A small issue

[Sorak]

I've been wondering about Captain Janeway's decision of taking a journey through the Delta and Beta quadrants back to Earth. Something occurred to me, and I'm certain I'm not the only one here who have thought this: why not reaching the Gamma quadrant, using the wormhole then to reach DS9? Sure, this map here speaks clear:

http://s179.photobucket.com/albums/w310/nagashutori/StarTrek/startrekmapofgalaxy.jpg

The wormhole is more or less as distant as Earth, from the point of view of distance then the choice is marginally indifferent. Yet, some points can still be made which support the Gamma quadrant option:

1-Mapping: though Voyager left in the very early stages of the Gamma quadrant exploration, we can assume that after close on three years, something more of it was known compared to the Delta quadrant.
2-Distance: after all, there's a 5,000 light years difference in distance. The wormhole is closer, that's it.
3-Borg Space: the Gamma quadrant is arguably "Borg-free", compared to the Delta quadrant. Sure, there's the Dominion but by then (mid of DS9 Season three) it still wasn't at war with the Federation. And even if it were, still better than the Borg.

So, Janeway is presented with two choices:

Either, a 70,000 light years travel, half through the Gamma quadrant about which there are extensive information, a quadrant inhabited by hostile yet conventional species; a 75,000 light years travel through the wholly unknown Delta quadrant, home of the Borg.

Were I in the captain's uniform, I would have stuck with the first choice, or at least I'd trouble myself with it. What about you?


PS The answer is clear: the charm of an unexplored and -by the writers' point of view- unexploited quadrant is much more appealing to audiences than setting the action in the DS9's Gamma quadrant. However, I demand an explanation

 

[DonIago]

What happens if Sisko successfully collapses the wormhole in S5 of DS9 and it's not there when Voyager gets to it?

You don't bet decades of your life on something that might not even exist when you need it.

 

[Sorak]

What happens if Sisko successfully collapses the wormhole in S5 of DS9 and it's not there when Voyager gets to it?

You don't bet decades of your life on something that might not even exist when you need it.

Good point. Only, those aboard Voyager couldn't know what was going to happen, and the wormhole had been working for millennia on end. I mean, there wasn't the least hint of debate, they decided to go through the Delta quadrant and that's all, like it was the ONLY way home. (Sure, it was the most interesting )

 

[DonIago]

The very fact that they couldn't know what was going to happen is the best argument for -not- heading towards the wormhole. Even if it had existed for millenia, in under 7 years it was almost destroyed or otherwise unusable on at least 3 occasions.

If you're going to make an assumption, you should make one that -won't- backfire horribly on you if you're wrong.

An analogy - A friend and I were going to see a movie, and we decided to grab some pizza beforehand, at a restaurant within walking distance of the theater. Turned out the pizza place had closed, so we had to quickly find another place to eat and almost ended up late to our movie.

 

[Guy Gardener]

this above was my first question here ten years ago.

Good times.

Although according to the producers, the map you show (i haven't even looked at your map.) is inverted compared tot he map they were using (I don't have to look at your map because it's the same mape every one uses except for the producers of Voyager.) and they never had to travel through the beta quadrant(The Producers of Voyager are in their own little world.), which is why Janeway was still trenching in the Delta Quadrant come season 7 despite being well over half way home.

Now.

Do you know what a Cytherian is?

Do you know what a Sikarian is?

Good.

Now connect the dots.

They could have been home half way through seaon one if they just would done a google search on picards logs.

Janeway didn't even know that there where ferengi lost on the DQ as if reading up on past adventures with this area of space wasn't worth her time, but they could have slung shot around a sun, built a cloak and followed Data and geordi home if they really had some forethought on their prediciment.

 

[Withers]

Another thing that's kind of funny about them deciding to take the road "not traveled?" I don't feel as though I know a lot more about the Delta Quadrant than I do the Gamma Quadrant and I should.

-Withers-​

 

[SpyOne]

2-Distance: after all, there's a 5,000 light years difference in distance. The wormhole is closer, that's it.

