Actually, because of the MSD, we can stretch the original design further and come up with quite a few different "in-universe" ideas, including it just being a separate power source meant to run with the main core.
Voyager warp systems/power systems
- Thread starter malchya
- Start date
But that would be fanfic as opposed to analysis, since Occam's Razor doesn't require us to ditch the reserve core idea (based on the evidence presented so far).
But since the show did feature at least three separate occasions where core jettison was performed or pondered, and none of these had dialogue references to the existence of a spare, it's pretty damn difficult to believe in a spare existing.
...More difficult than believing in the existence of a Captain's Yacht on the E-D, really. That craft was never mentioned nor used - but at least we were spared episodes where a mention or use would have been a likely plot twist, so we can go on claiming that it did exist. On the other hand, absence of evidence in this case is good evidence of absence also because we never saw anything that would have looked like a yacht (as opposed to a nondescript bump on the hull). At least we did see an identifiable warp core in VOY, sort of.
Still, from the in-universe point of view, almost any option is preferable to thinking that the VOY ship had a spare core. The very concept undermines a core element of Trek drama - the single-point failure of futuristic supertechnology. It's a bit like saying that one can beam up through shields, or that there's always a seventh bullet in the drum in your revolver. Technologically plausible, dramatically disastrous and unnecessary.
Timo Saloniemi
...More difficult than believing in the existence of a Captain's Yacht on the E-D, really. That craft was never mentioned nor used - but at least we were spared episodes where a mention or use would have been a likely plot twist, so we can go on claiming that it did exist. On the other hand, absence of evidence in this case is good evidence of absence also because we never saw anything that would have looked like a yacht (as opposed to a nondescript bump on the hull). At least we did see an identifiable warp core in VOY, sort of.
Still, from the in-universe point of view, almost any option is preferable to thinking that the VOY ship had a spare core. The very concept undermines a core element of Trek drama - the single-point failure of futuristic supertechnology. It's a bit like saying that one can beam up through shields, or that there's always a seventh bullet in the drum in your revolver. Technologically plausible, dramatically disastrous and unnecessary.
Timo Saloniemi
But not actually used or referred to such in the show despite several episodes where it could have been. Sometimes ideas are put forth that are never used onscreen.
I haven't seen the episodes so I can't really comment, but perhaps everyone on the ship knows it's damaged beyond repair, or that it would take too long to install, or maybe the spare simply hadn't been added to the ship by the time Voyager was thrown across the galaxy (though I don't like this idea, since we can see the core in the MSD). I don't know exactly; all I'm saying is we shouldn't deviate further from the original intent than is required to explain the evidence at hand. The reserve warp core with a one-week installation was also mentioned in Rick Sternbach's Starfleet Technical Database article on the Intrepid class (from the Magazine), which is about as official as TNGTM.
But you can see that Rick added the reserve core partly so we could see the main one explode if necessary; it's just that the writers had different dramatic ideas. There is no need to disrupt completely any established descriptions, only to explain how they fit together with the canon.
See, if ten different people offer ten different off-the-cuff ideas from their "personal canon", an official writer is hardly likely to use them in licensed works, which have to remain within an established continuity. On the other hand, if one fan painstakingly goes through all the evidence and publishes those findings online, either the analysis will influence official works or fans will declare that the official works are wrong. Geoffrey Mandel was smart not to ignore Christian Rühl's analysis of Star Trek cartography, and that is why the Star Charts ended up being mostly accurate. Given Mandel's original Star Trek Maps, I'm sure the book would've turned out nicely even without that analysis, but a number of errors must have been avoided with the chosen approach (and you helped out there as well, of course).
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The MSD also show a shuttle constantly positioned in exactly the some place week after week, so the display is static, it's never updated as conditions change.
When the Voyage actual did jettison it's (primary) warp core, the display on the back wall of the bridge didn't reflect this occurrence. the display isn't "live."
So while it might show that there is supposed to be a second warp core, that doesn't mean there is one actual aboard.
It kind of the same with the MSD showing a captain's gig under the oval saucer, I think there's nothing in that berth but a aerodynamic plug. Personal opinion.
I didn't say the MSD is absolute proof of its existence, given what we know of MSD accuracy in general. However, it would be preferable if the core were there, so the MSD doesn't end up so being so static it couldn't change over the course of seven years, as opposed to only briefly while the main core was jettisoned. Either way, there is no need to ditch everything and propose it never was a spare in the first place.
...Except for the dramatic need.
The MSD and the plans feature an auxiliary craft under the primary hull, too - another thing we would be better off without, as the quantity and quality of auxiliary craft aboard is a plot point every now and then.
And we have the perfect excuse for omitting any arbitrary item visible in the MSD: the ship was launched, if not quite ahead of schedule, then at least on a very early mission that was supposed to be short and undemanding. Half the fancy gear could have been left ashore.
Saying that things got damaged is also okay, especially since many things were explicated as having been damaged. But the general gist of things was that things also got repaired, at least after the first two seasons, which is why the "everything was omitted unless specified as having been included" idea is the simpler and safer one. A seven-year TV show is not a James Bond movie, and not every gadget introduced in the first act need be used before the end credits - much less gadgets that weren't actually introduced!
