Why is the Trek community so negative about Voyager?

[zar]

No exaggeration, the audience wanted Borg who were completely invincible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM

Scorpion is considered the beginning of the "Voyager Borg", the beginning of their fall and "Not invincible" status. It didn't matter that the 8472 were strong enough to do it, the fact that such a thing existed and in VOY of all shows was nothing but agony for the audience.

Except nobody ever said anything like this. Scorpion and 8472 are not hated. The opposite is true. Good lord man, it's one thing to twist their words in your favor, but now you're making things up out of thin air.

And, as KimC said, what really happened to Lessing? He was tied to a chair and a rift ALMOST opened. Wow. Is that really torture?

Yes, it is.

Except that Lessing never thought it would really happen. He accuses them of setting up a good cop/bad cop maneuver, and Chakotay proves him right by arriving before the rift opened. If lying to a prisoner is torture, most police officers should be prosecuted.

But they weren't lying. They opened the rift. We do know that he didn't think it would really happen at least until the point where Janeway and Chakotay leave the room. But do you really think he was still sure of himself when the rift started opening? Wasn't there a look of terror on his face when Chakotay went back in? Even if it was a trick and there wasn't real danger (but there was) it would still be psychological torture.

 

[Harvey]

That's why the "Always on the move" part of the premise limited the show and what it could do with its aliens.

Not when you have aliens that are following Voyager, or aliens with territory that spans a great area of space, or aliens who have much faster ships than Voyager, and that's just three ideas written down in 30 seconds. It's true, the series was never going to have the capability of DS9, but that would never happen with a ship-based series moving in a straight line.

 

[Anwar]

Then why were there nothing but complaints over how the Kazon showed up for two years, if they had both large territories AND were hunting VOY? Or what about the Vidiians showing up when it's clear they're just as if not MORE advanced than Voyager? Or that bit about the Hirogen station?

And yes, Scorpion is considered when the Borg's decay began. And yes, the audience DID want the Borg to be utterly invincible. Let's clarify, shall we?:

1) They wanted the Borg to be the way they were in TNG.

2) In TNG, the Borg were completely immune to all phaser and torpedo damage. They were invincible. Fact. Nothing could be done to outrun the Borg, or hide from them. Fact.

3) Thus, if said Borg were in VOY, they would be totally invincible and there would be no way for VOY, on its own, to outrun them or hide from them.

Thus, if transplanted to VOY the Borg would be invincible, VOY could not outrun them, nor could they ever successfully hide from them.

In other words, the show would be over.

VOY however, showed that the Borg could be damaged in conventional ways and that they were not invincible, even if the ones doing the damage were not Starfleet. Thus, the Borg were not as they were in TNG and the audience couldn't stand that. If the Borg were the way they were from TNG then they would've defeated the 8472 since they were invincible.

Since Scorpion did not portray them as the invincible unbeatable foe they were in TNG, Scorpion is where the decay began. Fact.

 

[Admiral Shran]

2) In TNG, the Borg were completely immune to all phaser and torpedo damage. They were invincible. Fact.

Wrong.

From The Best of Both Worlds, Part I....

What do you think happend to this guy? Worf shot him. With a phaser. Doesn't seem immune from phasers to me.

From their very first appearance in Q Who....

You're right, that seems utterly invincible to me as well.

Fact - The Borg were not invincible on TNG, they were just extremely more powerful than anything the Federation could throw at them. The Enterprise could temporarily damage a Cube, but it would repair itself before it could be destroyed.

Nothing could be done to outrun the Borg, or hide from them. Fact.

Wrong.

What did they do at the end of I Borg? They hid from the Borg ship that came to pick up Hugh. Fact.

What did they do in Descent, Part II? They hid from the Borg ship in a star's corona. Fact.

Also in Descent, Part II, they destroyed the Borg ship. Fact.

Why are you so obsessed with saying that people wanted an invincible Borg?

 

[RyuRoots]

And yes, Scorpion is considered when the Borg's decay began. And yes, the audience DID want the Borg to be utterly invincible. Let's clarify, shall we?:

By who? Links. Prove it. Show us.

1) They wanted the Borg to be the way they were in TNG.

Possibly, but that does not mean what you seem to think:

2) In TNG, the Borg were completely immune to all phaser and torpedo damage. They were invincible. Fact. Nothing could be done to outrun the Borg, or hide from them. Fact.

