Endless ammo and other inconsistencies

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Savage Dragon, Jan 30, 2014.

  1. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I don't think so.

    Whether he could have done it eventually or not, the guy who was working on it ("Oscar Goldman" ;)) was killed by the id monster before he finished, and they never contacted Earth. In the end, they had to reinstall the main engine (assuming they ever actually took it out), before evacuating Altair IV.

    All that really makes it doubtful that it was ever actually built.

    He was still making the heroic effort.

    Well, I wouldn't have said that, though it's true that it seems someone's always unsatisfied.
     
  2. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The trouble with Voyager is that the series format was pulling in completely the opposite direction to what the studio said it wanted.

    Voyager's series format is perhaps the most bold, daring, and unequivocally out-there of *any* Star Trek series.

    Take two crews with differing idealogical viewpoints, put them together on a ship in a hostile territory that is a long long way from any familiar Star Trek elements, and see if they sink or swim.

    Think about that for a minute.

    That's bold. Specifying that there are no Klingons, no Romulans, no Andorians, no Cardassians, nothing at all which people associate with Star Trek.

    The show's format document was taking the franchise and, basically, removing it's safety net of familiar, 'safe' elements.

    Voyager really was throwing it out there.

    If DS9 had already been bold in taking the franchise off the familiar setting of a Starship, then VOY was arguably even *more* bold again, by removing familiar elements altogether.

    It's clear this is where the producers were going with this.

    If they'd been able to do it, then VOY could have refreshed the franchise.

    But the studio, and the network (a factor missing in both TNG and DS9, of course) mandated something different.

    They wanted the next generation of The Next Generation.

    So instead of seperating us from everything we thought we knew about Star Trek, we avoid a lot of the fundamentals of the format. Namely, that the ship should be existing in an unfriendly pocket of the universe, and that events in one episode should have consequences in the next.

    Most of Voyager's biggest inconsistencies come from the fact that the series we got, as a result of studio interference, is about as different from the original premise of the series as you could possibly get.

    I still maintain that the VOY we actually got could have taken place in the Alpha Quadrant, and still not have been substantively different.

    That's the problem right there.
     
  3. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Not really, it was the same plot done like 3 times already by TOS and TNG.

    Same thing happened to Kirk and Picard, and it ended pretty well for them.

    That wasn't a strength, it was a problem. Removing all the familiar stuff and more or less making it impossible to replace them with anything new to generate external storylines.

    The whole "Lost Ship" thing isn't sustainable for more than 2 seasons at most. You need a longer lasting external storyline past that.

    The vast limitations they put on Voyager along with all the other constraints would've meant that "consequences" would eventually just lead to them all being dead.

    They should've done what Berman wanted and wait til DS9 was finished to make the show.
     
  4. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Logically, why would a Cardassian station have the blueprints in their replicators to build a Federation shuttle? Of course they would be shipped in from Earth, until the Engineering crew downloaded the plans into the computer. Replacements wouldn't arrive the same way cause they made mention SEVERAL times DS9 was a few weeks travel from the station to Earth. That's a poor supply and demand system if you need to wait that long for replacements.

    If they could build an upgraded shuttle like the Delta Flyer, then they've covered that shuttles can be built on a Intrepid class ship. Half the staff of the ship are security and Engineers. Why wouldn't military trained security/ Engineers NOT be able or trained to build more torpedos? What exactly are they spending all those years in a military based Academy learning?

    If fans can figure this shit out for themselves it's because they keep picturing these people as average citizens instead of military Engineers and Scientists. It's the main function of their job to solve issues and be able to build/create things. If 150 military trained people on a military based vessel can't do this, then Starfleet Academy should be shut down.

    Like this, comparing a Skipper, Movie Actress, Millionaire & Farm Girl to Military Soldiers.
    It's like comparing Ash Catchem from Pokemon to have the same knowledge as Roadblock from G.I.Joe.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2014
  5. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Whilst Earth might be a couple of weeks away, that doesn't mean there isn't somewhere closer. And you are missing the point we are told flat out that they have NO WAY to replace the torpedeos and how many they have. They use more than that. So where did these torpedeos come from, oh yes A wizard did it. And don't say the replicators surely Janeway would know what the replicators can and can not do. So logically the replicators onboard can not replicate the parts to construct torpedeos. Taking that logic further if they can't replicate the parts to construct a torpdeo then replicating something more complex like parts for a shuttlecraft would be beyond the limits as well. So it would appear that factories are needed to construct torpedeos, so perhaps they couldn't due to not having enough space for all the processes required
     
  6. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Sorry but logic is not pulling ideas out ones ass and pretending it's fact based upon nothing actually proven.
    Considering they've shown Tuvok & Harry constructing a torpedo warhead & the Engineering crew building the Delta Flyer, I'm going to take the "belief" it can't be done with a grain of salt.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2014
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Jem ha'dar did a whole Bit about who was superior the Alpha Quadrant born or the Gamma Quadrant born.

    I was wondering how much it would have slowed Voyager down if she was towing a Sovereign Class Starship under construction?

    They had the plans.
     
  8. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    But I'm not pulling it out of my arse, NO WAY means NO WAY as impossible, can't be done. And if you want to take Janeway's belief it can't be done, thats fine, if you want to rationalise it that way. I would say the simple fact is that they just decided to ignore it. Having a limitation can drive drama, I like others think they missed an opportunity by things like this becomming an issue at some point along the journey.
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The timeline split at the 58 day mark when Fury collided with season one.

