What would really happen in a voyager-like scenario?

[Kobayshi Maru]

Note that both Enterprises, Kirk's and Picard's, had been sent (probably on record too) billions of light years away and made it back the same day. The crew of Voyager might have thought that the same thing would have happened to them. They forgot bout a little thing called plot convenience though.

 

[at Quark's]

But you could say that about the original premise. They're going to be travelling for 70 years so why not just settle on the next planet

And besides there would always be characters who wanted to try and get back no matter how unlikely it seemed (at least my way you've got an opportunity to explore both sets of characters)

To be fair, they could have done that with the 70 thousand lightyears premise

I think the 70 year figure they picked is an interesting one. Suppose it would have taken 1500 years to get back-- would they still have undertaken the journey ? I think chances would have been a lot lower, they'd probably just look for a nice planet to settle on (though they perhaps would still keep looking for super technology to bring them home).

But 70 years is about half their lifespan. Barring disasters and conflict (with aliens or internal) along the way, most of the crew could definitely expect to make it back, and have a few good years left in them. But they'd all be well past their prime and into advanced middle age.

So is it worth the trouble if you really don't expect to be home much sooner than those seventy years ? I think it would be an interesting choice.

 

[STEPhon IT]

So we have this mixed starfleet crew, consisting of about 3 quarters 'original starfleet' crew, and 1 quarter 'former maquis' members. And it seems that the decision that they form one starfleet crew is pretty much accepted by everyone, even though the decision seems to be made unilaterally by Janeway. Of course it helps that she commands the only ship left, but still

I was wondering what would happen in real life ? I know we cannot duplicate this scenario but just suppose there's a U.S. army or navy unit, cut off from the rest of the US for whatever reasons without any chance to re-establish contact within a few years. There's also a group of civilians 25% their size (albeit with some experience in naval matters), and they are forced to work together in order to survive -- let's say on a navy ship. Then, what would realistically happen (I know this isn't a realistic scenario but anyway)? Would the navy 'absorb' the civilians as seen on VOY ?

Yes.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Berman didn't know that.

 

[Lynx]

Realistically? They'd all be dead before they found a habitable planet.

Yeah, but I think he's talking about magical realism where physics works the way it does in Star Trek but human beings act the way they do in the real world.

Realistically they would have used the Caretaker array to get themselves home and said screw the Ocampa.

They couldn't have done that.

As Tuvok said in "Caretaker", it would have taken them several hours to get everything in order to send them back to Federation space. The Kazon would have taken over the array long before that, killing off everyone. They would have been forced to blow up the array anyway, just as a possibility to get away from the Kazon.

 

[STEPhon IT]

They couldn't have done that.

As Tuvok said in "Caretaker", it would have taken them several hours to get everything in order to send them back to Federation space. The Kazon would have taken over the array long before that, killing off everyone. They would have been forced to blow up the array anyway, just as a possibility to get away from the Kazon.

Bad writing 101: create a scenario that will arbitrarily ignore everything the viewer has learned about the plot.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Kazon had two shuttles, possibly raiders if you want to be generous, each half the size of the Val Jean (which was %25 the size of Voyager.), and a city ship at the beginning of the fight.

The Val Jean destroyed the City ship. (The City Ship = 40 thousand people who are now burning corpses? A city worth of people should be able to fit in a city ship, and those things were ten times of a Galaxy Class starship. If Jabin had just lost 90 percent of his breeding pairs, then his Sect was effectively done and dusted.)

Sure Voyager was at %10 after being dragged across 70 thousand light years by an idiot rapist, and Jabin said that he had called for additional ships, but if Janeway had consulted with Neelix, we'd know that that was most likely, maybe %70 a lie. Kazon don't make distress calls. Any sign of weakness is an invitation for invasion from any of the other Kazon sects. Kazon assimilation I'm assuming comes with a lot more rape and and summery executions before everybody's loyalties are affirmed. That's the weird thing about the Jaffa in Stargate, they make an oath and fight till they drop, until they make an oath to the next goul'd. Take the binding oath or get tortured to death, and then they're good for the duration.

