I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
The warp damaging subspace thing was stupid and I'm glad they mostly ignored it.
I don't know if it's ballsy or just plain old dumb to write an episode putting a procedural show's main plot driving device-the ease of warp drive-in jeopardy. But christ..at least come up with a solution by the end of the episode. All we're left is "yeah we're totally causing damage so we'll attempt to minimize it, but we won't be stopping either." Which is a bit jarring for a show that was so big on the purity of star fleet's goodwill mission.
It just doesn't make sense in the context of the Star Trek universe since they've established that there have been advanced aliens using warp travel for thousands, if not millions, of years.
They could have easily done the global warming/fossil fuel/pollution issue with some other technology or with a less advanced alien race.
The warp damaging subspace thing was stupid and I'm glad they mostly ignored it.
I don't know if it's ballsy or just plain old dumb to write an episode putting a procedural show's main plot driving device-the ease of warp drive-in jeopardy. But christ..at least come up with a solution by the end of the episode. All we're left is "yeah we're totally causing damage so we'll attempt to minimize it, but we won't be stopping either." Which is a bit jarring for a show that was so big on the purity of star fleet's goodwill mission.
It just doesn't make sense in the context of the Star Trek universe since they've established that there have been advanced aliens using warp travel for thousands, if not millions, of years.
They could have easily done the global warming/fossil fuel/pollution issue with some other technology or with a less advanced alien race.
Yeah, that was my thought. I mean, if this one high-traffic corridor is starting to get a bit worn through, what must subspace around Sol, or Vulcan, or the Orion homeworld look like? And why hasn't anyone noticed yet?
But no, we get typically subtle Trek moralizing ("Pollution is Bad!") in a form which cuts the legs out from under one of the franchise's core premises - "boldly going."
How come Voyager was always cruising at warp 5 then? Was it because they didn't know what they were flying into, and they needed the lead time provided by the relatively slow speed?
Because when you run the engines at full tilt all the time the engineers come up to the bridge and beat the captain with a pipe wrench.
TOGSolid on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
How come Voyager was always cruising at warp 5 then? Was it because they didn't know what they were flying into, and they needed the lead time provided by the relatively slow speed?
Because when you run the engines at full tilt all the time the engineers come up to the bridge and beat the captain with a pipe wrench.
Man.
I would've voted for warp 9 on Voyager all the time.
How come Voyager was always cruising at warp 5 then? Was it because they didn't know what they were flying into, and they needed the lead time provided by the relatively slow speed?
Because when you run the engines at full tilt all the time the engineers come up to the bridge and beat the captain with a pipe wrench.
Man.
I would've voted for warp 9 on Voyager all the time.
I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
The warp damaging subspace thing was stupid and I'm glad they mostly ignored it.
I don't know if it's ballsy or just plain old dumb to write an episode putting a procedural show's main plot driving device-the ease of warp drive-in jeopardy. But christ..at least come up with a solution by the end of the episode. All we're left is "yeah we're totally causing damage so we'll attempt to minimize it, but we won't be stopping either." Which is a bit jarring for a show that was so big on the purity of star fleet's goodwill mission.
What? The episode was a direct allegory for how modern transportation is damaging to the environment, and that no one is willing to give it up despite the fact its very damaging.
Providing a solution at the end of the episode would have been the dumbest fucking thing.
The warp damaging subspace thing was stupid and I'm glad they mostly ignored it.
I don't know if it's ballsy or just plain old dumb to write an episode putting a procedural show's main plot driving device-the ease of warp drive-in jeopardy. But christ..at least come up with a solution by the end of the episode. All we're left is "yeah we're totally causing damage so we'll attempt to minimize it, but we won't be stopping either." Which is a bit jarring for a show that was so big on the purity of star fleet's goodwill mission.
It just doesn't make sense in the context of the Star Trek universe since they've established that there have been advanced aliens using warp travel for thousands, if not millions, of years.
They could have easily done the global warming/fossil fuel/pollution issue with some other technology or with a less advanced alien race.
Yeah, that was my thought. I mean, if this one high-traffic corridor is starting to get a bit worn through, what must subspace around Sol, or Vulcan, or the Orion homeworld look like? And why hasn't anyone noticed yet?
But no, we get typically subtle Trek moralizing ("Pollution is Bad!") in a form which cuts the legs out from under one of the franchise's core premises - "boldly going."
