Macrocosm: Why didn't Voyager's biofilters work?

[The Borg Queen]

I thought a Starship's biofilters were designed to screen out foreign pathogens and such.

Or is it just another example of a plot being more important than established technological features?

 

[jgdst]

I think it's the latter. I don't remember specifics but I'm sure there was some offhand technobabble explanation as to why the filters didn't pick it up - or did and couldn't neutralise it.

If not, then massive shame on the writers - they knew even back then we remember this kind of stuff

EDIT - Just checked on Memory Alpha: Written by Brannon Braga... I noticed a large number of his episodes tended to ignore pre-established facts, technologies, common sense, logic, etc, in order to further a plot along. So I'm guessing that pretty much explains it

 

[Guy Gardener]

From the script...

CHAKOTAY: The virus isn't in our database. The bio-filters might not recognise it. You'll have to settle for tricorder data.

and

[EMH narrative - Garan Mine]

EMH: containment and eradication protocols. I understand. I'll do my best to help you. Away team to Voyager, one to beam up.

[EMH narrative - Transporter Room]

EMH: Doctor to Bridge. Checking the biofilters. It appears several viral organisms were beamed up as well. The biofilter has isolated them.

[EMH narrative - Bridge]


CHAKOTAY: Purge the filters.
EMH [OC]: Aye sir.

[EMH narrative - Transporter Room]

EMH: Purging is complete. I'll be in sickbay.
EMH [OC]: What I didn't realise was that in the few seconds it took me to purge the filters, some of the virus had already migrated into the transporter buffer.

This was the least pretentious episode of Voyager ever.

Janeway took her shirt off and shot the hell out of big flying cgi beasties no smarter than blow flies.

 

[jgdst]

This was the least pretentious episode of Voyager ever.

I'm not sure it was the least pretentious, definitely a lower score on the pretent-o-meter than a lot of season 5 onwards, but we did get the Tak Tak. OHHHH the Tak Tak

 

[Timo]

We know the filter is supposed to keep all viruses, known and unknown, out of the food, air and bodies of our heroes - DS9 "Babel" is among the eps making this assertion. But we also know the filter doesn't notice some fairly obvious non-virus additions to the body of the transportee, such as macroscopic parasites. Which I guess is a good thing, because otherwise the filter might take liberties with fetuses, too...

So if these "macroviruses" lived up to their name in being too large for the poor program to comprehend, at the stage of their lifecycle that they were in when beamed up, then all continuity is preserved just fine.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Borg Queen]

We know the filter is supposed to keep all viruses, known and unknown, out of the food, air and bodies of our heroes - DS9 "Babel" is among the eps making this assertion. But we also know the filter doesn't notice some fairly obvious non-virus additions to the body of the transportee, such as macroscopic parasites. Which I guess is a good thing, because otherwise the filter might take liberties with fetuses, too...

So if these "macroviruses" lived up to their name in being too large for the poor program to comprehend, at the stage of their lifecycle that they were in when beamed up, then all continuity is preserved just fine.

Timo Saloniemi

Unless you're a Trill in an episode of TNG...

 

[tomalak301]

Janeway took her shirt off and shot the hell out of big flying cgi beasties no smarter than blow flies.

What's wrong with Janeway going all Rambo. It's what made this episode (Which I saw last night coincidently) great.

 

[RoJoHen]

^I agree. This is actually one of my favorite episodes of the whole show.

 

[Timo]

Unless you're a Trill in an episode of TNG...

I think Odan was just being paranoid. The biofilter would probably merely raise an alert and ask the operator how to proceed, not kill Odan outright. But Odan wouldn't have wanted that alert - even in mortal danger, he would try and talk himself out of being scanned.

I know I have claimed before that biofilters would kill the symbiont without realizing that this was a bad thing, and that Starfleet modified its filters after the Odan incident. But that doesn't necessarily wash. After all, if Jadzia or Ezri in DS9 was transported by some alien devices which could be assumed to have biofilters, too, it would also be probable that those wouldn't have been modified to be symbiont-friendly. So Dax should be dead if such a transport ever happened.

So... Did we see Dax in an alien transporter? Cardassian ones count if they aren't DS9 transporters. Dominion ones count unless they are from that ship Sisko captured in "The Ship" and used for the covert ops during the war.

Timo Saloniemi