Would "Voyager" have been better under an Equinox plotline?

[rocketscientist]

No!

If you create a series, you have to make at least some of the main characters likeable. None of the "Equinox" characters were likeable.

If the scenario had been the same with Janeway and her crew acting and behaving in the same way as the "Equinox" crew, many viewers would have found it hard to identify or sympathize with them. Besides that, it would have been the opposite to what Star Trek stands for.

OK, we could have had some situations in which Janeway and the crew would have been faced with the possibility to behave like Ransom and his gang but I don't think that an "Equinox" scenario would have worked in the long run.

I liked Ransom, who would have been right at home on DS9. One of my major problems with Equinox was how quickly Janeway shut the door in his face. You would think that someone who had been through everything that he had (with a better ship, more crew and a few lucky breaks) would have been a tad more sympathetic to him.

The question that Equinox presented (and which Voyager never for a moment came close to even asking, let alone answering) is what would you do with a gun to your head?

It's easy for you or me to sit here, in our nice warm houses, with food in our bellies and running water, and take the moral high ground and condemn him for what he did . . . but if the situations were reversed, would we be any different?

Star Trek has pretty much established that humanity is only as evolved as it's technology. Take that away from them, to loosely quote Quark, and they will become savage again. For me, Equinox provided a tempting glimpse into that other world, the path that Voyager could have taken if only one or two things had gone differently. If that had happened, and the roles were reversed, would it be Ransom condemning Janeway for some terrible thing that she had done?

We'll never know, and it's a shame that none of these characters were ever seen again. For me, however, Equinox was fascinating in the moral gray area that it seemed to inhabit, before Janeway got all holier-than-thou and ruined it.

Well put Smeos!

I'm in agreement, I think VOY should've been more like Equinox. As for it working as a series, well, BSG is critically acclaimed and fascinating to watch imo.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think we can all agree, right up tot he moment of her suicide in Year of hell, Kathryn was batshit. But her suicide in Deadlock was classy, and her absolutely batshit attempted suicide in Scientific Method was exactly what was called for... Quicksilver Janeway had a gun to her head when her dying crew was herded away from a demon class planet at gun point which would have saved them all... Then 0f course i love to go back to prime factors where Janeway accepted that a species wouldn't help them cut their journey in half and her crew told her to (*&^ herself.

There was always a gun to their head. Except for the Borg Episodes. What a toothless foe not worthy of building a light sweat on my brow.

 

[smeos]

While I agree with you 100% on the Borg, I would argue that Voyager never had to make a single "hard" choice between their own well being and that of someone else.

The reset button was strong with them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If not for the reset button, then every culture which Janeway pissed off would have decided to cowboy up and chase that shrew to the ends of the universe... Dozens of species would be putting down with each other arguing over jurisdiction and just cause about which justice system Janeway had to answer to first, and after which the polite cultures would be waiting for her as she was released from prison or the toll office for her next accounting, however the more aggressive buggers wouldn't have been so patient and spent their time mounting jail breaks to put her on their own dock that she'd become more of a hot potato than a starship Captain.

Ransom was a lightweight to have only one space fearing race bearing down on him for being an asshole, when the reset button should have taken of all his problems as easily as if the space beasties had stopped chasing him to kill him, then he'd have no fuel and die in the vacuum between star systems as his gas tank stayed bone dry for a...

He still needed to catch and kill 60 more of them to get to earth. Sooner or later they had to consider that they were as stupid as lemmings and accomplishing nothing to continue after Equinox. Vengeance doesn't pay the bills.

 

[loldrey]

I'd rather have Voyager under its plot line than with an Equinox flair, but that's not to say Voyager couldn't have been a little more "Star Trek" and a little less "Space of Our Lives".

 

[kimc]

^ Another thing we don't know is what would have happened if the Equinox crew had chosen to make the aliens allies instead of summoning them just to kill them. We know nothing about their culture or their powers - just that they could provide fuel.

Who knows? In going down the path that they did they probably made things worse for themselves by angering a powerful species that may have been persuaded to help them out.

 

[anais]

While I agree with you 100% on the Borg, I would argue that Voyager never had to make a single "hard" choice between their own well being and that of someone else.

Except what stranded them in the Delta Quadrant in the first place

 

[Guy Gardener]

Hell no.

