Okay, Kathy, kid, let me show you something from the archives. It's called a 'delay timer'. What you do is you lay seven or eight photon torpedoes on the Array, like so many evil eggs, and you set a delay timer for, say, about ten or fifteen minutes. We use the Array, we go home, then when the Kazon think they're getting things under control, KABOOM!
But ... then we wouldn't have the joy and wonder of ST:Voyager. Without which we all could not enjoy Season 8 of STO.
Put your logic away.
EDIT: O'Brian At Work was a very nice relief from work - thank you!
TRIBBLE, one of her very first command decisions in the Delta Quadrant showed us that.
"We can't use the Caretaker Array to go home - then the Kazon will be able to steal it and use it for whatever they want!"
Okay, Kathy, kid, let me show you something from the archives. It's called a 'delay timer'. What you do is you lay seven or eight photon torpedoes on the Array, like so many evil eggs, and you set a delay timer for, say, about ten or fifteen minutes. We use the Array, we go home, then when the Kazon think they're getting things under control, KABOOM!
Yup... Made all the more pointless any time she went against Starfleet policies or regulations... And as for the first officer who thought it was a good idea to run across the bridge, when the 'brace for impact' order had been given...
Grunt delivers a lecture on a topic most Starfleet personnel are smugly certain they already know perfectly. Spoiler: They're wrong a lot.
Very well done, though my Commander Redmond and Admiral N'Riuw would both have a word of warning about liberated Borg and treating them all the same. Because oh boy has Redmond ever experienced that...people thinking she is going to act like Seven of Nine because her appearance is still FULLY Borg--yet her personality is as intact as Picard's.
Alyosha would listen, agree--but sadly know that here are still some lines that a lot of people just would not be ready to cross.
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This is true... Janeway, for example, should never have been promoted above Commander -- she was outright unfit for command, and her time in the Delta Quadrent showed how easily she got out of her depth (although plot necessity then saved her skin and made her look good...) Captain Ransom, IMHO, was a far superior captain, and showed a willingness do to whatever it took to get his crew home. As for Kirk's promotion to admiral, he was the youngest starship commander, and (despite later reputation) was a highly competent, by the book officer. He would have hit all promotions on time, if not early, due to that excellence. Janeway, on the other hand, was made a Vice Admiral and then shoved behind a desk... She thought she was being promoted... But she was really being kept out of active service so she could inflict no more harm on the universe with her inconsistent and irrational command style
I'm of the opinion that Barclay never served on any starship prior to the Enterprise-D, and his career biography and recommendations were just a forgery. Evaluations were kept mediocre so as to not arouse enough suspicion (either good or bad) to cause someone to actually contact the named officers for confirmation, and he just bluffed his way through the situation, being skilled enough to actually do the job (which does happen, even in the real world) andnhis later career was then judged by his performance as Geordi's minion, so probably no further background checks. Why Pete would even dream of introducing his sister-in-law to such a known whackjob is beyond me... :eek: I'd never introduce my sister-in-law to someone who I knew had mental health issues and an observed history of erratic behaviour
First part:
I agree that Voyager had crappy plotting. I mean, sure, Seven of Nine is hot, but come ON--the freaking BORG are getting pwned by the Undine, and the Feds just come in and make magic Undine-go-blow-up torps FROM BORG TECH in like ten minutes?
And every single decision that Janeway made was highly illogical at BEST.
This is part of why Three hates Admiral Janeway. Because if Three had been in that situation? She would've left about a dozen plasma mines just lying around the array and set them to go .005 seconds after they lost radio contact with her ship. Then, just activate the array and head home. That simple.
If Three were in Endgame? She would've walked right up to the Borg queen, no cloak, no nothing, and ripped her spine out. She'd probably be assimilated afterwards by the surrounding drones, but it's not really that hard for a being who was designed to regenerate from partial disintegration to put an antimatter bomb inside her abdomen. And then set it to blow at the first sign of Borg nanites.
Hell, Picard would've done all of that. Sisko would've done that. Picard once got his ship thrown halfway across the universe and was back in a couple hours. The Sisko is of Bajor, and as the Sisko would not even NEED the array--all he would need is his god mode.
Actually, Janeway's only really intelligent moment was when she used that illogical Borg-dissolving thing to destroy the Borg Queen and most of the Collective.
On Captain Kirk: I actually went back and reviewed my TOS notes, and although Kirk surely loathes Starfleet bureaucrats, the only time he outright ignores direct orders, rather than tolerating, delaying, or creatively interpreting them, is when Spock's life is in danger from pon farr. Also, he saves the universe with disturbing regularity. So yeah, there's a reason that he's a legend, but I'm still surprised that he made Admiral. Because, y'know, that's not the kind of talent you shove behind a desk. That's the talent that you put in your best ship and send out to save everyone.
On Barclay: Yeah, he's a whack job, but he's an EFFECTIVE whack job. I actually got the idea for Three in part from him--the person who has a perfectly rational but entirely nonhuman thought process. A thought process that makes sense, but confuses everyone who encounters its user.
And yeah, I'd never introduce a relative to that guy. I'd introduce my worst enemy, sure, but not someone I care for.
Wasn't Voyager under attack at that time they were on the array? I think they said they could fend off the kazon ship attacking them, but not the reinforcements that were on route. Maybe they didn't have time to figure out how to work the array? It's been a very long time since I saw Caretaker, I can't remember properly. But yeah, Janeway was a crazy person. Though Voyager was her first command, wasn't it?
It's odd. Voyager has some of the best singular episodes, like Scorpion, Year of Hell, Equinox, but overall, it's my least favourite series. Not surprising, when that interview from Ron Moore I read the other day said the writers basically gave up on the show. They just had no consistency. Hell, they couldn't even keep things straight when they made the anniversary episode, and all they had to do was watch a film. Voltaire was seen alive at the end of the film, so how could he die in Flashback? It was 2 months/weeks after Praxis exploded, not 2 days. I just put that all down to Tuvok having his memory screwed with by the parasite, but still. Was awesome to see Sulu, Rand and Excelsior in action though.
But Scorpion? Much as I love that episode, there is one major, giant plot hole. The Borg are getting beaten up by 8472 because they can't assimilate them, so can't adapt to fight them. This is the antithises of Borg. They scan, they analyse and they adapt. That's why they are so dangerous, even their ships, they adapt to everything! Not because they assimilated it, because they scanned and analysed. Assimilation simply gives them everything at once, but they are still able to learn from experience. Still, love Scorppion though, partly due to the music. But don't get me started on the Queen. At least Alice Krige came back for Endgame and played the role like she did in FC, as if the Queen is the embodiment of the collective, instead of a single entity in control of it. Verbal commands. Really. :rolleyes: I do have a story in mind that will explain the addition of the queen and the 'depowering' of the Borg. One day, I'll get it written.
The Kirk thing: I think this is a case of legend overshadowing truth. Yes, he snogged alot of people. But he never actually slept with any of them. He was more of a romantist than an outright womaniser. He kissed them and moved on. He only had 2 kids. David Marcus, and the kid with that native american on the preserver planet, and that was only because he lost his memory and became a native, so I don't think that can count in his shinanigans.
And you're absolutely correct. Kirk didn't ignore regulations at the drop of a hat. He dealt with them, he was creative with their applications, but he DID consider them extensively with McCoy and Spock before he did so, and only when lives would be lost when obeying them. Remembering it took hours in his time just to get a message to Starfleet, and just as long to get an answer. He was out there making these decisions by himself. This is another reason why I appreciate Picard and Sisko more. They saw the legend, but saw the man as well (even though Sisko got his autograph. But come on, that just made Sisko even greater a character). Janeway just dismissed them all as cowboys. Picard and Sisko were more willing to seperate the man from the myth. I wonder if Janeway would have done so if she had ever actually met Kirk?
Hehehehe. And The Sisko: God Mode. That did make me chuckle.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
I agree that Voyager had crappy plotting. I mean, sure, Seven of Nine is hot, but come ON--the freaking BORG are getting pwned by the Undine, and the Feds just come in and make magic Undine-go-blow-up torps FROM BORG TECH in like ten minutes?
