A Voyager confession

[Anwar]

They had tough enemies. Enemies that were believable as credible threats, and never lost that status. But Jem'Hadar were hardly unstoppable. That's all I (and many others) would have asked from the Borg on VOY. They don't need to be invincible, just not "lolborg", which they became.

That's because they had an entire Federation of good guys to oppose the Dominion with in DS9. That it took the entire Federation to fight back (and even then they needed help) made them tough. Such a thing couldn't be duplicated in VOY because ALL THEY EVER HAD was one ship. How the hell are bad guys who are more advanced than the Federation supposed to be tough if they can't easily destroy one ship? They can't.

And why must the effectiveness of these adversaries be based SOLELY on how badly they can knock the ship around? Everything in the paragraph I quoted relates to how Voyager's hands were tied when it came to villains because of how they couldn't blow up the ship. What about the fact that the Romulans from TOS (the Klingons, not so much; they were pretty simplistic, I'll grant) and TNG, the Borg in TNG, the Dominion in DS9... these were more than just bad guys to shoot at. They were interesting, for reasons beyond their ability to blow up our heroes ships. That is the problem with the Kazon.

With the Romulans in TNG, they were equally matched Empire vs Empire and thus had to rely more on shadowy stuff and espionage rather than outright confrontation. And again it was a case of the main chars having the whole Federation to fall back upon. The Borg were only used sparingly in favor of the Romulans and Cardassians due to this. VOY had nothing to fall back upon, whereas their enemies still had entire empires at their disposal while being more advanced than Voyager to begin with. So, their threat DID rely on how badly they could knock VOY around since there was nothing else to do.

Voyager, in later seasons, was fighting off Borg ships like they were any other ordinary adversary. Hell, Janeway at one point decided to hunt Borg ships for resources. This is DUMB when the Borg were supposed to be pretty much the biggest threat in straight combat. So have Voyager survive WITHOUT beating them in straight combat! TNG did it all the time (and before you bring this defense up again, no, it had nothing to do with falling back on being in Federation territory. The Federation armada in BoBW got its ass kicked, so that made no difference). In BoBW, no one could stop the Borg ship in straight combat. The E-D crew ended up beating them through technical trickery and guile. In First Contact, a fleet of Starfleet ships (one that was made up of far newer and more combat capable ships than the BoBW fleet) barely managed to take the thing out JUST as it was reaching Earth (and even then, Picard used his intimate knowledge of the Borg to pinpoint a weakness; hard to say if Starfleet would have won without that). In "I, Borg", they hid from the Borg ship that came for Hugh so they wouldn't have to fight it. Yet we have Voyager fighting off Borg ships left and right, and beating them with the Delta Flyer.

What was done in BoBW and FC were one-shot tactics that could likely never be replicated. And in both cases it depended on the formerly assimilated main character, again another one-shot thing. "I, Borg" was more a character piece that didn't even need that Cube at the end. Again, this was stuff VOY simply couldn't duplicate. They couldn't outsmart the Borg, nor did they have any technical wizardry to pull off. All that was left WAS to fight them in straight combat, and they HAD to win or the show would be over. The variations of how the Borg could be dealt with NOT involving combat was dried up by TNG.

I have one major example to counter this. And that example is... Voyager! Specifically, "Scorpion". That was brilliant. One of the best 2-parters in all of Trek. And the Borg were handled perfectly. They were menacing, threatening, and scary as ever, despite the fact that Species 8472 was tearing them apart (which was, in and of itself, a great twist). It was made very clear throughout both eps that fighting even one cube would be a really really bad thing (so they didn't. They found other ways to deal with the problem). They even did what you said DS9 did, only in a MUCH bigger way (Sisko and crew only teamed up with Jem'Hadar once, and that was just to fight alongside Jem'Hadar against other Jem'Hadar, and was a far less epic episode than Scorpion was): they teamed up with the Borg to deal with Species 8472. Of course, this was later revealed to be a mistake, and in the end, there were no easy answers because the fact of the matter was that both the Borg AND Species 8472 represented serious threats to the galaxy. That's what made this ep great! It's not just about villains that can beat the crap out of you, it's about villains that are interesting to watch. You keep saying Voyager couldn't do this. Well, in Scorpion, Voyager DID it, with TWO villains at once, as well as Trek has ever done villains.

Something that couldn't be done again. Another one-shot.

So what happened? Why couldn't they do what they had already done with the Borg? Why couldn't the Viidians and Species 8472 - both of whom started out as interesting, fantastic villains - stay interesting?

The 8472 were too powerful and had to be permanently removed from the Trekverse as a result, the Vidiians had to be left in the past because it didn't make sense to keep running into them, and the Borg's interesting qualities were dried up by TNG. But since none of VOY's later creations were accepted they had to keep using the Borg as a result.

 

[Saito S]

That's because they had an entire Federation of good guys to oppose the Dominion with in DS9. That it took the entire Federation to fight back (and even then they needed help) made them tough. Such a thing couldn't be duplicated in VOY because ALL THEY EVER HAD was one ship. How the hell are bad guys who are more advanced than the Federation supposed to be tough if they can't easily destroy one ship? They can't.

That's bollocks. The answer is to get creative. Any good writer would balk at the notion that simply by virtue of the show's premise (one ship lost far from home), they are completely hamstrung when it comes to showing powerful enemies. Sure, it's harder, but it's not an excuse to hide behind. Good writers will find a way to tell their stories within that premise. If they can't, then I guess they shouldn't have gone with that premise in the first place.

With the Romulans in TNG, they were equally matched Empire vs Empire and thus had to rely more on shadowy stuff and espionage rather than outright confrontation. And again it was a case of the main chars having the whole Federation to fall back upon. The Borg were only used sparingly in favor of the Romulans and Cardassians due to this. VOY had nothing to fall back upon, whereas their enemies still had entire empires at their disposal while being more advanced than Voyager to begin with. So, their threat DID rely on how badly they could knock VOY around since there was nothing else to do.

