Why is the Trek community so negative about Voyager?

[darkwing_duck1]

A Night In Sickbay got nominated for a Hugo. How does that happen? If you recall the Trek community had some issues with the credibilty of the Hugo then. {/quote]

No, (and I hate to see myself using this term, but such is the situation), a bunch of self-important internet fans had issues with the credibility of the Hugo. ANIS was the most watched ep of S2, and frankly was pretty darn good.

It would seem a lot of those same people had no issue with B5 winning one. And A Night In Sickbay certainly sucked less.

NEITHER show sucked.

JMS wrote every character like a cynical cop from Hill Street Blues.

Uh....no.

All his characters spoke with the same voice.

Garibaldi maybe, not not the others. We had Londo, who was a romantic in the historical sense and would do anything for his beloved Republic. We had G'Kar, the bitter ex slave who learns to embrace his spirituality and forgive his enemies. Sherridan, the Leader, the man of vision, touched by destiny. Delenn, the mystic who must expiate her past sins by becoming the living bridge between two once enemy cultures that had far more in common with each other than they ever suspected.

And so on and so forth.

Sure Woody Allen did the same with all of his films, too, except all his characters sounded like a neurotic middle aged Jew from Brooklyn,

Woody Allen is not B5.

and at least his films were clever and often witty. B5 was neither.

B5 was both. Londo and G'kar's ongoing verbal warfare. Sherridan's inspirational speeches. Delenn's quiet faith.

Some samples:

"You make very good sharks, Mr. Garibaldi. We were pretty good sharks ourselves once, but somehow, along the way, we forgot how to bite. There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us. What are we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories. Living off memories and stories, selling trinkets.

My god, man. We've become a tourist attraction. 'See the great Centauri Republic -- open 9 to 5, Earth time.'"

---Londo to Garibaldi

"In the months and the years to come, you may hear many strange things about me, my behavior. Well, they say the position .. changes you. And I just .. I .. I wanted to--"
"I understand."
"Perhaps. And perhaps you do not understand as much as you think. Pray .. that you never do, G'Kar. Pray .. that you never truly understand."

-- Londo and G'Kar

"Isn't it strange, G'Kar? When we first met, I had no power .. and all the choices I could ever want. And now I have all the power I could ever want .. and no choices at all. No choice .. at all."

-- Londo to G'Kar

"You know, Londo never liked the Pak'ma'ra. I mean, they're stubborn, lazy, obnoxious, greedy--"
"They kinda look like an octopussy that got run over by a truck."
"That too, but .. one day Londo and I were walking past their quarters .. and we heard them .. singing."
"Singing? They can sing?"
"There's nothing about that in the literature."
"Apparently it's something they only do certain times of the year as part of their religious ceremonies. You may not believe this, but .. it was the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I couldn't make out the words, but I knew it was full of sadness and .. hope and wonder and .. terrible .. sense of loss. I looked at Londo and -- this is the amazing part -- there was a .. tear running down his face. I said: 'Londo, we should leave.' And 'This is upsetting you.' He just stood there and .. listened. And when it was over he turned to me and he said: 'There are 49 gods in our pantheon, Vir. To tell you the truth I never believed in any of them. But if only one of them exist, .. then god sings with that voice.' It's funny. After everything we've been through, all he did, .. I miss him."

-- Vir, Garibaldi, Sheridan, Franklin, Vir

"Because, while I do not know who the enemy is any longer, I do know who my friends are, and that I have not done as well by them as I should. I hope to change that. I hope to do better."

-- Londo to G'Kar

"We have unlimited manpower and the will to use it! Can you imagine what we could achieve together?"
"I can, which is why it must never be allowed to happen."

-- G'Kar and Delenn

"In order to be free you had to learn to fight. No one questions that. But you've overcompensated. You are like abused children who have grown big enough to do the same thing to someone else as if it would somehow balance the scales. It won't. If you let the anger cloud your judgement, it will destroy you."

-- Sinclair to G'Kar

"Why does any advanced civilization seek to destroy a less advanced one? Because the land is strategically valuable, because there are resources that can be cultivated and exploited, but most of all, simply because they can."

