"Caretaker" Questions

[q264]

I just rewatched "Caretaker" for the first time in awhile and I really quite enjoyed it. It's definitely one of the best pilots in the franchise, I'd rate it just below "Emissary" and miles beyond "Encounter at Farpoint". Now I'm sure these things have been discussed ad infinitum on these boards but there are several questions I have about this strong beginning to Voyager.

1) What's the big deal about water? Shouldn't there be sufficient water somewhere to keep all these people alive and hydrated? Surely any planet with flora/fauna/wildlife would have enough water to sustain the ecosystem, or is every planet in this part of the DQ as dry as Arrakis? Water scarcity is an interesting sci-fi concept that works for the Fremen and the Ocampa story, but for a space-faring species like the Kazon it seems rather ridiculous that they are in such a position. How long can they go without water? Do Talaxians also have trouble procuring water? I can't recall if water scarcity is mentioned again during the first season, but it seems more like a convenient plot point than a well thought-out concept by the writers.

2) At the end of the episode Neelix says he will not be a mere passenger on Voyager but that he will be a valuable colleague since he can help them "procure supplies". He does seem sort of like a thrifty pirate before Voyager arrives, though I wonder if Neelix is really lying through his teeth here? They discover him sifting through a debris field and find out that he stole a bunch of water from the Kazon. Not exactly Starfleet material... how good of a pathfinder can he really be? I'm not one of those fans who dislikes Neelix but it makes me wonder how much of this is just smoke and mirrors on his part from the beginning? Sure he turns out to be a pretty good cook and a decent morale officer, but why would Voyager ally themselves with him rather than try to reach an accord with Kazon?

3)Were the Kazon kept around for as long as they were in order to create familiarity and continuity with Voyager's enemies? The idea that they were supposed to represent urban gangs or whatever is interesting in concept but I don't really get that impression from them other than they have various sectarian groups who fight for dominance. Was there something bigger planned with the Kazon that just never materialized? Do any of the Voyager novels involve the Kazon, or better yet explain more about their society and customs?

Overall "Caretaker" is a really good hour and a half of television. I really enjoy how all the characters are introduced and given an established backstory. So much promise with Voyager, I only wish they could have used more serialization/continuity in this series. The parts where they did, like with Seska and the Kazon, worked really well, but eventually they were just forgotten about since the very idea of Voyager being in Kazon territory for so long didn't make sense. If Kazon space was really that vast and expansive, shouldn't there have been planets within their borders with enough water to quench their people's thirst? What was so special about the Ocampa's water?

 

[Lynx]

To give you my theory about the Kazon-Ogla water problem, I have to quote my own website The Kes Website on which there is a page called "Woyager mysteries-and how to solve them".

The Kazon-Ogla and the water problem

According to what we saw in "Caretaker" the Kazon-Ogla who were living on the Ocampa planet had problems with finding water. Neelix too did seem to have that problem. Now, that looks and sounds a bit strange because there would always be a chance to find ice in space, at least on some planet nearby. They did have spaceships of rather good quality after all.

But there's a possible explanation for that problem. If we look at the Ocampa system, Ocampa is the fifth of six planets. According to the book "Star Trek Roleplaying Games, Aliens" which is the only source of information about the Ocampa system, except for the official Star Trek sources, the Ocampa system is the sun Caeleron plus six planet, five smaller ones plus a gas giant. The four inner planets are to small, hot and rocky to have any water. The fifth planet which is Ocampa has no water on the surface and the sixth planet is a gas giant, apparently without moons, maybe some small rocky asteroids orbiting it but in that case they are too small to contain any water or ice.

We can also assume that the wars and conflicts between the Kazon sects has made it very difficult for the Kazon-Ogla who are living on the Ocampa surface to travel outside the system. Maybe they are under siege from the Kazon-Nistrim or some other Kazon sect which makes it difficult for them to travel outside the system and difficult for other Kazon-Ogla ships to deliver water to them. As they don't want to leave Ocampa with its valuable Cormaline which they use to trade with, they have to live with the water problem, at least until they can make peace with other Kazon sects nearby or find water in some other way.

As for the Kazon, I guess there wer only meant to be the main enemy for the two seasons theye were in. What could have been made better was the ridiculous area of "Kazon territory", I mean, it took them almost two years to travel to Kazon space, an area inhabited by rivaling Kazon sects. It would have been better if they had stayed on "The 37's planet" for a while to help the people there build a new Federation and most of the Kazon adventures could have taken place there.