And every single decision that Janeway made was highly illogical at BEST.
This is part of why Three hates Admiral Janeway. Because if Three had been in that situation? She would've left about a dozen plasma mines just lying around the array and set them to go .005 seconds after they lost radio contact with her ship. Then, just activate the array and head home. That simple.
If Three were in Endgame? She would've walked right up to the Borg queen, no cloak, no nothing, and ripped her spine out. She'd probably be assimilated afterwards by the surrounding drones, but it's not really that hard for a being who was designed to regenerate from partial disintegration to put an antimatter bomb inside her abdomen. And then set it to blow at the first sign of Borg nanites.
Hell, Picard would've done all of that. Sisko would've done that. Picard once got his ship thrown halfway across the universe and was back in a couple hours. The Sisko is of Bajor, and as the Sisko would not even NEED the array--all he would need is his god mode.
Actually, Janeway's only really intelligent moment was when she used that illogical Borg-dissolving thing to destroy the Borg Queen and most of the Collective.
On Captain Kirk: I actually went back and reviewed my TOS notes, and although Kirk surely loathes Starfleet bureaucrats, the only time he outright ignores direct orders, rather than tolerating, delaying, or creatively interpreting them, is when Spock's life is in danger from pon farr. Also, he saves the universe with disturbing regularity. So yeah, there's a reason that he's a legend, but I'm still surprised that he made Admiral. Because, y'know, that's not the kind of talent you shove behind a desk. That's the talent that you put in your best ship and send out to save everyone.
On Barclay: Yeah, he's a whack job, but he's an EFFECTIVE whack job. I actually got the idea for Three in part from him--the person who has a perfectly rational but entirely nonhuman thought process. A thought process that makes sense, but confuses everyone who encounters its user.
And yeah, I'd never introduce a relative to that guy. I'd introduce my worst enemy, sure, but not someone I care for.
Barclays ability to do the job was never my issue, I always figured he was capable of doing the job, but just not actually qualified to do so (as in having earned the paper qualifications to say so) A bit like a person who has a lot of medical knowledge, and who puts on a lab coat and goes wandering around the ER pretending to be a doctor: If they actually know their stuff, they can actually do the job, but legally speaking, they shouldn't be there as they don't have the papers to say so, and that was how I always viewed Barclay...
As for the rest, yeah, absolutely :cool: Although I've always avoided blowing up my immortal characters. In the Highlanderverse, which my Immortals are based upon, dismemberment is too much for their regenerative abilities (an immortal who had his hand severed in a duel did not grow a new one, but was later seen wearing a prosthesis) I worried that my namesake character may have been too much of a GaryStu and overpowered, so I killed him off, and now only show him in controlled flashback to avoid that trap
[Edit to add]
Re Kirk's Promotion... A more realistic occurrence, would have been him being promoted to Fleet Captain, or possibly Commodore, rather than a promotion to Admiral, which really is a desk position, but those ranks don't have quite the same ring to them
Wasn't Voyager under attack at that time they were on the array? I think they said they could fend off the kazon ship attacking them, but not the reinforcements that were on route. Maybe they didn't have time to figure out how to work the array? It's been a very long time since I saw Caretaker, I can't remember properly. But yeah, Janeway was a crazy person. Though Voyager was her first command, wasn't it?
It's odd. Voyager has some of the best singular episodes, like Scorpion, Year of Hell, Equinox, but overall, it's my least favourite series. Not surprising, when that interview from Ron Moore I read the other day said the writers basically gave up on the show. They just had no consistency. Hell, they couldn't even keep things straight when they made the anniversary episode, and all they had to do was watch a film. Voltaire was seen alive at the end of the film, so how could he die in Flashback? It was 2 months/weeks after Praxis exploded, not 2 days. I just put that all down to Tuvok having his memory screwed with by the parasite, but still. Was awesome to see Sulu, Rand and Excelsior in action though.
But Scorpion? Much as I love that episode, there is one major, giant plot hole. The Borg are getting beaten up by 8472 because they can't assimilate them, so can't adapt to fight them. This is the antithises of Borg. They scan, they analyse and they adapt. That's why they are so dangerous, even their ships, they adapt to everything! Not because they assimilated it, because they scanned and analysed. Assimilation simply gives them everything at once, but they are still able to learn from experience. Still, love Scorppion though, partly due to the music. But don't get me started on the Queen. At least Alice Krige came back for Endgame and played the role like she did in FC, as if the Queen is the embodiment of the collective, instead of a single entity in control of it. Verbal commands. Really. :rolleyes: I do have a story in mind that will explain the addition of the queen and the 'depowering' of the Borg. One day, I'll get it written.
The Kirk thing: I think this is a case of legend overshadowing truth. Yes, he snogged alot of people. But he never actually slept with any of them. He was more of a romantist than an outright womaniser. He kissed them and moved on. He only had 2 kids. David Marcus, and the kid with that native american on the preserver planet, and that was only because he lost his memory and became a native, so I don't think that can count in his shinanigans.
And you're absolutely correct. Kirk didn't ignore regulations at the drop of a hat. He dealt with them, he was creative with their applications, but he DID consider them extensively with McCoy and Spock before he did so, and only when lives would be lost when obeying them. Remembering it took hours in his time just to get a message to Starfleet, and just as long to get an answer. He was out there making these decisions by himself. This is another reason why I appreciate Picard and Sisko more. They saw the legend, but saw the man as well (even though Sisko got his autograph. But come on, that just made Sisko even greater a character). Janeway just dismissed them all as cowboys. Picard and Sisko were more willing to seperate the man from the myth. I wonder if Janeway would have done so if she had ever actually met Kirk?
Hehehehe. And The Sisko: God Mode. That did make me chuckle.
Not sure if it was her first command (I think it was) but she was definitely promoted beyond her ability... Tuvok had already accessed the means to return them to Federation space, there was no justifiable reason why they should not have returned home (other than the plot necessity for them to be stranded) I think B'Elanna was spot on to want to know who she was to be making those decisions for everyone, and Chakotay's answer of "She's the captain..." just wouldn't fly in the real world... B'Elanna should've just gone Klingon Rage on her and killed her, and Chakotay then taken control of Voyager and made everyone else work under him, but without Starfleet protocols. As the Ron Moore interview says, they shouldn't have been all spit and polish (even though he had been an ATT instructor) if going to be so separated from Starfleet, and I think he's absolutely right to say that as a show, it wished it was TNG, and completely missed the opportunity of the premise... Janeway's dismissal of those officers, I just put down to ego and jealousy, attacking people that deep down, she knows are her operational betters. Ransom, for example, was a far superior and competent commanding officer, and her immediate ploy, was to invent a regulation to try and assert dominance of the situation, and then take the 'moral high ground' to condescend to the guy about a regulation which she flaunts whenever she felt like it... Personally, I would have had Janeway killed in Pt II, and had Ransom assuming command of Voyager, still with the intention of getting the integrated crew home. That would have shaken things up nicely, and created a much more interesting dynamic (although of course, would have prevented episodes being shown out of sequence, which was how the series was written to accommodate) :cool:
Not sure if it was her first command (I think it was) but she was definitely promoted beyond her ability... Tuvok had already accessed the means to return them to Federation space, there was no justifiable reason why they should not have returned home (other than the plot necessity for them to be stranded) I think B'Elanna was spot on to want to know who she was to be making those decisions for everyone, and Chakotay's answer of "She's the captain..." just wouldn't fly in the real world... B'Elanna should've just gone Klingon Rage on her and killed her, and Chakotay then taken control of Voyager and made everyone else work under him, but without Starfleet protocols. As the Ron Moore interview says, they shouldn't have been all spit and polish (even though he had been an ATT instructor) if going to be so separated from Starfleet, and I think he's absolutely right to say that as a show, it wished it was TNG, and completely missed the opportunity of the premise... Janeway's dismissal of those officers, I just put down to ego and jealousy, attacking people that deep down, she knows are her operational betters. Ransom, for example, was a far superior and competent commanding officer, and her immediate ploy, was to invent a regulation to try and assert dominance of the situation, and then take the 'moral high ground' to condescend to the guy about a regulation which she flaunts whenever she felt like it... Personally, I would have had Janeway killed in Pt II, and had Ransom assuming command of Voyager, still with the intention of getting the integrated crew home. That would have shaken things up nicely, and created a much more interesting dynamic (although of course, would have prevented episodes being shown out of sequence, which was how the series was written to accommodate) :cool:
I can fix Voyager.
