Arturis...

[Farscape One]

I always had one question about him.

How did he know it was Janeway that negotiated a deal with the Borg?

I doubt the Borg would announce an alliance with an anyone, and since Species 8472 retreated back to fluidic space, I don't think there were any other people or races had knowledge of it.

So how could he have known the Borg made a deal, let alone with her?

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I mean, there was only 1 Federation ship it could've been, and she was the only captain. His species had a firm grasp on what was going on with the Borg and Species 8472, so presumably they had some surveillance tech that was also part of why they were able to keep the Borg at bay for so long. Or they had a way of hacking into the collective but not being able to affect it, doing surveillance that way.

 

[Discofan]

I am surprised that a species of geniuses like the people of Arturis couldn't keep the Borg at bay forever. I mean they had technology that totally baffled the people from Voyager. Maybe their ethics prevented them from taking aggressive measures toward the borg. Like a virus that would have wiped them out. I am not surprised that they would know everything about the deal Janeway made with the borg. They seemed smart enough to have listening devices that would work over light years. To Arturis what Janeway did is the equivalent of giving Hitler the means to win against the Russians for example and therefore being able to prolong the war and the exterminations for many years!!!

 

[Qonundrum]

I always had one question about him.

How did he know it was Janeway that negotiated a deal with the Borg?

I doubt the Borg would announce an alliance with an anyone, and since Species 8472 retreated back to fluidic space, I don't think there were any other people or races had knowledge of it.

So how could he have known the Borg made a deal, let alone with her?

Untapped series potential, that area of the galaxy communicates more readily - as "Live Fast and Prosper" and others show a knowledge of Voyager. Word somehow got around, even by espionage agents - I recall a 8472 story where they were pretending to be humans on Earth. How much or how little exposition to make it feel credible then becomes the issue, but even the outline isn't too outrageous... and might have been better than when 8472 wanted to invade Earth and knew Boothby and everyone else (but who told them? Again, there's a bigger arc that could tie all this together...).

 

[F. King Daniel]

He probably asked one. His backstory means he's had interaction with them and if you ask, they tend to give answers.

 

[Timo]

Good point in any case about rumors spreading so nicely in Delta. Does Alpha have fewer trader cultures, or more zealously patrolled borders, or what? Here on Earth, Mongol conquest made the Silk Road safer than ever, opening up Asia. Perhaps Borg conquest helps out the same way? That is, in eliminating all the big competing belligerents who might otherwise complicate the travels of the rumor-spreading folks, even if not in subsequently establishing Pax Collectiva to physically secure the trade routes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Discofan]

I believe Arturis first heard rumors about what happened, then he used a time crystal plus a red angel suit to watch it exactly as it was happening, that's when he saw that Control was going to end all sentient life in the Galaxy and realized that there was a good chance that the Voyager crew would not qualify as such and decided to take care of them himself.

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

He had probably heard of it "through the grapevine" from other aliens he dealt with, who had also had less-than-pleasant experiences with the Borg. So it's possible that the news of Janeway/Borg/8472 started spreading out from one warp-capable alien species to another to another.

 

[Timo]

In the early seasons, the Kazon were actively spreading malignant rumors on the heroes. They roamed and perhaps controlled the local space with their pretty decent and swift Trabe ships, while the Voyager was still damaged and limping, so that would have been easy.

But then the heroes got their ship repaired and made all those fancy jumps. The mechanism for spreading the rumors would have to change, then. Remarkably, the Janeway/Borg/8472 stuff happened at a specific spot right before a really long jump, and the news thus should have been maximally unlikely to reach Arturis, or anybody else who would be within reach of Arturis.

Except we subsequently learned that the Borg are everywhere, and the 8472 ships can cross tens of thousands of lightyears in a jiffy to be where Janeway is, as in "Prey". So Arturis could have gotten the story from the horse's mouth, so to say. The Borg themselves would be the best vector for the news. And like King Daniel sez, they aren't exactly untalkative when one manages to corner them.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Discofan]

He had probably heard of it "through the grapevine" from other aliens he dealt with, who had also had less-than-pleasant experiences with the Borg. So it's possible that the news of Janeway/Borg/8472 started spreading out from one warp-capable alien species to another to another.

Were those the same grapevines that old Picard was tying up?

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

Were those the same grapevines that old Picard was tying up?

Heheh, Picard's "grape vines" were more pleasant since his family probably made excellent wine. Being French and all.

 

[Prax]

In the early seasons, the Kazon were actively spreading malignant rumors on the heroes. They roamed and perhaps controlled the local space with their pretty decent and swift Trabe ships, while the Voyager was still damaged and limping, so that would have been easy.

But then the heroes got their ship repaired and made all those fancy jumps. The mechanism for spreading the rumors would have to change, then. Remarkably, the Janeway/Borg/8472 stuff happened at a specific spot right before a really long jump, and the news thus should have been maximally unlikely to reach Arturis, or anybody else who would be within reach of Arturis.

Except we subsequently learned that the Borg are everywhere, and the 8472 ships can cross tens of thousands of lightyears in a jiffy to be where Janeway is, as in "Prey". So Arturis could have gotten the story from the horse's mouth, so to say. The Borg themselves would be the best vector for the news. And like King Daniel sez, they aren't exactly untalkative when one manages to corner them.

Timo Saloniemi

Arturis came from somewhere near or far from where Voyager was before their big jump. He followed Voyager all that distance.

Anyways, the answer is simple. He learned it from Species 8472, through the borg, or both, in his investigation.

 

[Timo]

Arturis came from somewhere near or far from where Voyager was before their big jump. He followed Voyager all that distance.

This doesn't work very well, though, because the episode involves a flight all the way back to Arturis' home.

If said home (or its Borgified remains) were 10,000+ ly away, this would mean not only that the slipstream drive that got the villain and the heroes there would be superfast - it would make it extremely convenient that the heroes' slipstream ride there and back in their slipstream-modified starship would give them 300 lightyears extra boost homeward.

That is, if the 300 ly boost home is a small fraction of the five-digit total, then it's a massive coincidence - why did the drive burn out almost exactly after doing the long trip twice (that is, there and back)? If, OTOH, 300 ly is a reasonable chunk of the total distance traveled, then there is no coincidence. And when we make the slipstream drive less capable overall, it's more understandable that our heroes don't attempt to make use of it after their temporary setback in "Timeless" (it's not that good for the risk). And more understandable that it fails in "Timeless", too, since there the heroes would then be pushing it to perform much better than in "Hope and Fear", thus contributing to the failure.

Granted that our original impression was that the Borg/8472 war would have been a fairly local affair, something the heroes left behind in "Scorpion"/"The Gift" already with that big jump. But this was later proven false: the 8472 were everywhere, including the loner in "Prey" and the bunch in "In the Flesh" that claimed that there were other similar groups elsewhere. Arturis thus could have learned of the conflict right around where he met the heroes in "Hope and Fear". Although that, too, would be quite a coincidence, and some sort of a happy middle (involving a middling slipstream drive) works best.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Prax]

Or his government learned the facts about Janeway before their civilization was assimilated, then learned more about the ship and crew in his quest for vengeance. The crew seems to blab about their story at every truck stop.

 

[Discofan]

Say what you will about Arturis but he wasn't that smart. He ended up being the only victim of his stratagem. That's pretty dumb!