-- G'Kar

"No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free."

-- G'Kar

"G'Quan wrote: 'There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.'"

-- G'Kar

"It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain. If we are wise, what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world, because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past."

-- G'Kar

"I'm not authorized for that kind of information."
"But you are the head of security."
"Then what kind of head of security would I be if I let people like me know things that I'm not supposed to know? I know what I know because I have to know it. And if I don't have to know it, I don't tell me, and I don't let anyone else tell me either. Now look, we have tried most of the other ambassadors, why don't you speak to G'Kar, maybe he knows something about this ship."
"Under the terms of our recent treaty, I am not authorized to have any official conversation with the Narn without Centauri approval."
"So you'll ask unofficially. And I can give you reasonable assurances that the head of security will not report you for doing so."
"Because you won't tell yourself about it?"
"That's right. I never get involved with my own life. It's too much trouble."
"This is a very strange place you have here, Mr. Garibaldi."
"Thank you."

-- Garibaldi and David Endawi

"He is a holy man, a true seeker. Among my people a true seeker is treated with the outmost reverence and respect. It doesn't matter that his Grail may or may not exist, what matters is that he strives for the perfection of his soul and the salvation of his race and that he has never wavered or lost faith."
"I wish him luck. He's probably the only true seeker we have."
"Then perhaps you don't know yourself .. as well as you think."

-- Sinclair and Delenn

"They're in pain, frightened, dying. Minbari are taught that at such a time, the afflicted should be ministered to, comforted."
"They're not your own people, Delenn."
"I didn't know that similarity was required for the exercise of compassion. They are afraid. We wish to do what little we can."

-- Delenn and Sheridan

"How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, .. not for glory, not for fame. For one person, .. in the dark .. where no one will ever know .. or see."

-- Sebastian to Delenn & Sheridan

"I told you, Delenn, they will not speak to you."
"Then they will listen to me. I served the Council for 16 cycles. I was the chosen of Dukhat to replace him. I held him when he died. His blood is on my hands, his spirit in my eyes, his word on my lips. You will step aside in his name and mine, or .. in Valen's name, I will tear this ship apart with my bare hands until I find them. Move aside."

-- Minbari and Delenn

"Three years. For three years I warned you this day was coming. But you would not listen. Pride, you said, presumption. And now the Shadows are on the move. The Centauri and the younger worlds are at war, the Narns have fallen. Even the Humans are fighting one another. The pride was yours, the presumption was yours. For a thousand years we have been awaiting for fulfilment of prophecy, and when it finally happens, you scorn it, you reject it. Because you no longer believe it yourselves. 'We stand between the candle and the star, between the darkness and the light.' You say the words, but your hearts are empty, your ears closed to the truth. You stand for nothing but your own petty interests. 'The problems of others are not our concern.' I do not blame you for standing silent in your shame. You, who knew what was coming, but refused to take up the burden of this war. If the warrior caste will not fight, then the rest of us will. If the Council has lost its way, if it will not lead, if we have abandoned our covenant with Valen, the Council should be broken, as was prophesied. We must stand with the others now, before it's too late. Between the worker caste and the religious caste we control two thirds of our forces. To you I say: listen to the voice of your conscience. Break the Council, and come with we. Our time of isolation is over. We move now, together, or not at all."

-- Delenn to Grey Council

"This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, .. or be destroyed." [in the White Star!]
"Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship."
"Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

-- Delenn and Captain Drake

Need I go on? I could easily. B5 is a diamond mine of dialogue jewels.

Their sets looked cheap. Their FX looked cheap,

They had a budget, a small budget. They did the best job I've seen of getting every penny they could out of it.

not one of the other Humanoid characters could act to save their lives. Frankly I have seen better acting in a fan flick.

Oh please...

You're not going to convince me of the show's merits. Don't try. Outside of Keonig's occasional mustache twirling psychobabble and the G'Kar/Mollari dynamic, the show had no merit whatsoever.

It amazes me that people can complain about VOY when this stank up the airwaves worse than Glenn Beck's intestinal gases.

Ok, now I know you're just a hater.

