What The Hell Was That The Ferengi Did!!!!!

[All Seeing Eye]

I just watched an episode of Voyager that I've never ever seen before (thought I'd seen them all) and in the episode the Ferengi reprogram a hologram of Reg Barclay and send it to Voyager.
The Ferengi fired something at a star and opened some kind of doorway to the Delta Quadrant, the exit somehow and for some reason opened up around what appeared to be another star.

A Voyager escape pod managed to pass through it and survive intact.

Can anyone shed any light on what the heck it was they opened and did?

The technology must be real easy if a simple Ferengi ship can achieve it and even Barclay knew what it was they were opening.

It would seem this technology is not being utilised by the Federation enough. They could use the technology to open up passageways to other areas of space and other quadrants and send through none organic material and supplies. Forget warp drive for sending shipments just open one of those bad boys.

 

[sojourner]

This might be better answered in the Voyager forum.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I want to talk about the actual technology itself.

 

[sojourner]

^Yea, but I don't think anyone here remembers the episode. People in the Voyager thread might.

 

[David cgc]

If I remember right, the wormhole was extremely small, and killed anything that went through it. That was fine if you were, say, trying to steal Seven of Nine's borg nanoprobes, but less so if you wanted to return the entire ship and crew.

 

[SWHouston]

"It would seem this technology is not being utilised by the Federation enough."

Gees, is that an understatement !
There's an obvious lapse in memory/continuity, of what has taken place, replete in all series/episodes.
I think it's just stubbornness. Writers want to come up with their own stuff, to proud to use/continue the line of Technology.
Also, if they actually had something that worked against the "enemy", all/a lot the suspense of threat would be removed.

Poor management, poor planning, no wonder they can't keep a series on the Tube for over a season or two.

 

[mastertheshadow]

If I remember right, the wormhole was extremely small, and killed anything that went through it.

Correct. I don't remember what they called the passage in the episode, but the Ferengi had stolen the Barclay hologram that Starfleet HQ was sending to Voyager and reprogrammed it to convince the crew to use this passage. The explanation in episode was that the radiation involved in the passage would kill the entire crew, but that was OK for the Ferengi because they just wanted to steal Sevens Nanoprobes as you mentioned.

That's likely the main reason, IMO, that the Federation hasn't explored this method of transportation - a passage that kills any organic matter that passes through it wouldn't be very useful except perhaps for unmanned probes.

I don't remember what the backstory, if there was one, of the development of the technology was in the episode however.

 

[SpyOne]

Probably an outgrowth of Barclay's discovery of how to make wormholes they could communicate through.

 

[Mytran]

What exactly was the purpose of Barclay's hologram? Before the Ferengi hijacked it, I mean.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

If I remember right, the wormhole was extremely small,

Doubtful, Voyager was on course for it and other than the radiation they did not see any reason for Voyager not to fit through it. Seven would have probably mentioned the fact it was too small before even mentioning the radiation.

What exactly was the purpose of Barclay's hologram? Before the Ferengi hijacked it, I mean.

Send it to Voyager to help out with Barclays expertise so there would be two Barclays, one on each side.

 

[Mytran]

Wow, then he certainly thought a lot of himself!

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Wow, then he certainly thought a lot of himself!

and rightly so, the guy was a genius and everyone else knew it.

 

[SpyOne]

Indeed, a man who was a valuable asset to Starfleet despite some obvious social and psychological problems, and that was before an advanced alien race tried to download most of their technical database into his brain (providing adequate backstory for any superscience he might later invent - "It must have been left over from when the Cytherians gave me all that knowledge.").

 

[Deks]

Getting a few facts correct about the episode in question:

That was no star the Ferengi fired their deflector beam at, and it was not a wormhole they opened.
I think it was a gas giant, and firing specifically modified deflector pulse at a point creates a Geodesic Fold.

Starfleet knew about this procedure, but the 'passageway' that was created was filled with Geodesic radiation (against which, SF current shields and medical advancements are useless).

The Ferengi modified Barclay's hologram to deceive Voy crew into thinking that SF made sufficient advances in both shield and medical technology that would allow the crew to pass through the fold unharmed (which was why Voyager was going right for it at the time).
When they got closer, the crew realized the 'modified' shields and 'medical advancements' that Barclay's hologram brought back would be insufficient so they started heading away from the gas giant, but the hologram ended up kidnapping 7 and took an escape pod with her.
The Ferengi's goal was to steal 7's nanoprobes + get Voyager itself as a bonus (they knew the crew would be dead if they went through the anomaly).

