The Caretaker sending ships home?

[Frank Force]

Regarding the Caretaker bringing ships from all over the galaxy during his hunt for a successor, am I right in thinking that it was 'normal procedure' for him to conduct his tests and then return these ships to where they came from?

I'd always got the impression that the Maquis ship and Voyager were left stranded as a result of him being near-death and the subsequent fall out from that, and that had he not died would have been sent home by him once he was done with them.

Perhaps The Voyager Conspiracy gave me that impression since Neelix's logs show such ships as a Cardassian galor-class that was presumably brought to the Delta Quadrant and sent back when he was finished testing them for compatibility.

So with this in mind, why did the Equinox not get sent back months before Voyager was brought to the Delta Quadrant?

Are there hundreds of these abandoned ships stranded or were they all sent back home other than the Equinox?

 

[Timo]

The junkyard Neelix was exploiting is probably the result of Caretaker bringing in ships but not letting them back again. Also, Neelix says he has encountered some fifty crews who thus obviously weren't immediately returned. And it doesn't sound likely that they would have been returned later on - why would the Caretaker wait?

Now, Neelix says the Caretaker has been bringing in ships for "months". If we choose to interpret this as him saying these ships have been brought to the debris field, then there's no Equinox problem: she was brought to Delta, then abandoned in the field, and she then sailed forth under her own power, unlike those less fortunate hulks that added to the debris because Caretaker's antics had made them unspaceworthy.

In the more general sense, the Caretaker would have been bringing in ships for years, but those previous ones would have been returned. Anything from the past few months would stay in Delta.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sandoval]

But on the other hand the debris-field that Neelix was searching through could just as likely be completely unconnected to the Caretaker's activities.

I'm not sure why all these ships being brought from all over the galaxy would end up in this debris-field - going on the experiences of Voyager and the Maquis ship, even in his final days the ships being brought in were left damaged but completely intact alongside the Array.

When the Caretaker had had his wicked way with them the crews were returned to their ships minus a few who showed promise or whatever. Given that according to the information we have the Caretaker was leaving these ships and crews (relatively) unharmed for the most part, I don't see why so many of them would end up in a debris-field somewhere between Ocampa and the Array.

I think it was shown that the Caretaker intended no real malice as such towards those he abducted, but was rather just desperate to find a suitable successor and considered the abductions to be the means to an end, so I don't see him blasting them to pieces after he was done with them to account for the debris field.

I'd imagine worst case scenario he just ignored them once he'd poked needles into their chests and put them back on their ships.

Sando Sandovellius

 

[Anwar]

The Debris field may have been the result of the Kazon getting to those alien ships before the Caretaker could send them back (or guy who tried to escape the Caretaker before he could do anything), and the Caretaker thinking "Oh dear, too bad about them. Oh, well onto the next batch."

Let's not forget that this guy was basically kidnapping people from across the Galaxy for the purpose of raping them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I need a less generic screen name.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

The junkyard Neelix was exploiting is probably the result of Caretaker bringing in ships but not letting them back again.

Wow, now THAT is reaching. There's absolutely zero indication that the debris field had anything to do with the ships the caretakers pulled in. Unless you're assuming he pulled the ships in then tore them to pieces and flung them into some debris field lightyears from the station? It baffles me how you'd even think of that...

I've wondered the same thing about the Equinox and feel it was just a plot hole. Or maybe the Equinox crew unwisely fled the array when they could without communicating with the entity so he didn't have the chance to send them back...although that doesn't very logical at all.
So yeah, plot hole for the purpose of a good story.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Most ships, Captains, species, upon being told "No I can't help you, it's too difficult." Would say "Go fuck yourself." and open fire. Try to take the array and get home themselves.

It's just a question of how well Caretaker can spank back.

Kes said that she rose to these surface just after her father died, near her first birthday, and she eventually had her second birthday during Twisted, which was originally supposed to be part of the first season before shit got real and the season had to be cut short for benign production reasons.

Also given the thriving Kemoiste trade as well, as that the the Ocampa had been in hiding for 1000 years, it's clear that no one had any real claim to the surface other than the kazon but...

