End of Season 5 weirdness

[Turd Ferguson]

So I've finished watching Season 5 for the first time (the subject of an oft-viewed yet not-responded to thread, but I digress) and I found the bulk of the episodes enjoyable, but there were a few glaring discrepancies I noticed while watching them.

According to my calculations, Voyager had traveled some 30,000 light-years since first encountering the Malon in the episode "Night" (10,000 light-years using the quantum slipstream drive in "Timeless", 20,000 light-years using the Borg transwarp coil in "Dark Frontier"). So, how is it they're encountering the Malon again in "Juggernaut?"

Secondly, the episode "Think Tank," which I enjoyed, yet again, noticed something glaring. Or not really glaring. Just small minded oversightness. Captain Janeway is willing to use the Think Tank's resources to elude the bounty hunters. That's fine. But, Jason Alexander also mentions that the Think Tank cured the Vidiians of the Phage. The Vidiians, as of that point, were over 45,000 light-years from Voyager's present position (Kes' 10,000 light-year jump in "The Gift," the 2,500 light-year wormhole in "Night," the 10,000 light-year quantum slipstream trip in "Timeless," the 20,000 light-year Borg transwarp coil in "Dark Frontier" plus the 3,500 light-year warp cruising speed since Voyager left the Caretaker's Array).

So, obviously, the Think Tank is capable of covering large distances rather easily. So, why didn't Janeway get the Think Tank to send Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant? We know, though, since Jason Alexander requested Seven of Nine just to get Voyager past the bounty hunters that he'd request something equally bizzare that Janeway would have to turn him down, but why wasn't the question even posed?

 

[kathrynjaneway]

Good questions. I don't have an answer though

Another thing that still bothers me is that Janeway was only too willing to give the technology requested by Jason Alexander to him, but in earlier episodes she would have died before handing over any kind of technology to alien species, as they couldn't have been sure what they'd do with it.

 

[RyuRoots]

Good questions. I don't have an answer though

Another thing that still bothers me is that Janeway was only too willing to give the technology requested by Jason Alexander to him, but in earlier episodes she would have died before handing over any kind of technology to alien species, as they couldn't have been sure what they'd do with it.

That's weird, yeah, but I just got used to it, Janeway not even being remotely consistent.

And huh, I hadn't thought about it when I watched Think Tank, but that IS a very good question, why she didn't ask George about a travel home.

 

[exodus]

So I've finished watching Season 5 for the first time (the subject of an oft-viewed yet not-responded to thread, but I digress) and I found the bulk of the episodes enjoyable, but there were a few glaring discrepancies I noticed while watching them.

According to my calculations, Voyager had traveled some 30,000 light-years since first encountering the Malon in the episode "Night" (10,000 light-years using the quantum slipstream drive in "Timeless", 20,000 light-years using the Borg transwarp coil in "Dark Frontier"). So, how is it they're encountering the Malon again in "Juggernaut?"

Secondly, the episode "Think Tank," which I enjoyed, yet again, noticed something glaring. Or not really glaring. Just small minded oversightness. Captain Janeway is willing to use the Think Tank's resources to elude the bounty hunters. That's fine. But, Jason Alexander also mentions that the Think Tank cured the Vidiians of the Phage. The Vidiians, as of that point, were over 45,000 light-years from Voyager's present position (Kes' 10,000 light-year jump in "The Gift," the 2,500 light-year wormhole in "Night," the 10,000 light-year quantum slipstream trip in "Timeless," the 20,000 light-year Borg transwarp coil in "Dark Frontier" plus the 3,500 light-year warp cruising speed since Voyager left the Caretaker's Array).

So, obviously, the Think Tank is capable of covering large distances rather easily. So, why didn't Janeway get the Think Tank to send Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant? We know, though, since Jason Alexander requested Seven of Nine just to get Voyager past the bounty hunters that he'd request something equally bizzare that Janeway would have to turn him down, but why wasn't the question even posed?

Why does everybody miss this point?


The Think Tank were con-artists.
They lied about everything.
They didn't cure any Vidiian anything.
It was all just a con to make Janeway trust them.
They don't have the technology to do anything or go anywhere.
That's why they used the Bounty Hunters to set Janeway in what was supposed to be a no win situation for Voyager.
They create problem in order to show up and fix it.

The Vidiians aren't cured.
"Think Tank" is a clever version of "Live Fast & Prosper".

 

[RyuRoots]

Janeway didn't know that. So it still stands that it's a little weird she didn't even ASK about some travel, taking into account everything they'd said.

 

[kathrynjaneway]

A bit off topic, but then not so much at all.

Considering asking about some travel....at the end of Unimatrix Zero, there's that Borg sphere under the command of General Korok. He promises to stay in touch...why didn't he just take Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant?

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Janeway didn't "ask" Jason to send her home to the AQ, because the price was too high. She was "willing" to let Seven go with the ThinkTankers, but only if she wanted to go. Seven didn't, so Mama Janeway had to find a different way to deal with the bounty hunters and then with the Tankers.

Whether or not the Tankers cured the Vidians isn't as big an issue as what it "cost' the Vidians to get cured. Its that whole conundrum, "If I gain the whole world at the cost of my soul?"

As for the resistance BORG sphere, its a good question re: why not bring Voyager home. One possibility would be that this sphere was too small to engulf Voyager, another that the Sphere had to run away quickly before the Queen's armada came looking for them.

The most likely reason, however, is the same answer the director John Ford gave 70 years ago when someone asked him why the Indians didn't just shoot the horses in his famous movie "StageCoach".

"Because then there would be no movie."

:-)

 

[kathrynjaneway]

^^Hehe nice one! Yeah, the series would have ended...I'll accept that as the most logical reason

 

[AuntKate]

To me, these sorts of discrepancies highlight the fact that the writers and producers had lost track of Voyager's true mission. Instead of letting Voyager's past disappear in the rear view mirror, they wrote as if Voyager as if it were TNG's Enterprise working in the same region of space for years. The discrepancies are bothersome, but I tend to just ignore them and appreciate the episode as best I can.

 

[Withers]

Think Tank: Why do you wish to leave the Delta Quadrant so soon?
Janeway : Because I Cant-Stand-Ya.

*symbol crash*

I thought they were liars too. It never dawned on me they had actually accomplished any of the things they said they did. As to the distance traveled? If you can make any sense of that over the course of the series you're smarter than I am. I gave up on trying to make that make sense almost immediately after the first time they jumped a significant distance and then back tracked to the same location when the plot called for them to do so.

-Withers-​

 

[exodus]

Janeway didn't know that. So it still stands that it's a little weird she didn't even ASK about some travel, taking into account everything they'd said.

Janeway was suspicious of anybody offering "the way home" since "Hope & Fear".

Janeway isn't that dumb, she'd been playing the "aliens can get us home.........not!" game for 4 years prior.
She wasn't falling for it anymore.
She was already suspicious at the fact they wanted Seven in the first place.

 

[AuntKate]

Janeway didn't know that. So it still stands that it's a little weird she didn't even ASK about some travel, taking into account everything they'd said.

Janeway was suspicious of anybody offering "the way home" since "Hope & Fear".

Janeway isn't that dumb, she'd been playing the "aliens can get us home.........not!" game for 4 years prior.
She wasn't falling for it anymore.
She was already suspicious at the fact they wanted Seven in the first place.

She isn't that dumb--except when she is that dumb. I'm thinking of "Inside Man" when the Reg Barkley hologram very nearly destroys the ship by taking into some geodesic fold. I thought she was pretty gullible in that episode--and very much out of character.

 

[exodus]

Janeway didn't know that. So it still stands that it's a little weird she didn't even ASK about some travel, taking into account everything they'd said.

Janeway was suspicious of anybody offering "the way home" since "Hope & Fear".

Janeway isn't that dumb, she'd been playing the "aliens can get us home.........not!" game for 4 years prior.
She wasn't falling for it anymore.
She was already suspicious at the fact they wanted Seven in the first place.

She isn't that dumb--except when she is that dumb. I'm thinking of "Inside Man" when the Reg Barkley hologram very nearly destroys the ship by taking into some geodesic fold. I thought she was pretty gullible in that episode--and very much out of character.

Like I said, "aliens" can get us home.
Too her Barclay was someone they had all come to know for nearly 2 years as trustworthy and wore a Starfleet uniform.
Too quote Sisko: " I make it a habit never to question anybody wearing that uniform."
Janeway never questioned Ransom at first either until she caught him in a lie.

 

[Kai Winn]

why is it always voy that is blamed for inconsistencies? watched enterprise's 'storm front' yesterday, in part 1 they say the german army has taken moscow but the russians are trying to take it back, part 2 claims lenin was assassinated in 1916, the communist revolution never happened, and germany never invaded the soviet union.

 

[Anwar]

Double standards, mainly. And Ron Moore constantly blathering on about how much he hated the show.

Anywho, I can understand them using aliens over and over: The writers liked them and wanted to some of them for stories because they fit, but the whole "Always on the move" thing REALLY, REALLY limits when they can use certain alien species they created. People who came in expecting DS9 levels of alien development were watching the wrong show, because there was no way to do that with how the show worked.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Janeway was suspicious of anybody offering "the way home" since "Hope & Fear".