If we take the episode into account, SF would be able to send unmanned probes through Geodesic folds so they can scan other areas of the Galaxy that are immediately out of their reach.
But that's about it.
Since organic matter cannot survive the trip (at least not with SF's present level of technology) and subspace communications are not achievable through the fold (their own words), unmanned probes and technology is the only thing SF could hope sending (at least for now).

But even sedning unmanned probes never occurred to them.

Why?
Because writers conveniently forget technologies that were used in an episode before the next one as it might remove 'drama and suspsense' from the show (which is idiotic, because they are supposed to adapt the drama and suspense while keeping the established tech).

 

[Vanyel]

Getting a few facts correct about the episode in question:

That was no star the Ferengi fired their deflector beam at, and it was not a wormhole they opened.
I think it was a gas giant, and firing specifically modified deflector pulse at a point creates a Geodesic Fold.

Starfleet knew about this procedure, but the 'passageway' that was created was filled with Geodesic radiation (against which, SF current shields and medical advancements are useless).

The Ferengi modified Barclay's hologram to deceive Voy crew into thinking that SF made sufficient advances in both shield and medical technology that would allow the crew to pass through the fold unharmed (which was why Voyager was going right for it at the time).
When they got closer, the crew realized the 'modified' shields and 'medical advancements' that Barclay's hologram brought back would be insufficient so they started heading away from the gas giant, but the hologram ended up kidnapping 7 and took an escape pod with her.
The Ferengi's goal was to steal 7's nanoprobes + get Voyager itself as a bonus (they knew the crew would be dead if they went through the anomaly).

If we take the episode into account, SF would be able to send unmanned probes through Geodesic folds so they can scan other areas of the Galaxy that are immediately out of their reach.
But that's about it.
Since organic matter cannot survive the trip (at least not with SF's present level of technology) and subspace communications are not achievable through the fold (their own words), unmanned probes and technology is the only thing SF could hope sending (at least for now).

But even sedning unmanned probes never occurred to them.

Why?
Because writers conveniently forget technologies that were used in an episode before the next one as it might remove 'drama and suspsense' from the show (which is idiotic, because they are supposed to adapt the drama and suspense while keeping the established tech).

It would also make a great sneak attack type weapon. Say you want to destroy an enemy ship yard like they did in DS9, open a geodesic fold, fire a few dozen photon and/or quantum torpedoes and buh bye ship yard.

 

[blssdwlf]

Whoa. Heck, you know what else they could send through it to *help* Voyager?

How about...

Deuterium Refueling Tanks

Spare Parts and New Tech when stuff gets blown up on Voyager

A brand new spanking super fast starship when it becomes available with holographic crew (I'm looking at you Prometheus )

So many possibilities!

 

[Deks]

Another ship with a holographic crew like the Prometheus would be good actually.

Voyager could unload only a handful of people onto such a ship (due to it's high automation capabilities) and have better chances in certain combat situations (especially because the Prometheus's separation trick would be a new thing to new hostiles).

But, as I said, the writers responsible of writing the show are rarely as creative.

 

[T'Girl]

What exactly was the purpose of Barclay's hologram? Before the Ferengi hijacked it, I mean.

Send it to Voyager to help out with Barclays expertise so there would be two Barclays, one on each side.

Wow, then he certainly thought a lot of himself!

and rightly so, the guy was a genius and everyone else knew it.

Indeed, a man who was a valuable asset to Starfleet

Okay, now we all know that Barclay really created the hologram of himself so that he could have sex with it.

Right?

 

[SpyOne]

Okay, now we all know that Barclay really created the hologram of himself so that he could have sex with it.

Right?

Isn't that why all men do anything?

Oh give me a clone,
from my own chromosomes,
with the Y chromosome changed to X.
For then when we're alone,
since her mind is my own,
she'd be thinking of nothing but sex.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

That was no star the Ferengi fired their deflector beam at, and it was not a wormhole they opened.
I think it was a gas giant, and firing specifically modified deflector pulse at a point creates a Geodesic Fold.

It was a Red Giant Star and not a Gas Giant. I assure you of this.