No, you are wrong. They took damage even in Q, Who in fact. Additionally the TNG crew DID adapt their weapons to get in more shots. That is not invincible. Also, they DID, in fact, hide from the Borg. In Best of Both Worlds as well as I, Borg

3) Thus, if said Borg were in VOY, they would be totally invincible and there would be no way for VOY, on its own, to outrun them or hide from them.

If the TNG crew was able to using nothing but the resources of the ship (see the two examples above) why would Voyger be unable to? Please answer me this.

Thus, if transplanted to VOY the Borg would be invincible, VOY could not outrun them, nor could they ever successfully hide from them.

See the above.

In other words, the show would be over.

Again, see the above.

VOY however, showed that the Borg could be damaged in conventional ways and that they were not invincible, even if the ones doing the damage were not Starfleet. Thus, the Borg were not as they were in TNG and the audience couldn't stand that. If the Borg were the way they were from TNG then they would've defeated the 8472 since they were invincible.

In the TNG series (movies included), a UFP fleet led by the Ent-E obliterates a cube, the Ent-D used trickery with help from Locutus to obliterate a different cube, they hid from another Borg ship, and there was never a single episode of TNG (this also applies to FC) where there was combat and it didn't take time for the Borg to adapt to their weapons. This is not invincible. Every time, the TNG crew hid from or beat the Borg and only ONE of those times (exactly one time) did they have from other ships (and no, BOBW doesn't count because they did not in any way contribute to the resolution).

Since Scorpion did not portray them as the invincible unbeatable foe they were in TNG,

Which they were not, which is not an opinion, but a fact

Scorpion is where the decay began. Fact.

First off, this is an opinion, not a fact. Secondly, the audience at large disagrees with you. I have never seen posts (aside from yours, of course) that claim otherwise.

 

[Anwar]

1) The Borg after him was immune to phaser damage. In fact, it was made clear that all the new phaser weaponry they thought of was useless after a few minutes of use. For all intents and purposes, the Borg were invincible.

2) After that initial barrage, the Borg Cube was totally immune to all damage the Enterprise could do to it.

And in BOBW, ALL their weapons were useless against the Borg. 40 starships opened fire, didn't even slow the Borg ship down, and the Cube didn't have a SCRATCH on it.

Invincible.

I, Borg didn't make any sense as to how they could hide from the Borg and be undetected, but they couldn't do the same in BOBW. Of course, no one cared because of the double standard.

Descent is exactly what I've been talking about when it comes to the VOY double standard. If VOY had hidden in a star's corona, and then used the star itself to destroy a Borg Cube, everyone would've hated that story. TNG did it and NO ONE CARED.

Double Standard.

EDIT: Actually, they couldn't hide from the Borg in BOBW. The only reason the Borg didn't go into the Nebula and blow them up is because they wanted Picard alive. And even then they still had those energy charges that drove them out of the Nebula. That's not hiding.

And in FC, it's just another case of the double standard that the Fed Fleet could damage the Cube but were PO'ed when VOY did similar stuff.

 

[RyuRoots]

1) The Borg after him was immune to phaser damage. In fact, it was made clear that all the new phaser weaponry they thought of was useless after a few minutes of use. For all intents and purposes, the Borg were invincible.

2) After that initial barrage, the Borg Cube was totally immune to all damage the Enterprise could do to it.

And in BOBW, ALL their weapons were useless against the Borg. 40 starships opened fire, didn't even slow the Borg ship down, and the Cube didn't have a SCRATCH on it.

Invincible.

I, Borg didn't make any sense as to how they could hide from the Borg and be undetected, but they couldn't do the same in BOBW. Of course, no one cared because of the double standard.

Descent is exactly what I've been talking about when it comes to the VOY double standard. If VOY had hidden in a star's corona, and then used the star itself to destroy a Borg Cube, everyone would've hated that story. TNG did it and NO ONE CARED.

Double Standard.

EDIT: Actually, they couldn't hide from the Borg in BOBW. The only reason the Borg didn't go into the Nebula and blow them up is because they wanted Picard alive. And even then they still had those energy charges that drove them out of the Nebula. That's not hiding.

And in FC, it's just another case of the double standard that the Fed Fleet could damage the Cube but were PO'ed when VOY did similar stuff.

So...how do you know this? Did you have a poll asking how people would react if Voyager hid in a star's corona from the Borg? If not, I honestly cannot take this statement seriously.