You missed the point entirely. You are still speaking as if the worth of an adversary in a dramatic television series is measured SOLELY by how tough they are, by their ability to blow the good guys up. Where is the development of the culture of the Kazon, their society, who they are besides targets to shoot at? The Romulans in TOS and TNG, the Borg in TNG, the Dominion... and, most especially I would say, the Cardassians. All of these had at least some depth (in some cases, lots) that wend beyond how hard they were to beat in combat. The Kazon had zero depth.

What was done in BoBW and FC were one-shot tactics that could likely never be replicated. And in both cases it depended on the formerly assimilated main character, again another one-shot thing.

Of course they couldn't be duplicated. That would be silly. Voyager didn't have Picard. They should have found OTHER ways to survive encounters with the Borg, ways that (like the ways they used for TNG) didn't involve straight combat.

"I, Borg" was more a character piece that didn't even need that Cube at the end. Again, this was stuff VOY simply couldn't duplicate.

What? What in the heavens does the fact that "I, Borg" is a character piece have to do with anything? They were faced with an incoming Borg ship at the end (and I don't see how you can say the Borg ship "wasn't needed" in terms of the story... the writers had decided that the show would end with Hugh rejoining the Collective. How ELSE was he going to get back to them?), and - since fighting Borg ships tends to end in disaster - fighting it was something they didn't want to do. So, they took advantage of the properties of the local star to simply hide from them.

Judging by your posting pattern so far, I would assume you will come back and say that Voyager just "couldn't do stuff like that." What I want you to tell me is WHY. What, in precise terminology, prevented the writers from devising similar scenarios, hiding from the Borg in a star's chromosphere? Or finding a nebula that gives off a specific type of radiation which would scramble the Borg's sensors enough to allow Voyager to escape? Or perhaps a cat-and-mouse chase through an asteroid belt or oort cloud? Actually... that last scenario would have been an awesome ep. A Borg cube tries to capture Voyager as the crew frantically tries to stay one step ahead during a chase through a huge mass of cometary debris. To add tension, the icy fragments of this particular cloud are giving off some sort of Treknobabble-ish energy which is causing sensor ghosts and unreliable readings for both ships (and this energy is what prevents the Borg from simply slicing all the fragments up, exposing Voyager instantly).

See? I just came up with that in five minutes. Why couldn't the Voyager writers come up with alternate scenarios to having a single Starfleet ship beat down the ships of a supposedly massively powerful enemy with straight firepower?

All that was left WAS to fight them in straight combat, and they HAD to win or the show would be over. The variations of how the Borg could be dealt with NOT involving combat was dried up by TNG.

Dried up? This isn't a ration pack. There is no finite limit to the number of good ideas that can be thought up.

Something that couldn't be done again. Another one-shot.

Once again, no, they wouldn't (and shouldn't) duplicate the events of Scorpion. That would be silly. What they SHOULD have done was come up with something else, something different (though possibly similar, with a character in-universe going "Hey, remember that thing we did in Scorpion? That gives me another idea..." Yes, they wouldn't say Scorpion on the show, I'm shorthanding) that does not involve beating them in straight combat.

They couldn't outsmart the Borg, nor did they have any technical wizardry to pull off.

Why? WHY WHY WHY?? Why couldn't they outsmart or trick the Borg? Why didn't they have any "technical wizardry" to pull off? All you're saying is "they just couldn't". I'm saying "Why not?" What PREVENTED them?

My answer: nothing. For whatever reason, they could not tap enough creativity to come up with anything interesting, so they resorted to just having Voyager beat the snot out of Borg ships, repeatedly. Or in other words: bad writing.

Voyager did have some great writing. And DS9 certainly also had some truly awful writing. Do these distinctions just not exist in your mind? Why must every bad ep or flawed concept have an excuse? I don't let the DS9 writers off the hook for "Let He Who is Without Sin", for example. It was a terrible episode, with a stupid premise, lousy "villains", a moral message that was delivered in such a hamfisted way that it made Kirk's "KHAAAAAAAN!" in TWOK look like mild irritation, and a really dumb, totally unnecessary addition to Worf's backstory that served no purpose except to try and explain away an aspect of his personaltiy that already stood just FINE without a specific cause. It sucked. No excuses, no being boxed in by anything. It just sucked.

Can't Voyager just have straight up FLAWS and still be a good show, on the whole? I still consider it to be so. I had a lot of problems with it, more than you or some other fans did, but I'd give it a 6 or 6.5 out of 10, on the whole. An up and down ride, but with enough good (or even exceptional, like Scorpion) eps to keep it on the positive side of "just average, neither bad nor good", which would of course be 5.

So... in summation: Why? (Let's not contemplate that perhaps I could have just typed that, and not this massive post. )

 

[Anwar]

"Get creative"? THAT'S IT? That's your whole rebuttal to "One ship can't survive an empire hunting them"? Hell, not one but two or three Empires hunting them? Empires that all outnumber and out-tech them (well the Kazon don't out-tech them but they do outnumber them...)? What a crock.

And yes, when you get right down to it adversaries just don't cut it unless they can put up a good fight. You think anyone would've taken a liking to the Romulans or Klingons if they could get blown up in 5 seconds by a single Fed ship? No, because they'd have no credibility as adversaries when they are weak like that. The further exploration of their characters and cultures only came after the acknowledgment of their threat level to the main characters. Or, they weren't used as adversaries in those stories in the first place due to the power of the Federation putting a halt to immediate hostilities. VOY doesn't have a Federation backing them up to put an end to said hostilities, so there's nothing to stop the Kazon and Vidiians from just continuously attacking and being pure hostiles.

Hell, the Kazon could've been the most developed race in Trek and it wouldn't mean jack because they can't put up a fight against a single vessel.