The Ocampa were a prewarp race of cows. Totally a herd species and if the Kazon wanted to farm them, then that was between the Ocampa and the Kazon. Of course if along the way the Kazon acquired enough Caretaker technology to put an end to the scarcity issues keeping then backward and unify all their factions until they're actually a decent bunch of people worth getting to know...

Janeway didn't even understand the issue.

The Prime Directive matter at point right then was protecting the Kazon, not the Ocampa.

Stupid woman stomped on a possible age of enlightenment just because it might have been a little bloody from first principles.

 

[smeos]

While I agree with you 100% on the Borg, I would argue that Voyager never had to make a single "hard" choice between their own well being and that of someone else.

Except what stranded them in the Delta Quadrant in the first place

Wasn't the Caretaker unable to send them back, though? If that's the case (I haven't seen the ep for a while, so I could be wrong), then it wasn't really a "hard" choice, just an opportunity to violate the Prime Directive in a totally loaded and guilt free way.

If there had been a few more episodes with that kind of dilemma, then it could have been an awesome series. As it is, they solved all of their problems with technobabble and everybody came out clean.

 

[anais]

While I agree with you 100% on the Borg, I would argue that Voyager never had to make a single "hard" choice between their own well being and that of someone else.

Except what stranded them in the Delta Quadrant in the first place

Wasn't the Caretaker unable to send them back, though? If that's the case (I haven't seen the ep for a while, so I could be wrong), then it wasn't really a "hard" choice, just an opportunity to violate the Prime Directive in a totally loaded and guilt free way.

If there had been a few more episodes with that kind of dilemma, then it could have been an awesome series. As it is, they solved all of their problems with technobabble and everybody came out clean.

They did discuss the option of using the array to get home. The Caretaker couldn't send them home, they could get home using it themselves, leaving the array available to the Kazon.

 

[Anwar]

It wasn't just the Kazon using it on the Ocampa, they'd use the Array's tech on everyone and anything they came across from that point on. They had more to worry about than just what they'd do to one species.

So it was the question of giving a bunch of thugs the keys to a nuclear arsenal, or destroying the keys even though they were also the keys to the plane that could take you home.

And no, timed explosives weren't an option. It was blow the Array or not blow it.

And no, none of the Equinox crew were better than the VOY crew. Ransom just made lousy choices the whole time he was out there and got what he and his crew deserved.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Tuvok comprehended the technology after a few seconds of investigation. Which underpins what a tard the Caretaker must have been. Tuvok said two things in that scene of note similar to "it will take me several hours to plot a course home" and "this would appear to be a prime directive issue".

Please forgive the paraphrasing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It wasn't just the Kazon using it on the Ocampa, they'd use the Array's tech on everyone and anything they came across from that point on. They had more to worry about than just what they'd do to one species.

So it was the question of giving a bunch of thugs the keys to a nuclear arsenal, or destroying the keys even though they were also the keys to the plane that could take you home.

Warlords, not thugs. They had conquered and held Ocampa and had been waiting for a chance to sack and salvage the Caretakers array at the first sign of weakness for generations... Which they had just noticed was then just happening and this was their big chance.

If Voyager hadn't started the fire fight near the array, it's doubtful the kazon could have done much aboard the array before the self destruct kicked in, unless, just like the controls for the for the pan galactic tractor beam, any moron could master it's finer complications in seconds... but the shields to the Ocampa city on the KAZON WORLD of Ocampa were failing and there would have been enough Caretaker tech down there to reverse engineer much of what they could have pillaged from Array anyway as they assigned the duties to their new enslaved labour force.

Trickle down theory.

My theory of a Golden age of Kazon prosperity isn't the only good eventuality from allowing the Array to stay in tact. Do you really think these idiots had the infrastructure to take over diddly before the powers that be in that area stamped on them and confiscated their new toys which could probably generate a single super weapon? failing that, The Ocampa might be cowlike but there also REALLY smart. Which means they'd either be assimilated into the kazon with all that interbreeding that the next generation of less than pure kazon would be quite astonishing even if they weren't going to turn into mad gods, that the simplest of slave revolts could have flip flopped the power dynamic leaving the Ocampa in charge and the (pure?) kazon cast off into the outer reaches as the scum they are. It is after all what they did to the Trabe 50 years earlier who thought they could make servants of a savage child race.

Sooner of later through commerce, conquest and salvage, everyone would have had access to caretaker technology that they could fathom, which probably wouldn't have been much, and some of the races in that region might have been responsible enough to use it wisely. At least more responsible than senile Caretaker and the feudal Kazon.

