How to resolve 6 Voyager Inconsistencies in 85 seconds

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Oddish, Sep 18, 2021.

  1. krsplat

    krsplat Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    It'd've shocked me if an infantile borgling hadn't been tasked with
    some of voyager's longstanding outlying problems ...


    THE INFANT:
    "Aya! Gogogogogogogogogogogo! Ayayaya! Liar!"​
    SOMEONE WEARING A TEAL SHIRT:
    "Our inventory mandate requires that we replenish our supply of torpedoes and shuttlecrafts.
    Do you have any idea of how we can replenish our supply of these 2 inventory items?"​
    THE INFANT:
    "Yaya! Tee haa!"
    -Soon it is revealed that Voyager had acquired a
    fullly restocked slate of torpedoes and shuttlecrafts.
    SOMEONE WEARING A TEAL SHIRT:
    "Most excellente! How were you able to procure those devices?"​
    THE INFANT:
    "Luke..."
    * a sears magazine being dragged across a table *
    THE INFANT:
    "Ay Fo Na Ha"​
    SOMEONE WEARING A TEAL SHIRT:
    "Your efforts have been duely appreciated. I'll be forwarding another shipment of magazines
    to your corridors at the time of their arrival; no sooner than this evening, and no later than
    in the morrow."​
    THE INFANT:
    "Ahgyiekt."​

    ... Explaining the whereabouts of the infant, and the resupplying of torpedoes and shuttlecrafts.
     
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  2. Deks

    Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The Warp calculator is not canon and not technically reliable.
    In 'Where no one has gone before' (TNG s1), it was said the Ent-D would need over 300 years to get back to the Federation from 2.7 million ly's away.
    That's roughly 9000 times light speed at Warp factor 9.6 which the D could sustain for brief periods at the time.

    Paris said to Earhart that Voyager could achieve Warp 9.9 which translates to 4 billion miles per second... which in turn translates to 21 473 times speed of light... of course, the computer already warned Chakotay in 'Threshold' that this is maximum warp velocity and that structural collapse is imminent and shortly after that structural failure will ensue in 45 seconds.

    That actually fits within the established Warp speeds seen largely throughout TNG and DS9 nicely if you ask me... and every decimal point past Wsult in large increases in speed, whereas past Warp 9.9 results in double increase in speeds and power expenditure with every increment, Warp 9.97 lands in the area of 1 407 254 528 times speed of light.

    Only the USS Prometheus as seen in VOY s4 was able to achieve and maintain a seemingly cruise velocity of Warp 9.9 without any kind of turbulence which was confirmed by EMH Mark 2 (but its maximum warp may have been in the area of Warp 9.91 or 9.915 in that case which would [similarly to Voyager] result in structural collapse fairly quickly).
     
  3. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    Nothing is canonical, as far as I know. Regardless, Voyager's return home time was given as 70 years for 70,000 LY, suggesting a travel time of 1000 LY per year. That is about Warp 8. Why would a ship that can hit W9.975 (whatever it is) cruise at such a relatively slow speed?

    Going 1000c when you can sustain 5000c is like driving your Honda at 25 mph or so. If Voyager's max speed is higher than that, it just gets more ridiculous.
     
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  4. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I really appreciate this thread because it highlights just the way that I like engaging with Star Trek and other shows-if there are inconsistencies and there's a reasonable explanation then I like playing around with that. Voyager is one of those shows that always teetered on "good to consistently good" if it were not for the writing struggles. So, I love the creative solutions.

    Leaving Threshold as a bad dream would have been nice, largely because the whole Warp 10 thing is so poorly handled within the episode itself. You are going infinite speeds, but end up only a few lightyears away from Voyager. You get mutated in to a horrible lizard creature for...reasons...but the Doctor can whip up a batch of Hypospray Noddle Soup to cure what ails you. But, we'll never use it again because...reasons.

    As you note, too many inconsistencies pile up.


    But, I love the brief lines addressing the torpedoes and the shuttles would have gone a long way to give the impression that these things that the show said mattered actually mattered.
     
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  5. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly. Threshold could have basically ended Voyager's dilemma. Paris simply ferried everyone home in the W10 shuttlecraft. They could have even salvaged a few bioneural gelpacks and imported the Doctor's program onto one of them, get him home too. Then, to stop Voyager from being stripped by the Kazon, aim it at a star or set the autodestruct.
    Back in the AQ, everyone gets antiprotoned before they can turn into lizards. Janeway reunites with Mark, Tuvok reunites with his family, Tom reunites with his dad, Harry reunites with his parents (and hopefully gets reassigned to a CO who will actually promote him), the Maquis are secretly put off the ship in a safe location unknown to Starfleet, and Neelix and Kes get to explore the Alpha Quadrant. Meanwhile, in the Delta Quadrant, Seska survives to become Kazon Pirate Queen and unites the warring factions into a mighty empire. And they all live happily ever after.
     
  6. Farscape One

    Farscape One Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Regarding Voyager staying at high warp, there are several factors that likely stop them from keeping at maximum all the time.

