Janeway Blowing Up the Caretaker Array...

[TedShatner10]

The most common criticism of Captain Janeway was how she stranded her crew in such a callous and stupid manner by blowing up their ticket home, the Caretaker Array. A common suggestion for the right course of action was to use the array to take Voyager back, while leaving photon torpedo warheads behind on a delayed timer to destroy the Array or even leave a brave crewman behind (most likely the stoic Tuvok) to set them off himself while Voyager is zapped back to the Alpha Quadrant.

On the otherhand how could Janeway and her crew use the Caretaker Array when the technology is far in advance of their's and it was configured to be operated by a being that was completely alien? So it wouldn't likely be user friendly for any humanoid.

To make Janeway look less stupid and less constrained by faulty story editing and plot contrivances (they HAD to be trapped in the Delta Quadrant) is that she tries to operate the Array and set a timed bomb, however the incomprehensible Caretaker technology and fifty Kazon ships heading her way are stopping her from doing that. Jeri Taylor likely wanted to do something like that, but Rick Berman or Michael Pillar wanted to keep things lean and mean, leaving a gaping plothole for the fans to pick apart and be effective character assassination.

 

[Lynx]

I can agree that there is a plothole but not as big as it might seem to be.

There is a scene where Tuvok claims that "it will take several hours to access the system" and be able to make this alien computer system send them home and due to the Kazon presence, Tuvok and the Voyager crew didn't have those hours.

Instead, it's quite possible that the Kazon would have gotten reinforcements and been able to board the Array, killing Tuvok, Janeway or whoever was there trying to access the Caretaker's computer.

We also had the Caretaker himself who had started a self-destruction for the Array.

What happens next is that a damaged Kazon cruiser collides with the array, thus damaging the self-destruction mechanism. Janeway realizes that there is a possible risk that the Kazon will be able to take over the Array and use it as a bridgehead for an invasion of the Ocampa underground city. So Janeway realizes hat the only logical thing to do is to fulfill the dying Caretaker's wish of destroying the array.

Using the system to be sent home and leaving some photon torpedo warheads (and Tuvok? ) to make sure that the Array would explode may not have worked out so well. As I wrote before, they didn't have the time to access the computer system due to the risk of a Kazon invasion of the Array and even if they had gootten away, there's also the risk that the Kazon could have discovered and disarmed the warheads and then taken control of the array. Janeway simply couldn't risk that and therefore had to destroy the array.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

There's a bigger plot hole I'm concerned about with Janeway destroying the Array - Although 'The Voyager Conspiracy' had a lot of off-the-wall theories behind the destruction of the Caretaker's Array, there's never a solid answer on why Voyager was carrying the non-standard tri-kobalt devices. Obviously they only had two of them, but why did they have them in the first place? Was Voyager doing a test-run of new weaponry capable of being used in the Badlands? NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS.

Sorry, that's just been bugging me a bit.

 

[Lynx]

There's a bigger plot hole I'm concerned about with Janeway destroying the Array - Although 'The Voyager Conspiracy' had a lot of off-the-wall theories behind the destruction of the Caretaker's Array, there's never a solid answer on why Voyager was carrying the non-standard tri-kobalt devices. Obviously they only had two of them, but why did they have them in the first place? Was Voyager doing a test-run of new weaponry capable of being used in the Badlands? NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS.

Sorry, that's just been bugging me a bit.

I've been wondering about that too from time to time.

I guess that Voyager was a new ship and this was new weaponry as well. I guess it had been tested before the take-off from DS9 because otherwise Janeway may have hesitated using it because of the risk of malfunction and gone for more traditional photon torpedoes instead.

Or maybe she took a chance? Who knows.

 

[Fish1941]

One, I don't consider this a plothole. Two, Janeway blew up the Caretaker Array at the behest of the Caretaker. It's not as if she had broken the Prime Directive.

 

[JoeD80]

One, I don't consider this a plothole. Two, Janeway blew up the Caretaker Array at the behest of the Caretaker. It's not as if she had broken the Prime Directive.

Didn't she say something in the episode about "well the Prime Directive was already broken earlier so we can interfere" or something similar or was that a different season one episode?