No, seriously. Just gimme a time machine and access to the writers.
For the opening episode: The Kazon attack before Voyager can use the array, and Kazon torps damage the array in the ensuing firefight. Voyager tries to use the damaged array (not knowing that it is damaged) to escape the Kazon, but it explodes dramatically, coincidentally destroying several Kazon ships and giving Voyager the upper hand. Chakotay shows actual depth of character in the first episode, and continues to show character throughout the show. Janeway is less overbearing and bossy and more capable of dealing with others. Think a female Picard rather than a silly radical feminist stereotype.
For the series as a whole: Make Ocampa biology more sensible. Ocampa reproduction makes no sense at all; fix it. Kes dies saving everyone from the Undine during Scorpion, taking a shuttle and a ****-ton of explosives out of Voyager and flying right into a bioship. Voyager never tries to deal with the Borg, and Seven is a lone survivor of the Undine attack on the Borg fleet. Voyager never tries to fight the Undine, and instead runs like hell.
Seven/Janeway gets a romance plot. Seven wears outfits that make sense. When Torres and Paris first go out, Torres goes all Klingon on the idiot and breaks his arms and legs, necessitating an episode where Torres tries to go all emo but Janeway and Paris snap her out of it by saying that it's perfectly fine, Paris loves her anyway, and he's even willing to go through a Klingon wedding for her, and she'd better stop moaning about being half Klingon and get down to engineering because there's an EPS conduit about to blow.
Chakotay gets more dates; he needs it. Also, his Native American background isn't exploited so much; give us Chakotay the man, not Chakotay the Mysterious Spiritual TRIBBLE. Because that stereotype pisses me off. Harry Kim gets actual depth of character and saves the day through competence, not idiocy. Tuvok gets actual character depth.
Janeway takes every single opportunity to get home, but there aren't as many. Maybe one per season. And they fail in a way that leaves them no choice but to fail; say, they're in a wormhole that collapses, and the only way to save the ship is to head back to the Delta quadrant instead of going through. Janeway is able to function without coffee. Tom Paris slowly becomes a decent, respectful person, showing actual character growth. Janeway and Seven open every episode with some soft lighting and some new attempt to help Seven regain her humanity. Maybe a kiss once or twice per season to tease the viewers with the romance. The Doctor needs no alteration, because he is Just That Awesome. Neelix still is a moron, but only for a couple episodes, then he wises up. Janeway institutes basic redshirt protection protocols like surge dampeners, capacitors, and basic away mission safety lessons.
In Endgame, both Janeways are more conciliatory (reflecting the Janeway revisions, the Seven/Janeway romance, and the simple fact that canon Janeway is unfit for command), resulting in Voyager pwning the Borg even more, and Future!Janeway sacrifices herself and destroys the Borg. And they're more careful to get all of the TRIBBLE this time.
Whaddaya think?
Edit to add: Also, Voyager is shown trading with various planets and actually manufacturing things like ship parts, shuttles, and torpedoes over the course of the show. All random upgrades that they add that do not threaten the safety of the ship are kept. All upgrades take a reasonable amount of time. When Voyager comes back, with things like stolen Voth tech and Borg enhancements, they're the most advanced ship in Starfleet, due to having several more advanced species' tech options tacked on, plus a semifunctional quantum slipstream drive.
One more thing: Smack Rick Berman upside the head. Remind him that he's not dealing with fans of, say, Seventh Heaven or something - we will keep track of how many shuttles and torpedoes the ship started off with, we will remember that they're seventy years away from the nearest resupply point, and we will appreciate a plausible explanation of how they're able to get more. It doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out thing - maybe the cargo space nearest the shuttle bay is turned into an improvised factory, and everyone but command crew has to do a few hours each week running it - but explain it.
It would have gone a long way toward helping the show's image if TPTB had been willing to treat us as if we had brains. I know, TV execs aren't used to dealing with viewers who actually engage the story and remember the details, but this is Star Trek, guys! After all those years, you should have figured it out!
I would loose the Janeway/Seven romance. The scenes between those two where they are having the ethical and moral discussions on humanity are my favourite parts of the entire series, which is why I always say it got better when Seven turned up.
Other than that, I would leave what you said, cos that show sounds awesome. However, I would COMPLETELY redo Endgame. No future stuff at all. No, instead, the Borg finally discover the second Caretaker (Suspria was her name, I think?) whom we have yet to meet in the series, though there was always references to where she could be dotted around the past 7 years. At first, she hates them for what they did to her mate, and after causing some trouble, flees. Voyager finally catch up to Suspria as the Borg are attempting to assimilate her, and there's a big debate on weither to help fight an enemy against such impossible odds, and hope she will be grateful enough to help them, or just continue on their merry way, as it looks like a stalemate between the cubes and the Array. Voyager helps her fend off the Borg through some means or other. The show is good with technobabble, I'll let them sort it out. But Voyager gets seriously battered in the onslaught, half the crew is lost in the conflict (including one or two mains) but they finally emerge victorious having used Suspria's array to get rid of the cubes. In gratitude, she sends them home, thus giving the show it's final full circle conclusion.
But.... before they go, Suspria indicates she is able to create ghostly after echos of those who have died over the years, and provide them a home with her. They are not able to ever leave her array, but they can continue to exist there. Everyone bids a tearful farewell and they are sent to Earth, full of holes, missing a nacelle and venting atmosphere, but they're there. A somewhat bittersweet ending for Janeway, as although she was unable to get everyone back home, she did ensure those who did not make it back have a good home in the Delta Quadrant. And she reflects upon this for the show's closing moments.
EDIT to what jonsills said: Also, where the hell did they keep Nelix's ship all that time? I'm assuming the shuttle bay, but when you see it in his final episode, there's no way in hell that thing would have fit in there, not with all the other shuttles. And we never saw it except for that final episode, and I think the one with the prison down the tube episode. You would think it would be at least sitting in the background during shuttlebay shots.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
grlyak: I dunno, that sounds kind of DEM. And Voyager is still one Intrepid-class against a ton of Borg. Besides, death should be permanent. Endlessly resurrecting characters whose resurrection is neither a joke (Kenny McCormick, Daniel Jackson, Mr. Immortal) nor an explicit power (Kenny McCormick, Mr. Immortal, the Doctor, all Time Lords, someone else who I can't remember) TRIBBLE me off. In fact, I give characters 1 death cheat unless they fall into one or both of the above categories. All of the Voyager characters used that death cheat through various means--holographic organs, timeline reversions, medical miracles, et cetera. Unless there are PERMANENT consequences, as in people get killed and stay dead, there is no tension.
On the flip side of that, it's not fair to kill half the crew and only one or two mains. The redshirts do not deserve that. In fact, devastating half the crew, even for a series finale, on a show that was pretty explicitly about getting that crew back home, isn't very fun for the audience.
I still prefer my idea, especially because I support TRIBBLE Star Trek and Janeway/Seven and Torres/Paris are the only pairings on that ship with any chemistry. But TEHO, I guess.
That's why I put the thing about Suspria taking care of them on her Array. So it wouldn't be such a sad ending. Those who died in the past, you would think they are properly dead and there would be tension during the episodes. It would just be a glimmer of hope for the end, that these people get to live in the 'holo-world' we saw the first Caretaker. Hmmmm, I suppose now I think about it (and you remind me with mentioning the Doctor), it is alot like the ending of the Library episodes of Doctor Who. I guess I'm just a sucker for the tragic ending and why I should never write tv shows by myself. I need people to reign me in. Though it did work magnificently for the finale of the modern BSG.
