"Threshold" why didnt they send a shuttle per autopilot?

[The Next Generation]

Today i watched threshold and i know its one of the worst voyager episodes, but i kept asking myself, why didnt they send the shuttle to federation space?

I am sure they could have programmed the shuttle to fly per autopilot or they could even have build holoprojectors and send the doctor.

They could have used the shuttle as a communication device, sending it every week or so to starfleet to share news, galaxycharts, personal letters or even new and experimental technology.

Atleast they could have made a transwarp probe!

 

[JB2005]

^Simple answer as far as i could tell from the episode, is that the slipstream drive was a one-shot deal. The crystals at the heart of the engine would degrade after one use, so they would be unable to open up another slipstream.

It was sort of mentioned in the episode as to why they had to use the slipstream then but is mostly conjecture.

As for the reason they didn't transmit the schematics normally, is because the message would take decades to get back to fed space, by which time the engine would be redundant, but in the meantime they could be intercepted (a'la barclay hologram) by a hostile power...

I would also assume SFC received the slipstream schematics in one of the Voy databursts (possibly the original in projections) but were unable to work the kinks out of the engine until after Voy got home (as the novels hint)

 

[Finn]

Didn't slipwave drive come later?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

^Simple answer as far as i could tell from the episode, is that the slipstream drive was a one-shot deal. The crystals at the heart of the engine would degrade after one use, so they would be unable to open up another slipstream.

It was sort of mentioned in the episode as to why they had to use the slipstream then but is mostly conjecture.

As for the reason they didn't transmit the schematics normally, is because the message would take decades to get back to fed space, by which time the engine would be redundant, but in the meantime they could be intercepted (a'la barclay hologram) by a hostile power...

I would also assume SFC received the slipstream schematics in one of the Voy databursts (possibly the original in projections) but were unable to work the kinks out of the engine until after Voy got home (as the novels hint)

Um your talking about Timeless NOT Threshold

 

[TheGodBen]

I think the very obvious answer to this problem is that absolutely no thought went into the writing of this episode. It was put together by a bunch of chimpanzees who were trying to write Shakespeare and they put Braga's name on it because after Sub Rosa nobody would doubt he was capable of writing such rubbish.

 

[JB2005]

oh bugger i am...sorry! i was quite proud of that too...mark it, when someone wants a timeless explanation i'll be there with the copy/paste button

As for threshold...probably because they didn't like to admit that the episode exists...

 

[Timo]

If we really want to give this episode more consideration than the writers did, we could argue the following...

Perhaps transwarp as done on the shuttlecraft Cochrane was unnavigable? Remember that on his first flight, Tom Paris got nowhere: the shuttle returned to where it had started. He was unable to steer in any observable manner. On the second flight, Paris and Janeway ended up on a planet with a cozy swamp, but there's no evidence that they steered their way there. It's equally possible that they just ended up there completely at random.

So the drive would do them no good: it would either take them back to where they started, or then to a random location that might equally well be in the same star system or in the fifteenth galaxy to the upper left.

That'd effectively thwart all attempts at running the shuttle or the ship on automatic and having the EMH restore the "evolved" crew at the destination.

"Timeless" was already discussed above, and it does seem that steering at transwarp speeds is a big problem. So just mentally add a few lines about that to the end of "Threshold" and everything is fine again...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Because this episode did not happen. It was all a bad dream, created by Tom actually eating leola root caserole.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Rule of plot obviously! What bothered me more was that they managed to do something they actually stated was impossible. And that a few misfits like Paris and Torres were able to come up with technology that had presumably eluded the finest minds in the Federation!

 

[Bill Morris]

Maybe the trick and missed opportunity there is to hold transwarp to 9.999999 and not reach the barrier.

 

[JB2005]

^It would have been except.

Infinite speed is impossible. Mainly because infinity is not a number it is a theory that there is no "highest" number, meaning that you can (theoretically) always go faster/higher/whatever.

In addition even if it were possible to reach infinite speed, then the ship would need infinite energy. Voyager decided to argue this away by saying "oh it was a new type of dilithium. Wow. If that Dilithium gives infinite energy why didn't they integrate it into the ship's reactor, and get very fat as they warped home never needing to stop to refuel or restock the replicator?

And LCARS 24 has pointed out the other thing, why didn't they just go to nearly warp 10? My question however is "Why didn't they go to warp 10"?

They had an engine that produced side-effects which were apparently totally reversible. And they'd only need to use it once to get home...

It's best to just not think about Threshold...apart from anything else when Janeway lists the so-called pioneers of flight she somehow decides to miss out Yuri Gagarin...apparently the first man in space was not worthy of 24th Century attention...

 

[Thrall]

Because this episode did not happen. It was all a bad dream, created by Tom actually eating leola root caserole.

