The crisis Voyager was being sent to in the Badlands was perfect for an inexperienced or unreliable captain.
The worst case scenario was Voyager uses it's firepower (it's no defiant but it has more guns than the Enterprise at a fraction the size) and blows up a bunch of terrorists. Neither Starfleet nor the Carsassians would be particularly tore up over it.
The only people who would be angry are more Maquis, and if you wonder how much the Federation cares what they say, Sisko poisoned a whole planet to force them off it and he got a promotion to captain not long after.
The crisis Voyager was being sent to in the Badlands was perfect for an inexperienced or unreliable captain.
The worst case scenario was Voyager uses it's firepower (it's no defiant but it has more guns than the Enterprise at a fraction the size) and blows up a bunch of terrorists. Neither Starfleet nor the Carsassians would be particularly tore up over it.
The only people who would be angry are more Maquis, and if you wonder how much the Federation cares what they say, Sisko poisoned a whole planet to force them off it and he got a promotion to captain not long after.
In fairness, Sisko only poisoned it for one species, preserving the balance between human and cardassian populations in the DMZ without loss of life. Doing so using a weapon of mass destruction was...unorthodox, but we are talking about a man who punched a god in the face.
And it worked.
Command probably just gives him a commendation every few months and hopes he doesn't decide they're a problem he needs to solve.
I remember virtually nothing of Voyager's first episode. But the fact that Tuvok was on one of the Maquis ships as an undercover agent, and was friends with Janeway, did any of that factor in as to why Voyager of all ships was sent to deal with the issue? I feel like that had to mean something. Otherwise it was just pure coincidence that they ended up together. ...Which given Voyager's writing, wouldn't be that outlandish.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
It was one of those Cardassian appeasement things we saw in DS9 and late TNG. Chakotay's cell was preventing the Cardassians from passing through the giant impassable wall of fire. The Cardassians didn't give a shit most likely, but they could have their ambassador whine and fuss until the Federation agrees to do something about it. "I mean, it IS your responsibility. I suppose if you can't uphold your end of the treaty we can just nuke all the planets in the DMZ and be done with it. I'm sure the Detapa Council won't want to just scrap the treaty like that but it really IS on your head for derelicting your duties under it and -" "OH GOD JUST SHUT UP I'LL SEND VOYAGER TO DO IT."
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The real question is how anyone could think Chakotay was worth the effort. Eddington he ain't.
He might have been a key mid-level figure, like not at the top, but connected to all the other cells. He was also an advanced tactical instructor at Starfleet Academy(per Memory Alpha), which probably gave him an edge in evading Starfleet patrols(and attacking the same). In fact from a logistical standpoint, him being a former instructor would make him a priority target. He could train the mostly civilian Maquis into a functional fighting force. Warfare isn't just giving people guns and pointing them at the enemy.
Historical Example: At Valley Forge, general Von Steuben was a key factor into turning the Continental Army into a true army by ceaselessly drilling them until they reached the professional standards needed to fight the British. Von Steuben having been a Lieutenant and drill instructor in the Prussian Army(also he was totes gay).
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Chakotay is such a neat character on paper, and Beltran was good casting, but they just wasted him for 7 seasons. If you killed him off at the end of season 2, nothing about the rest of the show would change at all.
Any time I see Chase Masterson, it makes me remember reading about her doing Mirror Universe "Admiral Leeta" (commander of the ISS Enterprise), and how much she enjoyed doing that, that I was tempted to sign up for STO, despite my intense dislike of MMO's.
Cause it was the minor characters on DS9 (her, Rom, Garak, etc) that really made that show better than it should have been. While I didn't dislike the main cast, if the minor characters are engaging too, and not just plot devices for the main characters, the show improves immensely.
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
Chakotay is such a neat character on paper, and Beltran was good casting, but they just wasted him for 7 seasons. If you killed him off at the end of season 2, nothing about the rest of the show would change at all.
Chakotay is like the poster boy for Voyager wasting everything it began with. Which was a lot of good stuff.
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
There's no logical reason why a vulcan wouldn't lie under appropriate circumstances. Lying while you are undercover is, in fact, the only logical course of action.