All the Kazon had left to fight with (that we were aware of) after the array was destroyed was two raider/shuttles.

Before blowing up the array Janeway should have asked Neelix about the Kazon's unseen tactical potency in the immediate area, before concluding that two Kazon shuttles were a threat to Voyager.

Even if it had taken several hours to get the array working, Neelix might have confirmed that if Jabin had indeed called for extra ships, that they wouldn't be there for several days to a week, till they could press an attack on Voyager and the Array

 

[at Quark's]

The Kazon had two shuttles, possibly raiders if you want to be generous, each half the size of the Val Jean (which was %25 the size of Voyager.), and a city ship at the beginning of the fight.

The Val Jean destroyed the City ship. (The City Ship = 40 thousand people who are now burning corpses? A city worth of people should be able to fit in a city ship, and those things were ten times of a Galaxy Class starship. If Jabin had just lost 90 percent of his breeding pairs, then his Sect was effectively done and dusted.)

Sure Voyager was at %10 after being dragged across 70 thousand light years by an idiot rapist, and Jabin said that he had called for additional ships, but if Janeway had consulted with Neelix, we'd know that that was most likely, maybe %70 a lie. Kazon don't make distress calls. Any sign of weakness is an invitation for invasion from any of the other Kazon sects. Kazon assimilation I'm assuming comes with a lot more rape and and summery executions before everybody's loyalties are affirmed. That's the weird thing about the Jaffa in Stargate, they make an oath and fight till they drop, until they make an oath to the next goul'd. Take the binding oath or get tortured to death, and then they're good for the duration.

All the Kazon had left to fight with (that we were aware of) after the array was destroyed was two raider/shuttles.

Before blowing up the array Janeway should have asked Neelix about the Kazon's unseen tactical potency in the immediate area, before concluding that two Kazon shuttles were a threat to Voyager.

Even if it had taken several hours to get the array working, Neelix might have confirmed that if Jabin had indeed called for extra ships, that they wouldn't be there for several days to a week, till they could press an attack on Voyager and the Array

Come to think of it: if the Kazon ships already present there were no threat to Voyager, why not just arm the tricobalt device, but in the meantime try to make the preparations to send them back ? If a huge armada had shown up, they always could have transported everyone back, blown up the Array at a minute's notice, and hightail it out of there.... we know they at least had some sensor capacity left so they would have had time for that ...

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Kazon were (supposed to be?) technologically 200 years behind the Federation, and they were at least 50 years behind everyone else because that's when the Kazon liberated their fleet from their former slaver masters the Trabe, and I doubt the sects would have been responsible for any innovation since then because I'm speciest and they seem like the sort that would space anyone who wore glasses or read a book. Although other races are willing to trade with the Kazon, so logically they should be at least as advanced as their trading partners? Potentially advanced is not the same as actually advanced since they don't seem to be building new ships even if they know how. Shipyards are tactically vulnerable, and Kazon can't trust Kazon to honour peace treaties long enough to settle even a planet that's not bombed back into the stone age a month later.

(Kenneth Biller says that the Kazon are based on LA Gang mentality of the 1990s which is just a pale shade of being completely racist.)

Federation sensors should have been able to understand the Kazon's shield frequencies entirely and shoot through those shields as if they weren't there like the Klingons did with the Enterprise D after they "figured out" the Enterprises frequencies through espionage.

The Kazon had never seen a transporter until earlier that day. They would have no Defence against transporters in their arsenal, if we assume that smart transporters can transport through stupid shields like the Sisko did through Kirk's Enterprise's Shields, then it's beyond factual that Janeway's transporters were smarter than Jabin's shields.