I find it unlikely that the Kazon, despite p[lanting their flag in that area of space a loong time ago, would have wasted too many ships trying to take the array if there wasn't an indication that Banjoman wasn't suddenly less than alpowerful, although opening a dialogue or maybe trade with Caretaker? They'd be fools to stop talkiong just in case there was a chance that a friendship could develop. However, qwuite frustrated, Caretaker may Swot at the kazon from time to time, whether they're asking for it or not.

Which "might" explain the debris field.

The Federation despite Q's aspersions, builds strong ships. Caretaker had no idea who or what he was pulling from the side of the galaxy to impregnate, he was so awful at this that he collected three primarily human vessels, one could even argue that after he raped Ransoms crew, and Chakotays crew, why on earth would he rape Janeway's crew too unless he forgot that he had already hid his sporocistian pickle into a swelling mass of humanity already..

As I was trying to say, the debris field is probably ships that didn't make it to the Array in one piece. Younger races that build weaker ships with less impressive shields. They were shredded by Caretakers gentle hand which had no idea how to use the device in his command with any tact because he was the janitor before the rest of his people dumped him like a bag of kittens on the city limits marker.

Maybe Caretaker sucked so hard that sometimes it didn't matter how strong the ship was or how impressive their shields were because he cocked up the scans completely and only tried to bring half a ship to his home?

If so, considering the size of the debris field, that would make caretaker a mass murderer, if he kept going once he figured out that there was maybe a one in three chance that any object of his affection baby momma out there, he was dragging to his door step would blow up.

Oh.

Caretaker destroyed Ocampa a thousand years ago.

But it was a slow running ecological apocalypse effected on a space faring race.

"it doesn't rain"

Boohoo.

(unless the water inside all the Ocampa was fucked with too and killed them. Which means that maybe only a fraction of the species, underground or in shielded areas would have been protected by any effect/process that changed all the water on the planet immediately, or the Ocampa died out and this lot are the descendants of clones, or standard genetic material from fertility clinics/spermbanks etc left idle...)

That Debris may have been the Ocampan fleet from a thousand years ago that decided to destroy the Nacene rather than collect themself for evacuation and colonization, hell half the debris field could be Nacene ships that didn't survive the planetary arsenal of half a million missiles kicking the shit out of them.

 

[exodus]

Considering that the when the Caretaker pulled Voyager and the Maquis ship into the DQ, he damaged both of them enough to kill people. I don't think it's too much of a reach to think that the debris field could be due to his actions.

Too answer the original question:
No, I don't think the Caretaker had much experience at all pulling ship to where he was see how he was badly damaging them and killing off the people he needed to experiment on just to get them there. It's kinda hard to do an expreiment if your killing off your lab rats before you can use them. Plus their is never any mention of any ship returning from the Caretaker. If he returned the Cardassian ship, why does it seem nobody knows of it?

 

[MacLeod]

From memory wasn't it implied/stated that he usually did send shps back?

 

[exodus]

From memory wasn't it implied/stated that he usually did send shps back?

Did he himself say so or was it someone else?

The question nobody asked was, sending them back where?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Maybe Rudy Ransom just immediately pissed off on his own quest home, oblivious to the fact that had he just hung around a liiiiiittle longer he'd have been sent back.

"Sir, there's a giant space station firing energy pulses at a planet. Should we investigate?"

"Never mind that shit, set a course for the alpha quadrant!"

 

[Guy Gardener]

from the pilot

JANEWAY: The Cardassians gave us the last known heading of the Maquis ship, and we have charts of the plasma storm activity the day it disappeared. With a little help, we might be able to approximate its course.
PARIS: I'd guess they were trying to get to one of the M-class planetoids in the Terikof Belt.
CAVIT: That's beyond the Moriya system.
ROLLINS: The plasma storms would have forced them in this direction.
JANEWAY: Adjust our course to match.
CAVIT: Aye, Captain.
JANEWAY: The Cardassians claimed they forced the Maquis ship into a plasma storm where it was destroyed, but our probes haven't picked up any debris.
PARIS: A plasma storm might not leave any debris.
JANEWAY: We'd still be able to pick up a resonance trace from the warp core.
KIM: Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us.

Unless Evek dropped a Buoy, or he was in real time conversation with someone at a good distance while this fracas took place, he must have escaped to tell tales, either by dodging the capture beam, or by being returned after his crew was raped.

JANEWAY: Break out the compression phaser rifles. Meet us in Transporter Room two. We're going back. We'll divide into teams. Mister Tuvok, while Chakotay and I are looking for Torres and Kim, your job is to find out as much about this array as you can. It brought us here. We have to assume it can send us home. Agreed?

