They still want to see the families their cause was fighting for the rights of, again.
The 37's and alternative plots for this story
- Thread starter Lynx
- Start date
But enough to risk a 1000 to 1 shot? With the very real possibility that they would be 90 or older when the ship finally made it back? I just don't buy into the notion that everyone would choose to do that.
If I had been there, I would probably have stayed on the ship. It doesn't matter if I had been Starfleet or Maquis.
Why? Because I'd rather would have stayed with a bunch of people I knew, some of them good friends and with at least a minimal chance to get home than to jump ship in the middle of nowhere to stay on a planet too close to Vidiian and Kazon territory and with no chance at all to get home.
The Voyager sensors didn't detect the humans on the planet, or their three cities. And Voyager was ON the surface.
I doubt the Kazon or Vidiians would be able to detect them from orbit.
I doubt the Kazon or Vidiians would be able to detect them from orbit.
That's right!
I forgot that.
So they obviously had some protection after all. Probably necessary in that area.
I wonder now what a re-imagining of Voyager would have looked like (either more realistic, with people that only accept Janeway's mandate of leadership so far - after all she never was elected as a community leader for life, just as a ship's captain, in a Starfleet service people could resign from, but apparently not in the DQ), or more cynical, by showing the gradual transformation of a Starfleet crew into a cult with its own bizarre customs and beliefs.
A bizarre cult would be highly interesting!
Something like that in the DS9 episode Covenant where Dukat had taken charge of a bunch of Bajoran Pah Wraith-worshippers who worshipped the Pah-Wraits and Dukat!
Me with my twisted sense of humor found that episode quite funny!
I would have loved to see a Janeway cult on the ship with a huge painting in North Korean style of Janeway leading the cult members to a happy future, with regular meetings in the mess hall with Neelix as High Priest of the cult.
I would actually love to have a finished painting of Dukat leading his Bajoran followers on my wall!
But sincerely, in the situation the crew on Voyager were, it was quite logic that they did see janeway as a sort of leader for a mission which was about to get them home.
There has often been some criticizm about how most of the Maquis on the ship fell into the line and accepted being part of a Starfleet crew led by Janeway.
But what else could they do?
Voyager was their best shot of getting home and the Maquis on the ship were only about 30 people. What could they actually do to take over?
Not to mention that their leader Chakotay accepted Janeway's leadership and was followed by Maquis members like B'Elanna Torres and Ayala.
Sure, I'm not complaining about Janeway being the natural leader at first. Of course, immediately after they got lost in the DQ, she would be the person leadership would naturally fall to.
But as soon as it became clear that returning to the AQ could become a matter of years or possibly even a generational undertaking, with no real alternative to people (except for staying behind somewhere in the DQ), and the very first emergencies were resolved, I would expect people to start thinking critically about the whole situation. Not to reject Janeway as such, but to reflect the new reality that this isn't just a ship on an extended Starfleet mission anymore, but more than that, a living community for the foreseeable future that people couldn't realistically resign from, with a 'leader' that was never elected and now had to lead in many more aspects than she ever was mandated for.
For example, they could have opted to install a dual leadership over the years. A 'military' leader, which would still be Janeway, and a 'civilian'/community leader, which might be elected, much like you had on Battlestar Galactica. (Not saying that would necessarily have been a good idea, just that such alternatives were never even considered seems a bit weird to me).
I see your point.
But if I had been a Maquis on that ship, I would probably have realized that Voyager is the only way to get home and stayed on the ship.
However, i wrote a story where a bunch of maquis joined the Voyager crew in season 7 but they left to take care of some unfinished business in the area.
They had planned to meet up with Voyager again but they never found the ship at the place where they were supposed to meet again so they continued on their own.
They managed to find a wormhole which took them to the gamma Quadrant and from there they could go via the wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant and settle on a planet near the Tzenkheti border.
However, I must admit that this was a panic solution for me to write myself out of a situation which hampered my writing.