As for the Voyager books from that time (reviews of them can be found at the Kes Website too) , there are no further explanations about if the Kazon were meant to play a bigger role. As for the Kazon in the books, they show up in four books:

Caretaker (the same story as the pilot episode, only more detailed): Kazon-Ogla
The Garden: Kazon-Ogla (only mentioned)
Mosaic. Kazon-Vistik
Her Klingon Soul: Kazon-Ogla


As for Neelix, he isn't always telling the truth. As we can see, he has the ability to over-estimate his own importance, not only when it comes to getting supplies and such.

As for the episode itself, it's definitely one of my favorite episodes and probably the best pilot episode I ever watched.

For me it was the 8 january 1997. Some monts earlier I had gone to a rock concert, by doing that I missed the evenings episode of DS9 which was "Move Along Home". I taped it on my VHS but unfortunately, there were some problems with the airing of the episode so when I was trying to watch the episode next day, there was nothing but a gray screen for most of it.

That 8 January, I went down to a shop which rented movies and such to see if they had that episode. They had very little DS9 and not "Move Along Home" but they had all season 1 of Voyager, a sereis I knew very little about at thjat time (I live in Europe). So I decided to borrow a copy of "Caretaker" instead.

And what a grat pilot it was and still is! Excitement from the first minute to the last and the main characters are introduced in a very good way.

On the contrary to many other series I've watched, even TNG, DS9 and TOS, I took an immediate liking to all the main characters. The only one I did have some small doubts about was The Doctor but that changed in the coming episodes.In fact, the only other series I ever watched where I took an immediate liking to all the main character was NCIS.

I remember that I got goosebumps when Kim says "We're on the other side of the galaxy". Now the real adventure starts, I thought. In fact I almost get the same feeling when I watch it today as then.

After watching "Caretaker" I became a fan and could hardly wait to watch next episode.

 

[q264]

Thanks for the informative reply! That's a really cool site you have, reminds me of old-school Internet, which is a good thing! I'm also a big fan of Kes, she added a peculiar element to the Voyager crew that 7 of 9 couldn't really replicate. I might be in the minority on this but I think she was more than enough "eye candy", or whatever it was the producers felt they needed when they chose to replace her. Kes is unlike any other Trek character and the writers ought to have served her better than they did.

I like the idea that the Kazon on the Ocampa planet are stuck in that system, that would solve "the water problem" while still remaining plausible. It definitely seems like more of a local issue than something that would impact all Kazon, after all even extracting ice from a comet would be a viable source of H2O.

And thanks for the brief novel run-down, I have a copy of Mosaic which I've been meaning to read. Glad there are some Kazon moments in a few of the books, they didn't really get their justice on screen either. I like your idea of Voyager sticking around with "The 37s", that would better lend itself to a sense of continuity and sounds more logically sound in terms of travelling and actual space.

Haha I think you lucked out on your video store having Season One of Voyager instead of DS9's "Move Along Home". As much as I fondly remember singing "Alamaraine" that one reminds me of a scrapped TOS script that somehow made it to the DS9 pile.

 

[Guy Gardener]

1.

JANEWAY: It's virtually a desert. Not one ocean, not one river. It has all the basic characteristics of an M-class planet except there are no nucleogenic particles in the atmosphere.

This is what Caretaker's people did to Ocampa. It can't rain, and hadn't rained for a thousand years. Which means that there is no water table. All the water either floated off, or sunk 500 meters down, and in any case without being cycled by a planet is probably unusably filthy.

The Kazon ran a cormaline mine or were drilling for cormaline, and owned a shop to sell it everyone in the sector. If they were drilling they would need a LOT of water to use as a coolant.

Do you think that that the air without any water particles would be breathable? Not in the slightest? Maybe Caretaker used magic technology to keep the surface mildly inhabitable, which is silly if he wanted the Kazon to #### off. The Kazon did not have the tech to wet out the planet enough to make the air breathable, but they could probably handle a couple square kilometres around the mine/drillshaft... Which would require a shift load of water to maintain.

If Janeway had just sold them some replicators then and there, an hour later they could have gone home.

From Flesh and Blood.

JANEWAY: How many times have we shared replicators to help people feed and clothe themselves?
CHAKOTAY: Trading technology is part of our life in the Delta Quadrant.
TUVOK:: It has been necessary for our survival.
JANEWAY: Maybe we should have been a little more careful about what we traded and who we traded with. Replicators make weapons just as easily as they do food.
CHAKOTAY: We can't undo what's been done.