I think you are mis-reading that map.
The Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole is 5,000 lightyears closer to Bajor than the place where Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant was to Earth, but that doesn't tell us anything about how far those two points are from each other.
Assuming that map is to-scale, I did some measuring: 43 pixels seems to be equal to 10,000 lightyears. The distance from the wormhole end to Voyager and the Ocampa planet is about 324 pixels horizontally and 62 vertically, so about 329.9 pixels for the diagonal line, which works out to be over 76,700 lightyears.
Very crude measurement, with a large margin for error, but it seems the Bajoran wormhole was actually further away than Earth.

Addressing your point 1: I think it is safe to say that for either destination, the last few hundred (perhaps thousand) lightyears will have been pretty well explored.

I agree completely with point 3, though.

IMO, points 1 and 2 are roughly balanced between the two choices: nearly the same distance, and the better-explored Alpha (and Beta) Quadrants parts of the trip are balanced by the known hostile powers in the path (the Romulans is who I'm thinking of there). Point 3 is the one that will swing the decision one way or the other.
Given what was known at the time Voyager got lost, I'd rather face almost anything than the Borg.

 

[DonIago]

All things being equal, I'd say Voyager was screwed either way. One ship against the Borg, one ship against the Dominion...either way the one ship (should be) toast.

 

[Sorak]

Yes SpyOne, I misread the map: here in Italy it's 5.40am so I'm not that sharp at the moment, really

This said, by rule of thumb it seemed that from the point where the Voyager was in the first episode, the wormhole is slightly closer than Earth. Yet, the reasons put forward by DonIago are hardly questionable: imagine Harry Kim's face when, years later, after a multitude of adventures, running through tens of thousands of lightyears in a few seasons thanks to recurring strokes of luck, the Voyager's crew finds out that the wormhole doesn't actually exist anymore and they have to do it all over again. Janeway would have had a mutiny on her hands which would have made Seska's betrayal look like a kid stealing jam.

Yet really: the Borg. Hell. I wouldn't know what else could scare me more than them, so that I take the way through their space. An alliance was promptly forged though, and Kes made the rest: a whole new topic could be started on the matter, but anyway ...


Guy Gardener, the bottom line of your post is that Voyager's writers didn't know what they were at? I had the feeling often, but well, I silenced the little voice in my head and enjoyed the show, in the end.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I'd take that map with a huge grain of salt. First, there's no canon evidence that Earth sits on the dividing line between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Second, given that the Beta Quadrant is so very rarely referred to, I have huge problems with believing that the Romulan and Klingon Empires are in it.

As to why they didn't set a course for the Wormhole - from both a production and in-universe perspective, they simply couldn't resist the idea of exploring the vast, unknown Delta Quadrant.

 

[SpyOne]

Do you know what a Sikarian is?

Ah yes, the Sikarian Trajector. The first of many technologies that Voyager encountered that had the potential to get everyone home, but turned out to be incompatible with Federation tech so Voyager couldn't use it.
The main problem with all of these is what happens when the details are made available to someone who is not limited to the resources aboard Voyager, like say the Federation.
At the very latest, when Reg Barclay at Pathfinder figured out how to contact Voyager, Voyager should have been sending the details of everything they'd encountered.

My favorite for this is the Subspace Catapult. So it needs a tetryon reactor to power it? While building such a reactor is beyond Voyager's means, I doubt it is beyond the means of the Federation. Even if they have never built one before, Voyager should have studied it pretty well, and should be able to provide enough data to get a good start. Tash apparently built one, and he seemed willing to share what he knew in exchange for help debugging the thing.
That sucker is going to change things in the Alpha Quadrant forever. The Federation could build one, then use it to fling a few ships with all the parts to build another one off somewhere, and now in less than an hour a ship can cross ... well, 600 or 3000 lightyears (the figures given in the episode conflict: 30 "sectors" when a sector has been defined as 20 lightyears, but they say it saved them 3 years), either of which is pretty impressive.

