Should they have stayed in the Delta Quadrant?

[Charles Phipps]

I'm actually a fan of the Kazons, Viiddians, and Talaxians.

Shock, I know.

I'm also a fan of Chakotay during the first couple of seasons, you know, when he actually did something other than serve as the ship's counselor.

It occurs to me that the Voyager folk managed to set up a somewhat unique setting around the Caretaker's relay and they were developing the cultures there rather interestingly. I, for one, loved Seska's plots and thought they were some of the best plots in the show.

Which brings me to another thought, whether it might have been better to have the "Journey Home" prevented and just have the characters hang around as representatives of the Federation in a lawless region. Seeing more plots with the aliens we knew seems like it could have been good.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Without the central theme of the crew trying to get home it wouldn't have been as interesting a show.

Though they definitely should have had more arcs later in the series, and more recurring aliens.

 

[Anwar]

They shouldn't have known where they were to begin with, and spent more time in one general area fleshing out the region.

A Delta Federation plot would've been what they needed to drive the show and its subplots. "Lost Ship" isn't enough to last more than 2 seasons.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Being lost in their own galaxy would contradict season one TNG when the Enterprise went to a near by galaxy and knew which galaxy they were in, and season 3 TNG when they went to the Delta Quadrant and knew exactly where they were.

Of course if the library computers were somehow wiped... Without wiping anything else important like life support, antimatter injector protocols or Transportor boots.

Magic bullet my ass.

Voyager would have had to have been destroyed and then they had to get home on a non Federation Starship, either the Maquis Raider which probably barely had maps of the badlands or...

Imagine Janeway and Chakotay trying to get home in a "liberated" Kazon City Ship... 20 times the size of a Galaxy Class Starship, that can barely crack Warp four until the Federation Engineers start renovating/pimping the hell out of that beastie until there's a Kazon City ship that can fly 15 times faster than any other Kazon City Ship with 20 times the fire power and Shields that are unbeatable.

First of all, imperialistically Janeway would have had to have either marooned 20 thousand Kazon civilians to make the ship safe for her crew, grand theft Starship, and an act of war, and surely that makes what happens in Basics all the more poetically essential.

Oh god.

The paint job.

USS Voyager NCC-74656A

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree there's no way they could have been in their own galaxy and not known where they are. I mean, we could probably design an algorithm to determine where you are in the galaxy just based on the stars today.

Now, lost in another galaxy, that might have been awesome. They might know where they are, but still have no way to get home because they can't survive 100 years of void.

 

[Anwar]

Fine, just cripple the warp drive or have them be trapped in some area of space within a nebula that keeps them from using long-range sensors to figure out where they are.

Or hell, just have the Female Caretaker have put up some mini-Galactic Barrier around to keep "Outsiders" out while she messes around with the local aliens and the Male Caretaker was the only one who could bring new people in.

If they're in a new area of space, there is little point in wasting it by having them spend the series running away from it all. They should've embraced the new setting and fleshed it out.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If they can't fix the warp drive, then they land, build a city and start making babies.

If they can't fix the warp drive, then they take the ship to a second hand star ship dealer and trade the bugger in for something works.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Would they even be allowed to trade it in though? I can see there being some big ethical dilemma over what starfleet would say about a whole ship of starfleet tech left in the DQ. And then there's that whole talking about ships like they are people you must be loyal to deal which is very dumb but you can't escape it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well in the beginning they moved heaven and earth to stop the Kazon from getting replicator technology, a couple years later they're just giving it away, a couple years after that, they have replicators 4 times more efficient/powerful than the replicators back home, so on one hand Federation technology isn't altering the balance of power, but on the other hand our hero Janeway is personally altering the balance of power 4 times more effectively/destructively than Federation technology could, which makes Janeway 4 times the criminal deserving four times the sentence that a typical criminal would get for selling regular replicator technology to unvetted alien powers.

The US executed the Rosenbergs for giving the USSR the Bomb in 1953.

It's not cool to arm assholes who will turn about and start shooting at you.

Juat ask Bush snr how proud he is about all the US Weapons he gave to Saddam to stick it to Gaddafi, that were eventually turned on US troops during the first Gulf War unto probably still unto today.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I just love how there are no directives against starfleet using whatever tech it gets it's hands on, even if it's from some superior species of time and someone didn't want it to fall into their hands.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm almost positive they're not allowed technology from the future.

Oh the Doctor's mobile emitter?

EXACTLY!

Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Accepting gifts is dangerous.

Even buying stuff is dangerous.

You never know if what you have is a Trojan, or if it's creation was entirely ethical.

But then B'Elanna felt comfortable keeping some Borg tech patched into Voyager after the Gift, even though the Borg undoubtedly raped and slaughtered a few civilizations to get those innocent little widgets she took for granted for the next three years and eventually, most probably introduced into the next generation of Starships after they got home ignoring that this tech was dripping in the blood of the innocent.

If you want to keep both your kidneys, you never drink anything you don't see mixed at the bar or uncork/unscrew yourself. The prettier the girl buying your drinks is, the more likely it is that she's an organ harvester. Actually, if she's buying, then she's definitely an organ harvester.

It's as suicidal to trust the alien scum as it is suicidal to go it alone in a bubble.

