How to resolve 6 Voyager Inconsistencies in 85 seconds

[Weyoun 251]

Another issue popped up in "How would you change the show", so let's go at it.

Any episode before "Living Witness", a senior staff meeting.

JANEWAY: "Lieutenant Torres. I understand you and Ensign Kim have been working on a unique project."

TORRES: "Yes, Captain. As you know, having only the one copy of the Doctor has long been a concern for us. We think we may have found a way to create a backup for him."

PARIS: "I thought the Doctor's program couldn't be backed up."

TORRES: "Well, we knew that it had to be possible to replicate his program, because Dr. Zimmerman made multiple copies for the fleet. He obviously didn't program them all individually."

KIM: "We found some details of the duplication process in Voyager's archived files. They were sketchy, but they've given us a starting point."

EMH: "I hope you're not planning on having multiple copies of me running around sickbay."

TORRES: "Nothing like that, Doctor. We're not sure the holo-emitters in Sickbay could even handle running two EMH's at once. This would just be an archived copy, to be used only if you were lost somehow."

EMH: "Oh. I guess that would be all right."

JANEWAY: "Nice work, both of you. Keep me apprised of your progress."

Or...

JANEWAY: "Lieutenant Torres. I understand you and Ensign Kim have been working on a unique project."

TORRES: "Yes, Captain. We finally remembered that course from the Academy called "basic computing" and how easy it is to copy a programme to a spare hard drive - turns out they did this all the time back in 2001! So yeah, turns out it is really easy to back up the Drs programme...actually we found it in the ships servers. Tom, you and Harry must feel really stupid for spending all that time trying to make one last year, eh?."

 

[Oddish]

Having a senior (or at least recurring) staff member who wasn't unfailingly competent, utterly fearless, and perfectly groomed would have been an interesting wrinkle, actually.

 

[at Quark's]

I would like to propose a slightly harder challenge:

"How to resolve 85 Voyager inconsistencies in 6 seconds."

To be clear, I don't think the challenge lies in the first part - finding 85 Voyager inconsistencies.

 

[Oddish]

I would like to propose a slightly harder challenge:

"How to resolve 85 Voyager inconsistencies in 6 seconds."

I don't think even Roxann Dawson could technobabble that fast.

Though I could be wrong.

 

[Farscape One]

Now, can these 6 seconds include time travel?

 

[Oddish]

While it's likely there are indeed 85 inconsistencies to be found, a lot of them would require some serious plot restructuring to resolve. The issues I targeted in this topic are "band-aid" inconsistencies, or flaws that could have been resolved with mere seconds of added or modified dialogue. In other words, issues that there was really no excuse for.

 

[at Quark's]

I don't think I could do it myself, the best I can do is avoid those inconsistencies:

KIM: The tetryon displacement wave will intercept us in five seconds.
Janeway: Brace for impact!
<shot of Voyager disintegrating in a spectacular explosion>

7 years of voyager in the DQ never happened, so neither did those 85 inconsistencies.

Then again, given that the series does exist, you could also see this as introducing yet another inconsistency ...

On a more serious note, I understand that this topic is about inconsistencies that could have been remedied with only very minimal effort from the writers' side (and yet they didn't). If I find one that hasn't been posted here yet, I certainly will.

 

[Lynx]

I don't think I could do it myself, the best I can do is avoid those inconsistencies:

KIM: The tetryon displacement wave will intercept us in five seconds.
Janeway: Brace for impact!
<shot of Voyager disintegrating in a spectacular explosion>

7 years of voyager in the DQ never happened, so neither did those 85 inconsistencies.

Then again, given that the series does exist, you could also see this as introducing yet another inconsistency ...

On a more serious note, I understand that this topic is about inconsistencies that could have been remedied with only very minimal effort from the writers' side (and yet they didn't). If I find one that hasn't been posted here yet, I certainly will.

Even if I don't like the idea of Voyager exploding, I must admit that the comment was funny!

However, it would also have taken from me the great fun of trying to find out explanations, theories and solutions to correct those continuity errors and contradictions

I've actually done a good job with possible contradicions and continuity errors when it comes to the Voyager books and how to adapt the stories in them to a Voyager Timeline.

I've also come up with solutions for continuity errors and contradictions in the series itself, especially in episodes like Threshold. (See The Kes Website for all that in the Book reviews and Episode reviews).

But the gem in my treasure of solving continuity errors and contradictions is:
The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team!


Stardate 48942.07 (Friday 10 December 2371)

The latest events have put us in a difficult situation since we have wasted a lot of torpedoes and damaged a shuttle. Therefore I have asked Commander Chakotay, Liutenant Tuvok and Lieutenant Torres to come to my ready room to discuss an idea I have.

"You all know what has happened" said Janeway. "After the recent adventure with the Furies (Voyager book "The Final Fury" which took place between the episodes "Elogium" and "Twisted"), we have lost a shuttle. We have also wasted too many torpedoes. If we keep on wasting our torpedoes in the same way, we will be out of them soon. Considering our long journey and the risk of running into hostile aliens, we need both shuttles and torpedoes. Therefore I want to discuss this idea I have."

"What would that be?" Chakotay asked.

"I suggest that we set up a special workforce on the ship" Janeway said. "The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team". "Some really skilled people who can have as their priority to build shuttles and torpedoes when it's necessary. If we do so, we will have a chance to avoid being without those in a critical situation."

"That sounds like a good idea", Chakotay said.

"Indeed. And a very logical idea too considering our need for such items" Tuvok said.

"Exactly my thoughts too", said Janeway. "B'Elanna, do you have any people to spare?"

