VOY: Juggernaut

[Koshundheit]

This an example of what my brother calls "the fake science solution to the fake science problem". I usually use "technobabble" when talking about it with others. It's a real problem because of the lack of consequences and sense of real danger. I haven't watched Discovery, but if they are trying to avoid that, more power to them.

It's also got the problem of the anvilicious society without nuance. This is hurt by the fact that The Federation is essentially powered by technology that may as well be magic.

Sadly, Discovery leans hard on the magic-level fake-science (based on the writings of a quack "scientist" IRL) as a central part of its premise, and then commits the even worse crime of having it go essentially unquestioned by the crew even when it's demonstrated to be a plot-driven deus ex machina that either creates or solves all of their problems at the whim of the writers.

Anyone frustrated by the technobabble in late 90s Trek should be appalled at Discovery. It doubles down on the nonsense and throws out any pretense that the TNG-era had to building a mildly-consistent science-of-the-future at the same time.

How unfortunate. The first time I sat down to try to watch STD, I stopped thanks to it starting with subtitled speechifying by an Orc Klingon who spoke like he was talking while trying to covertly chew the remains of a dry sandwich. My thinking was, "I'll return to this when I'm in the right frame of mind, for now on to something that looks more fun and less like work to slog through." Everything I've read and heard about the show since continues to make me postpone giving it another chance. It they can't even be bothered to try to do the science part of science fiction right, best for me not to give it another try. Thanks for the info.

[BunBun299]

I think the Malon give the Pakleds a run for their money as far as dumbest Trek aliens go. From their very first episode, they demonstrated the writers' complete lack of understanding of how economics work. If you handed a CEO of an oil company the secret to Cold Fusion, he's not going to try to bury it because the limitless energy it could produce would crash his oil drilling business. He'd salivate at the opportunity to put all of his competition out of business.

Also, even ignoring their rejection of recycling technology, how can they possibly keep needing space to dump their garbage? One uninhabited star system should have more than enough room to dump this craps than they could ever fill up. Once again, Voyager's writers fail to grasp that space is big, in spite that being the major premise of the show.

The three light year blast radius of the garbage ship is also completely ridiculous. A super nova isn't that destructive. And even if we ignore that, the explosion won't travel at FTL speeds. They could still out run it at Impulse.

[turbo_sailor67]

Another one of the "I swear, I thought he'd already reviewed it" string of episodes.

I got that sense too, not through the title but from the whole look of the episode. The color scheme, the look of the aliens, the set, etc. I believe he said these were one-off aliens of the week but something about this entire episodes aesthetic seems extremely familiar. I can't explain it, but then I can't explain what they were thinking or even if they were really thinking when it came to Voyager and Enterprise.

[turbo_sailor67]

I think the Malon give the Pakleds a run for their money as far as dumbest Trek aliens go. From their very first episode, they demonstrated the writers' complete lack of understanding of how economics work. If you handed a CEO of an oil company the secret to Cold Fusion, he's not going to try to bury it because the limitless energy it could produce would crash his oil drilling business. He'd salivate at the opportunity to put all of his competition out of business.

Also, even ignoring their rejection of recycling technology, how can they possibly keep needing space to dump their garbage? One uninhabited star system should have more than enough room to dump this craps than they could ever fill up. Once again, Voyager's writers fail to grasp that space is big, in spite that being the major premise of the show.

The three light year blast radius of the garbage ship is also completely ridiculous. A super nova isn't that destructive. And even if we ignore that, the explosion won't travel at FTL speeds. They could still out run it at Impulse.

Yes as usual the writers fail when it comes to math and its aspects like scale, velocity, vector, etc. but I think the attitude was/is similar with the techno-babble and "just make it sound like it's correct science" because the point of the episode was their message; and like in TNG's version of this episode I believe the primary concern was patting themselves on the back.

I guess like SF Debris says about many aspects of the show being set on "plot convenience", space is big when they want it to be, see Voyager taking so long to get home and small when they want it to be like this dumping garbage episode and not being able to get away from it.

[bronnt]

It's an overall problem with Trek, and one Chuck pointed out once (in one of the Red Dwarf reviews IIRC), and can result in them lecturing without seeing how they'd do in similar circumstances. If they convincingly go without when faced with such a position, rather than still go for their luxuries even with a cost then fair enough, but I can't see a society so used to luxuries doing that.

Yeah, and that was kind of the point I was trying to make with my first paragraph. Yes, logically, most uses of energy are going to be trivial compared to the main purposes of the ship-ie, the ability to travel at warp, as well as powering shields and weapons. Voyager still is a ship that should be stretched paper thin on resources at any given time due to their problems with resupply, and yet the people on board this ship have never had to part with luxuries. They eat well, they sleep comfortably, they bathe regularly, they have advanced holodecks which provide entertainment, they're never low on medical supplies.

The only time we see Voyager with any kind of a resource shortfall in the fifth season is "Course: Oblivion," which is not even our Voyager and it ends up being blown up at the end of the episode with zero consequences or impact on the main story.

[FaxModem1]

Regarding the amount of space they need to dump pollution into, it could be some territorial thing, such as different companies have to stake claims on where they dump their pollution, and can't dump in another company's space(and we already know from Juggernaut that they're not supposed to dump in inhabited systems). This makes it to where the Malon are in a sort of California Gold Rush situation, always expanding and looking for new territories to dump, so as to stake a claim somewhere so that other Malon dumpers have to move on and find some other place to claim, giving them a place they can take their pollution and dump away from their homeworld, making a profit.

