What continuity errors are there on Voyager?

[Tiberius]

What's wrong with "fanwank" theories to expl,ain these problems? if it's a plausible explanation, why njot accept it?

I mean, what about all those cop shows where you seem them driving around in cruisers every week, but you never see them fill up the tank? Is going to a pertrol station a fanwank explanation?

Sorry, but I just see the whole attitude of "If we don't see it, it didn't happen!" to be ridiculous.

 

[TheGodBen]

Sorry, but I just see the whole attitude of "If we don't see it, it didn't happen!" to be ridiculous.

I can't speak for everyone, but when I complain about the lack of damage on Voyager that's not what I'm talking about. 24th century Federation technology is great and it is capable of doing whatever the plot demands of it. Could Voyager use replicators and their seemingly limitless antimatter and dilithium supplies to repair the ship week after week? If that's what the plot said happened, then sure.

However, it is my belief that the plot shouldn't have said that. It is my belief that Voyager should have taken damage as the series progressed, and that the ship should have integrated more alien technology. Voyager should have been a real generational ship, one that they slowly adapted over time. We had a hint of that with the Borg alcoves in the cargo bay, and with the astrometrics lab, I think there should have been more things like that as the series progressed.

In my opinion, Voyager (the ship) never had more character than it did in Year of Hell. Having the ship grow and change during the journey would have been great. Sure, we can explain away how Voyager looked the same episode after episode, but I don't think the conditions should exist that we have to explain it.

 

[Luther Sloan]

What's wrong with "fanwank" theories to expl,ain these problems? if it's a plausible explanation, why njot accept it?

I mean, what about all those cop shows where you seem them driving around in cruisers every week, but you never see them fill up the tank? Is going to a pertrol station a fanwank explanation?

Sorry, but I just see the whole attitude of "If we don't see it, it didn't happen!" to be ridiculous.

Tiberious:

Indeed.

 

[DevilEyes]

I don't even know why Crell Moset & having Civil Rights are even in the same sentence as a inconsistancy issue. Since when does wanting equal rights make one oblivious to knowing that members of your "race" aren't criminal? Is Al Sharpton a member here? The EMH wanted equal rights but even in "Flesh & Blood" have became aware that the Bajorian hologram was suffering from megalomania and needed to be put down.

Could you be missing the point by a wider margin? What exactly did the Moset Hologram do to VOY? What crimes did he commit, apart from disagreeing with the Doctor on some ethical issues?

The Moset Hologram is not Crell Moset, shouldn't that be clear? Unless you're going to argue that the Doctor is the same person as Lewis Zimmerman. If, say, Zimmerman raped or killed someone on Earth or robbed a bank, should the Doctor be arrested for it? Actually, the Moset Hologram has even less to do with Crell Moset, since he was not created by Crell Moset, he was created by the Doctor.

There are also inconsistencies in the behavior and ethics of the VOY crew. Janeway's strange changes in decision making have already been noted (and even made the OP start a thread about her possibly being bipolar)... Don't get me started on Janeway's actions in the finale - why she now feels that it's OK to break the Temporal Prime Directive to get a better life for herself and few of her friends; and why does she choose that point of time to go back, rather than a previous one, when she could save some other people as well?

You`ve noticed that too?
Every time when I`m watching "Endgame" I`m wondering about that. It`s the perfect opposite of what Janeway said otherwise. That`s one of the reasons I don`t like "Endgame".It`s a implausible and unworthy ending.

Another issue (not in canon, but also annoying) is the fact that we never heard something about the former Equinoxcrew after beeing on Voyager.

I can see the issues but I love Voyager!

I'm surpised you didn't make the connection.
Years of staying in the Delta Q. turned Janeway into Ransom.

The longer she stayed lost there, the more she lost faith and she knew that. She didn't want to come home to Earth and die the hardened cynical person she became. She spent years saving strangers but couldn't save herself. Sisko would have ended up the same way if he didn't have the Prophets to guide him. It was Trek's way of giving Janeway post tramatic stress disorder, which should be natural for anyone in her position. Adm. Janeway = Vietnam Vet.
Just the psychological and physical abuse the crew recieved at the hands of the Hirogen alone in "The Killing Game" is bound to leave anybody mentally screwed up. How many other times before and after than has Janeway been kidnapped & tortured?