DS9 had little regards for travel time. Remember the long dramatic conversations in the turbolift on the ship with four decks?
Which had a hull breach on deck 5 at one point.
At least the Defiant technically had parts below the bottom deck, I guess, the nacelles could be counted as deck five. The Enterprise-E apparently had several ghost decks below the bottom point of the hull, one of which had a pit deep enough for a fatal fall.
Star Trek in general has little regards for a LOT of things.
Makes sense really, what better practical joke to play on O'Brian than link an O2 sensor to the outside of the station labelled 'Deck 5'?
"Chief, we've had some complaints about the temperature of the air-conditioning on Deck 5"
"OK I'll just check the sens...it's -129 degrees! This is a major problem, I'm going to have to spend all day checking the routing in the ducts to see what's causing this, why did no one say anything sooner!?"
I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
I remember at least one scene where Seven suggested just flying a direct course and minimising contact and deviations, and Janeway pointed out that it'd be a pretty dull trip.
She may have gone on to point out that they'd already cut a couple of decades off their trip as a result of stopping to look at interesting things on the way, or I may have just wished she'd done that. Either way, it's a valid point.
Seven then countered with a list of the crew who'd already died as a result of stopping to look at things, so it wasn't a one-sided preaching session, either.
klemming on
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
And then an episode later, when a trip can save X months (on a 100+ year journey), she'll fly through threatening the locals with genocide if they dare even look at the ship.
And then an episode later, when a trip can save X months (on a 100+ year journey), she'll fly through threatening the locals with genocide if they dare even look at the ship.
To be fair, flying with guns blazing on a genocidal rampage through alien space is not a dull trip.
And then an episode later, when a trip can save X months (on a 100+ year journey), she'll fly through threatening the locals with genocide if they dare even look at the ship.
To be fair, flying with guns blazing on a genocidal rampage through alien space is not a dull trip.
Yet another bad story that can be made awesome with "it was a roleplaying group"
And then an episode later, when a trip can save X months (on a 100+ year journey), she'll fly through threatening the locals with genocide if they dare even look at the ship.
To be fair, flying with guns blazing on a genocidal rampage through alien space is not a dull trip.
At one point, she decided to fly through a warzone, then by opening negotiations with one side made an enemy of the other. Through a sequence of events that were never properly established, Voyager crashed at least one shuttlecraft and left behind part of a computer core, a backup copy of the Doctor, an impressively large chunk of hull, and enough equipment off the ship's walls to mock up an entire room.
I mean, seeing the Doctor figure out what happened centuries later is neat and one of the best Doctor-centric episodes and all, but this was clearly an interesting episode just by itself, and we never got to see it.
I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
I remember at least one scene where Seven suggested just flying a direct course and minimising contact and deviations, and Janeway pointed out that it'd be a pretty dull trip.
She may have gone on to point out that they'd already cut a couple of decades off their trip as a result of stopping to look at interesting things on the way, or I may have just wished she'd done that. Either way, it's a valid point.
Seven then countered with a list of the crew who'd already died as a result of stopping to look at things, so it wasn't a one-sided preaching session, either.
It's pretty obviosu the writers agreed with Janeway
And then an episode later, when a trip can save X months (on a 100+ year journey), she'll fly through threatening the locals with genocide if they dare even look at the ship.
To be fair, flying with guns blazing on a genocidal rampage through alien space is not a dull trip.
At one point, she decided to fly through a warzone, then by opening negotiations with one side made an enemy of the other. Through a sequence of events that were never properly established, Voyager crashed at least one shuttlecraft and left behind part of a computer core, a backup copy of the Doctor, an impressively large chunk of hull, and enough equipment off the ship's walls to mock up an entire room.
I mean, seeing the Doctor figure out what happened centuries later is neat and one of the best Doctor-centric episodes and all, but this was clearly an interesting episode just by itself, and we never got to see it.
I disagree with you. We got to see these events twice, once through the eyes of the museum curator and once through the eyes of the Doctor. I don't think that spending an entire episode just watching these events happen a third time through the eyes of Janeway would have been all that interesting.
I'm not suggesting dedicating a second episode to the matter, but we clearly didn't see all the events. We didn't see the shuttle crash or whatever clearly severe damage to Voyager caused them to lose a computer core and an entire lab worth of equipment.