Given the tech gap I was lead to believe exists by word of mouth, and maybe a novel, a Federation Shuttle would have unbreachable shields and phasers that ignore Kazon shields. One Federation Shuttle was more than capable of perpetuating a genocide. Voyager itself, should have been able to transport the entire crew off the Kazon ships and into space, store them in their buffer or that 1920s era collection cell on the Array they had been held in a day earlier.

Berman didn't understand or care about any of this obvious guff, and fought the final spacefight in the pilot without guile or intellect as if the Federation and the Kazon were equals who just hammered at one another until one side relented.

 

[Anwar]

There was a few easy ways to resolve that plot:

1) Just explain it was the Caretaker's own power that brought them there, and he was just too weak to send them back before he died. As in, the Array can't send them home.

2) Do a "What if?" episode later on that would explain that if they HAD used the Array it wouldn't have worked, the transport effect would have destroyed the ship and killed the crew and it would have also ripped a hole in the time/space continuum that would've destroyed the Alpha Quadrant.

IE, the Array was never an option.

 

[Lance]

I don't get how you conscript all these people into a highly structured military organization and not have them be liabilities, bigger liabilities than we saw in the lower decks ep. Do we know how many of the maquis were ex-starfleet?

You know, I hadn't really thought about it. Do we have an answer for this?

One of the fatal flaws with the format was that the two most prominent former Maquis in the show also happened to be former Starfleet who just dropped out for various reasons (Chakotay, Torres).

So, rather than tackling the issue of Janeway recruiting this civilian bloke as her XO, and having this kind of ongoing conflict between a duty trained Starfleet captain vs a guy who is just a regular joe getting by in his new position and learning as he goes along, instead we have the writers being able to fall back on this excuse that both Maquis characters have got previous Starfleet training. Sure, they left Starfleet, but nevertheless you can still expect them to basically step straight back into their former roles and remember what the academy drummed into their heads all those years ago.

Chell is a friggin' Bolian, they're members of the Federation, I can't believe there wasn't something of the Starfleet in him all along.

 

[Orphalesion]

^ And the Bejoran kid, who might have been the best character to demonstrate exactly this "more liability than help" angle, was never seen again after his introduction...

 

[hux]

I don't get how you conscript all these people into a highly structured military organization and not have them be liabilities, bigger liabilities than we saw in the lower decks ep. Do we know how many of the maquis were ex-starfleet?

You know, I hadn't really thought about it. Do we have an answer for this?

One of the fatal flaws with the format was that the two most prominent former Maquis in the show also happened to be former Starfleet who just dropped out for various reasons (Chakotay, Torres).

So, rather than tackling the issue of Janeway recruiting this civilian bloke as her XO, and having this kind of ongoing conflict between a duty trained Starfleet captain vs a guy who is just a regular joe getting by in his new position and learning as he goes along, instead we have the writers being able to fall back on this excuse that both Maquis characters have got previous Starfleet training. Sure, they left Starfleet, but nevertheless you can still expect them to basically step straight back into their former roles and remember what the academy drummed into their heads all those years ago.

Chell is a friggin' Bolian, they're members of the Federation, I can't believe there wasn't something of the Starfleet in him all along.

But aren't most of the Maquis ex Starfleet personel anyway. That's kinda the point of them. They're disillusioned with the whole set up of Starfleet and the Federation. Real civilians aren't disillusioned at all, they're at home replicating caviar and downloading Angelie Jolie into their next holo adventure

To be a Maquis, don't you need to have Starfleet training and embrace Federation propaganda first (in order to have the motivation to rebel against that training and propaganda)

 

[Guy Gardener]

You still don't understand after all this time that it was the morally right thing to do (for a bleeding heart liberal.).

Star Trek is about morality plays, not technobabble. (60/40?)

Benefit + negative consequences vs. Detriment + positive consequences.

Every ####ing week.

Choosing the hard path is the virtuous thing to do (usually?).

