Travelling Community

[hux]

TNG and DS9 are better written and have superior characters but Voyager is still my favourite Trek series (not just because of all the fun that can be had by pointing out its flaws) because of the lost in space element - i liked the idea of them turning into a small travelling community....unfortunately, it never really happened to the extent that i would have liked

more crew should have hooked up, had families, more crew should have said screw this, i wanna give up being an ensign and start my own small business on board as a creator of artistic pots, more crew should have split from the star fleet philosphy and forced Janeway to deal with all this hippy nonsense throuhout the journey

at the end of the 37's, 60 or 70 crew members should have said, we're staying here to start new lives, more Delta quadrant aliens should have joined the crew and even become officers, more battle damage, a small riot in the captains dining room....(where did everyone else eat....sat alone like losers in their quarters) due to people pushing in the queues for much needed bread

oh....the possibilities - in the end hardly anyone hooked up...how is that possible?, only Naomi Wildman was born an board and only Seven became a new crew member after the initial episode, endless supplies, lovely clean carpets (who the hell kept hoovering the entire ship?).....if i thought i'd be travelling for 70 years, i'd seek out a mate, start a family, consider leaving the ship, possibly give up star fleet to focus on my musical compositions, leave large quantaties of semen in the holodecks, you name it

such a shame it didn't explore any of this stuff more (especially who did all the hoovering)

 

[Relayer1]

Δ And that's why I didn't like it anywhere near as much as any of the other shows.

It was pretty much the anti-DS9 !

 

[jpch]

Well Voyager was daring,it was taking risk,it was going to a new area of space,lost,no Starfleet,no popular and very well known Aliens(except the Borg),it was gonna be original and ''Unique'' the producers themselves said so.

People may say it was not well written but i disagree,in Voyager you had a sense of community a family working together,the characters were emotional and very realistic,there was character development except Kim and Neelix,each season they would throw 2 episodes that would be for a character development some people say its not enough i say it was,in a new Quadrant uncharted,filled with hostile Aliens,being 70 years away from home the writers are not gonna keep showing Maquis quarrels,hippy aliens,problems of energy...

Voyager was going boldly where no one has gone before,it was about the human spirit of exploration,a sense of Family and unity and bonds that developed,and had a flavor of action and drama some humor and of course the BORG!!!!!

In a way Voyager was a lot more ''Trek'' then others.

VOYAGER WE LOVE YOU AND WE MISS YOU,IT is TIME FOR A REMAKE

 

[USS Firefly]

First of all my apologies for my bad English.

In my opinion they totally destroyed the borg.
In TNG en First Contact they needed a fleet of ships who where no match against the Borg and in Voyager they were almost powerless.
And there was almost no struggle between the Marque and Starfleet personnel, i mean the Marque were supposed to be terrorist.
Voyager was also never in danger, they had always power, photon torpedo's, shuttles.
I mean they were on food rations but the holodeck were always online.
And Janeway was a dictator

 

[jpch]

First of all my apologies for my bad English.

In my opinion they totally destroyed the borg.
In TNG en First Contact they needed a fleet of ships who where no match against the Borg and in Voyager they were almost powerless.
And there was almost no struggle between the Marque and Starfleet personnel, i mean the Marque were supposed to be terrorist.
Voyager was also never in danger, they had always power, photon torpedo's, shuttles.
I mean they were on food rations but the holodeck were always online.
And Janeway was a dictator

Destroyed the Borg?? Voyager was always running away from the Borg and when they Engaged a Borg ship they get heavily damaged and barely survived except in Endgame lol

There are approx 17 episodes that had the Maquis as center stage or story Maquis related,as i already pointed out they are in a new Quadrant hostile alone...fighting each other more then that is pointless.

Voyager was never in dangerSpecies 8472?the Hirogens?the Vidiians?the Malon?the Krenim?the Borg???

The torpedoes and shuttle problematic was explained by Rick Sternbach in season 5 extras. they trade or found the elements required to make more torpedoes/shuttles.

So many episodes talk about them being low on power having issues with ship systems,landing on planets to refuel and repair etc...

I bet you never watched the series since everyone repeats the same things in the same format.

I will not tolerate this Typhoon of hate on Voyager .

