If Seska'd rejoined the crew after Basics, who'd have...

[Guy Gardener]

And the Array was never an option, it killed people bringing them there and would kill people sending them back.

You know, that never made sense to me. If he designed this thing to bring subjects to him for experimentation, why would the thing kill potentially viable guinea pigs? With the technology to search the galaxy, he couldn't do better? (And, given its age compared to the state-of-the-art Voyager, why wasn't the tiny Maquis ship more damaged than it was?) Yet, at the end of 'Caretaker' they made it seem like it was possible to study it and use it without any consequences whatsoever.

It all seemed very forced on the part of the writers.

Also, perhaps Seska had other, hidden motivations beyond getting home.

You ever hung out with old people? Dementia and madcow? Visited gampies or grammy at a home and observe the cavilcade of addled wits unsure what day of the week it is?

At best, we could claim that long ago Caretaker was a godlike genius, because he absofrakk'n lutely wasn't by the time he met janeway... You could argue that every word he said to her was just the beginning of his death rattle... Who was going to raise this magic child he was going to make? If he'd knocked up harry or b'Elanna, do you really beleive that after 9 months later when they squeesed their kid out that they were going to give the slightest shit about the wishes and instructions left behind by the muggins who raped them? That and they'd be 9 months away from ocampa on their way to earth, and its not like a baby could have looked after anyone anyway.

Or was the kid going to spring out fully grown with an adult intellect?

That's not cool for the human plumbing in question thats going to be used to...

Was Susperia really that hard to find?

 

[Anwar]

He didn't think he'd be dead so soon, so he figured he'd be around the raise the kid enough. Or he left recorded messages.

Anywho, Tuvok said it would take weeks to figure the Array out and by that point the place would be swarming with Kazon. Too many to fight off.

And like I said, going back would've killed people. Would they take that risk?

 

[Guy Gardener]

TUVOK: First, he increases the energy supply to provide the city with a surplus to last at least five years. Then he seals the conduits. The logical conclusion is that he does not intend to continue his role as Caretaker.
CHAKOTAY: That doesn't necessarily mean he's dying. He could be leaving.
TUVOK: Doubtful. Not after a millennium of providing for these people. I believe the Caretaker owes something to the Ocampa. I believe 'the debt that can never repaid' is very likely a debt to them. In addition, there were his frequent references to 'running out of time'. I think he knew his death was imminent.
JANEWAY: If he dies, how the hell are we supposed to get home?

and...

TUVOK: Captain, I can access the system to send us back to Federation space, but it will take several hours to activate.
JANEWAY: Unless you help us.
CARETAKER: Oh, I wish I could but I have very little time left, so I have initiated a self-destruct programme.
JANEWAY: If you destroy the array, we'll have no way to get home.
CARETAKER: The Ocampa's enemies can not be allowed to, to control this installation. In minutes, it will be destroyed. You have to go. Go now.

My mistake. Tuvok didn't have to plot a course home. He just had push a single huge red button labeled "reverse course". The Caretaker is one lazy ass old man.

You do recall that Voyager was a little crippled right? I think they said, either now or in Projections when the Doctor relived some of these events that Voyager was operating at ten percent of normal, that the so called Kazon fleet that they were in battle with was one of their city ships and two frakking shuttles. You'll recall that the city ship was destroyed by a colision with the val jean? Two shuttles? Earlier in the episdoe it took Voyager a full day to travel from the Array to Ocampa. they scanned the area and the only ship they noticed was Neelix's little rag and bone dingy.

Voyager and what ever weapons they could get working on the array couldn't handle two kazon shuttles?

 

[Anwar]

If they couldn't detect the Kazon ships from there, and hours later they had a city ship and two shuttles attacking them then how many more would be there hours later? More City-Ships?

Plus, the dialog still side-steps the whole "The system that brought us here killed a lot of us" issue that would rise when using the same system.

 

[Guy Gardener]

been thrown against a wall by a big bastard ever? it hurts right? But it's hardly the same as being thrown out of a moving car at a wall, which is hardly the same as being thrown out of a helicopter in flight at a wall which is hardly the same as being thrown out of a Saturn V rocket blasting off at a wall?

No one was thrown so hard against a wall on Voyager during the trip to the DQ that they were turned into liquid, or they all would have died.

The only thing wrong with the dead crewmen which reinvented them as dead crewmen were broken necks and other impact related injuries.

Or are you insisting that there was some sort of technolbably radiation or some such which was incompatible with a tenth of the crews dna or brain chemistry who all exploded during the trip over?

The Kazon ships don't have transporters. The ships were on the ground. Scanning space is easy but Kim was such a fucking (this word is completely necessary) dipshit in the pilot that he failed to notice a city just three miles under the surface of Ocampa, so why would he scan the surface for turned off ships under camouflage netting?

 

[Anwar]

I do remember there being some explosions and panel blowing during the pull to the DQ that killed people along with the sheer kinetic force. So yeah, I do think it would happen again to kill people on the way back.

