Timeless

[trekkier]

Last night my girlfriend and i were watching Timeless, one of my favorite Voyager episodes, and the scene where Voyager comes out of slipstream about to crash into the ice planet has always bugged me. Why do they have to land the ship?

I know Tuvok said something about the stresses on the hull but wouldn't it be more dangerous to try to land when they're moving so fast? (Obvious answer is yes because we got that awesome crash scene)

Did that ever bug anybody else?

 

[hux]

PARIS: Captain, we're just a few parsecs from the Alpha quadrant.
JANEWAY: Not exactly how I wanted to cross the finish line.
TUVOK: Hull breach on decks five through ten. We're losing life support. If we don't land the ship, we're risking structural collapse.
PARIS: I'm reading a planet nine million kilometres ahead. It's class L.
JANEWAY: Do it. We're coming in too fast! Reverse thrusters. All hands, brace for impact!

If we don't land the ship, it will come apart? How does landing on a planet's surface with gravitational forces reduce this possibility? Dunno. Seems like simply coming out of the slipstream into space would be easier. There might be a mildly acceptable sciencey type answer somewhere but i suspect it's bunkum.

Seems quite specific doesn't it. "We need to land on a planet".....not...."we need to come out of the slipstream".

 

[Oso Blanco]

If we don't land the ship, it will come apart? How does landing on a planet's surface with gravitational forces reduce this possibility? Dunno. Seems like simply coming out of the slipstream into space would be easier. There might be a mildly acceptable sciencey type answer somewhere but i suspect it's bunkum.

Seems quite specific doesn't it. "We need to land on a planet".....not...."we need to come out of the slipstream".

Maybe the intented emphasis was on "We're loosing life support" part ... and that's why they have to land on a planet, where there is an atmosphere outside the ship.

 

[Karzak]

Yeah, I figured the whole "structural integrity failure" bit would be a lot more catastrophic for the crew in space than it would be on an ice planet.

 

[Kemaiku]

Class L planets have 90% carbon dioxide atmospheres, from all previous mentions, so that can't be it or they'd all die within minutes.

 

[MacLeod]

Well the difference between a quick death in the cold of space or a possibly slow death on an ice planet. Tough choice.

And yes this was one of VOY better episodes and the slipstream drive did work for a few seconds. So the obvious question could be why didn't they just use it in short burst before the instability kicked in. Of course the technobabble reason would be

"That the benamite crystals at the hear of the slipstream matric which had already begun to decay, had decayed too much following a slipstream flight"

 

[MacLeod]

Class L planets have 90% carbon dioxide atmospheres, from all previous mentions, so that can't be it or they'd all die within minutes.

No they don't, the following episodes featued Class L worlds

TNG: "The Chase"
DSN: "The Ascent"
DSN: "The Sound of Her Voice"
VOY: "The 37's"
VOY: "Riddles"
VOY: "Muse"
VOY: "Renaissance Man"
ENT: "Bounty"

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Class_L

Sure they may have a higher CO2 content than Class M.

 

[hux]

If it's about life support then the writers need a slap.

Tuvok definitely conflates the need to land with the ships possible structural collapse.

TUVOK: Hull breach on decks five through ten. We're losing life support. If we don't land the ship, we're risking structural collapse.

We're risking structural collapse.....not....we've lost life support.

But it can't be bad writing though. That just isn't something Voyager is known for.

 

[T'Girl]

Perhaps landing would allow them to switch something off, a system that was hastening the structural collapse.

Artifical gravity, inertial damping, atmosphere containment force fields, etc.. Something that was making the existing damage worse, they needed to get rid of it.

 

[Catarina]

What does Class L mean? Seeing as that ice planet is the only frozen Class L we see I'm now assuming it doesn't stand for Lots of frozen ice ;-)

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It does seem a bit of a mystery. All those planets were quite livable by the look of them in those episodes and Voyager may have landed at a pole. Certainly Vulcan looks less hospitable than the 37's planet or the one Quark and Odo were stranded on.

 

[MacLeod]

What does Class L mean? Seeing as that ice planet is the only frozen Class L we see I'm now assuming it doesn't stand for Lots of frozen ice ;-)

Well from VOY: "The 37's"

Class L have a Oxygen-Argon atmosphere, though other episodes where they have featured indicate they have a higher CO2 content such as DSN "The Sound of her Voice". But all it takes is small variances for one to be more habitable than an other, and no doubt planetary classifcations aren't that narrow for example aside from age, size, Class L might mean aside from having an Oxygen-Argon atmosphere the CO2 content could range from 5-10%

 

[Triskelion]

Because science.

 

[Kemaiku]

What does Class L mean? Seeing as that ice planet is the only frozen Class L we see I'm now assuming it doesn't stand for Lots of frozen ice ;-)

Whatever they want it to week to week, but in DS9 they implied that anyone crash landing on one would slowly suffocate over hours or days if stranded.

If Voyager was fracturing and needed to let air in, smashing her into a planet then letting it air heavier in CO2 than they were already breathing was suicidal.

But then Janeway usually was.

 

[Lord Manitou]

According to the crew, leaving the slip-stream like that meant that Voyager was no-longer space worthy. This implies imminent death within days or even hours. As a likely scenario I would suppose the hull was opening to outer-space and primary systems like gravity-plating and other life-support was failing or gone.
Their simple attempt to land on the surface was compromised so they only had some anti-gravity.

 

[nx1701g]

I always took it as the ship needed to land because of the damage it had experienced and because it was trapped in the gravity well of the planet itself. The stresses of the ship being forced out of slipstream followed by the gravitational forces were ripping the ship apart.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Time to post this fan made Timeless trailer again.. one of my favorites.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheNtXMntbM[/yt]

 

[Catarina]

Oh duh, a Pole might be why. And thanks to the others for elaborating on class L.

 

[Lord Manitou]

"If we're knocked-out of that slipstream in mid-flight it will overload our quantum matrix," said Tom. He also said inertial dampeners will be off-line. They just finished the 23 consecutive holo-simulation of slipstream and they all ended the same, with catastrophy. Kim was determined to follow it all through, however, and this begins his guilt and responsibility in killing Voyager.
After they exited slipstream Tuvok announced that the hull is buckling, inertial dampeners are off-line and life support is failing.
Janeway oredered Tom fo find a place to land and he announced a planet, class L, 100 million KM ahead.
There is no indication of being caught in a gravity well. Chakotay remarked as they were examining the derelict ship that they must have hit the atmosphere at full impulse.
That the entire crew died on impact is quite evident.