The lack of mourning/backstory for the original crew of Voyager

[PopBoy]

Okay i love Voyager and yes i love Janeway too.

But one thing i found incredibly odd was the way in which the show dealt with the deaths of a large chunk of Janeway's crew. Being brought up on the other shows, the deaths of bridge crew were always, from memory, dealt with credence and weight.

But the new characters of the show, that we as an audience are supposed to get behind and root for, seem to shrug off the deaths of the entire medical crew, the pilot and the second officer.

There doesnt seem to be any gravitas spent on these deaths and i understand the need to rush the story along-but it was like "who cares". And consequently who cares about their replacements? Who just happen to be the stars of the new show. I just cant see Picard, Sisko or Kirk shrug off the death of their second officers the way in which Janeway did. There was no follow-up episode where we see the staff of the ship get to grips with the loss.

Into this, as the show progressed there was a potential goldmine of stories there for the writers of Voyager to key into. But the writers just didn't go there. Shame really. There was a lot of potential there. Not only as a fan of the show but also as a way to develop the characters themselves.

 

[Shatnertage]

I felt exactly the same way. It would have made Janeway much more vulnerable and improvisational if we saw how she's meticulously selected this crew that would have to function as a unit, only to see a big chunk of them die and be replaced by non-Starfleeters.

Although it seemed like everyone in the Maquis was ex-Starfleet. Did any of them have absolutely no Starfleet background?

I'm thinking maybe Suder.

 

[Finn]

Mourning? No. The survivors barely knew them.

It was stated Chakotay and B'Elanna were the only Maquis with star fleet background IIRC. Only Chakotay graduated from Starfleet Academy.

 

[froot]

Mourning? No. The survivors barely knew them.

It was stated Chakotay and B'Elanna were the only Maquis with star fleet background IIRC. Only Chakotay graduated from Starfleet Academy.

I believe so as well. They were selected as officers for that reason.

"Learning Curve" shows several Maquis who didn't have a clue how Starfleet worked.

 

[PopBoy]

Mourning? No. The survivors barely knew them.

You see, i doubt that. We get a full blown introductory pre-scene with Janeway and Kim and Paris. You get the sense therefore that Janeway like the previous first officers at the helm of their ships and shows have had some history and experience with their first officers as well as the medical team. Hence them getting the job the first place. Just as Janeway goes to New Zealand to get a man outta jail, my head wondered that she must of had some history with the first officer. I just felt it was odd that we don't consequently see any sort of trauma which of course really given that sense that they were truly alone in the Delta quadrant.

 

[Anwar]

It would have helped if they killed off those characters gradually instead of in the pilot, and had to have the Maquis work with them after they lost too many important people. That way the AUDIENCE would also care.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was a two week mission.

It was their first mission.

Hareren, one of the Good Shepherd kids said that he only needed a year of starship duty before he could get into the cosmology institute on Orion one.

Odds are that the Maquis knew Tuvok for 2 weeks longer than entire rest of the crew save Janeway.

 

[F. King Daniel]

TBH, I never really thought about it beyond, "Well, that's the show's premise set up". I never got the impression Janeway really knew any of them.

Killing off Voyager's original Starfleet crew gradually wasn't an option for a show made of (intentionally) stand-alone, show-in-any-old-order episodes.

 

[froot]

TBH, I never really thought about it beyond, "Well, that's the show's premise set up". I never got the impression Janeway really knew any of them.

JANEWAY: I barely knew him. I never seem to have the chance to get to know any of them. I have to... I have to take more time to do that. It's a fine crew, and I've got to get them home.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember in Eye of the needle when Chakotay disqualified cancelling their shanghi by equating that they had already had too much of an influential impact on the delta quadrant to morally consider negating the benefit they'd had on the locals and natives.

TELEK: I can assure you, Captain, that I would not do anything that might contaminate the future and perhaps harm the Romulan Empire, but, in twenty years I could alert Starfleet not to launch the mission which sent you here.
CHAKOTAY: I’m afraid that’s not possible either. We’ve already had a huge impact on this quadrant. People and events here would be drastically affected.

As far as the XO should be concerned, the only loyalty he owes to the crew that was lost before he signed up is howling "TEN POINTS" while proofing a double Nixon peace sign like prayer because it was his job guiltfree to smite the sons of bitches trying to collar him.

Though any sane bloke worth his salt would invent time travel to tap Stadi, and Janeway should have considered the loss of her crew rather than let the Indian talk for her that 30 or so of her crew might have risen like Xombi's to serve in the fleet again.

Besides, rolling back the clock would have been the most strict following of the Prime Directive and disavowed Starfleet, the federation and Humanitiy form any of the Bullshit Janeway had began hanging around the Delta Quadrants neck like a fricking Albatros.

 

[Anwar]

And if they didn't go to the DQ, then all the big Galactic threats they stopped would still be on the rampage and eventually destroy the Federation anyways.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If they stayed they might have finished off the Dominion war 2 years faster since Janeway solved all the problems at hand in two episodes at the most... Or cocked it up so that it lasted an extra 5 years if Voyager and DS9 were sharing the same Alpha quadrant politics as a backdrop.

The Voth would have taken care of 8472.

The only thing that Voyager medically needed to do was to kick-start the Terran computer revolution of the 1970s by bitch slapping Braxton... Which if that wasn't done, is something similar that happened on Family Guy the other night as a causality paradox caused the universe to collapse after one of Stewie's ancestors was murdered by a time traveller because....