I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
I remember at least one scene where Seven suggested just flying a direct course and minimising contact and deviations, and Janeway pointed out that it'd be a pretty dull trip.
She may have gone on to point out that they'd already cut a couple of decades off their trip as a result of stopping to look at interesting things on the way, or I may have just wished she'd done that. Either way, it's a valid point.
Seven then countered with a list of the crew who'd already died as a result of stopping to look at things, so it wasn't a one-sided preaching session, either.
It's pretty obviosu the writers agreed with Janeway
Because if they didn't the show would never have existed. They did acknowledge the downsides and benefits, though.
I thought the implied intent was even though they had a huge trip even if they went full speed with no stops, they were still fundamentally explorers in an unexplored land... fuck it might as well look at shit on the way home.
It's not a terrible idea at face value.
Implied yes.
Said never.
Because the writers didn't care.
I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
I remember at least one scene where Seven suggested just flying a direct course and minimising contact and deviations, and Janeway pointed out that it'd be a pretty dull trip.
She may have gone on to point out that they'd already cut a couple of decades off their trip as a result of stopping to look at interesting things on the way, or I may have just wished she'd done that. Either way, it's a valid point.
Seven then countered with a list of the crew who'd already died as a result of stopping to look at things, so it wasn't a one-sided preaching session, either.
It's pretty obviosu the writers agreed with Janeway
Because if they didn't the show would never have existed. They did acknowledge the downsides and benefits, though.
They could have built a credible narrative about them needing resources and repairs making that a reason for making stops.
Instead they just made 9/10 of their eps about a voyage home OH SHINY THING LETS GO SEE
They were what, 100 years away from home? At that point, what's another 5-10? The elephant in the room is "We're obviously not going to survive that long", so if there's something really interesting, might as well look. And for a while, they were also searching for the other rumored Caretaker, so it was more or less established from the word go.
I use the same logic when I'm running late for school/work. If I'm already late when I wake up, outside of the initial "oh shit!" adrenaline kick, I don't bother rushing. I don't meander and take my time mind you, but there's little point in running like a madman at that point.
All that being said, yeah they obviously could have written things a shit ton better.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
They probably could live another 100 years. McCoy was around 140 in the series premiere of TNG and he was pretty spry. Humans can probably live even longer than that with all the medical tech the Federation has. Not to mention the non-human Voyager crew. Vulcans can live 250, maybe 300 years.
Also, the Federation's technology would continue to improve and they'd be expanding their borders during all that time. If they just headed straight towards the Federation, they could meet up with some long range probe or exploration vessel.
Yeah, given the fact that Voyager is making a straight shot across the galaxy, most issues with locals should be resolvable by just flying faster for awhile. There's no real sustained villains because of that. Like, the idea that they were duking it out with the Kazon for like 3 seasons makes no sense.
A better way to structure a show like Voyager is as a series of mini-arcs. Basically Voyager arrives at a location, complications arise due to limited resources/damage/a blocked route/etc and they muck about for a few episodes getting their shit together and then blast out of that area and never see those people again.
Heh, it never ceases to amaze me what a wasted opportunity the Voyager setting was. They could have had a arc worth a half season + about them becoming stranded in orbit around a planet, with the ship damaged and its orbit decaying. Janeway moves everyone except essential personnel onto the planet where they have to first just survive, and later maintain their fledgling community. It becomes increasingly hard to maintain the star fleet command structure, and tension on the ground begins to grow as they race to save the ship. Season ends, the ship is able to break orbit, but a large faction on the planet want to stay, including a few people essential to running the ship.
Then Janeway goes crazy and kidnaps the entire community overnight using teleporters, confining them in a storage bay until she's satisfied their will is broken. Or steals the idea from that TNG movie by recreating the village in a holodeck suite and we get another whole arc of the village slowly finding out what she did.
The Kazon actually had a series of wormholes directly along Voyager's route, and would routinely giggle to each other about keeping the secret from "those jerks who can make water".
they weren't just duking it out with the Kazon, they were duking it out with the same Kazon
after hauling ass for years
and Voyager is supposed to be way, way more advanced than their ships
wat
you know, Seska was an engineer, why did she even need Voyager? She could have trained the least retarded Kazon children to be something other than idiots with too much hair goo and turned Kulla's sect into a powerhouse with a technological edge over the rest of the area
fuck that might even have provided Voyager an incentive to stick around
but nope, instead, PLOT lets the kazon keep up with voyager
The Kazons could have been an interesting villain. Just because the Kazons were less advanced doesn't mean they should have been dumb. They could have made up for their inferior technology with cunning, ingenuity, and willingness to take risks.