Why couldn't VOY do stuff like evade the Borg in some technobabble field? Because it's a cop-out, you go through this whole story of the Borg coming after VOY and in the end they just manage to hide the whole story. Well, what the heck's the point of that? What was the point of that story? They evade the Borg once, what's to stop the Cube from just finding and pursuing them again or just other Cubes in the area coming after them after they leave the technobabble field? A Borg pursuit story would just be that, a story of VOY not getting caught. When DS9 did a similar story of the Dominion hunting the Defiant in a tech field, they had the decency to kill all the Jem'Hadar chasing them instead of just running off and leaving us wondering why they just didn't leave the tech field after them.

"I, Borg" had the Borg as nothing more than window dressing to begin and end the story while the real plot was about Hugh.

Yes, with the Borg there ARE a finite number of stories. Especially when it's just one ship on its own.

What, are they supposed to run into an all-powerful alien race beating on the Borg every time and make an alliance with them to avoid assimilation? Practically everything about Scorpion was un-repeatable.

Why can't they outsmart or trick the Borg? The audience is supposed to believe one ship on its own can SOMEHOW do what the entire Federation CAN'T? It's the same reason I'm grateful they wrapped up the Borg/8472 war in "Scorpion" and not make it some arc: The audience would NEVER, EVER believe that somehow one ship on its own separate from the Federation could have such a huge impact on the Delta Quadrant and the Borg.

Can't Voyager just have straight up FLAWS and still be a good show, on the whole?

Yes, but the majority of the fandom regards it as a total failure and not a "flawed but good show". And why? Because the Kazon weren't uber-warlords of the Delta Quadrant? Because the Vidiian Phage wasn't some massive plague that annihilated most Delta Quadrant life? Because the Borg/8472 war wasn't the series plot from the first episode of the series to the finale 7 years later? That the Hirogen wasn't a single character capable of defeating 150 Starfleet personnel? That the Krenim weren't popping in and out of every season constantly screwing with history? That the show wasn't some serialized mess where you couldn't miss 10 seconds of one episode or the entire show would be ruined? That the crew weren't all "Mad Max" in space? What, tell me what the hell was VOY supposed to do to be the perfect unmatchable series it had "the potential" to be?!

 

[RyuRoots]

Can't Voyager just have straight up FLAWS and still be a good show, on the whole?

Yes, but the majority of the fandom regards it as a total failure and not a "flawed but good show". And why? Because the Kazon weren't uber-warlords of the Delta Quadrant? Because the Vidiian Phage wasn't some massive plague that annihilated most Delta Quadrant life? Because the Borg/8472 war wasn't the series plot from the first episode of the series to the finale 7 years later? That the Hirogen wasn't a single character capable of defeating 150 Starfleet personnel? That the Krenim weren't popping in and out of every season constantly screwing with history? That the show wasn't some serialized mess where you couldn't miss 10 seconds of one episode or the entire show would be ruined? That the crew weren't all "Mad Max" in space? What, tell me what the hell was VOY supposed to do to be the perfect unmatchable series it had "the potential" to be?!

See, this is the bit where you say things that people never wanted and never said they wanted. Things were never this bad on DS9, and no one wanted them to be on Voyager. There is such a thing as a "middle ground" Anwar.

Most people just wanted the villains to be even remotely competent. The Kazon sure didn't fit that bill without Seska, and the Borg became less and less so as the time went on. There's a reason some people call them "Voyager Borg". I mean, you do realize that there IS a middle ground between a single cube killing half the crew every encounter and beating the pants off of them with the Delta Flyer. You DO see that, right? I mean, your post would suggest not, but I hope somewhere you realize that.

So calm down, take some chill pills. There's nothing it could do to be perfect, no Trek series is. It's just a common and IMO perfectly reasonable grievance that few of VOY's villains were competent, and the ones that were either decayed or weren't seen very frequently.

 

[Saito S]

This is an enormous post. Resistance is futile.

"Get creative"? THAT'S IT? That's your whole rebuttal to "One ship can't survive an empire hunting them"? Hell, not one but two or three Empires hunting them? Empires that all outnumber and out-tech them (well the Kazon don't out-tech them but they do outnumber them...)? What a crock.

YES. That's my rebuttal. Get creative. Tell good stories. That was the job of those who got paid to write for Voyager: tell good stories. If they were unable to do so, they shouldn't have continued to hold those jobs. If the premise of the ship being alone in the DQ with no Federation to back them up really did hamstring them so much that they were literally UNABLE to develop convincing villains or create more complex storylines, then they shouldn't have gone with that premise for the show. Of course, I don't actually believe that the show's premise alone would hamstring them as much as you seem to think. More bluntly, what I'm getting at is this: I flat-out reject this idea of yours that the very nature of VOY's premise made it literally impossible to create complex bad guys or to tell more interesting stories.

As far as my response being a "crock"; what, did you expect me to just snap my fingers and - on the spot - present a way to preserve Voyager's premise but still have more complex villains? Coming up with ideas like that takes a little while. And I never offered to solve the problem. Why should I? I never got paid to write for Voyager. I never claimed to have been hit by some divine inspiration regarding HOW, exactly, they could have done better. As a viewer, one is entitled to identify flaws they find in a show without being obligated to come up comprehensive solutions for those flaws.

And yes, when you get right down to it adversaries just don't cut it unless they can put up a good fight. You think anyone would've taken a liking to the Romulans or Klingons if they could get blown up in 5 seconds by a single Fed ship? No, because they'd have no credibility as adversaries when they are weak like that.

You're still missing my point. Nowhere did I suggest that a villain DIDN'T need to be tough to be taken seriously as a threat. I never suggested that because it would be a stupid thing to suggest. What I AM suggesting was that the Kazon could have used some depth beyond their toughness, because as it was, they had NONE. No depth at all. They could have been replaced by zombies or Imperial Stormtroopers, and it would have had little impact on the story. They were just cookie-cutter "BAD GUYS", and I think the show suffered for it.