And like you said, if they couldn't detect those ships that attacked them beforehand, then that means there could've been more on the way from the planet to attack them. And hell if they couldn't detect a city or the ships then for all we knew there WERE other ships in the system that would be coming.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think on the trip back that they would turn off the warp engine and other critical systems likely to explode. The ships where damaged. I'm not arguing that they weren't, but probably no worse than the Executor when it was looking for the Mellennium Falcom in that Asteroid field. but the likely hood of giving them a couple hours to battern the hatches and they still forget to put something the will explode on standby or off mode would unnderline how green this crew really was.

Reinforcements has always been a huge question... If Janeway was so scared of Reinforcements chasing her down, then why s it 10 episodes before they meet more Kazon who just happen to be an entirely different sect, and if Janeway was so steeled to get the hell out of Dodge before the kazon ran her down, how many thousands of people were living in that City ship which they destroyed that was easily 8 times the mass of Voyager, THEY'RE HUGE, that that act of aggression was more than enough to fight back over even if the squabble over the array had become moot with it's destruction, that Janeway wouldn't have stopped off at Ocampa for how how many hours or days for kes to pick up her stuff and say tootles to her friends and family? And y'know for Janeway to caretakerlike extend their life expectancy longer than 5 years when the shield gave out while living (literally) under Kazon flag by showing them how to make energy (they have a shit load of hydrogen with all that water, but if they're using the hydrogen to make water whic is then being used as a source of hydrogen which is the... perpetual energy much?) to power the shield and food replicators the Ca...

To help the Ocampa, Janeway would have had to have seemed to have chased Jabin to his base of operations, the Ocampan Homeworld, or as it's new rulers probably called it "Camp kazon" towards where the hypothetical reinforcements would have been coming from...

So did she save the ocampa or just make things complicated for no reason delaying the inevitable?

Locked in a metal box with terribly finite supply of food and water.

Have you heard my theories on Ocampan euthanasia and Cannibalism?

 

[Anwar]

I think once the Array was gone the Kazon would have stopped caring about the Ocampa and left them. They now had a nice new AQ prey to hunt down for better tech.

As for the Ocampa, they'd have 5 years to learn how to be self-reliant again and rediscover their powers (which also extend their lifespans) and Kes learnt so pretty fast so they're not so bad off.

 

[Guy Gardener]

From Caretaker:

PARIS: Why would anyone want to live in a place like this?
NEELIX: The rich cormaline deposits are very much in demand.
CHAKOTAY: The Ocampa use it for barter?
NEELIX: Not the Ocampa. The Kazon-Ogla.
JANEWAY: The Kazon-Ogla? Who are the Kazon-Ogla?
NEELIX: They are. Kazon sects control this part of the quadrant. Some have food, some have ore, some have water. They all trade and they all kill each other for it.

The Kazon Ogla held Ocampa for a very good and profitable reason that had nothing to do with the Array (a days travel away that swatted curious parties like a drunk trying to milk bees.) or the Ocampa (in a steel box within an impenetrable forcefield three miles down).

More importantly, it was theirs and what sort of cow species or space French just gives away their planet and hide at the fist sign of trouble? Hmm? Jabin didn't meet Ransom? Or was another sect in control of Ocampa back then? So that means that probably the Ogla just Killed maybe hundreds of Kazon in another sect who called this place home not too recently, so really, if they'll kill to conquer the place, then why won't they kill to retain it? That's even if Janeway followed them to Ocampa to continue the fight?

 

[hawk200]

Take her back?
I think not.
Who in their right mind would do such a thing?
To bad that she left,in the first place.

 

[Anwar]

From Caretaker:

PARIS: Why would anyone want to live in a place like this?
NEELIX: The rich cormaline deposits are very much in demand.
CHAKOTAY: The Ocampa use it for barter?
NEELIX: Not the Ocampa. The Kazon-Ogla.
JANEWAY: The Kazon-Ogla? Who are the Kazon-Ogla?
NEELIX: They are. Kazon sects control this part of the quadrant. Some have food, some have ore, some have water. They all trade and they all kill each other for it.

The Kazon Ogla held Ocampa for a very good and profitable reason that had nothing to do with the Array (a days travel away that swatted curious parties like a drunk trying to milk bees.) or the Ocampa (in a steel box within an impenetrable forcefield three miles down).

Like I said, the Ocampa had that time to relearn their abilities (Kes did pretty fast) which would have them powerful enough together to take out the Kazon controlling their planet. But I do think that after the damage VOY did to the Kazon on Ocampa (destroying their big ship and all) they probably weren't in much position to control the planet any longer.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Firstly kes('s body) only got her super powers seen in warlord because Tuvok had been teaching it to be a honed fine tuned muscle.

Secondly Kes only got her godlike powers in the gift because 8472 got inside her head and kicked the shit out of her because they are loud-thinkers who got her a bit overloaded, that afterward her brain recovered wrong but better.

Thirdly the whole "debt that can never be repaid" Caretaker was talking about which striped Ocampa of Nucleogenic particles (no life ever again, ever. No usable water either.) probably had something to do with forced evolution and the orgasm providing life eating we saw when kes ate her garden in Cold Fire resulting in the biomatter she was focusing on becoming ash. Attempting to repay the debt that can never be paid required kicking the Ocampa till they fell off the evolutionary ladder, or this lot in the box kept as cows were just genetically indisposed to ascend, or at the very least a thousand years ago, their ancestors were? That kicking was keeping their telepathic abilities muted, perhaps through conditioning, or even there was something in the food, but Kes spent how many months as a raped and reraped serving wench without developing the ability to telekentically boil brains in their pans?