2. Yes.

3. They changed their minds.

 

[Catarina]

Tuvok: "It's a standard food replicator."- caretaker. Why the hell give weapon creating replication Technology?! Give a food one. The worse thing that could happen is diareah or scalding burns. I call bull anyway. They [writers] don't know what they can and can't do. I thought they built weapons anyway not have a computer zap one up for you. What's the point of having trade agreements to get metals and parts if things can poof ...show up? The replicator makes no sense anyway so it's a moot point. I am just thinking out loud. :-)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Some materials can be replicated, which implies transmutation from a bank of non-specific adjustable matter into other specific matter, or even all the chemicals and metals are stored away as "energy" in a replication reserve, then that's just transportation and not transmutation. The cool thing about a replicator is that it can take non-specific transmutable matter and specific untransumutable matter and then assemble all that together into useful shapes with usable properties.

All/most food that comes out of the replicator is "Replicated protein molecules and textured carbohydrates" according DS9 Blaze of Glory, but I'm really beginning to think that water is just water. The replicator reserve for water is a tank of water. Sure they break it down to energy and add it to whatever to make whatever, but that still means that we are talking about over recycled urine the longer they spend in space without getting a fresh source...

Hydrogen plus Oxygen? it wouldn't be too hard for them to make water, they just need the raw materials, and they're already constantly ramscooping space for deuterium, which is just another word for heavy hydrogen.

Where was I?

If you give then replicators that can only make food and ten years, in ten years they will have replicators that can make anything that can be replicated. It's not a question of respecting the governing software, it's a problem of shining a light on the fundamental principles.

You give them replicators, and suddenly they have transporters, and suddenly they're transporting warheads through shields that don't know what transportation is. The Kazon could conquer a hundred planets before the rest of the Delta Quadrant figures out how to defend against transporters.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I thought replicators made things appear out of thin air not some "transmutable matter bank". That's always what we are told at any rate.

 

[Catarina]

interesting, Guy.

Oh no I didn't mean hand it over to ass hats like the kazon but I see your point.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I remember that one of the Kazon's big trick was to transport his enemies into space.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I thought replicators made things appear out of thin air not some "transmutable matter bank". That's always what we are told at any rate.

This is what I based all that on.

"Replicated protein molecules and textured carbohydrates"

I actually thought it was "resequenced protein" when I started writing, but when you get right down to it they're still "mostly" vegetarians.

RIKER: Then do so. Lieutenant Yar was confused. We no longer enslave animals for food purposes.
ANTICAN: But we have seen humans eat meat.
RIKER: You've seen something as fresh and tasty as meat, but inorganically materialised out of patterns used by our transporters.
ANTICAN: This is sickening. It's barbaric.

Inorganic?

Wow.

Riker doesn't even believe in enslaving vegetables.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I thought replicators made things appear out of thin air not some "transmutable matter bank". That's always what we are told at any rate.

This is what I based all that on.

"Replicated protein molecules and textured carbohydrates"

I actually thought it was "resequenced protein" when I started writing, but when you get right down to it they're still "mostly" vegetarians.

RIKER: Then do so. Lieutenant Yar was confused. We no longer enslave animals for food purposes.
ANTICAN: But we have seen humans eat meat.
RIKER: You've seen something as fresh and tasty as meat, but inorganically materialised out of patterns used by our transporters.
ANTICAN: This is sickening. It's barbaric.

Inorganic?

Wow.

Riker doesn't even believe in enslaving vegetables.

I bet he thinks it's barbaric to whip cream...

 

[Lynx]

Thanks for the informative reply! That's a really cool site you have, reminds me of old-school Internet, which is a good thing! I'm also a big fan of Kes, she added a peculiar element to the Voyager crew that 7 of 9 couldn't really replicate. I might be in the minority on this but I think she was more than enough "eye candy", or whatever it was the producers felt they needed when they chose to replace her. Kes is unlike any other Trek character and the writers ought to have served her better than they did.

I like the idea that the Kazon on the Ocampa planet are stuck in that system, that would solve "the water problem" while still remaining plausible. It definitely seems like more of a local issue than something that would impact all Kazon, after all even extracting ice from a comet would be a viable source of H2O.

