Was the Delta Quadrant Just Boring Compared to the Alpha Quadrant?

[Anwar]

Crichton didn't know where he was, no one complained.

Or just explain that there are various areas of the Galaxy that Starfleet couldn't map out because of natural phenomena, and VOY happens to be in one. They can't tell which one, and there are hundreds of these regions throughout the Galaxy so they don't know which one they're near so they STILL don't know where they are relative to the AQ.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Crichton didn't know where he was, no one complained.

Farscape One is about a hundredth as advanced as the USS Voyager, though.

Or just explain that there are various areas of the Galaxy that Starfleet couldn't map out because of natural phenomena, and VOY happens to be in one. They can't tell which one, and there are hundreds of these regions throughout the Galaxy so they don't know which one they're near so they STILL don't know where they are relative to the AQ.

Yeah, this I'm cool with.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Farscape One is about a hundredth as advanced as the USS Voyager, though.

And Crichton was the only character who had ever heard of Earth.

 

[Anwar]

But he was still an astrophysicist. If he ever got his hands on a starmap (which he had ample opportunity) he should have been able to figure it out. I mean Scorpius did.

I just think having them know where they were all along really limited the show.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

But he was still an astrophysicist. If he ever got his hands on a starmap (which he had ample opportunity) he should have been able to figure it out.

Really? I always thought that astrophysicists focused on very narrow parts of the galaxy. Do you mean that the average astrophysicist has commited to memory the precise position of every star in the galaxy, to such an extent that he would be able to find his way around by using a blank map?

 

[Finn]

^Not just one map. With a bunch of maps, yeah.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

^Not just one map. With a bunch of maps, yeah.

Fractioning the information makes it easier to use?

 

[Harvey]

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!

I found the Dominion to be properly developed. By the end of DS9, they were pretty complex (although I mourn the loss of races besides the Founders, Jem'Hadar, and Vorta). Agreed on the Breen, though. They're a rip-off of a Star Wars design that went without much development at all. In the Final Chapter they were barely more than a plot device (it's not surprising that what the Breen characters said was never important enough for the audience to understand).

As for the screentime comment, that's exactly what I've been saying! Develop mini-arcs that would allow for greater story development and better production values by spreading the costs associated with introducing a new race over multiple episodes. When Voyager did that (news flash--that's what they did in all the examples you list) the aliens were more interesting and better designed. Sure, the Kazon ended up being duds, but at least they weren't humans with bumps (or less) on their foreheads.

 

[Anwar]

But putting all these aliens together in one region of space they all live in at the same time makes it even MORE interesting than mini-arcs of VOY going through each ones' space. Farscape had the Peacekeepers AND the Scarrans existing together and how they reacted to one another, which is better than the Moya crew just running into the Peacekeepers and Scarrans separately.

 

[Harvey]

It is interesting, but how is it different than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? I love that series, but I wouldn't want to watch a spin-off that did essentially the same thing while both were airing. Star Trek: Voyager was right to go in a different direction. They just messed up the execution.

 

[Anwar]

DS9 was stationary and had the entire Federation to play with. Here it's more like "the good guys start off with one ship and one ship alone, caught between all these alien Empires."

So it's not like DS9 since they don't have Fed backup and best they can hope for is try and build an alliance on their own with whoever is willing. Until they can find a way home, that is.

 

[Harvey]

Sounds more like "Babylon 5" when you describe it that way, with a hint of "Farscape." I still think the "lost in space" angle was worth exploring.

 

[Anwar]

I did a 6-season rewrite (I'm on my 3rd draft now), I basically made it what someone described as the "Anti-DS9". It's about the VOY crew helping build a new Federation out of whoever was willing in the area of space they got sent to (I changed it so it's not the Delta Quadrant), and it shows how the Federation can be a good force for overcoming problems and strife instead of a bureaucratic mess that is easily corrupted.

 

[Harvey]

Sounds interesting. Have the other drafts made their way online, or are you still fine-tuning.

Not that I have time until the end of the quarter to read anything substantial, but I can dream.

 

[Anwar]

The last draft I did is here under "My Take on Voyager", just put in the search word "Fluidics" and you'll find it. The newest version is much heavily revised to the others though so I can e-mail you it if you'd like.

 

[Harvey]

Sure, I'm interested. Send me a PM.

 

[exodus]

The Kazon were terrible, but Voyager had some great aliens too.

The circumstances didn't lend themselves to a lot of recurring races. Since Voyager was apparently going at a steady pace to get home, they couldn't spend as long developing alien races. The fact we got 2 years of the Kazon was a bit implausible, given how much ground Voyager would have covered. It didn't help that they were one of the worst Trek enemies of all time either.

Aside from the Kazon though, I disagree that the races were dull. And the fact they weren't as well developed was just a matter of the fact Voyager was not hanging around in the same general area like the other shows. Many of the more prominent enemies of Voyager only got a few episodes (aside from the Kazon). To compare any of the enemies of Voyager to a race such as the Klingons, whose history has been sorted out over the past 40 years, is a bit unfair.

That said, how many races could compare to the Klingons anyway? They're just badass.

What civilizations were interesting in the Delta Quadrant, besides the Borg?

Here's the problem though, the show ruined any sort of tension early on by dropping the Maquis/Federation tensions and undermining any drama from the crew having to survive in the middle of nowhere when they still had power for the Holodeck and could go on silly adventures whenever they wanted too. So really having underdeveloped alien civilizations who usually provided no tension didn't help with the lack drama.

There were too many aliens who seemed to wanted to take over the ship, for no explained reason. Like aliens from Waking Moments. They are all asleep and entering people's dreams, why do they need Voyager?