But that quote is from Eye of the Needle. Episode Six. They really ain't done shit yet. Caretaker would have died of natural causes at almost the same time no matter what happened and his self destruct probably would have worked without Voyager complicating the siege. Janeway wouldn't have raped that cloud creature. Carey wouldn't have gotten his nose broken, and Neelix and Kes would both still have two lungs each. And their greatest mission to date at that point had already been overwritten by a little backstepping that they didn't even know how they washed out at saving a world which was only endangered by their blundering.

Jackshit.

Maybe a lot of the novels happen in the first weeks?

 

[T'Girl]

How broken up would Picard have been if he had lost Will Riker on that first mission to Farpoint? And nothing says that Janeway "hand picked" even her command crew, the first officer could simply have been assigned to the ship, perhaps before Janeway herself was. I might be mis-remembering, but wasn't Janeway given command of Voyager just prior to it's launch, almost at the last minute?

 

[exodus]

How broken up would Picard have been if he had lost Will Riker on that first mission to Farpoint? And nothing says that Janeway "hand picked" even her command crew, the first officer could simply have been assigned to the ship, perhaps before Janeway herself was.

Agreed.
Based upon her " I must take the time to get to know them" speech in "Caretaker" combined with Chakotay in "Shattered" telling her Harry would become one of their best Officers and her look of surprise at such a comment, implies that she didn't know anything about them to hand pick them. I would guess hand picking a crew is only for captains and ships of status, like the flagship for example.

 

[PopBoy]

How broken up would Picard have been if he had lost Will Riker on that first mission to Farpoint? And nothing says that Janeway "hand picked" even her command crew, the first officer could simply have been assigned to the ship, perhaps before Janeway herself was. I might be mis-remembering, but wasn't Janeway given command of Voyager just prior to it's launch, almost at the last minute?

I think it would of knocked Picard for six if he'd lost Riker. Just a hunch. I also think Janeway naturally woulda normally felt something for her first officer. So the lack of backstory/history/compassion feels odd. An oversight. I get the feeling she handpicked her crew. We spend quite sometime with Paris. Moreover, if she is incredibly connected with her 3rd officer, I imagine her second officer has equal pre-experience with the captain. You get the impression that Janeway would only select the finest for her ship. A lesson she has learnt whilst under the command of Admiral Paris.
And even if she had no idea who the crew members were.
it still doesn't explain why that goldmine of backstory wasn't explored. Hey, even if Janeway had no idea who these bridge officers were show some compasion

 

[exodus]

How broken up would Picard have been if he had lost Will Riker on that first mission to Farpoint? And nothing says that Janeway "hand picked" even her command crew, the first officer could simply have been assigned to the ship, perhaps before Janeway herself was. I might be mis-remembering, but wasn't Janeway given command of Voyager just prior to it's launch, almost at the last minute?

I think it would of knocked Picard for six if he'd lost Riker. Just a hunch. I also think Janeway naturally woulda normally felt something for her first officer. So the lack of backstory/history/compassion feels odd. An oversight. I get the feeling she handpicked her crew. We spend quite sometime with Paris. Moreover, if she is incredibly connected with her 3rd officer, I imagine her second officer has equal pre-experience with the captain. You get the impression that Janeway would only select the finest for her ship. A lesson she has learnt whilst under the command of Admiral Paris.
And even if she had no idea who the crew members were.
it still doesn't explain why that goldmine of backstory wasn't explored. Hey, even if Janeway had no idea who these bridge officers were show some compasion

......but she said in "Caretaker" that she needed time to get to know this crew. Isn't that an implication that she doesn't know many of them?

 

[froot]

"Caretaker" simply needed to be written differently in order for either the main characters or the audience to have any emotional connection with the dead crew.

This didn't happen in a canon source, but the reason Tuvok was with Janeway because Starfleet thought he would be good to balance her out. She actually did ask him to join her on the Voyager mission, IIRC. So there was some hand-picking with Tuvok and Paris. But other than that, her line that she didn't know anyone implies just that. She didn't know anyone else. And it bothered her.

I'm sure she cared a great deal that so many people were lost - but it would be very odd for that episode or future episodes to spend any large amount of time mourning them. They were basically there for the viewer to see how much people disliked Tom Paris. We see her mourn (or get pissed) when other crewmembers die during the course of the show, and I am sure they had a service for those lost during the Caretaker incident. Didn't nearly a month pass between "Caretaker" and "Parallax?"

 

[Guy Gardener]

If you believe in Fury, then probably not because that clunker was set on day 50 something when-by Janeway and the Vidiians were already fast friends.

Will showed up half way through the mission.

The first thing Picard did was sit him in front of a TV to explain the new threat because he was too busy to speak slowly, mime and find a pictionary board for the new monkey to get up to speed.

 

[BlobVanDam]

I saw no problem with the lack of mourning when I first watched it, and I still don't see the problem. The crew barely knew each other, and they're professional officers who are meant to be able to deal with this kind of thing. And with the whole Caretaker issue and the damage to the ship, they didn't have time to sit around crying.
Although I probably shed a tear for them killing off the cute Betazoid.

 

[exodus]

I think also want to establish the first featured woman captain to a mostly (at the time) male audience as someone who is emotionally strong, not someone who'd stop to cry. Too the audience and too her crew, it would be too soon to show that type of weakness. Not that compassion is wrong but it wasn't going to instill full confidence in a crew looking to her for strength as well as the audience. Too a male audience compassion from a women is expected, having balls isn't. Janeway established from "Caretaker" on that she had big brass ones.