Did Voyager's premise inherently hold it back?

[CoveTom]

I admit it was bad writing at that part of the premiere, there should've been some people pointing out that using the Array would've killed people. I suppose it was to force some conflict for people to resent Janeway for blowing up the Array, but thankfully they just had them accept it and move on.

*bangs head on keyboard*

Bad writing? That they said something completely different than what you claim they meant? You're actually claiming that when they said "hey, the array is a way for us to get home, but we have to blow it up to save the Ocampa," what they really meant was "hey, this array sucks and we wouldn't use it anyway, so let's go ahead and blow it up"? Or when Torres said "don't blow that up, it's our only way home" she actually meant "go ahead; I wouldn't go through that thing anyway"? Wow. That's not stretching; that's just inventing crap out of whole cloth.

But, let's turn this around. Instead of me trying to give you scenes and quotes that establish what I think is the premise of the show, let me ask it of you: On what do you base your statement that the premise of the show was to get home at all costs and with no support? Where was that ever stated?

 

[Anwar]

They say they wanted to go home, and when they have chances to settle down on planets they reject them in favor of continuing to go back to the Alpha Quadrant. One of the things said about VOY would be that they wouldn't be able to go to starbases (not FEDERATION Starbases, but ALL Starbases) for resupply. And the hatedom complained that when VOY repaired major damages between episodes it was bad because they had no support to do so. Now, would they complain about that if having no support wasn't supposed to be an intrinsic part of VOY?

 

[Withers]

One of the things said about VOY would be that they wouldn't be able to go to starbases (not FEDERATION Starbases, but ALL Starbases) for resupply.

You have established through quotations of episodes and your own various interpretation of events that you think the premise of Voyager was basically a Federation starship getting at home no matter the cost (which, by the way, would have been Star Trek: Equinox). How, in that case, do you support this idea of absolutely no support?

You quote Janeway as having said "new technologies" as a way they might have gotten home. You're imagining at the onset the writers were thinking of Voyager traveling through the entire Delta Quadrant back to Earth and never encountering anything but hostile aliens... yet Janeway herself makes mention of the idea of finding new technology to speed them on their way?

By not acknowledging how Voyager resupplied and repaired itself from episode to episode one isn't "sticking steadfast to the premise." Rather one is simply omitting essentials of the story thus making the tale a rather weak (and at times inexplicable) one.

Wither's is just teething.

Not entirely sure what you mean by that but if the point of a forum is still to post is it not?


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

They realized there was no way to keep the ship going with that kind of damage, and they couldn't get help to fix it since they couldn't have support. So they just chose to ignore the damage done in one episode and keep going since there wasn't any way to fix it.

 

[Withers]

they couldn't have support.

Why? And they did have support. Numerous times. I can think of a handful of times Voyager either stopped in a space port or visited a more advanced species yet in none of them do they ever make any mention of doing any repairs or upgrades. They did have support (and no one I have ever seen who has anything to say on the subject has claimed anything even close to the statement "I hated that episode where they got some help because it contradicted the written-in-stone-unalterable-steadfast-10commandment-ish premise that was set up in the pilot.")

So they just chose to ignore the damage done in one episode and keep going since there wasn't any way to fix it.

There were so many sweet ways to explain what was going on it makes me teeth hurt. That they chose to ignore it (and you recognize at least that much) is the best evidence that possibly exists of just how lazy they chose to be when it came to writing Voyager episodes.


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

Yes, and the audience felt it was a betrayal of the premise that they found support whenever they did for anything. Meaning they'd go nuclear if they saw a damaged VOY going to an alien base and negotiating repairs done, so the writers decided to save themselves the trouble by just moving past that.

 

[Saito S]

Firstly, way to not even address the gaping logic flaw in your whole position that I pointed out in my last post.

They say they wanted to go home, and when they have chances to settle down on planets they reject them in favor of continuing to go back to the Alpha Quadrant.

Correct. That doesn't in any way mean "at any cost."

