There's actually a decent character in Neelix

[Link8909]

I have mix feeling on Neelix, I feel he had some genuinely good comedy moments, especially when paired off if Tuvok and I do love this duo overall, and his stand alone episodes are really good, and I like he wasn't just a scoundrel and had a soft side.

But like what many have said and I agree with, I feel that the series tried to forces him into everything, even when it was not necessary, and thus he comes across a annoying.

So I think he's good in small doses, also Star Trek Voyager was the first series I watch as it was coming out, and I think because of that and that I was young at the time I was never bothered by him as much.

I did like his appearance in Star Trek Online's Delta Rising arc, with him leading the Talaxians to a new homeworld, and I love his "Mister Vulcan" reaction to seeing Admiral Tuvok after so many years, and in the mission "All That Glitters" the villain of the arc Gaul guns down and kills one of Neelix's friends, and Gaul asks "Does that make you angry, Talaxian?" and Neelix only quietly response with "No... it makes me sad. For Jolex.. and for you.", this is an absolutely brilliant moment for Neelix.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

If you have a holodeck then you don't really need replicators. I think that whole ration thing was a bit flawed specifically there.

Did they get drunk in the holodeck ever? I thought they ate out all the time there. Not to mention that Tom set it up to be a dedicated RPG, it's like why spend any rations at all?

[GreyICE]

Is it, though? Is the holodeck that much of an energy-eater?

Arthur C. Clarke has a famous quote - "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

No one has ever come up with a convincing explanation for how the Holodeck works for a very simple reason - it's magic. It's not holograms (holograms aren't solid), or direct neural interface, or anything like that. It's magic. It's a box that can contain anything and is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

You can't have a food crisis in the same show with a magic box. Dr Who realizes this - if the Doctor is ever in a situation where things like food are a problem, it's because the Doctor doesn't have the magic box. And the Doctor's magic box actually has more rules than the Star Trek one.

So yeah, the magic box undermined the food crisis. There's a reason that the food crisis was primarily used for humor - normally "we're all about to starve to death" isn't the go to humor plotline.

Well, what about the episode "Alliances"? And think of all the other alliances, Voyager made during its way through the Delta-Quadrant? Who helped Voyagers Crew to establish something between themselves and the Sikarians? Oh, and by the way, who helped to find out, that Michael Jonas was a traitor?

I checked out the review of Alliances just to remind me. Neelix tries to make a contact with someone random in a strip club, fails, gets arrested, and imprisoned. Then the Trabe rescue Neelix from a prison. Meanwhile Janeway negotiates with the Kazon. Then the Trabe that rescued Neelix used the negotiations to assassinate all the Kazon leaders.

So in diplomacy terms, Neelix indirectly murdered murdered every leader Voyager was negotiating with. Without even serving them food!

For the Jonas thing, well, I checked Memory Alpha to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything.

[Janeway and Tuvok] secretly recruited Tom Paris to act as an agent provocateur. Pretending to be dissatisfied with life aboard Voyager, Paris' behavior became more and more erratic over the course of several weeks to the extent of striking Chakotay while on the bridge. As a consequence of his planned behavior, Paris ultimately left Voyager to join a Talaxian convoy...

Meanwhile, Neelix became suspicious of Paris' departure from the ship and commenced his own investigation. Janeway and Tuvok quickly acted to stop him from exposing their deception

Janeway and Tuvok did indeed stop Neelix from fucking everything up. A critical part of any successful plan on Voyager!

See, for me to believe Neelix is competent, I have to be shown him succeeding now and then (see also Worf in hand-to-hand combat). If the show tells me he's an ambassador and then shows me that he's unable to go to a fucking strip club without getting arrested, then shows how he gets everyone they're supposed to be negotiating with killed, I'm going to think maybe he's not good at his job.

[CharlesPhipps]

Neelix's best moment is sadly his first when he tricks Voyager into helping him rescue Kes at the expense of making enemies of the Kayzon.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Is it, though? Is the holodeck that much of an energy-eater?

Arthur C. Clarke has a famous quote - "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

No one has ever come up with a convincing explanation for how the Holodeck works for a very simple reason - it's magic. It's not holograms (holograms aren't solid), or direct neural interface, or anything like that. It's magic. It's a box that can contain anything and is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

So, if no one has ever come up with a convincing explanation for the question "how does the Holodeck work", then you could say, as Charles Phipps said, the Holodeck uses energy generators that are not compatible with the rest of the ship.


Another explanation would be:
A replicator uses a higher amount of energy than the Holodeck.
Which would be the reason, why people are trading holodeck-rations on Voyager.
10 hours on the Holodeck = 1 dish, containing out of 3 courses.

You can't have a food crisis in the same show with a magic box. Dr Who realizes this - if the Doctor is ever in a situation where things like food are a problem, it's because the Doctor doesn't have the magic box. And the Doctor's magic box actually has more rules than the Star Trek one.

