Was the Delta Quadrant Just Boring Compared to the Alpha Quadrant?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
Putting aside that both of your points are deeply flawed for reasons that have been explained by myself and many others many times, the reasons don't especially matter. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people just saw VOY's aliens and didn't think they were compelling for one reason or another, which isn't invalid.
How are the Kazon or the Hirogen not one dimensional? At least the Dominion was menacing, something that can't be said about the Kazon.
Simple, DS9 had tons of cannon fodder for the Dominion to blow up without harming the main characters or the Defiant or DS9 itself. VOY had nothing to work with.
And the Hirogen at least got to show off how tough they were in "Prey" by hunting that 8472 alien and "Killing Game".
Hell, even attempts at building up an enemy by having them kill other folks didn't work: The 8472 debut by being able to fight the Borg, and all they get is "They've shown there's at least one species that can fight the Borg! The BORG ARE RUIIINNNEEDDD!"
And YoH had those other aliens tell VOY about how tough the Krenim were, and we got to see how tough they were in the alternate timelines. Still no decent reaction from the audience.
Totally unpleasable, and nothing to work with.
And the Hirogen at least got to show off how tough they were in "Prey" by hunting that 8472 alien and "Killing Game".
Hell, even attempts at building up an enemy by having them kill other folks didn't work: The 8472 debut by being able to fight the Borg, and all they get is "They've shown there's at least one species that can fight the Borg! The BORG ARE RUIIINNNEEDDD!"
And YoH had those other aliens tell VOY about how tough the Krenim were, and we got to see how tough they were in the alternate timelines. Still no decent reaction from the audience.
Totally unpleasable, and nothing to work with.
As noted earlier, the "Alpha Quadrant", which is actually the Alpha Quadrant and near-border part of the Beta Quadrant, got fleshed out by TOS, TNG, and DS9. Though... many TOS worlds were not seen or mentioned again. The Gamma Quadrant was basically anything within flying range of the wormhole. The Delta Quadrant, what we saw of it was a ship constantly moving.
Consider this, how much would you see/encounter of an area if you are based there for a long time (though in just 1 spot. Remember how vast parts of the Alpha & Beta Quadrants have not been explored or fleshed out yet) vs. if you were driving down highways and backroads across a large area. Each area you only have a passing encounter with. That was Voyager.
Voyager made several jumps, so that necessitated leaving species behind, save for the plot-holed Maalon and the scattered Hirogen hunters, plus the Borg with their own giant empire and superhighways (transwarp conduits) around the galaxy. Also, based on "just passing through", obviously it was not in their interest to visit the big homeworlds: Kazon/Trabe (wherever they were from), Vidiia, Maalon, Devore Prime. The closest we saw is Unimatrix One (though it's not where the Borg originated from, just their big base). They didn't want get involved or tangled up. Sometimes they had to detour around people like "The Raven" race, the Krenim in the final timeline. We saw what Voyager went through when they had to pass through a powerful empire's territory ("Counterpoint", "The Swarm"). As a result, Voyager is more akin to TOS than TNG or DS9, one-off encounters (save for Klingons, Romulans, and Harry Mudd). They had a lot of interesting one-off alien races though.
As for the Kazon, Voyager did its best to stay out of the big powers' space in Seasons 1-2 (Kazon, Vidiians) though would occasionally come across territory the Kazon would raid or close to their borders. The Kazon everyone remembers is Maje Cullah's forces pursuing Voyager like Ahab/Janeway/Annorax pursued Moby Dick/the Time-Ship/time.
Consider this, how much would you see/encounter of an area if you are based there for a long time (though in just 1 spot. Remember how vast parts of the Alpha & Beta Quadrants have not been explored or fleshed out yet) vs. if you were driving down highways and backroads across a large area. Each area you only have a passing encounter with. That was Voyager.
Voyager made several jumps, so that necessitated leaving species behind, save for the plot-holed Maalon and the scattered Hirogen hunters, plus the Borg with their own giant empire and superhighways (transwarp conduits) around the galaxy. Also, based on "just passing through", obviously it was not in their interest to visit the big homeworlds: Kazon/Trabe (wherever they were from), Vidiia, Maalon, Devore Prime. The closest we saw is Unimatrix One (though it's not where the Borg originated from, just their big base). They didn't want get involved or tangled up. Sometimes they had to detour around people like "The Raven" race, the Krenim in the final timeline. We saw what Voyager went through when they had to pass through a powerful empire's territory ("Counterpoint", "The Swarm"). As a result, Voyager is more akin to TOS than TNG or DS9, one-off encounters (save for Klingons, Romulans, and Harry Mudd). They had a lot of interesting one-off alien races though.