 

[kimc]

Trickle down theory.

A bad theory in many ways...

Priming the pump is the way to go. Allowing the Ocampa to be wiped out would not have ushered in a new golden age. The Kazon lived by a code of violence - allowing them to control the sector would have ushered in a very dark age.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Only that idiot Caretaker said that the kazon were going to Destroy the Caretaker. Maybe if they got in the way while the kazon were looting the city there would have been some causalities, but Javin made it plain their opinion that the Ocampa made terrible slaves so that stock probably would have been left behind as refuse. The Ocampa were locked behind a force field with a limited food supply, bastards baying at the gates and zero method to get off world (Even a subspace radio to make an alliance with a friendly world would have helped, but the Caretaker thought they should starve to death instead.). It was the Caretaker who did kill them, and not the Kazon who might have killed then eventually and contingently. Most of the Ocampa would have offed themselves with ritualistic suicide even if they didn't go to war civilly over the dwindling food supply taking a page from Kodos the executioner, god save me if they had a lottery rather than just doing away with the children and old people, that if they halve their population then their food will last twice as long... of course if they had resorted to cannibalism? And if they're eating themselves it's really just picking on the kazon if they're not allowed to use the Ocampa as a supply of meat too considering how efficiently they grow to adulthood and can be wrangled and managed in a space bearing society.

The Kazon can't be all that bad for two reasons. They were allowed to exist... And that their gossipy slagging of Janeway carried enough weight that people prejudged Janeway on their say-so alone in at least Dreadnought.

But really between the gang warfare of the kazon and the organ looting of the Vidiians Who exactly was the moral authority and policemen there abouts? Not that if any one got too powerful on the doorstep of the Borg it didn't harken assimilation?

 

[smeos]

Savage or not, it was still none of their business. Morality isn't an issue with the PD.

 

[kimc]

The Kazon can't be all that bad for two reasons. They were allowed to exist... And that their gossipy slagging of Janeway carried enough weight that people prejudged Janeway on their say-so alone in at least Dreadnought.

You don't have to be good to be allowed to exist. As you mentioned the quadrant had other villians like the Viidians, etc.

As for the gossip all the Kazon had to do was START the rumor - rumors often take on a life of their own. Not everyone who heard the rumors would have heard it from the Kazon. In fact, not one time when the rumors were mentioned did they say "Well according to the Kazon..."

 

[Guy Gardener]

As mentioned but not sited from "Dreadnought"

JANEWAY: You have the right to know, First Minister, that this missile is carrying a warhead with a significant destructive force.
KELLAN [on viewscreen]: Is this some sort of threat, Captain?
JANEWAY: On the contrary. We want to help.
KELLAN [on viewscreen]: I find that hard to believe. Your reputation precedes you, Captain. We've been told that you've threatened many races since your arrival in this quadrant.
JANEWAY: First Minister, we're aware the Kazon have been telling that to people. They'd like to prevent us from making allies. I assure you, you've been misled.
KELLAN [on viewscreen]: And yet here you are, sending this missile towards us.
JANEWAY: The missile arrived here from our quadrant due to a very unusual accident. We haven't been able to determine yet why it chose Rakosa as it's target, but my chief engineer is preparing to disarm it before it reaches you.
KELLAN [on viewscreen]: Perhaps you are telling me this in order to delay our defensive response.

Janeway was perfectly willing to let the kazon have the array if she could use it to get home first. Javin said he didn't trust her, and instead of engendering a relationship, she called him "uncivilized". Then all hell broke lose. it was only the doddeirng of a mad man which urged Janeway to change her mind, and only then because she thought she was putting events back on track after her already semi legal intervention in the situation...

For you want to say for bad about the kazon, not only did they accept Seska into their ranks, but eventually as their mje in all but name because there was a puppet wandering around with delusions of competency not realizing her hand was up his ass. Janeway was eventually in the mood to form al alliance with the kazon and the trabe together, so what was so civilized and laudable about the (different sects i know. But she kinda worked together again with the Oogla in that one with Nog in it.) kazon just a couple months later of intermittent hostility that she can call these people "friend" that it was impossible just a few months earlier, because it's unlikely that the Ocampa were the only slave race working under the Kaqzon whip.

But then the Klingons keep slaves and eat their enemies too don't they?