Well, where would be the problem? Might it have something to do with your mindset? "Oh, the show has a magic box, so therefore there cannot be a food crisis in it, and if there is said situation I don't take it seriously"?
If that's the case - then I have to say: "Well, that's your problem, not mine. I can take a situation like that seriously - mostly, because this is a TV show and stuff, the authors want it to happen, happen.

And I'm not a fan of the "oh, that needs to be realistic"-crap, so I'm not a big fan of the "we're about to starve to death"-plotline from the beginning. Voyager did the smart thing: They addressed the fact, that there might be finite resources on the ship, but they circumvented that via Neelix being the cook, taking care of that.

Well, what about the episode "Alliances"? And think of all the other alliances, Voyager made during its way through the Delta-Quadrant? Who helped Voyagers Crew to establish something between themselves and the Sikarians? Oh, and by the way, who helped to find out, that Michael Jonas was a traitor?

I checked out the review of Alliances just to remind me. Neelix tries to make a contact with someone random in a strip club, fails, gets arrested, and imprisoned. Then the Trabe rescue Neelix from a prison. Meanwhile Janeway negotiates with the Kazon. Then the Trabe that rescued Neelix used the negotiations to assassinate all the Kazon leaders.

So in diplomacy terms, Neelix indirectly murdered murdered every leader Voyager was negotiating with. Without even serving them food!

That was not the question.


You asked

When did we have an episode where Neelix sat down and negotiated a useful peace between Voyager and some alien species? Some trade, something diplomatic, that we see him negotiate on screen? Which episode was that, exactly?

To which I said: "Alliances, that's when." Plus I said "Prime Factor", where Neelix pointed out, that they need food from the people with the Stargate.

For the Jonas thing, well, I checked Memory Alpha to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything.

[Janeway and Tuvok] secretly recruited Tom Paris to act as an agent provocateur. Pretending to be dissatisfied with life aboard Voyager, Paris' behavior became more and more erratic over the course of several weeks to the extent of striking Chakotay while on the bridge. As a consequence of his planned behavior, Paris ultimately left Voyager to join a Talaxian convoy...

Meanwhile, Neelix became suspicious of Paris' departure from the ship and commenced his own investigation. Janeway and Tuvok quickly acted to stop him from exposing their deception

Janeway and Tuvok did indeed stop Neelix from fucking everything up. A critical part of any successful plan on Voyager!

See, for me to believe Neelix is competent, I have to be shown him succeeding now and then (see also Worf in hand-to-hand combat). If the show tells me he's an ambassador and then shows me that he's unable to go to a fucking strip club without getting arrested, then shows how he gets everyone they're supposed to be negotiating with killed, I'm going to think maybe he's not good at his job.

Meanwhile, Neelix became suspicious of Paris' departure from the ship and commenced his own investigation. Janeway and Tuvok quickly acted to stop him from exposing their deception

Ja, was denn nun? Either Neelix is incompetent - then he should never do an investigation in the first place. Kes should've said "Hey, Neelix, notice how Tom Paris went away? I think, that's strange, now, isn't it?" - or he should be seen as competent.

Oh, by the way, why was he arrested in the Strip Club in the first place? Wasn't he being arrested, because he is associated with Voyager?

[GreyICE]

The point isn't "well you could explain it any way you want to." The problem is making the explanation believable. Sure, we can say that the holodeck uses "incompatible energy sources." We could also say that the Holodeck is run entirely on pixie dust. But then we have to explain why the magical pixie dust the Holodeck runs on can't create pixie food. Especially when we watch people eat and drink in the holodeck.

Saying stupid things and expecting us to believe them was exactly what Voyager always did. The problem is fundamentally that those things are very stupid. That's why, for instance, when Chakotay says "we're full up on shuttlecraft" after they've destroyed half a dozen shuttles that season, it's very stupid. And we realize we're not watching the Starship Voyager, we're watching a show named Star Trek: Voyager that's written by people who have very little respect for the viewers.

Later Ron Moore went on to do a show named "Battlestar Galactica" which is far from perfect, but which was very good about making all its crises feel realistic, because things like fuel, food, and water drained at predictable rates, and they frequently discussed where they were - and indeed even tracked them in the writer's room to make plots about getting more make sense. They also made sure that the people with the magic technology were the bad guys, and that the good guys technology felt very SG-1 levels where you can see things like food and fuel being problems.


As for that idiot Neelix, I don't care if he was arrested because "he was associated with Voyager." It's once again other people bailing his stupid ass out of his own problems that he creates when he tries to do things. It's okay for competent characters to fail, but when a character does nothing but fail we assume they're incompetent.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

The point isn't "well you could explain it any way you want to." The problem is making the explanation believable. Sure, we can say that the holodeck uses "incompatible energy sources." We could also say that the Holodeck is run entirely on pixie dust. But then we have to explain why the magical pixie dust the Holodeck runs on can't create pixie food. Especially when we watch people eat and drink in the holodeck.

And we also can take things wayyyy too seriously.
I honestly don't. We see people eat and drink in the holodeck - and for me it was crystal-clear, that the things, they ate on the holodeck just was a simulation of food, something that would vanish, once you drank or ate it.

