Voyager - What if...?

[Dale Sams]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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Shelby is all about weapons.

Janeway couldn't build new torpedoes.

Shelby would have a full compliment of tricobolt missiles.

Janeway built an airponics bay.

Shelby would be making new phaser batteries.

Janeway gives fair warning.

Shelby finishes fights before the other guy has had his morning coffee.

Imagine Kazon Coffee.

You need some better inspiration to seek out the Alpha quadrant?

SHELBY: "Wait...this guy has Neelix's LUNGS? Well take them back!"

TUVIX: "Captain, I am a living, sentient..."
SHELBY: "STFU."

SHELBY: "You delete that Cardassian program Doctor, and I delete you."

CHAKOTAY: "You see Captain, in my culture..we call this a 'Vision Quest'.
SHELBY: "Wasn't that a really shitty wrestling movie?"

[Guy Gardener]

So, she's mellowed with age?

[tighr]

Dale Sams wrote:

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Realisticlly, if we use a WW2 analogy...by the end of the Dominion War, ENSIGNS we saw in season 2 of DS9 would have their own ships.

Realistically, with the increase in life expectancy of humans, most officers would remain an Ensign for 10+ years, and wouldn't make Captain before 50 years in the service. There should be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of officers in the Starfleet, and there just shouldn't be that many Captaincy's to go around.

The fact that we saw so many officers make Captain inside of 10 years out of the Academy is plain bewildering (Picard included). The only thing more egregious is nuKirk getting promoted to Captain prior to ever graduating from the Academy in the first place.

I realize this contradicts what we see on screen, so working within the framework of "it's ridiculously fucking easy to become Captain by 30" means Riker should have been Captain by 30.

I compare it to the apprenticeship line from ST:INS, where the students are making master quality quilts prior to even becoming apprentices. When you have that much time to get it right, then take your time and get it right.

[Melakon]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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In my head when I constructed the joke "pips" made a lot more sense, however the quote referencing "pins" had me backed into a corner.

"Sigh"

I'm sorry I ruined the set-up for you, Guy.

[Guy Gardener]

You're forgiven because your avatar is awesome.

Casualty reports were supposed to be in the trillions.

Is that because planets were expected to be sacked or is star fleet numbers in the billions?

Getting ont a Star Ship is hard. especially if there are only 100s of thousands of spots and billions of Officers jockeying for pole position... If you get on a star ship you're super special.

There are millions of lieutenants just maintaining/guarding random transporter pads on planets and never see space.

Positions on star bases is difficult, positions on Starships, permanent ones at least, are impossible. The Boy who could fly said that that there was a mandatory minimum required time that ensigns had to serve on starships to keep rank.... Which was just a couple weeks I think.

[Josan]

R. Star wrote:

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Besides... I just want to see Captain Shelby for that brief snippet of Riker in Death Wish.

"Oh hello Commander," Shelby said with a smirk, "please cooperate and testify for Q. That's an order, and if you think about giving me any lip, I'll snap you back so hard you'll think you're a first officer again... oh wait, you still are!"

It's times like these I wish the boards had a "Like" button.

[propita]

tighr wrote:

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Riker was offered Captaincy no less than three times in the first two seasons (one of which was prior to taking the Enterprise assignment). For whatever reason, Riker just wasn't interested anymore in becoming a Captain (despite earlier admissions about wanting to be a Captain by 30).

Any chance this could have happened when he was split? Maybe, akin but less than Kirk, the split was uneven? Tom Riker still seemed gung ho about being a captain, though now his chances sucked (and didn't he join the Maquis anyway? or was that a fanfic?)

[Melakon]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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You're forgiven because your avatar is awesome.

Thank you. I was starting to think it was too distracting, and changed it to a single photo a couple hours ago, until I saw your reply just now.

[tighr]

propita wrote:

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Any chance this could have happened when he was split? Maybe, akin but less than Kirk, the split was uneven? Tom Riker still seemed gung ho about being a captain, though now his chances sucked (and didn't he join the Maquis anyway? or was that a fanfic?)

That's a great retcon, and would be nice if that had been followed up on, but the episodes in season 1 all portray a gung-ho Riker, just one who kept turning down Captaincy. It wasn't until later that we discover the transporter accident, but there's no way the writer's had planned for that back in season 1.

And yes, Tom Riker does end up in the Maquis on DS9, and presumably is still at large (in canon; I've never read the novels). He's supposed to be in a Cardassian prison camp.

[teacake]

Melakon wrote:

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Thank you. I was starting to think it was too distracting, and changed it to a single photo a couple hours ago, until I saw your reply just now.

There have been many seizure inducing avatars here but yours isn't one of them

[Guy Gardener]

Imzadi II by Peter David is about his rescue from the camps.

[teacake]

Oh really? I never read that one, the first Imzadi was so awful I never considered it.

[Melakon]

teacake wrote:

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There have been many seizure inducing avatars here but yours isn't one of them

That's what I was most concerned about actually, and tried to ease the transitions compared to others I'd seen.

[Guy Gardener]

teacake wrote:

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Oh really? I never read that one, the first Imzadi was so awful I never considered it.

I think Tom hooks up with Selar Yar some how?

The first page is hilarious.

It's Jadzia dying in his arms he's cradling her, screaming and crying, purple klingon snot everywhere totally broken in grief massively and utterly... Then there's this stray throught in the back of his head: "I was a freaking moron to think that what I felt for Deanna Troi was love... So why the hell did I mary her?"

I think I got the audio book out of the library, it was read by JG Hiertziler quite well.

[teacake]

What I remember about the first one was that it was full of girlish purple prose and mary sueness and lots of angst. At one point Troi and Riker have to spend the night naked in a tree or something.. there is some convoluted reason why they are naked. I was always hearing this was the most wonderful Trek book ever. This was back in the days when Troi and her romances was the stuff of shipping wars. It was my first or second ever Trek book and I hadn't yet realized that Trek books write all relationships as though everyone was 15 years old and crying in the bathroom at lunch so I was shocked it was so bad.

I probably have Imzadi II somewhere, I used to buy Treklit in bulk lots on ebay and ended up with several copies of it.