Any time I see Chase Masterson, it makes me remember reading about her doing Mirror Universe "Admiral Leeta" (commander of the ISS Enterprise), and how much she enjoyed doing that, that I was tempted to sign up for STO, despite my intense dislike of MMO's.
Cause it was the minor characters on DS9 (her, Rom, Garak, etc) that really made that show better than it should have been. While I didn't dislike the main cast, if the minor characters are engaging too, and not just plot devices for the main characters, the show improves immensely.
STO isn't really much of an MMO anymore. It's closer to one of those single player live service games, except you don't need to pay $60 up front and drop $20 every few months on the DLC, they actually use the live service aspect to make their money (and somehow they still manage to be less obnoxious with it all than a couple games I paid $80 at the door). Nearly the whole story is single player (there's three segments that remain solo but take you to open PVE areas where you'll see other people doing stuff) and can be done without touching any of the multiplayer or live service aspects.
All the actual live service and multiplayer stuff is a largely self-contained end/side game. As somebody who's maxed out everything but the endeavors currently, it hasn't actually made me more powerful, it's made me more ridiculous. When I beam down for an away mission, I do it with a Voth assault dinosaur, a Breen freeze ray, a Bajoran orb, a Dividian snake-cane, wearing the Red Angel Armor, and petting an assimilated tribble. I'm probably ~5-10% more powerful than when I did it wearing standard issue personal shields and phaser pistols, but now I give the cargo inspectors nightmares.
Any time I see Chase Masterson, it makes me remember reading about her doing Mirror Universe "Admiral Leeta" (commander of the ISS Enterprise), and how much she enjoyed doing that, that I was tempted to sign up for STO, despite my intense dislike of MMO's.
Cause it was the minor characters on DS9 (her, Rom, Garak, etc) that really made that show better than it should have been. While I didn't dislike the main cast, if the minor characters are engaging too, and not just plot devices for the main characters, the show improves immensely.
STO isn't really much of an MMO anymore. It's closer to one of those single player live service games, except you don't need to pay $60 up front and drop $20 every few months on the DLC, they actually use the live service aspect to make their money (and somehow they still manage to be less obnoxious with it all than a couple games I paid $80 at the door). Nearly the whole story is single player (there's three segments that remain solo but take you to open PVE areas where you'll see other people doing stuff) and can be done without touching any of the multiplayer or live service aspects.
All the actual live service and multiplayer stuff is a largely self-contained end/side game. As somebody who's maxed out everything but the endeavors currently, it hasn't actually made me more powerful, it's made me more ridiculous. When I beam down for an away mission, I do it with a Voth assault dinosaur, a Breen freeze ray, a Bajoran orb, a Dividian snake-cane, wearing the Red Angel Armor, and petting an assimilated tribble. I'm probably ~5-10% more powerful than when I did it wearing standard issue personal shields and phaser pistols, but now I give the cargo inspectors nightmares.
*clicks pen, writes some more on clipboard*
Commander Zoom on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
I think a good idea is that due to their culture's reliance on rigorous, even ruthless, logic, Vulcans find the concept of deceiving themselves repugnant because it would lead to illogical actions on their part. Most therefore philosophically oppose the idea of inflicting such a fate on others by knowingly giving them false information...but will if they think it's the logical course to a better outcome for all involved. And they might not have the best judgment of when it would be a better outcome for all involved; they aren't perfect. Which means, of course, they can also just be wrong in their assumptions.
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
I think a good idea is that due to their culture's reliance on rigorous, even ruthless, logic, Vulcans find the concept of deceiving themselves repugnant because it would lead to illogical actions on their part. Most therefore philosophically oppose the idea of inflicting such a fate on others by knowingly giving them false information...but will if they think it's the logical course to a better outcome for all involved. And they might not have the best judgment of when it would be a better outcome for all involved; they aren't perfect. Which means, of course, they can also just be wrong in their assumptions.
One example comes quickly to mind:
Holding a grudge against someone, especially for something that they might not have actually done, is very illogical. So Vulcans don't do that. Really. Just ask them.
