Two odd — and unrelated — VOY questions

[Cepstrum]

Hello.

I'm sure these two questions have been pondered, asked, and answered before. But searching is hard on my little iPod, so I'll ask them again. I hope you don't mind.


1. It seems all Starfleet ships' names are preceded by the definite article (eg, the Enterprise, the Equinox, the Excelsior, the Brattain, the Defiant, etc.) So why and how did the USS Voyager get the monicker of simply "Voyager"? It's almost invariably referred to as just "Voyager", not "the Voyager" (though maybe in very early episodes it was; I don't recall.) My only guess of the reason for this is because the show was called Star Trek: Voyager. People (both audiences, crew, and writers) quickly began referring to both the show and ship as just "Voyager". ???

And now for the entirely unrelated — yet puzzling — question.

2. In Equinox Part II, when Ransom et al. wanted Seven to give them the power relay codes, she refused, so they had the Doctor physically extract them from her. But it was Voyager's EMH, and wouldn't comply. So they just "deleted" his "ethical subroutines". Thence he was more than willing to operate on Seven. But just deleting his sense of ethics wouldn't cause him to turn traitor and harm his friend. He just would no longer be bound to make ethical decisions. I'd think it'd rather make him willing to kill Ransom and Burke, not cooperate with them. They didn't change anything else about him. And you needn't be ethical to have preferences and friends — and he most certainly preferred Voyager and Seven to the Equinox guys. So what gives?


I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help provide satisfactory answers to these. And if they've been discussed before without a satisfactory conclusion, I'd appreciate to know that, too.

Thanks!

 

[Anwar]

1) Not all the ships are called "The". I think that's just something the people themselves add when they speak about those ships. The Defiant is referred to as "Defiant" and "The Defiant" and we had ships like USS Yamato and stuff in early TNG. Those ships are likely just registered without the "The" but the crews add the "the" themselves.

2) The EMH is still likely bound to follow orders from a superior officer via his programming. IE it's burnt right into his "mind". So he had to obey Ransom as he was the superior officer, unless it directly ran opposed to his medical oath programming. By removing the ethical subroutines Ransom removed the one thing that kept the EMH from being, essentially, a slave to the CO.

 

[Mysterion]

To the first question: I've been told by folks who've spent time in/around the Naval service that a commissioned ship's name should be treated like a proper name, so no "the". Personally, I prefer it that way. Sounds better to my ear to hear "[Ship Name]" rather than "the [Ship Name]".

 

[Shatnertage]

I wrote about this in another context a while ago--"Enterprise" can go either way, "the Defiant" sounds better, and "the Voyager" just sounds wrong.

AFAIK, the real-world space program mostly uses vessels without the definite article: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour.

I get into discussions like this about Las Vegas hotels all the time. Some of them sound right, "the Hilton," others, wrong, "the Caesars Palace." It's all about how it flows.

 

[Cepstrum]

Ok, thanks guys.

About #1. So IRL the definite article is not commonly used. But it seems in Trek it's almost always used. Anwar, I don't recall hearing just "Defiant", "Yamato", etc. (Of course, I'm quite likely mistaken.) I agree "Voyager" sounds much better than "the Voyager", but I don't know whether that's because it really does sound better or because that's how I'm used to hearing it. Perhaps had they called it "the Voyager" I'd think that would sound better.

Still, can anyone explain why it's called "Voyager", especially in light of the fact that the other famous ship is consistently called "the Enterprise"?


About #2: I understand the EMH would obey his CO, but that was Janeway, not Ransom. Ransom's EMH remained loyal to Ransom to the very end and was willing to sacrifice himself by giving the Equinox Voyager's shield frequencies, which nearly caused its destructions. So why didn't Ransom's EMH switch loyalties to Janeway as the Doctor switched his to Ransom/Burke? The only reason I can think of is that the Equinox EMH had been far more heavily modified than Voyager's EMH, who merely lost his ethics. Otherwise I'd think they'd act the same.

Still, it's hard for me to imagine a suddenly amoral Doctor wanting to help the Equinox, kill/damage Seven, and forget about Voyager. I'd think it would rather just cause him to be willing to, say perform capital punishment, obey Janeway and "kill" Tuvix to restore Tuvok and Neelix, etc. And most of all, I'd think it'd make him willing to disobey Ransom/Burke and try to kill them out of anger. He was always very fond of Seven, and unless they removed all his memories, I'd think he'd be even more inclined to take extreme measures to protect her. His fondness for her is amoral and has nothing to do with ethics; obeying a new CO to kill/harm a friend for the sake of the greater good (of the Equinox) would require a high committment to ethics such that it'd override personal friendship.

Right?

 

[The_Baroness]

They'd deleted the Doctors sense of right and wrong. Without it, he saw no harm in what he was doing.

 

[Cepstrum]

^^^

But why wouldn't he see no harm in disregarding Ransom, who he just met, and killing him? Why would he be willing to harm his friend? Even evil people such as Hitler wouldn't hurt people they liked, especially if it meant helping someone he didn't like.

Even if he took all sentiment out of it, he'd see that Voyager was a much better — safer, more comfortable, with holodecks — than the Equinox. If he thought only selfishly, he'd want to get back to Voyager.

