Fun with logistical problems

[KJY]

Upon rewatching the show recently, I noticed a lot of logistical goofs or, at the very least, implausibilities that I didn't notice when the show was on the air. I find these potential errors more amusing than frustrating honestly.

1. They were encountering the Kazon and Vidians for two or three straight years and Seska was somehow stalking them.
2. They encountered the same aliens in Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and in Renaissance Man after nearly a year of traveling and a couple of shortcuts.
3. They find a Talaxian colony nearly 40,000 light-years from Talaxian space in Homestead and no one questions it. Even if you accept that they found a wormhole, it's still a pretty big coincidence that this Talaxian colony is on a straight line between Earth and Talax.
4. They find Hirogen using the same holographic technology Janeway gave them after nearly three years of traveling and tens of thousands of light-years of shortcuts.
5. George Costanza says they cured the Vidian phage in Think Tank even though Vidian space is tens of thousands of light-years away and Janeway doesn't think to ask for help getting home. It's also strange that she didn't ask for more help from Kes in Fury, but I digress.
6. Lyndsay Ballard manages to travel like 30,000 light-years in six months in a shuttle in Ashes to Ashes and no one's the slightest bit curious. I almost fell out of seat rewatching this episode!

 

[Jedman67]

Rule of plot; whatever makes a good story is what matters and inconsistencies can be retconned as needed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

3. They find a Talaxian colony nearly 40,000 light-years from Talaxian space in Homestead and no one questions it. Even if you accept that they found a wormhole, it's still a pretty big coincidence that this Talaxian colony is on a straight line between Earth and Talax.

This one I never got. Why can't the Talaxians be spread across a massive area of space? There were a couple of Voyager episodes where they came across aliens indistinguishable from humans and they were further from Earth than these Talaxians were from Talax.

As for the rest, yeah it's improbable. But it's just one of those silly things you suspend your disbelief and go along with.

 

[Sophie74656]

None of these things seem that far fetched to me

 

[Tracy Trek]

2. They encountered the same aliens in Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and in Renaissance Man after nearly a year of traveling and a couple of shortcuts.

They were also in the episode The Void.

George Costanza says they cured the Vidian phage in Think Tank even though Vidian space is tens of thousands of light-years away and Janeway doesn't think to ask for help getting home.

Making a deal with the Think Tank might have been like making a deal with the devil. If Janeway had asked for help, what would they have asked for in return? I mean, didn't they blow up some people that tried to weasel out of paying them the full agreed-on price?

 

[MacLeod]

Upon rewatching the show recently, I noticed a lot of logistical goofs or, at the very least, implausibilities that I didn't notice when the show was on the air. I find these potential errors more amusing than frustrating honestly.

1. They were encountering the Kazon and Vidians for two or three straight years and Seska was somehow stalking them.
2. They encountered the same aliens in Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and in Renaissance Man after nearly a year of traveling and a couple of shortcuts.
3. They find a Talaxian colony nearly 40,000 light-years from Talaxian space in Homestead and no one questions it. Even if you accept that they found a wormhole, it's still a pretty big coincidence that this Talaxian colony is on a straight line between Earth and Talax.
4. They find Hirogen using the same holographic technology Janeway gave them after nearly three years of traveling and tens of thousands of light-years of shortcuts.
5. George Costanza says they cured the Vidian phage in Think Tank even though Vidian space is tens of thousands of light-years away and Janeway doesn't think to ask for help getting home. It's also strange that she didn't ask for more help from Kes in Fury, but I digress.
6. Lyndsay Ballard manages to travel like 30,000 light-years in six months in a shuttle in Ashes to Ashes and no one's the slightest bit curious. I almost fell out of seat rewatching this episode!

Let's see

1.>The Kazon are divided into sects so they might be spread outsomewhat, and the sect that Kazon joined wanted the tech on VOY so might pursue them. As for the Vidiians they are seeking a cure for the Phage so it would make sense to search far and wide.

3>This is one of the less plausible things on the list

2.>The Federation spans 8000ly and have other ships exploring beyond that, why can't other species.

4.>Subspace communication perhaps.

5.>The Think Tank might have been lying about curing the Vidiian phage, they knew VOY knew them so might have said that to try and curry favour with Janeway. Look what we've done for these people you knew.

 

[Sophie74656]

Upon rewatching the show recently, I noticed a lot of logistical goofs or, at the very least, implausibilities that I didn't notice when the show was on the air. I find these potential errors more amusing than frustrating honestly.

1. They were encountering the Kazon and Vidians for two or three straight years and Seska was somehow stalking them.

They encountered the Kazon for less than 2 years. The first season is only 16 episodes. In episode 10 of season 2 it is said that it has been 10 months since the events in Caretaker. Basics part II is the last time we see the Kazon and Seska(except for Shattered) so it is really probablyjust over 1 year in story time. And considering how many different sects there are it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable that they would still be encountering them for a year.