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
I think a good idea is that due to their culture's reliance on rigorous, even ruthless, logic, Vulcans find the concept of deceiving themselves repugnant because it would lead to illogical actions on their part. Most therefore philosophically oppose the idea of inflicting such a fate on others by knowingly giving them false information...but will if they think it's the logical course to a better outcome for all involved. And they might not have the best judgment of when it would be a better outcome for all involved; they aren't perfect. Which means, of course, they can also just be wrong in their assumptions.
One example comes quickly to mind:
Holding a grudge against someone, especially for something that they might not have actually done, is very illogical. So Vulcans don't do that. Really. Just ask them.
Then mention P'Jem and watch their eyebrows do that ^ - thing.
How does a Vulcan function as an under cover agent any way? What with the inability to lie and all that. It's the only situation where "are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop" would actually work.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
I think a good idea is that due to their culture's reliance on rigorous, even ruthless, logic, Vulcans find the concept of deceiving themselves repugnant because it would lead to illogical actions on their part. Most therefore philosophically oppose the idea of inflicting such a fate on others by knowingly giving them false information...but will if they think it's the logical course to a better outcome for all involved. And they might not have the best judgment of when it would be a better outcome for all involved; they aren't perfect. Which means, of course, they can also just be wrong in their assumptions.
One example comes quickly to mind:
Holding a grudge against someone, especially for something that they might not have actually done, is very illogical. So Vulcans don't do that. Really. Just ask them.
Then mention P'Jem and watch their eyebrows do that ^ - thing.
Or a certain (in)famous half-blooded son of a respected house.
There are many situations where Vulcans may appear, to outsiders, to behave in a way that suggests they're acting illogically, based on emotion or ignorance or both. But if someone is so uncouth as to bring it up, they will justify explain to the churlish simpleton why they, in fact, have perfectly logical reasons for doing so.
That's a really good point.
Chakotay is such a neat character on paper, and Beltran was good casting, but they just wasted him for 7 seasons. If you killed him off at the end of season 2, nothing about the rest of the show would change at all.
That's a pretty fair summation of the entirety of Voyager. Good ideas on paper, just absolutely botched in execution.
That's a really good point.
Chakotay is such a neat character on paper, and Beltran was good casting, but they just wasted him for 7 seasons. If you killed him off at the end of season 2, nothing about the rest of the show would change at all.
That's a pretty fair summation of the entirety of Voyager. Good ideas on paper, just absolutely botched in execution.
Parts of Voyager worked well—often by accident and usually the things Berman didn't care about.
Tom and B'Elanna might have the best* romance arc in Trek. I'd argue the Doctor has a more even machine-to-human arc than Data, and Seven clearly made more of an impact than anyone bargained for. Unfortunately, the rest of the show failed to measure up.
*
Riker/Troi and Kira/Odo are great, but they're...larger than life. Tom/B'Elanna is grounded, its conflicts relatable to the audience.
Kira and Odo have to deal with his fascist species, the aftermath of one war and the horror of another, all beside their own deep-seeded trauma. Tom and B'Elanna worry about whether they're equally invested in the relationship and how mixed ancestry could impact their child's life.
There's a reason it was derisively called Deep Space 90210 by certain purists at the time.
You forgot Jadzia describing her anatomically dubious conquests to Kira, which itself was a more meaningful relationship than she clearly had with the plant guy or the guy with the transparent skull or the one with all the extra eyes.
There's a reason it was derisively called Deep Space 90210 by certain purists at the time.
I'm so glad I was too young for the internet during DS9 and Voyager's run.
Riker/Troi is my favorite Trek romance—I've shipped those two since I was two—but B'Elanna/Tom feels the most real, if filtered through Voyager's wacky writing. Ezri/Julian might've worked if they'd had more than one season to pull it off. Though I don't think they're original plan—Jadiza eventually falling for him—was ever going to work. They're experience levels are just too different; it'd be like Kira dating Jake.
Some of the internet stuff around Voyager was fun. There was some heavy tracking of torpedos, for example, and the writers actually kept track too. In Year of Hell, the inventory given was two less than the internet's count, which had a "no more than" asterisk because of an ambiguous scene in which multiple torpedoes were fired but the view didn't leave the bridge so it could have been 2, it could have been ten. Turned out it was 4.
By the end of season 4, the writers stopped caring about the torpedo inventory and they got 60-some shots out of their last 12 torpedos.