 

[Anwar]

A lot of that stuff sounds good on paper, but as spoken dialog it can easily become crap. And about 1/3 of the time it was.

But B5 is a good example of what happens when one guy is in charge all the way through (it still had some problems though. It WASN'T perfect). Every time VOY tried that, said Showrunner ended up fired off the show.

 

[number6]

I don't recall that many showrunners fired from VOY.

 

[Anwar]

Piller, Taylor, Braga had all his ideas shot down but was kept on anyways, and Biller was just a placeholder more than anything else.

 

[zar]

(I hate the idea of a queen)

You can't make the Borg a recurring villain who interacts with the crew (the way every other Trek villain does) with just a big ominous voice.

Your point? He said he hates the idea of a queen. He didn't say the Borg should always be nothing but a faceless voice. Remember Locutus?

Well, thank you for showing that yes, some folks didn't like Scorpion and found it to be damaging to the Borg

"Some folks"? Ten pages ago it was everyone. Does this mean you're finally done arguing in terms of "everyone", "no one", and your mythical "the audience"?

The problem was that the audience couldn't handle the idea of one ship having such an impact on the Galaxy (nevermind that Farscape did it and no one cared) or the Borg.

Oh... never mind.

It wasn't that the Borg got weaker, it was that the Feds got stronger while the Borg stayed at the same level as before.

This is so ridiculous I actually thought you might be joking the first time you brought it up. Good God, I can't believe you're actually using this defense.

I guess this means the Romulans are no longer a threat because the Feds finally figured out how to defeat this thing:

The Borg stayed at the same level? What? Why in the name of Odin would you assume that? Why wouldn't they advance at least at the same level as the Federation like every other major Star Trek race has, especially considering we're talking about THE BORG, whose defining characteristic is constant adaptation?? Blaahh.

 

[Anwar]

Your point? He said he hates the idea of a queen. He didn't say the Borg should always be nothing but a faceless voice. Remember Locutus?

Locutus' effectiveness came from that he was formerly Picard. If he had just been some random guy who was a talking Borg he'd be nothing.

Nevermind that Doctor Who gets away with their Hive Mind group having speaking "leaders" with the Cybermen and no one cares. If the Borg showed up and had a speaking member, then the audience would just complain that they were diluting the idea of the Borg.

The problem was that the audience couldn't handle the idea of one ship having such an impact on the Galaxy (nevermind that Farscape did it and no one cared) or the Borg.

Oh... never mind.

Farscape had one ship of misfits end up changing the face of the Farscape galaxy, no one cares. VOY has a huge impact on the DQ, everyone complains. Pure double standard.

I guess this means the Romulans are no longer a threat because the Feds finally figured out how to defeat this thing:

The Romulans still have individual characters, intelligence, and they weren't significantly stronger than the Feds to begin with. One Romulan ship wasn't capable of destroying a Fed armada, just some defense bases and near-equal one ship. So one Fed ship barely overcoming on Romulan ship (which wasn't their superior to begin with) isn't a big deal.

The Borg stayed at the same level? What? Why in the name of Odin would you assume that? Why wouldn't they advance at least at the same level as the Federation like every other major Star Trek race has, especially considering we're talking about THE BORG, whose defining characteristic is constant adaptation?? Blaahh.

If they did, then they'd be invincible to all Fed weaponry even before they invented it and nothing the Feds could do would stop them since they were already far beyond all other Trek species in the first place. If they were always advancing then the Fed Fleet's weapons in FC wouldn't have done ANY damage at all. That's the problem with "Invincible" enemies, you can only use them a few times (sometimes only once) and the Borg wore out their welcome after BOBW.

Either don't make the bad guys SO powerful, or only use invincible foes once before killing them off FOR GOOD.

 

[zar]

Nevermind that Doctor Who gets away with their Hive Mind group having speaking "leaders" with the Cybermen and no one cares. If the Borg showed up and had a speaking member, then the audience would just complain that they were diluting the idea of the Borg.

...

Farscape had one ship of misfits end up changing the face of the Farscape galaxy, no one cares. VOY has a huge impact on the DQ, everyone complains. Pure double standard.

