I like this concept overall but not for Star Trek. If this was a different sci fi show i would watch it
What if Voyager Was a larger ship
- Thread starter Rayleo02
- Start date
The problem wasn't so much they gave a specific number, but rather they added that the torpedoes were "irreplaceable" which sounds ludicrous in hindsight. They can replicate new shuttles, but not torpedoes?
I must admit, I assumed that "no way to replace them" refered a temporary lack of resource due to equipment damage, personnel or similar, which was resolved at some point later on.
At least one count suggests that they didn't "run out" of torpedoes until they were working with the Borg in Scorpion and given that they specifically worked on Borg torpedo tech on-board Voyager at that time, it isn't much of a stretch to suggest that the equipment to make/modify Borg Bio-Molecular Torpedoes could also be used to make Starfleet photon torpedoes.
At least one count suggests that they didn't "run out" of torpedoes until they were working with the Borg in Scorpion and given that they specifically worked on Borg torpedo tech on-board Voyager at that time, it isn't much of a stretch to suggest that the equipment to make/modify Borg Bio-Molecular Torpedoes could also be used to make Starfleet photon torpedoes.
With the characters made up from crews the Caretaker abducted, to inject some proper conflict and drama into the show.
It’s the premise of Stargate Universe. I never got into any of the other Stargate series, but SGU I quite liked.
Voyager being Galaxy or Sovereign Class would have made the near infinite resources easier to swallow. Larger ships would have the fabrication equipment, labs, equipment stores, etc... That could be used to fabricate or replicate shuttles, Delta Fliers, torpedoes, hydroponic bays, energy for holodecks, etc
Saying "no way to replace" should have meant "no way to replace c and not" we will be able to replace them once our systems are fully repaired. " Some better effort should have been made, at least once a season, to depict Voyager acquiring torpedoes, replacement parts, major overhauls, etc...
I have an idea for an episode where the setting is Voyager is docked at a station / planet undergoing much needed repairs. Episodes would have been character driven m focused on character development.
Heck, they could have told a nice story or two or multi part story with Voyager docked at such a pace.
Saying "no way to replace" should have meant "no way to replace c and not" we will be able to replace them once our systems are fully repaired. " Some better effort should have been made, at least once a season, to depict Voyager acquiring torpedoes, replacement parts, major overhauls, etc...
I have an idea for an episode where the setting is Voyager is docked at a station / planet undergoing much needed repairs. Episodes would have been character driven m focused on character development.
Heck, they could have told a nice story or two or multi part story with Voyager docked at such a pace.
Voyager didn't have near infinite resources.
What's so hard to imagine about endlessly repairing their shuttles or replacing photon torpedoes?
Voyager is a highly advanced 24th century ship with ability to convert energy into matter.
Park a ship in an uninhabited star system, use the hull to collect solar power and shunt it into the replicators for creation of anti-matter, spare parts, etc.
Simultaneously, Voyager could have easily parked (again) in an uninhabited star system with asteroids.
Harvest the asteroids for useful matter, rearrange its molecular structure into what you need and problem solved.
Voyager could have also traded with friendly species off-screen for anti-matter, or found another source of omicron particles that might have boosted their anti-matter reserves.
Next to that, their computer is capable of transluminal processing, and has a highly sophisticated AI (not in a generalized sense, but with a few words to the computer, it could easily use tractor beams, transporters and who knows what else to automatically repair damaged systems).
If you recall in Caretaker episode, once the ship was transported to the DQ and suffered heavy damage, the crew had to repair a Warp core microfracture.
But most other systems were damaged and the ship interior looked like a wreck... and the crew got beamed to the array.
3 days later, they are beamed back to Voyager and voila, interior is suspiciously clean and all primary and secondary systems seem to be operational (indicating presence of self-repair).
The writers dumbed down a LOT of things in Voyager... none of which made sense for even a ship from the 23rd century.
Resource scarcity and damage?
Please. Self-repair systems and the technology they have would address both easily in 1 week.
If anything, there was a lot less emphasis on automation for no good reason, even though it was established their technology is more than up to the task.
A larger ship would not have made any difference... even the Equinox could have done things differently if they found an empty star system, harvested what they needed, did repairs and went on their merry way.
Granted, with a small ship and depending on your technology, things would be different if you went up against a superior foe.
But even with over 50% of his crew gone, Ransom could still limp to the nearest star system and do everything what I suggested relying mostly on automation.
From "The Cloud":
CHAKOTAY: We have a complement of thirty-eight photon torpedoes at our disposal, Captain.
JANEWAY: And no way to replace them after they're gone.
Janeway, as both the ship's Captain and a former science officer, will know what she's talking about. No line was ever included about any sort of new production facility to deal with this problem, but had any such workshop been developed then it would've been at the sacrifice of something else onboard: quarters, science labs, yet another cargo bay, the captain's private gymnasium.
As for shuttles, they may have had the chance to build them, but exactly where? The ship lost ten over the series run (seven others that were probably lost and eight that were heavily damaged) and its unlikely she would've carried that many when launched, but her hangar also had to be able to accommodate Neelix's fairly sizable vessel not to mention the Delta Flyer (and all the alien shuttles its played host too over the years). With all that to fit in the shuttlebay would take up at least a third (if not more) of the secondary hull. Ex Astris Scientia has a couple of interesting articles on some of the improbabilities of VOY.
Being a larger ship would've made her versatility far more believable.
That was an idiotic statement which made no sense whatsoever.
Starfleet can obviously make more Photon torpedoes for their ships, and Torres even converted one of the impulse reactors into a crude dilithium processing refinery.
You're seriously telling me it's impossible to replace photon torpedoes?
Come on.
What do you need?
You need the casing with most of the hardware (which can be replicated easily enough) and a warhead that contains specific amount of matter and anti-matter.
