Endgame (VOY)

[SuccubusYuri]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v971.php

Among all the things to say about Voyager's depressing conclusion, I'm putting my foot down on one thing in particular.

The Doctor's name is not Joe. Nope. Never.

After all the time they spent building The Doctor's sense of identity as an EMH, the only logical course of action, in my mind, was that his name should be Mark. Mark One. Or Mark Wun if he want's to be dopey about it. Or a jedi...

You could still have the same joke, but then follow it up by hitting the audience in the feels. Even make it a character moment that "Well why does The Doc want to marry this broad when Seven's off the table?" by having his wife have been the one who pushed him to adopt it as a statement, that she understood what he needed better than he at the time. You wouldn't have to spend time on it but make it look like more than "Well people get married eventually, that's what they do when you have a reunion, yup."

This has bothered me for 15 years xD

[Dînadan]

Surely the best name for him would be Lewis Zimmerman Jr to reflect his creator's accepting of him and his pride in him and seeing him as the son he never had. Of course you'd need to give it five seconds thought to come up with that and that's probably too much effort for Voyager

[Arkle]

I just happened to watch this episode last night as part of my combo re-watching the show because I hadn't seen it since it originally aired (unlike DS9 which I've rewatched at least twice since it ended) and for purposes of my Voyager fic, and I had two thoughts.

1: The Seven/Chakotay wasn't actually THAT bad. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm still not a fan. For some reason, I just remembered it being handled worse than it actually was. Maybe if it had been a whole season arc instead of just shoved out in the finale with only one hint six episodes prior? And credit where credit is due, Ryan and Beltran are clearly doing their damndest to make it believable.

2: I'd mentioned way back on the old forums that I didn't actually think Chuck's "How I would've done it" was as good as some of his other ones (to this day I wish that year of Hell had ended with Harry Kim remembering everything). And after last night, I'm even more sure of that because I realized something.

You could change very little of what was in the episode and still have it work.

Hear me out.

1st: Move all the future scenes to the second half.
2nd: Lose the Borg queen, but keep the rest of the stuff with the Borg, but replace "crippling blow" with an explicit "this won't destroy the Brog, but it'll give them a bloody nose it'll take years to come back from."
3rd: Change the episode title.
4th: Use the future scenes to suggest that Admiral Janeway is not telling the crew the whole truth about the future.
5th: Don't have Admiral Janeway tell the whole truth about the future. Drop hints that maybe not everyone she says died before they got home actually did.
6th: At the end, when Voyager makes it to Earth, have Captain Janeway realize that Admiral Janeway had been lying the whole time, and had done everything she done for purely selfish reasons after suffering a mental break when Tuvok died in the hospital after the 10th-anniversary of the "return to Earth" party. End on a bittersweet note with a juxtaposition shot; the rest of the crew celebrating their homecoming, while Janeway bitterly reflects on what she's learned, wondering if she should tell the crew they'd been lied to, and wondering also just how much damage might've been done to the timeline.
7th: The audience is shocked to realize that the villain of the episode the whole time wasn't the Borg; it was Admiral Janeway. *dramatic sting*

I'd had a more detailed write-up of that idea, but decided this post was getting too long as it was. Hopefully I conveyed my idea well. And hopefully someone turns it into a fic because this is not the ending I'm going for for A Fire of Devotion.

[DanteC]

Jumping to that particular point of time just seemed a bit odd. Why that time? Not earlier, saving more of their crew? Even back to Caretaker, so that the crews aren't stranded? And for all the posturing over the time-travel episodes with Baxter(??! Guy played by Bruce McGill), I'd have thought that there should be a far more drastic reason why AJ is doing what she is. If not, why is it that she decides to time-travel when she does?

How about, a full-blown Borg invasion!