But she wasn't like that in season 7 of VOY, after she had endured all those things. So you have to wonder, what happened to her in the next 16 years in the Delta Quadrant, and the 10 years after the homecoming, to push her into that? She says she lost 23 crewmembers in the next 16 years - but we know that she already lost over 30 in the first 7 years we've actually seen! They made it seem like she only cared about losing Seven and about Chakotay being unhappy - and maybe also about Tuvok's condition - which makes her look rather selfish - as if only her close friends' lives matter. What about all the members of the crew they lost in the first 7 years? And just a few episodes earlier, she was affected by the loss of Lt. Carey, and saying that exploration does not justify the loss of even one life.

Well Janeway's morality and the continuity errors of the torpedoes and shuttles and hull damage are quite different things.

Janeway was at most a hypocrit. From "The Swarm" Tuvok tells her she's violating Starfleet regs by intruding on a hostile power against their wishes. She says, "Well we're gonna be doing a lotof that. Same thing when she enters Krenim space and almost gets them all killed.

The she comes along to Ransom andjudges him on his depserate measures. But then becomes Ransom but all is forgiven because she brings the croutons to the party after all the killing.

Janeway was a very reckless commander, justifying her means to get her crew home no matter what it took. But she tried to present herself as a reg-following pinnacle of Federation morality and not the headstrong James Kirk that she became.

They are not really such different things, if the writers never intended Janeway to seem like a hypocrite and a reckless commander. If it had been their intention, we could see it as an artistic choice, but since I believe it wasn't their intention, it is their failure if she seems so because of the inconsistent characterization and lack of continuity between the episodes. She was too often written to do things only because the plot of the episode required it.

 

[exodus]

I don't even know why Crell Moset & having Civil Rights are even in the same sentence as a inconsistancy issue. Since when does wanting equal rights make one oblivious to knowing that members of your "race" aren't criminal? Is Al Sharpton a member here? The EMH wanted equal rights but even in "Flesh & Blood" have became aware that the Bajorian hologram was suffering from megalomania and needed to be put down.

Could you be missing the point by a wider margin? What exactly did the Moset Hologram do to VOY? What crimes did he commit, apart from disagreeing with the Doctor on some ethical issues?

The Moset Hologram is not Crell Moset, shouldn't that be clear? Unless you're going to argue that the Doctor is the same person as Lewis Zimmerman. If, say, Zimmerman raped or killed someone on Earth or robbed a bank, should the Doctor be arrested for it? Actually, the Moset Hologram has even less to do with Crell Moset, since he was not created by Crell Moset, he was created by the Doctor.

Yeah, I can see why you don't get it.
That example isn't even close to what the controversy in the ep. was about.

The EMH wouldn't be on trial for rape crime Dr. Zimmerman commited because that wouldn't be important information to download into a medical program. The EMH only contains his personality & medical text. It doesn't contain his memories or his aspirations.

The medical info contained in the Crell Mosset hologram was achieved thru the murder of innocent people. All his rescearch and the cures he obtained from them was done immorally. It doesn't matter if it's the real Crell Mosset or not, his rescearch was gained through mass genocide. The Crell Mosset hologram is an embodiment of that medical rescearch.

Have you never heard of this topic before & how it relates to modern medicine?
It dates back to things the Nazi's did during WWII.

As far as Janeway: Seven was to Janeway what Newt was to Ripley.
Seven was Janeway's serrogate daughter.

If Seven during season 4 is mentally only a little girl, then Janeway taking the time to raise her, takes the role of her mother. That's what Janeway is doing, raising her.
Seven tells Janeway in "Imperfection": If I die now, you will never get over my death."
Seven was spot on, no matter what reason was given.

She lost Mark
If she lost Chakotay & Tuvok too, what was she really coming home too?
She got everyone home to their families, only to loose her own.