So...the fact that they DID hide from them, regardless of the reasoning, suddenly becomes not-hiding because they eventually get driven out?

And that's...completely different. It's entirely possible that the weapons in FC had been adapted to after that battle, and Starfleet HAD been working on anti-Borg weapons (see Best of Both Worlds). Voyager going hunting Borg ships for spare parts is another thing entirely.

 

[Anwar]

So...how do you know this? Did you have a poll asking how people would react if Voyager hid in a star's corona from the Borg? If not, I honestly cannot take this statement seriously.

So...the fact that they DID hide from them, regardless of the reasoning, suddenly becomes not-hiding because they eventually get driven out?

And that's...completely different. It's entirely possible that the weapons in FC had been adapted to after that battle, and Starfleet HAD been working on anti-Borg weapons (see Best of Both Worlds). Voyager going hunting Borg ships for spare parts is another thing entirely.

Actually, thinking about it the Enterprise hiding in the Corona wasn't hiding either since it was made clear that they'd have been destroyed staying there and the Borg knew this. And yes, given how the audience reacted to all VOY stories concerning the Borg I can safely say that they could've hidden in as many nebulas and stars as they wanted and the audience would've just complained that the Borg just don't go in there and blow them up.

And no, if you have to leave it's not hiding. Hiding it when they can't find you at all.

It's shown that the Borg adapt VERY fast, like after one or two shots. FC had them fighting for hours and the Cube getting severely damaged from the same phasers and torpedoes. They couldn't adapt, they weren't immune anymore. No one had any problems with this. But when VOY took out a god damn PROBE the audience couldn't stand it.

They could've done a story where the Krenim had an armada of dozens of ships all blasting away at the Borg with their chroniton warhead torpedoes and all the audience would do is complain that the Borg didn't trash them in 10 seconds.

 

[Saito S]

It's good to be back! Or is it? Here I am again... I can't help myself.

When TNG did it in FC, no one cared. When VOY did it, everyone complained. Fact.

No. Your (unsupported) assertion is that "no one" complained in FC, and that "everyone" complained in VOY. That's not a fact. Besides, in FC:

1) It had been years since Wolf 359. Starfleet weapons technology had improved. At Wolf 359, Starfleet threw mostly Mirandas, Excelsiors, etc (older classes) at the cube. In FC, they threw Akiras, Steamrunners, the Defiant, and then the Ent-E (top of the line) at it.
2) That said, until the Ent-E arrived, the battle was uncertain. Would Starfleet have won on their own? Possibly not. It was Picard and his link to the Borg that allowed them to detect the weak spot and INSURE victory. So your point that "they destroyed a cube with conventional weapons in FC and no one cared" is moot, because they DIDN'T just destroy it with conventional weapons.

Then why were there nothing but complaints over how the Kazon showed up for two years, if they had both large territories AND were hunting VOY?

People complained about the Kazon because the Kazon sucked. Simple.

And yes, Scorpion is considered when the Borg's decay began. And yes, the audience DID want the Borg to be utterly invincible. Let's clarify, shall we?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)
Read the very first paragraph. Note what is said about how the episode was received by the fandom.

As for "THE FANDOM WANTED INVINCIBLE BORG" (lol), others here have covered that quite well.

1) The Borg after him was immune to phaser damage. In fact, it was made clear that all the new phaser weaponry they thought of was useless after a few minutes of use.

Yet they still found a way to re-tune their weapons so that they got ANOTHER few minutes of use, even as late as well into BOBW part 2. True, the weapons were only good for a few minutes each time, but it wasn't like the Borg adapted once and then BAM, weapons are useless from then on.

For all intents and purposes, the Borg were invincible.

Except that they weren't.

I, Borg didn't make any sense as to how they could hide from the Borg and be undetected, but they couldn't do the same in BOBW.

They weren't trying to just hide indefinitely in BOBW, they had already been tasked with STOPPING the cube. In "I, Borg," they JUST wanted to completely hide.

Descent is exactly what I've been talking about when it comes to the VOY double standard. If VOY had hidden in a star's corona, and then used the star itself to destroy a Borg Cube, everyone would've hated that story. TNG did it and NO ONE CARED.

No. That Voyager never used tricks LIKE hiding in a star's corona was itself part of the problem. They just treated them like any old enemy that they could handle with conventional weapons as long as they weren't outnumbered.