Last week, a co-worker invited some of us out to dinner after work. I was given an opportunity to stop and sit down for a while in a restaurant, get some nice food and chat with people. But I declined, because on that particular night, I really wanted to get home quickly. Does this mean I wanted to get home "as fast as possible, no matter the cost!"? If someone had walked in front of me as I was trying to get on the bus, would I have shoulder-tackled them into the bike rack to get them out of the way, so I could leap up the boarding stairs onto the bus (or not, if it had been one of them newfangled low-floor buses) while shouting "Out of my way! I must get home NOW, NO MATTER THE COST!"

One of the things said about VOY would be that they wouldn't be able to go to starbases (not FEDERATION Starbases, but ALL Starbases) for resupply.

What? No they didn't. It WAS, in fact, Federation starbases/stations. That was - quite specifically - the "thing they could not do" that was cited in promo spots, interviews with Rick Berman in Star Trek: The Magazine, etc. etc. when the show was about to air. The idea was that - unlike the three previous Trek shows - the at that point well-worn, traditional formula of "Oh, the ship is all fixed... guess they went to a starbase" doesn't work, since there AREN'T any. Instead, we would see them getting repairs wherever and however they could, including (but certainly not limited to) stopping at stations run by DQ races for repairs or parts (something we SAW them do every now and again, just not nearly often enough). Speaking of the fact that they didn't do that often enough...

And the hatedom complained that when VOY repaired major damages between episodes it was bad because they had no support to do so. Now, would they complain about that if having no support wasn't supposed to be an intrinsic part of VOY?

Dude... you've got it perfectly, spotlessly backwards.

People did complain about Voyager taking heavy damage in an ep, limping off the screen trailing plasma and debris as the "Executive Producer..." text came up, then showing up in the next ep all shiny and fixed up. NO ONE complained about that because "they are not supposed to ever find any help! How did they get repaired!?" NO ONE. Because it would be STUPID. They had to get repaired somehow, or the show would end when the ship broke down! (And no, you are not going to get me to believe that anyone expected or hoped to see the ship just getting more and more busted, until it finally fell apart). The REASON we complained about that was precisely BECAUSE we didn't get to see or hear how they got these repairs! NO ONE wanted to see Voyager stick to the idea of getting no support ever, what we wanted was to be given even a couple of throwaway lines here and there (a bit more than that, preferably, at least sometimes, but even JUST that would have been better) about how they restocked at such-and-such commerce hub, or were assisted with repairs by friendly species X, or something. THAT is what people wanted (and didn't get) from Voyager, in terms of the "magic" between ep repairs/resupply.

Along a similar line: there is no way that the creators would ever have contemplated making "no support of any kind EVER" part of the requirements for writing an ep. Think about it: starships have to get repaired and resupplied somehow, somewhere, eventually. There is NO way around that (unless the ship just never gets in any trouble or has any problems with supplies or power reserves, which obviously isn't the case with Voyager). Why would the show's creative team build in a writing requirement that would make it IMPOSSIBLE to do so? After a certain point, ship repairs simply cannot be accomplished by the crew, on their own, while they hang in space. Some repair jobs are just too big (to say nothing of parts, materials, energy reserves, etc). ALL SHIPS (real or fictional, space or sea) must eventually dock somewhere and get external assistance, or they will fall apart.

I criticize the Voyager writing team for a lot of things, but there is no way they would have been stupid enough to write that into the premise. To add a "writing clause" that says "No matter what you do, when writing an episode, you are NOT ALLOWED to have them do this one thing that every ship ever in the history of ever must sometimes do. Got it?" And even if they had been that dumb, they would have very quickly realized that such a thing was a huge problem, and (as YOU YOURSELF suggested) "discarded" that part of it.

Which brings me back - once again - to my original point: a television show's premise is NOT that inflexible. The presence of the words "no support" does NOT literally mean "NO SUPPORT OF ANY KIND EVER." That part of the premise (and you STILL have not told us where this was supposedly written or stated) is hyperbole. Dramatic wording. "Alone! In the DELTA QUADRANT! With no support and a 70,000 LIGHT YEAR journey before them!" That kind of thing.