2. They encountered the same aliens in Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and in Renaissance Man after nearly a year of traveling and a couple of shortcuts.

We do not know anything about their territory, how fast their ships travel, if they themselves have knowledge of any wormholes, etc.

3. They find a Talaxian colony nearly 40,000 light-years from Talaxian space in Homestead and no one questions it. Even if you accept that they found a wormhole, it's still a pretty big coincidence that this Talaxian colony is on a straight line between Earth and Talax.

They were traveling for a long time, probably decades. It was never said that they were the only group that left after the war. It is possible that many groups left and there are many Talaxian colonies.

4. They find Hirogen using the same holographic technology Janeway gave them after nearly three years of traveling and tens of thousands of light-years of shortcuts.

Again, we don't know the extent of their space and how far they travel. They may have distributed the holo technology amongst themselves.

5. George Costanza says they cured the Vidian phage in Think Tank even though Vidian space is tens of thousands of light-years away and Janeway doesn't think to ask for help getting home.

they seek out challenges. If voyager could travel that distance why couldn't someone else. After seeing how they act and the prices they demand why would Janeway want to do more business with them?

6. Lyndsay Ballard manages to travel like 30,000 light-years in six months in a shuttle in Ashes to Ashes and no one's the slightest bit curious. I almost fell out of seat rewatching this episode!

lyndsay was not in a starfleet shuttle

honestly this list seems like nitpicking, it can be easily explained with a tiny bit of thinking

 

[KJY]

2.>The Federation spans 8000ly and have other ships exploring beyond that, why can't other species.

I had no idea federation space was that big! So it would take longer than the run of the series for Voyager to get from one end of federation space to the other without shortcuts?

5.>The Think Tank might have been lying about curing the Vidiian phage, they knew VOY knew them so might have said that to try and curry favour with Janeway. Look what we've done for these people you knew.

My point was that Janeway didn't express any curiosity over it.

 

[KJY]

Upon rewatching the show recently, I noticed a lot of logistical goofs or, at the very least, implausibilities that I didn't notice when the show was on the air. I find these potential errors more amusing than frustrating honestly.

1. They were encountering the Kazon and Vidians for two or three straight years and Seska was somehow stalking them.

They encountered the Kazon for less than 2 years. The first season is only 16 episodes. In episode 10 of season 2 it is said that it has been 10 months since the events in Caretaker. Basics part II is the last time we see the Kazon and Seska(except for Shattered) so it is really probablyjust over 1 year in story time. And considering how many different sects there are it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable that they would still be encountering them for a year.

2. They encountered the same aliens in Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and in Renaissance Man after nearly a year of traveling and a couple of shortcuts.

We do not know anything about their territory, how fast their ships travel, if they themselves have knowledge of any wormholes, etc.

Fair enough on both counts.

4. They find Hirogen using the same holographic technology Janeway gave them after nearly three years of traveling and tens of thousands of light-years of shortcuts.

Again, we don't know the extent of their space and how far they travel. They may have distributed the holo technology amongst themselves.

I'm willing to accept that the Hirogen are spread out very far due to being long-time space nomads. That's why I mentioned the holo-technology. Of course an explanation could exist and we're to assume does exist. But one isn't given and no curiosity is expressed by anyone. We know it can't be that Hirogen ships are simply that fast or Voyager would never have any hope of escaping them.

5. George Costanza says they cured the Vidian phage in Think Tank even though Vidian space is tens of thousands of light-years away and Janeway doesn't think to ask for help getting home.

they seek out challenges. If voyager could travel that distance why couldn't someone else.

They certainly could have and apparently did. The point is that Janeway wasn't the slightest bit curious about this.

After seeing how they act and the prices they demand why would Janeway want to do more business with them?

I recall him mentioning the phage before they got down to prices but I could be wrong.

6. Lyndsay Ballard manages to travel like 30,000 light-years in six months in a shuttle in Ashes to Ashes and no one's the slightest bit curious. I almost fell out of seat rewatching this episode!

lyndsay was not in a starfleet shuttle

I know the simple explanation is that her shuttle is just that fast. My point is this wasn't mention by anyone at any time. The crew would've expressed a great deal of curiosity over this. "Hey! Let's all take turns flying home in Lyndsay's shuttle!" They should've been more curious about the shuttle than the woman herself. Harry comes back to life and gets turned in aliens all the time.

I know the simple explanation is "they found a plot-convenient wormhole" or something every time. But it's just funny that no one ever questions it.

 

[Lynx]

Those logistical goofs was what I always found weird and unfortunately some examples of bad writing.

As for the Kazon and the Vidiians, if you look at the Star Charts maps, it looks like Voyager was flying in a corridor between Kazon space and Vidiian space for three years. OK, the Vidiians might have a wide-spread territory but when it comes to the Kazon, it's more weird. The fact that seska and the Kazon-Nistrim was chasing them for at least two and a half year through a wide area inhabited by hostile Kazon sects is a bit over the top. What they should have done was th have Voyager remaining at "The 37's planet" for one season in order to help the people there build some sort of defence and done away with the Kazon episodes during that time.