As for the Kazon, Voyager did its best to stay out of the big powers' space in Seasons 1-2 (Kazon, Vidiians) though would occasionally come across territory the Kazon would raid or close to their borders. The Kazon everyone remembers is Maje Cullah's forces pursuing Voyager like Ahab/Janeway/Annorax pursued Moby Dick/the Time-Ship/time.
They didn't need Voyager, that's their defense. They take over any intruders via their dreams and eventually have them die through starvation.
This. We've seen very little of the Gamma Quadrant. The wormhole is in the far-flung reaches of the Dominion or just past their space. That's why it took them long to respond to it. Ultimately, we saw very little of it. Of course, they really screwed up by not showing the Tosk Hunters more even though they planned to make them part of the Dominion and the Breen were just 1 giant tease and a plot device when they actually appeared (and a Star Wars ripoff).
Why were they doing that though? What do they have to gain from that?
I get there are psychopaths out there, but seriously a whole society of psychopaths? Not one non psychopath in the whole bunch? I'm not buying that, that would be like a nation state, where everyone is a serial killer. That's why they are weak villains, they have no realistic motive or personality to speak of.
Visually it wasn't always impressive. Because a lot of the aliens met on the show were one-shot races, they appeared with a simple bump on their head (or less), which gave them far less character than the alien races appearing on the sister show at the time, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. That's due mostly to production realities, but when viewed on DVD years later it gives the show a much blander flavor.
The show needed to take place in one large region of space that they never left, instead of always being on the move. One massive region of space comprising of the Kazon, Vidiians, Ocampa, Talaxians, Krenim, Hirogen and maybe the Malon. Then have stories with ALL of these aliens who co-exist in one area, instead of meeting up with new aliens.
I don't think a small region of space would have been strictly necessary. There's nothing wrong with telling stories that are at most a few episodes in length. The six episode Hirogen arc, for example, was pretty successful.
In that vein, the series might have been a lot more interesting if it spread out Voyager's encounters with alien species over more than a single or two-part episode. With a six episode run, alien races could have featured superior make-up and set designs than the budget for a one-off alien would have provided. It would also solve production difficulties--after finishing a multi-episode arc the sets, costumes, etc. could be permanently re-dressed or trashed without any worry about re-appearing in the future.
In that vein, the series might have been a lot more interesting if it spread out Voyager's encounters with alien species over more than a single or two-part episode. With a six episode run, alien races could have featured superior make-up and set designs than the budget for a one-off alien would have provided. It would also solve production difficulties--after finishing a multi-episode arc the sets, costumes, etc. could be permanently re-dressed or trashed without any worry about re-appearing in the future.
It wouldn't have been necessary, but it would allow for more creativity in that these new species all co-exist with one another and there could be several stories of them reacting to each other with VOY simply observing or being caught in the crossfire.
Like the 2003 TMNT cartoon, they introduced the Triceraton Republic and the D'Hoonib Federation in how they were at war with one another instead of them just being separate villains encountering the Turtles.
This way we'd have stories of the Kazon and Hirogen fighting one another instead of "Voyager vs the Kazon" and "Voyager vs the Hirogen". That sort of thing.
Like the 2003 TMNT cartoon, they introduced the Triceraton Republic and the D'Hoonib Federation in how they were at war with one another instead of them just being separate villains encountering the Turtles.
This way we'd have stories of the Kazon and Hirogen fighting one another instead of "Voyager vs the Kazon" and "Voyager vs the Hirogen". That sort of thing.
Such development could have also been developed via mini-arcs, though. Since VOY and DS9 were on the air at the same time, it would make sense that VOY wouldn't want to replicate DS9's premise of being (mostly) locked into a small region of space.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the premise of a ship flung far into space trying to get home--it's a strong hook to hang a series on.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the premise of a ship flung far into space trying to get home--it's a strong hook to hang a series on.
Except most of the alien species that showed uip frankly sucked, so people had a right to complain. They didn't introduce interesting alien civilizations, so people complained, seems natural to me.
Farscape was a show about one ship flying around Uncharted space, it didn't stop them from re-using the same villains and species throughout the entire show even when they should've been beyond their reach.
The Vidiians, Krenim, Hirogen, and 8472 were just as good as any of the 2-D (Dominion) or 1-D (Breen) aliens we saw in DS9, better in some cases.
As for the Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians, of they were better developed, they had 2-3 series worth of screentime!
Yeah, but Moya was kind of darting around all over the place. Voyager was heading toward something.
Which I why I think the premise was flawed in some ways. Having them know where they were and how to get back to the Alpha Quadrant all along was a mistake. They should've not known, spend the series flying around for a few seasons, find a random plot device to send them home (another Caretaker, Q, a wormhole, or some super-FTL engine with enough power for one jump and a starmap) and then find some way of sending them back out there for a new mission from Starfleet.
Not a bad idea. I think it would have been something of a hard sell that 24th-Century Voyager didn't know which way was 'south', though. You don't think so?