Ok, so the crew doesn't get devastated. But I would still have Voyager cross the finish line seriously battered. Make them work for that final push home. I wouldn't say a ton of borg cubes, 4 tops. And they would have the Caretaker and her array adding her advanced powers to help them out. Maybe the idea is not feasible, but that's what I would pitch. Or have the female caretaker involved in it somehow. It would be a great finale. A Caretaker brought them, a Caretaker took them back. And none of this timeline altering rubbish. My biggest gripe with that is, why did Janeway go back to that point in time? Just for Seven? What about all the people she lost before then? Yes, I know she mentions loosing more later, but why not go back to Caretaker and stop the ship going into the delta quadrant in the first place?
Ok, you might say Seven wouldn't be rescued from the collective. Well, go back to this point in time and take Seven out of her timeline before you go stop voyager going back. Then you just have kes and neelix who don't end up doing what they did, but eh, do we really care about them?
That's why I would remove the future time changing stuff from Endgame completely.
Or have Janeway (present, since there would be no future one in this story) sacrifice herself to get her crew home in some way. Perhaps Voyager gives Suspria time to escape the Borg that have captured her, and as a cube closes in, Janeway is on the array and uses the manual control to send voyager back to earth, moments before initiating the self destruct so she doesn't get assimilated. I'm just spitballing ideas here. But ideally, it would be something involving the female caretaker, no time travel, and Janeway (or someone at least) making a last heroic sacrifice to get the crew home.
And I'm all for TRIBBLE characters in Trek. I just don't think Seven/Janeway is the right ones. That was always a mother/daughter type relationship to me, at least in the first few years with Seven learning her individuality. And honestly, I wouldn't want anything altering those philisophical discussions of theirs, as that is the best parts of the show to me. Though I'm not sure who else it could be.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
I think B'Elanna was spot on to want to know who she was to be making those decisions for everyone, and Chakotay's answer of "She's the captain..." just wouldn't fly in the real world... B'Elanna should've just gone Klingon Rage on her and killed her, and Chakotay then taken control of Voyager and made everyone else work under him, but without Starfleet protocols. As the Ron Moore interview says, they shouldn't have been all spit and polish (even though he had been an ATT instructor) if going to be so separated from Starfleet, and I think he's absolutely right to say that as a show, it wished it was TNG, and completely missed the opportunity of the premise... Janeway's dismissal of those officers, I just put down to ego and jealousy, attacking people that deep down, she knows are her operational betters.
There's a lot being said about the show, and although is distracting from the discussion of this LC, I'm going to add to it
Marcus, your answer here is interesting to me, but especially the bold part. In my estimation, Chakotay's answer IS an appropriate response because that is establishing control and order. Right or wrong, Janeway was the Captain of the ship and therefore was the highest authority in Starfleet. B"Elanna was, in effect, inciting a mutiny.
Don't get me wrong - having a rogue, yet lost, Starfleet vessel would probably be more entertaining. But I contend that in the face of the extreme situation, showing the spit and polish of Starfleet, when nothing else tells anybody they should, was actually an endearing and appreciable quality of the characters - from Janeway to Redshirt #70 to 7 or 9's gradual acceptance of the rules and regulations.
Ok, so the crew doesn't get devastated. But I would still have Voyager cross the finish line seriously battered. Make them work for that final push home. I wouldn't say a ton of borg cubes, 4 tops. And they would have the Caretaker and her array adding her advanced powers to help them out. Maybe the idea is not feasible, but that's what I would pitch. Or have the female caretaker involved in it somehow. It would be a great finale. A Caretaker brought them, a Caretaker took them back. And none of this timeline altering rubbish. My biggest gripe with that is, why did Janeway go back to that point in time? Just for Seven? What about all the people she lost before then? Yes, I know she mentions loosing more later, but why not go back to Caretaker and stop the ship going into the delta quadrant in the first place?
Ok, you might say Seven wouldn't be rescued from the collective. Well, go back to this point in time and take Seven out of her timeline before you go stop voyager going back. Then you just have kes and neelix who don't end up doing what they did, but eh, do we really care about them?
That's why I would remove the future time changing stuff from Endgame completely.
Or have Janeway (present, since there would be no future one in this story) sacrifice herself to get her crew home in some way. Perhaps Voyager gives Suspria time to escape the Borg that have captured her, and as a cube closes in, Janeway is on the array and uses the manual control to send voyager back to earth, moments before initiating the self destruct so she doesn't get assimilated. I'm just spitballing ideas here. But ideally, it would be something involving the female caretaker, no time travel, and Janeway (or someone at least) making a last heroic sacrifice to get the crew home.
And I'm all for TRIBBLE characters in Trek. I just don't think Seven/Janeway is the right ones. That was always a mother/daughter type relationship to me, at least in the first few years with Seven learning her individuality. And honestly, I wouldn't want anything altering those philisophical discussions of theirs, as that is the best parts of the show to me. Though I'm not sure who else it could be.
I agree with most of this.
A potential solution for the timeline thing is (assuming that it is still used) having a hard limit on far back it can go. A single-use item that sends Future!Janeway back only as far as Endgame, and she can only fix stuff from there.
I do think that making it tough for Voyager is a good thing.
Honestly, I don't like the Caretaker or Mrs. Caretaker at ALL, and I don't want the finale to involve them. Too DEM. It's like in DS9 when the Prophets send Kar'ukan's fleet into the future. Great for us players, important for the Sisko's development, but smacks of lazy writing.
Basically, if you need a quasidivine being like a Prophet or a Q to help you, you've been plotted into a box.
I have to say that I personally saw a large amount of homoerotic tension between Janeway and Seven. Also, Janeway needs someone to help her lighten up. Forcing her to do so for Seven would be a great way to give both of them some much-needed growth.
No, seriously. Just gimme a time machine and access to the writers.
Whaddaya think?
I agree with most of that, except for the Janeway/Seven romance. One thing I will agree with Kathy on, was when she said to the Doctor that for her to have a relationship with a member of her crew was not an option (too much potential for conflicts of interest/nepotism) While my namesake character had a wife (in addition to some rather messed up/doomed relationships) she was not a member of the crew. She was a doctor, so would help out in sickbay as something to do, but not under his immediate command or in any way which would directly affect mission protocols. The one time he did allow her to participate in an away team, it was because she had direct first hand knowledge of the location, was on the Beta Team rather than his Alpha Team, and gets killed during... (more on this later) So I wouldn't go down that route for Janeway and Seven. Completely agree with you about Chakotay. Ro's line to Picard about her ATT instructor set him up nicely, but the potential to have a decent character was totally watered down when they turned him into a spiritual anthropologist...
Besides, death should be permanent. Endlessly resurrecting characters whose resurrection is neither a joke (Kenny McCormick, Daniel Jackson, Mr. Immortal) nor an explicit power (Kenny McCormick, Mr. Immortal, the Doctor, all Time Lords, someone else who I can't remember) TRIBBLE me off. In fact, I give characters 1 death cheat unless they fall into one or both of the above categories. All of the Voyager characters used that death cheat through various means--holographic organs, timeline reversions, medical miracles, et cetera. Unless there are PERMANENT consequences, as in people get killed and stay dead, there is no tension.