The plot of finding abducted humans including Amelia Earhardt right in the middle of their route through the Delta Quadrant was also highly unrealistic, however I can live withnthat since it gave us a very good episode which, as I think of in my suggestion for a season concentrated in one area, would have been used much better.

Finding the Talaxian colony so far from Talaxian space is even more unralistic and used only for a cheap excuse to dump Neelix. OK, I can accept the coincident with"The 37's planet" but doing the same trick again is downright stupid.

The Vidiian and the Hirogen problem mentioned in the OP must have been done because of lack of inspiration from the not-so-good writers, I can't find another reason for coming up with those events. Sort of "Oh, we are out of ideas again! What do we do? Oh, let's bring in the Hirogen! The fans love the Hirogen!"

That horrible crap episode is season 6 where some insane monster was supposed or suspected to be "Kes" is so incredible bad that it isn't even worth to discuss. So full of flaws and stupidities that it looks like the "writer" was drunk when he wrote it or that he hadn't seen a single previous episode of the series.

As for the Lyndsay Ballar problem, the only thing I can think of was they were totally out of inspiration so they wrote it in 10 minutes and then thought as so many times before "Ah, never mind. The viewers won't notice!"

Voyager's biggest problem was inconsistent and sloppy writing. A lot of episodes were great, especially in the first seasons but sometimes it got so bad that I wonder if the writers actually knew what they were doing or what day it was when they came up with some of the scenarios they made.

 

[MacLeod]

But why should Janeway express any interest in the Think Tank saying they had cured the Vidiian Phage? What were you expecting here to say, really tell me all about it? She had a rather more pressing issue at hand to resolve in situations like that most people tend to focus on that rather than issues which are of litte to no importance to the issue at hand.

But when dealing with space SF writers have no sense of scale , after all you might think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's but that's just peanuts compared to space.

But it's the case with many shows the writers make it up as they go along one might say they get Lost.

 

[Tracy Trek]

But why should Janeway express any interest in the Think Tank saying they had cured the Vidiian Phage?

Maybe they somehow knew about her encounters with the Vidiians and that saying they could cure the phage would spark her attention.

 

[KJY]

But why should Janeway express any interest in the Think Tank saying they had cured the Vidiian Phage?

You're missing the point. Vidiian space was at least 30,000 light-years away and the Vidiians were still infected last time Voyager saw them three years earlier. By saying they cured the phage, they were saying, at the very least, they can travel 10,000 light-years a year. And that's assuming they were already in Vidiian space three years earlier and cured them a nanosecond after Voyager last saw them. For all Janeway knew, they could have cured the phage last weak and made a round trip from their current location.

 

[Timo]

...They could have mailed the solution to Vidiia Prime and gotten the payment in bitcoins. It doesn't really seem as if the Think Tank itself travels a lot.

Our heroes meeting X on their route home always begs the question of how rare X is. Earth had only one Amelia Earhart, but alien abductions probably were a dime in a dozen; taking a slightly different route, the heroes would have met just about anybody, from Ezekiel to Hoffa. Kirk, Picard and Archer all met abduction victims from Earth, too.

Would that Talaxian colony be rare? Probably not, considering the gradual establishing of their Wanderlust and the sorry state of their homeworld. Dexa once knew somebody named Neelix, but that doesn't make these folks blood relatives of our heroes or anything.

Would the Hirogen be rare? Naah, they are cosmopolitan and fast, and like to use a superfast, super-far-ranging communications network built by somebody else, so news will spread. They just select the company they keep, and their hunter nature might take them to hero-quality prey often enough.

The real problems come from all those "second encounter after the heroes make a big jump" stories that don't feature explicit refugees, tourists or other wanderers and perhaps feature specific individuals rather than generic species spanning great distances. The Kazon don't pose a problem there (no jumps), but the Hierarchy does, and Lyndsay Ballard does.

However, "let's use Ballard's Kobali shuttle for getting home" isn't implicit in the episode: the shuttle might have negligible range and speed compared to the supposed mothership Ballard used for the bulk of her hop.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Prax]

Kurros was lying? He was lying about everything else. He acted surprised when he met Seven, but Seven was the whole goal of his subterfuge. He used the Vidiians to grab Janeways interest, which it did. He knew Voyager had encountered the Vidiians. The think tank knew everything about Voyager. They didn't care about Neelix' recipes or Chakotay's artifact.

It's either he was lying, or the Think Tank can travel through space just like the Borg, the Voth, Arturis, or any other faster-than-warp species we've encountered.

 

[Timo]

Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot didn't always travel, though. Most of the Tank's boasts refer to things that could have been achieved through pure information transfer. Okay, they did physically manipulate the little Lizard's planet themselves, it seems - or then had a proxy like the Hazari do it for them - but that's not galaxy-spanning travel.

Timo Saloniemi