VOY - Equinox

[CharlesPhipps]

I dunno, I think that Janeways' crew not being as desperate as Ransoms is a stretch.

I like that it's more a Pegasus situation.

Same situation but one broke and the other didn't.

[CrypticMirror]

Lets face it. The real difference between the crews is that Voyager had a Tom "Ibid" Paris to save the day three times out of five, and Ransom didn't. All he had were the guys that Starfleet did want.

[Beastro]

How about the Equinox crew ACTUALLY joining Voyager, not just vanishing forever. I think having Ransom replace Chakotay as XO for a while and a Torres/Paris/BLT Guy love triangle would have shook up the show nicely.

The thing is Ransom is perfect for a redemption arc. John Savage plays troubled, sympathetic characters wonderfully. I'm reminded of the Outer Limits episode where he plays a supernatural being trying to save a guy on the run by that always stuck with me.

[clearspira]

Lets face it. The real difference between the crews is that Voyager had a Tom "Ibid" Paris to save the day three times out of five, and Ransom didn't. All he had were the guys that Starfleet did want.

Yeah, basically. But not just Paris. How many times did Kes, Tuvok and Seven having some kind of deus ex machina ability save this ship? Not to mention the insane luck of finding the mobile emitter for the Doctor.

[Madner Kami]

Lets face it. The real difference between the crews is that Voyager had a Tom "Ibid" Paris to save the day three times out of five, and Ransom didn't. All he had were the guys that Starfleet did want.

Yeah, basically. But not just Paris. How many times did Kes, Tuvok and Seven having some kind of deus ex machina ability save this ship? Not to mention the insane luck of finding the mobile emitter for the Doctor.

It can be argued that it wasn't luck, but predestination. Remember, this is a world where there are time traveling agents have their eyes on things happening "out of time". If the mobile emitter or Janeway going back and giving Voyager technology ten years ahead of it's time wouldn't be part of whatever they percieve as their "original" timeline, then they'd have interfered. They didn't, so it had to happen and thus was predestination.

[Thebestoftherest]

Do you guy think that if Voyager as presented here would have last as ling if presented to a modern audience?

[SpikePrime]

I dunno, I think that Janeways' crew not being as desperate as Ransoms is a stretch.

I like that it's more a Pegasus situation.

Same situation but one broke and the other didn't.

If you mean that Janeway's situation was somehow just as desperate as Ransom's, than you would have to ignore what is literally seen on screen every time we look at the Equinox in comparison to Voyager.

Point 1: Size & strength
Equinox is smaller, weaker, slower and less advanced than Voyager. It was built for short-range, scientific expeditions, and not for combat. Voyager, meanwhile, was specifically built with long-term space exploration in mind and had insane amounts of weaponry for something not built for war. So Equinox was already at a disadvantage compared with Voyager.

Point 2: Actual consequences
Equinox has been smashed to pieces and has actually faced consequences for the battles and general attacks against it. It's got massive punctures in the hull, barely functioning systems and even their turbo-lifts don't work. Besides that, more than 50% of Equinox's crew complement is dead. What's Voyager lost at that point? At most, a dozen people out of 200+ people? Sad, sure, but far fewer than even Picard lost in half as long, despite Janeway being in a more desperate situation than Picard by all measurements.

As said, all you have to do is look at Equinox for ten seconds, then look at Voyager, and you'd see Ransom's situation was far more desperate than Janeways, and she still made command decisions which were questionable at best, morally bankrupt at worst.

I'm not defending Ransom. His murder of innocent creatures is unforgiveable, and he should be put to justice for that crime. But Janeway's hardly innocent in all of this, and isn't in a position to judge him. And if she could make those decisions with working holodecks, replicators, turbo lifts and even just being able to keep the lights on... what the heck do you think she'd do if all that was stripped away and every day was hell for almost a decade, like Ransom's objectively worse situation?

[CharlesPhipps]

I think that fails given that Voyager has actually been destroyed. They just got better.

[Al-1701]

As I tried to start a thread, I think they should have been more creative in designing Voyager in the show. If it was a living ship like Tin Man, they could justify the miracle repairs as it healing. They could even have episodes where they're in hiding to give it time to heal from its wounds. They could even have it evolve should they decide to change some sets up. However, like the supposed "conflict" between the Starfleet and Maquis crews, the people running show demonstrated they were anything but creative with this show. They instead tried to act like substances made of the common elements in the universe (like water and deuterium) are scarce commodities.

But it would add to Ransom's rage. Here is this ship that could just get better from the battles it faced and even maybe even evolved along the way. Meanwhile, his ship is getting trashed and stays trashed.

Really, Equinox exposed the problems with the creative decisions that went into making Voyager and Paramount and Berman's cowardice.

[Lazerlike42]

Watching the re-post of this episode, it really does a good job of driving home the most significant problem with Janeway, and as I get older I realize more and more that she's the biggest reason I don't generally want to watch Voyager very often. Actually, the degree to which I enjoy Voyager really stands especially now that Pluto TV has a full time Voyager station alongside a DS9 station and a combo TNG/TOS station. Most evenings after the kids go to bed my wife and I play Agricola or Gaia Project or some other board game and watch something on a streaming service and very, very frequently it's Star Trek. We usually check all of Pluto's Star Trek channels and almost never choose Voyager, even if it's one of Voyager's better episodes - and at least in my mind, it's thinking of watching Jameway that makes me turn it off.

The problem for me is that she's just so much of a hypocrite - and it really is so bad. I think that this is really the problem with her character, much more so than the specific things she does. In some episodes she's very strict about the prime directive, regulations, etc. whereas in others she is willing to throw much of this out the window. I think either would have been fine for her character and fans would have embraced it. If she was going to be, loosely speaking, a slightly edgier version of Kirk then fine. If she was going to be, loosely speaking, a slightly more by-the-book version of Picard, that would also be fine. The reality is that she goes back and forth and, worst of all, the distinguishing factor seems to come down to who wants to break the regulation: if it's her crew, she throws the book at them, but if it's her, then - possibly even worse - she goes into this abusive lover routine where she shames them and turns the entire thing into a question of loyalty to her rather. Even if the crew member is questioning something as extreme as basically genocide, she makes it about how they are betraying her.

I don't know if this was just a question of lazy writing or bad writing or if they were actually trying to make this some aspect of her character, but the more times I look at a Voyager episode and decide not to watch it the more I realize that it's this tendency of Janeway's which makes me turn it off.

There is an exception, though. I said above that I usually turn it off even if it's one of the better episodes and this is true... but I usually will watch it if it's almost any episode from the first two seasons. I know that the general consensus or stereotype is that early Voyager is bad and later Voyager is, while disappointing, nevertheless the best Voyager, but I actually think that the first few seasons are where Voyager is actually at it's best. Part of that is that in those first few seasons it's at least got some of the continuity that the series so badly lacks in any of the later seasons, but I also think that Janeway generally hasn't yet developed into the sanctimonious, toxic hypocrite taht she becomes in most of the series. In those earlier episodes I think she feels a little bit reminiscent almost of Kirk in the way she handles regulations in that she will follow them strictly but when she does make an exception it's because the morality of the situation clearly makes it a reasonable choice.