I agree. Death should be permanent or it loses any tension, and even immortal characters have to have limits. In one story I wrote, I only had Marcus injured once, to reveal his immortality to the observer, and then drained to near-death by a pack of Devidians, which required him to be rescued by another, and given time to regain his strength. Had he been completely drained by them, I believe that death would have been permanent. In one of the LCs, an escape on Romulus required him to briefly push himself beyond normal Human endurance and breathe underwater, but had the Romulan guard got hold of him and started torturing him, they could have killed him if they were creative enough... I eventually had him killed via transporter manipulation by his MU counterpart in another LC, and as mentioned, only use him sparingly in flashback. The same rule applied to S'rR's, and she only recovered from minor injuries/decompression from spacing herself to escape Section 31, only to be eventually stripped of her immortality in another LC to save her life following a Fek'Ihri Ravager bite caused her regenerative ability to completely crash. When Amanda Palmer was killed on New Romulus, she was just a regular Human who got crushed by falling rock. I could have her resurrected by her fairy Q mother, but I won't, because that was the character's end point, and as you quite rightly say, bringing people back just makes death meaningless and eliminates tension. I work to the Babylon 5 principle that any character can be killed/maimed and is not guaranteed to make it to the end of the story, unless their actions keep them alive. Sure, there are some characters who I would not want to kill off... I hadn't planned on killing Amanda, but it was either her, or Siri and Ael, so she got to go out doing the noble thing by saving the lives of two of her friends...
There's a lot being said about the show, and although is distracting from the discussion of this LC, I'm going to add to it
Marcus, your answer here is interesting to me, but especially the bold part. In my estimation, Chakotay's answer IS an appropriate response because that is establishing control and order. Right or wrong, Janeway was the Captain of the ship and therefore was the highest authority in Starfleet. B"Elanna was, in effect, inciting a mutiny.
Don't get me wrong - having a rogue, yet lost, Starfleet vessel would probably be more entertaining. But I contend that in the face of the extreme situation, showing the spit and polish of Starfleet, when nothing else tells anybody they should, was actually an endearing and appreciable quality of the characters - from Janeway to Redshirt #70 to 7 or 9's gradual acceptance of the rules and regulations.
Oh I agree, it was establishing her as the captain, and that Chakotay would follow her lead, and that was what the plot required. I do think that realistically though, B'Elanna was right, and a mutiny would have allowed for a more interesting dynamic (although TPTB obviously didn't have the stones for that, and wanted to do TNG II for easy viewing...) In the same way introducing Captain Ransom as the new commander could have equally created an interesting dynamic, in the same way the tones of Babylon 5 changed subtly when first Captain Sheridan, then Captain Lockley took over command. The writers gave themselves the opportunity for a real shake up with Equinox, but instead, just treated the ship as villain of the week, and after Pt II, there was never a further mention of the officers from the Equinox
Well, the reason I'm so pro the female caretaker is simply for the sake of bringing the series full circle. Though the ultimate goal of the series was to reach Earth, so if there's a way to have a good story where they can do it, and not involve her, I'm happy to go with it. But as much as I enjoy watching Endgame, and Krige's performance in it, I do wince when they mention the Borg transwarp hub, and it having an opening in the Sol system. That just begs two questions:
1) When did the Borg start centralising their technology to be so vulnerable?
2) Why have the Borg never used this transwarp output before? Why did they send the cubes into Sol system via conventional means, if they can just pop out a cube near Earth orbit? To me, that smacks of lazy writing alot more than using a quasimythical being that was already established in the show from it's pilot. If the output was somewhere else in Federation space, or somewhere near the Romulan Neutral zone, that would not only be fine with me, but also maintain continuity, since that was where the first Borg cube appeared, and would suggest that was how the cubes were getting into Federation space in the first place.
At least with the Prophets removing that fleet, it was something that was built up to over the last 5 years. It wasn't something that just happened for that episode, as the Prophets had interfered with corporeal matters a few times in the past, and we had things like the Reckoning and other claptrap they did, so Sisko was basically calling in a favour. While I am not saying it wasn't plotted into a box, or lazy writing, at least the DS9 writers took the time and effort to lay down establishment for that fact.
I have to say that I personally saw a large amount of homoerotic tension between Janeway and Seven. Also, Janeway needs someone to help her lighten up. Forcing her to do so for Seven would be a great way to give both of them some much-needed growth.
I love the fact we took two completely different interpritations of the same scenes and relationship. Well done to Voyager for that. I do agree Janeway needed soemone to help her let off steam.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
--On Endgame: You know what, you guys are right. Just junk and rewrite every single Borg episode in Voyager, and have each such episode's "victory condition" be "getting away". Also, the transwarp gate doesn't end up in the Sol system. Have it end up out near that gate that the Enterprise-D finds in Descent, by default.
--On Janeway/Seven and other relationships: It is important to remember that about half of Voyager's crew is Maquis, and they're seventy years from Starfleet anti-fraternization regs. Smart Janeway/Seven would include a policy where Chakotay takes command of the ship if anything happens to either of them. In fact, ensuring replacements for everyone on the ship is sensible. Relationships happen when you're half a galaxy from home, and it's only logical to ensure that such relationships do not interfere with starship functions, rather than suppressing such relationships (which makes confrontation and romantic/sexual tension and the associated issues all but certain).
So yeah, tell Chakotay that he has the ship if something happens to Seven, and give him a lockout code to ensure that. He's the XO, and actually a pretty good XO, with decent karma, so he's the natural choice.
@sirboulevard - very interesting. I liked the examples you pulled from Trek canon.
@marcusdkane - that was lovely. :cool: I'm still laughing at the thought of Lucas Kane getting living TRIBBLE beaten out of him after what he did to Siri.
@saihung423 - possibly the most inappropriate topic for Kirk to give an Academy lecture on...
@ironphoenix - "Your trust should go no further than the airlock of your ship." Great line, that.
@allen1973 - you need to format your entry to make it readable. All those ?s that should "s and 's need to get fixed. And please use paragraph breaks to break up the wall-o'-text. I look forward to reading your work, but as it is now, I simply can't.
Page 2 reviews coming soon, and if I get the time, Lewis McLain may give a lecture on practical application of gravimetric effects in combat environments.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
that was lovely. :cool: I'm still laughing at the thought of Lucas Kane getting living TRIBBLE beaten out of him after what he did to Siri.
Yeah, he got his comeuppance alright, and best of all, it's not like he can even complain to Starfleet, as I'sH'd only answers to Siri and the Empress :cool:
@allen1973 - I agree, formatting and clearing the ? punctuation will help read this better. Still, even after copy/pasting into Word and making paragraphs, the overall flow was challenging to get through. Most of it was trying to keep up with who was talking to whom. You have some interesting ideas but they can be easily lost in translation.
@superhombre777 - ch'Raul is easily a favorite of mine. I was most impressed with the response to the Cadet's statement about be lucky.
@cptgold172 - Elisa Flores is on your ship?! Who that on my ship :eek: You touched on a theme I've been brewing in my head (can't say which because that'll give it away).
@aten66 - I knew you couldn't stay away long Good speech. I was surprised by the ending though which made it a light-hearted piece.
Right, I've just posted mine after missing what feels like far, far too many LC's. I was tempted to write a little about Arkos' academy days, but then I had the idea of writing this piece, and I just had to do it. Hopefully, I might be able to write a bit about Arkos in the Academy later on. In the meantime, enjoy!
EDIT: And now I look back and see that the topic was something completely different than what I assumed it to be. This is what I get for not looking at the first page thoroughly. P
Right, I've just posted mine after missing what feels like far, far too many LC's. I was tempted to write a little about Arkos' academy days, but then I had the idea of writing this piece, and I just had to do it. Hopefully, I might be able to write a bit about Arkos in the Academy later on. In the meantime, enjoy!
EDIT: And now I look back and see that the topic was something completely different than what I assumed it to be. This is what I get for not looking at the first page thoroughly. P
I really like it when entries don't necessarily follow the exact brief, but follow more the spirit of the challenge, so this was fantastic From the reference, I'll assume this took place before Marcus' demise, so I wonder where Merall is now with her career I would say that she may have been inspired to hear about other Cardassians serving in Starfleet, like Meliden, but seeing as she lives with a surgically-created Human appearance, she may not be the best example of Grey Pride
I really like it when entries don't necessarily follow the exact brief, but follow more the spirit of the challenge, so this was fantastic From the reference, I'll assume this took place before Marcus' demise, so I wonder where Merall is now with her career I would say that she may have been inspired to hear about other Cardassians serving in Starfleet, like Meliden, but seeing as she lives with a surgically-created Human appearance, she may not be the best example of Grey Pride
Honestly, I'd forgotten when in the timeline you'd written Kane as having died. As to when this piece is set, I'm unsure myself, but Meral would be somewhere in her 30's in the current timeline. As for where she is in her career...well, she is my fourth, and most recently created, player character in the game, so I'd say she's done rather well for herself.