Janeway thinks it's possible. Tuvok thinks he can send them back after getting a look at the controls, and failing all that, they still state that finding Susperia as one of their mission objectives, because she might have an array too that can do the same as Caretakers.

I don't think Caretaker sent anyone home even if he knew how.

 

[Sandoval]

The question nobody asked was, sending them back where?

Disney Land?

Sending them back where they came from obviously.

 

[The_Baroness]

The question nobody asked was, sending them back where?

Disney Land?

Sending them back where they came from obviously.

Well that's just it...given how incompetent the Caretaker seems to be, the Delta Quadrant natives might see ships being sent 'away' by him, assuming they've been sent home but the Caretaker may well have cocked that up too and ended up sending them even further away.

 

[Sandoval]

Other than the original disaster in which the Nacene expedition, admittedly, dropped the ball, I don't see that the Caretaker is particularly incompetent.

He seems to have kept things ticking over quite nicely for thousands of years until the onset of death.

 

[The_Baroness]

Other than the original disaster in which the Nacene expedition, admittedly, dropped the ball, I don't see that the Caretaker is particularly incompetent.

He seems to have kept things ticking over quite nicely for thousands of years until the onset of death.

but he does appear to be incapable of bringing a ship to his array without killing half the crew...how do we know he can send them back properly?

 

[Sandoval]

On a good day then presumably the trip goes smoothly and people arrive safe, well and rested.

When he's in his death throes it tends to be a bumpy ride.

 

[JB2005]

Well we do know that there was a Cardassian ship pulled in and then sent back...though as Seven says the ship was destroyed - maybe as a result of the transfer?

 

[Timo]

going on the experiences of Voyager and the Maquis ship, even in his final days the ships being brought in were left damaged but completely intact alongside the Array.

Very true. But that might be only in the final days; earlier on, he might have been much more fastidious in keeping the neighborhood clean, and would have disposed of all unspaceworthy vessels by carefully placing them in the debris field. He'd have no time or strength for such housekeeping later on, though.

The debris field might have a thousand explanations - but why bring in an extra element? In order to be so compact and dense, the field would either have to be recent (it's the same visual as the aftermath of a recent space battle from "Way of the Warrior", after all), or then carefully maintained. And we have a Caretaker around to do the maintaining!

The Ocampa plight is a thousand years old. The Caretaker habit of bringing in ships to find a successor is at least some months old. Anything in between is open to speculation. Why leave the quest for a successor to the last year, when it's likely the Caretaker can't predict his day of death particularly accurately? By that argument, the kidnappings could have started centuries ago, initially with finesse and discretion, later with simple brute force and abandon.

The counterargument is that the Caretaker should probably have realized fairly soon that the quest is hopeless, so he wouldn't have kept on going for too many years. Yet he did keep on going for months at least, browsing through at least dozens of species of apparent ho-hum humanoids. Why keep on going unless there was a glimmer of hope there already, some promise in the humanoid form? Why not move on to kidnapping sentient clouds or space amoebae or other known Trek lifeform categories that wouldn't suffer from the supposed inherent shortcomings of humanoids? By that argument, the kidnappings could have gone on for millennia, because the Star Trek galaxy would not run out of humanoid species for the Caretaker to try out.

Also, while quite nonhumanoid themselves, both the known Nacene appear to have developed quite a liking to the Ocampa, and perhaps to humanoids in general. Sending back ships would certainly be a plausible thing for them to do.

As for Gul Evek surviving beyond the teaser of "Caretaker", I don't think the dialogue really confirms that. His ship wouldn't have been the only one sent to hunt the Maquis, nor would Even have refrained from reporting on success in finding and pursuing Chakotay's ship; loss of the Gul and his Galor soon after entry into the Badlands would just help convince the Central Command that the Maquis had perished in a plasma storm. Evek wouldn't actually have to deliver a report from beyond the grave or anything.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sandoval]

I don't think the field has to be anything beyond the "waste zone" that Neelix describes it as when we first meet him - I don't see that this zone and the Caretaker bringing ships to the Array are connected.

I think linking the two together is more of a stretch than leaving them as separate, unrelated things since nothing shown or stated on screen depicts them being related.

Sando Sandovellius