Why does this show seem determined not to acknowledge "Voyager?"

[WarpTenLizard]

If reading the post before responding is too difficult, then please, at least skim it.

If that still is too much work, then at least skim this next sentence: This post is about "Voyager"-related elephants that PIC keeps dumping into the room, and refusing to address. If I could, I'd change this thread's title to reflect that.

Just to be clear, I am enjoying "Star Trek: Picard," make no mistake. But the show's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the "Voyager" related elephants on the ship, that's really beginning to grate on me.

First off, "Voyager's" finale is crucial to the state of the Borg in "Star Trek: Picard." Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I don't recall anyone once mentioning how the Borg ended up in this weakened state. No comment from or to Seven about her role in their defeat. Not even when she faces the Borg Queen once again.

Oh, and Seven of Nine. She's a regular on this show now. So one would think that at some point, they might be able to just slip in a little hint about how she went from an astrometric scientist to a ranger. I don't mind the direction for the character, if there's just some explanation. Or a hint of an explanation.

Now Q is back, and the show is taking careful steps to not only avoid letting Seven mention that she's met Q before--or at least, served on a ship that encountered him for its third time, when she was onboard--but takes care to phrase all of her dialogue in a way that one would never know that she had. If they're worried about confusing people that haven't seen "Voyager," surely a vague line like, "The Enterprise wasn't the only ship Q enjoyed playing games with" would suffice.

The Icheb subplot was the only time this show seemed to acknowledge Seven's "Voyager" related past at all.

I completely understand wanting to keep things vague, in order to leave things opened for writers down the road. But you can easily keep things vague while still acknowledging them. Just some vague line, like, "My old mentor and I... had a falling out," or, "I...got into some trouble with Starfleet, and felt it best to leave Federation Space." Just something. Anything.

When Worf joined the regular cast of "Deep Space Nine," did DS9 take such measures to dance around any hints of his past on the Enterprise?

I'm not asking for flashbacks, or monologues. Just some recognition that Seven of Nine isn't a totally original character to STP. Some acknowledgement of how she was freed from the Collective, and what she apparently left behind when she became a Ranger.

Since these threads are meant to generation discussion, I'll pose two questions. Answer whichever interests you.

1. If Seven's past post-Voyager must be kept vague for writing related reasons, what are some ways the show could subtlety slip in some references, or hint at some explanations?
2. If and when they do just give us a straightforward answer about how Seven became a ranger, what do you think it will, or should, be?

On a humorous side note, I have nothing against Seven/Raffi, and I'm among the feu that actually ship Seven/Chakotay, but it's undeniably amusing that Seven has a habit for seemingly out-of-nowhere romances with shipmates.

 

[Lord Garth]

In response to the poll option: Seven was technically never in Starfleet. She left Voyager, presumably, when the ship got home, and then she probably spent time with her family Immediately-Post-VOY, before either deciding or trying to figure out what she wanted to do next with her life.

She also never actually met Q, she met his son. But, I agree with you that Seven should've mentioned something about Voyager encountering Q before.

I didn't buy Seven/Chakotay at all. I don't really buy Seven/Raffi either. Not because it's a same-sex relationship, but because I see them as more like good friends. That's the way it's coming across to me in PIC Season 2. I know the idea is that they're in a relationship, but I don't think it's really coming across that way in the translation on-screen. But, then again, I haven't listened to the audio-book yet: so maybe there's something there.

 

[Christopher]

Continuity should not be an end in itself. An outside reference should only be made if it's useful to the current story. A reference only for the sake of a reference is just the writers showing off how well they know continuity, and why the hell should we care about that? It's not a bloomin' trivia contest, it's a story. Kill your darlings. If the story doesn't need it, don't mention it.

Did I think it would've been nice for Seven to say, for instance, that she learned to drive from Tom Paris on the holodeck? Yeah, I thought that. But the line would've meant nothing to a novice viewer who didn't know who Tom Paris was. Tom Paris is irrelevant to the story, so he didn't need to be mentioned.

