If Seska had survived...

[Drone]

You'd have several fine episodes right there if Seska got to stay on the crew as an unmasked Cardassian and Tuvok's betrayal was actually exploited as it should've been.

Tuvok's betrayal? He was on a military mission to gather intel and report on their intentions. Tell me the Maquis didn't have such individuals doing the same thing. Would you call a G-man or any undercover law enforcement agent who infiltrates a suspected criminal or terrorist organization someone guilty of betrayal? Gee, I hope not. While the target of Tuvok's action didn't fit either of those descriptions, they were superlatively zealous representatives of a cause that the Federation reasoned that they couldn't countenance given the dynamics of the circumstances that were at play at that time. So, their operation had to be dealt with, end of story.

All's fair in love and espionage.


Oh, getting back to Seska, I don't know that part of her intention, as it developed, wasn't to actually inject a nascent representation of Cardassia as being a worthy ally to powerful species in the DQ, with the thought that in so doing she would give the Union a leg up in its eventual foray there and also accomplish a feat that would only redound greatly to her own benefit when she got home. I'm certainly not saying that she was resigned to spending the rest of her life there, far from it, as she likely considered some advanced race capable of getting her back long before Voyager, if they were even ever successful, given her opinion of Janeway's acumen. Meanwhile, she could lay the seeds of a Cardassian presence and predominance amongst its foes, that would likely yield immeasurable benefit down the road.

 

[Paradise City]

Tuvok presented himself as a Maquis to the Maquis, he was operating under false pretenses as a Maquis, thus he betrayed the Maquis who thought he was loyal to the Maquis. Ergo, betrayal and the Maquis ain't gonna be too cool with that. So more than enough material to churn out a few episodes of resentment, power struggles, conspiracy and revenge! Like what BSG did later. Is Tuvok a great guy in the final analysis? Sure he is. He's fab.

Janeway tries to bring on Obsidian Order Seska into "the team" and all hell breaks lose. Seska's headstrong nature gets alot of the Maquis into a tizzy and the Bajorans are all for chucking her out of an airlock and ain't too good at disguisin' their intentions let me tell you.

At the end of the arc morale officer Neelix though gives a rousing speech over the intercom beseeching everybody to put aside their differences and they all settle their grudges with tears and a group hug. Kes goes around with the sandwiches and refreshments.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Is there canon to say that Voyager is only a century ahead of everyone else in the DQ, but especially the Kazon?

The Vulcans had been in space for half a million years (salt) but Humans invented transporters, time travel and replicators before they did.

Were the Kazons less advanced than Kirk, or less advanced than Archer, or were the Kazon even more than 300 years behind the Federation techwise... That is if the Kazon had the capacity to climb up the ladder through invention, rather than by theft and assimilation. They're using not just the same old Trabe tech, but the same hardware, that they were using 50 years ago when they over threw the Trabe.

The Kazon, like the Borg, don't have any R&D departments. It is death to sit on their laurels, they have to take, and take before their existing fleets rust to pieces and fall apart from neglect and extreme age.

 

[Drone]

Tuvok presented himself as a Maquis to the Maquis, he was operating under false pretenses as a Maquis, thus he betrayed the Maquis who thought he was loyal to the Maquis. Ergo, betrayal and the Maquis ain't gonna be too cool with that. So more than enough material to churn out a few episodes of resentment, power struggles, conspiracy and revenge! Like what BSG did later. Is Tuvok a great guy in the final analysis? Sure he is. He's fab.

Janeway tries to bring on Obsidian Order Seska into "the team" and all hell breaks lose. Seska's headstrong nature gets alot of the Maquis into a tizzy and the Bajorans are all for chucking her out of an airlock and ain't too good at disguisin' their intentions let me tell you.

At the end of the arc morale officer Neelix though gives a rousing speech over the intercom beseeching everybody to put aside their differences and they all settle their grudges with tears and a group hug. Kes goes around with the sandwiches and refreshments.