4thly the kazon don't want the Ocampa as slaves, Jabin said they were worthless(How long do Kazon live? it had been 50 years since they rebelled from the trabe and they still hadn't ditched their tribal bullshit, if they were a very long or longer (than) lived species like the Vulcans this would explain that they are not third generation retardedly holding on to unuasble ethology but in stead if they blink it is these kazon wonder why they're still not living in trees & and hunting with tooth and claw, that the life span of the Ocampa would have seemed even more ridiculous. Sure one or two Ocampan slaves might be of some help in their camp, but thousands and thousands demanding to be fed and looked after who could barely be sold or given away? So much easier just to cull them.

5thly, No food, no water, no infrastructure, no shelter, after they crawl to the surface they have "hours" to develop powers or build a society or "join" the kazon after a fashion before they die of exposure or wander too close to the kazon sentries who will shoot them as vermin.

6thly The Ocampan's didn't beleive that they had super telepathy just like christains don't beleive that man used to be a sort of ape and before that a sort of fish. Probably social conditionaing from Caretaker so that the Ocampa don't start up with the rampant coldfire orgies all over the place until there's no life in the box either.

7th We don't know which (if any?) kazon sect would be holding Ocampa when the ocampa rose tot he surface. All weakening the Ogla would have done was create an advantage worth exploiting from one of the other sects, either from a weak sect who would benefit from a union, or froma strong sect who could topple Jabins Regime... Which is why Razik was in charge of the Ogla less than a year later in Initiations who didn't make it to the other end of the story breathing I might add, that we have to wonder after maneuvers if the Nistrum were not running everything completely under a single Maje? Ocampa could be in dispute or even sacked when the Ocampa rise that there is no Kazon to be beholden to or oppress? Which means that they would have to invent their own space programs in the few hours remaining before they die of exposure.

 

[Anwar]

So you don't think they'd use the 5 years their city had left to try and prepare themselves, knowing that their Caretaker was gone?

Also, seeing how VOY had gotten all of the Kazon Sects united after them odds are they may have just left Ocampa entirely for their greater prize.

 

[Guy Gardener]

5 years doesn't mean the same to an Ocampa as it does to us.

Anwar, I am going to destroy the earth some time in the distant future when your as yet unborn grandchildren are fully grown adults. Hell, our oil is going to run out well before the time table I just suggested.

5 years to them is not an immediate or real threat. They can kick back and relax for 2 or three years before the kids of the current administration prepare to retire and die of natural causes and forthcome pass the buck onto even the next generation to inherit these problems.

Wow. It really does sound like I'm talking about Oil and other issues with our ecology.

I don't think as a people they have been brought up to think in concepts like survival of the fittest or war, or being a bastard. All said and done, culling would be too good for these creatures as they'd be too stupid to recognize a threat as it levels their plasma rifles at them, I find it more than likely that the Kazon would begin using then as a rapidly replenishing food source.

Deltafried Ocampa?

Mmmmmm.

 

[Anwar]

Wow, you almost sound like a Magog

 

[neogothboy74]

I never actually considered her returning to the ship, but now that seems like a really cool idea! I don't know how it would work...but as far as sexual partners go...I just can't imagine any of them. I just think Cardassian women are for the most part, are really fricking scary looking (with the slight exceptions of Tora Ziyal and Natima Lang). lol. And even though her Cardassian DNA wasn't completely restored (at least I don't think it was?) she kind of ended up looking like the little girl in the Exorcist while she was possessed. Ick. But that's just me. Maybe that look works for some people.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It would be like when Q asked to sign up with Picard, or Scorpius Signed up with Moya, or Baltar trundled back to Galactica with his tackle completely stinking of toaster, or sabertooth (a better example might have been Rogue. She started out as a villain.) arrived on the X-mens doorstep and asked for a billet...

Mystique in X-Men as an X-man (for a couple years even) recently was amazing right up till she shot Iceman ("Her" "then" "lover".)in the back revealing herself to be a double agent sleeper!

Or Spike coming to living with Xander till he'd built enough good guy streetcred that Buffy started sleeping with him!

If the kid HAD been Chaokatay's like had been intended before Jeri Taylor wrecked everything, and Chuckles did run away with his offspring... She would have chased them so hard because cardassians are nothing if not about family. Then after the like 5th time Voyager is almost destroyed utterly by her evil Machiavellian forward thinking and pure thrust, Janeways accepts that the only way to save the day form the next 5 times Seska almost destroys the ship is to offer her Tuvoks job.

Talk about friction.

Then she applies tot he holoacademy, inso races Seven and harry to see who can make commander first... Not that she(like T'Pol 2 hundred years earlier) might insist that her Cardassian rank was interchangeable (And Riker and Kurn serving aboard each others ships. or Kira at the end on Cardassia,) with a Starfleet Commission.