 

[R. Star]

I've always dubbed Voyager the most disappointing of all the Trek series. That doesn't mean it was the worst, but that it could have been so much more. They had ALL the pieces there for some dramatic storytelling with the divided crew, the generational ship, new and unique aliens to encounter. I went into Voyager hyped and excited, wanting this to be the greatest Trek series of all time. So yes, as it was presented I did find it wanting.

To the Borg... I like to describe this as the water down effect. The bad guy starts out threatening then gets watered down enough so the good guys can deal with them. In TNG, the Borg were so bad, they wiped out a whole fleet without a scratch. By the time we get to Voyager, they can routinely engage the Borg without any harm, and I won't even get into the absurdity of turning on Godmode that was in Endgame. You can't have the good guys routinely foiling them every week before you stop taking them seriously as a threat. This happened with the Q too, devolving into a dysfunctional sitcom family during Voyager's run. Even DS9 did this with the Jem'Hadar to a smaller extent.

And jpch... we get that you like Voyager. That's great. Just because we're discussing it's flaws doesn't mean we're "hating" on it. If you can't "tolerate" a differing opinion than yours, a discussion board may not be the place for you. That's what we do here... discuss things.

 

[hux]

Δ And that's why I didn't like it anywhere near as much as any of the other shows.

It was pretty much the anti-DS9 !

But you can always discover new things with each new viewing - i initially hated DS9 - i now (currently) see it as probably the most accomplished of all the series

in Voyager you had a sense of community, a family working together

there was slightly more of this but not as much as there should have been - i would have liked to have seen a few more stories about how Voyager was truly turning into a community with people having kids and maybe leaving the ship to start new lives elsewhere and the crew pulling together to compensate - when Neelix took over Janeways dining area to become chef and appointed himself moral officer and started doing video reports (for the whole of one episode) those were the moments i actually liked Neelix a little cos he seemed to be the only character that reminded everyone of the community aspect....but needed more of that stuff

In my opinion they totally destroyed the borg.

I understand why people think that but i've started coming to the conclusion that the Borg never actually were that formidable....why......because look at the Delta quadrant....some of the most unimpressive and lame species we've ever seen in Trek.....not exactly difficult to dominate that quadrant judging from what they were up against - they were a big fish in a small, lame pond - it makes sense that Starfleet didn't take that long to learn how to cope with them

I've always dubbed Voyager the most disappointing of all the Trek series. That doesn't mean it was the worst, but that it could have been so much more

It could have been and should have been - i just wish they'd made more of the basic premise - but in the end, it seems like they only saw that as a quick route to new aliens (and yet they still manged to create some epically tedious ones)

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Voyager had it far too easy. Given all they went up against the ship was always in perfect condition by the beginning of the next episode.

The need for supplies and the hardships they faced along the way was never made a big thing. None of the crew had major morale problems (surely some would feel devastated at being 70 years away from home), and I find it weird that none of the others wanted kids. Given their situation and the fact that they only sure fire way home was a long trek, priority should have been given to start having kids and readying them to take over half way through.

Things like the reset button in Janeway's ready room, the shuttlecraft genie, and the fact that Borg tech solves everything made it far too easy for them. You never once had the sense that they might never get home. In all their many many battles, they came out victorious (even all the times they went up against the Borg, which just made them a very pathetic species). Surely in order to survive they would run or hide as often as they fought, yes its not as glamerous as an all out battle using self-replicating torpedoes (how else could they use more than 38 torpedoes that couldn't be replaced?), but its more realistic.

Also as a Federation ship, they were doing a lot of exploring, but where were their attempts to make peace? Ally themselves with other races for supplies and support, maybe even try and lay the groundwork for a DQ Federation? Not every species out there will be 'evil'.

 

[ALF]

Well Voyager was daring,it was taking risk,it was going to a new area of space,lost,no Starfleet,no popular and very well known Aliens(except the Borg),it was gonna be original and ''Unique'' the producers themselves said so.

Yes, it was gonna. But it ended up caving in on cliche after cliche. Shuttle crashes and bumpy foreheads every week.

But a few of them were pretty good. Gotta love that Doctor.

 

[MacLeod]

First of all my apologies for my bad English.