As to other Cardassians in Starfleet, I'm not sure if Meral would have been inspired by (or even known about) other Cardassians in Starfleet at the time. Although I'm sure she would have found it reassuring to know about other Cardassian officers afterwards.
Honestly, I'd forgotten when in the timeline you'd written Kane as having died. As to when this piece is set, I'm unsure myself, but Meral would be somewhere in her 30's in the current timeline. As for where she is in her career...well, she is my fourth, and most recently created, player character in the game, so I'd say she's done rather well for herself.
As to other Cardassians in Starfleet, I'm not sure if Meral would have been inspired by (or even known about) other Cardassians in Starfleet at the time. Although I'm sure she would have found it reassuring to know about other Cardassian officers afterwards.
Marcus was an admiral between 2390 and 2412, before his MU counterpart brought about his demise, with 2393 to 2399 spent in a Cardassian gulag, so depending on Meral's exact age, possibly some time after his repatriation to the Federation... Glad to hear she's doing well though :cool: Having been raised by adoptive Human parents on Earth, Meliden's about as 'un-Cardassian' as possible
@aten66 - I knew you couldn't stay away long Good speech. I was surprised by the ending though which made it a light-hearted piece.
Well since winter event was still going on, and ince you can generally get Q to turn you into other things, thought I'd incorporate it in before the event ends!
I really like it when entries don't necessarily follow the exact brief, but follow more the spirit of the challenge, so this was fantastic From the reference, I'll assume this took place before Marcus' demise, so I wonder where Merall is now with her career I would say that she may have been inspired to hear about other Cardassians serving in Starfleet, like Meliden, but seeing as she lives with a surgically-created Human appearance, she may not be the best example of Grey Pride
Easy fix. Add a flash forward paragraph where a character is addressing the Academy on why Species-ism is bad and make it look like the entire thing was just an anecdote.
*whispers*
BRAN WILL NEVER KNOW!
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"
Easy fix. Add a flash forward paragraph where a character is addressing the Academy on why Species-ism is bad and make it look like the entire thing was just an anecdote.
*whispers*
BRAN WILL NEVER KNOW!
I just think it's great to see where the briefs inspire people beyond the obvious :cool:
Comments
But ... then we wouldn't have the joy and wonder of ST:Voyager. Without which we all could not enjoy Season 8 of STO.
Put your logic away.
EDIT: O'Brian At Work was a very nice relief from work - thank you!
Very well done, though my Commander Redmond and Admiral N'Riuw would both have a word of warning about liberated Borg and treating them all the same. Because oh boy has Redmond ever experienced that...people thinking she is going to act like Seven of Nine because her appearance is still FULLY Borg--yet her personality is as intact as Picard's.
Alyosha would listen, agree--but sadly know that here are still some lines that a lot of people just would not be ready to cross.
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First part:
I agree that Voyager had crappy plotting. I mean, sure, Seven of Nine is hot, but come ON--the freaking BORG are getting pwned by the Undine, and the Feds just come in and make magic Undine-go-blow-up torps FROM BORG TECH in like ten minutes?
And every single decision that Janeway made was highly illogical at BEST.
This is part of why Three hates Admiral Janeway. Because if Three had been in that situation? She would've left about a dozen plasma mines just lying around the array and set them to go .005 seconds after they lost radio contact with her ship. Then, just activate the array and head home. That simple.
If Three were in Endgame? She would've walked right up to the Borg queen, no cloak, no nothing, and ripped her spine out. She'd probably be assimilated afterwards by the surrounding drones, but it's not really that hard for a being who was designed to regenerate from partial disintegration to put an antimatter bomb inside her abdomen. And then set it to blow at the first sign of Borg nanites.
Hell, Picard would've done all of that. Sisko would've done that. Picard once got his ship thrown halfway across the universe and was back in a couple hours. The Sisko is of Bajor, and as the Sisko would not even NEED the array--all he would need is his god mode.
Actually, Janeway's only really intelligent moment was when she used that illogical Borg-dissolving thing to destroy the Borg Queen and most of the Collective.
On Captain Kirk: I actually went back and reviewed my TOS notes, and although Kirk surely loathes Starfleet bureaucrats, the only time he outright ignores direct orders, rather than tolerating, delaying, or creatively interpreting them, is when Spock's life is in danger from pon farr. Also, he saves the universe with disturbing regularity. So yeah, there's a reason that he's a legend, but I'm still surprised that he made Admiral. Because, y'know, that's not the kind of talent you shove behind a desk. That's the talent that you put in your best ship and send out to save everyone.
On Barclay: Yeah, he's a whack job, but he's an EFFECTIVE whack job. I actually got the idea for Three in part from him--the person who has a perfectly rational but entirely nonhuman thought process. A thought process that makes sense, but confuses everyone who encounters its user.
And yeah, I'd never introduce a relative to that guy. I'd introduce my worst enemy, sure, but not someone I care for.
It's odd. Voyager has some of the best singular episodes, like Scorpion, Year of Hell, Equinox, but overall, it's my least favourite series. Not surprising, when that interview from Ron Moore I read the other day said the writers basically gave up on the show. They just had no consistency. Hell, they couldn't even keep things straight when they made the anniversary episode, and all they had to do was watch a film. Voltaire was seen alive at the end of the film, so how could he die in Flashback? It was 2 months/weeks after Praxis exploded, not 2 days. I just put that all down to Tuvok having his memory screwed with by the parasite, but still. Was awesome to see Sulu, Rand and Excelsior in action though.
But Scorpion? Much as I love that episode, there is one major, giant plot hole. The Borg are getting beaten up by 8472 because they can't assimilate them, so can't adapt to fight them. This is the antithises of Borg. They scan, they analyse and they adapt. That's why they are so dangerous, even their ships, they adapt to everything! Not because they assimilated it, because they scanned and analysed. Assimilation simply gives them everything at once, but they are still able to learn from experience. Still, love Scorppion though, partly due to the music. But don't get me started on the Queen. At least Alice Krige came back for Endgame and played the role like she did in FC, as if the Queen is the embodiment of the collective, instead of a single entity in control of it. Verbal commands. Really. :rolleyes: I do have a story in mind that will explain the addition of the queen and the 'depowering' of the Borg. One day, I'll get it written.
The Kirk thing: I think this is a case of legend overshadowing truth. Yes, he snogged alot of people. But he never actually slept with any of them. He was more of a romantist than an outright womaniser. He kissed them and moved on. He only had 2 kids. David Marcus, and the kid with that native american on the preserver planet, and that was only because he lost his memory and became a native, so I don't think that can count in his shinanigans.
And you're absolutely correct. Kirk didn't ignore regulations at the drop of a hat. He dealt with them, he was creative with their applications, but he DID consider them extensively with McCoy and Spock before he did so, and only when lives would be lost when obeying them. Remembering it took hours in his time just to get a message to Starfleet, and just as long to get an answer. He was out there making these decisions by himself. This is another reason why I appreciate Picard and Sisko more. They saw the legend, but saw the man as well (even though Sisko got his autograph. But come on, that just made Sisko even greater a character). Janeway just dismissed them all as cowboys. Picard and Sisko were more willing to seperate the man from the myth. I wonder if Janeway would have done so if she had ever actually met Kirk?
