Real? What is 'Real'?

[Adm_Hawthorne]

How did Voyager not realize there was a copy out there doing stuff? I'm thinking about "Course: Oblivion" here.

In theory, they were traveling the same course. If the real Voyager was just behind the fake Voyager, which appears to be the case, how did they not run into aliens of the week saying things like, "Did we just chat a few weeks ago?"? How come the copy of Voyager didn't have the same problem?

How many times were we watching season 5 and it wasn't really Voyager?

Think about it from "Demon", when the copy of Voyager and crew was made to "Course: Oblivion", we have 21 episodes:

• Demon
  One
  Hope and Fear
  Night
  Drone
  Extreme Risk
  In the Flesh
  Once Upon a Time
  Timeless
  Infinite Regress
  Nothing Human
  Thirty Days
  Counterpoint
  Latent Image
  Bride of Chaotica!
  Gravity
  Bliss
  Dark Frontier
  The Disease
  Course: Oblivion

"Counterpoint" is the first one to smack me as something-is-wrong-here because that means one of the Voyagers had to have a converstaion with the good Inspector convincing him they'd never been in his space before. Or, did they go around? If they went around, that doesn't fall in line with what the real Janeway did... or was that the fake Janeway we were watching being brilliant? There are just so many holes.

This has always bothered me about this episode.

There are too many times when Voyager had to through someone's space because it was 'too big to go around'. Assuming both Voyagers pretty much did the same thing with just very minor changes, how could they not have figured out that something was off? I would like to point out that they had to pretty much do the same thing to be so close to each other when the fake Voyager finally... I don't what to call it... decomposed?

I'm also highly peeved that fake Janeway insisted on continuing to Earth. The real Janeway would have turned back to save her people's lives. Sure, she would have tried to figure a way to get back into space and get back to Earth, but she would have turned back. I can't fathom her continuing on knowing with certainty that her people were going to die if they didn't turn back. It wasn't a matter of hostile space to pass through. It was a matter of the actual survival of her people due to a physical issues they all had... including the ship.

Anyone else bothered by this episode?

 

[Guy Gardener]

First off, we don't know how many times the Quicksilver lot replicated (or passed on the pattern like a chain mail.)themselves (or maybe there was just one set afterall.) using the Voyager template (there could have been hundreds of Quicksilver Voyagers, maybe Thousands.) or why they chose to forget who they were or when they chose to forget (they might have been Using that Unforgettable technology to kick in every time they bumped into another Voyager so that an hour or few later they could persist in the delusion that they were Unique federation citizens.) that they could have been travelling NOT to earth for a quite a long time before the template kicked in as a primary personality and forced them To aim at Earth, or they might not have left the Demon Planet till months after Voyager left them behind, hell, depending on when they "created" their advanced warp drive which was turning a 40 year trip into 2 years ( I think those were the numbers.) when we began viewing their adventure they might have been in space for only hours if we hadn't seen Neelix compare and contrast their inventory to find what was real and what was quicksilver.

Sometimes I imagine that the federation would have to set up batteries at the edge of their space specifically to shoot down or ware off the dozens of quicksilver Voyagers every week trying to return home triumphantly to a heroes welcome.

When Fauxway didn't murder those aliens to get to a safe berth on that other Demon planet, to die rather than break the laws of an alien culture, I said to myself, well that's more like it!

 

[JanewayRulz!]

In TOS, there was a computer that so completely copied its only icon of a humanoid, that it also copied her compassion. It was that error which delayed the computer long enough for Spock to return with Scotty's help and destroy the computer before it could destroy Kirk, McCoy, and Sulu.

I don't find it unusual that when quicksilver copied the crew, they also copied the crew's obsessions. I did find it interesting that the copies were quicker to move on socially than their originators. Tom & B'Elanna marrying, Seven considering dating, etc. (Now THIS would have been a fine place to insert some serious J/C... but alas it was not to be.)