When it comes to the Maquis, I've always thought that the maquis should have been organized as a special force on the ship, led by Chakotay. That would have been better than to force them into Starfleet as Janeway did.
Your suggestion about a military faction and a civilian faction has some value. But I still cringe when I think about the horrible Stargate Universe where it was constant bickering between the military faction and the civilian faction. If that had happened on Voyager, i would probably have stopped watching at an ealier stage than i did.
I like the special force idea as a starting point, but I think as the series goes on, the lines should and would blur. Some maquis would join the "regular" crew because attrition would make them the best suited for the job. Others would form relationships with SF crew that would make then do the same, and frankly a couple of lower ranking SF crew may want to join with the force (I won't say join the Maquis, because that would have ideological motivations to it that no longer exist for this band of the Maquis, in absence of any Cardassian foe).
It would just show the crew more or less organically changing over time more than they did.
IMO, "The 37's" should have been a turning point for the Maquis. The ones who aren't fitting in choose to leave the ship, as does Joe Carey (if they weren't going to do anything with him except kill him off, instead have his departure be a memorable event, and a bit of a shock). The ones who choose to stay have chosen to be Starfleet officers and accept Janeway as their captain. There might still be disagreements, but they're more muted and less frequent.
Those of you who have read my "Do you have what it takes to write for Voyager" topic know that I consider the series's showrunners to be appallingly bad at their jobs. The instant transformation of the Maquis into cookie cutter recruiting poster Janeway lapdogs, the fact that no one left in "The 37's", and Joe Carey becoming an unremarkable nobody are all reasons. Even if they're not the one I am most associated with (you know, the one I brought up so much, the mods effectively banned it). It is only because of the Trek brand, some really good stories, and the sheer charisma of the cast that the series was as good as it was.
Those of you who have read my "Do you have what it takes to write for Voyager" topic know that I consider the series's showrunners to be appallingly bad at their jobs. The instant transformation of the Maquis into cookie cutter recruiting poster Janeway lapdogs, the fact that no one left in "The 37's", and Joe Carey becoming an unremarkable nobody are all reasons. Even if they're not the one I am most associated with (you know, the one I brought up so much, the mods effectively banned it). It is only because of the Trek brand, some really good stories, and the sheer charisma of the cast that the series was as good as it was.
I would argue that its possible in the 1930-ies (or before then - depending on how long it took the Briori to reach Earth), there just weren't that many under-developed species in the region. Or at least, nothing that would make the Briori able to take slaves. Its possible the Briori stumbled upon a TW conduit which got them close to Earth and they managed to take human slaves.
Space is pretty big. And we don't know if the Briori took other species as slaves - its possible, it just wasn't mentioned?
I also never got the point about taking Human (or other species) as slaves when you are a technologically advanced species capable of FTL and with likely massive automation capabilities.
Then again, the Cardassians had automated tech too and they decided to conquer Bajor and use Bajorans as slave labour in ore processing on Terrok Nor (previous name for DS9) and of course on their planet, JUST because they needed to keep the Bajorans in check.
I mean, any species deranged enough to rely on slave labour to do their work and not automation is probably bound to head towards a collapse anyway because rebellions can/do happen, and the conquerors end up being conquered - the Cardassians ended up nearly annihilated by the Dominion, although Bajorans themselves merely just drove them off the station (which gave SF enough time to swoop in and insulate the station from Cardassians retaking it).
At any rate, I would say that the Briori planet unique atmosphere prevented developed species sensors from detecting life-signs or signs of technology on the surface - so people there would be relatively well protected from potential hostile invasions (likely because only VOY picked up the SOS because they stumbled upon that car floating in space, which was retrieved - and as it was mentioned in the episode, no one really monitors sublight transmissions as they are ineffective for interstellar comms), and that SOS ended up being shut down - presumably permanently after VOY informed the planets inhabitants about the potential hostile species in the area just to prevent any potential problems in case advanced species started monitoring sublight frequencies - but that immediate part of space seemed to have been relatively void of activity - if there is at least a week or two in between episodes, and sometimes this IS the case, then sublight signals wouldn't travel very far in the first place, AND the advanced species need to be actively scanning for them), and from Kazon/Vidiian POV, if they did happen to stumble on that planet, they wouldn't detect anything from orbit - unless they switched over to sublight frequency scans and picked up an SOS that might peak their interests, but I don't think that was their priority).