 

[Sorak]

given that the Beta Quadrant is so very rarely referred to, I have huge problems with believing that the Romulan and Klingon Empires are in it.

A small off-topic: at the beginning of Star Trek VI, Captain Sulu is collecting gaseous anomalies in the Beta Quadrant, when a shockwave caused by the Klingon moon Praxis hits them. Unless that shockwave travelled a whole quadrant, this canonically places the Klingon Empire in the Beta Quadrant.

SpyOne: I think the producers voluntarily ignored or chose not to see the options you name, simply cause they weren't functional to the show: 7 seasons, and Voyager back home by the season finale, no sooner, and in style, destroying a whole Borg transwarp hub (Why wasn't it within Borg Space but thousands of light years far from it? Why didn't that zone swarm with cubes, but there were only a handful of them hidden inside a nebula? A handful, only a handful, and close to one of a few transwarp hubs? Did the Federation implement the transphasic torpedo and ablative armour technologies Voyager brought to the Alpha quadrant? If so, how will the balance of power in the quadrant change? Questions destined to remain unanswered...)

 

[Admiral Shran]

A small off-topic: at the beginning of Star Trek VI, Captain Sulu is collecting gaseous anomalies in the Beta Quadrant, when a shockwave caused by the Klingon moon Praxis hits them. Unless that shockwave travelled a whole quadrant, this canonically places the Klingon Empire in the Beta Quadrant.

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I might be wrong, but Sulu had just finished his mission in the Beta Quadrant. There's no indiction that they're in that Quadrant when they're hit by the shockwave.

But even if they are, and the Klingons are, in fact, a Beta Quadrant power - that doesn't mean that Earth sits on the boundary between the Quadrants.

Then again, the whole idea of splitting the Federation between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants always struck me as unnecessary and dumb.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Do you know what a Sikarian is?

Ah yes, the Sikarian Trajector. The first of many technologies that Voyager encountered that had the potential to get everyone home, but turned out to be incompatible with Federation tech so Voyager couldn't use it.

but before they alienated these aliens, their good friendship allowed the crew of Voyager unrestricted personal travel throughout the Sikaran Transit system which had a roaming area of at least 40, thousand lightyears towards "home".

Answering the second question does you nothing without answering the first question and, as i suggested, connecting the dots between the questions turning to barely related answers into a SUPER ANSWER.

What is a Cytherian?

A Cytherian is a person living on Cytheria, which is a federation ally living some 40 thousand light years away from federation space NEAR THE CENTRE OF THE GALAXY in possession on instant space folding technology which has the capacity for transitting even galaxy Class star Sips from the centre of the Galaxy to the edge whereabout the terrans hang out.

That's called a bank shot.

And even, Cytheria was still half the distance to earth as a viable target for getting home to aim the ship at. Picard spent a week there being super cool. And returned without any conumdrum.

Doesn't this show just scream for a Will "is she skullfucking me? On myy god! She's skullfucking me" Wheaton guest appearance? You know the space geniegimp who can "wish" himself from one side of the Galaxy to the other?

 

[Kai Winn]

might have made a good story with voyager eventually running into the dominion war. according to the map, it would have to cross vast regions of empty space however, so how would they replace depleted resources?
the gamma quadrant was barely explored at the time voyager got lost, the wormhole was discovered two years earlier only. if and were voyager would discover borg in the delta quadrant was unknown, that's a large estate. equinox never encountered them, but other sorts of evil.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They knew where in the DQ Eluria, the planet where Gunin was from, and that it had been assimilated a century earlier, was.

Mapping out a course that doesn't take them even 10.000 lightyears near Eluria would be the first step to avoiding Borg Contact.

You know one of the 5 things they only knew for certain, or should have known for certain about this quarter of the galaxy? I consider Janeways ignorance about the previous Starfleet knowledge of the DQ before she stepped foot in on there to be akin to the blinders claimed worn by young girls to be citing reviginification is mulliganing all awful experiences with the usual suspects.

