There sure is a lot of earth-related crap floating around in the Delta Quadrant.

[Mr. 5618]

On the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light-years from earth, what are the odds that you’d run into the alien race responsible for the tattoo on your head. Odds would have to be incalculable.

And other characters just happen to run into things that are personal to them.
-Sevens runs into the ship that carried her to the delta quad
-Belanna is reaquainted with the missile she helped create, and later, some Klingons that wanna worship her.
-Even Neelix finds other Talaxians closer to the alpha quad

Then, there's:
-Finding Amelia Earhart
-Earth Borgs stranded on a planet
-Meeting the Voth
-Running into the Equinox.
-And even some Ferengi.

All of this is laid out while in a straight-line course back the the Alpha Quadrant. Not saying I didn’t enjoy these episodes, but c’mon, that was really over-doing it.

 

[The Wormhole]

That stuff has to go somewhere.

 

[at Quark's]

Right now, near-earth orbits seem to become too cramped for our old junk. By the 24th century, apparently even the entire galaxy is becoming too small for our stuff to get lost. Wonder whether we'll even find back our lost socks by that century.

 

[C.E. Evans]

IMO, it showed somewhat of a lack of faith or imagination in the show's premise by the show's writers and producers. Why stick the ship so far away from Earth and the "local neighborhood" and then find ways of bringing some of it into the series?

 

[amp]

There was also the old Earth probe, Friendship One.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Don't forget finding the USS Equinox. Like what are the odds with space being so vast.

 

[Timo]

Well, we have to figure in the homing factor.

1) The Raven would have been where she was dumped, which might mean Seven of Nine might not be far away, as long as she was an irrelevant random Drone who didn't travel a lot. When the time came, the Raven essentially made a siren call. Hundreds if not thousands of similarly victimized vessels could be found at any location X, only there usually wouldn't be ex-Drones aboard to be siren-called to them. I see little problem here, then.

2) The Dreadnought had little excuse for heading in the same direction away from the Caretaker initially. Locals brought the monster to the attention to the heroes, taking care of terminal homing, but this isn't a particularly plausible encounter.

3) Talaxians get around - they're basically everywhere now that one of their homeworlds is dead. Meeting some doesn't appear surprising in the slightest, especially as these are not "special" Talaxians who would somehow be connected to Neelix personally. The writers even make fun of that, having a Talaxian say she once knew somebody named Neelix...

4) We know Earth folks were in the habit of being abducted for slave labor a lot, in the bad old days. Even without the Briori, we'd have "North Star" and arguably "Paradise Syndrome". Earth probably wouldn't be a special case, and the galaxy would be full of sites where abduction victims either have formed small societies or have died out when the abductors left. Our heroes just wouldn't pay much attention to them unless they happened to be Earthlings - but every Trek hero set would be entitled to meeting some, Archer in "North Star", Kirk in "Paradise Syndrome", Picard and Sisko in unseen adventures (Picard did find a lot of "lost" Earthlings out there). And Earhart did give the heroes a homing signal.

5) Earth Borg stranded? There was one Earthling in the lot. If a Cube holds 100,000+ Drones, the odds of meeting examples of every one of the numbered 10,000 or so Species aren't particularly low. Not even if we factor in the idea that Drones might not loiter far in the general case, as in #1.

6) The heroes didn't meet the Voth. The Voth sought out and met the heroes, thanks to visiting an utterly random planet first, with their galactic transwarp capabilities, and then intercepting the Voyager with said capabilities.

7) The Equinox was doing the exact same thing the Voyager was, heading for Earth. They also signaled for help. Nevertheless, they were already right next to Janeway's heroes when making that call, which never gets satisfactorily explained: Ransom never confesses to knowing about or seeking the Voyager.

8) The Ferengi shouldn't even have been met, as per the original "The Price" specs; the astrography is all wrong.

9) Friendship One is along the hero path. Friendships Two through Eleven might have been elsewhere altogether. It's just mildly curious that the heroes hit the very first in the series, rather than a random number. (And it's also the first in the first series, even though we can easily postulate Curiosity One and Mild Disgust Five being out there as well.)

Out of nine cases, three seem strongly objectionable, one mildly so. Five appear fine to me, especially the ones involving the Borg. There's nothing particularly odd about meeting the Borg at X, for every value of X: as far as we can tell, they are everywhere, and have met everybody, in antiquity already for all we know. The heroes just didn't realize that originally...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. 5618]

There was also the old Earth probe, Friendship One.

Exactly. I forgot about that one. And I also forgot about the Graviton Ellipse (that pops up at totally random spots in space). This one just happened to open up right in front of Voyager to produce the Ares IV piloted by John Kelly. The ship that came up missing from Earth's orbit. Wow, imagine that.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, the ellipse was full of junk, much like the Delta Triangle; having Earth stuff in there might not be statistically surprising.