Oh, and by the way: no matter how many times you dredge it up, the "Hatedom", as you describe it, remains a myth.

 

[Withers]

Yes, and the audience felt it was a betrayal of the premise that they found support whenever they did for anything.

Americans have a colloquialism that I love that I think is appropriate for this (but someone correct me if I'm wrong); I think you're talking out of your ass with that statement. Never once have I heard anyone complain about anything that was done on Voyager betraying the premise. I've yet to come across anybody whose complaint was that the premise was violated (especially when compared with the far less esoteric complaints like the shuttle-o-matic factor, the endless supply of torpedoes, dumbing down of the Borg et all.)

Meaning they'd go nuclear if they saw a damaged VOY going to an alien base and negotiating repairs done, so the writers decided to save themselves the trouble by just moving past that.

Okay, no one who has posted here agrees with your interpretation of the premise. Even the people who love the show and don't think there was a lot wrong with it (she posted somewhere back there) don't agree that the premise was so finite. That being the case I don't think you can justifiably make the argument that the majority would be happier with fewer explanations as opposed to more.


-Withers-​

 

[DigificWriter]

There's a reason why, when I re-wrote VOY myself (yes, I had enough problems with it to do that) I threw a lot of the premise out and replaced it with a different one. I felt that no WHAT the execution was, VOY's premise just wasn't good.

I'm both mystified by and curious about this statement, Anwar. I don't really see how you can change Voyager's premise and still call it Voyager, but would nonetheless be interested in seeing or hearing about what you did.

 

[Anwar]

I didn't set it in the Delta Quadrant, I had them have no idea where they were in relation to Earth, and I had Cullah's group of Kazon be the only bad Kazon (with only 2-3 of those huge ships, spread throughout the area S1 happened in).

It's all here: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=101620

 

[CoveTom]

One of the things said about VOY would be that they wouldn't be able to go to starbases (not FEDERATION Starbases, but ALL Starbases) for resupply.

When and where was that said? Can you point to a single source for that? Because I simply don't believe it was ever said that Voyager would never be able to go to the alien equivalent of a starbase for assistance.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well? They went to an alien starbase and the ship was almost impounded because Neelix was caught selling drugs.

Obviously her crew is a wad of dillholes who cannot be trusted not to mesh in well with civilized people.

Then of course their is the small qualifier that they don't carry "currency" since they hail from "free society". of course Janeway does "barter" since she understands that not every species is as socialistic as the Federation.

Could Janeway "afford" an overhaul with just stuff that's redundant and lying about on her ship? She's an idiot if she doesn't build up a surplus of "whatever" for when she needs to deal with the rest of th universe who are hardly as altruistic as the Pinko Federation... However in Flesh and Blood, Janeway and Tuvok had a conversation about if they should be guilty about how the replicator technology they had been trading with other races for food and vital supplies might have gone ass over tea kettle if these people had been manufacturing weapons instead of sandwiches, even though there was a season one episode where she explained to Neelix that allowing Seska to hand over replicator tech tot he kazon would alter the balance of power n that entire quadrant altering the development of all life and culture if the kazon were given an unfair advantage they chose to press against all opposition.

Dealing crack would have been less toxic.

And lets not forget that 90 percent of the time, any foreign starbase is just some trick to figure out how to serve man for dinner or wrestling out her internal organs for some organ bank which serves the common good.

 

[Withers]

Regardless of whether the untested Voyager crew was good at interactions with species of the Delta Quadrant and regardless of whether or not the issue of currency was solved, some explanation as opposed to no explanation would have been preferable in regard to the ship stocking and repairing itself.

Even how the crew fed itself was on suspect grounds. In one episode they'd make replicator rations sound like the crew only got to eat once a day. In other episodes that didn't seem to be a problem at all. And then they'd show that stupid aeroponics bay and claim that was a major source of food. The fact of the matter is Voyager only ever ran low on anything when it was necessary to the plot of the episode. Rather than sitting down and saying "What would it be like to be stranded far from home? What would I do to get materials?" The writers choose to completely ignore the fact all together leaving the viewer (in this case me) scratching their head.