(Is it really that easier to let 9 billion Ocampa die? The actually hard thing to do (for not a ####) would have been to let 9 billion Ocampa die. For this to have been a conversation Janeway had with herself, she had to have been willing to wipe the Ocampa from the Universe and be good with it. Was it really a choice? If she was never going to kill them, then it wasn't a choice. Kathryn Janeway is just a punk. The contra benefit in exchange for all that murder is disproportionate, because it seems that it's much easier not to murder a species if given the option, but that's just me. Would I allow the murder of everyone in Calgary in exchange for free McDonalds for a year? Free food for a year, yes I would certainly kill a few people for that, but 900,000 Canadians? Even I have my limits, but I sure as fuck expect 900,000 thank-you cards in exchange for my sacrifice. Does Hallmark cover averted masscullings?)

Leaving Kathy with one choice makes Janeway Fate's gimp.

Janeway had to save the Ocampa because they were cute.

Leaving the array in tact would give the Kazon the power to turn off the Ocampa's shield and then take their water probably only a few hours after Voyager split, and the Ocampa would die of thirst. They're all dead and the decision tree that resulted in their complete expiration can be tracked right back to Janeway saying "Fuck'em all, I don't give a shit."

Does guilt have directions to Janeway's heart?

If Janeway left the array standing, the Kazon as good as killed the Ocampa, and Janeway as good as killed the Ocampa too by letting the Kazon as good as kill the Ocampa.

But she didn't do that because her superior convictions should be more important than her superior technology, and in this one case study, it seems that they were.

Right = Right?

Only a #### like Ransom would have left via the Array despite the genocide on Ocampa he could have easily cancelled by destroying his 1st class ticket home. Well there are plenty of ####s that would sacrifice the many to benefit the few, but I'm just thinking of Starfleet ####s in this particular instance.

**Sigh**

By not giving Janeway an easy way out (but with a terrible price) she doesn't have the opportunity to prove to the audience watching the pilot that she is not a #### which is very important.

Starfleet Captains are not ####s.

And she has to prove that to the audience as quickly as possible so that they know that the story is about a hero and not a ####.

A hero cares about every one.

A #### is in it for herself, and maybe her buds, but not always.

Taking away the moral argument makes the story easier.

Bad writers make stories easier.

Good writers make stories harder.

...

Hmmm?

How many Ocampa were on Ocampa?

What if there was less than a hundred?

If there was even only a thousand of them, Janeway could have, or should have taken them all to the Alpha Quadrant with her when she used the Array to get home.

Hell if those Kazon cityships really can carry 40 thousand souls plus, capturing even one as a taxi to take the Ocampa to Earth space via a working array takes away the entire issue about the Ocampa dying out suddenly.

Although if there were 9 billion of them spread out across hundreds of underground cities, never mind.

 

[Lynx]

The Kazon had two shuttles, possibly raiders if you want to be generous, each half the size of the Val Jean (which was %25 the size of Voyager.), and a city ship at the beginning of the fight.

The Val Jean destroyed the City ship. (The City Ship = 40 thousand people who are now burning corpses? A city worth of people should be able to fit in a city ship, and those things were ten times of a Galaxy Class starship. If Jabin had just lost 90 percent of his breeding pairs, then his Sect was effectively done and dusted.)

Sure Voyager was at %10 after being dragged across 70 thousand light years by an idiot rapist, and Jabin said that he had called for additional ships, but if Janeway had consulted with Neelix, we'd know that that was most likely, maybe %70 a lie. Kazon don't make distress calls. Any sign of weakness is an invitation for invasion from any of the other Kazon sects. Kazon assimilation I'm assuming comes with a lot more rape and and summery executions before everybody's loyalties are affirmed. That's the weird thing about the Jaffa in Stargate, they make an oath and fight till they drop, until they make an oath to the next goul'd. Take the binding oath or get tortured to death, and then they're good for the duration.