DS9, though, was the Empire Strikes Back of Star Trek. Very widely called the worst in the moment but ultimately remembered as the best. I think the internet came around on DS9 around The Die is Cast. TNG was over, Voyager was already treading water, and DS9 was burning the house down.
I'd have to grudgingly agree. When they finally kiss on the promenade it's pretty awesome, but after the show has answered the will they or won't they question, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot of meat left on that bone for the writers, or the actors. The only real test of the relationship comes later when that hipster changeling gives Odo a relationship crisis that ends with a really quite lame scene of him turning into a mist while his girlfriend awkwardly pretends she's in ecstasy. Worf and Dax just work way better, I think mostly because whereas Odo is an immature puppy dog, Worf and Dax are equals, and they fight about petty shit. They have a few scenes where it's just the two of them in a shuttle, and those couple of scenes arguably grow the characters and their marriage more in just a few short minutes than most characters on the show would see over the entire course of all the seasons.
"I was honest to my own convictions within the defined parameters of my mission."
They always have an out.
Also, because it's my duty: here are the romances in DS9, ranked, from worst to best:
Julian/Sarina (seriously this one's just gross)
Ezri/Julian
Ezri/Worf
Quark/Pel
Garak/Ziyal
Vash/Q
Kira/Odo
Jake/Dabo Girl
Mirror Kira and fucking anyone at all apparently
Prime Kira and like three different bajoran guys who all looked alike
Dukat/Winn
O'Brien/O'Brien
Jadzia/Lenara
Rom/Leeta
Quark/Grilka
Odo/Lwaxanna
Sisko/Kassidy
Jadzia/Worf
and, obviously:
Garak/Julian
man I definitely didn't even get all of them
that show was horny
Yeah, I mean, if nothing else, we need to consider Quark/Odo.
I also have a small part of my back brain determinedly insisting that Kira/Dax was on the table in those first few seasons. That could’ve worked really well too.
Some of the internet stuff around Voyager was fun. There was some heavy tracking of torpedos, for example, and the writers actually kept track too. In Year of Hell, the inventory given was two less than the internet's count, which had a "no more than" asterisk because of an ambiguous scene in which multiple torpedoes were fired but the view didn't leave the bridge so it could have been 2, it could have been ten. Turned out it was 4.
By the end of season 4, the writers stopped caring about the torpedo inventory and they got 60-some shots out of their last 12 torpedos.
DS9, though, was the Empire Strikes Back of Star Trek. Very widely called the worst in the moment but ultimately remembered as the best. I think the internet came around on DS9 around The Die is Cast. TNG was over, Voyager was already treading water, and DS9 was burning the house down.
RE: Voyager, yeah, I realized the writers had essentially given up when suddenly the Delta Flyer was a thing. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool design. It just shouldn't have been made. Or, if you're dead set on adding an extra ship, don't make it the B-plot in a bad episode about Torres having PTSD for a day*. Have it be something Paris is working on over the course of a season, with parts and material hard to come by. Freakin' Home Improvement did it better with Tim's hotrods than Voyager did with the Flyer.
*Yes, this is sarcasm/hyperbole. I know that the episode unfolds over the course of days, maytbe weeks. The point is that there was no foreshadowing for it, and it's promptly ignored in later episodes. That the Flyer - the machine - has more permanence than B'elanna's struggle with trauma and mental illness is ridiculous and embarrassing.
Some of the internet stuff around Voyager was fun. There was some heavy tracking of torpedos, for example, and the writers actually kept track too. In Year of Hell, the inventory given was two less than the internet's count, which had a "no more than" asterisk because of an ambiguous scene in which multiple torpedoes were fired but the view didn't leave the bridge so it could have been 2, it could have been ten. Turned out it was 4.
By the end of season 4, the writers stopped caring about the torpedo inventory and they got 60-some shots out of their last 12 torpedos.
DS9, though, was the Empire Strikes Back of Star Trek. Very widely called the worst in the moment but ultimately remembered as the best. I think the internet came around on DS9 around The Die is Cast. TNG was over, Voyager was already treading water, and DS9 was burning the house down.