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

"What would it be like to be stranded far from home? What would I do to get materials?"

"Mad Max in space, which we don't want to write about because it's a betrayal of Trek itself."

AND

"Stuff they can't do without outside aid, which they can never get, so we may as well just ignore that part since there's no other way around it."

 

[Withers]

So you're imagining that, from the very first episode, they never intended on elaborating on the situation on board Voyager in regard to repairs and supplies? Because if that's the case I'll refer you to all of the early episodes that make an attempt to expound on the idea that they are, in fact, limited to how many torpedoes they can fire and what resources they can use on certain ship functions. If they never had any intent on exploring that because "they didn't want Mad Max in Space" (whatever the hell that means) why did they then do it for a handful of episodes only to completely abandon it later on?

"Stuff they can't do without outside aid, which they can never get, so we may as well just ignore that part since there's no other way around it."

You might have said that to yourself (about the outside aid) and you might think viewers thought that about the premise (though every viewer here who has expressed an opinion has said they didn't) but the writers certainly never said any such thing. I think they were lazy and uncreative but I don't think the phrase "so we might as well just ignore that part since theres no way around it" was ever uttered. If it was my opinion of them just sank even lower. Either way, they did try, they just decided at some point to stop. That's where the problem lies.


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

They tried to elaborate on it at first, but after a while they sat back and thought about when the realized that the approach ("Mad Max" in space) was in fact a betrayal of Trek which is why they eased off of it as the show went on.

There WAS no way around it, not without betraying what was left of the given premise. The loss of resources could never be replenished without outside aid, and by the time they decided to ditch that part of the straitjacket the hatedom already was in full Hate mode so nothing could've been done to satiate them by that point anyways.

 

[Withers]

I'm going to respond out of order so just follow along with me for a second because we're going to get to the bottom of this if I have to glue my fingers to the key board.

The loss of resources could never be replenished without outside aid,

I'd almost agree with you. Were we talking about any ship that's been shown before Voyager I'd agree. There's no way to replenish without outside aid. Voyager, however, made shit out of nothing. The Delta Flyer is the prime example of that and even if you forgive round one the fact that they built more than one is where it gets dicey. That, however, isn't the bigger over all point. The bigger over all point is that it was never stated they couldn't have outside aid. Again, we're talking about a Federation starship on a mission of exploration; "outside aid" is implied almost by Starfleet mandate.

You seem to be laboring under two misconceptions about the premise of this show; 1.) That it was "Get home at all costs/regardless of the cost" and 2.) That there could be absolutely no outside aid given to Voyager. Whenever there is an example of either of those two things happening you chalk it up to the writers abandoning the premise and claim that fans hated it whenever that happened.

So, let's break this down; What can you provide as solid evidence of either version of your interpretation of the premise? What can you provide that even implies the first version? You speak of them as though you had first hand knowledge of the shows production (which... I don't think you did.) If there's nothing to go on but your interpretation you have to allow for the idea that other people interpreted it differently (i.e. everyone else in this thread).

So what've you got? Where does this come from?


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

Janeway herself said the mission of VOY is to return home, and that they'd be exploring around to find easier ways of doing that. That means that despite everything else their mission is to go home.

VOY was marketed that they wouldn't be able to get restocked and resupplied at starbases, not just Fed Starbases but Starbases at all. As in, they get NOTHING from any starbases they encounter throughout the entire show. The Hatedom also keeps complaining that VOY shouldn't have been able to be as good looking as it was after being damaged and hated whenever that happened. Getting fixed between episodes implies they got help and fixed the ship (and didn't waste time giving a few lines about it), which means that the Hatedom hated how they got aid between episodes to fix the ship's damage. Thus, the hatedom hates that they got outside aid because the premise was that they COULDN'T go to a starbase (ANY starbase) for such aid.