Of course, if they fixed their ships and power generators, things would be a lot easier, as explained by Voyager's crew in Night:

TORRES: The residual anti-matter is then processed in the transkinetic chamber, where it's broken down on the subatomic level.
EMCK: What about the theta radiation?
TORRES: Oh, it's absorbed by a series of radiometric converters. We recycle the energy, use it to power everything from life support to replicators.
EMCK: We don't have this kind of conversion technology.
TORRES: Our scans of your freighter show that you have plasma manifolds. The engineering principles are the same.
CHAKOTAY: We're not saying this won't take some effort. You're looking at several months of retrofitting, depending on the size of your fleet. All the schematics are here, and we'd be willing to work with you, get you started. We can even provide you with some converters.
EMCK: Ingenious design. Our engineers would be pleased. This would solve a lot of problems on my world. Unfortunately, it would also put me out of business.
CHAKOTAY: Sorry?
EMCK: Your technology would throw the waste export industry into chaos. Before long, I'd be obsolete. I came here hoping your claims were exaggerated, but I can see they're not. You can keep your solution.
TORRES: You lying
CHAKOTAY: B'Elanna.
TORRES: We went through this whole song and dance and he never had any intention of working with us.
CHAKOTAY: That's not important. What matters is that we're talking now. We're proposing changes, some of them difficult, but progress can also bring new opportunities. Given time, this could turn to your advantage.
EMCK: I already have the advantage. The vortex. No one knows about it except me and my crew. By ejecting my cargo here I cut expenses in half. I won't sacrifice that.

The issue is, when we run into the artist Captain from Juggernaut:

TORRES: How can you stand to work in these conditions?
FESEK: You think we're animals, don't you?
TORRES: You said it, not me.
FESEK: I'm a waste controller half the year. Do you know what I do the rest of the time? I'm a sculptor.
TORRES: What's your point?
FESEK: Every year I give up work I love to expose myself to radiation that will probably cut my life in half.
TORRES: Then why do it?
FESEK: Have you ever been to Malon Prime? It's a remarkable place. It's one of the most beautiful worlds you'll ever see. Our planet would choke with industrial wastes if it weren't for the sacrifices of people like me.
TORRES: How many worlds are you willing to contaminate to keep your own home so tidy?
FESEK: Do you have any idea of the trouble we go to, to locate isolated areas? Ah, manual actuators. I'll release them, you monitor the pressure variance.
TORRES: Right.
FESEK: Do you have any children?
TORRES: No.
FESEK: I have a son. He's seven years old. He wants to be a waste controller when he grows up.
TORRES: You must be very proud.

The issue is, Torres right then and there should have told Fesek about their technology that could fix the Malon's problems. That no one on Voyager thinks to do so is a huge plothole, and would end the Malon as any sort of threat.

[bronnt]

The issue is, Torres right then and there should have told Fesek about their technology that could fix the Malon's problems. That no one on Voyager thinks to do so is a huge plothole, and would end the Malon as any sort of threat.

Yeah, it's problematic that this was an episode that was meant to further develop the Malon...and once again it's only a garbage freighter. When we first met the Malon, it was just one ship that was dumping, so it made sense that it was a single vessel that wasn't representative of their society. They're not a culture of polluters, they're presumably a culture that, as a byproduct of what they actually do, creates a lot of pollution. An entire species on Star Trek shouldn't be as cheesy as a Captain Planet villain.

Surely there's some other way they could have encountered the Malon, if the goal was to actually develop the species. They could have encountered an actual Malon planet, seen what the Malon look like when they're not wearing those outfits that look like radiation suits. It would probably look like a charming and cultured society, but what brings it together is that we already know there's a seedy underbelly.

[FaxModem1]

The issue is, Torres right then and there should have told Fesek about their technology that could fix the Malon's problems. That no one on Voyager thinks to do so is a huge plothole, and would end the Malon as any sort of threat.

Yeah, it's problematic that this was an episode that was meant to further develop the Malon...and once again it's only a garbage freighter. When we first met the Malon, it was just one ship that was dumping, so it made sense that it was a single vessel that wasn't representative of their society. They're not a culture of polluters, they're presumably a culture that, as a byproduct of what they actually do, creates a lot of pollution. An entire species on Star Trek shouldn't be as cheesy as a Captain Planet villain.

Surely there's some other way they could have encountered the Malon, if the goal was to actually develop the species. They could have encountered an actual Malon planet, seen what the Malon look like when they're not wearing those outfits that look like radiation suits. It would probably look like a charming and cultured society, but what brings it together is that we already know there's a seedy underbelly.

It would have been interesting to see. However, if they did such things repeatedly, they might fall into the same sort of plot trap. Improving things so that they never need to see that race again, like the aliens from "Day of Honor", the Caatati. Imagine Voyager just going from place to place, improving things with Alpha Quadrant level technology. There's dramatic potential in that, but if not done well, it could also come off a bit 'White man's burden'.

[TGLS]

If were doing the Maalon, I wouldn't give Voyager the technology to solve their problem like that. It would be a complex problem that couldn't be dealt without giving them way too much.

[chaos42]

If were doing the Maalon, I wouldn't give Voyager the technology to solve their problem like that. It would be a complex problem that couldn't be dealt without giving them way too much.

that actually would be a good idea make it so that they can reduce it down a lot but it still doesn't get rid of all of it because the maalon are way more dependent on something than the federation, something like it keeps the planet habitable, no forests so they have massive oxygen recycling plants and other things that deal with the lack of a natural element but because its not natural they produce tons of waste to do it and they keep making more compounding the problem.

also add something like maalon stripping planets for resources like the cardassians so we see them not just as pollution villain but a species thats more like a disease