Riker had a weekend of sex, or was hypnotized into believing that he had had a week end of sex, and then unwittingly disseminated a heroin like video game to the total compliment of the Enterprise until probably Naomi's evil Aunt took over the ship effortlessly stepping over and on all the incapacitated distracted junkies she had created.

 

[Anwar]

If they can't fix the warp drive, then they land, build a city and start making babies.

If they can't fix the warp drive, then they take the ship to a second hand star ship dealer and trade the bugger in for something works.

Fine, just have there be something else that keeps them from leaving.

Like I said, have the Female Caretaker have put up some barrier around the area of space so she can experiment on the species within a certain area (like 10,000 LY of space within).

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think that would piss off the hundreds of post warp cultures living on both sides of that fence, a fence which would be demolished by any number of wannabe Klingons before Janeway got even to the fringe of Kazon control.

I mention it constantly, but have you seen the fanfilm series Odyssey where a Starfleet crew gets broke down in the Andromeda galaxy? What happens to them is close to what you're wanting.

 

[marksound]

It's a good thing they didn't have this poor girl driving the ship.

http://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww

 

[Anwar]

I think that would piss off the hundreds of post warp cultures living on both sides of that fence, a fence which would be demolished by any number of wannabe Klingons before Janeway got even to the fringe of Kazon control.

Assuming any of them could match the Caretaker's power, or she didn't create/enslave a race to serve as her "Acolytes" and keep anyone from discovering the barrier she put up.

I mention it constantly, but have you seen the fanfilm series Odyssey where a Starfleet crew gets broke down in the Andromeda galaxy? What happens to them is close to what you're wanting.

It's a pretty old tale, so it'd surprise me if someone didn't do it already.

 

[Guy Gardener]

His name was Homer, he was a show girrrrrrl.

Odyssey IS a fan film series that ran for three seasons, which ran parallel with another series set in the AQ about a Captain Who has to go Rogue because the law was stupid, which are both spinoffs from a series that lasted for 7 years about Captain Shelby and Robin Leffler kicking the shit out of an invasion from a weird ancient race.

And sadly, their website seems to be missing.

 

[Anwar]

Since you didn't reply to my first point, about the Female Caretaker having her Acolyte species defending her barrier (or just being too tough for anyone to do anything about her), I'm guessing you agree that it's a reasonable point?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Actually I don't.

First of all she's insane. You'd have to rewrite her character to be less Alzheimery.

Maybe she had the technology to destroy Voyager from a distance but Susperia chose to wrestle with Janeway because it felt more satisfying. That's the tactics of a moron who has no business trying to rule the galaxy.

Her array was considerably smaller, and my personal belief is that the Caretaker was literally a caretaker, a fricking janitor which is why the rest of the Nacene expedition felt that they wouldn't lose resources by abandoning him to look after the Ocampa until those elves could stand on their own, which after a thousand years he had absolutely failed at, because he's an idiot. He cleaned space toilets for a living, which in no way qualified him to play god.

Caretaker said that his own systems were too hard/complicated to control when Janeway was begging for a lift home. Begged. She begged and he didn't give a damn, too busy dying to even think about apologizing for the rape or send her back on her way to Federationland. After a thousand years he probably still needed the manual open on his lap to make sure shit worked right.

Susperia doubled the life span of her Ocampa, unless Caretaker was so shit he halved the life span of his Ocampa? But that suggests that she was more likely a geneticist/biologist than an engineer or a space janitor.

Her array was Quarter the size of Caretakers and he couldn't even kick the Kazon off Ocampa off or survive a Kazon vanguard of 1 city ship and two shuttles without thinking to kill himself as an offensive measure, only to cock that up because he's a simpleton.

For Susperia to be who you claim that she could be, Caretaker would have had to have been rewritten in the pilot to not be such a bloody Muppet, which means that the Kazon would not have been a threat, and it never would have been Janeway's decision to strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant or not.

 

[Anwar]

Actually I don't.

Poo.

First of all she's insane. You'd have to rewrite her character to be less Alzheimery.

If the Caretaker is a wannabe interstellar rapist, I don't see the problem her playing large-scale Ant Farm.

Maybe she had the technology to destroy Voyager from a distance but Susperia chose to wrestle with Janeway because it felt more satisfying. That's the tactics of a moron who has no business trying to rule the galaxy.

Well, she's a God Alien. God Aliens throughout Trek have done some bizarre stuff.

For Susperia to be who you claim that she could be, Caretaker would have had to have been rewritten in the pilot to not be such a bloody Muppet, which means that the Kazon would not have been a threat, and it never would have been Janeway's decision to strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant or not.

Easily explained, he actually had a Nacene neural degenerative disease that over a millennium made him a moron and weakened him, and THAT'S what killed him. Not old age, but a virus that made him a moron to boot.

Suspiria had no such problems, and her tech/power was better utilized and stronger.

 

[Lynx]

When I watched the series the first time, I really wanted them to get home.

But later on I've had my doubts about that. If they had remained in the Delta Quadrant, we would have tons of Voyager books with their continuing adventures in the Delta Quadrant and the original crew would have been intact.

Now that would have been great!

But then they would have ended up in the same league as the hopeless Destiny crew from Stargate Universe.

And the Voyager crew deserves better than that.

So I have mixed emotions here.