Because of the difference in the socialization of the crew, I feel confident in believing everything I saw in season 4-5 was original/real Voyager. Not just due to their social actions, but also due to the fact that the copies had something the original Voy didn't have, an enhanced warp drive, that meant at the time of their episode they were only "Two years, eleven days, six hours..." from earth. The "real" Voyager didn't run into anyone that "faux" Voyager met, because "faux" Voy was so far ahead our guys never ran over the same territory.

In my fanmind, as the quicksilvers replicated the ship and the crew, they examined and brainstormed over the data already in Voy's databanks and created the enhanced warp drive before they ever left the Demon planet.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Agreed, they were back tracking, ignoring friends and aftermath when they died almost encountering the original crawling towards quicksilver Voyager's wake and reverse course.

What about bride of Chaotica? What attracted the Photonic life forms to the "original" Voyager and not the quicksilver voyager? Were those the only Ambassadors sent forth into this universe and what was there romaning range that their potential points of egress might have intersected with either ship? may delegations? They could have said "Hi" to the Hirgen as well?

Night and that star desert would have been anavoidable? but as crew died "mortal" deaths as the ship was beseiged by space hillbillies, the corpse who were still utterly alive quicksilver matter was only going to play along for so long until their lack of faith in what they are, which is literally "dead meat" would have see them deconstitue into quicksilver, and then either snap back into a person or seep into the quicksilver matter of the ship.

Given some sort of eark Frontier type adventure, you would have to wonder if the Borg could identify Seven as a counterfeit? Everther because of the truth hiding under he surface or that her nanotechnology is completely atypical if you look at it hard enough. Then of course, you might consider that if the Borg knew, they ight keep the information close to the vest because it's just awsomely hilarious.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

In TOS, there was a computer that so completely copied its only icon of a humanoid, that it also copied her compassion. It was that error which delayed the computer long enough for Spock to return with Scotty's help and destroy the computer before it could destroy Kirk, McCoy, and Sulu.

I don't find it unusual that when quicksilver copied the crew, they also copied the crew's obsessions. I did find it interesting that the copies were quicker to move on socially than their originators. Tom & B'Elanna marrying, Seven considering dating, etc. (Now THIS would have been a fine place to insert some serious J/C... but alas it was not to be.)

Because of the difference in the socialization of the crew, I feel confident in believing everything I saw in season 4-5 was original/real Voyager. Not just due to their social actions, but also due to the fact that the copies had something the original Voy didn't have, an enhanced warp drive, that meant at the time of their episode they were only "Two years, eleven days, six hours..." from earth. The "real" Voyager didn't run into anyone that "faux" Voyager met, because "faux" Voy was so far ahead our guys never ran over the same territory.

In my fanmind, as the quicksilvers replicated the ship and the crew, they examined and brainstormed over the data already in Voy's databanks and created the enhanced warp drive before they ever left the Demon planet.

The enhanced warp drive also bothers me. I found it really hard to believe that copies could figure something out better, faster, and quicker than the real deal.

*grumble*

I loved how much faith the writers had in their actual characters.

 

[Kai Winn]

First off, we don't know how many times the Quicksilver lot replicated (or passed on the pattern like a chain mail.)themselves (or maybe there was just one set afterall.) using the Voyager template (there could have been hundreds of Quicksilver Voyagers, maybe Thousands.) or why they chose to forget who they were or when they chose to forget.

i guess it makes sense when a perfect copy of a person shares all his or her memories and properties, and the prior existence is lost. due to different experiences, original and copy will slowly drift apart. was never comfortable with the ds9 shapeshifters who apart from the crude faces of odo, laas and general female could deceive highly sensitive sensory equipment, were never detectable, but duplicated only the appearance of certain people. you know star trek, 'captain, there's an m-class planet 100 lightyears from here. 4 billion lifesigns, one vulcan. he's got a headache'.