The Borg's approach isn't logical. They should be expanding out from the Delta quadrant, not just appearing randomly. There should have been far more races who have had to deal with them, maybe having figured out countermeasures, using Omega particles to utterly blockade their systems from assault (and maybe tear Janeway a new one for Starfleet's policy over them). So how about one day they just decide sod it, and expand out. Delta Quadrant? Borg. Gamma? Borg. They're expanding out methodically, and Starfleet, Klingons, Dominion etc have finally united against a common foe. Standing orders is self-destruct, better dead than Borg. And finally, they hit Earth. Bring in Picard and Riker, two characters who've had plenty of experience with them, assimilated. AJ decides on something drastic, travel back in time to when she was still in the Delta Quadrent, and strike a major blow against the Borg.

[Arkle]

Jumping to that particular point of time just seemed a bit odd. Why that time? Not earlier, saving more of their crew?

That part never bothered me, actually. It's one area where I completely disagree with Chuck. Why there? Because that time and place was where the transwarp hub was. Seems pretty simple to me. Calling that a plot hole suggests overthinking a show that's notorious for underthinking.

[Crowley]

Watching this video again, I also call bullshit on the notion that changes to the present would erase Future Janeway. Star Trek has been quite consistent that grandfather paradoxes (I think that's the correct term here) are not an issue with time travel. For example, in Yesterday's Enterprise Tasha Yar travels back in time and prevents the existence of the timeline she came from, but that doesn't retroactively erase her in the past. Or in Timeless information is sent back in time which prevents the future where the information comes from. The episode doesn't even do anything with that idea, it's just something the Borg Queen happens to gasp out.

[Dragon Angel]

Watching this video again, I also call bullshit on the notion that changes to the present would erase Future Janeway. Star Trek has been quite consistent that grandfather paradoxes (I think that's the correct term here) are not an issue with time travel. For example, in Yesterday's Enterprise Tasha Yar travels back in time and prevents the existence of the timeline she came from, but that doesn't retroactively erase her in the past. Or in Timeless information is sent back in time which prevents the future where the information comes from. The episode doesn't even do anything with that idea, it's just something the Borg Queen happens to gasp out.

Alternatively, in DS9 in the episode O'Brien lost Molly temporarily within a time portal, when young Molly was retrieved by teenage wild child Molly and lead through the portal back, teenage wild child Molly disappeared, which contradicts Yesterday's Enterprise.

But, this is typical I guess of Star Trek Science and continuity lol.

[FakeGeekGirl]

Watching this video again, I also call bullshit on the notion that changes to the present would erase Future Janeway. Star Trek has been quite consistent that grandfather paradoxes (I think that's the correct term here) are not an issue with time travel. For example, in Yesterday's Enterprise Tasha Yar travels back in time and prevents the existence of the timeline she came from, but that doesn't retroactively erase her in the past. Or in Timeless information is sent back in time which prevents the future where the information comes from. The episode doesn't even do anything with that idea, it's just something the Borg Queen happens to gasp out.

Alternatively, in DS9 in the episode O'Brien lost Molly temporarily within a time portal, when young Molly was retrieved by teenage wild child Molly and lead through the portal back, teenage wild child Molly disappeared, which contradicts Yesterday's Enterprise.

But, this is typical I guess of Star Trek Science and continuity lol.

Star Trek's rules of time travel are, "Screw it, whatever gets us out of here at the end of the episode." Which is one reason I tend not to like it when they use time travel.

[FakeGeekGirl]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v971.php

Among all the things to say about Voyager's depressing conclusion, I'm putting my foot down on one thing in particular.

The Doctor's name is not Joe. Nope. Never.

After all the time they spent building The Doctor's sense of identity as an EMH, the only logical course of action, in my mind, was that his name should be Mark. Mark One. Or Mark Wun if he want's to be dopey about it. Or a jedi...

You could still have the same joke, but then follow it up by hitting the audience in the feels. Even make it a character moment that "Well why does The Doc want to marry this broad when Seven's off the table?" by having his wife have been the one who pushed him to adopt it as a statement, that she understood what he needed better than he at the time. You wouldn't have to spend time on it but make it look like more than "Well people get married eventually, that's what they do when you have a reunion, yup."

This has bothered me for 15 years xD

Even if they went with a different name, I love the idea of them mentioning his wife being the one to suggest it. That would have done a lot to suggest their relationship in a short amount of time.

[Eishtmo]

Let's just all agree that time travel is stupid and move on.