Why wasn't there an Alternate Timeline episode where Voyager became a generation ship?

[Xenon_Ytterbium]

This was just a thought that I got carried away with. I really liked little Naomi and Icheb (and the other borg babies), and I would have loved to see an episode where they (and Miral) are the adult protagonists, in a time when many of the ship's original crew is elderly/dead. The ages might not work perfectly but this is Voyager so it doesn't matter.

Naomi would be captain, of course, and Icheb would probably be the chief engineer. Miral would also probably be head of a department because she'd be one of the oldest members of the second generation. Barring something crazy there's no way the number of people on Voyager could produce enough children to replace themselves, so there would have to be a few more aliens, and probably holograms too. A crazy mish-mash of characters, none of whom have had real Starfleet training, acting like they are Starfleet, because most of them were raised to. Oh! actually I guess Vorik would just be middle-aged at that point. More Vorik!

I don't even have any ideas about how or why this timeline would have been revealed to us in the show, I just think it would have been bonkers and great. What do you think?

 

[valkyrie013]

There was an episode with an older Naomi etc. But was just a visit.
So like the E2 episode? Would have been ruined with the episode reset back then..

 

[Court_Vince]

This was just a thought that I got carried away with. I really liked little Naomi and Icheb (and the other borg babies), and I would have loved to see an episode where they (and Miral) are the adult protagonists, in a time when many of the ship's original crew is elderly/dead. The ages might not work perfectly but this is Voyager so it doesn't matter.

Naomi would be captain, of course, and Icheb would probably be the chief engineer. Miral would also probably be head of a department because she'd be one of the oldest members of the second generation. Barring something crazy there's no way the number of people on Voyager could produce enough children to replace themselves, so there would have to be a few more aliens, and probably holograms too. A crazy mish-mash of characters, none of whom have had real Starfleet training, acting like they are Starfleet, because most of them were raised to. Oh! actually I guess Vorik would just be middle-aged at that point. More Vorik!

I don't even have any ideas about how or why this timeline would have been revealed to us in the show, I just think it would have been bonkers and great. What do you think?

Didn't we kinda of get sinppets of this in Before and After and Shattered?

 

[dupersuper]

Don't forget when Harry had a kid with Kes and Toms daughter...

 

[Court_Vince]

Don't forget when Harry had a kid with Kes and Toms daughter...

That's a part I'd rather forget

 

[Xenon_Ytterbium]

Didn't we kinda of get sinppets of this in Before and After and Shattered?

Yes, I wish we'd gotten a solid 20-25 minutes of it though! Picture a cold open with Captain Wildman and Commander Icheb bantering as they leave the holodeck after playing <future sport>.

Don't forget when Harry had a kid with Kes and Toms daughter...

The Ocampa age thing makes me so uncomfortable. I'm glad we got the timeline where Kes goes home instead of the one where she has a kid on Voyager... Also imagine having only 9 years with your spouse, and then only 9 years with your child.

 

[publiusr]

Voyager looks a bit small to be a generation ship.

Better to get up to .99% light speed, head back to Earth with a whole future worth of knowledge, then try time travel.

Go high sublight, and perhaps you won’t get noticed

 

[tomswift2002]

Voyager looks a bit small to be a generation ship.

Better to get up to .99% light speed, head back to Earth with a whole future worth of knowledge, then try time travel.

Go high sublight, and perhaps you won’t get noticed

I don’t know. There was probably a lot of unused space that could’ve been changed into additional quarters, not to mention that when someone died that opened a room or bunk.

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[Bry_Sinclair]

The Ocampa age thing makes me so uncomfortable. I'm glad we got the timeline where Kes goes home instead of the one where she has a kid on Voyager... Also imagine having only 9 years with your spouse, and then only 9 years with your child.

I'd assume at some point the human genes in the mix would start slowing down their aging process.

 

[Xenon_Ytterbium]

Voyager looks a bit small to be a generation ship.

Better to get up to .99% light speed, head back to Earth with a whole future worth of knowledge, then try time travel.

Go high sublight, and perhaps you won’t get noticed

Suppose they didn't have a choice, though. Voyager might be too small to be a generation ship, but once the second generation gets old enough to take over the roles of the parent generation, that's what it would be.

 

[TommyR01D]

This leads me on to something else that occurred to me recently:

Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy-five years to reach the Federation, but I'm not willing to settle for that.

This was at the end of Caretaker, earlier in which Lieutenant Stadi gave Voyager's maximum velocity as warp 9.975.
If we use the TOS scale instead of the weird TNG one then this equates to 992.5c, which means that a 70kly distance could be covered in 70.5 years, so Janeway's estimate looks reasonably accurate.

The problem, though, is that maximum velocity does not determine the duration of such a long journey, average velocity does. The ship's average velocity isn't going to be anywhere near warp 9.975. I don't know if the Interpid-class's cruising speed was ever established, but if we go with DITL's guess of warp 8 (and that I think is quite generous) then the journey time would be closer to 137 years.