And we can't know about "totally random" - it already homed in on the Sol system, which wouldn't happen without some sort of steering, and then on Ares IV, which wouldn't happen without precision steering that pays heed to spaceships.

This phenomenon collects space junk by design, then. And might have tried to collect NCC-74656, too, resulting in this encounter.

That's something fairly fundamental to this thread overall. Any meeting with Earth is statistically impossible without intent and implication (say, I could never have met my wife, statistically speaking; that I did tells a lot about both me and her). And the intent and implication then should connect everything to Earth's intrepid space explorers as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[darrenjl]

I expect there was probably a lot of other things in the Delta Quadrant they didn't come across; the Cardassian ship that the Caretaker abducted, the missing USS Hera, one of the Changelings that were sent out years ago to explore the galaxy...

And potentially a wormhole that led straight to the Alpha Quadrant if only they have turned left at the start of their journey...

 

[Lynx]

On the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light-years from earth, what are the odds that you’d run into the alien race responsible for the tattoo on your head. Odds would have to be incalculable.

And other characters just happen to run into things that are personal to them.
-Sevens runs into the ship that carried her to the delta quad
-Belanna is reaquainted with the missile she helped create, and later, some Klingons that wanna worship her.
-Even Neelix finds other Talaxians closer to the alpha quad

Then, there's:
-Finding Amelia Earhart
-Earth Borgs stranded on a planet
-Meeting the Voth
-Running into the Equinox.
-And even some Ferengi.

All of this is laid out while in a straight-line course back the the Alpha Quadrant. Not saying I didn’t enjoy these episodes, but c’mon, that was really over-doing it.

I must agree here. Just too many coincidents.

It's like if I would be transported by som strange force to som polar station in the Antarctic region and run into some of my neighbors there. "Oh, dear Lynx, have you also discovered this new tourist attraction.

I also enjoyed those episodes, especially those wiith Earhart and the Voth. But it was too much over the top for me too.

And therefore of course, I go ahead and write a story in which Voyager encounters another Maquis ship in the Delta Quadrant and Kes is on board that one too!

Timo wrote:

Talaxians get around - they're basically everywhere now that one of their homeworlds is dead. Meeting some doesn't appear surprising in the slightest, especially as these are not "special" Talaxians who would somehow be connected to Neelix personally. The writers even make fun of that, having a Talaxian say she once knew somebody named

It may also have something to do with the fact that Talax is most likely occupied by the Haakonians or at least led by some puppet government loyal to the Haakonians which might be a reason for Talaxians to travel around.

 

[Timo]

^^Yup. Its not as if the Milky Way is short on adventures even fairly close to Earth, or in the immediate vicinity of an immobile space station. And not only would our heroes get to pick and choose - the camera could also decide not to document the adventure where Janeway meets the famous Jugbutaxian juggler, and instead shows us the meeting with the famous Earth aviator. I mean, we typically get adventures every fourteen days - and still the heroes manage to have some that are only ever verbally referenced and not shown! The sampling in VOY could be biased big time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. 5618]

IMO, it showed somewhat of a lack of faith or imagination in the show's premise by the show's writers and producers. Why stick the ship so far away from Earth and the "local neighborhood" and then find ways of bringing some of it into the series?

^^^This^^^

 

[Qonundrum]

On the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light-years from earth, what are the odds that you’d run into the alien race responsible for the tattoo on your head. Odds would have to be incalculable.

And other characters just happen to run into things that are personal to them.
-Sevens runs into the ship that carried her to the delta quad
-Belanna is reaquainted with the missile she helped create, and later, some Klingons that wanna worship her.
-Even Neelix finds other Talaxians closer to the alpha quad

Then, there's:
-Finding Amelia Earhart
-Earth Borgs stranded on a planet
-Meeting the Voth
-Running into the Equinox.
-And even some Ferengi.

All of this is laid out while in a straight-line course back the the Alpha Quadrant. Not saying I didn’t enjoy these episodes, but c’mon, that was really over-doing it.

At the speed of light, that nostalgic rusty truck - among other things - would not have made it anywhere near there in 400 years. Thankfully, that episode is not a fan-favorite and having sat through "Threshold" recently, I found it easier to suspend disbelief over giant slinky salamanders than an old truck that even starts up on cue.

The Ferengi had a direct connection to (shudder) TNG "The Price".

The Equinox begs more questions about how many more ships Caretaker 'n pals were yanking. There's an easy way to make a sequel...