Why couldn't VOY do stuff like evade the Borg in some technobabble field? Because it's a cop-out, you go through this whole story of the Borg coming after VOY and in the end they just manage to hide the whole story. Well, what the heck's the point of that? What was the point of that story? They evade the Borg once, what's to stop the Cube from just finding and pursuing them again or just other Cubes in the area coming after them after they leave the technobabble field? A Borg pursuit story would just be that, a story of VOY not getting caught. When DS9 did a similar story of the Dominion hunting the Defiant in a tech field, they had the decency to kill all the Jem'Hadar chasing them instead of just running off and leaving us wondering why they just didn't leave the tech field after them.

Is this in reference to my comet debris chase scenario? I hope not, because you totally missed the mark if that's what it is, but it kinda seems that way. I never suggested they "evade the Borg in some technobabble field". I suggested they evade the Borg in a field of cometary debris. I threw in the field that messes with sensors and weapons as a way to add tension. I assume that with "the Dominion hunting the Defiant in a tech field", you're referring to "Starship Down", though that was the atmosphere of a gas giant. Using that ep as an example, though, for my next point: did you think I was suggesting that "Borg chases Voyager" would be enough for an entire episode all by itself? Obviously, it wouldn't be. Like that DS9 ep, you throw in some angle. Maybe the reason Voyager is even anywhere NEAR this field of debris is because they were trying to aid another ship that was being hounded by the Borg. Maybe they manage to rescue these people, thus gaining an ally once they return them to their homeworld. The cat-and-mouse game with the Borg would be the action of the ep, and if done well, could be really intense (you seem to think that it would absolutely no question be really boring, which I don't get... Trek has done these kinds of sequences several times, and I generally thought they worked very well).

That's STILL not a complete, 100% detailed analysis of every nuance of this potential episode. I'm not trying to provide a 100% detailed analysis, just a rough idea. And no, I would never advocate (nor DID I, in my previous post) using a "tech the tech and tech out of the tech field TECH!!" trick to RESOLVE the episode. Voyager had too much of that as it was.

"I, Borg" had the Borg as nothing more than window dressing to begin and end the story while the real plot was about Hugh.

Window dressing? Dude, it was a BORG EPISODE. Just because they didn't fight any Borg ships or drones makes it not so? Everything about Hugh's storyline depends on him being a Borg drone. Everything about Picard's reaction to him depends on his experience as Locutus. It's a Borg episode, just not an action piece. Stories centering around an established show adversary don't HAVE to be action pieces, you know.

Yes, with the Borg there ARE a finite number of stories. Especially when it's just one ship on its own.

You seriously think there are a finite number of Borg stories. That somewhere, there's a "limit" that's going to be struck (or was already struck?) and then suddenly, it's impossible to tell good Borg stories. I'm sorry, that's just false. The abilities of the human mind to output fiction do not work that way. Plus, as I mentioned before, there are the novels. "Before Dishonor" told a very good (though heavily flawed) Borg story. "Greater Than the Sum" told an amazing Borg story. And the Destiny trilogy's Borg story (which leads off from the one in Sum) doesn't show any signs of letting up on the awesome (granted, I'm only halfway through book one of three, so I'll have to reserve final judgment for later). So how does that work if there are a finite number?

What, are they supposed to run into an all-powerful alien race beating on the Borg every time and make an alliance with them to avoid assimilation? Practically everything about Scorpion was un-repeatable.

As I already said, you don't repeat the events of a previous ep verbatim. That would be dumb. But you have to come up with something that isn't just "And they fight the Borg some more! And uh... they win!" I mean, seriously... is what I just put in quotes there really ALL you expected from the writers? You think that having a ship stranded and alone boxes you in that much, to the point where such simplistic nonsense is all you can muster? (As an aspiring writer with my own Trek story about a single Federation ship being thrown off on its own, to an entirely different galaxy, I can definitively say that the answer to that second question is "no.")

Yes, but the majority of the fandom regards it as a total failure and not a "flawed but good show". And why? Because the..... What, tell me what the hell was VOY supposed to do to be the perfect unmatchable series it had "the potential" to be?!

Um... ok. I was thinking of going point by point with each of these ideas, but this post is far too big already (which is why I cut all the middle stuff, for space). Plus, we've danced this number before. Putting aside that you don't have any proof that this mysterious Voyager-hating fandom (who not only wanted things to be more grim and gritty, but apparently wanted things to be WAY WAY more grim and gritty than DS9 EVER was) even exists, and that I have never heard anyone say Voyager should have done anything resembling these things... for this discussion, I don't care about the fandom at large. I don't care how other people felt about Voyager. I'm asking YOU a simple question: Why does every flaw that someone brings up need an excuse so that it's not really bad writing? You see Voyager (and at times, the freaking DELTA FLYER) easily thrashing Borg ships - the Borg having been previously established to be an immensely powerful foe capable of cutting through entire fleets with one ship - and your reaction REALLY is to just shrug your shoulders and go "Well, what ELSE where the writers supposed to do!?"

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yes, but the majority of the fandom regards it as a total failure and not a "flawed but good show".

Once I got my head out of my ass.. or rather internet forums.. I discovered some shocking things. People I met IRL loved Voyager. They also loved Enterprise. Bizarrely they had never read 10,000 posts about how bad these shows were and they spoke about them with enthusiasm! Wow.

So. You are wrong.

 

[Withers]

Let me first say that I liked a lot of episodes of Voyager. There were episodes that were a lot of fun to watch. On the whole, however, they were bottle shows. They were episodes it would be hard for any sci-fi fan to criticize. It wasn't anyone's performance or the characters that made these episodes compelling- it was the story (the plot, not the dialogue) and the special effects. That said, having read through most of this thread, I'd just like to toss a few things out for consideration.

