What they needed to do was experiment with the orchids and find ways to make incredibly cool and useful stuff. DELICIOUS food! You could beam up some of the over abundance of leola root with a piece of chocolate so it all tastes like chocolate. Suddenly everyone is begging Neelix for more of it.
I always had the feeling that the orchid is what really caused the whole problem. Perhaps it was sentient, and saw this as a way to communicate, but it didn't have enough consciousness in its new body to be identified.
Then the Doctor is responsible for a genocide, as he harvested and mutilated forests worth of these flowers to satisfy his scientific curiosity.
The day they discover that tribbles are silent but sentient super beings will be a day of heartbreak and terrible remorse for the galaxy as we know it. Except for the Klingons who will not give a crap.
The Doctor was a montrous egotist willing to foment rebellion just so he coulod be seen as a great Author. I can imagine his 700 year old copy returning to the remains of the Federation where a life and death struggle by photonic lifeforms has been waged in his name against the solids. He'll find himself reviled by humans and hailed as a savior by his lunatic followers.
I've been here nearly thirteen years and there's nothing outside the Abramsverse that hasn't been dissected dozens of times. Welcome to the TREKBBS.
Maybe there needs to be a new question, like, When Tom Paris kissed B'Elanna, was he thinking about (A) Kes, (B) the Delaney sisters, or (C) adding a 5000 watt sound system to the Delta Flyer.
Uhh... "Lad"? *points to symbol below name* It's not that I don't appreciate a lively debate. At the same time, debates that go on indefinitely, in which neither sides ever reach some sort of agreement, or even a compromise, just seem... illogical.