Of course, the Punk on Bus was irrelevant too, and he got a whole scene. But at least that was giving the original actor a sort of tribute, so I can excuse it.

Would I like more backstory of how Seven became a Ranger? Sure, but I don't care if it ties into Voyager. This is Picard, not Voyager. A story needs to serve itself first. Developing Seven's post-Voyager history more would be beneficial for her current series.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Did I think it would've been nice for Seven to say, for instance, that she learned to drive from Tom Paris on the holodeck? Yeah, I thought that. But the line would've meant nothing to a novice viewer who didn't know who Tom Paris was. Tom Paris is irrelevant to the story, so he didn't need to be mentioned.

Yeah, I think most of the time we don't need to hear about Seven's past, just like how Janeway's past was rarely mentioned in Voyager, though her drive with Raffi really was crying out for some explanation. A line like "I was trapped on a Starfleet vessel with a holodeck for four years... I have learned many things," that lets the fans fill in the blanks would've been nice. (Or they could've just gone with the classic "I am Borg... or at least I was".)

 

[Danja]

The Borg adapt ...

I would've preferred a more military explanation:

Stolen a car = Commandeered enemy transportation resources

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I admit, I would like to hear the story about Seven joining the Rangers.

Were they looking for starting pitching? Or a designated hitter? Help in the outfield?

Oh, sorry, wrong Rangers.

 

[Danja]

I admit, I would like to hear the story about Seven joining the Rangers.

Were they looking for starting pitching? Or a designated hitter? Help in the outfield?

Oh, sorry, wrong Rangers.

Sounds like a pick-up line ...

"Pitching or catching?"

Janeway's post-Voyager career has been answered on Prodigy. They probably just went their separate ways (Seven didn't have the luxury of running back to Starfleet to lick her wounds).

 

[fireproof78]

I admit, I would like to hear the story about Seven joining the Rangers.

Were they looking for starting pitching? Or a designated hitter? Help in the outfield?

Oh, sorry, wrong Rangers.

Sisko makes his comeback...

...as the surprise last minute addition to the roster.

 

[koresoong]

I think there are more than "hints" of an explanation, but I fear you may not be paying close enough attention?

The first episode of the season on the Stargazer -- Seven greets Picard, and they discuss how the ship has been outfitted with technology from the Artifact. Seven (bitterly) says to Picard, "There are still many in Starfleet who fear the Borg, and I sense that my presence here is increasing historic tensions and paranoia". -- note this was decades after Voyager returns.

Think of last season, where we find that ex-borg tech in the alpha quadrant is highly lucrative, and a drone with so many intact components is highly prized/hunted. Think about Bjayzl forming a close trusting connection/friendship/whatever with Seven, then double-crossing her years later, using her to find Icheb, killing him for his Borg tech. Her alpha quadrant life was probably like Tsunkatse until she learned how to defend herself appropriately.

It's pretty obvious from the above experiences how Seven was treated when she came home -- she was feared, hunted, and attacked. In Starfleet, she was viewed with disdain, paranoia, apprehension (continues to this day on the Stargazer!); outside of Starfleet, she was hunted for her cybernetic components. She was betrayed by those she trusted. It's easy to see how she came to find her life's meaning, how she sublimated this immense persecution -- this is how she became a mercenary/ranger to help the most vulnerable, those who the galaxy had abandoned, those without anyone to protect them.

 

[Danja]

Oh, and Seven of Nine. She's a regular on this show now. So one would think that at some point, they might be able to just slip in a little hint about how she went from an astrometric scientist to a ranger. I don't mind the direction for the character, if there's just some explanation. Or a hint of an explanation.


When Worf joined the regular cast of "Deep Space Nine," did DS9 take such measures to dance around any hints of his past on the Enterprise?

