Was Lt. Carey screwed over in Voyager?

[tighr]

The_Baron wrote:

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The thing that always got me about the 'night shift' was the notion that nothing important ever happened during them.

There were at least a few episodes that showed things happening at night. Warhead had Acting Captain Kim changing course to a planet before calling his boss, Chakotay, and informing him of the change. Chakotay called Janeway, who was sleeping.

I think the general idea was that things can happen on all three shifts, but if something important happens or if their heading dictates that they will arrive at a certain planet at a certain time, then the senior officers would adjust their schedules so that they were awake for that event. In the interests of expediency (and because the show is technically about our heroes and not the backshift folk) they just show our heroes as the ones awake all the time. I can grant latitude for not having to show this sequence of events all that frequently.

TNG's Data's Day also showed this to be the case. Data had command of the night watch, Riker had command of the day watch, and Worf had command of the evening watch. Picard, even though he's the Captain, would simply be on the bridge whenever he was needed to be, be it day, night, whenever.

A final example is Star Trek VI, when Christian Slater wakes up Sulu in his quarters to inform him of the transmission from Starfleet.

[DonIago]

Yeah, the whole "exciting things only happen during Alpha shift" phenomenon is hardly unique to Voyager.

I just had a "great" idea for a tongue-in-cheek novel tidbit where a scientist is researching why major incidents that impact starships tend to occur during Alpha shift.

[Enterprise is Great]

tighr wrote:

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In TNG's Arsenal of Freedom, Chief Engineer Logan had to take orders from Lt jg La Forge when the latter was acting captain of the good ship Lollypop. He wasn't happy about it, but that's the way its done. This in and of itself didn't make much sense to me, though, because Logan was only a Lieutenant. On a ship the size of the Enterprise, there MUST have been a bevy of Lt. Commanders in charge of the various other departments who would all outrank Logan, too.

I also thought it was silly how many chief engineers the Enterprise had in season 1, and then La Forge gets promoted in season 2 and keeps the job for the next 15 years.

Someone, I think it may have been Gene Roddenberry, had the "brilliant" idea that by the 24th century starships didn't have chief engineers. Just engineers and the ship mostly fixed itself. After the first season they dropped that idea.

[tighr]

Enterprise is Great wrote:

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Someone, I think it may have been Gene Roddenberry, had the "brilliant" idea that by the 24th century starships didn't have chief engineers. Just engineers and the ship mostly fixed itself. After the first season they dropped that idea.

Just on the Enterprise-D, we saw Lt. Cmdr Argyle, Lt. Cmdr Leland T. Lynch, and Lt. Cmdr McDougal all in the first season. Even if they weren't "Chief Engineers", they were at least officers on board who were Lt. Cmdrs.

Strangely, Riker, Crusher, Pulaski, (and Shelby for a brief time), then later Troi, were the only Commanders ever seen on screen. On a real ship, Data would probably have been a Commander (Operations Chief), and so would whoever was Chief Engineer (La Forge). All other department heads should have been Lt. Cmdrs and report directly to Riker.

[Anwar]

Well, Lt Cmdrs actually are a high enough Rank to command their own vessels (small ones, obviously). Makes sense most of them would rather do that than stay as a department head on another ship.

[Guy Gardener]

The difiant was a support vessel to ds9. Like a rowboat tied to the side of a battleship.

Although, Sisko being given DS9 in the beginning?

If the Prophets hadn't promoted him to Emissary, it's likely he would have been promoted or given a superior somewhat soon after the first episode.

[Anwar]

The Defiant is more like a Pocket Battleship assigned to a Port than a rowboat to a Battleship.

[Guy Gardener]

Sisko's command wasn't DS9.

Sisko was facilitating the assimilation of Bajor into the federation.

DS9 is just where he put his feet up.

It was DS9 which was the rowboat and the defiant was perhaps a paddle.

[Kinggodzillak]

Of course Carey got screwed over. He got confined to quarters and nobody thought to let him out until six years later.

[JanewayRulz!]

Well, he did get to hit on 7 of 9 in "Relativity"... but since that was in the past, I guess it doesn't negate the "confined to quarters" argument.

[Guy Gardener]

JanewayRulz! wrote:

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Well, he did get to hit on 7 of 9 in "Relativity"... but since that was in the past, I guess it doesn't negate the "confined to quarters" argument.

That verson of seven of nine died and was replaced, and that timeline was replaced... "Sigh"

This is why I think Joe was a dog. He was playing the long game with Anika, despite his wife being in the same Solar System.

So, only if Seven was integrated with all her corpses, then after Relativity she would have been obligated to take Joe out for some joe just like she promised she would.

[Itachi]

The Overlord wrote:

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Was Lt. Carey screwed over in Voyager? He appeared now and again in season 1, but from season 2 to 6, he only appeared in episodes when someone traveled into the past, what was the regular Lt. Carey doing on Voyager in those seasons, why did he only show up in the past?

Then in season 7, he made one real appearance where he was killed off. That seems pretty anti climatic as an end to the character. Future Janeway showed up in Endgame said she traveled back in time to get Voyager home to spare the lives of the crew men who die on the long journey back to Earth, but what about Lt. Carey? Future Janeway didn't seem interested in traveling further back in time to save him and he died a few months before Voyager got home.

Oh yeah he was screwed from the start. He was the "red shirt" of Voyager