And there he goes again. "No one". "Everyone". "No one". "Everyone". Don't you ever stop?

While we're engaging in extravagant misrepresentation, how about this: No one cares about Doctor Who or Farscape.

The Romulans still have individual characters, intelligence, and they weren't significantly stronger than the Feds to begin with. One Romulan ship wasn't capable of destroying a Fed armada, just some defense bases and near-equal one ship. So one Fed ship barely overcoming on Romulan ship (which wasn't their superior to begin with) isn't a big deal.

Good grief, you completely and utterly missed the point. I wasn't saying that Romulans are anything like the Borg. The point is the rest of the universe doesn't stand still while Starfleet improves its technology and military power.

If they were always advancing then the Fed Fleet's weapons in FC wouldn't have done ANY damage at all.

Here we see the old Anwaran tradition of flipping from one extreme to the other again. First you said Starfleet grew stronger while the Borg remained absolutely the same, and now in your attempt to consider the alternatives all you can come up with is the idea that the Borg would have advanced while Starfleet remains absolutely the same. No, that's not how it works. Why can't you see the middle ground, the one possibility that actually makes sense?

That's the problem with "Invincible" enemies

True, but as usual, you're arguing against something that doesn't exist outside your own imagination. The Borg were never "invincible". Their core weakness was built-in from the start: they can't improve or invent on their own, they are dependent on others to assimilate or adapt to. Which means that, by design, they are always getting stronger yet humans would always have the capacity to be one step ahead of them. That's the beauty of it, really.

 

[Anwar]

While we're engaging in extravagant misrepresentation, how about this: No one cares about Doctor Who or Farscape.

When compared to other shows, Doctor Who and Farscape are among the ones often used as counter-examples.

Good grief, you completely and utterly missed the point. I wasn't saying that Romulans are anything like the Borg. The point is the rest of the universe doesn't stand still while Starfleet improves its technology and military power.

They can afford to have those other powers like the Romulans and Klingons keep up with the Feds because they weren't incredibly superior to the Feds in the first place. They can't afford to do that when the enemy force was already invincible to begin with because it means the good guys can never do anything to them, ever, beyond plot contrivance victories.

Here we see the old Anwaran tradition of flipping from one extreme to the other again. First you said Starfleet grew stronger while the Borg remained absolutely the same, and now in your attempt to consider the alternatives all you can come up with is the idea that the Borg would have advanced while Starfleet remains absolutely the same. No, that's not how it works. Why can't you see the middle ground, the one possibility that actually makes sense?

This IS the middle ground. If the Borg are already ahead of the Feds, and advancing at least at the same level, and the Feds couldn't hurt them significantly to begin with, then the Feds can never catch up to the Borg and their weapons will never be effective anymore than they were in BOBW not matter how much they advance because Borg defensive measures will have already advanced beyond them.

True, but as usual, you're arguing against something that doesn't exist outside your own imagination. The Borg were never "invincible". Their core weakness was built-in from the start: they can't improve or invent on their own, they are dependent on others to assimilate or adapt to.

The creative sterility was a Voyager invention (a hated one), there was no implication that they couldn't invent on their own in TNG.

Which means that, by design, they are always getting stronger yet humans would always have the capacity to be one step ahead of them. That's the beauty of it, really.

By design, the Borg are already strong enough to destroy the Feds and if they are always advancing at the same rate as everyone else (at least) then no one else can ever hope to match them or survive them beyond plot contrivance victories since their tech was already 3 steps ahead of them to begin with and the rate of advancement would mean they'd stay at least 3 steps ahead of everyone.

Naturally, in DS9 when they had the Feds get past the Dominion's advantages of polarion beams no one complained that the Dominion's weapon tech never developed shield-piercing beams that could surpass the Fed's new shields. They were okay with the Domion's strength being taken away to better equal the Feds, but can't stand it when VOY's crew gets their hands on enough reverse-engineered Borg tech to survive the Borg.

 

[number6]

Piller, Taylor, Braga had all his ideas shot down but was kept on anyways, and Biller was just a placeholder more than anything else.

So which one of them got fired??

 

[Anwar]

Piller and Taylor.