Hehehehe. And The Sisko: God Mode. That did make me chuckle.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
As for the rest, yeah, absolutely :cool: Although I've always avoided blowing up my immortal characters. In the Highlanderverse, which my Immortals are based upon, dismemberment is too much for their regenerative abilities (an immortal who had his hand severed in a duel did not grow a new one, but was later seen wearing a prosthesis) I worried that my namesake character may have been too much of a GaryStu and overpowered, so I killed him off, and now only show him in controlled flashback to avoid that trap
[Edit to add]
Re Kirk's Promotion... A more realistic occurrence, would have been him being promoted to Fleet Captain, or possibly Commodore, rather than a promotion to Admiral, which really is a desk position, but those ranks don't have quite the same ring to them
I can fix Voyager.
No, seriously. Just gimme a time machine and access to the writers.
For the opening episode: The Kazon attack before Voyager can use the array, and Kazon torps damage the array in the ensuing firefight. Voyager tries to use the damaged array (not knowing that it is damaged) to escape the Kazon, but it explodes dramatically, coincidentally destroying several Kazon ships and giving Voyager the upper hand. Chakotay shows actual depth of character in the first episode, and continues to show character throughout the show. Janeway is less overbearing and bossy and more capable of dealing with others. Think a female Picard rather than a silly radical feminist stereotype.
For the series as a whole: Make Ocampa biology more sensible. Ocampa reproduction makes no sense at all; fix it. Kes dies saving everyone from the Undine during Scorpion, taking a shuttle and a ****-ton of explosives out of Voyager and flying right into a bioship. Voyager never tries to deal with the Borg, and Seven is a lone survivor of the Undine attack on the Borg fleet. Voyager never tries to fight the Undine, and instead runs like hell.
Seven/Janeway gets a romance plot. Seven wears outfits that make sense. When Torres and Paris first go out, Torres goes all Klingon on the idiot and breaks his arms and legs, necessitating an episode where Torres tries to go all emo but Janeway and Paris snap her out of it by saying that it's perfectly fine, Paris loves her anyway, and he's even willing to go through a Klingon wedding for her, and she'd better stop moaning about being half Klingon and get down to engineering because there's an EPS conduit about to blow.
Chakotay gets more dates; he needs it. Also, his Native American background isn't exploited so much; give us Chakotay the man, not Chakotay the Mysterious Spiritual TRIBBLE. Because that stereotype pisses me off. Harry Kim gets actual depth of character and saves the day through competence, not idiocy. Tuvok gets actual character depth.
Janeway takes every single opportunity to get home, but there aren't as many. Maybe one per season. And they fail in a way that leaves them no choice but to fail; say, they're in a wormhole that collapses, and the only way to save the ship is to head back to the Delta quadrant instead of going through. Janeway is able to function without coffee. Tom Paris slowly becomes a decent, respectful person, showing actual character growth. Janeway and Seven open every episode with some soft lighting and some new attempt to help Seven regain her humanity. Maybe a kiss once or twice per season to tease the viewers with the romance. The Doctor needs no alteration, because he is Just That Awesome. Neelix still is a moron, but only for a couple episodes, then he wises up. Janeway institutes basic redshirt protection protocols like surge dampeners, capacitors, and basic away mission safety lessons.
In Endgame, both Janeways are more conciliatory (reflecting the Janeway revisions, the Seven/Janeway romance, and the simple fact that canon Janeway is unfit for command), resulting in Voyager pwning the Borg even more, and Future!Janeway sacrifices herself and destroys the Borg. And they're more careful to get all of the TRIBBLE this time.
Whaddaya think?
Edit to add: Also, Voyager is shown trading with various planets and actually manufacturing things like ship parts, shuttles, and torpedoes over the course of the show. All random upgrades that they add that do not threaten the safety of the ship are kept. All upgrades take a reasonable amount of time. When Voyager comes back, with things like stolen Voth tech and Borg enhancements, they're the most advanced ship in Starfleet, due to having several more advanced species' tech options tacked on, plus a semifunctional quantum slipstream drive.
It would have gone a long way toward helping the show's image if TPTB had been willing to treat us as if we had brains. I know, TV execs aren't used to dealing with viewers who actually engage the story and remember the details, but this is Star Trek, guys! After all those years, you should have figured it out!
Other than that, I would leave what you said, cos that show sounds awesome. However, I would COMPLETELY redo Endgame. No future stuff at all. No, instead, the Borg finally discover the second Caretaker (Suspria was her name, I think?) whom we have yet to meet in the series, though there was always references to where she could be dotted around the past 7 years. At first, she hates them for what they did to her mate, and after causing some trouble, flees. Voyager finally catch up to Suspria as the Borg are attempting to assimilate her, and there's a big debate on weither to help fight an enemy against such impossible odds, and hope she will be grateful enough to help them, or just continue on their merry way, as it looks like a stalemate between the cubes and the Array. Voyager helps her fend off the Borg through some means or other. The show is good with technobabble, I'll let them sort it out. But Voyager gets seriously battered in the onslaught, half the crew is lost in the conflict (including one or two mains) but they finally emerge victorious having used Suspria's array to get rid of the cubes. In gratitude, she sends them home, thus giving the show it's final full circle conclusion.
But.... before they go, Suspria indicates she is able to create ghostly after echos of those who have died over the years, and provide them a home with her. They are not able to ever leave her array, but they can continue to exist there. Everyone bids a tearful farewell and they are sent to Earth, full of holes, missing a nacelle and venting atmosphere, but they're there. A somewhat bittersweet ending for Janeway, as although she was unable to get everyone back home, she did ensure those who did not make it back have a good home in the Delta Quadrant. And she reflects upon this for the show's closing moments.
EDIT to what jonsills said: Also, where the hell did they keep Nelix's ship all that time? I'm assuming the shuttle bay, but when you see it in his final episode, there's no way in hell that thing would have fit in there, not with all the other shuttles. And we never saw it except for that final episode, and I think the one with the prison down the tube episode. You would think it would be at least sitting in the background during shuttlebay shots.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
On the flip side of that, it's not fair to kill half the crew and only one or two mains. The redshirts do not deserve that. In fact, devastating half the crew, even for a series finale, on a show that was pretty explicitly about getting that crew back home, isn't very fun for the audience.
I still prefer my idea, especially because I support TRIBBLE Star Trek and Janeway/Seven and Torres/Paris are the only pairings on that ship with any chemistry. But TEHO, I guess.
That's why I put the thing about Suspria taking care of them on her Array. So it wouldn't be such a sad ending. Those who died in the past, you would think they are properly dead and there would be tension during the episodes. It would just be a glimmer of hope for the end, that these people get to live in the 'holo-world' we saw the first Caretaker. Hmmmm, I suppose now I think about it (and you remind me with mentioning the Doctor), it is alot like the ending of the Library episodes of Doctor Who. I guess I'm just a sucker for the tragic ending and why I should never write tv shows by myself. I need people to reign me in. Though it did work magnificently for the finale of the modern BSG.
Ok, so the crew doesn't get devastated. But I would still have Voyager cross the finish line seriously battered. Make them work for that final push home. I wouldn't say a ton of borg cubes, 4 tops. And they would have the Caretaker and her array adding her advanced powers to help them out. Maybe the idea is not feasible, but that's what I would pitch. Or have the female caretaker involved in it somehow. It would be a great finale. A Caretaker brought them, a Caretaker took them back. And none of this timeline altering rubbish. My biggest gripe with that is, why did Janeway go back to that point in time? Just for Seven? What about all the people she lost before then? Yes, I know she mentions loosing more later, but why not go back to Caretaker and stop the ship going into the delta quadrant in the first place?
Ok, you might say Seven wouldn't be rescued from the collective. Well, go back to this point in time and take Seven out of her timeline before you go stop voyager going back. Then you just have kes and neelix who don't end up doing what they did, but eh, do we really care about them?
That's why I would remove the future time changing stuff from Endgame completely.
Or have Janeway (present, since there would be no future one in this story) sacrifice herself to get her crew home in some way. Perhaps Voyager gives Suspria time to escape the Borg that have captured her, and as a cube closes in, Janeway is on the array and uses the manual control to send voyager back to earth, moments before initiating the self destruct so she doesn't get assimilated. I'm just spitballing ideas here. But ideally, it would be something involving the female caretaker, no time travel, and Janeway (or someone at least) making a last heroic sacrifice to get the crew home.