Earthy Borgs could have been assimilated and for plot reasons ditched somewhere. It is a bit of a stretch and I vaguely remember one episode with a bunch of Borg kids on some planet... (I wasn't fond of ENT finding a way to shoehorn them in for sweeps week either...)

How the Silurians Voth ended up out there is also a bit wild. Sure, one day Earth geologists will find something via seismic scanners and go "Hey, George, come here, this rocks!" like they do for detecting oil deep underground, but even if a Voth civilization existed to the point they all flew away with their developed technology... Chakotay's heart was still in the right place and it's a charming theory... but all the way to the Delta quadrant still seems sketchy.

VOY just played it too safe overall, though some early episodes had much potential - except the characters were too new to really sympathize or empathize with to get the most out of the situation. But over-reliance on Earth was... meh. Even the new big bad, the Klingons Kazon, were just a slight alteration of the Klingons in structure, and nothing really makes them feel very inspired or much of their own thing. After season 2, the ship left their space - thankfully. Then they arrived in Borg space and at least the Borg are better at sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows with.

 

[Oddish]

It's been established that Voyager could have solved three of its worst inconsistencies (infinite torpedoes, unlimited shuttlecraft, and Harry's rank) with one scene, maybe a minute or so in duration. They didn't care enough to do even that small bit of footage. The showrunners had gotten completely sloppy, and clearly had no regard for the intelligence of their audience. So, if they thought something would make a good episode, they went with it, screw realism.

 

[Swedish Borg]

On the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light-years from earth, what are the odds that you’d run into the alien race responsible for the tattoo on your head. Odds would have to be incalculable.

And other characters just happen to run into things that are personal to them.
-Sevens runs into the ship that carried her to the delta quad
-Belanna is reaquainted with the missile she helped create, and later, some Klingons that wanna worship her.
-Even Neelix finds other Talaxians closer to the alpha quad

Then, there's:
-Finding Amelia Earhart
-Earth Borgs stranded on a planet
-Meeting the Voth
-Running into the Equinox.
-And even some Ferengi.

All of this is laid out while in a straight-line course back the the Alpha Quadrant. Not saying I didn’t enjoy these episodes, but c’mon, that was really over-doing it.

Not to mention a wandering Klingon ship, in search of a "messiah"...

 

[Lynx]

^^Yup. Its not as if the Milky Way is short on adventures even fairly close to Earth, or in the immediate vicinity of an immobile space station. And not only would our heroes get to pick and choose - the camera could also decide not to document the adventure where Janeway meets the famous Jugbutaxian juggler, and instead shows us the meeting with the famous Earth aviator. I mean, we typically get adventures every fourteen days - and still the heroes manage to have some that are only ever verbally referenced and not shown! The sampling in VOY could be biased big time.

Timo Saloniemi

Personally I feel very offended by the fact that we never got top see Janeway's meeting with the famous Jugbutaxian juggler. That was definitely the high spot on the whole journey.

Not to mention the encounter Janeway and Neelix had with King Söör, the ruler of the Ekorrii of the planet Kurrus! That's one of my favorite scenes ever!

JANEWAY: We would really like to buy those electronic whatsoevertechnobabbling components for our warp engines.
KING SÖÖR: Now what can you offer us in exchange? Do you have Hlaka nuts?
JANEWAY: (to Neelix) What is Hlaka nuts?
NEELIX: It's a big nut, the size of a head. The Ekorrii love them. Unfortunately, they grow on a planet in Kazon-Ogla space and I would suggest that we don't go there.
JANEWAY: I'm sorry King Söör but we don't have Hlaka nuts. But we can offer you other foodstuff from our Hydroponic Bay, like Leola Roots, Wood Throk, Seltin Wood Fungus, Phu and....
KING SÖÖR: Unacceptable! We want Hlaka nuts!
JANEWAY: Maybe your people would like to have some of the Federations best literature. I'm sure they would enjoy..........
KING SÖÖR: Nooooooo! We want Hlaka nuts! Bring us Hlaka nuts or we eat you instead!
NEELIX: Captain, I would strongly suggest that we beam up immediately and take our chances with the Kazon-Ogla instead!

 

[Lynx]

It's been established that Voyager could have solved three of its worst inconsistencies (infinite torpedoes, unlimited shuttlecraft, and Harry's rank) with one scene, maybe a minute or so in duration. They didn't care enough to do even that small bit of footage. The showrunners had gotten completely sloppy, and clearly had no regard for the intelligence of their audience. So, if they thought something would make a good episode, they went with it, screw realism.

Honestly, the writers ruined the series.

Voyager had the best characters and the best premise for any series. Imagine, a ship with a mixed Starfleet and Maquis crew lost on the other side of the galaxy, depending on their own skills, knowledge, wits and ability to cooperate to come home. What opportunities there were for exciting episodes.

