One thing that annoys me in Voyager...

[Sophie74656]

But Janeway could have gone back to the events in "Caretaker" and used the advanced weaponary of the shuttle to buy her younger self the time needed to activate the return mechanism on the array, how many of her crew lives would she have said then, sure there was a risk that some would be killed or injured activating the array but there was a risk some would be killed or injured trying to destroy the transwarp hub. But of course that early on they hadn't picked up Seven yet. Janeway's action where in part selfish because she lost friends along the way Seven and Tuvok in a way. So what if other people had lost friends/family in the seven years since arriving in the DQ and using the transwarp hub.

Speaking about the transwarp hub, it had an exit fairly close to Earth, so why didn't the Borg use it to send vessel or two (hundred) to assimilate Earth before Starfleet could react. Why not have the exit point somwhere near Ivor Prime for example.

This was mentioned in another episode..Shattered.

JANEWAY: I can't let this happen. Not again.
CHAKOTAY: What are you talking about?
JANEWAY: Voyager getting stranded. All these deaths, this entire future, it's my fault. I've got to do something to change it.
CHAKOTAY: What do you have in mind?
JANEWAY: Maybe we can find a way to modify Seven of Nine's plan. Put Voyager into temporal sync with my timeframe.
CHAKOTAY: Captain.
JANEWAY: Now that I know what to expect, I could avoid getting trapped in the Delta Quadrant in the first place.
CHAKOTAY: Halt turbolift. Seven's plan is dangerous enough. Trying to alter it is too risky.
JANEWAY: It's worth the risk.
CHAKOTAY: If Seven's idea works, Tuvok and the other crewman will be fine.
JANEWAY: They'll still be stuck in the Delta Quadrant. If the temporal anomaly doesn't kill them, something else will. The Borg, telepathic pitcher plants, macroviruses. The Delta Quadrant is a death-trap.
CHAKOTAY: What about the Temporal Prime Directive?
JANEWAY: To hell with it.
CHAKOTAY: With all due respect, it's a little presumptuous to think you have the right to change everyone's future.
JANEWAY: From what I've seen, they'll thank me.
CHAKOTAY: All you've seen are bits and pieces. You're not getting the whole picture.
JANEWAY: Really? Just what am I missing?
CHAKOTAY: It's not what, it's who. People like Seven of Nine, a Borg Drone who'll become a member of this crew after you help her recover her humanity. Or Tom Paris, a former convict, who'll be our pilot, chief medic, and husband to B'Elanna Torres.
JANEWAY: That angry woman I just met?
CHAKOTAY: She's going to be your Chief Engineer. Two crews, Maquis and Starfleet, are going to become one. And they'll make as big a mark on the Delta Quadrant as it'll make on them by protecting people like the Ocampans, curing diseases, encouraging peace. Children like Naomi and Icheb are going to grow up on this ship and call it home. And we'll all be following a Captain who sets a course for Earth, and never stops believing that we'll get there.
JANEWAY: Are you going to be lecturing me like this for the next seven years

 

[fireproof78]

If Beltran had more soliloquies like that one, he might have been happier.

 

[Sophie74656]

If Beltran had more soliloquies like that one, he might have been happier.

Yeah maybe. But maybe if hadn't spoken so negatively about the show and the writers from the start he would have been given more

 

[2takesfrakes]

They always say, "you never know who's watching." Some girl who likes you might see you acting the fool, shooting your mouth off, in public. Stuff like that's why you gotta stay cool. Keep Frosty, that's the message! Besides, what is he - an old lady? Beltran's snides and offhand remarks may have helped him feel a little better for a couple minutes, maybe ... only to go right back to the same problems. Even we simple peasants know that as an actor in Hollywood, you don't want a reputation of being difficult, or not being a team player. Then again, the Latin people are people of passion. A passion not easily contained. But for fortune and glory, you know what? I'd keep a lid on it ... I'd smile. And I would lock my negativity in a strong box, until my contract was completed.

 

[locutus101]

They always say, "you never know who's watching." Some girl who likes you might see you acting the fool, shooting your mouth off, in public. Stuff like that's why you gotta stay cool. Keep Frosty, that's the message! Besides, what is he - an old lady? Beltran's snides and offhand remarks may have helped him feel a little better for a couple minutes, maybe ... only to go right back to the same problems. Even we simple peasants know that as an actor in Hollywood, you don't want a reputation of being difficult, or not being a team player. Then again, the Latin people are people of passion. A passion not easily contained. But for fortune and glory, you know what? I'd keep a lid on it ... I'd smile. And I would lock my negativity in a strong box, until my contract was completed.

All in all, that sounds like good advice.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Oh, you betcha! Beltran could've had it all, play The Game, and maybe end up with another successful series OR ... act prideful and end up begging on bended knee for Dinner Theatre gigs. Were I an actor, I'd have it made. 'Cause I want money ... more than I need!

 

[locutus101]

Oh, you betcha! Beltran could've had it all, play The Game, and maybe end up with another successful series OR ... act prideful and end up begging on bended knee for Dinner Theatre gigs. Were I an actor, I'd have it made. 'Cause I want money ... more than I need!

There's never enough money, the more they have, the more they want. Plus there are those who go to Vegas and gamble all the surplus away.

 

[MacLeod]

This was mentioned in another episode..Shattered.

