This is how I feel. This is true. Even if you say there's an overlap, you talk like anyone who likes DS9 CAN'T POSSIBLY LIKE VOYAGER AT ALL AND HATES IT FOR EXISTING. That's not much more rational than the ridiculous extreme fan opinions you speak of (which I haven't seen).
Sadly, that's how it is for the most part. Sure we'll hear the odd fan or two who claim they like both but the vast majority has spoken: as far as Niners go, there was nothing good about VOY at all. Every concept, every idea, every alien, EVERYTHING about Voyager was worthless and nothing good could ever have come from Voyager. It's true, make a topic on the DS9 board about if they liked anything about Voyager, let them know what I think about Niners' views of VOY, and see what it brings.
While I admit DS9 is my favourite series, I do like individule episodes of Voyager, but when you look at it as a whole, it's a complete mess, with no long-term plan besides the vague 'getting home' premise. It tried too hard to be like TNG (my second favourite series) instead of establishing it's own identity.
Here we go again. Suddenly I get the feeling that people don't hate Voyager, they just don't like people who make sweeping generalizations and then preach it as utter and complete truth. I guess this means I hang out with a bunch of hypocrites: a group of personal friends who hold viewing parties for both DS9 and Voyager. Since they're only allowed to like one or the other but NEVER EVER BOTH, they're obviously faking 50% of their fanhood, despite regularly watching and re-watching both shows.
OK, let's try not to turn this into another of those threads, since I like Voyager, but I must say that I see more DS9 bashing on this forum than Voyager bashing on the DS9 forum. Anyway, I'm not keen on the way Voyager gives us really shocking events like character deaths and then reverses them by the end of the episode. It's not that I want the characters to die, but in Voyager you see somebody die and you just know they won't stay dead, so it loses whatever impact it might have had.
It's no different than how in TOS we'd get episodes where a character was accused of murder, or killed off, or had their brain removed, or their memories removed yet by the end they were a-okay again. Besides with all that talk of how they had a bare minimum crew they couldn't afford to lose anyone. As for the VOY bashing, just go back 2 or three years, the place was nothing BUT Voy bashing. Nowadays the bashing simply morphed in "NuBSG is everything VOY should have been because every last little thing about VOY is bad!"
Your first mistake...you named names. Now we know for certain that you are FOS and cannot be taken seriously. NONE of us have said that Voyager should not have existed. Indeed most of us liked the premise (a point which you constantly forget). Nor has anyone ever suggested that the show devolve into panic, murder and mayhem. What people here need to remember is that Anwar lives in a parallel universe where the answer to anyquestion is either 0 or 1. He tends to jump to hysterical conclusions that in no way match what others have said.
Uh-huh, so you are not a DS9-loving VOY hater, Navaros' posts are not 100% DS9 worship while condemning the rest of Modern Trek, etc? Don't make me laugh. Because according to the Haters that premise advocates nihilism, raw hatred and animosity between people 100% of the time, and civilized people devolving to barbarism within a month. They were upset that never happened. They say it should've been worse than Equinox, close enough. No, I've just had to put up with Haters for 14 years and got sick of trying to reason with them. And now they go nuts because I won't let them get away with everything, figures.
The one that bugs me the most is "Alliances." The premise at the start of this episode is that Voyager's problem has become so serious they need support. They eventually decide not to ally with anybody, and there are basically no consequences to this, which undercuts the premise the episode itself established. That's... that's anti-drama. They're faced with serious problems that require them to make morally challenging decisions but by sticking to their principles these problems just go away. Actually, those are also all reset buttons. It's just admittedly more expected and excusable than some of the other resets Voyager did. The thing about Year of Hell is that it was originally planned as a season-long arc. The title's sort of a dead giveaway. They probably intended to reset it the whole time, but resetting a season's worth of material might have been more surprising than a mere two-parter. This is the difficulty with dealing with an amorphous 'they'. Lots and lots of people have problems with Voyager. We don't all have the same problems (though many overlap to the point of being cliche), and even less so do we have the same solutions or suggestions as what should have been done. So yeah, some guys wanted to watch Star Trek: Equinox. I would have just been fine with a show that took its premise more seriously and, more importantly, had better and more engaging writing.
I keep hearing that, over and over. "Better writing" this and "better writing" that, with no real examples as to what "better writing" is. Same with the "more true to life" stuff as well, all hot air. Nevermind if DS9 or NuBSG did any of the stuff VOY did no one would complain.
Anwar, I'd really like to see if you have the guts to start up a thread called "A Hater Revisits DS9." The Voyager thread was largely a success and managed to change GodBen's opinion. That was big of him to do so. Are you up for the challenge?
I don't have all of DS9 available to me for a thread like that, and I'm not sure I'll have the time to rewatch it all for the next few months if I do get all the episodes. Increasingly busy schedule. What I want to see is one of the "DS9 and VOY fans" start up a thread in the DS9 forum about whether or not Niners do despise every last idea and concept VOY ever came up with. Are YOU up to the challenge?
Alright. If you take a scenario, deal with its consequences. You've got a group of people who are different from the rest of the cast, you took time in the two other Star Trek series to set them up - don't then proceed to downplay and ultimately drop the subject of their seperate identity. This is pretty relevant to the main thread title, as well. An obvious example of what many would consider Voyager's flaws in writing is the reset button. Either don't reset or don't put yourself in a position where resets are so frequently necessary, because taking the middle road of endless fakeouts is, again, writing that could be better. Nonsense. There's a cause and effect here. People didn't just randomly pick two series to 'like' - DS9 and NuBSG - and then tick 'dislike' for VOY. People didn't like Voyager because they had issues with it, and if they had all the same issues with DS9 and/or NuBSG it'd be doubtful they'd like those shows either. True, fanboys may tend to see things more starkly black and white - exaggerating what they hate about one show and exaggerating why they like another - but the fundamental issue that there are flaws which one show has which were dealbreakers for them remain.
