Wars. Arik himself also proved the fallacy of his beliefs by creating "children" from genetically modified embryos that proved violent and megalomaniacal.

Other branches in his family tree display similar proclivities. His ancestor Adam Soong was one of the scientists on "Project Khan," a 20th-century effort that resulted in the Eugenics Wars (whose place in the timeline remains hotly debated, since it supposedly took place in the 1990s). Adam's efforts at "genetic improvement" ultimately lead humanity to a dark, authoritarian timeline. The second season of Picard centers around Picard's ultimately successful efforts to travel back in time and stop him.

The topper is likely the 24th century's Noonian Soong, descendent of both Adam and Arik who became one of the Federation's leading cyberneticists. He ultimately created Data -- the family's biggest success by far -- though he also created Data's vengeful brother Lore before finally getting it right. Lore served as one of the more prominent antagonists in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and is set to return in Picard, Season 3.

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What Is Dal's Connection to the Soongs?

star trek prodigy e15 protostar

Mad science definitely runs in the family, a fact which apparently resulted in the creation of Dal. "Masquerade" sends the crew to the lab of a black-market geneticist, Dr. Jago, who successfully identifies Dal's origins. He's a human hybrid, with splices of DNA from over two dozen additional species. She identifies Arik Soong's methods in his make-up and attributes his creation to one of his proteges. Dal asks Dr. Jago to activate his recessive genes, which gives him useful abilities, but overwhelms him with their rapid changes to his physiology. Zero is able to reset his genetic sequences aboard the Protostar and return him to normal.

It still leaves the question of who specifically created Dal and for what purpose. If a Soong is involved, however, it's likely to be far more sinister than benign. The family is a walking case study of good intentions gone disastrously wrong, effectively giving Prodigy a lot of potential for dramatic developments. The bigger question may be whether Dal can rise above his creator's intention, making him either another Data or another Lore.

New episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy stream every Thursday on Paramount+.