What parent, serrogate or not ever fully recovers from the loss of a child?
Why would any Janeway fan want her to end the series living that way?
Why wouldn't they want Janeway at the end of the journey getting some great reward?

Whether the ending was open ended or not, Janeway got a happy ending because she has her full family now too.

 

[DevilEyes]

I don't even know why Crell Moset & having Civil Rights are even in the same sentence as a inconsistancy issue. Since when does wanting equal rights make one oblivious to knowing that members of your "race" aren't criminal? Is Al Sharpton a member here? The EMH wanted equal rights but even in "Flesh & Blood" have became aware that the Bajorian hologram was suffering from megalomania and needed to be put down.

Could you be missing the point by a wider margin? What exactly did the Moset Hologram do to VOY? What crimes did he commit, apart from disagreeing with the Doctor on some ethical issues?

The Moset Hologram is not Crell Moset, shouldn't that be clear? Unless you're going to argue that the Doctor is the same person as Lewis Zimmerman. If, say, Zimmerman raped or killed someone on Earth or robbed a bank, should the Doctor be arrested for it? Actually, the Moset Hologram has even less to do with Crell Moset, since he was not created by Crell Moset, he was created by the Doctor.

Yeah, I can see why you don't get it.
That example isn't even close to what the controversy in the ep. was about.

The EMH wouldn't be on trial for rape crime Dr. Zimmerman commited because that wouldn't be important information to download into a medical program. The EMH only contains his personality & medical text. It doesn't contain his memories or his aspirations.

The medical info contained in the Crell Mosset hologram was achieved thru the murder of innocent people. All his rescearch and the cures he obtained from them was done immorally. It doesn't matter if it's the real Crell Mosset or not, his rescearch was gained through mass genocide. The Crell Mosset hologram is an embodiment of that medical rescearch.

Sorry... but you're the one who doesn't get it.

I have no doubt that the writers intended the Moset hologram to be "the embodiment of that medical research". But this simply doesn't make any sense. First off, for him to be such an embodiment, he would have to be programmed by Crell Moset, or programmed on the basis of the info about Crell Moset's experiments. Let's remind ourselves again: the Moset hologram was programmed by the Doctor, based on the data from the Starfleet database about Moset, which didn't contain any info about his experiments. The Doctor must have liked what he saw there, or else he wouldn't have chosen to program his assistant on the basis of those data. So, if the Doctor disliked anything that the Moset hologram said, he only had himself to blame. The hologram was his creation.

Furthermore, the hologram can be treated as embodiment of the data that the Doctor might decide to delete, rather than a sentient being whose deletion would constitute murder, only if we presume that the Moset hologram was non-sentient. But if he was non-sentient, his arguments with the Doctor don't make sense, unless the Doctor knew about Moset's (un)ethical views and attitudes from the start, and programmed the hologram to mimic them. Which, of course, doesn't make any sense.

Instead, everyone in the episode treats the Moset hologram as if he was Moset himself, and the episode makes it seem like the Moset hologram somehow magically obtained Moset's personality and beliefs - as if it is Moset's spirit come to life, or something! Which, again, makes no sense at all.

To sum up - there is a gaping logical hole at the heart of the episode. The Moset hologram is either sentient, or non-sentient - and the writer of this episode seems to have been very confused about it, since it's never made clear what he was supposed to be...

Option 1: the Moset hologram was non-sentient. In that case, any unethical views he expressed were solely the responsibility of his creator - the Doctor. So, if he expressed ideas that the Doctor didn't like, this can only mean that the Doctor programmed him badly... And he could have fixed it in a very simple way: by changing the program's ethical subroutines. (He also could have easily solved the problem of B'Elanna's refusal to be treated by a Cardassian-looking hologram: "Computer, change parameters to: Appearance: Human".)

Option 2: the Moset hologram was sentient, and he somehow obtained Moset's personality and views (now how this happened, we have no idea ). Which means that the Doctor basically murdered another hologram because he pissed him off.