 

[Anwar]

She said that since they had already tampered with local events by causing the Kazon to crash into the Array and stop the self-destruct, they may as well fix things and destroy the Array themselves.

 

[Deks]

Agreed.
Janeway also perceived their interference to directly involve the Ocampa ... plus if they didn't destroy it, there's a good possibility the Kazon would enslave the Ocampa quite easily.
Too much of a risk to leave the Ocampa at Kazon's mercy (along with the Caretaker's array and advanced tech) after being directly involved with them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

NOTHING was going to stop the ocampa from being enslaved.

They were cows looking for some one to feed them.

Caretaker was a moron, and hardly a power at all if he allowed a mining and refinery to operate on the surface of Ocampa. The kazon are going to take their water? And moonmen wanted Howard Huges' urine.

I just thought of the perfect real world example.

Remember in the first gulf War one when the Iraqi Invasion was being forced back to where it came from but the soldiers running away thought it was too dangerous to leave all those oil wells in working order in control of their enemies and the "foreign bastards" interfering in their perfectly civil local dispute based on thousands year old historical impetus?

They were setting oil wells on fire so that the west couldn't pay for the oil and the money in turn be used for some sort of vengeance. They learnt stuff like that from the Romans. Janeway too thought that by ruining the local governments infrastructure that she could control the shape of the map and local politics in general.

 

[Fish1941]

NOTHING was going to stop the ocampa from being enslaved.

And you know this as a fact . . . how?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Kazon owned every thing on Ocampa. It was their world by right of conquest or/and salvage.

The Ocampa had been underground for at least a thousand years.

No map in the Delta Quadrant called that place Ocampa. It was Kazon outpost "X".

The ocampa had no friends, there was no benevolent parties. Even archaeologists would have thought they were extinct.

The Ocampa after half a decade would come to the surface with no food or water and beg for both from whosoever they could find on the surface who are all kazon.

The only way they weren't going to be enslaved is if the kazon decided to ignore the Ocampa letting them all starve or die of thirst outside the Kazon compounds... which really would only take a few days if not hours, even if the Ocampa resorted to cannibalism and drinking each others blood.

 

[Praetor]

I can't help but wonder if the tricobalt devices were aboard because photon torpedoes wouldn't have worked well in the Badlands? A stretch, but a relatively simple explanation for it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That or the Romulans did pass on janeways messages to Starfleet command from 20 years earlier.

I started up a thread a while back suggesting that the tricobalt devices were to be used to atomize Chakotay's base of operations if it was a space station of even a large ground installation, because if Chuckles controlled a staging area for several cells to regroup and resupply, it would have been a coup to remove such a useful asset form maquis control.

And that's why they all became friends, because janeways crew was just so glad they didn't have to murder these people into little pieces.

 

[Praetor]

That's really not a bad theory...

 

[Timo]

I'd like to call attention to the fact that Janeway was also performing a self-defensive maneuver with the demolition of the Array. Her ship had been pounded to within an inch of destruction by the Kazon just moments ago; Chakotay's ship had already been lost. Why? Because the Kazon wanted the Array. There'd be little hope of survival as long as the Kazon thought Janeway stood between them and the Array. So Janeway's options always were, retreat and let the Kazon have the Array, and then limp home - or blow up the station, and then limp home. There never was Option C, of using the Array for cross-galaxy travel; Janeway would have been pulverized before she could have attempted that.

It really becomes nothing but an issue of why Janeway did the "optional extra" of blowing up the Array, then. It had many benefits: it weakened the Kazon, it made Janeway look mean and powerful and not such easy prey after all, and it stopped the senile, erratic and dangerous antics of the Caretaker for good. Why not do it?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Minutes earlier Janeway was going to let the kazon have the array, if they just let her have a looksy first, until she insulted Jabin and scared them with her neediness.

If I said to you "If we could just talk like civilized people?" 4 minutes into an existing conversation, how insulted would you be that I am suggesting that everything you'd said up to that point was "uncivilized".

It's not smart.

From any perspective these guys were a savage child race who probably did not like to be reminded about how recently it was that they had been dragged out of the jungles in cages to wear clothes speak the jibber jabber language of their new masters while cleaning toilets of a truly "civilized" race like the Trabe.