It would have been cool if they had Kazons use less advanced but very powerful technologies that the Federation abandoned because they were too dangerous. They could have had the Kazons use genetically enhanced soldiers, extreme forms of brain-computer interface, some kind of highly volatile power source/engine, etc. It would have made sense if the Kazons managed to keep up with Voyager by taking some extreme risks and expending huge amounts of resources.
I thought the Kazan were an interesting concept. A bunch of warring gangs living in the wreckage of the empire they toppled, using their former masters' technology without a good idea of the basis of it. There's alot of good concepts there to work with especially if you throw in a bigger role for the Trabe (their former enslavers) in the politics of the area.
I think they'd have made a good villain for a story arc at the start of the Voyager series. Have Voyager severely damaged and busting with internal conflict from a combination of the trip to the Delta quadrant, the battles right after they arrive and the need to integrate both crews together. This makes Voyager really weak and unable to escape and thus puts them on a level where the technologically and organizationally inferior Kazon are a real threat.
Then you have Voyager maybe reaching out to the Trabe as allies and you could go anywhere with the arc till Voyager gets repaired enough to get the fuck out of dodge.
The best thing they could have done for the Kazon was honestly to just shoot the hairstylist in the face and put up an ad for a replacement at a community college.
I never really understood what Seska stood to gain from joining the Kazon. Like, yeah, if she stayed, she'd be thrown in the brig, but it's Starfleet so it's not gonna be that bad. Meanwhile the Kazon are... the Kazon. There's like, no way you are going to gain anything from working with them. Plus if Seska had stayed on Voyager, they could've done some stuff with how the maquis hate her for deceiving them, her being the only Cardassian on the ship, that sort of thing. Instead, she... stole Jakotay's DNA and made a baby.
I never really understood what Seska stood to gain from joining the Kazon. Like, yeah, if she stayed, she'd be thrown in the brig, but it's Starfleet so it's not gonna be that bad. Meanwhile the Kazon are... the Kazon. There's like, no way you are going to gain anything from working with them. Plus if Seska had stayed on Voyager, they could've done some stuff with how the maquis hate her for deceiving them, her being the only Cardassian on the ship, that sort of thing. Instead, she... stole Jakotay's DNA and made a baby.
Keeping her with the crew would also provide the writers an opportunity to ferment discord within the crew and opposition to Janeway's command. There'd be all sorts of great dynamics that could come out of it, and even better she's a female which would help allay some of their fears of making Janeway look weak if any man opposed her. Of course, this is the Voyager writing team, which means they completely squandered this opportunity and all the chances for character development that went with it. The interview with Moore where he describes the writing team as having no idea what to do with most of the characters and having given up on them entirely is extremely revealing and makes a lot of the decisions taken on the show make sense in retrospect.
I never really understood what Seska stood to gain from joining the Kazon. Like, yeah, if she stayed, she'd be thrown in the brig, but it's Starfleet so it's not gonna be that bad. Meanwhile the Kazon are... the Kazon. There's like, no way you are going to gain anything from working with them. Plus if Seska had stayed on Voyager, they could've done some stuff with how the maquis hate her for deceiving them, her being the only Cardassian on the ship, that sort of thing. Instead, she... stole Jakotay's DNA and made a baby.
Keeping her with the crew would also provide the writers an opportunity to ferment discord within the crew and opposition to Janeway's command. There'd be all sorts of great dynamics that could come out of it, and even better she's a female which would help allay some of their fears of making Janeway look weak if any man opposed her. Of course, this is the Voyager writing team, which means they completely squandered this opportunity and all the chances for character development that went with it. The interview with Moore where he describes the writing team as having no idea what to do with most of the characters and having given up on them entirely is extremely revealing and makes a lot of the decisions taken on the show make sense in retrospect.
They even did have that one guy who kept calling Seska, begging her to take him with her. I forget his name because his plot line ended up not mattering in the least. They had a great opportunity, but I think he ended up just dying, or something like that?
They did try to utilize it in getting Tom Paris off the ship, but they turned it around and said, "Oh Tom is never leaving, actually, just that one guy, he's dead or something."
