Voy: Alter Ego

[HighPriest]

You would think Tuvok would take any excuse available to get off of the ship of the damned that is Voyager, but I guess swapping one insane captain for another isn't the best solution.

[pornomancer90]

Huh. Are there no German speakers to appreciate Chuck's silly gag about the same word in two different languages potentially having wildly divergent meanings? Namely, the throwaway example about a theoretical German sign that in English says a hat is lovely while actually meaning that a hat is poisoned?

Because there is the exact word for that joke. "Gift."

"A present" in English, "a poison" in German.

I'm not sure how it'd tie into the rest of the episode. But man, Chuck, kudos for that.

The thing is, "hat" in german doesn't mean hat. A hat in german, is "Hut". "Hat" in german does have a different meaning though. "Hat Gift" in german, would be translated into english as "has poison".

To make this whole thing even better, gift in German used to have the same meaning as the English gift, but the word has been increasingly used as euphemism for poison until it completely lost it´s original meaning.

[FakeGeekGirl]

Voyager is perhaps the best example in television of great potential repeatedly squandered. They had everything they needed to make a great show, except competent management.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about it. A bad show is a bad show and is quickly forgotten, but a bad or even okay show that could have been a great show piles disappointment onto the dislike.

[bronnt]

That's probably the most frustrating thing about it. A bad show is a bad show and is quickly forgotten, but a bad or even okay show that could have been a great show piles disappointment onto the dislike.

The disappointment comes in because it displays a serious lack of effort. I remember the first time I watched "The Cloud" (sometime when Voyager was showing reruns since I didn't get into the show at launch), and hearing that line about how they had a limited number of photon torpedoes and no means to replenish them. And I though, "Hey, this is great, there's actually a limitation on resources that the writers will keep track of! There's a potential source of drama!"

That line was utterly forgotten and Voyager would happily fire torpedoes any time they felt like it the rest of their run, without ever referencing their limitations or commenting that they'd been making trades to replenish supplies.

[The Romulan Republic]

Voyager is perhaps the best example in television of great potential repeatedly squandered. They had everything they needed to make a great show, except competent management.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about it. A bad show is a bad show and is quickly forgotten, but a bad or even okay show that could have been a great show piles disappointment onto the dislike.

Which I suspect is also part of why the topic of rewriting Voyager keeps coming up. Because people know it could have been better, are frustrated that it isn't, and want to explore/realize that missing potential.

[bronnt]

Which I suspect is also part of why the topic of rewriting Voyager keeps coming up. Because people know it could have been better, are frustrated that it isn't, and want to explore/realize that missing potential.

That's true. Nobody wants to rewrite a bad episode of TNG or DS9, they just accept the show for what it is, mostly good. But with a bad episode of Voyager, you think about the way the whole show SHOULD be and how this episode might make a great opportunity to tell a story about those characters in that situation.

[Madner Kami]

Forget about the torpedoes, they could feasabily reproduce them themselves via replicators and the main issue mentioned early on is a lack of energy reserves, which limited the use of the replicators. Besides, they clearly create new shuttles all the time and even built the Delta Flyer from scratch. Twice. What really throws the whole thing under the bus is: Where does Voyager get her antimatter from?

[MissKittyFantastico]

Where does Voyager get her antimatter from?

I'd totally have accepted it if they'd just thrown in a couple of references in season one to B'Ellana and the engineering staff building an antimatter production plant down on deck 12 or whatever. Putting aside all the whole-cloth Voyager rewrite concepts, I honestly feel they could've improved a lot just by tweaking minor details like that, even while remaining in basically a single-episode reset-button format. Instead it seemed like most of that world-building vis-a-vis refitting the ship for its long trip got wasted in references to deuterium shortages and replicator rations, and the crew occasionally trying to find a resource but invariably getting embroiled in some crisis along the way and ending the episode with nothing to show for it. I'm not asking for new sets like Seven's astrometrics every week, just have someone mention building stuff during a corridor walk-and-talk, I'd have been happy with that much.

For what it's worth, according to Memory Alpha there's an Okudagram in 'Booby Trap' that references 'antimatter generator replicator programs', which suggests that the Enterprise either did, or at least could if the need arose, make its own antimatter. Voyager might not have been intended to be as self-sufficient as the big explorers, but there'd be no reason not to have those patterns in its database anyway just in case.

[ScreamingDoom]

Where does Voyager get her antimatter from?

Instead it seemed like most of that world-building vis-a-vis refitting the ship for its long trip got wasted in references to deuterium shortages and replicator rations, and the crew occasionally trying to find a resource but invariably getting embroiled in some crisis along the way and ending the episode with nothing to show for it.

Federation ships don't seem to use antimatter reactors for most hotel-power stuff on their starships (with the possible exceptions being weapon systems and shielding); it seems to be earmarked entirely for warp power. All the other ship systems are run from fusion generators (which makes a lot of sense; you don't want the life support to fail if you have to eject the warp core, or stop the replicators if you need repair materials). Thus why the Search for Deuterium, as the Federation utilizes deuterium-deuterium fusion reactors (the Klingons use deuterium-tritium reactors, which was part of the reason they were immune to the Breen weapon, I think... something to do with quantum).

Matter-antimatter reactions produce huge amounts of power for very limited fuel, so it doesn't strike me as odd that Voyager could go years or decades before having to worry about fueling the warp core. It is a bit of a problem that they don't even discuss, it though; they should definitely be looking for opportunistic means to gather additional antimatter. After all, the entire reason why they wouldn't be trying to siphon power from the antimatter reactor to the rest of the ship in a survival situation like Voyager faces would be to try and husband as much of it for the warp engines since it's going to take 75 years at full power to get home.

Then again, this is the series that told us that the holodecks run on a totally separate power system that could never, ever be integrated with the rest of the ship.

[bronnt]

Forget about the torpedoes, they could feasabily reproduce them themselves via replicators and the main issue mentioned early on is a lack of energy reserves, which limited the use of the replicators. Besides, they clearly create new shuttles all the time and even built the Delta Flyer from scratch. Twice. What really throws the whole thing under the bus is: Where does Voyager get her antimatter from?

Considering that photon torpedoes are an explosive based on a matter/antimatter reaction, the issue of replacing them isn't a minor point.

Seriously, though, that would have been a good, simple plot thread for people like me to geek out over during the course of the run, or at least, the early run of the show. Star Trek fans are the types who would LOVE to keep tabs on this and count the amount of torpedoes Voyager is using, and to take note of how the ship has to work around a limited supply of them.

But even if you don't want to have to keep track of that detail, it'd be nice if you at some point reference that they've managed to resupply, or create some means of making more. Battlestar Galactica showed us early on that they were replacing Raptor pilots, but that they couldn't replace the fighters themselves. That remained a consistent concern until they introduced the Pegasus, which DID have a factory for reproducing Raptors.