They can either extract anti-matter from the Warp core, or they could make their own in an uninhabited star system with enough time.
Alternatively, they can trade with other species that have ready supplies of anti-matter which Voyager could use in their torpedoes (Voyager did meet several friendly species after all, so there's no reason to think they never traded with them).
Furthermore, in that same Cloud episode, Voyager initially got into the nebula to get the Omicron particles so they can boost their anti-matter supply.
A 24th century starship with all its advanced technology being incapable of replacing its torpedoes or even repairing shuttles is RIDICULOUS.
The technology is more than up to the task.
All you need are resources, and those can be found in virtually any asteroid field - plus SF can manipulate the molecular structure of matter and turn it into what it needs (if replicating stuff out of energy is much more energy intensive - which it was because it was always stated to be).
The writers needlessly wrote in unrealistic handicaps that made no sense in order to generate more 'drama', whereas they should have adapted the drama to the ship and technology they were writing about without dumbing anything down.
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Wow dude, where do you think you are?
I pretty much agree with you, as I noted earlier in the thread it is probable that
In fact, I'd even go as far to say that as standard Starfleet vessels - particularly the smaller ones - don't have the expertise to manufacture replacement torpedoes as standard, and Voyager's apparent abilitiy to do so is as a result of additional expertise being acquired.
It is possible even probable that the equipment/expertise to make new torpedoes was provided by Seven of Nine.
Voyager was operating on replicator rations, so who knows what they'd have by way of available matter and the energy demands to put torpedoes and shuttle parts into mass production. They may have been able to barter or trade with alien races for parts, but Starfleet would have minimum specification requirements for health and safety and there's no guarantee that any of the races they met would have the same standards at Starfleet. The more antimatter the syphon from the warp core the less distance they can travel, the longer they spend in remote region trying to produce more then the more replicator energy and onboard supplies they use up with nowhere close by to replenish.
Torres created a dilithium refinery in an impulse reactor that is them down one reactor, which would put greater strain on their remaining engine and if that was damaged in battle or through greater use then they're really up the creek without a paddle.
Torres created a dilithium refinery in an impulse reactor that is them down one reactor, which would put greater strain on their remaining engine and if that was damaged in battle or through greater use then they're really up the creek without a paddle.
I kind of feel like her statement wasn't literally meaning that it was IMPOSSIBLE to replace them. I took it to mean they don't have access to a base to get reloaded. Clearly they figured out a way which makes perfect sense.
I don't think they can replicate the entire torpedo at once but i just assume they can replicate parts and then build them
Certainly a first priority would be restocking weapons and shuttle craft considering you are already at war with the Kazon and exploring new territory. It's all fine and good being able to land Voyager but it carries huge risks.
Probably because replicating them takes huge amounts of energy (which was mentioned and Voyager had to ration due to the length of their trip)... or even storing stuff in the pattern buffers takes up certain amount of power (probably not nearly as much as people do, but still).
But it never made sense that Voyager would be running out resources in the first place. As I said, the crew could have easily parked in an uninhabited solar system for a week or two, harvested various raw material from asteroids, etc... converted it into what was needed and be on their merry way.
In fact, Threshold episode DID have Tom Paris mention that they discovered a new form of Dilithium which stays stable at higher Warp frequencies - suggesting that the ship did in fact harvest raw materials from space off-screen when they could (plus the first episode with the Vidiians and that moon that was supposed to have rich deposits of Dilithium - which of course turned out to be false - but it still showed Voyager looking for other ways to augment their energy reserves - plus there was Cerulian nebula gas too).
I never saw a problem with Voyager repairing their damaged or even rebuilding destroyed shuttles even. There's plenty of raw material in the asteroids they could use to convert into duranium most likely.
But replicator rashions were likely instituted due to the extreme length they expected their journey to take and were uncertain on when they might be able to find races willing to trade anti-matter, or other natural sources of omicron particles - so having the ability to cruise or travel at higher occasional warp velocities would have been a priority over replicators.
At some point, many of Voyager's resource shortages went away... and it likely didn't help the ship was under attack for most of the first 2 years from the Kazon and suffered extreme damage by its pull to the DQ.
I don't agree that expertise is a problem.
The computer database contains everything you need to know on photon torpedo schematics.
Trained SF crew (which Voyager had a plenty) would have been able to follow instructions on how to make them... in fact, the process is likely mostly automated as is... seriously, how difficult would it be to follow schematics? Especially for those who WORKED in Voyager's engineering on a daily basis and were part of engineering details?
Even Kim and Tuvok were modifying a torpedo to turn it into a Gravimetric grade one.
And Tuvok was mentioned he can dismantle a photon warhead in less than 30 seconds... Tuvok should have a complete understanding of photon torpedo technology... any SF cadet would go through the mandatory section of starship operations, how to repair, construct and maintain things (if automation is unavailable).
So, the Equinox was in a problematic predicament with it losing 50% of its crew early on... and suffering heavy damage, which likely impeded Ransom's ability to repair the ship... but again, even with 50% of the crew gone, you'd need to prioritize and try to find whatever resources you can spare in uninhabited star systems, get the ship operational and move on. He still had shuttles, which likely didn't suffer heavy damage, and those little buggers contain everything a starship does... more than enough to aid with repairing a starship.
Heck, if Ransom was a bit smarter, he might have picked up a few aliens along the way willing to join him on his trek back to the Alpha Quadran and gained new crew on top of that.
Unfortunately, VOY has a knack of already hiding lots of them outside their inventory system...
"Won't you join me on my falling apart spaceship that gets attacked by aliens who outgun us on a regular basis?"
"How much do you pay?"
"I'm from a society with no money. No one on this ship gets paid."
I think I know why he didn't pick any alien crew up along the way.