And people!

but the end of Season 6, long range explorers vessels (two travelling in tandem) were diverted from their mission to rendezvous with Janeway as early as season 11 (Lifeline.) so Janeway wasn't wandering over areas of space thousands of years from seeing another human being, but she was barely a decade away from being inside the boarder of human space, in fact if she would have held the array for 15 years, she would have been surrounded by Federation Starbases declaring manifest destiny bring law and order to these stark backwaters.

 

[Deks]

It is possible that Janeway did not have access to ALL of Picards missions.
We know that certain missions are not being made available to everyone, and Voyagers original mission involved a retrieval of the Maquis and returning home after just 2 weeks.

I agree there were certain oversights, but the Sikarans technology was incompatible with Voyager because the planet served as an amplifier.
Federation technology probably needed more time to devleop before it would be able to create the necessary conditions so the transporter to work.
At the same time, just because the transporter in question had a range of 40 000 light years, we do not know if it extended all the way to Cytheria.
Would sending a shuttle work?
Would the Sikarans allow the crew to transport a powerful enough beacon they can set up on the planet and send a subspace message to the Cytherians?
Would Janeway even KNOW about the Cytherians?

As for the Wormhole ...
Well, if the Wormhole in question was the same distance from Voyagers starting point in the DQ as Earth was, why take that route if there were no guarantees the Wormhole would be there when they get there?
And if it was not there, the crew would face a journey of another 70 000 lys to Earth ... making the entire trip 145 000 lys in total.
Not a viable decision if it turned out the Wormhole was not there.
Besides, Voyagers crew was aware of the potential Dominion threat and what they did to the Oddyssey by the time it was launched.

Im sure the crew would have managed to modify their shields in the meantime, but it wasnt worth the risk.

 

[Guy Gardener]

they only had to transport a person or transmit a message. No federation ship/technology required to grate against Sikarian technology.

And even if the mission was top secret, the TNG episode in question was a Barclay Episode. You know the guy with such a hard on to find Voyager, that he actually did. Barclay could have contacted the Cytherians directly one would suspect even with out using the midas array, once he remembered that he had friends so much closer to his lost comrades than he.

Captured Borg drones (if such a thing were possible, but they are really docile until they decide to commit to an action.) would initiate the Guardian of Forever to show "living history" up to current events of many worlds perhaps in the Delta Quadrant which could put a rescue mission on the righter side of the galaxy with a even a few months head start to track Janeway down. Actually, imagine using the Guardian as a delivery platform for weapons of mass destruction like Omega weapons or genesis torpedoes? Blowing up planets before they do become problematic. Totally Annorax?

Janeway read the log about the lost Ferengi half way through the episode as a voiceover after an adbreak. She found them, looked them up, found pages all about them written by Picard and said to herself "Wow, I'm not the first human inthe Delta Quadrant."

**Sigh**

 

[Deks]

It's not as if that SF captains are required to read the logs of all other captains out there.
That's a lot of data to go through.
Although, to be frank, it WAS odd that she didn't try to look up references in the database about the Delta Quadrant.
She was a fresh captain (apparently) truth be told, and to her knowledge, she WAS the first SF captain in the Delta Quadrant.

 

[Guy Gardener]

And lo it took her 6 years to find out otherwise that that honour belonged to poor Rudy Ransom (he had a fucking black smoke monster pour venom and mischief through his earhole into the lads evaporating sense of good conscience! SO utterly doomed before the cards where even dealt! Shades of Othello too, would that make Seven Desdemona?), and afterwards I'd gather that she would never mention Rudy again and always refer to herself as the "first" and the "only".

Every drone is equal rank as much ablecrewman as captain.

Captain Seven?

Seven and her parents beat Janeway by 2 decades, and there was surely some survivors with rank from the best of Both Worlds in think dinky Unity episode, but hteir first instinct just like sevens was better Borg than Janeways stooge.

Does Captain Chakotay of the Val Jean count?

There's a 50/50 chance that his ship arrived first and he was the founding first dibs discovery boy and Janey come lately was just lucky her ship had more torpedoes enough that she could edit the history books.