NOTE: Since I know you're going to bring this up, I'm not saying "Voyager's conventional weapons being IN ANY WAY USEFUL against the Borg is a problem." I AM saying: "Voyager beating the Borg easily and repeatedly with conventional weapons, instead of sometimes just evading them with trickery, is a problem."

Double Standard.

This double standard you love to ramble on about doesn't, in fact, exist.

EDIT: Actually, they couldn't hide from the Borg in BOBW. The only reason the Borg didn't go into the Nebula and blow them up is because they wanted Picard alive. And even then they still had those energy charges that drove them out of the Nebula. That's not hiding.

Uh... yeah, it is. They hid... until they were driven out. At that point, they were no longer hiding. Simple concept.

And... the Borg didn't go into the nebula because they had already decided they wanted to kidnap Picard? How do you know this? Regardless, the Ent-D crew certainly didn't know that, and they didn't express ANY surprise that the nebula did offer them temporary protection. Ergo, there was another reason the "hiding" worked successfully. Ergo, one can hide from the Borg, at least temporarily.

And in FC, it's just another case of the double standard that the Fed Fleet could damage the Cube but were PO'ed when VOY did similar stuff.

Covered in detail above.

 

[RyuRoots]

And no, if you have to leave it's not hiding.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hide

verb, hid, hid·den or hid, hid·ing, noun –verb (used with object) 1. to conceal from sight; prevent from being seen or discovered: Where did she hide her jewels?

2. to obstruct the view of; cover up: The sun was hidden by the clouds.

3. to conceal from knowledge or exposure; keep secret: to hide one's feelings.


–verb (used without object) 4. to conceal oneself; lie concealed: He hid in the closet.

As I'm sure you can see, having to come out or specifying a time limit does not make it not hiding.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

She did have a great ass. But then again, so did Janeway.
In fact, when has any main cast female Trek character not?

For me, it's feet that attract me, not asses. And I wish that we could have seen a lot of bare foot shots of the ladies on Voyager.

 

[Admiral Shran]

And in BOBW, ALL their weapons were useless against the Borg. 40 starships opened fire, didn't even slow the Borg ship down, and the Cube didn't have a SCRATCH on it.

Invincible.

Well, Anwar has declared the TNG Borg to be invinicble. Therefore, they must have been so.

Except for the fact that they were either damaged, defeated, or hiden from by the Enterprise in all their appearances.

I, Borg didn't make any sense as to how they could hide from the Borg and be undetected, but they couldn't do the same in BOBW. Of course, no one cared because of the double standard.

It couldn't possibly be because the Borg saw them go into the nebula in BOBW and just needed time to figure out how to drive them out, while in I Borg they had no idea the Enterprise was even there in the first place, could it?

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Moore never liked writing about aliens.

And he wanted to do Star Trek.

Boggles the mind.

To be fair to Moore, neither did Frank Herbert, which is why there are no aliens in the Dune trilogy. There are a lot of other sci-fi novels without aliens, too.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

VOY just came at the wrong time. It needed to come when CGI was cheaper (1999 or beyond) and they could easily re-use past show props (so after DS9) with some minor modifications/redressings.

Also by then other shows like LEXX and Farscape would be on the air, so it'd be easier for the Producers/Showrunners to convince Paramount of the merit of the premise since those shows were getting them to work.

They'd also be able to use better fleshed out concepts, because a post-DS9 Maquis would have been better defined as Anti-Federation. Or they could just use Romulans.

So, right idea but wrong time.

Feel free to disagree.

Or better yet, Paramount/UPN should have put Star Trek on TV aside for a while, do Next Generation and DS9 movies, THEN do Voyager.

Oh, about the DS9 movies; Apparently people do want to see the Niners in some movies.

 

[Harvey]

Then why were there nothing but complaints over how the Kazon showed up for two years, if they had both large territories AND were hunting VOY? Or what about the Vidiians showing up when it's clear they're just as if not MORE advanced than Voyager? Or that bit about the Hirogen station?

To date myself a little bit, I didn't start venturing out into the world of internet fandom until I was just short of 13 years old. That was 2000, when Star Trek: Voyager was just about over. I really can't claim to know what the fan reaction at that time was. All I know is that you are bringing up complaints that, again, aren't being heard in this thread.

As for my "bit about the Hirogen station," I'm pretty confident that is accounted for, provided one takes the time to read my post.