I'm not entirely sure what Voyager was capable of doing in terms of tactical ability. On one show the ship would have its warp drive, shields and weapons knocked off-line by in a hand full of torpedo impacts. In 'the next episode' they were taking on a tactical cube and holding their own. Voyager took something like 170 days of constant smack down, drag out fights with the Krenim (granted, anything but unscathed) but was nearly overwhelmed by three smaller ships in The Void (I know they were running at like 10X normal deutirum consumption but... c'mon). They make no effort to establish what Voyager (and her crew) can handle. It is inconsistent from start to finish and that makes gauging the likeliness of surviving any given encounter hard to do.

I think they had to do a bunch of Borg shows. It was the one thing we knew was somewhere in the Delta Quadrant- Borg space. There was no avoiding it. But they should have done it as an arc. The entire Borg/8472 fiasco should have been an arc. Maybe not nine episodes but certainly more than two. It should have happened as they traveled through Borg space... and once they were clear of it, the Borg shouldn't have shown up much if at all. We, as the audience, should've been like "Wow, they made it through all that by the skin of their teeth." It would've given them the opportunity to do a bunch of Borg episodes but without the feeling that they were becoming toothless. If the Dominion War was just a bunch of random Gamma quadrant battles, where Sisko and company always win, they would have been charged with the same "degradation" that the Borg were charged with by fans. In my opinion the problem with the Borg wasn't lack of creativity but poor execution as far as their use.

The last thing I want to mention (and it is a much, much, much bigger deal to me than the Borg) is what Star Trek Voyager did with the character Q. They took the Cheshire Cat and turned it into Garfield. I was mortified by their use of Q. If the series "ruined" anything it wasn't the Borg. It was Q. Here is an example of creativity that just decides to throw out the baby, the bubbles and the bathwater for the sake... I dunno, sweeps? They turned a menacing but enchanting character into something of a farce. Again, it was execution, not necessarily lack of creativity. Bringing in Q for an episode about the Continuum is good. Doing it the way they did it was not so good.

I'm not the worlds hugest fan of the series as a whole. It had some really great sci-fi episodes and I think there were a handful of performances that are over shadowed by poor execution of what might have been great stories. I don't hate it. I don't think it was a bad show. I like Star Trek so stick a tricorder in someones hand and I'll watch it. But if I didn't have strong opinions I wouldn't be much of a Trekkie would I?


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

This is an enormous post. Resistance is futile.

Likewise.

Of course, I don't actually believe that the show's premise alone would hamstring them as much as you seem to think. More bluntly, what I'm getting at is this: I flat-out reject this idea of yours that the very nature of VOY's premise made it literally impossible to create complex bad guys or to tell more interesting stories.

More interesting stories that don't have to do with VOY's enemies, maybe. Complex bad guys? No, they'd never last long enough to be deep or complex if VOY could easily win every battle. And if the bad guys could win, then it made no sense they couldn't just destroy Voyager.

As far as my response being a "crock"; what, did you expect me to just snap my fingers and - on the spot - present a way to preserve Voyager's premise but still have more complex villains?

People who disagree with me seem to think it would be child's play to do so, yes. But when they are asked to put their money where their mouth is, they have nothing.

You're still missing my point. Nowhere did I suggest that a villain DIDN'T need to be tough to be taken seriously as a threat. I never suggested that because it would be a stupid thing to suggest. What I AM suggesting was that the Kazon could have used some depth beyond their toughness, because as it was, they had NONE.

They tried that in "Alliances" and it was a failure as an episode with a critically negative reaction from the audience. Any attempt at doing the Kazon as anything OTHER than cookie-cutter villains wasn't working. Which makes the viewers pretty hypocritical for claiming they lacked depth when they rejected any depth given to the Kazon.

Is this in reference to my comet debris chase scenario? I hope not, because you totally missed the mark if that's what it is, but it kinda seems that way. I never suggested they "evade the Borg in some technobabble field". I suggested they evade the Borg in a field of cometary debris. I threw in the field that messes with sensors and weapons as a way to add tension.

Comet debris that messes with sensors and weapons, technobabble field, it's all the same thing plot-wise.

I assume that with "the Dominion hunting the Defiant in a tech field", you're referring to "Starship Down", though that was the atmosphere of a gas giant.

Gas giant, another plot field. Just that the DS9 double standard keeps anyone from caring. And like I said, the episode was nice enough to at least KILL all the bad guys chasing the Defiant.

Using that ep as an example, though, for my next point: did you think I was suggesting that "Borg chases Voyager" would be enough for an entire episode all by itself? Obviously, it wouldn't be. Like that DS9 ep, you throw in some angle. Maybe the reason Voyager is even anywhere NEAR this field of debris is because they were trying to aid another ship that was being hounded by the Borg. Maybe they manage to rescue these people, thus gaining an ally once they return them to their homeworld. The cat-and-mouse game with the Borg would be the action of the ep, and if done well, could be really intense (you seem to think that it would absolutely no question be really boring, which I don't get... Trek has done these kinds of sequences several times, and I generally thought they worked very well).

And what would keep the Borg from just leaving the debris field and just tracking VOY and the other ship as soon as they leave? What's to keep them from just going after every advanced world nearby and assimilating them after the episode is over? What's the point of the story other than to give a cheap "chase episode" with a cop-out ending that leaves the viewers PO'ed that the Borg didn't kill/assimilate everyone like the invincible super-foe that they are? Anything other than straight-up combat that leaves the Borg destroyed leaves things too anticlimactic when the Borg are actually gunning for VOY in the first place.

Window dressing? Dude, it was a BORG EPISODE. Just because they didn't fight any Borg ships or drones makes it not so? Everything about Hugh's storyline depends on him being a Borg drone. Everything about Picard's reaction to him depends on his experience as Locutus. It's a Borg episode, just not an action piece. Stories centering around an established show adversary don't HAVE to be action pieces, you know.

