Threshold Salamanders Joining the Crew

[WarpTenLizard]

Suppose Voyager hadn't abandoned Janeway and Paris's three salamander children at the end of "Threshold," and instead taken them aboard the ship.

Janeway/Paris shippers tend to assume that the Doctor could turn their three lizard kids human (presumably to allow for a generic family-fluff story). But what if a magical frog-prince transformation isn't possible, and they remain advanced salamanders?

An idea struck me today at work (my job is a tad dull). The Enterprise allegedly has dolphin crewmembers. This is explored in more depth (har, har) in "Lower Decks." If regular Earth dolphins can operate from a pool aboard a starship....then why not highly-evolved salamanders?

Having been created by transwarp, it's possible that these salamanders might have special navigation abilities. (I'm sober right now, by the way.)

How would they communicate with the crew? What function would they serve aboard the ship? How might their presence affect the outcome of certain events? Would the Borg try to assimilate this advanced version of homo-sapiens? How might ultra-evolved human lizards interact with Species 8472? Or the Equinox aliens?

Thoughts?

 

[Oddish]

Though I'm not a Janeway/Paris shipper, I like the idea of them being turned into adorable children. However, that is beyond the parameters of the topic, so I say they live in a special swamp habitat created for them in an unused cargo bay, until "Future's End", when they are given telepathic translators at the same time the sawbones gets his mobile emitter. At that point, they can communicate with the rest of the crew, and serve as transwarp navigators, allowing Janeway to discover an abandoned Borg subspace conduit that gets Voyager 13,000 LY closer to Earth.

 

[Summer Solstice]

This is a fantastic idea for a thread. I thought I would pick 3 options in the vote as there were three salamanders, but there were too many great ideas so I picked more.

After a few days, the universal translater is able to understand the salamanders' speech and they have no difficulty communicating with the crew.

Their presence on Voyager during the encounter with the Voth provides considerable weight to the distant origin theory. When the Voth first detected the salamanders on Voyager they were concerned they had been kidnapped but after talking to the salamanders discovered that they were from Earth, the same as the humans.

Janeway puts Tuvok in charge of the Starfleet Academy program on Voyager and all three salamanders plus Naomi attend.

The Borg would definitely want to assimilate the salamanders. I'm not sure if the Hirogen would be very interested in them as they are unique or not particularly interested because they are similar to the Voth trophies they already have.

 

[Ragitsu]

Just think: in one of the more bizarre alternative universes, Voyager is manned by a race of fully sentient/sapient salamanders and that same Warp 10 experiment resulted in the creation of two humans.

 

[Qonundrum]

Just think: in one of the more bizarre alternative universes, Voyager is manned by a race of fully sentient/sapient salamanders and that same Warp 10 experiment resulted in the creation of two humans.

Oooh, it'd be fun to see them wiggle on screen! Don't ask how the triplets came about, but if anyone does, blame the stork...

 

[Finn]

They could have techobabbled something into turning them into Humans... three friends for Naomi. It'd be a weird group of kids by the time the Borg kids showed up. They'd have a lot explaing to do when they finally got in touch with Starfleet, especially to Owen Paris

 

[WarpTenLizard]

They could have techobabbled something into turning them into Humans... three friends for Naomi. It'd be a weird group of kids by the time the Borg kids showed up. They'd have a lot explaing to do when they finally got in touch with Starfleet, especially to Owen Paris

Unless these "human" kids retain some strange traits from their bizarre background, those would be three very bland characters. Tom and B'Elanna's daughter makes for a compelling part-Klingon fly-girl and unwitting messiah. Tom and Kes's daughter had her Ocampa physiology to make her interesting. If Seven had children with someone, it'd be interesting to see what Borg traits they might inherit. But Janeway and Paris are pretty average humans. I'm not sure what you could do storywise with their regular human kids, except maybe to say that their daughter is a hotshot pilot but only when high on caffeine.

 

[Finn]

Unless these "human" kids retain some strange traits from their bizarre background, those would be three very bland characters. Tom and B'Elanna's daughter makes for a compelling part-Klingon fly-girl and unwitting messiah. Tom and Kes's daughter had her Ocampa physiology to make her interesting. If Seven had children with someone, it'd be interesting to see what Borg traits they might inherit. But Janeway and Paris are pretty average humans. I'm not sure what you could do storywise with their regular human kids, except maybe to say that their daughter is a hotshot pilot but only when high on caffeine.

*inserts Voyagerequse technobabble*

 

[spinagogue]

Choices 1 and 6. Well done.
Did you come up with 1 in mind of the movie Dune (and presumably the book which I haven't read)?

 

[somebuddyX]

So....uh..do you reckon they could have used the salamander babies as fuel for the dolphin drive that Ransom invented?

 

[Oddish]

Could have? Maybe.
Would have? Janeway would have chucked the first person to suggest it out the airlock.

 

[tharpdevenport]

There we go -- the crossover episode with "Star Trek: Picard":

Picard gets an emergency distress all from Adminal Janeway, under attack from the salamander babies she abandoned in the Delta quadrant, seeking love and revenge in...

THE WRATH OF THE SALANADER BABIES

 

[Oddish]

Why not a Prodigy crossover instead? If Janeway's new ride has a quantum slipstream or protostar drive, it could easily reach the planet where Kathryn Jr., Tom Jr., and Amelia were left. Since Adm. Janeway made "Threshold" canonical, maybe a family reunion is in order!

 

[at Quark's]

Tuvok: Captain, these are your and Lt. Paris's offspring. Do you honestly want crew members that will do ill-conceived things and pull extremely foolhardy stunts such as Lt. Paris would and have your stubbornness to match?
Janeway: <....>

 

[tharpdevenport]

Why not a Prodigy crossover instead? If Janeway's new ride has a quantum slipstream or protostar drive, it could easily reach the planet where Kathryn Jr., Tom Jr., and Amelia were left. Since Adm. Janeway made "Threshold" canonical, maybe a family reunion is in order!

Meh, it's so awful I prefer to think now that it was all a trip dream while suffering from some bad leola root.

 

[Oddish]

Meh, it's so awful I prefer to think now that it was all a trip dream while suffering from some bad leola root.

I locked that in as my head canon for a long time, but sadly, Adm. Janeway mentioned in Prodigy that "I got turned into a salamander once" or some such thing.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Family photo from FaceBook. Unknown creator.

 

[Oddish]

Awwww... adorable.

 

[Sumire]

On Tumblr there’s an entire AU about keeping the salamander babies : https://www.tumblr.com/voyagerihardlyknowher

It’s pretty unique in that Janeway and Paris remain semi-salamander and the kids become semi-salamander too. Also Janeway ends up with Chakotay and they raise the babies together. There’s a fair bit of art and a lot of story ideas as to how the kids grow up and who they become with their very unique physiology. I haven’t read/looked at much of it but it’s popped up on Tumblrs I read from time to time and it’s a unique enough concept, it sticks in your head.