Saying stupid things and expecting us to believe them was exactly what Voyager always did. The problem is fundamentally that those things are very stupid. That's why, for instance, when Chakotay says "we're full up on shuttlecraft" after they've destroyed half a dozen shuttles that season, it's very stupid. And we realize we're not watching the Starship Voyager, we're watching a show named Star Trek: Voyager that's written by people who have very little respect for the viewers.

Again - taking stuff way to seriously and overthink it.
Yeah, they say things like "We're full up on shuttlecraft", although they destroyed half of them, but it was never a point how many shuttlecrafts Voyager had. They even said in one episode "Oh, we have to be careful with out Photon-Torpedoes, because we can't build them ourselves" - and some episodes later they're using them as if there'd be no tomorrow.
Sure, you can be nitpicky and say "That's in complete contrast to Episode 5, Scene 6, Minute 34" - but on the other hand: Why bother?
It's a TV-show and if authors want to use a photon-torpedo in said scene, then use the damn thing. And we don't realize that we're not watching the Starship Voyager, but a show named Star Trek: Voyager - we should know, that the little people in the TV are not, who they say they are, by that point in time. Sure, I once believed, that the car could do all the fantastical things, that Michael Knight said, that it would - but I was 4 at that point in time.

Oh, and by the way: You can moan about the fact, how the Voyager-Authors treated their audiences - the show got 7 seasons. People were watching it. The more "realistic" Sci-Fi-Shows, NBSG or SGU might be critically acclaimed, but SG U only had 2 seasons to show and NBSG at least made 4 seasons. So: Whatever gets butts in the seats, is working. You can bemoan it, you can belittle it, but the effect stays the same. People love to watch that Sci-Fi, that is a bit on the escapism-side of things: Classic, TNG, DS9, Voy, even Enterprise - they want shows, that tell them, that no matter how dark it gets, there will be the light at the end of the day. They don't want shows, where people actively hate each other (SGU) or where people are mistrusting each other (NBSG).

Later Ron Moore went on to do a show named "Battlestar Galactica" which is far from perfect, but which was very good about making all its crises feel realistic, because things like fuel, food, and water drained at predictable rates, and they frequently discussed where they were - and indeed even tracked them in the writer's room to make plots about getting more make sense. They also made sure that the people with the magic technology were the bad guys, and that the good guys technology felt very SG-1 levels where you can see things like food and fuel being problems.

Yeah, New BSG was okay - I liked the older version, the one with Lorne Greene a tadbit more, because it didn't take itself so superseriously. And again, I ask "Why are you people so obsessed with things like 'realism in TV'? Shows like Star Trek are not supposed to be realistic, they are supposed to show, what we could do, not what can be done now . We are supposed to acknowledge a character like Neelix, say "yeah, he's kinda okay", but we're not supposed to sit there and say "mimimi, he wants to be a diplomat, show him being a diplomat".

Wow, Ron Moore really destroyed the way, we look at television, if that's the outcome. And later on, people complain about the grim-and-gritty-ness of Picard.

As for that idiot Neelix, I don't care if he was arrested because "he was associated with Voyager." It's once again other people bailing his stupid ass out of his own problems that he creates when he tries to do things. It's okay for competent characters to fail, but when a character does nothing but fail we assume they're incompetent.

And if you don't want him to be "competent", you make up excuses or look at the show in a certain way, that makes sure, that he is incompetent.
Chuck does the same thing, when looking at Neelix or Janeway - but he's a comedian, so he gets away with it.

[Zargon]

I though Neelix was an ok character, when he was written well. "Fair Trade" is one of my more favorite episodes, and it has that great gray slippery slope: Neelix takes and action then another then another and is quickly in trouble.

Of course, most of Voyager was just a bad show......so many episodes are trash or worse.

The holodeck question? The holodeck is virtual reality. As the shows have said: it's done with force fields. All over Starfleet you see force fields of all types. Everything on the holodeck is a force field shaped like a person or thing and covered with a visual 3d illusion. Also normally a holodeck can also replicate "real" things, like food or a chair or such.

Now on Voyager they can't use the replication part of the holodeck as that uses energy just as when they replicate anything. Though sure a crew member could use thier replicator rations on the holodeck.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Of course, most of Voyager was just a bad show......so many episodes are trash or worse.

I'm sorry, but you can not, and never will be, my friend as long as I have anything to do with it.

Also normally a holodeck can also replicate "real" things, like food or a chair or such.

This is what I was saying. And considering Tom had like a favorite bistro of his, why would you even worry about rations if that was the case?

[Thebestoftherest]

Of course, most of Voyager was just a bad show......so many episodes are trash or worse.

I'm sorry, but you can not, and never will be, my friend as long as I have anything to do with it.

Also normally a holodeck can also replicate "real" things, like food or a chair or such.

This is what I was saying. And considering Tom had like a favorite bistro of his, why would you even worry about rations if that was the case?

Because the writers needed new blood to stop them from making a show just like tng but lesser.