RE: Voyager, yeah, I realized the writers had essentially given up when suddenly the Delta Flyer was a thing. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool design. It just shouldn't have been made. Or, if you're dead set on adding an extra ship, don't make it the B-plot in a bad episode about Torres having PTSD for a day*. Have it be something Paris is working on over the course of a season, with parts and material hard to come by. Freakin' Home Improvement did it better with Tim's hotrods than Voyager did with the Flyer.
*Yes, this is sarcasm/hyperbole. I know that the episode unfolds over the course of days, maytbe weeks. The point is that there was no foreshadowing for it, and it's promptly ignored in later episodes. That the Flyer - the machine - has more permanence than B'elanna's struggle with trauma and mental illness is ridiculous and embarrassing.
They designed Voyager with a special heavy shuttle in the ventral primary hull and even did the CGI VFX for it so they wouldn't get trapped like they did with the Enterprise's. They also had Neelix's ship in there the whole time.
But no, let's build a new one from scratch and then blow it up later that season and just have a new one next week because reasons.
Hevach on
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
They designed Voyager with a special heavy shuttle in the ventral primary hull and even did the CGI VFX for it so they wouldn't get trapped like they did with the Enterprise's.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Never using that shuttle reflects one of the biggest mistakes of Voyager for me: Voyager going on a 60-year voyage solo was stupid and they should've been building up a fleet from the start. Forget all that stupid bullshit about limited resources when you've got warp-capable societies all over the place and forget trying to keep your whole crew on a relatively small ship for six decades. Assume the population will grow, assume you will need to carry extra supplies, assume you will need additional facilities, etc. Given Federation tech, they could've fabricated a lot of the stuff themselves in-transit, producing things like warp cores and engines to attach to basic frames and then expanding as they went.
After all, they've literally got decades to kill and nothing else to do. Big empty void you aren't sure you can cross safely? Not a problem, if you've got supply ships along. Some jerk ship shows up to pick a fight? Look at that, we've got six ships with Federation weapons instead of one little science ship. Need space for an astronomy workspace? Just stick it in one of the cargo ships, no problem. Need a warp core to blow something or fix something? No problem, we keep spares and even have a whole drone ship just to deliver the payload.
That would've required some actual continuity attention, though, and wasn't Voyager the one where the showmakers stated outright that they hated continuity and just wanted every episode to be standalone? Not to mention the crew would've had to be smart enough to think of all that, which, well... obviously not the case.
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The worst case scenario was Voyager uses it's firepower (it's no defiant but it has more guns than the Enterprise at a fraction the size) and blows up a bunch of terrorists. Neither Starfleet nor the Carsassians would be particularly tore up over it.
The only people who would be angry are more Maquis, and if you wonder how much the Federation cares what they say, Sisko poisoned a whole planet to force them off it and he got a promotion to captain not long after.
It wasn't a flagship, it was Just Another Science Vessel.
And it was hardly a major crisis. The trip out to the Badlands was supposed to be just a three hour tour (a three hour tour).
Not to put words in nexus' mouth, but they may be a few pages behind and referring to the Jellico conversation.
In fairness, Sisko only poisoned it for one species, preserving the balance between human and cardassian populations in the DMZ without loss of life. Doing so using a weapon of mass destruction was...unorthodox, but we are talking about a man who punched a god in the face.
And it worked.
Command probably just gives him a commendation every few months and hopes he doesn't decide they're a problem he needs to solve.
We see the mission go sideways at the last minute, but it had been going on for a while at that point.
They technically ate Tuvix, does that count?
He might have been a key mid-level figure, like not at the top, but connected to all the other cells. He was also an advanced tactical instructor at Starfleet Academy(per Memory Alpha), which probably gave him an edge in evading Starfleet patrols(and attacking the same). In fact from a logistical standpoint, him being a former instructor would make him a priority target. He could train the mostly civilian Maquis into a functional fighting force. Warfare isn't just giving people guns and pointing them at the enemy.
Historical Example: At Valley Forge, general Von Steuben was a key factor into turning the Continental Army into a true army by ceaselessly drilling them until they reached the professional standards needed to fight the British. Von Steuben having been a Lieutenant and drill instructor in the Prussian Army(also he was totes gay).
Chakotay is such a neat character on paper, and Beltran was good casting, but they just wasted him for 7 seasons. If you killed him off at the end of season 2, nothing about the rest of the show would change at all.