And they did blow it all with over-the-top scenarios, stupidities about "sky spirits", nine-year lifespans, people turned to salamanders and restored to normal again, character annihilation and such.

Ok, the series was actually good with highly likeable characters. But it could have been even better with the possibilities there were in the premise.

When a certain scenario didn't work or something became both unrealistic and silly, the writers just kept going, like: "Ah never mind, the viewers won't notice", thus underestimating the intelligence of the viewers.

Deep Space Nine had great characters, great actors a good premise and excellent writers who actually took the series trough a constantly changing and developing scenario where the characters really developed and became better and better for each season.

Voyager had excellent characters, great actors, an excellent scenario but lazy and sloppy writers who seldom could use the premise of the show to come up with great stories and character development.

 

[Timo]

It's been established that Voyager could have solved three of its worst inconsistencies (infinite torpedoes, unlimited shuttlecraft, and Harry's rank)

Umm, the inconsistency always was finite torpedoes and limited shuttlecraft. No other starship in history suffered from such things - so why would Janeway's, all of a sudden?

And the explanation was built in to the premise. Janeway's ship was broken. And then got better, resetting things to Star Trek Normal. Wasting perfectly good screen time in "solving" anything wouldn't have been an improvement. The writers would merely have been mired down in trying to turn Star Trek into Battlestar Galactica, two dissimilar universes with dissimilar rules. You can't do ragtag fleet with replicators!

In the end, the writers got pretty good mileage out of "replicators broken" and "locals know nothing about replicators" and "replicators make for great baubles for the natives" and so forth. But that could only ever carry for so long before the show ceased to be Star Trek. Two seasons or thereabouts was just about right.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lynx]

Umm, the inconsistency always was finite torpedoes and limited shuttlecraft. No other starship in history suffered from such things - so why would Janeway's, all of a sudden?

And the explanation was built in to the premise. Janeway's ship was broken. And then got better, resetting things to Star Trek Normal. Wasting perfectly good screen time in "solving" anything wouldn't have been an improvement. The writers would merely have been mired down in trying to turn Star Trek into Battlestar Galactica, two dissimilar universes with dissimilar rules. You can't do ragtag fleet with replicators!

In the end, the writers got pretty good mileage out of "replicators broken" and "locals know nothing about replicators" and "replicators make for great baubles for the natives" and so forth. But that could only ever carry for so long before the show ceased to be Star Trek. Two seasons or thereabouts was just about right.

Timo Saloniemi

Fortunately there is a way to explain why Voyager had unlimited resources of shuttles and torpedoes.

From Captain Janeway's log:

Stardate 48942.07 (Friday 10 December 2371)

The latest events have put us in a difficult situation since we have wasted a lot of torpedoes and damaged a shuttle. Therefore I have asked Commander Chakotay, Liutenant Tuvok and Lieutenant Torres to come to my ready room to discuss an idea I have.

"You all know what has happened" said Janeway. "After the recent adventure with the Furies (Voyager book "Invasion-The Final Fury" which took place between the episodes "Elogium" and "Twisted"), we have lost a shuttle. We have also wasted too many torpedoes. If we keep on wasting our torpedoes in the same way, we will be out of them soon. Considering our long journey and the risk of running into hostile aliens, we need both shuttles and torpedoes. Therefore I want to discuss this idea I have."

"What woud that be?" Chakotay asked.

"I suggest that we set up a special workforce on the ship" Janeway said. "The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team". "Some really skilled people who can have as their priority to build shuttles and torpedoes when it's necessary. If we do so, we will have a chance to avoid being without those in a critical situation."

"That sounds like a good idea", Chakotay said.

"Indeed. And a very logical idea too considering our need for such items" Tuvok said.

"Exactly my thoughts too", said Janeway. "B'Elanna, do you have any people to spare?"

"Well, I think that Dalby, Henley, Gerron and Chell would be perfect for the job. And I would also like to have Lt. Carey in charge of the team. He's the right person for that. If necessary, I can give a helping hand too in a crisis. But I must point out that I need these people in Engineering too and that they would only work with shuttles and torpedoes when necessary."

"I agree", Janeway said. "I would also suggest that we find some other people too among the crew who can assist with shuttle and torpedo building when necessary". Janeway touched her combadge: "Mr Carey, can you come to my ready room immediately!"

And so The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team was born. From the beginning, it was Lt.Carey, Dalby, Henley, Gerron and Chell. Later on Rollins, Vorik, Samantha Wildman and The Borg baby were added to the team. In fact, those people are the true heroes on Voyager. Without their hard work, Voyager's mission would have been almost impossible.