Moral of the story: when you write a Trek episode, it's not enough to be preachy, the story has to make some sense as well. Jeri Taylor was too preoccupied with a straightforward message ("kids, remember, say no to medical data obtained through inhumane experimentation") to pay attention to logic.

Have you never heard of this topic before & how it relates to modern medicine?
It dates back to things the Nazi's did during WWII.

:facepalm: No, I haven't. Who are those Nazis and what's that WWII you're talking about?

Of course I know what they were TRYING to discuss, but they did it in an incredibly clumsy way that made the crew, if not the writer, look like hypocrites. Let me state this once again: THEY ARE USING BORG TECHNOLOGY ALL THE TIME!

And then there's also the uncomfortable fact that the writer of the episode either was unaware of, or choose to ignore - in real life, medical experiments were conducted on humans (often mental patients or mentally retarded people) in many countries- and I'm sorry if it is taking anyone out of their comfort zone, but Nazism was far from the only regime in which this happened! It was still happening in USA, UK, Sweden... well into the mid-20th century and even after WW2. Such experimentation is considered unacceptable nowadays - however, great men of medical science from previous centuries, from Avicenna to Louis Pasteur, used human test subjects, and we aren't rejecting those results, are we? This could have been mentioned at the end of "Nothing Human" - but instead, the writer makes the Moset hologram talk about humans experimenting on lower animals, as an example of human hypocrisy? What a cop out. Why not make the Moset hologram mention the fact that human medicine has also been based on experiments on the members of Homo Sapiens species?

As far as Janeway: Seven was to Janeway what Newt was to Ripley.
Seven was Janeway's serrogate daughter.

If Seven during season 4 is mentally only a little girl, then Janeway taking the time to raise her, takes the role of her mother. That's what Janeway is doing, raising her.
Seven tells Janeway in "Imperfection": If I die now, you will never get over my death."
Seven was spot on, no matter what reason was given.

She lost Mark
If she lost Chakotay & Tuvok too, what was she really coming home too?
She got everyone home to their families, only to loose her own.

What parent, serrogate or not ever fully recovers from the loss of a child?
Why would any Janeway fan want her to end the series living that way?
Why wouldn't they want Janeway at the end of the journey getting some great reward?

Whether the ending was open ended or not, Janeway got a happy ending because she has her full family now too.

So you agree with what I've said: according to Endgame, Janeway didn't care really about her crew, or the galaxy, or the Temporal Prime Directive, or Starfleet ideals, she only cared about a few of her close friends.

 

[Anwar]

I'd think she'd have done enough research beforehand to conclude that her time-travel plan wouldn't negatively affect Fed history or the remaining crew more than it would positively affect them.

It's probably why she didn't pick an earlier time to bring them home: Up til that point all the stuff they did was too important to the timeline, while afterwards it wasn't.

 

[mythme]

Here are a few:

In "Fury" (which is a mess in itself), Tuvok celebrates a birthday and Janeway says he will be entering triple digits soon. However, in several prior episodes ("Flashback" being one) it is well established that Tuvok should be 112 years old by the time of "Fury" (6th season)

In "Drive" B'Elanna says that Tom was expelled from the Academy. It was previously established that Tom served on the Exeter shortly after graduation and was booted from Starfleet shortly thereafter.

When Lindsay Ballard returned to Voyager in "Ashes to Ashes" she did not know that Tuvok had been promoted to Lt. Commander. However, his promotion occurred nearly a year before her death (in "Revulsion").

Janeway, Kim and Sam Wildman all said they enjoyed the Flotter holodeck series as children. Yet "Encounter at Farpoint" makes it pretty clear that such holo-technology was not yet perfected at that time.

Chakotay was previously noted as being a vegetarian. However in later series Janeway invites him to a roast dinner and Seven's holographic Chakotay also eats meat.

In "Life Line" it was noted that Dr. Zimmerman had not left Jupiter Station in over 4 years. Voyager's writers obviously forgot his appearance in DS9's "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" 2 years earlier.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Here are a few:
In "Fury" (which is a mess in itself), Tuvok celebrates a birthday and Janeway says he will be entering triple digits soon. However, in several prior episodes ("Flashback" being one) it is well established that Tuvok should be 112 years old by the time of "Fury" (6th season)

Mythme:

Here is some fanon on the following issues (if your interested)...