In my opinion they totally destroyed the borg.
In TNG en First Contact they needed a fleet of ships who where no match against the Borg and in Voyager they were almost powerless.
And there was almost no struggle between the Marque and Starfleet personnel, i mean the Marque were supposed to be terrorist.
Voyager was also never in danger, they had always power, photon torpedo's, shuttles.
I mean they were on food rations but the holodeck were always online.
And Janeway was a dictator

Destroyed the Borg?? Voyager was always running away from the Borg and when they Engaged a Borg ship they get heavily damaged and barely survived except in Endgame lol

There are approx 17 episodes that had the Maquis as center stage or story Maquis related,as i already pointed out they are in a new Quadrant hostile alone...fighting each other more then that is pointless.

Voyager was never in dangerSpecies 8472?the Hirogens?the Vidiians?the Malon?the Krenim?the Borg???

The torpedoes and shuttle problematic was explained by Rick Sternbach in season 5 extras. they trade or found the elements required to make more torpedoes/shuttles.

So many episodes talk about them being low on power having issues with ship systems,landing on planets to refuel and repair etc...

I bet you never watched the series since everyone repeats the same things in the same format.

I will not tolerate this Typhoon of hate on Voyager .

If it doesn't happen on screen it doesn't count, so the extras on one of DVD's can't be included. They should have addressed it in the show. And if you do include this extra feature (which many of the audiance won't have seen), they seem to have plenty of power in order to replicate all these parts for new shuttles etc...

Not to mention the ship looking like it had just left Utopia and the start of most episodes, no matter how much of a pounding it took the previous episode.

As for the holodeck, the writers knew the fans would call them on overusing it, so they had a line in an early episode saying holodeck power was incompatable with the rest of the ship.

Now of course not everything about VOY was bad, Robert Picardo as the EMH was one of the best things about the show.

 

[hux]

The need for supplies and the hardships they faced along the way was never made a big thing. None of the crew had major morale problems (surely some would feel devastated at being 70 years away from home), and I find it weird that none of the others wanted kids. Given their situation and the fact that they only sure fire way home was a long trek, priority should have been given to start having kids and readying them to take over half way through.

That's because they never really sold the idea that this journey actually could take 70 years - as an audience, we never really bought it because none of the crew really seemed to buy it either - if they had then they would have started families, etc but it quickly became apparent that no one on board expected to be in the Delta quadrant for too long - that was the main flaw....if the crew don't behave in a way that suggests they're genuinely gonna be travelling for decades to get home then how can you expect the audience to buy into the premise

Not to mention the ship looking like it had just left Utopia and the start of most episodes, no matter how much of a pounding it took the previous episode.

Year of hell should have been a season long arc - they could have still pressed the reset button at the end of the season (which might have annoyed some) but at least we would have had one season that was slightly more realistic

 

[Worf'sParmach]

I don't get how there was only 1 baby born on that ship in all that time. Correct me if I am wrong because I fully admit to not knowing the details of VOY the way I do TNG and DS9. But I do know that they were out there with the idea that they'd be on that ship 70-ish years. That means that they'd need their very own "Next Generation" to actually get them home cause most of them would be dead or almost dead by the end of it. Sure, they picked up a few Borg kids towards the end but that was it?

Janeway needed to at least program some holes in the replicated condoms or tell the Doctor he can't prescribe the pill anymore. Something. It's unrealistic that Torres and Paris are the only couple to hook up and start a family. But, I'm a Niner and everyone on that show hooks up, lol.

 

[R. Star]

I don't get how there was only 1 baby born on that ship in all that time. Correct me if I am wrong because I fully admit to not knowing the details of VOY the way I do TNG and DS9. But I do know that they were out there with the idea that they'd be on that ship 70-ish years. That means that they'd need their very own "Next Generation" to actually get them home cause most of them would be dead or almost dead by the end of it. Sure, they picked up a few Borg kids towards the end but that was it?

Janeway needed to at least program some holes in the replicated condoms or tell the Doctor he can't prescribe the pill anymore. Something. It's unrealistic that Torres and Paris are the only couple to hook up and start a family. But, I'm a Niner and everyone on that show hooks up, lol.

Yeah, it should've been quietly encouraged for the crew to be hooking up and having children instead of the prudish Starfleet attitude of not touching anything of the opposite gender unless it's an alien of the week then game on.

Neelix would deserve to be running the daycare too I think, though he's not reliable enough so the Doctor would probably get stuck with changing diapers and whiny children.

 

[MacLeod]

Well it would have perhaps been more realistic to have the crew pair up and start creating the next generation of crew who would man the ship. Just add it to the list of things that VOY gets critisim for.