 

[number6]

*Snip*

Ok, now I know you're just a hater.

It took you that long to figure that out??

I hated B5.

I thought it sucked harder than a methaddicted trailer trash whore.

I pointed out what I thought was good about it and gave you my reasons for not liking it. I couldn't make my position any clearer.

The difference is that I don't loiter around B5 discussion forums and tell them how much their show sucked and how mindless and chromasome deficient they are for thinking it's great.

VOY wasn't great, but I don't understand the blind hatred it gets for episodes like Threshold and Endgame but give a free pass to episodes like 11:49 and that dumb one with Joel Grey.

I thought it was infinitely better written than most of B5, and had far more memorable and satisfying moments during its run than B5 and Crusade..The latter was completely unwatchable.

 

[Guy Gardener]

11:49 was genius in concept if not execution, and Joel grey got Janeway to pretend she was a prostitute, not that Kira didn't spend some time pretending she was a pleasure girl when she visited her mum in the past... these things happen.

 

[TheGodBen]

The difference is that I don't loiter around B5 discussion forums and tell them how much their show sucked and how mindless and chromasome deficient they are for thinking it's great.

I don't loiter, I saw this thread from the main forum page and thought "Hmm, someone is asking for input on a subject I have an understanding about" so I joined in. If someone started a thread down in the sci-fi/fantasy forum asking B5 haters what they don't like about the show, I wouldn't begrudge anybody going there to express their opinion.

At the very least, I can say that I didn't use inflammatory language like "Voyager sucked harder than a supermassive black hole" or "Braga is a hack writer and he needs a haircut".

VOY wasn't great, but I don't understand the blind hatred it gets for episodes like Threshold and Endgame but give a free pass to episodes like 11:49 and that dumb one with Joel Grey.

I don't hate Threshold, I'm just perplexed as to how something so insanely stupid was produced; surely, at some point in the production, someone could have pointed out how stupid the whole thing was. Why didn't the science advisor put a big red ring around the whole script with the note "No... no"? As for Endgame, that episode was disappointing and fell back on the old Voyager tropes of using the Borg and time travel rather than trying to come full circle like TNG and DS9 did. Not to mention that it opens a huge can of worms by using time travel to improve the future, and nobody bothers to explore the moral (or legal) implications of this.

Truth be told, the only episodes of Voyager that I truly hate are the Irish holodeck episodes, because the caricatures and severe lack of cultural sensitivity for the post-famine era are extremely offensive to me.

As for 11:59 and Resistance, I liked them both, I thought they were good character episodes.

 

[exodus]

I for one thank God that Voyager didn't fall back on the cliche that it had to come full circle in it's ending. I applaud it for being different in that aspect, especially considering I don't think there was anything to come full circle on.


As far as why something a dumb Threshold was produced, it's science fiction.
Most of it, even much of the science of Trek is bullshit anyway.
I doubt very much there will ever be such a machine that can break apart a living being on a molcular level and transport them somewhere else and reassemble them alive or a machine that can make a steak dinner from a shoe.
I doubt they ever expected us to take that episode as seriously as some do.

 

[Anwar]

I'm a sucker for that kind of "Book End" stuff. It's why when I did my VOY rewrite, I had the final villain (in fact, the villain who was behind most of the bad stuff in the entire show) be the Female Caretaker.

 

[exodus]

I'm a sucker for that kind of "Book End" stuff. It's why when I did my VOY rewrite, I had the final villain (in fact, the villain who was behind most of the bad stuff in the entire show) be the Female Caretaker.

That's exactly why I don't like it for Voyager.

Many questioned how/why did the Kazon, Hirogen, Talaxians & Borg keep popping up on Voyager great distances away, where folks felt they shouldn't be. Yet Susperia has followed them to the other end on the quaderant all this time?

Seriously?

 

[Anwar]

Yes, VOY's audience was seriously unpleasable especially given how other shows managed to do the same thing as them and nobody complained. But if the story is good enough no one will care.

Like how lots of Wrath of Khan doesn't make sense following "Space Seed" but no one cared.