Even that, of course, is far too low: Voyager isn't continuously at high warp in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant, but dithering about exploring planets and getting into fights with the Garbage Pail Kids. Without a conveniently-placed wormhole or transwarp conduit there's no way they're getting back to Earth within a human lifespan.

Why, then, do so many of the characters - and the creative team - keep referring to the 75 year figure as if that's a realistic expectation?

 

[Xenon_Ytterbium]

Why, then, do so many of the characters - and the creative team - keep referring to the 75 year figure as if that's a realistic expectation?

Everything else you pointed out aside... why do they keep saying 70-75 years while not making any kinds of plans or preparations regarding that timeline??? Just, first of all, it's gonna take a minimum of ~10 years of development and training before any (human) child born on the ship will be able to contribute to maintaining the ship, and even then, at first the child would only be capable of extremely low-skill, low-importance tasks. Older crewmen won't be around to train their replacements if they aren't born soon enough!

It's not like Voyager even needs to worry very much about genetic diversity, since they anticipate the trip will only take 2-5 generations, and humans can breed successfully with lots of aliens. They only need to worry about raising enough healthy, well-adjusted children to run the ship and maybe raise another generation of healthy, well-adjusted children. They should be building a sickbay extension just for obstetrics and pediatrics, finding room for a small school, making lists of back-up & foster parents for children orphaned along the way, practicing evacuation plans to keep the children out of harm's way when things go bad, taking on alien passengers and employees , and hosting speed dating events!

 

[Imaus]

I don’t know. There was probably a lot of unused space that could’ve been changed into additional quarters, not to mention that when someone died that opened a room or bunk.

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But that's a galaxy class, they were made to be huge. Intrepids are far, far, far smaller, and doesn't have a plethora of literally empty space.

 

[tomswift2002]

But that's a galaxy class, they were made to be huge. Intrepids are far, far, far smaller, and doesn't have a plethora of literally empty space.

It would still be pretty empty. A Galaxy is 641 meters long by 473 meters wide and 133 meters high.

Intrepid class ships were 344.424 meters long by 118 meters wide. The Intrepid was just over half the length of a Galaxy, and nearly the same width as a Galaxy. Maybe not as high either,

But a Galaxy could hold a maximum of 15,000 people, so even if an Intrepid could hold a 1/4, an Intrepid could hold about 3,500 to 4,000 max. So 150 is only like 4.2% of an Intrepid’s capability, whereas a Galaxy, like the Enterprise, generally only travelled with 1,000 people which is about 7% of its total capacity.

 

[Xenon_Ytterbium]

It would still be pretty empty. A Galaxy is 641 meters long by 473 meters wide and 133 meters high.

Intrepid class ships were 344.424 meters long by 118 meters wide. The Intrepid was just over half the length of a Galaxy, and nearly the same width as a Galaxy. Maybe not as high either,

But a Galaxy could hold a maximum of 15,000 people, so even if an Intrepid could hold a 1/4, an Intrepid could hold about 3,500 to 4,000 max. So 150 is only like 4.2% of an Intrepid’s capability, whereas a Galaxy, like the Enterprise, generally only travelled with 1,000 people which is about 7% of its total capacity.

You might be underestimating the size difference between the two ships. I found this:

 

[Christopher]

They did do a generation-ship episode, but it was on Enterprise, "E^2."

The practical problem with such a story is that the main cast members had to be featured in every episode, so you couldn't do an episode driven entirely by guest stars playing their descendants. Perhaps they could've done something with time travel like the ENT episode, or starting out with the "present" cast and jumping forward through the generations, or having the descendants spend a lot of time on the holodeck interacting with simulations of the original crew.

 

[tomswift2002]

You might be underestimating the size difference between the two ships. I found this:

You have to remember that Intrepid class ships have 15 decks, while Galaxy’s have at least 43 (and of course refit Constituitions have 72!) So it’s long, but it’s nowhere as tall. So it’s only 35% as tall as a Galaxy. So at most it might be able to hold a maximum of 5,000.

So 150 out of 5,000 is only 3% of its capacity.

To have the same percentage as a Galaxy, an Intrepid would need between 280 and 350 crew members.

 

[JoseNoodles]

You might be underestimating the size difference between the two ships. I found this:

No to get too off course, but why is the Dauntless posted as 161m? The ship definitely seemed as big as Voyager.

 

[tomswift2002]

No to get too off course, but why is the Dauntless posted as 161m? The ship definitely seemed as big as Voyager.

According to the Official Starship Collection, it’s 205 meters long...just slightly longer than the longest estimated length for the “Defiant class”. The Defiant’s estimated shortest length is 50 meters. But nothing on screen has stated that.

 

[Angry Fanboy]

It would still be pretty empty. A Galaxy is 641 meters long by 473 meters wide and 133 meters high.

Intrepid class ships were 344.424 meters long by 118 meters wide. The Intrepid was just over half the length of a Galaxy, and nearly the same width as a Galaxy. Maybe not as high either,

Nearly the same width? 473 plays 118? Joking are you?