VOY - Virtuoso

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

On a more positive note for discussion, I'm wondering how the Prime Directive would apply to a situation like this? While not interfering with their GOVERNMENT, introducing an artistic idea like music into a culture that has no concept of it feels like the kind of thing that will radically interfere and transform said culture.

The aliens have warp capability, and so can seek out other worlds and species on their own. The uncontaminated-culture genie is out of the bottle. If they didn't learn about music from Voyager, then they'd inevitably stumble across it somewhere else.

Sure you say that now, but then wait until they use the mathematical fixation that they were so bound to in the first place and create some sonic resonance that outrival phasers and photon torpedoes and circumvents the shields on ships.

[clearspira]

I HATE this episode.

Absolutely despise it. Hated it the first time I ever saw it and still hate it today - when I eventually get around to making my Top 15 Worst Star Trek episodes it's on there.

It's character assassination. While not as bad as Phlox condoning genocide, it's pretty damn bad. The idea that the Doctor would happily leave Voyager for fame and adulation from a bunch of assholes is ridiculous and frustrating. While the Doctor's ego has always been a problem, he shelves that ego when it comes to the health and safety of others because he's got his priorities in check. I recall Macrocosm, where his enthusiasm for an away mission and getting to be off the ship instantly deflates because an alien is in trouble and he wants to help. Some asshole behavior like not calling Janeway Captain or letting his ego get the better of him for a longer stay on the planet and wanting to give away autographed recordings? Sure, dickish, but no one's life is being threatened. Leaving his friends, colleagues, and duties to stay on this planet because he became a celebrity? BS and I hate it.

On a more positive note for discussion, I'm wondering how the Prime Directive would apply to a situation like this? While not interfering with their GOVERNMENT, introducing an artistic idea like music into a culture that has no concept of it feels like the kind of thing that will radically interfere and transform said culture.

Ah, the good old PD. Has there been a more inconsistent plot concept in the history of science fiction? Sometimes in means ''we will let you die while drinking champagne'', sometimes it means ''we won't interfere but we will have sex with you'', sometimes it is optional, sometimes it applies to species at a certain level of development, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes like here it means ''we'll interfere in the most indirect but damaging ways possible.''

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not competent enough to be a lieutenant, apparently.

Also, I loved the contrast between Picard and Janeway.

But they already had a lieutenant!

[clearspira]

Not competent enough to be a lieutenant, apparently.

Also, I loved the contrast between Picard and Janeway.

But they already had a lieutenant!

It always makes me laugh that the 1701-A had three captains and yet Kim couldn't make Lieutenant JG. It made me laugh even more when Chuck pointed out that Nog went from the waiter that served Harry in Quark's bar to full braid lieutenant within the same time frame. Kim is incompetent and even Canon Janeway sees it imo.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not competent enough to be a lieutenant, apparently.

Also, I loved the contrast between Picard and Janeway.

But they already had a lieutenant!

It always makes me laugh that the 1701-A had three captains and yet Kim couldn't make Lieutenant JG. It made me laugh even more when Chuck pointed out that Nog went from the waiter that served Harry in Quark's bar to full braid lieutenant within the same time frame. Kim is incompetent and even Canon Janeway sees it imo.

Well they're kinda different circumstances. Mobility is a lot more stiff on Voyager considering they have one primary mission to work on for 70 years and no real influx of crew.

[Fianna]

Yeah, I can believe that on Voyager, since there's no way to retire or be transferred to another ship, the only way you can be promoted is if someone above you in the ship's hierarchy dies.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

This episode reminds me why I liked Doc in the early seasons, when he seemed to be in a grumpy ill bedside mannered snarkfest. At some point, probably in the fourth season, he gained a peppy attitude that may have been in line with his self entitled persona but made him more obnoxious to me. I guess you can’t have him be one note for all seven seasons, but I couldn’t get enough of the old Doc.

To be fair, the episode where we meet the real engineer practically makes up for it.

[CrypticMirror]

Yeah, I can believe that on Voyager, since there's no way to retire or be transferred to another ship, the only way you can be promoted is if someone above you in the ship's hierarchy dies.

With Neelix as survival episode that oughta have ensured a rapid promotion tree though. I mean, based on what we see of Harry over the course of the series, does he strike anybody as particularly competent enough to be promoted? Especially since VOY is essentially under Starfleet's peacetime paradigm for the whole show rather than DS9's destroy every ship and slaughter redshirts by the Miranda-load fast-tracking wartime footing. In the former, people could spend their entire career in one rank (witness Lt. Picard in Tapestry for that), so the question is "Has Harry done anything to warrant a promotion under that paradigm?".

DGMW; I think Voyager ought to have been taking on and paying off crew in virtually every port it came across. It did flirt with that, with the Maquis crew, Neelix and Kes, and then later with Seven and Icheb, but nowhere near the level it ought to have had. And they did virtually nothing with any of those premises either. Instead of Tuvok making people run laps of the ship, it ought to have been Janeway et all learning how to work with a civilian crew which was rougher with the idea of orders and protocol than Starfleet, not to mention trying to convince people to sign on to a one way trip to parts unknown when staffing shortages bit hard. but alas it truly was where potential went to die.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well kinda yeah I don't remember anything specifically, but I just thought I remember him being some top of the class student, and actually working on stuff for Janeway.

Being stranded out in the unknown, Paris seems like he'd be a more resourceful Lt. even though he was more of a jack of all trades pilot and mechanic and not as scientific. Though he did make the ship that hit warp 10.

[TrueMetis]

Remember the time Harry Kim tried to create a backup EMH, and failed? Of course that was just Harry doing what Harry does best.

Also, I never saw the episode. In the episode, did Janeway let him go or no? My impression is that she didn't, even if the new hologram didn't render that moot.

Wasn't Harry rather competent with his engineering or w/ever?

Highly, and in multiple fields. It's why he's the ops officer. The point of that scene was supposed to establish how the doc is irreplaceable.

I mean, based on what we see of Harry over the course of the series, does he strike anybody as particularly competent enough to be promoted?

Yeah I mean he only helped invent a warp drive that could go to infinity, an entirely new type of shuttle (twice technically but one of those times got deleted), a slipstream drive, was given command of the ship multiple times, and helped save the crew and ship several times.

You know just your typical not particularly competent valedictorian who graduated with honours and was given a senior command position as his first post nobody.

If you need to be more competent than that to be promoted than there should be nothing and nobody that can threaten the federation.