A borg episode that focused on one lost drone, with the Cube as a bookend plot device that was only there before the ENT got there and after the ENT left. Not a Borg episode that focused on the Borg as an actual adversary gunning for the good guys.

You seriously think there are a finite number of Borg stories. That somewhere, there's a "limit" that's going to be struck (or was already struck?) and then suddenly, it's impossible to tell good Borg stories.

Yes, there are only "The Borg first detect the good guys", "The Borg try to kill/assimilate everyone" and "Lone Borg forces" as the three main stories. And since VOY lacked the resources that TNG did in surviving the first two story types, they had to fall back on "fight the Borg and survive" with the Borg destroyed at the end since the Borg would never give up unless destroyed.

"Before Dishonor" told a very good (though heavily flawed) Borg story. "Greater Than the Sum" told an amazing Borg story. And the Destiny trilogy's Borg story (which leads off from the one in Sum) doesn't show any signs of letting up on the awesome (granted, I'm only halfway through book one of three, so I'll have to reserve final judgment for later). So how does that work if there are a finite number?

The novels are not about single vessels without support, they involve the entire Trekverse and thus STILL have more resources for storytelling than VOY did.

As I already said, you don't repeat the events of a previous ep verbatim. That would be dumb. But you have to come up with something that isn't just "And they fight the Borg some more! And uh... they win!" I mean, seriously... is what I just put in quotes there really ALL you expected from the writers?

It's all that was left.

You think that having a ship stranded and alone boxes you in that much, to the point where such simplistic nonsense is all you can muster?

When they have no allies, they aren't the strongest Fed Ship to begin with, they have no plot device superweapons, then YES that is all they can muster when facing off against a foe that can't be bargained with or evaded.

Um... ok. I was thinking of going point by point with each of these ideas, but this post is far too big already

Don't let that stop you, I want to hear a rebuttal to every one of those points I raised. Seriously, I do.

I'm asking YOU a simple question: Why does every flaw that someone brings up need an excuse so that it's not really bad writing? You see Voyager (and at times, the freaking DELTA FLYER) easily thrashing Borg ships - the Borg having been previously established to be an immensely powerful foe capable of cutting through entire fleets with one ship - and your reaction REALLY is to just shrug your shoulders and go "Well, what ELSE where the writers supposed to do!?"

You think I'm the only one to do this for any Trek show? There are Niners who try to justify the LITERAL Deus ex Machina that ended "Sacrifice of Angels" with the Prophets destroying the Dominion armada. If anyone can justify that, then I'm fully free to defend VOY from folks who wanted them to have superior foes they could never last a nanosecond against despite the show requiring that they live.

 

[Diddle]

The last thing I want to mention (and it is a much, much, much bigger deal to me than the Borg) is what Star Trek Voyager did with the character Q. They took the Cheshire Cat and turned it into Garfield. I was mortified by their use of Q. If the series "ruined" anything it wasn't the Borg. It was Q. Here is an example of creativity that just decides to throw out the baby, the bubbles and the bathwater for the sake... I dunno, sweeps? They turned a menacing but enchanting character into something of a farce. Again, it was execution, not necessarily lack of creativity. Bringing in Q for an episode about the Continuum is good. Doing it the way they did it was not so good.
​

I'm not sure if I agree with you or not, see I have serious problem regarding Q as a whole in the series itself (TNG - DS9 - VOY). I too am a huge fan of the Continuum, but I believe Q was long ruined way before Voyager got its hands on him. IMO Q in the series was always pretty much nothing more than a comic relief, they created one HUGE character with overwhelming potential and made him "lolz u dead im god", sure Q have much bigger things to worry about than the regrets of a Starfleet Captain.

My point is that they created this enormous character with unrealistic power and made him useless/harmless. Q was testing humanity? Bullshit. They created Q as a being of unlimited power, but they knew if they were to make him use this power it would go beyond their budget plus would make everyone lose faith on the crew. :| So they made as this clawless cat and pulled pranks and stuff, see what I mean? The only time Q actually showed some interesting behavior was in parts of Tapestry and All Good Things... Q was a FAR more interesting character on the novels that he ever was in the series. That, of course is just my opinion.

Now regarding Voyager, my thoughts of it are pretty simple, despite what I've said about Q being a comic relief in TNG there was no other guest star that had more charisma on screen them him, plus no other second character that had more chemistry with someone of the main cast. And they tried to reproduce that chemistry Q and Picard had with Q and Janeway, I always thought it was pretty pathetic the way they tried to make Q having the hots for Janeway because they "couldn't" make it on TNG, it was a really low blow and overall pointless. The whole have my baby thing was so wrong in so many ways, Q was suppose to have all knowledge, it's easy to assume that he'd know better than believe human morals would be transferred to his child just because he'd mate with a human.

The only thing Voyager almost did right was involving episodes regarding the Continuum itself instead of boring let's give Riker powers episodes. Deathwish is the perfect example of almost win, they started the episode GREAT, but at some point someone said something that absolutely ruined the whole thing. Quinn wanted to commit suicide because he was bored. They twisted to plot so hideously it was unbelievable, it simply ruined everything Quinn was trying to explain. The Q and the Grey would have been the best episode ever regarding Q if it wasn't for the baby thing I said before. They had a great plot, nice storyline and ruined it by including pointless fillers all over it...

It's very sad how the writers never knew how to use the Q character well, it's such a waste of an incredible thing.
I'm sorry I'll shut up now, I always go a little overboard when the subject is Q.

 

[Withers]

Alright. I'm with you. I agree- the idea that he was ever interested in anything related to humanity at all, let alone an individual Captain, is pretty far out there. But if you buy that, if you just accept it and leave it there, what you have before Voyager (i.e. the end of the Next Generation) is a Q that at least has the potential to be dubiously motivated. He clearly wasn't "scary" but he wasn't a clown either.