    Janeway became aware that they were going to be out there for at least another 6 years, so she stopped waiting for help to come to her, and she wasted a weekend building a stupid torpedo factory.
     
  10. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Not when the limitation made no sense to begin with, which Exodus has just demonstrated.
     
  11. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    We'll have to disagree, I would say all that has been proven is that the creative team didn't care. And in a show filled with inane technobabble (not that the other ST shows weren't quilty of this) you are saying they couldn't have spared two or three lines of dialouge to explain away the limitation. The ST universe has it's own rules, so if they want to establish a limitation that a ship can't replace torpedeos then that's the rule, you want to change the rulke by all means but at least explain why. They did it with the Warp 10 barrier, a new form of dilithium crystal . How it's different doesn't matter really, but at least it acknowledges the rule they had established and how they cna get around it.

    In my view the problem is that they had a premise which leant towards a more serialised format but wrote it as an episodic show. For the people that love it as it is great that you love it, but in my opinion it had a great premise but the execution was lacking. Sure it had it's moments of brilliance and Robert Picardo quite often stole the show but to me it felt like a re-hash of TNG rather than trying to be different.
     
  12. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    People in Hell wish for ice water.
    It is what it is.:shrug:
     
  13. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    From what I saw, every day Hitler wished for a smaller pineapple.
     
  14. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    The other major problem was that the show didn't really have a sustainable plot. "Lost Ship" is only sustainable for 2 seasons at most. Not having anything beyond that meant they didn't have much to work with.

    No, you can't get 7 seasons out of the "We're low on supplies" thing.
     
  15. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    They didn't get one season out of we're low on supplies.

    Probably 10 episodes ever were about resource scarcity.
     
  16. MarsWeeps

    MarsWeeps Fleet Captain Premium Member

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    I'm currently trying to get through Voyager and it's a struggle. I never did see all 7 seasons during it's original run, maybe the first 3 and then sporadic episodes after that.

    It's so obvious that this series suffered from writers burnout or just plain laziness. Over and over and over again "Warp drive is offline" or "Phasers are offline" or anytime something was needed it was "offline." The flipside of the coin, anytime something was running (like the holodecks) and needed to be shut down, they couldn't, the "controls were fused" or some other nonsense. This has to be the worst series for technobabble.

    It seems every other episode a shuttle crashes. I'm really surprised this lasted for 7 seasons. I'm currently halfway through season 5 and after the pounding that Voyager has taken so far, it still looks like it just left Spacedock.

    It was nice to see Jeri Ryan actually do some acting (Infinite Regress) in which different personalities surfaced and while I do admire her looks, all her outfits seemed to be designed to show off her (fake) tits. A borg wearing heels, did I really see that?

    I think it was funny to see Torres wearing one of those pregnancy hiding smocks in several episodes, complete with nerdy looking tools in the upper pocket. Then, after the actress had her child, no more smock. I think they did the same thing with Crusher in TNG. Pregnant? Here, wear this smock, nobody will know!

    Even though I haven't re-watched the series finale, I remember being disappointed when I saw it the first time. They make it back home and then the credits roll. I think they should have had another few episodes that showed what happened to everyone after they made it back home.

    Trek should have ended it's TV run after this series but even with all of its faults, I thought Enterprise was a little better.
     
  17. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, exactly because then the complains would go from "Why is the ship always perfect?" to "Why haven't they learned in 7 years how to keep the ship together?"

    If Voyager's tech was more advanced than everyone else in the DQ, wouldn't flying around in a busted up ship be a contradiction? If it's tech is so advanced, why couldn't they hold the ship together?

    On a ship full of military trained Engineers and replicators, why couldn't they build more torpedos? How is it possible that a Chief Security Officer nearly 100 yrs old, who spent a major part of his career teaching cadets combat, tactical and weaponry.....and he nor any of the other graduates have no knowledge of how to build torpedos? Why would such a thing NOT be a required course? Why would Tuvok, B'Elanna & Harry not have taken a course on how to do this, knowing they'd have to understand how one works when out in the field? We saw B'Elanna taking pieces of one apart to reprogram it AGAIN in "Dreadnaut". She explained she understood it's detonation device. Too know ALL that, you'd have to know how to build one!

    How many times did we hear Janeway state that replicators can make weapons? That's why she didn't want to give one to the Kazon. Why wouldn't military Engineers & Tactical Officers not be able to replicate parts and put together the very technology they use? These are the very people building it and creating it to begin with.

    The line about not being able to build more torpedos was dismissed for these reasons. It doesn't make sense if you have such wonderful tech as a replicator and well trained Engineers that you CAN'T build the shit you need for a Starship, even one lost. The only reason they wouldn't be able to create or build anything is if they lost power to the replicators. As long as those work, they're kinda worry free.
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2014
  18. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    There's a chance that Tuvok spent ninety percent of his time at the Academy teaching Archery Science, which would make him a Gym Teacher.
     
  19. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    :guffaw:

    A gym teach as Security Chief??

    .....That might explain why he could never keep people from boarding the ship and why all he ever did was make the Maquis run in "Learning Curve". :lol:
     
  20. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Conversely if the tech is so advanced it might make it harder to use alien facilites to conduct repairs to things like the hull.

    If replicators could make torpedeos or the parts for them, then they would have a way to replace them, as Janeway stated that they have NO WAY to replace them, then we can infer that they can't. Technology has limits, otherwise were is the drama? Why do we still see them constructing ships, why not just replicate them?