Well, apparently you don't find anything of what I said about the rationale of Tuvok's mission and its commonality in what all parties at the time were doing, including the Maquis, and what also goes on in the present to facilitate the prosecution of real world bad guys, to be relevant, so you just ignored it. That the Maquis members of the crew having "difficulties" in integrating with their Starfleet counterparts very well could have made for some compelling episodes is hard to argue, but my understanding is that such a continuing development was not in the interest of the network, so it was never going to happen. As for Tuvok, of course he's a great guy, but not particularly because he simply and expertly carried out an assignment that was deemed a necessity by Starfleet to meet the danger of a complicating factor to maintaining order in a complex geopolitical situation.

I believe, if you think about it with some perspective, any mission of infiltration would be considered an act of betrayal at the time by the party being infiltrated, but such missions would never serve the purpose they're designed for if the agent boldly claims what he/she is doing there, for the sake of everyone's clarity.

 

[hux]

Everybody on board had a reason to feel some degree of resentment in some direction or another. Seska and Tuvok were spies, Chakotay was promoted to second in command, an ex-con is now the flyboy, a non-graduate of Starfleet academy is the engineer. Probably the most important role on the ship.

If I were some deck 15 nobody crewmember on Voyager, I'd have sent a strongly worded e-mail to the captain about that last one (then put it on a padd and given it to someone so they could carry it around the ship then deliver it to her). I'd also have been pretty irked that Neelix gets to go on so many damn away missions while I'm sat scrubbing conduit 12.

Remember when the Maquis malcontents had to undertake Tuvok's training because they were ignorant of Starfleet protocol. How might they have felt when they saw that away-mission-King Neelix wasn't there to learn the protocols and procedures too. Apparently, it was perfectly fine that he knew bugger all and could go wandering into the lung-stealing areas of a planet.

Plenty of reasons to churn out some resentment episodes.

 

[Guy Gardener]

it's a miracle they didn't call that episode "To Tuvok with Love".

 

[Drone]

Everybody on board had a reason to feel some degree of resentment in some direction or another. Seska and Tuvok were spies, Chakotay was promoted to second in command, an ex-con is now the flyboy, a non-graduate of Starfleet academy is the engineer. Probably the most important role on the ship.

If I were some deck 15 nobody crewmember on Voyager, I'd have sent a strongly worded e-mail to the captain about that last one (then put it on a padd and given it to someone so they could carry it around the ship then deliver it to her). I'd also have been pretty irked that Neelix gets to go on so many damn away missions while I'm sat scrubbing conduit 12.

Remember when the Maquis malcontents had to undertake Tuvok's training because they were ignorant of Starfleet protocol. How might they have felt when they saw that away-mission-King Neelix wasn't there to learn the protocols and procedures too. Apparently, it was perfectly fine that he knew bugger all and could go wandering into the lung-stealing areas of a planet.

Plenty of reasons to churn out some resentment episodes.

There were a couple of episodes in which Neelix states his awareness of at least certain of those standards, Parturition and Warlord, and likely a few others as well. While this training may have often taken the form of self-taught study, I think one would have to admit that he didn't screw up all the time, though The Phage was not a shining example, as you point out. Still, I'll cut him some slack there, as it was his first off ship foray and he was a bit overenthusiastic.

On the other hand, a number of those away missions were designed specifically to take advantage of his knowledge of the native food stuffs, which he really had an understanding of, however much of his prized finds tasted like shit. Oh, and he did save Carey's bacon. That should count for something.

As for B'Elanna, I think it's difficult to claim that she wasn't better in that role than Carey would have turned out to be, regardless that his claim on the position was justified, having been earned the right way. I just don't think that he was likely to be as quickly adaptive in situations that might have demanded it and was more of a thinking inside the box kind of engineer, who also might not have been as open to the suggestions of his underlings.

Anyway, he claimed to have become reconciled to the decision by the time of Investigations and I don't really recall his being shown as being out of line or disrespectful before that. So, if he basically accepted the situation fairly quickly, why would any of the other Starfleet engineering personnel make much of it either after B'Elanna settled in? There were quite a few Maquis stationed there, so I assume they were pleased, at least.

 

[Anwar]

You'd have several fine episodes right there if Seska got to stay on the crew as an unmasked Cardassian and Tuvok's betrayal was actually exploited as it should've been.

They'd have to get over it by the end of the season. Otherwise they were never going to survive.