Any time I see Chase Masterson, it makes me remember reading about her doing Mirror Universe "Admiral Leeta" (commander of the ISS Enterprise), and how much she enjoyed doing that, that I was tempted to sign up for STO, despite my intense dislike of MMO's.
Cause it was the minor characters on DS9 (her, Rom, Garak, etc) that really made that show better than it should have been. While I didn't dislike the main cast, if the minor characters are engaging too, and not just plot devices for the main characters, the show improves immensely.
The "Vulcans can't lie" thing was, itself, a lie deception. All the way back in The Enterprise Incident in TOS, Spock admitted that while Vulcans can't speak lies, they are perfectly able to speak falsehoods or deceptions.
What's the difference? Speaking a falsehood is logical, telling a lie is not. It's a bullshit distinction and it basically sums up that Vulcans can lie like a bunch of motherfuckers but are loathe to admit it to us dishonest lesser child races.
Chakotay is like the poster boy for Voyager wasting everything it began with. Which was a lot of good stuff.
IMO Vulcans make a point of spreading the "can't lie" (and the related "never bluff") thing, because they have in fact come up with a lot of ways of Not Lying.
Hell, where do you think the notoriously sneaky and duplicitous Romulans came from?
There's no logical reason why a vulcan wouldn't lie under appropriate circumstances. Lying while you are undercover is, in fact, the only logical course of action.
STO isn't really much of an MMO anymore. It's closer to one of those single player live service games, except you don't need to pay $60 up front and drop $20 every few months on the DLC, they actually use the live service aspect to make their money (and somehow they still manage to be less obnoxious with it all than a couple games I paid $80 at the door). Nearly the whole story is single player (there's three segments that remain solo but take you to open PVE areas where you'll see other people doing stuff) and can be done without touching any of the multiplayer or live service aspects.
All the actual live service and multiplayer stuff is a largely self-contained end/side game. As somebody who's maxed out everything but the endeavors currently, it hasn't actually made me more powerful, it's made me more ridiculous. When I beam down for an away mission, I do it with a Voth assault dinosaur, a Breen freeze ray, a Bajoran orb, a Dividian snake-cane, wearing the Red Angel Armor, and petting an assimilated tribble. I'm probably ~5-10% more powerful than when I did it wearing standard issue personal shields and phaser pistols, but now I give the cargo inspectors nightmares.
*clicks pen, writes some more on clipboard*
it 100% feels like a galaxy-wide version of the "you have to tell me if you're a cop" thing, and they let the fiction persist because of the same reason, it's useful.
though it also probably helps that in everyday life most Vulcans you meet probably don't lie very often. It's not like if you're a regular guy that you'd run into undercover Vulcans on secret missions all the time. They're one of if not the most technologically advanced race in the Federation but they also live these very spartan, ascetic lives, so the Vulcan shopkeep you buy your space tuna from is probably way less likely to cheat you than nearly anyone else.
I think a good idea is that due to their culture's reliance on rigorous, even ruthless, logic, Vulcans find the concept of deceiving themselves repugnant because it would lead to illogical actions on their part. Most therefore philosophically oppose the idea of inflicting such a fate on others by knowingly giving them false information...but will if they think it's the logical course to a better outcome for all involved. And they might not have the best judgment of when it would be a better outcome for all involved; they aren't perfect. Which means, of course, they can also just be wrong in their assumptions.
One example comes quickly to mind:
Holding a grudge against someone, especially for something that they might not have actually done, is very illogical. So Vulcans don't do that. Really. Just ask them.
Then mention P'Jem and watch their eyebrows do that ^ - thing.
Or a certain (in)famous half-blooded son of a respected house.
There are many situations where Vulcans may appear, to outsiders, to behave in a way that suggests they're acting illogically, based on emotion or ignorance or both. But if someone is so uncouth as to bring it up, they will justify explain to the churlish simpleton why they, in fact, have perfectly logical reasons for doing so.
Parts of Voyager worked well—often by accident and usually the things Berman didn't care about.
Tom and B'Elanna might have the best* romance arc in Trek. I'd argue the Doctor has a more even machine-to-human arc than Data, and Seven clearly made more of an impact than anyone bargained for. Unfortunately, the rest of the show failed to measure up.