    First, structural integrity. The hull can only go so long taking that abuse. (Though all the damage from all the attacks they received sort of kicks this idea to the curb.)

    Second, fuel. Antimatter is not something you find everywhere, and given they are in completely uncharted space, there is no way of knowing if they can find good sources on a regular basis.

    Third, wear and tear. Using our own cars as a barometer, how long would the engine of one last going full throttle on a constant basis vs. one going at a moderate speed on a constant basis? They don't have access to Starfleet spare parts, so they have to be careful not to wear down their engine components.

    (Before someone says 'they can use replicators', remember that's also a finite source, too. At least, in the first couple seasons.)
     
  7. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    I allowed for that fact, in my original improvement. The original dialogue says that Voyager's top sustainable velocity is Warp 9.975, which is about 5000c (low estimate). But it says that a 70kLY flight will take 70 years, which equates to an average speed of warp 8, which is about 1000c. Surely Voyager's sustainable cruising speed is more than 20 percent of its maximum speed.
     
  8. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Please feel free to visit the Kes Website where a lot of inconsistencies and mysteries are solved! :techman:

    This would have been an excellent way to explain the events in Threshold as nothing but a bad dream. :techman:
     
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  9. TommyR01D

    TommyR01D Captain Captain

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    We had a thread some months ago concerning the ship's maximum velocity.

    Suffice to say seventy-five years is an absurdly optimistic estimate and more likely the journey would take centuries.
     
  10. Vale

    Vale Guest

    Even better, make it something unique to Neelix. Like... the biological and genetic resequencing when he had a lung transplant from Kes. Maybe the Vidiians did someting to Neelix as well as the donated organ. Some trick to tweak his autoimmune system to avoid rejection and promote reintegration, some treatment to promote neurological regeneration to ensure the transplanted organ correctly connects to Neelix's nervous system. Vidiian medicine would probably promote as much cell growth and regenerative capability as possible. Make that the explanation for why Neelix's organs are degrading much more slowly than expected, and why the nanoprobes have a chance to revive him. He's the only member of the crew to have experienced such extensive Vidiian surgical treatment, with the possible exception of B'Elanna Torres.
     
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  11. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    Let's talk about the Ocampa "single child" problem next...

    ELOGIUM

    NEELIX: "Are you saying that unless you conceive now, you'll never be able to?"
    KES: "Yes."
    NEELIX: "But... if you can only have one child during your lifetime..."
    KES: "I can have more children afterward, but only if I have one during the Elogium."
    NEELIX: "But if you don't have a child during the Elogium..."
    KES: "I can never conceive one afterward. Ever.
    And I need you to help me decide, because I would want you to mate with me."
    NEELIX: "Oh. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm honoured, but are you entirely certain it would be safe?"
     
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  12. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    This one's been bothering me for some time, due to quite a few articles on the subject, declaring that Janeway is a war criminal... not for splitting Tuvix, but for what really was simply a sloppy decision by a writer, one who was probably unaware that solitary confinementof prisoners was banned about when it was made illegal to flog them. Here's a simple fix, which only requires a tiny deletion.

    JANEWAY: "Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris. I hereby reduce you to the rank of Ensign, and I sentence you to thirty days' confinement. Take Ensign Paris to the brig."
    PARIS: "I know the way."
     
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  13. Vale

    Vale Guest

    Solitary confinement isn't illegal in the US, although the UN regards solitary confinement for periods of longer than 15 consecutive days as torture.
     
  14. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    Regardless, if the UN considers it torture, I expect the Federation would as well.
     
  15. Tracy Trek

    Tracy Trek Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    It ticked me off that they couldn't use this fix for Joe Carey.
     
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  16. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    When it comes to Kim not being promoted.

    Chakotay mentions "Lieutenant Kim"? Well, Chakotay was obviusly joking. :lol:

    As for Harry never being promoted on Voyager, there were at least one reason.
    First a briefing in Janeway's ready room.
    [​IMG]
    I'm sorry Mr Kim but I can't give you a promotion because your musical taste is AWFUL!

    and then some hours later when Harry is going to drown his sorrows at Quark's bar at Deep Space Nine.
    [​IMG]
    Sorry Harry!
    Here's the reason why I was promoted last week and you weren't!


    As for Glitch 4, Voyager is now a shipyard.
    Well, simply the development of the Shuttle and Torpedo Building team!
    The true heroes of Voyager.
     
  17. Lynx

    Lynx Vice Admiral Admiral

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    This whole episode is bad.
    Janeway comes out as a total moron here.
     
  18. Oddish

    Oddish Admiral Admiral

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    I hated pretty much everything involving Carey in that series, from B'Elanna getting rewarded for ASSAULTING him, to him getting TURNED INTO A FRICKIN' REDSHIRT within days of Voyager getting home.

    Ironically, it took as much from B'Elanna as it did from Carey, in terms of potential character development. If Janeway had thrown her in the brig and subsequently made her EARN that chief engineer slot, she could have been a model of character development. Look at Nog and Ro Laren, who also came from troubled backgrounds.