She might as well have called them spaceniggers.

Not that they had any intention of trusting janeway ini the slightest after her hedgehog held them at gunpoint, stole one of their slaves and destroyed a reasonable supply of water they had earmarked for this or that.

These Kazon might have been small minded thungs, but this was their home and Janeway had lost the moral high ground and she had no legal standing in kazon space to dictate terms, so of course she was going to open fire as soon as these "savages" started posturing because she was in charge.

The ego on this gal.

 

[Lynx]

The Kazon owned every thing on Ocampa. It was their world by right of conquest or/and salvage.

The Ocampa had been underground for at least a thousand years.

No map in the Delta Quadrant called that place Ocampa. It was Kazon outpost "X".

The ocampa had no friends, there was no benevolent parties. Even archaeologists would have thought they were extinct.

The Ocampa after half a decade would come to the surface with no food or water and beg for both from whosoever they could find on the surface who are all kazon.

The only way they weren't going to be enslaved is if the kazon decided to ignore the Ocampa letting them all starve or die of thirst outside the Kazon compounds... which really would only take a few days if not hours, even if the Ocampa resorted to cannibalism and drinking each others blood.

I have to disagree with some things you have written here.

The Kazon didn't own the Ocampa planet. They had an outpost there, that was all. The Ocampa had their underground city. It was theirs. Not to mention that the planet had been theirs too until the Caretaker screwed it up

If the right to conquest and salvage belongs to those who use brute force, then why did the US intevene in the Korean war. They had no interests in South Korea then, they could have let Kim Il Sung's army invade, take over, conquer and salvage. Not to mention the Gulf War. Didn't Saddam have the right to conquer and salvage?

The Ocampa did have friends. The Caretaker, the Voyager crew and the Ocampa on Suspiria's array. The Kazon-Ogla on the other hand were surrounded by enemies. The lack of water was probably because they were under siege by some other Kazon sects, otherwise they could have traveled to the nearest planet with some ice on and brought back some ice to make water of.

Don't forget that the Caretaker downloaded his knowledge to the Ocampa when he was about to die. That knowledge would probaly help the Ocampa to survive and maybe defeat the Kazon too when the time came for that.

NOTHING was going to stop the ocampa from being enslaved.

They were cows looking for some one to feed them.

Caretaker was a moron, and hardly a power at all if he allowed a mining and refinery to operate on the surface of Ocampa. The kazon are going to take their water?

I also have to disagree about the Ocampa being cows looking for someone to enslave. The Ocampa on Suspiria's array showed that things could change with a different leadership. Maybe the crisis brought forward such leadership on the planet too, and no, I don't think that the Kazon were capable of taking the water from the Ocampa.

But I have to agree on the Caretaker when it came to letting the Kazon operate on the planet. He could have wiped them out with a single shot.

 

[JB2005]

I have to disagree with some things you have written here.

The Kazon didn't own the Ocampa planet. They had an outpost there, that was all. The Ocampa had their underground city. It was theirs. Not to mention that the planet had been theirs too until the Caretaker screwed it up

The Kazon owned the planet. The Ocampa had no way of defending their claim. The had no militia, no allies (See later) no weapons. They were dependant on the caretaker completely.

If the right to conquest and salvage belongs to those who use brute force, then why did the US intevene in the Korean war. They had no interests in South Korea then, they could have let Kim Il Sung's army invade, take over, conquer and salvage. Not to mention the Gulf War. Didn't Saddam have the right to conquer and salvage?

The US (and Britain for that matter) Invaded Korea because they didn't want another communist state (see Vietnam) it had nothing to do with stopping people conquering, (they'd have had no problem letting the south invade the north) it was the wrong people invading.

The Ocampa did have friends. The Caretaker, the Voyager crew and the Ocampa on Suspiria's array. The Kazon-Ogla on the other hand were surrounded by enemies. The lack of water was probably because they were under siege by some other Kazon sects, otherwise they could have traveled to the nearest planet with some ice on and brought back some ice to make water of.

The Ocampa had no allies.

