Parallax

[Neutral Zone]

Watched this last night, Voyager not far on its epic voyage when it's chasing its own tail in a temporal problem. Not a bad episode, closer to average than great.

Though one interesting point did come up at the end. Chaktay asks Janeway what she would have done if the the Federation crew ahd the option of going over to the Maquis ship instead of Voyager, Voyager being the ship destroyed and not the Maquis.

Janeway replies that the advantage of being Captain is that she doesn,t always have to answer.

But this got me to thinking about how different would things have been if instead Janeway and her crew had be on the Maquis ship and not voyager. Obviously the Maquis crew would have had the upper hand and would've called the shots.

Would Chakotay placed Janeway as second-in-command?
Would any of Voyager's officers been given any resposibility?
Would Tom Paris have survived as the Maquis saw him as a traitor?
Finally, would the Maquis have sided with the Okampa or the Kazons?

 

[propita]

The Maquis ship was much smaller, so either they'd be really crowded or a lot fewer Fleet survivors. Or make the Maquis ship larger.

What's interesting to me is your fourth question. The Maquis were willing to compromise a lot--but compromising with the Kazon here would be akin to compromising with the Federation or Cardassian, and the Ocampa were more similar to the Maquis and those they were defending/avenging. Which I thought was one of the reasons Chakotay was willing to follow Janeway--she pretty immediately sided with the Ocampa (the Maquis) against the more-established Kazon (the Federation/Cardassian).

Whereas the Federation had abandoned those colonies and planets, Janeway was unwilling to do so. She put her money where her mouth was when it came to what the Federation supposedly stood for and didn't compromise her integrity, unlike the Federation. I think that's why she got Chak's support so strongly.

That and the second he got to her bridge and she confronts him, she leans in to him like they're a couple of magnets about to touch.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Ocampa had been living underground for a thousand years.

Imagine some powerful aliens turned up on Earth, landing in Italy.

Whereafter the Italians convinced these aliens that the borders set by the Roman Empire 2000 years ago are more important than the civilisation built up before and around us us till the year 2010 Across Europe, Africa and Britain?

Imagine these aliens in defence of the former and lost glories of their new friends held no respect for the EU and the UK and nuked them from orbit until these gormless targets admitted that they were just being assholes for pretending that they were not still Citizens and/or slaves of the Holy Roman Empire as it (they) never fell?

The Kazon ruled the surface of Ocampa, probably had for 50 years since they murdered and ate their Trabe overmasters and the Caretaker ruled beneath for the last thousand. The Ocampans were pets or vermin depending on which side of the crust you're looking from, they didn't rule shit, let alone a square yard on that planet.

I'm reminding myself of Dragon Teeth.

Janeway was more than willing to bargain and deal and hand over the array to the kazon well into the fourth act. it wasn't until she insulted them, (you don't call a fatty "fat" and you don't call an idiot "thick", so why the hell did Kathryn call a savage "uncivilized"?) that things became all shooty and explodey.

Stole their slave too.

Steal a slave off a Roman and they'd crucify you. Literally.

 

[Captrek]

Whereas the Federation had abandoned those colonies and planets, Janeway was unwilling to do so. She put her money where her mouth was when it came to what the Federation supposedly stood for and didn't compromise her integrity, unlike the Federation. I think that's why she got Chak's support so strongly.

That and the second he got to her bridge and she confronts him, she leans in to him like they're a couple of magnets about to touch.

That and the fact that Chakotay’s probably a fast study of character and sized up Janeway quickly. She’s not given to compromise. She decides the way things are going to be, and if you don’t let her have her way, there’s going to be a confrontation, and you’re going to lose.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The man was at war with every Captain and Admiral in Starfleet, the man was at war with every Gul and legate in the Cardassian union. Every ship and starbase and weapons platform. Every civilian.

What's Janeway, compared to the scope of his assault on two empires? Although her ego is about 10 times the size of her britches.

Kathryn's godcomplex attitude is exactly why they gave her a little ship and little missions for fear that she would drag the Federation into something awful like Sisko did with the Dominion or Picard did with the Borg.