 

[Lynx]

^^^^^^^^^

IF it were done well, then Voyager could have been a better series. Or a show about two guys in a shuttlepod on a freight run from Earth to Mars.

I've often advocated this, though. The fact that the ship was always clean and shiny, with all the lights on, really bugged me. Yes, I know that it was so that they could re-use FX shots, but it still got on my nerves.

No exploding shuttles, either. If you say that you have two, then use two. If you must use more, than include some dialog about how hard they are to replace. Hell, have no shuttles for all I care.

Some edge would have been nice. Some anger at their situation, some irrational anger at first, maybe even a suicide or two to show how distraught these people must have been at being a lifetime away from home with slim odds of ever getting there at all. I'm not saying that I would have wanted them to go around committing genocide, but some tougher choices and some battered consciences could have gone a long, long way towards making it a better show.

Internal damage should have been greater as well. I always thought that it would have been cool if some of the characters had been forced to share space due to a lack of habitable quarters, or if there was a whole deck that you just didn't go on because it was too badly damaged and opened to space, etc.

To make a big change, a few of the characters would have had to go or been significantly altered.

1. Neelix - the guy was supposedly from the rough and tumble Delta Quadrant, but he was more Starfleet than Starfleet. A "Jayne Cobb" type mercenary with a POV that was radically different from that of Janeway and co. would have worked better here, not to mention added some spice to the cast.

2. Harry Kim - Grow. I don't even care how. Just do it. Stop being a pussy by season 7 already. Either that or kill him off.

3. Kes - A species that only lives seven years? What's the point, she'd be dead by the end of the series anyway . . . if she had made it that long.

4. Chakotay - Should have been a little more "Maquis" and opposed Janeway a bit more throughout the show, especially in the beginning.

5. The Doctor - I liked Robert Picardo in the role, but we've seen the whole artificial lifeform studying humanity thing before. It's old. Should have just made him an organic life form to begin with. Everything else could have been left alone and I wouldn't have minded.

6. Seven of Nine - We already had Tuvok, who was the emotionless outsider looking in at humanity (along with the Doctor) the last thing we needed was a third one of these characters, and a second emotionless one, to boot. I watch Star Trek for drama and intelligent discourse (and some explosions every now and then) not ta-tas. Jeri Ryan wasn't a bad actor, but she just wasn't given much to do aside from the same old storyline over and over again. A character who held a great deal of animosity against the Borg, or was angry and bitter and looking for a fight as a result would have worked better, at least initially. The odd life lesson episode wouldn't have been that bad at all, but it was endless with her, and she dominated the entire show as soon as she came on board. You have eight or nine castmembers for a reason. Use them.

Whew. Man, I feel better.

As for altering the characters, I would like to add the following comments:
1. Neelix- I thought he was OK in his role.

2. Harry Kim- I agree that he was badly written and still "the green and unexperienced ensign" in season 7. He's actually better in the Voyager books where he's contributing much more to the stories.

3. Kes- Skip the silly life-span and you have a great character, one of Star trek's best.

4. Chakotay- OK character but sadly wasted in the later seasons. I can buy his attitude to Janeway and Starfleet. He was smart enough to realize that the only chance to get home was for Starfleeet and Maquis personnel to cooperate.

 

[Lynx]

As for the debate about if Janeway did the right thing to destroy the Array, I think that she did the right thing.

As she said to Tuvok. "We didn't want to be involved but we are".

If Voyager hadn't been around. The Caretaker would have destroyed the Array and the Kazon wouldn't have known anything about it before the Array exploded.

As it happened now, Voyager was attacked by the Kazon. When Chakotay rammed the Kazon cruiser, it crashed into the Array, damaging the self-destruct program. What Janeway did was to correct what Voyager may have damaged by getting involved in the situation.

If Janeway hadn't destroyed the Array, the Kazon would have boarded it, shut down the forcefields which protected the Ocampa underground city. They would have annihilated the Ocampa or turned them into slaves and believe me, slavery is worse than death. Since Janeway would have been responsible for that by creating a situation in which the self-destruct program was damaged, accidentally or not, she couldn't allow it. She had to correct what she and the crew may have done wrong. So they were already involved.

I also think that it was impossible for the Voyager crew to use the program for sending them home. As Tuvok stated, it would take several hours to do that and during that time, Voyager might have been destroyed by the Kazon. Jabin told Janeway that he had called for additional ships. The Kazon would have taken over the Array and prevented the Voyager crew from getting home.