Once Voyager was done with the character there was no going back. You couldn't imagine that character passing judgment over a 2nd grade science fair let alone Jean Luc Picard, his crew, and all of humanity. It irked me. The Borg might have gotten their collective (pun directly intended) asses kicked but... you could re-work them and get them back to where they were before Voyager. Not so with Q. He's a cosmic clown from now until the end of forever, in my opinion, and that irked me.

You're absolutely right about them almost getting Continuum stories. I think the right ideas might have been there but, again, it was the execution and the way it came out on screen that just...caused a flop every time.

Star Trek knew how to do omnipotence well. They'd done it with the Prophets (again, in my opinion.)


-Withers-​

 

[RyuRoots]

To be honest, I skipped a bit of that wall of text. But Anwar, just a reminder. We really don't care (for the purposes of this discussion) HOW the fans reacted. You can still think that we Niners are the scum of the Earth, but don't drag this even farther off topic than it already is.

We're trying to talk about what we perceive to be flaws in how certain races were handled. And you might give reasons for why the writers did this or that, but you never HAVE to go in one single creative direction.

EDIT: I feel I HAVE to reply to that last point. The Prophets were established right from the get-go to be extremely powerful and advanced, and their connection to Sisko is a huge plot point throughout the show. Whether you think it's a good resolution or not, it does make sense within the context of the story and from what we know about the Prophets/wormhole aliens.

The problem with VOY is that it actively contradicts what we've been told and shown about the Borg's strength and resourcefulness when you can go hunt them in the Delta Flyer with little ill effect.

 

[Anwar]

Given how constrained VOY's situation was for storytelling, yes they pretty much DID have to go in the directions they did with. Not without radically changing the premise of the show itself.

Now, if you WANT to change the premise then fine. But don't say "the could've easily have done this or that" when the original premise simply doesn't allow it.

EDIT: Niner double standard, I knew it was only a matter of time before that popped up.

VOY didn't contradict anything, the DF had been upgraded with plot contrivance tech for the sole purpose of mincing the Borg. It was a series finale gamebreaker put in by a disgruntled writer that was annoying yes, but it still didn't contradict the Borg's strength since the Borg were strong compared to the present day Feds and nothing had been stated about how strong they'd be compared to tech from the future designed specifically for killing Borg.

 

[RyuRoots]

Given how constrained VOY's situation was for storytelling, yes they pretty much DID have to go in the directions they did with. Not without radically changing the premise of the show itself.

Now, if you WANT to change the premise then fine. But don't say "the could've easily have done this or that" when the original premise simply doesn't allow it.

EDIT: Niner double standard, I knew it was only a matter of time before that popped up.

VOY didn't contradict anything, the DF had been upgraded with plot contrivance tech for the sole purpose of mincing the Borg. It was a series finale gamebreaker put in by a disgruntled writer that was annoying yes, but it still didn't contradict the Borg's strength since the Borg were strong compared to the present day Feds and nothing had been stated about how strong they'd be compared to tech from the future designed specifically for killing Borg.

No. You are wrong. This is what's called a fallacy.

The premise is only as constrained as you make it. By that logic, DS9 would have ONLY done Bajoran political/religious episodes, Gamma aliens of the week, or Cardassian episodes and nothing else ever, because "the premise didn't allow for anything else".

If you want to argue that DS9 altered its premise by the time the Dominion (or the Dominion War) came along, then alright. VOY could've changed its own premise (or more accurately lived up to the one it started with) and make alliances, have damage to the ship that would need to be repaired, or take an "outside the box" approach to the Borg.

I'm not a very good writer, and I'm not saying it's easy. What I'm saying is that it's possible, and this "they had to do this, they were boxed in" argument is ridiculous.

Anwar, please stop with this "Niner hater" business. It is LONG past old.

When did I mention Endgame at all, anyway? I mean the one where Janeway goes looking for Borg ships to disable so she can help Seven.

 

[Withers]

EDIT: I feel I HAVE to reply to that last point. The Prophets were established right from the get-go to be extremely powerful and advanced, and their connection to Sisko is a huge plot point throughout the show. Whether you think it's a good resolution or not, it does make sense within the context of the story and from what we know about the Prophets/wormhole aliens.

The problem with VOY is that it actively contradicts what we've been told and shown about the Borg's strength and resourcefulness when you can go hunt them in the Delta Flyer with little ill effect. ________

I brought up the Prophets as a counter point to the Q. Obviously, the staff on Voyager couldn't have written the Q the same way the Prophets were written. But as far as the execution of their powers (i.e. that they were used sparingly and not in a pie and seltzer fashion as was the case with the Continuum and Q on Voyager. )

As to the Borg... like I said, I think they had to do a bunch of Borg episodes. They just went about doing them over the course of too many seasons, too often, and allowed them to become too mundane. The Krenim in Year of Hell seemed more menacing to me than the Borg ever did.


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

DS9 DID do only Bajoran political/religious stuff (everything to do with the Prophets and the Emissary was Bajoran religious stuff. It was just that the Emissary just happened to be Sisko that all Sisko stories are by definition Emissary stories), Cardassian stuff, and Gamma Aliens. It's just that those premises were broad enough that they allowed for stories like the Dominion to happen.

VOY's premise wasn't as broad, it was "A starship without support travels home", making alliances means they no long lack support, damages done to the ship couldn't be repaired thus permanently stranding them in the DQ which is why they avoided those stories, and since they lacked support they could never challenge or evade the Borg in "outside the box" type thinking.

Now, if the premise had been "Starship Voyager is trapped far beyond the Federation" with NOTHING being said about the lack of support or going home, then it's a whole other story since with the "lack of support" gone it means they can build alliances and stuff and stick around one area of space instead of always being on the move.