Seska should have just told Janeway "I'm a Cardassian plant and no, I'm not spending the next 80+ years pretending to be bajoran, I'm having the Doc undo the surgery heads up" and let the cards fall as they do.
That would have been the sane response to her situation.
Seska should have just told Janeway "I'm a Cardassian plant and no, I'm not spending the next 80+ years pretending to be bajoran, I'm having the Doc undo the surgery heads up" and let the cards fall as they do.
That would have been the sane response to her situation.
I'm not sure about that. Enemy spies are not well-received, and this would not be a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", especially not while the second enemy in the sentence is becoming your friend. The logical thing to do, if she wanted to be true to her mission, would be to spend the next 80 years (1) putting computer viruses and trojans in Voyager to (a) covertly transmit everything in Voyager's databanks to the Cardassians upon getting back home, and (b) propagate to the rest of Starfleet's computers once Voyager gets networked again, while (2) slowly killing off the surviving Maquis with "accidents".
Seska should have just told Janeway "I'm a Cardassian plant and no, I'm not spending the next 80+ years pretending to be bajoran, I'm having the Doc undo the surgery heads up" and let the cards fall as they do.
That would have been the sane response to her situation.
I'm not sure about that. Enemy spies are not well-received, and this would not be a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", especially not while the second enemy in the sentence is becoming your friend. The logical thing to do, if she wanted to be true to her mission, would be to spend the next 80 years (1) putting computer viruses and trojans in Voyager to (a) covertly transmit everything in Voyager's databanks to the Cardassians upon getting back home, and (b) propagate to the rest of Starfleet's computers once Voyager gets networked again, while (2) slowly killing off the surviving Maquis with "accidents".
But there's like no way information from a ship that's been away for a century is going to be useful, and no way a virus made for eighty year old computers is going to be able to spread into up to date tech, and killing off crew members would jeopardize even getting home.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I don't know if calling them "the Kazoo" is intentional misspelling or autocorrect and I don't care because I can't. Stop. Laughing.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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I'm pretty sure they did explicitly say that at least once. Also they were looking for things like wormholes to shorten the trip.
It just doesn't make sense in the context of the Star Trek universe since they've established that there have been advanced aliens using warp travel for thousands, if not millions, of years.
They could have easily done the global warming/fossil fuel/pollution issue with some other technology or with a less advanced alien race.
Yeah, that was my thought. I mean, if this one high-traffic corridor is starting to get a bit worn through, what must subspace around Sol, or Vulcan, or the Orion homeworld look like? And why hasn't anyone noticed yet?
But no, we get typically subtle Trek moralizing ("Pollution is Bad!") in a form which cuts the legs out from under one of the franchise's core premises - "boldly going."
Because when you run the engines at full tilt all the time the engineers come up to the bridge and beat the captain with a pipe wrench.
Man.
I would've voted for warp 9 on Voyager all the time.
Janeway says it multiple times
"hey Captain there's this thing that might kills us all and puts us weeks off course."
"Well we're explorers let's go get killed to see something we'll never report back to Starfleet"
Providing a solution at the end of the episode would have been the dumbest fucking thing.
:winky:
Makes sense really, what better practical joke to play on O'Brian than link an O2 sensor to the outside of the station labelled 'Deck 5'?
"Chief, we've had some complaints about the temperature of the air-conditioning on Deck 5"
"OK I'll just check the sens...it's -129 degrees! This is a major problem, I'm going to have to spend all day checking the routing in the ducts to see what's causing this, why did no one say anything sooner!?"
I remember at least one scene where Seven suggested just flying a direct course and minimising contact and deviations, and Janeway pointed out that it'd be a pretty dull trip.
She may have gone on to point out that they'd already cut a couple of decades off their trip as a result of stopping to look at interesting things on the way, or I may have just wished she'd done that. Either way, it's a valid point.
Seven then countered with a list of the crew who'd already died as a result of stopping to look at things, so it wasn't a one-sided preaching session, either.
To be fair, flying with guns blazing on a genocidal rampage through alien space is not a dull trip.
At one point, she decided to fly through a warzone, then by opening negotiations with one side made an enemy of the other. Through a sequence of events that were never properly established, Voyager crashed at least one shuttlecraft and left behind part of a computer core, a backup copy of the Doctor, an impressively large chunk of hull, and enough equipment off the ship's walls to mock up an entire room.