And thanks for the brief novel run-down, I have a copy of Mosaic which I've been meaning to read. Glad there are some Kazon moments in a few of the books, they didn't really get their justice on screen either. I like your idea of Voyager sticking around with "The 37s", that would better lend itself to a sense of continuity and sounds more logically sound in terms of travelling and actual space.

Haha I think you lucked out on your video store having Season One of Voyager instead of DS9's "Move Along Home". As much as I fondly remember singing "Alamaraine" that one reminds me of a scrapped TOS script that somehow made it to the DS9 pile.

You're the second person in short time who gives me a compliment for the design of the Kes Website! I must admit that it wasn't intentional to make it "Old-school Internet", it's more me who isn't up to date with the latest website design. I used to be good at such things once but obviously I've stopped developing in recent years.

I agree with your comments about Kes.

As for "Mosaic", it's a good book. I do have some doubts about Jeri Taylor as a writer, she don't have the grip of the characters and messes up her stories with strange internal family relations and try to sugar-coat those as well which is even more visible in her other book "Pathways".

But the story in "Mosaic" is good, both the flasbacks to Janeway's past and the ongoing story which includes the Kazon-Vistik (who we never saw in any TV episode).

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Thanks for the informative reply! That's a really cool site you have, reminds me of old-school Internet, which is a good thing! I'm also a big fan of Kes, she added a peculiar element to the Voyager crew that 7 of 9 couldn't really replicate. I might be in the minority on this but I think she was more than enough "eye candy", or whatever it was the producers felt they needed when they chose to replace her. Kes is unlike any other Trek character and the writers ought to have served her better than they did.

I like the idea that the Kazon on the Ocampa planet are stuck in that system, that would solve "the water problem" while still remaining plausible. It definitely seems like more of a local issue than something that would impact all Kazon, after all even extracting ice from a comet would be a viable source of H2O.

And thanks for the brief novel run-down, I have a copy of Mosaic which I've been meaning to read. Glad there are some Kazon moments in a few of the books, they didn't really get their justice on screen either. I like your idea of Voyager sticking around with "The 37s", that would better lend itself to a sense of continuity and sounds more logically sound in terms of travelling and actual space.

Haha I think you lucked out on your video store having Season One of Voyager instead of DS9's "Move Along Home". As much as I fondly remember singing "Alamaraine" that one reminds me of a scrapped TOS script that somehow made it to the DS9 pile.

You're the second person in short time who gives me a compliment for the design of the Kes Website! I must admit that it wasn't intentional to make it "Old-school Internet", it's more me who isn't up to date with the latest website design. I used to be good at such things once but obviously I've stopped developing in recent years.

I agree with your comments about Kes.

As for "Mosaic", it's a good book. I do have some doubts about Jeri Taylor as a writer, she don't have the grip of the characters and messes up her stories with strange internal family relations and try to sugar-coat those as well which is even more visible in her other book "Pathways".

But the story in "Mosaic" is good, both the flasbacks to Janeway's past and the ongoing story which includes the Kazon-Vistik (who we never saw in any TV episode).

I like your site too, it may be old fashioned but at least it's aesthetically pleasing. ( Why do I keep quoting from the shows?)

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

You're the second person in short time who gives me a compliment for the design of the Kes Website!

Make that three now. A very fine site.

 

[Catarina]

lynx> fourth person. I dig the oldies ;-) brings back memories when we looked technologically stupid and Voy so superior. but we're catching up with our button pushing PADD like devices now.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

lynx> fourth person. I dig the oldies ;-) brings back memories when we looked technologically stupid and Voy so superior. but we're catching up with our button pushing PADD like devices now.

We're still a while away from that delivering of PADDs on foot, instead of doing something archaic like sending an Email for example...

 

[Lynx]

And we don't have transporters yet!

Anyway, thanks to all of you for nice comments about the site.

 

[Guy Gardener]

How difficult would it have been for Kathryn to knock the Kazon back to cowboy times?

If they were going to keep getting in her face, why not Basics them right back, or really they had the firepower to have done it first?

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

How difficult would it have been for Kathryn to knock the Kazon back to cowboy times?

If they were going to keep getting in her face, why not Basics them right back, or really they had the firepower to have done it first?

The first time the Kazon used transporter technology they ended with pieces of the furniture fused in their bodies...

 

[Guy Gardener]

Humans saw Vulcan Transporters, and it still took them almost a century to get their own approximations of that technology working right.