I'm not asking for flashbacks, or monologues. Just some recognition that Seven of Nine isn't a totally original character to STP. Some acknowledgement of how she was freed from the Collective, and what she apparently left behind when she became a Ranger.

Before she was a scientist, she was a soldier.

She was a soldier for eighteen years. She commanded troops ("Survival Instinct", VOY). She was a high-status drone who had the ear of the Borg Queen ("Dark Frontier", VOY).

Janeway put her in that lab primarily to keep her from causing trouble. She wasn't happy and she wanted to go back to what she knew -- fighting.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Voyager is a twenty year old show that's gotten all the mention it needs for where Seven is now. The Federation and Star Fleet sucked because the whole happy Federation cant she was fed on Voyager was a bullshit pipe dream. That's all this show needs about that. Origin stories rarely make a character more intriguing than a few hints do. Expanding on those hints rarely gives the satisfaction of the mystery. In short, Spock's advice is the best course in these cases. Having is often not as pleasing a thing as wanting.

 

[fireproof78]

Having is often not as pleasing a thing as wanting.

I completely agree. To me it there is a lot of wishing that I find, well, unnecessary and not very satisfying.

 

[Ghel]

I don't really need too many explanations. If any backstories are explored in other shows, that's fine. However, how many times in life do people discuss why they left a job 15+ years ago or that person you dated two decades ago?!? It's cool to get little fun moments like the punk on the bus, but having a character explain where she learned everything or why she made certain life choices more than a decade before seems a bit... excessive.

 

[Timofnine]

It's pretty obvious from the above experiences how Seven was treated when she came home -- she was feared, hunted, and attacked. In Starfleet, she was viewed with disdain, paranoia, apprehension (continues to this day on the Stargazer!); outside of Starfleet, she was hunted for her cybernetic components. She was betrayed by those she trusted. It's easy to see how she came to find her life's meaning, how she sublimated this immense persecution -- this is how she became a mercenary/ranger to help the most vulnerable, those who the galaxy had abandoned, those without anyone to protect them.

That’s not *our* Starfleet or Federation!!! Can we have it back please?

 

[FederationHistorian]

Maybe we haven’t heard anything because the Voyager crew drifted apart upon their return to Earth?

Where AGT depicted a future where the Ent-D crew drifted apart, allowing them to prevent that, “Endgame” showed a future where the Voyager crew was close after 23 years in the DQ. But since Admiral Janeway changed the timeline to save Seven of Nine, its quite possible that the Voyager crew drifted apart afterward as a result of not have those extra 16 years in the DQ. Its canon that eight-year missions exists, so Voyager’s seven years in the DQ might be seen as a standard Starfleet deep space mission and everyone got reassigned upon their return.

So maybe as of PIC S2, Harry Kim is serving on the USS Rhode Island on a four-year mission as depicted in “Endgame”, but Seven has no idea if he’s the captain or still an ensign because she hasn’t kept in touch with him. Similarly, Seven has no idea if B’Elanna is a Federation liaison for the Klingon Empire, and if Tom Paris is writing holonovels. It’s a bit hard to believe that Seven hasn’t kept in touch with Naomi Wildman, but that’s entire possible too if she’s in Starfleet as well and busy being a mom.

We also have no idea if Starfleet and the Fenris Rangers are even on good terms with on another by PIC S2. Since Icheb joined the Fenris Rangers during a leave of absence, and that was allowed for him to be captured and killed by Bjayzl. If it was major problem for Starfleet for Icheb to work for the Fenris Rangers, then Icheb would have resigned his commission, like Worf did in “Redemption”. But it seemed okay with Starfleet, since Icheb was wearing his Starfleet uniform. Perhaps Seven being the one that reported his death to the USS Coleman further strained ties and colored Seven’s views for Starfleet and the Federation as a whole. It might even be the flashpoint for when Seven loses contact with the rest of the Voyager crew.

 

[Timofnine]

There was a Voyager musical que in season one.l which was a nice touch.