1. Kes somehow uses the warp core to travel back in time to 2371, shortly after Voyager had become trapped in the Delta Quadrant. So due to her travel through time it is quite possible that she created a separate diverging alternate time line or she simply traveled to a pre-existing altered time line (where things are almost identical but different).

In "Drive" B'Elanna says that Tom was expelled from the Academy. It was previously established that Tom served on the Exeter shortly after graduation and was booted from Starfleet shortly thereafter.

2. It's possible that he got kicked out twice from the Academy. Maybe the first time he got booted out he was given another chance because his father is an Admiral.

When Lindsay Ballard returned to Voyager in "Ashes to Ashes" she did not know that Tuvok had been promoted to Lt. Commander. However, his promotion occurred nearly a year before her death (in "Revulsion").

3. It's quite possible that she had some type of memory loss because of what she went through.

Janeway, Kim and Sam Wildman all said they enjoyed the Flotter holodeck series as children. Yet "Encounter at Farpoint" makes it pretty clear that such holo-technology was not yet perfected at that time.

4. That doesn't mean that an earlier form of Holo-technology didn't exist at that point in time.

Chakotay was previously noted as being a vegetarian. However in later series Janeway invites him to a roast dinner and Seven's holographic Chakotay also eats meat.

5. Perhaps he was a vegetarian by choice for healthy reasons at the beginning of the series. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't like the taste of animal flesh, though. Perhaps there was a time where the crew was forced to eat meat on a certain mission and he realized that his old ways or good habits wouldn't work anymore being trapped in the Delta Quadrant.

In "Life Line" it was noted that Dr. Zimmerman had not left Jupiter Station in over 4 years. Voyager's writers obviously forgot his appearance in DS9's "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" 2 years earlier.

6. I think it was a Hologram that said that. If so, it's Holo-matrix could have had a minor glitch in one of it's sub routines or something. Or it is quite possible that Dr. Zimmerman fooled the individual in question with a Holo-version of himself while he was away on DS9.

 

[Cyke101]

What's wrong with "fanwank" theories to expl,ain these problems? if it's a plausible explanation, why njot accept it?

I mean, what about all those cop shows where you seem them driving around in cruisers every week, but you never see them fill up the tank? Is going to a pertrol station a fanwank explanation?

Sorry, but I just see the whole attitude of "If we don't see it, it didn't happen!" to be ridiculous.

Part of it goes both ways, however. Sometimes overindulging takes away from what we already have to the point where it becomes nothing more than glorified fanfic, thereby removing what the original writers intended and already stated (and thus being a canon violation... going back to what this thread is about!).

For example, the premise of the show was to have an advanced Starfleet crew go to the limits both of its tech and their ideals in the truest of frontiers -- yet if we keep extrapolating that Voyager is nigh invulnerable and somehow has a perpetual motion generator onboard, it defeats the creators' intents for the show. Essentially, the limits that the writers and producers give to their characters and technology are the limits that they ask us to accept. If we don't accept what they tell us and we come up with something out of dissatisfaction, it's not really their work anymore. You rob them of that.

Besides, it's a pandora's box. If we accept things like magical torpedoes and shuttlecraft despite the show clearly saying those two things aren't supposed to exist, then according to the same logical formula there's nothing to stop the next person from saying that Voyager was trashing dozens of Borg Cubes left and right in-between episodes either -- even though we have no evidence or dialogue of that whatsoever (even on screen, save for Endgame). Clearly that's not the writers' intent, and it's about reconciling their intent (say, Janeway naturally trying to avoid the Borg as much as possible) with the limits they ask us to accept (no way a single Starfleet ship could destroy a Cube unassisted).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof

By default, using examples from the show as evidence carries a lot more weight than speculation, supposition, and piecemeal guesswork, especially when something sturdy like video, script, backstage info, writers' notes, etc contradicts the speculation. That's another reason why "If we don't see/hear it, it didn't happen!" holds up so well here. (also, replace "fairies" in that chart with "magical torpedoes" and you'll probably get an idea of where this is going)

 

[Udat]

Everybody forgot that Delta Flyer was too big to fit in the shuttle bay!