 

[Jax]

For all intents and purposes, the Borg were invincible

erm no because they were defeated in BOBW. The Borg were poorly written to be honest in TNG, made far to powerful and the writers back themselves into a corner after BOBW. To be honest until Dark Frontier part 2 Voyager was doing fine with the borg and even afterwards Voyager normally struggled against the species never blowing up a cube or ship but simple getting away --- and then we had Endgame lets not talk about that.

The Borg adapting to weapons was always a little daft in the Trek Universe because phasers would be able to drain any shield, The Borg should of had stronger shields but not the ability to some how be 100% immune from fire in TNG or any Trek show.

 

[Anwar]

Except for the fact that they were either damaged, defeated, or hiden from by the Enterprise in all their appearances.

And the damage only worked once, afterwards their weapons were totally ineffective. The defeat was through a technicality/plot contrivance, and hiding never worked.

Difference being, TNG made the Borg so the audience was more accepting of what they did with them. And they only attacked the Feds once, since TNG had much more to work with in terms of recurring enemies than VOY did.

It couldn't possibly be because the Borg saw them go into the nebula in BOBW and just needed time to figure out how to drive them out, while in I Borg they had no idea the Enterprise was even there in the first place, could it?

It didn't make any sense that the Borg didn't detect the warp trail of the ENT when they went to pick up Hugh.

The fandom only liked Scorpion because they thought it would be the start of the serialized convoluted mess they wanted VOY to be in the first place, and were PO'ed it turned out only to be a two-parter instead of a 100-parter. Once they realized that, they stopped liking it.

No. That Voyager never used tricks LIKE hiding in a star's corona was itself part of the problem. They just treated them like any old enemy that they could handle with conventional weapons as long as they weren't outnumbered

Like I said, those tricks never work since the Borg always knew where they were and could just wait them out or drive them out. The only option when a Borg ship is tracking you is to destroy them, since you can't out-run them and they don't just lose interest and leave.

 

[Alex1939]

A person who has no feeling for an individual, can have no empathy for the multitude.

Death is always a tragedy, wheither it is one or millions.

Brit

Sure.

But in Archer's case we are talking about the survival of the human race.

The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.

 

[exodus]

No, the Hirogen story culminates in s7's "Flesh & Blood".

I was referring to the Hirogen arc in the fourth season, which lasts about six episodes (the Hirogen don't appear in "Retrospect," but the Voyager crew mention buying weapons in order to defend themselves from them) and culminates in "The Killing Game."

As for the return of the Hirogen three seasons later in "Flesh and Blood," as I indicated in a previous post, it doesn't make a lick of sense. The Hirogen re-appear (with Voyager holotechnology in hand) more than 35,000 light years beyond their last known position. They can't have received the information about the holotechnology from their communications network ("Message in a Bottle," "Hunters") because it was destroyed in "Hunters," before Janeway gave them the technology in "The Killing Game."

So, somehow the Hirogen were able to cross half the Delta Quadrant, build a massive holodeck onboard an immobile and specially designed space station (which seems unnecessarily large, considering what we know about holotechnology from previous episodes), and play their holographic games for a significant time before Voyager (which had been on the move most of this time) stumbled across them. Yeah, right.

It's too bad, because it undermines one of the better episodes of season seven, which for once answers lingering questions about Janeway's decision at the end of "The Killing Game," something this series (in the tradition of the episodic, almost anthology-like storytelling of TOS and TNG before it) would rarely do.

We learned the Hirogen have technicians.
We learned the Hirogen communicate using an alien array
We learned the Hirogen are nomadic
We learned that the Hirogen are all through that part of space for many lightyears.
We know that several Hirogen ship were involved in "The Killing Game" and they all took this tech upon leaving.
We know the Hirogen are in contact with other Hirogen once in a while when needed.
If we consider all this, I don't see it as impossable for Hirogen to pass on info to other Hirogen lightyears away to do this through chain communication.
I also am under suspicion that the instillation they're using as a holo-play ground wasn't built by them but rather taken from one of their prizes, especially considering they usurped Voyager & that Array and made them their own.

If "Flesh & Blood" involves the tech given to the Hirogen from "The Killing Game", then wouldn't than mean the Hirogen arc continues into s7? I thought a story arc is when elements from previous stories carry over into others?

 

[Anwar]

The Borg just suck as a recurring enemy, Micheal Piller should have just made it clear that the Borg Cube from BOBW was the entire Borg species and they ALL died in that episode with no chance of more of them. They really didn't have anywhere to go after that but down.