 

[TheGodBen]

I for one thank God that Voyager didn't fall back on the cliche that it had to come full circle in it's ending. I applaud it for being different in that aspect, especially considering I don't think there was anything to come full circle on.

Personally, I love it when shows come full circle in the finale. One of my favourite TV moments was watching the finale to The Wire as almost everything came full-circle; the players may have changed, but the roles were still the same.

As far as why something a dumb Threshold was produced, it's science fiction.
Most of it, even much of the science of Trek is bullshit anyway.

There's a difference between being fantastical and being stupid, and Threshold was the later. Using a transporter to get from A to B is done to save money and time. A man turning into a lizard, kidnapping his captain, turning her into a lizard, and then having little lizard babies with her... that doesn't even work within the fantastical universe of Star Trek.

Many questioned how/why did the Kazon, Hirogen, Talaxians & Borg keep popping up on Voyager great distances away, whee folks felt they shouldn't be. Yet Susperia has followed them to the other end on the quaderant all this time?

The female caretaker is a magical being from a faraway galaxy, I'm pretty certain she can traverse this galaxy with ease.

 

[Servo]

Back to Janeway I'm not saying people think "Since Janeway is a woman I'm going to criticize her." It's more like the same behaviors that are okay with Picard or Kirk are not okay with Janeway. An example of this is the often discussed "Equinox" scene where Chakotay prevented Janeway from allowing an alien to attack a member of the Equinox crew. There was much discussion when a similar incident with Archer (don't know the episode, stopped watching when I realized Porthos was my favorite character) drew little criticism.

Which is an utterly ridiculous comparison. We're talking about two different Captains from two very different times. Archer and his crew were practically making it up as they went along, especially after the collapse of the Vulcan High Command. They were a far cry from the "enlightened" attitudes of Picard, Sisko, and Janeway's era who had the benefit of living in the Paradise that was the Federation. Hell, even Janeway herself commented that some of the things Kirk and Sulu got away with in their time, wouldn't be acceptable in the Starfleet she knew, acknowledging that it was a different time, with a different breed of Starfleet Captain.
Archer's actions in the example you cited remind me of Batman's line to Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins; "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you", which fits with Archer's character.

Using the differences between Janeway and Archer as a way of reinforcing your "people couldn't handle a female captain" argument, is just grasping.

Yes, VOY's audience was seriously unpleasable especially given how other shows managed to do the same thing as them and nobody complained. But if the story is good enough no one will care.

The other shows had better character development. Voyager used the reset button far to often. Traumatic experiences were often dealt with by the end of the episode, and forgotten about by the next. Take the Doctor, for example; even as my favourite character on the show, and arguably one of the best developed, he still suffered from the effects of the reset button. In "Latent Image", he goes through an incredibly traumatic experience, one that changes him in a big way, and is a defining point in his development as a self-aware, sentient piece of A.I. The episode ends with him in the holodeck, struggling with his conscience, yet by the next episode, it's forgotten about and everything is back to normal. We're just expected to figure that he got over it and went on with his day. Sorry, but that's sloppy as hell, and is only one of many examples of missed opportunities and poor characterisation.

BTW, sorry to everyone if this stuff has already been covered, but I got 4 pages into this thread before I realised it was 45 pages long, and there's no way I'm reading through all that.

 

[exodus]

There's a difference between being fantastical and being stupid, and Threshold was the later. Using a transporter to get from A to B is done to save money and time. A man turning into a lizard, kidnapping his captain, turning her into a lizard, and then having little lizard babies with her... that doesn't even work within the fantastical universe of Star Trek.


The female caretaker is a magical being from a faraway galaxy, I'm pretty certain she can traverse this galaxy with ease.

I'm going to assume you're joking with the Lizards are stupid but Susperia is magical and not stupid thing.
IMO if I can except Jello can talk and take my image, then lizard babies isn't hard to accept.
Saying a transporter is used to save time & money doesn't address that the much of the science within Trek is BS, thus still keeping inline with the absurd as Lizard evolution.

Susperia was from far away but magical?
Those types of mushrooms can be found right here on Earth, for $40 a bag and they will take you anywhere your thoughts can carry you.