Timo Saloniemi
The MSD and the plans feature an auxiliary craft under the primary hull, too - another thing we would be better off without, as the quantity and quality of auxiliary craft aboard is a plot point every now and then.
And we have the perfect excuse for omitting any arbitrary item visible in the MSD: the ship was launched, if not quite ahead of schedule, then at least on a very early mission that was supposed to be short and undemanding. Half the fancy gear could have been left ashore.
Saying that things got damaged is also okay, especially since many things were explicated as having been damaged. But the general gist of things was that things also got repaired, at least after the first two seasons, which is why the "everything was omitted unless specified as having been included" idea is the simpler and safer one. A seven-year TV show is not a James Bond movie, and not every gadget introduced in the first act need be used before the end credits - much less gadgets that weren't actually introduced!
Timo Saloniemi
Sure, but not having a spare installed in time is different from the core being an alternate power system altogether, as proposed above, and not actually a spare. The former is an acceptable hypothesis, pending data from the actual episodes.
It's not small, because we also have the designer's intent, which was made official years ago in the Starfleet Technical Database article. While only the onscreen material is canon and carries the most weight, it doesn't mean that everything else can be freely disregarded. You can see evidence of that in the way other licensed sources are expected to use the Encyclopedia, the DS9 tech manual, the TNG tech manual and similar publications. If it is rationally impossible to reconcile the canon with the official sources, then the official sources can be ignored, but there is no evidence that they should be ignored as a matter of course. Otherwise we'll have a discontinuity: the minute someone is asked to participate in a licensed publication, the set of constraints changes radically, and it becomes more difficult to build on previous informal discussions.
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But the intent was neither "the second core was left out" nor "the second core does not provide power for the warp drive", so both of these rationalizations are in contradiction of the intent in more or less equal measure.
We could contradict Rick to an even greater degree to create an excuse for there being no secondary core in the actual show. These "minimum adjustments" to the original idea are the least we can do - but we can't leave the intent to stand unchallenged, because that's not compatible with the TV show.
We shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that since a physical item was intended from the start, it should be there continuously, like a real physical item. After all, we don't think that a personality trait should be there forever merely because it was intended from the start; nor do we think that a personality trait that was intended from the beginning but never actually used for the character should somehow feature into the character's history when personality traits invented later paint a completely different character. Make-believe physical items are no more permanent than make-believe personality traits, and shouldn't be given different treatment. If we see 'em, they are there; if we don't, we aren't obligated to think they were ever there, unless we actually previously saw them there.
Timo Saloniemi
Another possible explanation for the crew being so concerned over losing the warp core is that the "spare" might be vastly inferior - designed to allow the ship to "limp home" at low warp... fine when a starbase is a week or so away at warp 3, but in Voyager's situation, it may as well not be a warp core at all.
Not counting on the MSD being "accurate" is hardly a new thing. It's not like there is REALLY a giant duck on the Enterprise D, or people standing immobille in the corridors for years at a time simply because the MSD show it.
I like the idea that there simply wasn't a warp core, or alternatively that the replacement was an emergency article allowing a reduced top speed (which in Voyager's case meant that the trip home would be too long for everyone currently on the ship). The same can be said of the never-use aeroshuttle, where we've seen episodes where it would have made sense to use it but we never did.
My question however is why we didn't see other starships come equipped with a spare, at least on their MSD? It would seem like the logical thing to do. Sure, some ships would never be TOO far away from known sources of help, but others (say, the Constellation, Ambassador) are SUPPOSED to operate for years away from home and should have some sort of contingency plan in place. Perhaps others do, and it would take much longer to put one together with components stuffed in those nondescript futuristic crates we see in the show? Maybe the Intrepid class was the first one to innovate having a mostly-complete core ready to go, including devoting a unique space aboard ship to hold it in place?
I'm grateful that Star Trek had some really thoughtful, educated people in the art department that put so much effort into the in-universe workings of the tech we see on screen. It's too bad the writing staff didn't leverage more of these details into their stories - but they WERE doing their job of writing the best stories they could and having the technology support it, rather than having cool fantasy technology be supported by drama. If we wanted that, we can always watch CSI.
Mark
I like the idea that there simply wasn't a warp core, or alternatively that the replacement was an emergency article allowing a reduced top speed (which in Voyager's case meant that the trip home would be too long for everyone currently on the ship). The same can be said of the never-use aeroshuttle, where we've seen episodes where it would have made sense to use it but we never did.
My question however is why we didn't see other starships come equipped with a spare, at least on their MSD? It would seem like the logical thing to do. Sure, some ships would never be TOO far away from known sources of help, but others (say, the Constellation, Ambassador) are SUPPOSED to operate for years away from home and should have some sort of contingency plan in place. Perhaps others do, and it would take much longer to put one together with components stuffed in those nondescript futuristic crates we see in the show? Maybe the Intrepid class was the first one to innovate having a mostly-complete core ready to go, including devoting a unique space aboard ship to hold it in place?
I'm grateful that Star Trek had some really thoughtful, educated people in the art department that put so much effort into the in-universe workings of the tech we see on screen. It's too bad the writing staff didn't leverage more of these details into their stories - but they WERE doing their job of writing the best stories they could and having the technology support it, rather than having cool fantasy technology be supported by drama. If we wanted that, we can always watch CSI.
Mark