And I'm all for TRIBBLE characters in Trek. I just don't think Seven/Janeway is the right ones. That was always a mother/daughter type relationship to me, at least in the first few years with Seven learning her individuality. And honestly, I wouldn't want anything altering those philisophical discussions of theirs, as that is the best parts of the show to me. Though I'm not sure who else it could be.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
There's a lot being said about the show, and although is distracting from the discussion of this LC, I'm going to add to it
Marcus, your answer here is interesting to me, but especially the bold part. In my estimation, Chakotay's answer IS an appropriate response because that is establishing control and order. Right or wrong, Janeway was the Captain of the ship and therefore was the highest authority in Starfleet. B"Elanna was, in effect, inciting a mutiny.
Don't get me wrong - having a rogue, yet lost, Starfleet vessel would probably be more entertaining. But I contend that in the face of the extreme situation, showing the spit and polish of Starfleet, when nothing else tells anybody they should, was actually an endearing and appreciable quality of the characters - from Janeway to Redshirt #70 to 7 or 9's gradual acceptance of the rules and regulations.
I agree with most of this.
A potential solution for the timeline thing is (assuming that it is still used) having a hard limit on far back it can go. A single-use item that sends Future!Janeway back only as far as Endgame, and she can only fix stuff from there.
I do think that making it tough for Voyager is a good thing.
Honestly, I don't like the Caretaker or Mrs. Caretaker at ALL, and I don't want the finale to involve them. Too DEM. It's like in DS9 when the Prophets send Kar'ukan's fleet into the future. Great for us players, important for the Sisko's development, but smacks of lazy writing.
Basically, if you need a quasidivine being like a Prophet or a Q to help you, you've been plotted into a box.
I have to say that I personally saw a large amount of homoerotic tension between Janeway and Seven. Also, Janeway needs someone to help her lighten up. Forcing her to do so for Seven would be a great way to give both of them some much-needed growth.
I agree. Death should be permanent or it loses any tension, and even immortal characters have to have limits. In one story I wrote, I only had Marcus injured once, to reveal his immortality to the observer, and then drained to near-death by a pack of Devidians, which required him to be rescued by another, and given time to regain his strength. Had he been completely drained by them, I believe that death would have been permanent. In one of the LCs, an escape on Romulus required him to briefly push himself beyond normal Human endurance and breathe underwater, but had the Romulan guard got hold of him and started torturing him, they could have killed him if they were creative enough... I eventually had him killed via transporter manipulation by his MU counterpart in another LC, and as mentioned, only use him sparingly in flashback. The same rule applied to S'rR's, and she only recovered from minor injuries/decompression from spacing herself to escape Section 31, only to be eventually stripped of her immortality in another LC to save her life following a Fek'Ihri Ravager bite caused her regenerative ability to completely crash. When Amanda Palmer was killed on New Romulus, she was just a regular Human who got crushed by falling rock. I could have her resurrected by her fairy Q mother, but I won't, because that was the character's end point, and as you quite rightly say, bringing people back just makes death meaningless and eliminates tension. I work to the Babylon 5 principle that any character can be killed/maimed and is not guaranteed to make it to the end of the story, unless their actions keep them alive. Sure, there are some characters who I would not want to kill off... I hadn't planned on killing Amanda, but it was either her, or Siri and Ael, so she got to go out doing the noble thing by saving the lives of two of her friends...
Oh I agree, it was establishing her as the captain, and that Chakotay would follow her lead, and that was what the plot required. I do think that realistically though, B'Elanna was right, and a mutiny would have allowed for a more interesting dynamic (although TPTB obviously didn't have the stones for that, and wanted to do TNG II for easy viewing...) In the same way introducing Captain Ransom as the new commander could have equally created an interesting dynamic, in the same way the tones of Babylon 5 changed subtly when first Captain Sheridan, then Captain Lockley took over command. The writers gave themselves the opportunity for a real shake up with Equinox, but instead, just treated the ship as villain of the week, and after Pt II, there was never a further mention of the officers from the Equinox
1) When did the Borg start centralising their technology to be so vulnerable?
2) Why have the Borg never used this transwarp output before? Why did they send the cubes into Sol system via conventional means, if they can just pop out a cube near Earth orbit? To me, that smacks of lazy writing alot more than using a quasimythical being that was already established in the show from it's pilot. If the output was somewhere else in Federation space, or somewhere near the Romulan Neutral zone, that would not only be fine with me, but also maintain continuity, since that was where the first Borg cube appeared, and would suggest that was how the cubes were getting into Federation space in the first place.
At least with the Prophets removing that fleet, it was something that was built up to over the last 5 years. It wasn't something that just happened for that episode, as the Prophets had interfered with corporeal matters a few times in the past, and we had things like the Reckoning and other claptrap they did, so Sisko was basically calling in a favour. While I am not saying it wasn't plotted into a box, or lazy writing, at least the DS9 writers took the time and effort to lay down establishment for that fact.
I love the fact we took two completely different interpritations of the same scenes and relationship. Well done to Voyager for that. I do agree Janeway needed soemone to help her let off steam.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
--On Janeway/Seven and other relationships: It is important to remember that about half of Voyager's crew is Maquis, and they're seventy years from Starfleet anti-fraternization regs. Smart Janeway/Seven would include a policy where Chakotay takes command of the ship if anything happens to either of them. In fact, ensuring replacements for everyone on the ship is sensible. Relationships happen when you're half a galaxy from home, and it's only logical to ensure that such relationships do not interfere with starship functions, rather than suppressing such relationships (which makes confrontation and romantic/sexual tension and the associated issues all but certain).
So yeah, tell Chakotay that he has the ship if something happens to Seven, and give him a lockout code to ensure that. He's the XO, and actually a pretty good XO, with decent karma, so he's the natural choice.
Enjoy Hangovers, Q, and an Amused Romulan, but trust me, the title is a bit misleading.
@sirboulevard - very interesting. I liked the examples you pulled from Trek canon.
@marcusdkane - that was lovely. :cool: I'm still laughing at the thought of Lucas Kane getting living TRIBBLE beaten out of him after what he did to Siri.
@saihung423 - possibly the most inappropriate topic for Kirk to give an Academy lecture on...
@ironphoenix - "Your trust should go no further than the airlock of your ship." Great line, that.
@allen1973 - you need to format your entry to make it readable. All those ?s that should "s and 's need to get fixed. And please use paragraph breaks to break up the wall-o'-text. I look forward to reading your work, but as it is now, I simply can't.
Page 2 reviews coming soon, and if I get the time, Lewis McLain may give a lecture on practical application of gravimetric effects in combat environments.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@superhombre777 - ch'Raul is easily a favorite of mine. I was most impressed with the response to the Cadet's statement about be lucky.
@cptgold172 - Elisa Flores is on your ship?! Who that on my ship :eek: You touched on a theme I've been brewing in my head (can't say which because that'll give it away).
@aten66 - I knew you couldn't stay away long
EDIT: And now I look back and see that the topic was something completely different than what I assumed it to be. This is what I get for not looking at the first page thoroughly. P
Honestly, I'd forgotten when in the timeline you'd written Kane as having died. As to when this piece is set, I'm unsure myself, but Meral would be somewhere in her 30's in the current timeline. As for where she is in her career...well, she is my fourth, and most recently created, player character in the game, so I'd say she's done rather well for herself.
As to other Cardassians in Starfleet, I'm not sure if Meral would have been inspired by (or even known about) other Cardassians in Starfleet at the time. Although I'm sure she would have found it reassuring to know about other Cardassian officers afterwards.
Well since winter event was still going on, and ince you can generally get Q to turn you into other things, thought I'd incorporate it in before the event ends!
Have a good rest of the Lc guys!
Easy fix. Add a flash forward paragraph where a character is addressing the Academy on why Species-ism is bad and make it look like the entire thing was just an anecdote.
*whispers*
BRAN WILL NEVER KNOW!
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP