Endgame

[RyuRoots]

A finale that hinges on someone having had a kid kick the bucket to enjoy it isn't a very good finale. And frankly, I didn't give a flying hoot about the Janeway vs Borg bit since I knew it was coming (not from spoilers, but VOY really is ridiculously predictable). Closure was the one thing I was concerned with, and well...bleh.

And I could actually take the character interpretation as such if normal Janeway were ever written even remotely consistently for, say, five episodes in a row. But that, of course, never happened.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Alan Moore almost wrote a story where John Constatine gets duped into fracking the future by his future self, but the pay off is that he meets the love of his life and gets to live happily ever after. John being John REALLY doesn't like being used and so after the dust settles, after the bloody endgame, when he's supposed to meet this most perfect love of his life, he tells her "No I don't have a light, I don't smoke, bugger off".

No one likes being told what to do.

So why did Admiral Janeway think that her youngerself would bend to her will?

 

[Mareika]

[
I've heard RB say more than once that he likes any episode where he gets to kiss a pretty girl--so no wonder he thought Endgame was great! Jeri would certainly qualify as a pretty girl!

I`ve never heard RB saying "Endgame is great"
He always complained about Endgame and he said he didn`t like it.

 

[Frazzled]

I`ve never heard RB saying "Endgame is great"
He always complained about Endgame and he said he didn`t like it.

I have no idea how he felt about the whole of Endgame, but I've heard many times that he loved his character getting it on with Seven - it partly happened because he encouraged it in fact.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

OK, so it finally happened - I've now seen Endgame. I thought that as an episode of Voyager it was OK - as these big Borg episodes go it was better than Dark Frontier or Unimatrix Zero. A lot of this has to do with the Borg Queen - Susannah Thompson was fine, but Alice Krige is something else.

That said, I'd have liked a bit more from the finale of the show. I'd have preferred for the crew to get home using their own ingenuity rather than be helped by a Janeway from the future, to me that would have been a more satisfying conclusion. What's more, the whole "there must be a way to have our cake and eat it" thing annoyed me. Sometimes there isn't a way to do that, indeed most times there isn't. I don't mind it so much in a normal episode, but in the finale it's just a bit too convenient.

Oh, and I hope never to have to see the Janeway At The Academy and Harry Gives Stirring Speech scenes ever again. There was also C/7, which, unlike Trek's other last-minute hook-up (Worf/Troi), I didn't feel at all. "Happened too fast" is the most charitable thing I can say.

 

[RyuRoots]

I wanted to slap Harry senseless for his trite (and frankly, completely idiotic given context) "It's not the destination, it's the journeeeeey" speech. And I'm kinda surprised no one onscreen did.

 

[Guy Gardener]

After they found out he liked that, he really really liked a good slapping, and only produced such overripe tripe to force someone to slap him, it was agreed that no one should humour him by feeding his beast.

Oh, and Neelix made him lose a tooth once. The kid is fragile.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Question. Am I the only one who had such a visceral reaction to the scene where the future shuttlecraft destroys the Borg cubes with one shot? For some reason that scene always summed up what I didn't like about Voyager because I always compared it to the scene in Future's End when Voyager is able to defeat the time ship. Voyager is able to defeat a ship from 500 years in the future with some techno-babble, but the adaptable Borg are powerless against a single shuttlecraft form 20 years into the future? That scene in Endgame just always really got under my skin as summing up how low they had made the Borg.

 

[RyuRoots]

Question. Am I the only one who had such a visceral reaction to the scene where the future shuttlecraft destroys the Borg cubes with one shot? For some reason that scene always summed up what I didn't like about Voyager because I always compared it to the scene in Future's End when Voyager is able to defeat the time ship. Voyager is able to defeat a ship from 500 years in the future with some techno-babble, but the adaptable Borg are powerless against a single shuttlecraft form 20 years into the future? That scene in Endgame just always really got under my skin as summing up how low they had made the Borg.

Maybe it's a sad sign, but I think I had gotten used to this kinda thing, so I didn't even think about it. They just told me "So yeah, we can blow the crap outta the Borg really easily now" and I just said "...sure, okay. Why not.". Ever since Drone, my ability to take the Borg seriously just kinda steadily declined. I can see now why some would make the distinction between "Borg" and "Voyager-Borg"

 

[nx1701g]

Question. Am I the only one who had such a visceral reaction to the scene where the future shuttlecraft destroys the Borg cubes with one shot? For some reason that scene always summed up what I didn't like about Voyager because I always compared it to the scene in Future's End when Voyager is able to defeat the time ship. Voyager is able to defeat a ship from 500 years in the future with some techno-babble, but the adaptable Borg are powerless against a single shuttlecraft form 20 years into the future? That scene in Endgame just always really got under my skin as summing up how low they had made the Borg.

Um the Future Shuttle never destroys a Borg ship on its own. Voyager does, the shuttle doesn't.

Actually the shuttle gets captured (but that was intentional).

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Question. Am I the only one who had such a visceral reaction to the scene where the future shuttlecraft destroys the Borg cubes with one shot? For some reason that scene always summed up what I didn't like about Voyager because I always compared it to the scene in Future's End when Voyager is able to defeat the time ship. Voyager is able to defeat a ship from 500 years in the future with some techno-babble, but the adaptable Borg are powerless against a single shuttlecraft form 20 years into the future? That scene in Endgame just always really got under my skin as summing up how low they had made the Borg.

Um the Future Shuttle never destroys a Borg ship on its own. Voyager does, the shuttle doesn't.

Actually the shuttle gets captured (but that was intentional).

God help me I watched that part again. Yeah it was Voyager, but the torpedoes were still future tech. Still my irritation stands. The Borg are unable to adapt to 24th century Federation weapons, but Voyager is able to adapt to 29th century Federation weapons in the space of 5 minutes. I think that kind of thing is an example of the inconsistent writing that irritated the nit-pickers like me to no end.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Aeon was not a warship (but then neither is Voyager?). It was practically a "Shuttlepod" and Voyager got lucky.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

The Aeon was not a warship (but then neither is Voyager?). It was practically a "Shuttlepod" and Voyager got lucky.

It was still only 500 years more advanced though, I am thinking if you put Voyager up against a WW1 tank no matter how lucky that tank crew is they're still going to Stovokor at the end of the day.

 

[nx1701g]

The Aeon was not a warship (but then neither is Voyager?). It was practically a "Shuttlepod" and Voyager got lucky.

To be fair the runabout is supposed to have weaponry equivalent to the Excelsior in the 23rd Century when it was first launched so, theoretically, the Aeon should be at least 10 times stronger than the Voyager.

Ok I've put too much thought into this.

But Voyager did get lucky. Best possible answer.

 

[Broccoli]

Who is to say it was demolished, time can be like a tree that branches at pivotal points and that Admiral Janeway didn't save her own time line but another.

It's the plot to Trek XI!

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Aeon was not a warship (but then neither is Voyager?). It was practically a "Shuttlepod" and Voyager got lucky.

To be fair the runabout is supposed to have weaponry equivalent to the Excelsior in the 23rd Century when it was first launched so, theoretically, the Aeon should be at least 10 times stronger than the Voyager.

Ok I've put too much thought into this.

But Voyager did get lucky. Best possible answer.

To recap.

JANEWAY: Report.
CHAKOTAY: Some sort of spatial rift. It opened right in front of us.
JANEWAY: Analysis.
KIM: It's a distortion in the space-time continuum, but it's got a graviton matrix. It's being artificially generated.
CHAKOTAY: By whom?
KIM: Sensors can't get inside. The distortion field's fluctuating. Something's coming out.
TUVOK: It appears to be a small ship, approximately six metres in length.
JANEWAY: Magnify.
TUVOK: Sensors are reading one occupant - human. He is holding position at the perimeter of the rift.
KIM: There's a subspace signature emanating from the ship. Captain, it's Federation!
JANEWAY: Hail them.
TUVOK: No response. They appear to be charging weapons.
CHAKOTAY: Shields up! Hail them again.
TUVOK: Shields are down.
JANEWAY: Get us out of here.
PARIS: Helm control is off line.
KIM: He's firing some kind of sub-atomic disruptor.
JANEWAY: Return fire.
TUVOK: Full phasers. No effect.
KIM: Voyager's molecular structure is coming apart!
CHAKOTAY: Tuvok, divert all available power to the deflector. Send out a high energy polaron pulse. Might help to disrupt his weapon.
TUVOK: Emitting deflector pulse now.
KIM: It's working.
TUVOK: We are being hailed.
JANEWAY: On screen.
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: Starship Voyager, I'm Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon. I've come from twenty-ninth century Earth, five hundred years into your future. Please disengage your deflector pulse.
JANEWAY: Why are you firing at us?
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: Your vessel is responsible for a disaster in my century. A temporal explosion that will destroy all Earth's solar system. I've come back in time to prevent that occurrence. My mission is your destruction. You must not resist.
JANEWAY: I'm going to need some more information before I allow
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: Debris from your secondary hull was found in the explosion.
JANEWAY: Captain, I simply
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: No time!
TUVOK: He's remodulating the sub-atomic disruptor. Our deflector is losing power, it won't hold much longer.
CHAKOTAY: Captain, if he's telling the truth.
JANEWAY: I won't sacrifice this crew based on a ten second conversation! I need proof.
CHAKOTAY: It doesn't look like we're going to get it.
JANEWAY: Adjust our deflector to try and match the frequency of his weapon. Try to overload his emitter.
TUVOK: It seems to be working. His weapon is offline and his ship has been damaged. The rift is destabilising and he's being pulled back inside.
JANEWAY: Re-establish helm control!
PARIS: I'm trying, Captain, but we seem to be caught in some kind of graviton distortion. We're being pulled in too.
JANEWAY: Status.
TUVOK: Primary systems are coming back on-line. The weapons array and power grid took heavy damage.
KIM: The temporal rift is closed.
CHAKOTAY: Where are we?
PARIS: Home.

Voyager was attacked with science. Since the same universal constants and physical laws are in effect, Voyager used science to defend itself since it's weapons and shields were ineffective against unfamiliar applications of science, from a space vehicle just a mere 6 meters long.

besides Voyager didn't actually beat the Aeon. The universe that slashed open into an unstable gaping maw which a smart person wouldn't have begun a pitched battle upon, exploded... besides that goes completely against Sun Tzu who said qualified it's moronic to fight with your back to the ocean.

If Braxton had closed the time tunnel before he engaged Voyager, then the universe wouldn't have betrayed him. I mean seriously why destabilize unstable space with space rending weapons? in the next war, lets just march troops towards mushroom clouds while we're at it.

Voyager got lucky that Braxton was a moron.

That "there's no time" comment? It reeked of Caretaker and that guy was probably a dunce well before he became a senile.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Who is to say it was demolished, time can be like a tree that branches at pivotal points and that Admiral Janeway didn't save her own time line but another.

It's the plot to Trek XI!

But violates the canon of Trek VIII!

 

[Deks]

The Aeon was not a warship (but then neither is Voyager?). It was practically a "Shuttlepod" and Voyager got lucky.

It was still only 500 years more advanced though, I am thinking if you put Voyager up against a WW1 tank no matter how lucky that tank crew is they're still going to Stovokor at the end of the day.

A WW1 tanker has absolutely nothing in common with a star ship capable of faster than light propulsion that also has directed energy weapons, shields and a deflector dish of sizeable proportions/capabilities.

Of course the WW1 tanker will be vaporized in a single (and probably not even maxed out) phaser shot.

The Aeon, even though it was 500 years more advanced, has far more in common with Voyager than the WW1 tanker, which likely gave Voyager time to react.

It's also entirely possible that Braxton did some minor errors when approaching Voyager, and as it was already mentioned, left the time rift open instead of closing it behind him.
He was already frantic more or less, and bent on destroying Voyager in a hurry.

Given his later dealings with Voyager in Relativity episode, I wouldn't say that Braxton was an entirely stable person to begin with.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Tank not tanker. A killing machine (remember in T3 when Arnie met his Robot grandparents?) not a boat for lugging oil.

A modern day tank, or a world war I tank, if either of them was to say attack the next Academy Awards ceremony, for sure the next Batman would be Pauly Shore.

 

[Deks]

My apologies ... tank.
Dunno what compelled me to write tanker.
And my description still stands.