 

[Tiberius]

In "Fury" (which is a mess in itself), Tuvok celebrates a birthday and Janeway says he will be entering triple digits soon. However, in several prior episodes ("Flashback" being one) it is well established that Tuvok should be 112 years old by the time of "Fury" (6th season)

Could be Janeway just joking around.

In "Drive" B'Elanna says that Tom was expelled from the Academy. It was previously established that Tom served on the Exeter shortly after graduation and was booted from Starfleet shortly thereafter.

Tom could have been on his field studies as a cadet. Nog did it on DS9.

When Lindsay Ballard returned to Voyager in "Ashes to Ashes" she did not know that Tuvok had been promoted to Lt. Commander. However, his promotion occurred nearly a year before her death (in "Revulsion").

We have no way of knowing what effects the reanimation process would have on a person's memories.

Janeway, Kim and Sam Wildman all said they enjoyed the Flotter holodeck series as children. Yet "Encounter at Farpoint" makes it pretty clear that such holo-technology was not yet perfected at that time.

Holodecks were explained for the first few episodes they appoeared in for the audience, but I don't recall there ever being a line that says, "Oh, hey, they've got some of those new-fangled hjolodecks on board!"

Chakotay was previously noted as being a vegetarian. However in later series Janeway invites him to a roast dinner and Seven's holographic Chakotay also eats meat.

So? people can change.

In "Life Line" it was noted that Dr. Zimmerman had not left Jupiter Station in over 4 years. Voyager's writers obviously forgot his appearance in DS9's "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" 2 years earlier.

They could be talking about getting off the station as a holiday. Since he went to DS9 as part of the LMH project, it wouldn't count as a holiday.

Cyke, I'm not suggesting that we invoke magical torpedoes or anything. I'm suggesting that we imagine that reasonable explanations might exist, even though we don't see them in the episodes.

I mean, if we had an episode where we saw a construction team in the shuttle bay building a new shuttle to replace the one they lost in the previous episode, would you have a problem with it? Or if Torres said, "Captain, I have a team working on building more torpedoes. We'll be up to 30 by the end of the week." Is there anything implausible with that? Not at all.

By the way, how many shuttles did the Enterprise lose? How do you think they came up with new shuttles every second week? You think a Galaxy class ships has unlimited space? Are you going to suggest that the Enterprise picked up replacement shuttles when she had a stop at a starbase? Ah, but we never saw that, did we? Now, it might be a valid and reasonable conclusion, and I'll agree that it probably did happen. But you can't say that one reasonable explanation that was never seen is okay, while another reasonable explanation is not okay.

 

[exodus]

Here are a few:

In "Fury" (which is a mess in itself), Tuvok celebrates a birthday and Janeway says he will be entering triple digits soon. However, in several prior episodes ("Flashback" being one) it is well established that Tuvok should be 112 years old by the time of "Fury" (6th season)

This ones actually easy.

Janeway did say it took "Exhaustive research" to figure out his age. If it takes that much work to find out her best friends age after all these years, it's stands to reason she is off on her calculations. Tuvok being a modest Vulcan, as most are. Wouldn't correct her either.

 

[exodus]

Could you be missing the point by a wider margin? What exactly did the Moset Hologram do to VOY? What crimes did he commit, apart from disagreeing with the Doctor on some ethical issues?

The Moset Hologram is not Crell Moset, shouldn't that be clear? Unless you're going to argue that the Doctor is the same person as Lewis Zimmerman. If, say, Zimmerman raped or killed someone on Earth or robbed a bank, should the Doctor be arrested for it? Actually, the Moset Hologram has even less to do with Crell Moset, since he was not created by Crell Moset, he was created by the Doctor.

Yeah, I can see why you don't get it.
That example isn't even close to what the controversy in the ep. was about.