They did, just not the way the haters wanted. They didn't drop it the Maquis thing, they just had them logically realize it would be stupid to hate one another when they had bigger problems and whatever other minor issues they got over as time went on. They just didn't shove it in our faces 100% of the time. An obvious example of what the haters would consider VOY's main flaw is that it existed, and that it wasn't a DS9 clone. Nothing else would have placated them. And if they did just keep radically changing every little thing about the show and cast every episode, the budget would be too high and the viewership would go "WTF does everything keep changing? Are the writers schizo?! This is garbage!" and we'd be here complaining about how VOY never had the stones to keep things stable. No-Win scenario. Pretty much, they did. VOY was getting trashed the first 30 minutes of Caretaker while DS9 and BSG got free passes. I outlined just why they didn't like VOY: For Voyager's "problems" to have been solved (in the eyes of a Niner) the entire crew, with no exceptions, would have to have completely fallen to pieces within the first two episodes and spend the entire series hating and plotting to murder one another. At least in their spare time while the rest of it would comprise of them all becoming vicious bloodthirsty space pirates who revel in being free of the Federation and go around ravaging, destroying and stealing everything from every sentient race encountered (especially the nice ones who welcome them) because that's "more true to life" and "better drama" than people who decide to overcome their differences and accept the aid others give them. There's just a double standard between VOY and DS9/BSG.
If DS9 had introduced the Kazon as scavengers from the Gamma Quadrant and everything about them was the same no one would hate them. They wouldn't hate the Vidiians or the 8472 aliens either if they were DS9 creations. Meanwhile, if VOY had formed a Delta Federation early in the series and the Dominion was THEIR opponent the Dominion War would go down as one of Trek's worst stories ever and the Dominion would be seen as equal to the Ferengi as they were when first introduced on TNG. And this is if the writing was the same as DS9.
What's the point? I don't want to sound too accusatory, but you seem to cherry pick your evidence and then apply it to everyone who dares disagree with you. Worse, you seem convinced that all VOY fans share your opinion of all DS9 fans, rather than the episodes themselves. Godben's thread alone is full of DS9 fans who tended to have more favorable reviews of VOY episodes than Godben did. And besides, the vast majority of threads on any board is made to praise or discuss, this place included. The vast minority, which you seem to pay attention to, is about bashing. No matter what board or fandom you visit, that's just simple numbers. I don't know if you realize this, but the majority of posters on both the DS9 and VOY boards frequent both boards. That couldn't possibly happen if DS9 fans and VOY fans were as mutually exclusive as you claim them to be. Hell, I a DS9 fan just praised Timeless' use of the reset button even before you turned this into another DS9 Vs. VOY fans thread. If you were right about this, we would be hearing stories about riots in Trek Conventions between DS9 and VOY factions. But we don't. Is it possible that all those Trekkies are wrong for not hating each other? Besides, wouldn't it be horribly offtopic if there was a thread in the DS9 forums about Voyager, for good or bad? It would get closed pronto. You know board rules, c'mon now.
This isn't even about hating one another. This is just about setting up a plot point and then doing very, very little with it. As a distinct identity the Maquis were basically gone by the third season, and the consequences of their identity in the first two seasons was minimal. Their biggest role was an excuse to include more deviant characters in the crew - the unorthodox, insubordiant bunch in "Learning Curve", psycopaths like Lon Suder or traitors like Jonas. When it comes down to it Seska played a more major role in the series arc and stories than the Maquis did. If you want a comparison with DS9, here's one: The Bajoran Militia. They don't hate Starfleet, but the Bajoran Militia are a recognisably distinct group and the tension was exploited occasionally - and early in the Dominion War, it was crucial because Bajor was neutral yet the Federation was not. There are also some intellectual differences - Bajorans are by and large religious, while Starfleet is very secular. So one could get episodes like "In the Hands of the Prophets" which played on this distinction in a meaningful way. Lon Suder might kill people but he just did so 'cause he's crazy - he need not be Maquis at all, really - but Neela did so becuase of her Bajoran beliefs. Again you're dealing with an amorphous they, a bunch of straw-men. Even if such people exist, it's probably more productive to argue with people who think Voyager could have done better rather than feel Voyager could not work at all. So, rather than cite 'but X would never be happy with this!' just address folks like me who are actually posting here. That's not true. DS9 took a lot of flak in its first season. 'The Shopping Mall to the Stars' stuff, jibes about it boldly standing still. It'd be fair to say the series was looked down on by a lot of TNG fans, which is part of the reason TNG's impressive viewing numbers didn't transfer over to DS9. Going a bit later than that? Well, there are quite a bit of season seven twists Niner fans don't like and aren't comfortable with. I for one never really liked anything to do with the pagh wraith arc, except maybe beyond that episode with Keiko getting posessed... and Dukat's devolution in that year was depressing. DS9 is far from a flawless series, and heck, any series that took a couple of years to find its feet and 'get good' has some implicit issues. BSG has also taken quite a bit of criticism over the years, particularly for how the later seasons and finale turned out. I haven't watched the series so I can't comment on that in greater detail, but it seems that a lot of the stuff that happened then did not sit well with many of BSG's fans at all. Come now. That degree of character conflict didn't even happen in DS9. I'm sure Niners would have been happy with, well, the level of character conflict they got in DS9!
We had a topic here that was about DS9 fans and Voyager, so I don't see how a counterpart topic wouldn't work in the DS9 board. As for going to both boards, if they're looking for ammunition to use they'd do it and they do. Open riots? They manage to keep it low-key enough in real life, they aren't suicidal.