JANEWAY: I can't let this happen. Not again.
CHAKOTAY: What are you talking about?
JANEWAY: Voyager getting stranded. All these deaths, this entire future, it's my fault. I've got to do something to change it.
CHAKOTAY: What do you have in mind?
JANEWAY: Maybe we can find a way to modify Seven of Nine's plan. Put Voyager into temporal sync with my timeframe.
CHAKOTAY: Captain.
JANEWAY: Now that I know what to expect, I could avoid getting trapped in the Delta Quadrant in the first place.
CHAKOTAY: Halt turbolift. Seven's plan is dangerous enough. Trying to alter it is too risky.
JANEWAY: It's worth the risk.
CHAKOTAY: If Seven's idea works, Tuvok and the other crewman will be fine.
JANEWAY: They'll still be stuck in the Delta Quadrant. If the temporal anomaly doesn't kill them, something else will. The Borg, telepathic pitcher plants, macroviruses. The Delta Quadrant is a death-trap.
CHAKOTAY: What about the Temporal Prime Directive?
JANEWAY: To hell with it.
CHAKOTAY: With all due respect, it's a little presumptuous to think you have the right to change everyone's future.
JANEWAY: From what I've seen, they'll thank me.
CHAKOTAY: All you've seen are bits and pieces. You're not getting the whole picture.
JANEWAY: Really? Just what am I missing?
CHAKOTAY: It's not what, it's who. People like Seven of Nine, a Borg Drone who'll become a member of this crew after you help her recover her humanity. Or Tom Paris, a former convict, who'll be our pilot, chief medic, and husband to B'Elanna Torres.
JANEWAY: That angry woman I just met?
CHAKOTAY: She's going to be your Chief Engineer. Two crews, Maquis and Starfleet, are going to become one. And they'll make as big a mark on the Delta Quadrant as it'll make on them by protecting people like the Ocampans, curing diseases, encouraging peace. Children like Naomi and Icheb are going to grow up on this ship and call it home. And we'll all be following a Captain who sets a course for Earth, and never stops believing that we'll get there.
JANEWAY: Are you going to be lecturing me like this for the next seven years

I think you are missing the point I have been trying to make.

Like above we are told in "Eye of The Needle" that because of the impact they haver had they can't prevent the mission to the badlands from happening.

So orignally the journey took 23 years, but Janeway because she lost some friends along the way decides to bring them home 16 years earlier. So if it was wrong in "Eye of the Needle", as pointed out above it was wrong in "Shattered" to prevent the mission, why is suddenly ok to earse the impact those further 16 years would have had?

 

[KelisThePoet]

Well, the real answer is because it's a seven-year series, not a twenty-three year series or a one-year series or a six-year series. The show was about us watching them journey through the Delta Quadrant for seven years. I'm sure most viewers suspected they'd get home in the finale, but it makes the show more interesting if the exact seven-year timeframe is never confirmed until the end and if certain circumstances seem to be against it.

But the fictional explanation is rather straightforward. Admiral Janeway decided to get them home early. She decided the transwarp hub was her best shot, better than the Caretaker's array or any of the other shortcuts they'd encountered. You can quibble with her reasoning, there, but it's all hypothetical anyway. And yeah, she probably was also influenced by her friendship with Seven of Nine, something that would be wiped out if she got them home too early. So those are ethically questionable motives on Admiral Janeway's part, which doesn't strike me as a great revelation or a writing inconsistency, because Admiral Janeway is presented throughout the episode as an ethically questionable character.

 

[locutus101]

Well, the real answer is because it's a seven-year series, not a twenty-three year series or a one-year series or a six-year series. The show was about us watching them journey through the Delta Quadrant for seven years. I'm sure most viewers suspected they'd get home in the finale, but it makes the show more interesting if the exact seven-year timeframe is never confirmed until the end and if certain circumstances seem to be against it.

But the fictional explanation is rather straightforward. Admiral Janeway decided to get them home early. She decided the transwarp hub was her best shot, better than the Caretaker's array or any of the other shortcuts they'd encountered. You can quibble with her reasoning, there, but it's all hypothetical anyway. And yeah, she probably was also influenced by her friendship with Seven of Nine, something that would be wiped out if she got them home too early. So those are ethically questionable motives on Admiral Janeway's part, which doesn't strike me as a great revelation or a writing inconsistency, because Admiral Janeway is presented throughout the episode as an ethically questionable character.

Well, they were saved by technobabble deus ex machina and a bit of retconning. Not to mention the paradox of having older Janeway change the destiny of her younger self and still be there to see it.

 

[KelisThePoet]

If you're going to dismiss all the franchise's time travel episodes with paradoxes, you'll have to dismiss most of the franchise's time travel episodes.

I have no idea what makes "Endgame" an example of "retconning," and "technobabble" is little more than pejorative for a science-fictional premise a viewer doesn't like or buy. Again, plenty of that throughout the franchise.

Deus ex machina--a theatrical term that originally meant a god introduced to the stage by a mechanical, special effect--can now mean broadly any powerful character or device that effects a resolution. Taken so broadly, I don't see anything wrong with a deus ex machina. This type of deus ex machina only ruins the drama when he/she/it appears suddenly, contrary to expectation, and shuts down all conflict. But the character of Admiral Janeway is developed throughout the two-hour episode, and far from shutting down conflict, is resisted and ultimately converted in purpose by Captain Janeway and the crew.