*
Kira and Odo have to deal with his fascist species, the aftermath of one war and the horror of another, all beside their own deep-seeded trauma. Tom and B'Elanna worry about whether they're equally invested in the relationship and how mixed ancestry could impact their child's life.
They always have an out.
Also, because it's my duty: here are the romances in DS9, ranked, from worst to best:
and, obviously:
man I definitely didn't even get all of them
that show was horny
You forgot Jadzia describing her anatomically dubious conquests to Kira, which itself was a more meaningful relationship than she clearly had with the plant guy or the guy with the transparent skull or the one with all the extra eyes.
I'm so glad I was too young for the internet during DS9 and Voyager's run.
Riker/Troi is my favorite Trek romance—I've shipped those two since I was two—but B'Elanna/Tom feels the most real, if filtered through Voyager's wacky writing. Ezri/Julian might've worked if they'd had more than one season to pull it off. Though I don't think they're original plan—Jadiza eventually falling for him—was ever going to work. They're experience levels are just too different; it'd be like Kira dating Jake.
By the end of season 4, the writers stopped caring about the torpedo inventory and they got 60-some shots out of their last 12 torpedos.
DS9, though, was the Empire Strikes Back of Star Trek. Very widely called the worst in the moment but ultimately remembered as the best. I think the internet came around on DS9 around The Die is Cast. TNG was over, Voyager was already treading water, and DS9 was burning the house down.
I'd have to grudgingly agree. When they finally kiss on the promenade it's pretty awesome, but after the show has answered the will they or won't they question, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot of meat left on that bone for the writers, or the actors. The only real test of the relationship comes later when that hipster changeling gives Odo a relationship crisis that ends with a really quite lame scene of him turning into a mist while his girlfriend awkwardly pretends she's in ecstasy. Worf and Dax just work way better, I think mostly because whereas Odo is an immature puppy dog, Worf and Dax are equals, and they fight about petty shit. They have a few scenes where it's just the two of them in a shuttle, and those couple of scenes arguably grow the characters and their marriage more in just a few short minutes than most characters on the show would see over the entire course of all the seasons.
Yeah, I mean, if nothing else, we need to consider Quark/Odo.
I also have a small part of my back brain determinedly insisting that Kira/Dax was on the table in those first few seasons. That could’ve worked really well too.
I rather like Kira/Odo, mind you.
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RE: Voyager, yeah, I realized the writers had essentially given up when suddenly the Delta Flyer was a thing. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool design. It just shouldn't have been made. Or, if you're dead set on adding an extra ship, don't make it the B-plot in a bad episode about Torres having PTSD for a day*. Have it be something Paris is working on over the course of a season, with parts and material hard to come by. Freakin' Home Improvement did it better with Tim's hotrods than Voyager did with the Flyer.
*Yes, this is sarcasm/hyperbole. I know that the episode unfolds over the course of days, maytbe weeks. The point is that there was no foreshadowing for it, and it's promptly ignored in later episodes. That the Flyer - the machine - has more permanence than B'elanna's struggle with trauma and mental illness is ridiculous and embarrassing.
And Bashir/O'Brien!
They designed Voyager with a special heavy shuttle in the ventral primary hull and even did the CGI VFX for it so they wouldn't get trapped like they did with the Enterprise's. They also had Neelix's ship in there the whole time.
But no, let's build a new one from scratch and then blow it up later that season and just have a new one next week because reasons.
what a waste
After all, they've literally got decades to kill and nothing else to do. Big empty void you aren't sure you can cross safely? Not a problem, if you've got supply ships along. Some jerk ship shows up to pick a fight? Look at that, we've got six ships with Federation weapons instead of one little science ship. Need space for an astronomy workspace? Just stick it in one of the cargo ships, no problem. Need a warp core to blow something or fix something? No problem, we keep spares and even have a whole drone ship just to deliver the payload.
That would've required some actual continuity attention, though, and wasn't Voyager the one where the showmakers stated outright that they hated continuity and just wanted every episode to be standalone? Not to mention the crew would've had to be smart enough to think of all that, which, well... obviously not the case.