Raised on legends instead of weeties, pride cometh before the fall, word.

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Parralax" bored me to death. The signal at the start was obviously Janeway's voice and the ship was obviously Voyager.

I thought the Janeway/B'Elanna stuff was an embarrasingly bad orgy of technobabble-powered meaningless revelations. The ending bit where they had to choose which Voyager to land on was about as tension-free as you could get - if they'd picked the wrong one, they just would have fallen through it and gone "Oh, lets land on the other one then"

 

[froot]

"Parralax" bored me to death. The signal at the start was obviously Janeway's voice and the ship was obviously Voyager.

I thought the Janeway/B'Elanna stuff was an embarrasingly bad orgy of technobabble-powered meaningless revelations. The ending bit where they had to choose which Voyager to land on was about as tension-free as you could get - if they'd picked the wrong one, they just would have fallen through it and gone "Oh, lets land on the other one then"

I always wondered why they couldn't just turn around and pick the right one, myself. They said they didn't have time to try both ships, but it couldn't have taken that long to try again if they messed up.

The technobabble between Janeway and B'Elanna, particularly in the conference room, wasn't supposed to be followed by anyone else - it was just showing that those two had found some common ground. That's why everyone sort of stops and stares at them stupidly while they prattle along animatedly.

 

[Lynx]

I think that "Parallax" was a good episode, not the best one in season 1 but still a good one.

I agree with froot that the technobabble between Janeway and B'Elanna was a showing that they had something in common. Good interaction between those two in that episode.

I also think that "Parallax" was a typical second episodes of a series, an episode where it's supposed that we will learn to know the main characters a little more.

OK, the whole scenario with that anomaly and how Voyager got stuck in it was a bit weird but not worse than some similar events in other Trek series.

The only thing that bothers me is the long time period between the events in "Caretaker" (Stardate 48315.6 =Monday 26 April 2371 according to my calculations) and the events in "Parallax" (Stardate 48439.7=Thursday 10 June). What did they do between those events? Did they have a vacation on some paradise-like planet? And why did it take them so long to figure out that they needed a new chief engineer and that the replicators took too much power so they had to start rationing the food?

 

[Guy Gardener]

8760 hours in a year. Voyager only produced almost 12 hours of television in it's first year if you take out the start and end credits and the ads.

Saw rent the other day for the first time.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

 

[Michael]

I always liked "Parallax", because as opposed to almost everything we get to see later on, they actually did something with the premise in this episode. I think the Janeway/Torres plot works rather good and I have a somewhat sentimental connection to the memory of watching this when I was younger. Ah, good times.

 

[TV-Tastic]

"Parralax" bored me to death. The signal at the start was obviously Janeway's voice and the ship was obviously Voyager.

I agree that the episode dragged on but I don't know how you could have figured out that it was "obviously" Janeway's voice or Voyager in the beginning of the episode.

I thought the Janeway/B'Elanna stuff was an embarrasingly bad orgy of technobabble-powered meaningless revelations. The ending bit where they had to choose which Voyager to land on was about as tension-free as you could get - if they'd picked the wrong one, they just would have fallen through it and gone "Oh, lets land on the other one then"

^^^Now, this I totally agree with. There were never any consequences suggested for choosing the "reflection" and if they were dire (I guess we're supposed to assume that) then the series would have ended at the second episode. Did anyone watching this when it first aired think this was going to happen?

I also don't get how having insight into one problem and a little girl-talk on a shuttlecraft gets one promoted to chief engineer when they've recently assaulted an officer, dropped out of SFA because they were a disciplinary problem and... oh, yeah... the ship already has a qualified officer for the position.

-The 'Tastic

 

[SRFX]

I liked Parallax. I didn't care much for the external anomaly plot, but the inter-character drama was great. Chakotay has to negotiate between Janeway and B'Elanna, getting the former to see Torres's value as an engineer, the latter to settle down and stop hitting people when they piss her off.