The EMH wouldn't be on trial for rape crime Dr. Zimmerman commited because that wouldn't be important information to download into a medical program. The EMH only contains his personality & medical text. It doesn't contain his memories or his aspirations.

The medical info contained in the Crell Mosset hologram was achieved thru the murder of innocent people. All his rescearch and the cures he obtained from them was done immorally. It doesn't matter if it's the real Crell Mosset or not, his rescearch was gained through mass genocide. The Crell Mosset hologram is an embodiment of that medical rescearch.

Sorry... but you're the one who doesn't get it.

I have no doubt that the writers intended the Moset hologram to be "the embodiment of that medical research". But this simply doesn't make any sense. First off, for him to be such an embodiment, he would have to be programmed by Crell Moset, or programmed on the basis of the info about Crell Moset's experiments. Let's remind ourselves again: the Moset hologram was programmed by the Doctor, based on the data from the Starfleet database about Moset, which didn't contain any info about his experiments. The Doctor must have liked what he saw there, or else he wouldn't have chosen to program his assistant on the basis of those data. So, if the Doctor disliked anything that the Moset hologram said, he only had himself to blame. The hologram was his creation.

Furthermore, the hologram can be treated as embodiment of the data that the Doctor might decide to delete, rather than a sentient being whose deletion would constitute murder, only if we presume that the Moset hologram was non-sentient. But if he was non-sentient, his arguments with the Doctor don't make sense, unless the Doctor knew about Moset's (un)ethical views and attitudes from the start, and programmed the hologram to mimic them. Which, of course, doesn't make any sense.

Instead, everyone in the episode treats the Moset hologram as if he was Moset himself, and the episode makes it seem like the Moset hologram somehow magically obtained Moset's personality and beliefs - as if it is Moset's spirit come to life, or something! Which, again, makes no sense at all.

It does to those who have been victims of those injustices and their decendants.

Try walking through a Black neighborhood holding a photo of Little Black Sambo. It isn't going to matter if your actually racist or not. If people in the community see you, their going to treat you as a hostile. Doesn't matter if it was the real Crell or not, it looked like him and that was enough.

Even though the hologram was programmed by the Doc., Crell was still using questionably ethical tactics.
His solution was kill or torture the creature to save Be'Lanna.
A creature who they both knew did intentionally mean her harm, it was only doing what it's instincts tell it to do. Then tried to justify his inhuman actions.

Are the Voyager crew hypocritical in using Borg technology, sure but so are we as a people.
The topic of using cures created by these Nazi experiments have been a controversey in the medical community for decades, yet we still use those cures & research to add billions world wide everyday.
Showing that sometimes something good can come from evil.

The Doc. is property of Starfleet, therefore not sentient.
Even under Federation law, sentient beings can not be owned.
That would be slavery.
That is why the end of both "Measure of Man " & "Author, Author" end inconclusive as to what Data & the Doc. are in that aspect.

 

[John200]

It's easier to erase Voyager from continuity.

 

[exodus]

It's easier to erase Voyager from continuity.

Computer, delete the John200 hologram.

 

[John200]

Computer, delete the John200 hologram.

Hey wait a........

 

[exodus]

Now my job here is done.

 

[Cyke101]

Cyke, I'm not suggesting that we invoke magical torpedoes or anything. I'm suggesting that we imagine that reasonable explanations might exist, even though we don't see them in the episodes.

Sure, but like in the link I provided, the danger isn't the explanations (of course they exist), but to what limits do we go from there, and when do we make them canon? Technically, you saying one thing gives free reign for anyone else to add in anything anyone pleases.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to theorize and divulge and speculate, but it's also important that they're just that: suppositions and nothing more. At the end of the day, any proof or evidence I could come up with to justify my thoughts are ultimately trumped by whatever's on screen.

I mean, if we had an episode where we saw a construction team in the shuttle bay building a new shuttle to replace the one they lost in the previous episode, would you have a problem with it? Or if Torres said, "Captain, I have a team working on building more torpedoes. We'll be up to 30 by the end of the week." Is there anything implausible with that? Not at all.