All the Kazon had left to fight with (that we were aware of) after the array was destroyed was two raider/shuttles.

Before blowing up the array Janeway should have asked Neelix about the Kazon's unseen tactical potency in the immediate area, before concluding that two Kazon shuttles were a threat to Voyager.

Even if it had taken several hours to get the array working, Neelix might have confirmed that if Jabin had indeed called for extra ships, that they wouldn't be there for several days to a week, till they could press an attack on Voyager and the Array

Remeber what Jabin said when Janeway was going to blow up the array: "I have called for additional ships!"

 

[Guy Gardener]

Yup, and Neelix would have told Janeway that he was lying.

Remember this...

RAZIK [on viewscreen]: He kidnapped a young man. During his escape, it became necessary to destroy his ship. No doubt you found the remains, so I suggest you depart immediately.
PARIS: Thanks for the advice.
NEELIX: What a most unusual offer. A Kazon-Ogla Maje allowing a trespasser to leave his space unharmed. What would the other Kazons say about this new merciful attitude of the Ogla?
RAZIK [on viewscreen]: Don't tempt me, Talaxian. I would just as soon open fire.
NEELIX: Would you?
PARIS: Neelix.
NEELIX: No, I don't think so. That would attract every rival Kazon sect to your secret training base, wouldn't it? Now, I know your ships, Maje. I even sold a few Plaxan sensors to the Ogla a few years back. I have no doubt that you read the same life signs on that moon that we have.

The Kazon are carnivorous.

First sign of blood and they swarm on their own.

Don't fricking fall for the corbonite manoeuvre Lynx!

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I don't get how you conscript all these people into a highly structured military organization and not have them be liabilities, bigger liabilities than we saw in the lower decks ep. Do we know how many of the maquis were ex-starfleet?

You know, I hadn't really thought about it. Do we have an answer for this?

One of the fatal flaws with the format was that the two most prominent former Maquis in the show also happened to be former Starfleet who just dropped out for various reasons (Chakotay, Torres).

So, rather than tackling the issue of Janeway recruiting this civilian bloke as her XO, and having this kind of ongoing conflict between a duty trained Starfleet captain vs a guy who is just a regular joe getting by in his new position and learning as he goes along, instead we have the writers being able to fall back on this excuse that both Maquis characters have got previous Starfleet training. Sure, they left Starfleet, but nevertheless you can still expect them to basically step straight back into their former roles and remember what the academy drummed into their heads all those years ago.

Chell is a friggin' Bolian, they're members of the Federation, I can't believe there wasn't something of the Starfleet in him all along.

But aren't most of the Maquis ex Starfleet personel anyway. That's kinda the point of them. They're disillusioned with the whole set up of Starfleet and the Federation. Real civilians aren't disillusioned at all, they're at home replicating caviar and downloading Angelie Jolie into their next holo adventure

To be a Maquis, don't you need to have Starfleet training and embrace Federation propaganda first (in order to have the motivation to rebel against that training and propaganda)

I don(t know. The maquis members we saw in Prehemptive strike didn't seem to know much about star fleet, if anything at all.

 

[Lance]

There's a distinction between 'Federation Citizens' and 'Starfleet'.

The colonists/Maquis in "Pre-emptive Strike" were private citizens. They weren't part of the military corps.

The thing is, the Maquis who end up on Voyager seem to mostly be former Starfleet officers who have bummed out one way or another.

Presumably because Commander Chuckles himself is former Starfleet, so he probably picked a bunch of these guys for his crew because he knew they could handle themselves out there.

Chell only got as far as the academy before dropping out, but still. Former Starfleet.

 

[HIjol]

Yes, I thought I remembered that some Maquis were Federation colonists and some were former Star Fleet members.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Yes, I thought I remembered that some Maquis were Federation colonists and some were former Star Fleet members.

Exactly, only part of them had anything to do with starfleet in the first place.