 

[Llywela]

We don't, in fact, know that Seven has lost contact with the Voyager crew at all. She might remain in contact with all her friends from that time in her life, we just haven't seen it on-screen because she has been otherwise occupied - and honestly, on-screen in Star Trek Picard we've really only seen a few extremely heightened days out of Seven's life, so far. Just because she hasn't had reason to mention any of her old crewmates doesn't mean she no longer speaks to any of them, just that she hasn't had occasion to talk about them. And if she has drifted out of touch with some of them, that's a very normal thing that happens with friends whose circumstances have changed since they first met, whose lives only rarely overlap anymore.

Voyager has been acknowledged by Star Trek: Picard in a bunch of ways. First of all, just having Seven in the cast at all is a pretty big acknowledgement! It's more than DS9 has had. We not only saw Icheb's death in flashback but were given details of his life after Voyager ended. Seven's comfort with a holographic crewmate can be read as a callback to her friendship with Voyager's Doctor. We were flat out told in 2.01 that the Borg had been effectively neutralised as a threat and while Janeway and Voyager weren't namechecked in that statement it was tacitly understood that it was their actions that brought about this state of affairs. All those things are acknowledgements of Voyager.

 

[Christopher]

She was a high-status drone who had the ear of the Borg Queen

That's not how the Borg work. The Collective isn't a crew or a nation. It's a hive consciousness, a single mind running in the brains of every drone simultaneously, like cloud computing. The entire Collective is essentially just one "person," and the drones are the "cells" that make it up, with no personality or identity of their own until they're severed from it. The Queen is not a ruler or a commander, just the drone through which the entire Collective speaks, or perhaps a central coordinating node that gives the whole its focus and direction, like the frontal lobe of the human brain. Those cases when it was portrayed otherwise, like in "Endgame" where we saw the Queen issuing verbal orders to drones, were just idiotic. It was like someone's brain having to verbally instruct their fingers to move.

The hive mind is equally aware of every drone within it simultaneously; there is no "status" or hierarchy. It's all a single uniform, homogenized whole. That's the entire point of the Borg as a concept, that the Collective is evil because it crushes individuality and blends everything into an undifferentiated mass.

When we first saw Seven of Nine, she was dormant in an alcove like any other drone. There's no reason to think she had any kind of "status"; she was just one more cog in the machine, a tool stored in a box until it was time to take it out and use it. The fact that she was alone in a closed compartment does suggest she was a specialized kind of "tool," perhaps, and she did seem to display more of an individual will than most drones, so I sometimes suspect that she was in reserve as a potential replacement Queen body in case something happened to the current one (since even the Queen is just one more interchangeable part within the whole, which we know because we've seen Queens destroyed and replaced on several occasions). But that's not having anyone's "ear." A drone is a component, not a crewmember.

 

[The Wormhole]

We do have Prodigy currently airing, which is in many ways a Voyager sequel. It's possible Picard, at least in seasons 2 and 3 may be under instructions to keep Voyager references to a bare minimum to avoid clashing with Prodigy's plans.

 

[Christopher]

We do have Prodigy currently airing, which is in many ways a Voyager sequel. It's possible Picard, at least in seasons 2 and 3 may be under instructions to keep Voyager references to a bare minimum to avoid clashing with Prodigy's plans.

It's hard to imagine a bigger Voyager reference than having Seven of Nine as a core cast member. (Prodigy having Janeway counts, but they only have Hologram Janeway as a series regular.) Beyond that, it's probably just a matter of keeping things clear for novice or casual viewers by not making unnecessary references. What's being used is what matters -- not the fact that Seven once had one peripheral encounter with Q or whatever, but who Seven of Nine is as a person, how she reacts in a crisis, how she reacts to being without her Borg implants for the first time in her adult life (which I assume will get some more exploration as the season continues), etc. A character can be shaped by their past without needing to explicitly lecture the audience about what past experiences are affecting them.