I mean, seeing the Doctor figure out what happened centuries later is neat and one of the best Doctor-centric episodes and all, but this was clearly an interesting episode just by itself, and we never got to see it.
It's pretty obviosu the writers agreed with Janeway
I disagree with you. We got to see these events twice, once through the eyes of the museum curator and once through the eyes of the Doctor. I don't think that spending an entire episode just watching these events happen a third time through the eyes of Janeway would have been all that interesting.
Because if they didn't the show would never have existed. They did acknowledge the downsides and benefits, though.
They could have built a credible narrative about them needing resources and repairs making that a reason for making stops.
Instead they just made 9/10 of their eps about a voyage home OH SHINY THING LETS GO SEE
I use the same logic when I'm running late for school/work. If I'm already late when I wake up, outside of the initial "oh shit!" adrenaline kick, I don't bother rushing. I don't meander and take my time mind you, but there's little point in running like a madman at that point.
All that being said, yeah they obviously could have written things a shit ton better.
Also, the Federation's technology would continue to improve and they'd be expanding their borders during all that time. If they just headed straight towards the Federation, they could meet up with some long range probe or exploration vessel.
A better way to structure a show like Voyager is as a series of mini-arcs. Basically Voyager arrives at a location, complications arise due to limited resources/damage/a blocked route/etc and they muck about for a few episodes getting their shit together and then blast out of that area and never see those people again.
Gah. Wasted!
after hauling ass for years
and Voyager is supposed to be way, way more advanced than their ships
wat
you know, Seska was an engineer, why did she even need Voyager? She could have trained the least retarded Kazon children to be something other than idiots with too much hair goo and turned Kulla's sect into a powerhouse with a technological edge over the rest of the area
fuck that might even have provided Voyager an incentive to stick around
but nope, instead, PLOT lets the kazon keep up with voyager
It would have been cool if they had Kazons use less advanced but very powerful technologies that the Federation abandoned because they were too dangerous. They could have had the Kazons use genetically enhanced soldiers, extreme forms of brain-computer interface, some kind of highly volatile power source/engine, etc. It would have made sense if the Kazons managed to keep up with Voyager by taking some extreme risks and expending huge amounts of resources.
I think they'd have made a good villain for a story arc at the start of the Voyager series. Have Voyager severely damaged and busting with internal conflict from a combination of the trip to the Delta quadrant, the battles right after they arrive and the need to integrate both crews together. This makes Voyager really weak and unable to escape and thus puts them on a level where the technologically and organizationally inferior Kazon are a real threat.
Then you have Voyager maybe reaching out to the Trabe as allies and you could go anywhere with the arc till Voyager gets repaired enough to get the fuck out of dodge.
but I agree a long term Seska as an antagonist that they just have to deal with on Voyager could have provided some nice Starfleet/Maquis drama
but dropping that conflict in season one is one of the worst mistakes they made in the series
Keeping her with the crew would also provide the writers an opportunity to ferment discord within the crew and opposition to Janeway's command. There'd be all sorts of great dynamics that could come out of it, and even better she's a female which would help allay some of their fears of making Janeway look weak if any man opposed her. Of course, this is the Voyager writing team, which means they completely squandered this opportunity and all the chances for character development that went with it. The interview with Moore where he describes the writing team as having no idea what to do with most of the characters and having given up on them entirely is extremely revealing and makes a lot of the decisions taken on the show make sense in retrospect.
They even did have that one guy who kept calling Seska, begging her to take him with her. I forget his name because his plot line ended up not mattering in the least. They had a great opportunity, but I think he ended up just dying, or something like that?
They did try to utilize it in getting Tom Paris off the ship, but they turned it around and said, "Oh Tom is never leaving, actually, just that one guy, he's dead or something."
That would have been the sane response to her situation.
The kazoo being able to follow voyager for three years but unable to find resources and need to chase voyager is fucking stupid
I'm not sure about that. Enemy spies are not well-received, and this would not be a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", especially not while the second enemy in the sentence is becoming your friend. The logical thing to do, if she wanted to be true to her mission, would be to spend the next 80 years (1) putting computer viruses and trojans in Voyager to (a) covertly transmit everything in Voyager's databanks to the Cardassians upon getting back home, and (b) propagate to the rest of Starfleet's computers once Voyager gets networked again, while (2) slowly killing off the surviving Maquis with "accidents".