And still: even had he thought the Equinox had a better chance of returning to Earth sooner than Voyager, he would be one of the *last* of the crew who'd want to hurry back to the Alpha Quadrant. He has no future or life there. He's only known Voyager, *and* that he has much more freedom and greater rights there than he otherwise would have. Why stick with Ransom and Burke? He'd already discovered back "home" he was considered useless and obsolete (as told to him by the EMH-2 in "Message in a Bottle").

I still don't get it.

And there's *still* the problem of the Equinox's EMH remaining ruthlessly loyal to the Equinox, as he prepared to sacrifice himself by trying to get Voyager destroyed.



I'm sorry: I'm still really confused about this. Please help me reconcile it in my mind. Or tell me I'm just too dense.

 

[T.D. Possum]

I noticed the other day that Tom called the ship "The Voyager" in episode "The Cloud".

I immediately made a mental note to mention that the next time someone broached this topic. I am pleased to have presented my trivia. You may now all resume discussing the more interesting question regarding the Doctor.

 

[Cepstrum]

I noticed the other day that Tom called the ship "The Voyager" in episode "The Cloud".

I immediately made a mental note to mention that the next time someone broached this topic. I am pleased to have presented my trivia. You may now all resume discussing the more interesting question regarding the Doctor.

Thanks, AMG.

I thought I had heard in an early episode it was referred to in the traditional manner as "the Voyager".

Your "trivia" paid off! Great. But please weigh-in on the Equinox Doctor issue.

Also, have you any clue why they switched to just "Voyager"?

 

[Cepstrum]

I'm going to bump this thread once. I really want to get help understanding why Voyager's EMH turned traitor without his ethical subroutines but Equinox's EMH did not.

Doesn't this intrigue anyone?

 

[zar]

But why wouldn't he see no harm in disregarding Ransom, who he just met, and killing him? Why would he be willing to harm his friend? Even evil people such as Hitler wouldn't hurt people they liked, especially if it meant helping someone he didn't like.

First of all, just because he sees no harm in something doesn't mean he will do it. But if someone had ordered him to kill anyone, including Ransom, he would have.

I think there are two major "subroutines" governing the Doctor's behavior, one being ethics and the other being the tendency to follow orders... he's programmed to be a servant. Once he lost the awareness that betraying his friends is wrong, serving a superior became the only thing that mattered.

You have to keep in mind that there is no true parallel to "deleting ethical subroutines" in real life. Everyone, including Hitler, has awareness of ethics. Just because Hitler managed to convince himself that the evil things he did were okay, doesn't mean he didn't still have the knowledge that things like betrayal were undesirable.

 

[Cepstrum]

But why wouldn't he see no harm in disregarding Ransom, who he just met, and killing him? Why would he be willing to harm his friend? Even evil people such as Hitler wouldn't hurt people they liked, especially if it meant helping someone he didn't like.

First of all, just because he sees no harm in something doesn't mean he will do it. But if someone had ordered him to kill anyone, including Ransom, he would have.

I think there are two major "subroutines" governing the Doctor's behavior, one being ethics and the other being the tendency to follow orders... he's programmed to be a servant. Once he lost the awareness that betraying his friends is wrong, serving a superior became the only thing that mattered.

You have to keep in mind that there is no true parallel to "deleting ethical subroutines" in real life. Everyone, including Hitler, has awareness of ethics. Just because Hitler managed to convince himself that the evil things he did were okay, doesn't mean he didn't still have the knowledge that things like betrayal were undesirable.

Then why did the Equinox's EMH not follow Janeway's orders and stop following Ransom once he got stuck on Voyager and became their CMO?

 

[zar]

Then why did the Equinox's EMH not follow Janeway's orders and stop following Ransom once he got stuck on Voyager and became their CMO?

Actually, Janeway didn't give him any orders to follow. I just watched the show again, and... the whole time Equinox-EMH was on Voyager, the crew never realized that he was helping Equinox or that he wasn't their own Doctor (until Voyager-EMH returned and deleted him).

In other words, neither EMH ever received conflicting orders during their disabled-ethics period. Therefore, they were never faced with a decision of choosing loyalty. They were both simply following Ransom's orders.

 

[Cepstrum]

I know there weren't explict orders given to the Equinox EMH, but I believe an implied order is "don't blow up your own ship by giving the enemy tactical info".

I just think they'd have to do more than disable his ethic subroutines. Amoral creatures, such as animals, don't turn on their friends just because they don't have a sense of ethics. If the Doctor lost his ethics, I'd think that cause him to also stop obeying commands and just do whatever he wants, such as singing opera or golfing. Or at *least* preserving his own life and getting ruthless revenge on his enemies who are trying to take away even his beloved holodeck privileges. (The Equinox had no holodeck.)

 

[zar]

I know there weren't explict orders given to the Equinox EMH, but I believe an implied order is "don't blow up your own ship by giving the enemy tactical info".

Well, there were explicit orders given to him, just not from Janeway. Ransom sent him a message ordering him to give the info. If Janeway had found out about this and explicitly ordered him to ignore Ransom's orders, it would be a different story.

If the Doctor lost his ethics, I'd think that cause him to also stop obeying commands and just do whatever he wants, such as singing opera or golfing.

That's assuming that his tendency to obey is part of his ethical program, and I'm assuming it's separate. He is programmed to obey, as well as to "do no harm", and with the "do no harm" program deactivated, his decision should be obvious. His choices are quite limited by his programming. Remember that he couldn't even sing at first, that had to be "added" to his programming. And even "real" Starfleet officers hesitate to disobey their superiors, even if they disagree or it means giving up their own life.