Because then such a scene is canon, it establishes the limits the writers put down and as a side effect, it reduces guesswork and supposition. Hypothetically, there's probably a valid plot point there, too, say, the draining of resources. And if that's the case in this scenario, it sticks true to Voyager's premise of having to struggle out there in deep space.

By the way, how many shuttles did the Enterprise lose? How do you think they came up with new shuttles every second week? You think a Galaxy class ships has unlimited space? Are you going to suggest that the Enterprise picked up replacement shuttles when she had a stop at a starbase? Ah, but we never saw that, did we? Now, it might be a valid and reasonable conclusion, and I'll agree that it probably did happen.

The thing is, we HAVE seen this sort of thing happen; for example, DS9's original batch of runabouts were delivered from a starbase by the Enterprise. That's a fact. We've seen DS9 receive shipping runs, we've seen the E-D stop by at starbases. Whereas we've never seen the Voyager crew duplicate torpedoes or really explain where they can get more materials (the Trek Tech forum has several threads about the limits of replication technology). Which leads me to your next point...

But you can't say that one reasonable explanation that was never seen is okay, while another reasonable explanation is not okay.

I can't say that one unseen explanation is better than the other, because I'm saying they're even: in that they're BOTH inappropriate and inconsistent. Besides, I'm not the one postulating theories between episodes to explain the E-D's shuttles or cop cars with no gas -- that's all you. Accepting is one thing, explaining is another, and some things are understood as part of that acceptance: the existence of Starfleet or the city gov't maintaining those cop cars. Even explaining the gas issue would be logically inconsistent; that's why when running proofs, you're allowed to have a Given set of parameters. The writers gave us their Given set time and again: the plot, the setting, the premise of the show. As much as I would want things a certain way, it's still wishful thinking and goes against the show, no matter how good my intentions are. Treating theory as fact, and then expecting everyone to follow that assertion, is never logical no matter how hard one tries to shoehorn it in.

I love www.ditl.org for exactly that reason. It's a great Trek resource site, but the text is color-coded to make sure that the reader knows the difference between actual facts that Trek's given us, and his own theories, both of which are in pretty much every article he writes. The author doesn't try to pass his stuff as Trek's own stuff. He takes great pains to make sure that the facts he presents can be backed up, and that his theories can be used but aren't canon. Besides, above all else, the site is just plain fun.

Finally, sometimes the simplest explanation is the best: the writers simply messed up. As long as that doesn't remove your enjoyability of the show, then there's no problem. No show has airtight continuity, and not everything has to be explained away; if anything, that just indulges and magnifies the errors. The Vorta in DS9 were telekinetic for all of one lone episode, Voyager had a torpedo limit, and TNG was really inconsistent with the holodeck. So what?

 

[exodus]

The thing is, we HAVE seen this sort of thing happen; for example, DS9's original batch of runabouts were delivered from a starbase by the Enterprise. That's a fact. We've seen DS9 receive shipping runs, we've seen the E-D stop by at starbases. Whereas we've never seen the Voyager crew duplicate torpedoes or really explain where they can get more materials (the Trek Tech forum has several threads about the limits of replication technology).

From my understanding, they kinda did.

"Dark Frontier"

Neelix asks Janeway if they break down the debris of the Borg ship they destroyed to prove materials for Voyager.

Besides, if replicators are recycling machines, how much extra material would you really need? All you're doing is taking an object, breaking it down to a molecular level & reforming it. You can take apart a sofa in someones cabin to make material for a torpedo, if you had to.

Janeway in "Year of Hell" to Chakotay: "That watch could be a hot meal or a pair of boots.."

Back during when they were in Kazon space:
Chakotay: "Why not just give them the replicator technology. It can provide them with food."

Janeway: "..it can also be used to make weapons."

They were already telling you how stuff was made and where it came from. Why wouldn't a military vesel not have the schematics to build any weapon including torpedo's it needed?

They didn't bother to show it because they assumed we've been watching Trek since TNG. We should know all this stuff already.