"Well, I think that Dalby, Henley, Gerron and Chell would be perfect for the job. And I would also like to have Lt. Carey in charge of the team. He's the right person for that. If necessary, I can give a helping hand too in a crisis. But I must point out that I need these people in Engineering too and that they would only work with shuttles and torpedoes when necessary."

"I agree", Janeway said. "I would also suggest that we find some other people too among the crew who can assist with shuttle and torpedo building when necessary". Janeway touched her combadge: "Mr Carey, can you come to my ready room immediately!"

And so The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team was born. From the beginning, it was Lt.Carey, Dalby, Henley, Gerron and Chell. Later on Rollins, Vorik, Samantha Wildman and The Borg baby were added to the team. In fact, those people are the true heroes on Voyager. Without their hard work, Voyager's mission would have been almost impossible.

 

[Oddish]

Indeed, the SATB Team was the inspiration for several of my original ideas, seen on Page 1.

 

[at Quark's]

I wonder how hard it would be to build shuttles anyway, with 24th century technology at your disposal.
I'd expect that many smaller parts could be replicated outright- but probably not the entire hull in one go.

Then again, that would again possibly conflict with their limited resources - those replicator rations, the hydroponic bay (or airponics- whatever) and Neelix' cooking weren't introduced for nothing, after all.

 

[Oddish]

Well, consider that an eight-ounce cup of coffee weighs in at about a pound, including the mug. A shuttlecraft probably tips the scales at 30 metric tons, minimum. So at the start of the series, Janeway has to worry about getting a cuppa joe. By the end, Voyager can pop out shuttles like clowns leaving a minicar at the circus.

 

[at Quark's]

While that's not necessarily an inconsistency - it's possible to assume they just got a lot better in locating scant resources over the years, in making efficient use of them, and in manufacturing things for themselves, I agree that the difference is pushing the boundaries of what's credible.

 

[Oddish]

Well, the issue could be eliminated, or at least ameliorated, with some judicious dialogue. Trade for an industrial replicator that can build high-tech gear at fractional energy cost. Obtain a pallet of photonic cores (the one part of photon torpedoes that can't be replicated) from a species that uses similar weapons. Convert a cargo bay into a deuterium storage unit, basically giving Voyager the equivalent of a 100-gallon fuel tank. Just -ing technobabble something, for crying out loud. Stop acting like we're too stupid to notice these things!

 

[Weyoun 251]

Well, the issue could be eliminated, or at least ameliorated, with some judicious dialogue. Trade for an industrial replicator that can build high-tech gear at fractional energy cost. Obtain a pallet of photonic cores (the one part of photon torpedoes that can't be replicated) from a species that uses similar weapons. Convert a cargo bay into a deuterium storage unit, basically giving Voyager the equivalent of a 100-gallon fuel tank. Just -ing technobabble something, for crying out loud. Stop acting like we're too stupid to notice these things!

I agree for the most part, but there is something to be said for the Game of Thrones approach (in earlier seasons) where stuff would simply happen and there was the trust that the viewers would just work out that x or y must have happened since we last saw things.

It was not the way TV was done there, so I agree that they simply ignored it, but I'm happy enough these days with it to logic it out as you have there.

 

[Lynx]

I wonder how hard it would be to build shuttles anyway, with 24th century technology at your disposal.
I'd expect that many smaller parts could be replicated outright- but probably not the entire hull in one go.

Then again, that would again possibly conflict with their limited resources - those replicator rations, the hydroponic bay (or airponics- whatever) and Neelix' cooking weren't introduced for nothing, after all.

If I'm not entirely wrong, they did collect and forage a lot of scrap metal during their journey and also bought metal in some case with which they traded or rebuilt things with. At least some of the Voyager books metions such trades.

 

[fireproof78]

I agree for the most part, but there is something to be said for the Game of Thrones approach (in earlier seasons) where stuff would simply happen and there was the trust that the viewers would just work out that x or y must have happened since we last saw things.

It was not the way TV was done there, so I agree that they simply ignored it, but I'm happy enough these days with it to logic it out as you have there.

I would be all on board for that. I have no issues with coming up with my own workaround for many different fictional concepts. Heck, even with TOS and the tendency to use only one type of uniform primarily.

But, VOY calls out these as problems. Would be nice for the solution to be stated in dialog too.

 

[Oddish]

Especially considering how incredibly easy many of these inconsistencies were to clear up. Example:
New premise: Neelix bites it, but hey! Seven says the Borg can revive people who have died.
Problem: A lot of people die on Voyager, and people will wonder why they aren't just using the Borg tech to bring back everyone who dies from then on.
Solution: Have the Borg technique only effective against Talaxians, because of a biological peculiarity of the species. Maybe five extra seconds of dialogue.

 

[Lynx]

Especially considering how incredibly easy many of these inconsistencies were to clear up. Example:
New premise: Neelix bites it, but hey! Seven says the Borg can revive people who have died.
Problem: A lot of people die on Voyager, and people will wonder why they aren't just using the Borg tech to bring back everyone who dies from then on.
Solution: Have the Borg technique only effective against Talaxians, because of a biological peculiarity of the species. Maybe five extra seconds of dialogue.

Good suggestion.

Anyway, some of my previous dislike for Seven wasn't only about her replacing Kes but that she became some super-being who could bring back people from the death with her Borg technology and also fix everything on the ship with the same Borg technology, from rebuilding the warp core and engine-room from scratch to mending Janeway's malfunctioning hair-dryer.

All of that did really get on my nerves back then.

 

[Dee1891]

Why don't we try the inconsistencies of the entire franchise - from TOS to the recent Paramount Plus offerings and save this discussion for the General Trek Discussion thread?

 

[Oddish]

We've been discussing VOY, so it's in the right thread. I expect there's already a general "Trek Inconsistencies" topic somewhere, probably more than one.