Janeway isn't that dumb, she'd been playing the "aliens can get us home.........not!" game for 4 years prior.
She wasn't falling for it anymore.
She was already suspicious at the fact they wanted Seven in the first place.

She isn't that dumb--except when she is that dumb. I'm thinking of "Inside Man" when the Reg Barkley hologram very nearly destroys the ship by taking into some geodesic fold. I thought she was pretty gullible in that episode--and very much out of character.

Like I said, "aliens" can get us home.
Too her Barclay was someone they had all come to know for nearly 2 years as trustworthy and wore a Starfleet uniform.
Too quote Sisko: " I make it a habit never to question anybody wearing that uniform."
Janeway never questioned Ransom at first either until she caught him in a lie.

If Janeway isn't dumb, and IS suspicious, and DOESN'T trust them, AND thinks they are con artists... Why'd she give them Seven?

Her pet.

It's not like they said they wanted to eat Harry?

Remember the time Aliens wanted to eat Harry, and Janeway said "Go for it, enjoy the bastard."?

Hell she wouldn't even let aliens use Seven as a weapon to annihilate the Borg and save trillions from assimilation over the next few decades as they replenish their livestock from the 8427 war, but if it's just her "Happiness" that is important and not the greater good of galactic affiars?

Humans (In the future) are open and honest who deal in good faith and optimistically afford the benefit of the doubt... Which is why cloaking technology of not in their character (mostly).

How many seconds was Seven going to stay after she figured her reason for being there was contrived?

There had to be some substance to their resources?

Unless of course they didn't want Seven as crew? they were just going to harvest her nanoprobes and chuck the human left overs out the garbage shoot?

If they had cured the phage then the Doctor would have had the hugest boner to find out how considering that that was a pet project of his and that his beloved girlfriend, the women supposedly he lost his cherry to was a Viddian... That "almost" if she was alive and healthy and no longer raping, culling and pillaging innocent travellers and settlements like Vikings or Wraith (from Stargate Atlantis)(Not that really bothered him. but maybe that would have been the first dam to blow when Ransom turned off his ethical subroutines: "I am no longer intolerant about how evil my girlfriend is! Screw working for this dick Ransom or that dimbulb Kathy, I needs me some blowjobs and I gots 30 thousand light years to trot before my John Thomas gets wet.") he might just be interested in abandoning ship and going back to be with her since her life expectancy has gone from months to decades, not that was ever the greatest reason why IT gave up on love. If he's allowed to abandon Voyager to be a Virtuoso, than he's allowed to abandon Voyager to be with a girl surely?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Double standards, mainly. And Ron Moore constantly blathering on about how much he hated the show.

Anywho, I can understand them using aliens over and over: The writers liked them and wanted to some of them for stories because they fit, but the whole "Always on the move" thing REALLY, REALLY limits when they can use certain alien species they created. People who came in expecting DS9 levels of alien development were watching the wrong show, because there was no way to do that with how the show worked.

It took them two years to leave the Kazon sphere of influence BUT every other bugger 2 hundred, to a thousand years up the ladder from those space bums, including the Borg, Janeway jetted past in a week?

And Voyager could have taken on more crew at any point in the adventure who were not human or Borg children, who we could have investigated to no end.

It became obvious to expect less from Voyager, but there's never been a convincing reason supplied to me why they had to try less than other shows to create their own mythos?

 

[Anwar]

Mythos are easier to make when you're in a fixed position that constantly in contact with the other aliens and their nations so it all comes together as a nice big whole.

VOY had as much of a chance at making a "mythos" as Lost in Space did, since they were always on the move through every place and never there long enough to develop any of the races encountered.

As for adding aliens to the crew, seeing how the audience was PO'ed enough that they didn't analyze the entire life story of every crewmember in the MAIN cast I doubt they'd put up with some alien extras who suddenly got the Lion's share of the limelight instead of the main cast and even then it would've been to just develop them as individuals and not the VOY aliens.

And one of the biggest complaints about VOY WAS that it took them too long to leave the Kazon behind. And it would still be complained about no matter HOW well developed they were.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Just a few 3 or four episode arcs trying to get past some REALLY big empires? Is that to much to ask for, an it would have saved them a ton of dosh as they could recycle costumes and props rather than invent new bollocks every week, even if they were too cheap to pay reocurring guest star rates.

 

[Anwar]

Just a few 3 or four episode arcs trying to get past some REALLY big empires? Is that to much to ask for,

Apparently, yes.