VOY going after Borg ships to help Seven isn't the same thing since it was made clear not all Borg ships are equal to Cubes and Spheres, and there are really weaker Spheres.

As for the Krenim being more menacing, they weren't uber-powerful like the Borg and were permitted to do damage to the ship and kill people, plus the writers knew it was only temporary and would all get reset. No Borg attack on VOY could ever result in less than total annihilation and thus had to end in the Borg's own destruction.

 

[Silvercrest]

The problem with VOY is that it actively contradicts what we've been told and shown about the Borg's strength and resourcefulness when you can go hunt them in the Delta Flyer with little ill effect.

VOY didn't contradict anything, the DF had been upgraded with plot contrivance tech for the sole purpose of mincing the Borg.

Sorry, but the de-fanging of the Borg started long before that. When the U.S.S. Equinox showed up, Capt. Ransom said something to the effect of, "The Borg? We haven't seen so much as a cube."

He makes it sound like the appearance of a cube is a minor nuisance. I seem to remember a time when the appearance of a Borg cube was an apocalyptic event on the order of the Doomsday Machine, the Four Horsemen, and Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker.

"So much as a cube", my foot. If they talk about the Borg that dismissively, then the Borg have been written down into "just another villain."

 

[Anwar]

So one actor saying one word in a particular tone of voice immediately destroys all threat posed by the Borg. I had no idea the Borg were so weak that merely talking of them in less than reverent tones destroyed their power .

 

[RyuRoots]

DS9 DID do only Bajoran political/religious stuff (everything to do with the Prophets and the Emissary was Bajoran religious stuff. It was just that the Emissary just happened to be Sisko that all Sisko stories are by definition Emissary stories), Cardassian stuff, and Gamma Aliens. It's just that those premises were broad enough that they allowed for stories like the Dominion to happen.

VOY's premise wasn't as broad, it was "A starship without support travels home", making alliances means they no long lack support, damages done to the ship couldn't be repaired thus permanently stranding them in the DQ which is why they avoided those stories, and since they lacked support they could never challenge or evade the Borg in "outside the box" type thinking.

Now, if the premise had been "Starship Voyager is trapped far beyond the Federation" with NOTHING being said about the lack of support or going home, then it's a whole other story since with the "lack of support" gone it means they can build alliances and stuff and stick around one area of space instead of always being on the move.

VOY going after Borg ships to help Seven isn't the same thing since it was made clear not all Borg ships are equal to Cubes and Spheres, and there are really weaker Spheres.

As for the Krenim being more menacing, they weren't uber-powerful like the Borg and were permitted to do damage to the ship and kill people, plus the writers knew it was only temporary and would all get reset. No Borg attack on VOY could ever result in less than total annihilation and thus had to end in the Borg's own destruction.

Gamma alien OF THE WEEK was a key part of my statement. The Dominion weren't really anything "of the week" being a staple of the show for 5 years. And even if I do accept your wide misinterpretation, I can quite safely say that episodes that explored Trill and Klingon society, that dealt with Section 31, or that looked at Federation politics don't fit into any of those 3 categories, to say nothing of various character studies.

The one-sentence presmise description of a TV show (not just Trek, any show) is not some kind of forever declaration set in stone that the writers will be forbidden from straying beyond.

That's irrelevant. They're still Borg. Even if the cube has more raw power, the Borg weren't a flying joke in FC when they had a sphere. The sphere got blown up, but the Borg therein and that spawned from it were an extremely dangerous threat.

And Anwar, this makes no sense. Let's look at a few other encounters with the Borg.

Best of Both Worlds: Fleet gets pasted, Ent-D comes out successful basically on its own.

FC: Fleet gets knocked around, but ultimately succeeds largely due to the Ent-E/Picard, but (and this is the part I want you to focus on) the Borg on the sphere damn near win after coming to the Ent-E, but are eventually stopped.

Greater than the Sum: Ent-E single-handedly must take out this crazy Borg super ship. They come out on top.

So why is it that when Voyager faces the Borg, the ONLY alternative to "lolwut?" Borg is annihilation when that's...not true anywhere else?

 

[Anwar]

Best of Both Worlds had the Locutus plot device, not something VOY could do. Plus they had tons of other ships and thousands of redshirts to sacrifice to build up the Borg threat while there was no on in VOY for them to kill to build up their threat.

First Contact again needed the Picard as former Borg plot device to win, and the time travel stuff as an excuse for the Borg to get onboard the ship. Not re-applicable on VOY.

Greater than Sum, never read it but it seems that the TNG crew are getting their own double standard for triumphing over the Borg while VOY gets nothing but disrespect for doing the same.

The Dominion were still Gamma aliens, so they still fit. They just showed up several weeks in a row.

Section 31 were revealed due to the war, which was the result of the Gamma Alien premise. Still in show boundaries.

Seeing how VOY gets trashed because it didn't rigidly stay true to its premise, I don't see how betraying the premise some other way is supposed to make the show better.

 

[Withers]

Your excuse for Voyager seems to boil down to what it couldn't do and I fundamentally do not understand this perspective. You're telling me, that because Voyager was alone, there weren't stories they could have done that would have been less lolfull, more substantive and all around better sci-fi than what they produced and I'm not buyin'.

Voyager's problem wasn't the story. It's the way the story was told. And there were ways to tell that story that worked on other Star Trek series that could've worked on Voyager. DS9 had the Dominion War Arc. Voyager could've had any number of different arcs that would've taken the "ham" factor out of some of the villains, could've allowed for greater character development, and could have set a consistent tone for the show (or at least for the characters within a season.)

"They couldn't have done the BoBW bit." No one is suggesting they should have. But if they were going to use the Borg they needed to have thought out how a lot more than they did. And that goes for pretty much everything in Voyager. They came u p with some awesome ideas. When they executed them they turned out poor in more cases than less.


-Withers-​