From an in-universe point of view, the crew didn't know how long it was going to take them to get home, so a logical course of action would be to start having babies in case it did take the 70 years.

From a production point of view, they knew the ship would get home in seven years.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It gets discussed in Elogium.

CHAKOTAY: If it does take seventy five years, we're going to need a replacement crew in about half that time.
JANEWAY: Who'd have thought we'd be considering a generational ship when we were ordered on a three week mission.
CHAKOTAY: I know, but it's a problem we have to face now.
JANEWAY: What would that mean for the children? What kind of life would we be giving them aboard a starship, travelling through a potentially hostile part of space? And are we equipped to provide for their needs? Child care, educational facilities. We'd be building an entire community on board this ship. That's a massive commitment.
CHAKOTAY: Are you prepared to tell them they can't have children?
JANEWAY: I can't do that. And I've made it clear to Kes that it's her choice whether to have a child or not, but. There aren't any easy answers here. For any of us.

I think though that they've seen enough magic fixes, wormholes, the other Caretaker that they are still hoping for some kind of breakthrough. Once they established some communication with the Alpha quadrant that would have kept that hope alive as well. When did the E2 crew in ENT decide they needed to be a generational ship? Not in the first few years I'm sure.

I'd love to see a series that starts with the first generation born on a Generational ship as adults, the original crew still there but older etc.. trying to hold together the purpose of the mission. Let's say in 12 years VOY did decide to start breeding for replacement, You're going to have to indoctrinate the next generation into returning to earth being their heart's desire when they have minimal connection to it. Add a few more crew from the DQ and at some point you may have a rebellion wanting to settle somewhere.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager had some very well written episodes.

But really, they could have committed more to the premise of 'One ship, alone' and still been light and episodic. That wasn't an either-or there.

They could have been short on supplies, started feeling a little cabin fever, had random crewmen deciding to leave and settle down, made alliances, had more families, and so on, without sacrificing their principles. Heck, the show seemed like it was built for having dozens of small recurring roles, but they didn't even have as much as TNG, and they were a ship with a thousand people and people coming and going all the time.

I dunno, maybe leola root is a natural libido suppressant.

 

[MacLeod]

It gets discussed in Elogium.

CHAKOTAY: If it does take seventy five years, we're going to need a replacement crew in about half that time.
JANEWAY: Who'd have thought we'd be considering a generational ship when we were ordered on a three week mission.
CHAKOTAY: I know, but it's a problem we have to face now.
JANEWAY: What would that mean for the children? What kind of life would we be giving them aboard a starship, travelling through a potentially hostile part of space? And are we equipped to provide for their needs? Child care, educational facilities. We'd be building an entire community on board this ship. That's a massive commitment.
CHAKOTAY: Are you prepared to tell them they can't have children?
JANEWAY: I can't do that. And I've made it clear to Kes that it's her choice whether to have a child or not, but. There aren't any easy answers here. For any of us.

I think though that they've seen enough magic fixes, wormholes, the other Caretaker that they are still hoping for some kind of breakthrough. Once they established some communication with the Alpha quadrant that would have kept that hope alive as well. When did the E2 crew in ENT decide they needed to be a generational ship? Not in the first few years I'm sure.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Just because they had seen some magic fixes as you put it doesn't mean that they'll continue to find them.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Of course not. But deciding to breed is a huge step. Not just the relationship element, because if they did get home early it's something that's always going to be there but the practicality of at some point having a lot more people on the ship.

Kind of weird too to be a child conceived only so you could be trained to fly the ship home. If they were serious about this they would have to pretty much decide to go for it, pair up and start producing offspring. They couldn't leave it to random romances. A handful of children would not be enough. That's a pretty big social engineering choice for the ship to make and I'm not surprised they didn't start a few years in.

 

[Guy Gardener]

No one got pregnant in The Killing Game using authentic birth control from the 1940s if any.

Lets hope that they were patient enough to have 24th century abortions and didn't have to resort to the graphic intrusion I saw in American Horror Asylum Last month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_Giraud

French Law, nothing to do with the Nazi Occupation, said that persons who preformed abortions were guillotined between the years 1939 and 1945. Either side of that, Abortionists were fined and received light jail time.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Huh, I didn't know about that.

As to the Killing Game, I think I've speculated before that B'Elanna's pregnancy was a holo-bump pressing into her stomach from the outside. Might have been useful if you were in a long role playing holo adventure and your character became pregnant.