* The Caretaker = dead
* Voyager = Gone
* Suspiria = Doesn't care (or she would have done something when the caretaker died)

And dropping ice on the planet would have had no effect, because of the lack of nucleogenic particles...

Don't forget that the Caretaker downloaded his knowledge to the Ocampa when he was about to die. That knowledge would probaly help the Ocampa to survive and maybe defeat the Kazon too when the time came for that.

Umm...no he didn't.

NOTHING was going to stop the ocampa from being enslaved.

They were cows looking for some one to feed them.

Caretaker was a moron, and hardly a power at all if he allowed a mining and refinery to operate on the surface of Ocampa. The kazon are going to take their water?

I also have to disagree about the Ocampa being cows looking for someone to enslave. The Ocampa on Suspiria's array showed that things could change with a different leadership. Maybe the crisis brought forward such leadership on the planet too, and no, I don't think that the Kazon were capable of taking the water from the Ocampa.

It would be like taking from Cows though, they had no defences once their energy ran out. No resistance. If Kes did make it back to Ocampa at the end of Fury, then she probably found them all dead.

But I have to agree on the Caretaker when it came to letting the Kazon operate on the planet. He could have wiped them out with a single shot.

But he didn't, so I'm not convinced of that either. If he had then it would have brought the Kazon down on him, and as we saw the Array was vulnerable if a Kazon Ship rammed it...

 

[Lynx]

^^
The Kazon didn't own the planet. They had an outpost there, that's all and they were probably under siege from other Kazon sects, otherwise they could have solved the water problem by sending a ship to the nearest icy planet and get some chunks of ice to make water of (for themselves and their needs, not for the whole planet).

Now, why didn't the US and the British let the Communists take over in Korea? Why did the US intervene in Europe in WWII instead of just fighting Japan? Why did the US and Nato react against Milosevic's atrocities? Didn't it had something to do with preventing certain powers to simply take the right to conquer and salvage?

As for no allies, we don't know how the Ocampa on Suspiria's array reacted when they heard about their old homeworld being in danger. They might have intervened and since the Ocampa did have resources for five years plus the knowledge of the Caretaker, they might have used that to come up with something against the rather small group of Kazon-Ogla which were on the planet.

 

[JB2005]

The Kazon didn't own the planet. They had an outpost there, that's all and they were probably under siege from other Kazon sects, otherwise they could have solved the water problem by sending a ship to the nearest icy planet and get some chunks of ice to make water of (for themselves and their needs, not for the whole planet).

I see what you're saying, but they weren't under seige, because they were ale to call in additional ships, and leave the planet of their accord.

And by having an outpost on a deserted/barren planet, they could be said to own it. After all living underground and isolated the Ocampa weren't going to complain (they wouldn't even realise)

Now, why didn't the US and the British let the Communists take over in Korea? Why did the US intervene in Europe in WWII instead of just fighting Japan? Why did the US and Nato react against Milosevic's atrocities? Didn't it had something to do with preventing certain powers to simply take the right to conquer and salvage?

Not to turn this into a debate on modern history, this will be my last comment on the subject:

Because your president was pushing for containment of communism to the USSR, because they were sh*t scared of it taking over the world and isolating America, and the Brits went along because we still had interests in Asia at the time.

The Americans were very prepared to let the European war fight to its conclusion. You joined in because a) FDR didn't like the idea of the Nazis taking over all of Europe and b) Because Japan and Germany had an agreement, so by declaring war on one it was declaring war on all...

Milosovic I think was partly bouyed by the fact that Nato was alot more comfortable taking action when America was the only remaining superpower. With no real threat to their security, flexing their muscles would be alot less daunting. But as I say, lets leave modern history out of this and focus on Voyager

As for no allies, we don't know how the Ocampa on Suspiria's array reacted when they heard about their old homeworld being in danger. They might have intervened and since the Ocampa did have resources for five years plus the knowledge of the Caretaker, they might have used that to come up with something against the rather small group of Kazon-Ogla which were on the planet.

Okay that's a fair comment, perhaps Suspiria did give them all some help and kick out the Kazon...but if she did I'd like to think she then left them to build up their civilisation again (they'd only become stagnant otherwise)