The Vidiians? A civilzation being destroyed by leprosy.
The Hirogen? A race with no civilzation due to their culture.
Brunalli? A race dying out due to the Borg, so they use their children as weapons against them.

What does the Starfleet/Maquis conflict have to do with the aliens & the Delta Quaderant? The S/M conflict has nothing to do with the structure or issues of the DQ.

What part of most advance technological ship in that part of space didn't sink in after 7 years of them repeatedly saying it?

The Krenim were also a good enemy.

Not really - they were a plot device that allowed the writers to shake up Voyager like they should have been doing through the entire series, but contain it to 2 episodes. Pretty weak stuff. I'm never a fan of anything where the reset button is pushed so massively as in this episode.

I've actually never understood why the reset button..... well, pushes people's buttons. I think in this case it was a good way to explore stuff that they clearly couldn't do within the confines of continuity, such as actual BATTLE DAMAGE, as well as one of the best Voyager scenes - ramming Voyager into the timeship. I understand that it ultimately means nothing matters, and people see it as a cop out to kill people, but I personally see that as the appeal. I get excited when I realize that they're free to do whatever they want.

As for the Krenim themselves, since we only really dealt with one vessel, when I say Krenim I basically refer to Annorax. He was a guy who made a huge mistake, and has suffered for hundreds of years trying to correct it, motivated by the loss of his wife, and his homeworld. And his crew were a bunch of people growing more disillusioned with his obsessive need to restore one particular planet, rather than just drones.
For an enemy that basically only covered a double episode, I maintain that the Krenim were a good enemy, thanks to a great double episode.

I think thr reset button in "YOH" makes perfect sense.
The ep. is all about time and the chaos theory. Destroying his own ship to reset time was the only aspect of that theory Annorax refused to consider. It's all relevant.

 

[Saul]

I liked the Krenim, Hirogen, 8472, Vaadwaur and the Swarm. But none of them were really developed. They relied too much on the Borg.

 

[The Overlord]

The Kazon were terrible, but Voyager had some great aliens too.

The circumstances didn't lend themselves to a lot of recurring races. Since Voyager was apparently going at a steady pace to get home, they couldn't spend as long developing alien races. The fact we got 2 years of the Kazon was a bit implausible, given how much ground Voyager would have covered. It didn't help that they were one of the worst Trek enemies of all time either.

Aside from the Kazon though, I disagree that the races were dull. And the fact they weren't as well developed was just a matter of the fact Voyager was not hanging around in the same general area like the other shows. Many of the more prominent enemies of Voyager only got a few episodes (aside from the Kazon). To compare any of the enemies of Voyager to a race such as the Klingons, whose history has been sorted out over the past 40 years, is a bit unfair.

That said, how many races could compare to the Klingons anyway? They're just badass.

What civilizations were interesting in the Delta Quadrant, besides the Borg?

Here's the problem though, the show ruined any sort of tension early on by dropping the Maquis/Federation tensions and undermining any drama from the crew having to survive in the middle of nowhere when they still had power for the Holodeck and could go on silly adventures whenever they wanted too. So really having underdeveloped alien civilizations who usually provided no tension didn't help with the lack drama.

There were too many aliens who seemed to wanted to take over the ship, for no explained reason. Like aliens from Waking Moments. They are all asleep and entering people's dreams, why do they need Voyager?

The Vidiians? A civilzation being destroyed by leprosy.
The Hirogen? A race with no civilzation due to their culture.
Brunalli? A race dying out due to the Borg, so they use their children as weapons against them.

What does the Starfleet/Maquis conflict have to do with the aliens & the Delta Quaderant? The S/M conflict has nothing to do with the structure or issues of the DQ.

What part of most advance technological ship in that part of space didn't sink in after 7 years of them repeatedly saying it?


.

The dream Aliens were asleep and invading people's dreams, why would they need Voyager's technology? They aren't even awake to use it, so the arguemnt that they wanted Voyager's tech doesn't even work with them and all the villains are going to be lame if they have the exact same motive for attacking Voyager.

I did not think the Hirogen very interesting at all, they seemed completely one dimensional being obsessed with "the hunt" and came off as stupid, considering they they let their society stagnant because of "the Hunt". That's not tragic, that's just stupid, I'm not sure why I supposed to feel sorry for people who ruin their own lives because they are being idiots. Most of the alien species mentioned are not very interesting.

And you completely my point about the Maquis/Federation, people have pointed out that since Voyager is constantly on the move, means that most of the drama has to come from character interactions, so dropping the Federation/Maquis conflict and having dull characters like Harry kim present, means there is almost no drama there either. Almost no drama from alien civilizations, almost no drama from the crew, where is the drama in this dramatic series supposed come from?

 

[Anwar]

I did not think the Hirogen very interesting at all, they seemed completely one dimensional being obsessed with "the hunt" and came off as stupid, considering they they let their society stagnant because of "the Hunt". That's not tragic, that's just stupid, I'm not sure why I supposed to feel sorry for people who ruin their own lives because they are being idiots. Most of the alien species mentioned are not very interesting.

I think the Dominion weren't interesting at all either, and the only reason they came off as interesting at all to anyone else was because of their connection to Odo and all the havoc they raised within the Alpha Quadrant. Why am I supposed to feel for a bunch of liquid creatures who decided to conquer the rest of the Galaxy just because some folks were mean to them?

And you completely my point about the Maquis/Federation, people have pointed out that since Voyager is constantly on the move, means that most of the drama has to come from character interactions, so dropping the Federation/Maquis conflict and having dull characters like Harry kim present, means there is almost no drama there either.

Which is why I think the premise was flawed and needed work, since being constantly on the move robbed the show of a lot of its potential.

And if they DID want it to be a totally internally focused show the Maquis were the wrong choice as well, another bit of flawed premise.