    In my "how to resolve Voyager inconsistencies", he was not. Harry had been promoted offscreen. The showrunners still get their pathetic, puerile "revenge" on Garrett Wang for... well, whatever the hell he did to offend them; they just don't insult our intelligence in the process.

    Then they should have shot a later scene on the Titan, with Riker.

    RIKER: "Says here you play the clarinet and the sax. You ever do any jazz?"
    HARRY: "Quite a bit, actually."
    RIKER: "Welcome aboard the Titan... Lieutenant Commander Kim."

    Especially because no way Riker would care about some stupid reprimand for banging an alien.

    More a villain... if she had been capable of growing a mustache, she would have been twirling it.

    I can tell you that I had great fun envisioning a scenario where Tom was successful in saving the Monean ocean, and Janeway had to grin and bear it. ;)
     
  19. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    Paris wasn't in "solitary confinement" in the modern sense. The cell has an open front and a fellow security officer sitting right there who would know Tom and talk to him. And it never said he was restricted from having visitors that I can recall. The "bread and water only" rations were ridiculous.

    As mentioned, Braga said the Borg baby was returned to its people offscreen. Perhaps unsatisfactory, but no further explanation required.

    I figure that offscreen in Deadlock before the intact Voyager #2 self-destructed, they used the cargo and regular transporters to beam over all the spare supplies, shuttlecraft, shuttlecraft construction materials, torpedoes, phaser coils, antimatter pods, repair parts, etc. to help the damaged Voyager recover by the next episode and get out of that ever-dwindling torpedo and shuttle supply problem. Oh, and they also sent over Harry Kim and newborn Naomi Wildman 2.0.

    Also, the arrival of Seven of Nine, who integrated a lot of Borg advancements into the ship's system, would have eliminated a lot of the replicator rationing and energy supply problems.

    Then the Hirogen takeover of the ship would have one positive side effect, which is the end of the holodeck energy supply issues, because they obviously put some of there powerful ancient energy sources to work to power the full ship-wide holographic emitters.

    In their scans and wanderings of Arturis' faux USS Dauntless, the Voyager crew were able to get enough technical data to reconstruct the Quentum Slipstream Drive to partial success, so it makes sense they also might have gotten enough technical data to recreate his Particle Synthesis systems, which were in effect advanced replicators. That seemed like the basis for the future Voyager's replicated ablative armor hull plating, so in the near term I could see them using the prototype to replicate some new shuttlecraft, or at least the parts for them.

    Harry Kim never got promoted because he was sadly already invaluable in the operations position he was at without being promoted, and Voyager was in a sort of promotional stasis (with a few exceptions) since they were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Regardless, despite his low rank he was a member of the command crew and led people on missions who outranked him on several occasions, so everyone knew what was up and that he was the head of the operations department, even if his rank did not reflect his position within the crew.

    The Warp 10 Barrier in Threshold is no big deal because Starfleet always just recalibrates the warp scale. In TOS they would routinely travel into the warp teens, and then Excelsior's Transwarp Drive comes along and became the TNG-DS9-VOY warp scale, and the TOS Enterprise was recalibrated to cruise at Warp 7 instead. That got retroactively applied to ENT, DSC, and SNW as well with Enterprise reaching Warp 5 and Warp 7 by the end. In the future of TNG - All Good Things..., the Enterprise was again traveling at Warp 13 or something like that, which will eventually get recalibrated based on Borg transwarp drive or Quantum Slipstream into higher and higher multiples of the Warp 10 Transwarp Barrier, so warp 9.99999999999999999 on the Threshold scale will get renamed Warp 7 or something cruising speed on the new recalibrated scale, for the sake of simplicity.

    There's different definitions of transwarp. There's transwarp as in really high teens on the TOS-scale or multiples of Warp 9 on the TNG-scale (plus transwarp conduits and quantum slipstream). and then there's the infinite speed Warp 10 barrier of Threshold. Which really if you think about it is just an unlimited range version of the jump drive from Battlestar Galactica... that admittedly turns you into a sexual dynamo salamander. But since the salamander thing is totally reversible and takes days to happen anyway, so you can be easily treated with a hypospray before it happens, why not use it?
     
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  20. Farscape One

    Farscape One Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Regarding "THIRTY DAYS", it was clear Tom wasn't allowed visitors because Harry had to practically beg Janeway to get 5 minutes with him.

    Regarding "DEADLOCK", the intact, Vidiian infested Voyager couldn't beam supplies and stuff over to the battered one because the only way across either ship was that rift on deck 15. That's why Harry went through it instead of just grabbing the baby and beaming over. So it still defies belief the ship is in pristine condition the very next episode.

    (For all the faults ENTERPRISE seasons 1 and 2 might have had, they were at least much better in carrying over damage from previous episodes than VOYAGER ever was.)

    Regarding the Borg baby, I am fine with having to use our own imaginations for some things in a show. But when something or someone was a key element in an episode, and it was in "COLLECTIVE", it should at least be addressed with a simple line of dialogue. A mention in a Captain's Log was all it took.
     
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