 

[Withers]

You can't speak for "the hatedom." You're obviously not a member so its truly unfair of you to put words in their mouths.

Janeway herself said the mission of VOY is to return home, and that they'd be exploring around to find easier ways of doing that. That means that despite everything else their mission is to go home.

I'll submit that returning to the Alpha Quadrant was a goal. It wasn't the only goal, however, because they continued to explore along the way. Seven of Nine even makes mention of more than a dozen course corrections (I think the number was 37 but I'm not sure off the top of my head) in the name of exploration. It was a starfleet ship. Of course they wanted to go home but, as evidenced by the first episode, the last episode, and a bunch of episodes in between, it wasn't at all costs.

VOY was marketed that they wouldn't be able to get restocked and resupplied at starbases, not just Fed Starbases but Starbases at all. As in, they get NOTHING from any starbases they encounter throughout the entire show

Where is this coming from? Where is anything even vaguely similar stated implicit or explicitly?

The Hatedom also keeps complaining that VOY shouldn't have been able to be as good looking as it was after being damaged and hated whenever that happened. Getting fixed between episodes implies they got help and fixed the ship (and didn't waste time giving a few lines about it), which means that the Hatedom hated how they got aid between episodes to fix the ship's damage. Thus, the hatedom hates that they got outside aid because the premise was that they COULDN'T go to a starbase (ANY starbase) for such aid.

This is what I was talking about; you can't speak for the people your thinking is in opposition to otherwise there's no point in my being here (you can just have this conversation by yourself.) The problem wasn't that they were going to bases to get fixed in between episodes thus violating the premise I had a problem with. It's that they never explained how the ship was being repaired or where the infinite supplies were coming from. It had nothing to do with the premise being violated. It had everything to do with a complete lack of attention to detail when it came to story telling. These are vastly different critiques.

I think if you were to ask anyone who had an objection to this particular subject it would be closer to mine than yours.


-Withers-​

 

[Saito S]

They tried to elaborate on it at first, but after a while they sat back and thought about when the realized that the approach ("Mad Max" in space) was in fact a betrayal of Trek which is why they eased off of it as the show went on.

So now, "ship stranded far from Federation space, stopping to get supplies and repairs whenever they can" equals "Mad Max in space?" Like... it MUST equal that? (Even though it, you know, totally wouldn't. You would have to TRY, very, very hard, to make a Trek show about a ship stranded in the DQ feel like Mad Max. Similar conceptual elements do not automatically equal a similar overall feel between one story and another. That's like saying that DS9 is just "Babylon 5 in the Trek-verse" because it's set on a space station).

And how in the Azure Nebula would the idea of a Federation starship getting help and supplies from others - making friends, forging alliances, giving assistance TO others when they can, in exchange for repairs and materials - constitute a "betrayal of Trek"? Last I checked, different species cooperating for mutual gain, one group of people helping out another group in need because it's the right thing to do, is something of a major theme in Trek. In fact, isn't there some important organization or something that's founded on that very notion? Hmmm...


Oh right! The United Federation of Planets! They show up in some kind of minor capacity from time to time in Star Trek, if memory serves.

There WAS no way around it, not without betraying what was left of the given premise. The loss of resources could never be replenished without outside aid, and by the time they decided to ditch that part of the straitjacket the hatedom already was in full Hate mode so nothing could've been done to satiate them by that point anyways.

Once again, taking what was clearly intended to be a bit of dramatic hyperbole and not strictly adhering to its literal meaning is not in any way "betraying the premise."

Oh, and by the way: the "Hatedom", as you describe it, is STILL a myth.

Not gonna quote your recent post, Withers, cause it's fairly large, but I wanted to commend you for being able to say something I've been trying to get at, but in a much more concise, straightforward way than I ever could (specifically, the question of just WHERE this "NO OUTSIDE SUPPORT EVAR" idea was supposedly written or stated in the first place). I REALLY want to see the answer to this. But my tendency to be verbose sometimes has the side effect of making my actual point harder to discern.