Yeah pretty much. My roommate is watching all of Voyager, because it's the only Trek show he's never seen. Of course I had to warn him about the most despised episode of Trek ever written. He didn't believe me it could be that bad. His screams of anger and rage at being wrong could be heard a block away. My friend at work asked me what his problem was:

"He's watching Threshold. The worst episode of Star Trek ever made."

"It can't be that bad."

"Oh yeah? The pilot breaks the warp speed barrier with the shuttle and begins turning into a lizard. Not a guy in a lizard suit. But an actual, walks on all fours, lizard. Because apparently all humans will one day turn into lizards. Because it sped up his evolutionary process."

"That's stupid."

"Yeah. But not stupid enough. Then he wants to mate. So he picks the fifty year-old female Captain, who looks like a school marm at that point in the show - 1800's bun hair and all - over all the hot young ensigns. There's even twins he could have picked."

"Twins? That's even more stupid."

"No it's still not stupid enough. So he then puts her through the same deal he went through and then he proceeds to do what could legally be argued to be rape to The Captain. STILL not stupid enough. So they find them on some alien world where Lizard Captain just gave birth to a litter after being lizard-date-raped. STILL NOT stupid enough. So then they're able to turn them back to normal, but don't bother doing it to the kids. Instead they release a foreign species onto an alien world, and they think it's cute. STILL NOT STUPID ENOUGH. Because when they get back to normal, The Captain is apparently so honored Lizard Boy chose her over the slutty twins, that she thinks the whole thing is funny."

"Wow. That's like a whole new reality of stupid. I have to watch this now."

And I think I know why people hate this episode so much. Because the premise is so good and it starts out so well and then just turns to shit just all of a sudden. It turns to shit so fast, that you're just not expecting it and it catches you off guard. "Move Along Home" or "Spock's Brain" were stupid right off that bat and their concepts were terrible, so there's not that feeling of being cheated.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

^
*snort* Love your summary! It sounds like another thread...the one about pitching a bad episode.

 

[Kathryn_Janeway]

As you may not all be aware, this incident was actually a malfunctioning holodeck program that was sent to The Doctor's publisher along with his own holo-novel by accident.

 

[Timo]

Infinite speed is impossible. Mainly because infinity is not a number it is a theory that there is no "highest" number, meaning that you can (theoretically) always go faster/higher/whatever.

Well, not exactly. If you divide by infinite, you get zero. So any travel from A to B in zero time would be at infinite speed by definition. It's a perfectly valid concept as such - it would indeed be impossible to go any faster by definition.

Except if you traveled from A to B in less than zero time, of course. Which is what they actually mention in TNG "Time Squared" dialogue: travel at higher than warp 10 (which in that episode, too, is 24thcenturyspeak for infinite speed) would automatically equate time travel, or getting there before you started.

In addition even if it were possible to reach infinite speed, then the ship would need infinite energy.

Actually, there's no currently known law of nature that would state this. That photons move at the speed of light is not due to them lacking the energy to go any faster. Indeed, their energy is meaningless in relation to their ability to travel at the highest speed allowed in our universe. All we can currently claim is that it takes infinite energy to accelerate an object possessing rest mass to the highest possible speed - but Trek starships need not possess mass when they are warping.

Because apparently all humans will one day turn into lizards. Because it sped up his evolutionary process.

Even this silly episode doesn't make the claim that there would be an evolutionary destiny for mankind, or for any other species. It's just that the individual named Tom Paris evolved, that is, he developed traits that improved his odds of survival and procreation in his current environment (which happened to be a swampy planet). That's one definition of evolution - but of course not the one that the famed evolution theory is about, because that theory speaks of evolution of entire species through natural selection affecting multiple generations. Tom Paris was just a single generation. But "evolution" is a nice, ambiguous word that is actually very difficult to misuse...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lynx]

My guess is that they couldn't because "Threshold" never really did happen. It was one of Janeway's nightmares after eating too much of Neelix's food.

 

[SharkD]

Sorry, guys. Actually, "Threshold" was the only episode that did occur. Every other episode was just a figment of the Doctor's imagination.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Sorry, guys. Actually, "Threshold" was the only episode that did occur. Every other episode was just a figment of the Doctor's imagination.

So that makes 'Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy' an episode about the daydreams of someone who is just a dream of someone who may not even be able to dream?

And I thought my time travel headaches were bad...

 

[Lynx]

^^
"Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream"

"Dream Within A Dream"
The Yardbirds

 

[Saquist]

This was just one of those episodes that the writers didn't tap the full extent of the possibilities because they had bad rules like...Voyager will always look like the day it left...

Or...Voyager can't come in contact with home
Or. Nothing really bad can happen to the ship unless it's reversed by the end of the show
Or. Nothing really good can happen to the ship unless it's revered by the end of the show.

The worse part of Trek is these rules which honestly started with the first series.
They weren't allowed to develop the series...and that's why they have so many continutity issue becuase if they had they would have to keep track of it all

And clearly they didn't want to.