I actually enjoyed that scene. It showcased the crew decided to stick together and instead go back home.
Still, I can't help but think that this Briori planet could have been used as an 'honorary UFP member planet'.
If VOY remained in the region, they could have probably resupplied on the planet with the help of the inhabitants if they made it into a mini-arc series, and still explored their smaller corner for half a year or so before deciding to depart.
As for whether or not these humans could be shared tech with...
Well, technically, they were taken centuries prior to the formation of UFP, BUT, these aren't your run of the mill underdeveloped humans.
When they rebelled against the Briori, they took their weapons and technology from the Briori... the only thing that was destroyed was the Briori ship... suggesting the planet in question served as a mining outpost.
So, these humans have taken advanced tech from an FTL capable species, but didn't have FTL themselves - possibly because they had no interest in developing it?
Who knows.
These humans have developed a similar system like on Earth (which experienced the same thing in the 50 years following FC)...
I'd say this is one of those situations where the prime directive is a tad murky... but IF they didn't have FTL tech themselves, then VOY probably couldn't share tech with them - or they could have, but I suspect Janeway wouldn't want to because there was no way to predict what could happen if a space faring species DID stumble upon the planet and its inhabitants, then saw very advanced replication and transporter tech (for example), and decided to take it - besides, I don't think those cities needed it anyway, so there's that - they were self-sufficient from what little we learned about them, so, no issues there.
As to what happened to the Briori themselves, they might still be around, and this particular planet could have been nothing more than actions of a madman (since there was apparently just 1 ship involved and no other Briori showed up after losing contact with it - its possible the rest just didn't know of this planet).
Its possible, that the Briori as a society are generally peaceful,but a megalomaniac (or an equivalent) stole a ship and decided he would like to enslave species for his private mining operaitons- sort of like the Goa'Uld did in SG series.
Alternatively, its possible the Briori have an empire but don't generally keep track of every slave planet, and they could be in literally any part of the DQ (Voy was only heading home and this particular planet was on their trajectory - and because the Briori ship was destroyed, they didn't have basis for comparison to track other ships perhaps).
But everyone was keenly aware that technology was responsible for brining VOY to the DQ... so it stood to reason that they had better shot of finding technology along the way that would help them do that... or they could invent it themselves.
It was unpredictable, and I suspect that because this was relatively early in VOY's journey, people just weren't ready to fully give up on the idea of going home and seeing their loved ones.
I mean, the Maqui had every reason not to follow Janeway, but lets face it, Chakotay rammed his Maqui ship into the Kazon carrier, so they were stuck onboard VOY... and because Chakotay was their leader, they opted to follow his lead and remain on the ship - at the very beginning that is.
But by this time, they already encountered Suspiria I think, and also a wormhole that lead 20 years into the past to the AQ... so they knew options to return home existed -however 'borked' they may have been when they encountered them).
Plus, there was that pleasure planet too with the device that could fold space to a distance of 40,000 Ly's in an instant - only the tech didn't work outside of their planet's orbit (obviously, the Borg made it work, but I suspect for VOY crew even if they had the tech, it would have taken them longer than the Collective to crack the issue of having a planets Quarts mantle serving as an amplifier).
Yes. Even the Bajorans on DS9 weren't instantly all One Big Happy Family with the Starfleet crew.
As far as resignation, my take was that the Starfleet crew could resign, but if they resigned they'd probably just be beamed down to a (hopefully) habitable planet and left there. If Voyager made it back to the Alpha Quadrant, they'd leave a note about where they went.
