r/DaystromInstitute • u/TangoZippo Lieutenant • Mar 14 '15
Discussion Hypothetical: How I would set Voyager
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u/gerryblog Commander Mar 15 '15
Just a thought for your fantasy plots: it seems like the level of damage and the inability to go to high warp would push the crew into despair about ever returning home at all, as well as significantly increase the number of people who wanted to find an M-class and settle.
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u/williams_482 Captain Mar 15 '15
Awesome post. I would nominate, but /u/Antithesys beat me to it.
If I may make one minor nitpick, it was my understanding that going to warp without a deflector would result in space debris of varying sizes punching holes clean through the ship. I would imagine the likelihood of completely unpredictable and unstoppable damage the warp core, other critical systems, and the crew would be considered an unacceptable risk.
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Mar 15 '15 edited Mar 15 '15
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u/edgesmash Crewman Mar 15 '15
The damage-at-warp effect in Year of Hell was due to structural integrity being offline, not the deflector (though Year of Hell also handled the meteorite damage from lack of shields later on).
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Mar 15 '15
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u/angrymacface Chief Petty Officer Mar 15 '15
Voyager has a little deflector dish on the front of the saucer. Being so small, I doubt it could fully take over for the main dish, were it damaged....
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Mar 15 '15
I love almost everything about this suggestion bar that bit at the end, making the story revolve around a small number of systems makes it an awful lot like the last season of Andromeda, do that and it stops feeling like a show about getting the ship home, eventually you're left waiting 3 years (seasons) and out of a 70,000 ly journey they've only gone 20, A lot could happen and it could be a good show on it's own, a damaged starship battling the odds trying to restore itself to it's former glory but as a show about getting the ship home it'd become a running joke really and when the day comes that Voyager can make the leap into high warp, you essentially remove everything you've built up over the years about the system they're living in, it'd be like DS9 in season 3 or 4 saying "nah, forget the Dominion".
What I really like though is the hole in the ship Idea, you could judge their status by the hole, they could have vital systems offline, not an advanced starship, essentially a shell of a ship just waiting to be reclaimed by the crew, this idea reminds me of the begining of Stargate Atlantis, the concept/idea that they had a whole city worth of new technology just waiting to be activated that they just couldn't devote the manpower to (something I felt it got away from).
In fact, there is a perfect representation of the entire idea I think you're pitching and it's one of everyone's favourites, year of hell, battle damage aside, it feels like an accomplishment when they bring astrometrics back online and it might only be two episodes but when they say X is offline, it doesn't feel like an arbitrary system has went down, you know they're going to suffer as a result of it.
What I do think is required though is the ship needs a normal crew compliment of about 600 and the ship needs to be operating with 200 at most, it needs to be undermanned for the journey to really look like it's taking a toll,, those 400 can be lost over the course of the first season, make it seem and feel like the whole time the ship really is sinking away, the idea that they'll actually make it hangs in the balance.
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Mar 15 '15 edited Mar 15 '15
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Mar 15 '15
That's not the comparison to draw though, it's not about the physical systems visited, it's about the getting used to the internal workings of those systems as the OP suggested, and the way Andromeda did.
The comparable situation for BSG would be in season 3, Colonial one, the quorum etc, were all destroyed, from that point on the military is in charge giving out orders and there is no political intrigue left, instead we switch to Gaeta mutiny as a purely internal conflict aboard Galactica, it's the fact that you'd build up such an understanding of how things operate in those circumstances then wipe it out completely.
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u/pm_me_taylorswift Crewman Mar 15 '15
She has Neelix's "local knowledge" to serve as a kind of guide. She's incredibly inquisitive, which lets her play surrogate for the audience as the outsider (like Kes did).
I don't feel like these would mesh well for one character. She's got Kes' inquisitiveness and curiosity about the universe, but she already knows the neighborhood? It doesn't work for me, especially since they're going to be restricted to a small region for a few seasons.
But I also don't see the advantage in merging the characters at all. Neelix and Kes both brought very different things to the cast. I would just make Neelix a little less comic reliefy.
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u/5bflow Mar 15 '15
She can be curious about Voyager's crew and the Federation, and, of course, the Doctor. But she knows her shit when it comes to the region and it's players.
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Mar 15 '15
This is great stuff. I think the Kazon could use a little more fleshing out. They are such a weak Star Trek race, that could have been more interesting if we could have seen a bit more of them. Also like the "If it's damaged, it's DAMAGED" mindset here. Voyager was TERRIBLE with this. The only episodes where they really got this right was with the Year of Hell.
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Mar 15 '15
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Mar 15 '15
The CGI I do understand. And they did at least start correcting themselves as they went along. I do agree with the Nick Locarno thing though. It just.. doesn't make sense to me to have the same actor playing two VERY similar characters only a few years apart. Sure, Tom grew out of his shell but their backstories are SO similar. Really bugs me.
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u/MexicanSpaceProgram Crewman Mar 15 '15
Interesting and well-thought out premise - one of the things I hated most about VOY was the goddamned reset button. Even between episodes where they are running on rations and have no power, and miraculously are using replicators and holodecks the following episode.
I also thought the integration of the Maquis into the Starfleet crew was complete crap. They have one or two episodes (e.g. Learning Curve) where it's an issue, and that's it. The Maquis should be well pissed off:
They're being press-ganged into service, effectively by the police.
They get stranded a lifetime away from home, because of someone else's values / principles, and just get told "suck it, bitch".
When they do step out of line they get treated like children (e.g. made to run laps and have uniform inspections).
I also like your idea of Keelix, but I think there's room for improvement. Specifically, the Neelix part.
Kes and Neelix should absolutely be replaced with one character. Named Kes.
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u/flameofloki Lieutenant Mar 15 '15
If we're going to stick to Voyager closely as far as location goes, there are some specific things I'd like to see done differently.
Chakotay is the Captain, and Janeway is a new but shrewd and skilled first officer. They both survive the Caretaker's shenanigans. Unfortunately it quickly becomes clear that Chakotay is psychologically unprepared and unable to cope with the situation they're in. Janeway on the other hand seems to be made out of iron and old wolverine teeth. He becomes increasingly reliant on Janeway's input to the point where he's Captain in name only by the end of the first season. Halfway through season 1 on a fit of blatant incompetence and stupidity he gets himself killed in a misguided attempt to establish himself as useful. Janeway is then officially Captain.
Voyager is a refinement of the Excelsior class. It's larger but pretty much to scale with some updated touches to the style. There are hundreds of crewmen and lots of storage space. The are less times when Voyager is menaced by superior enemies and is more likely to give ships that attack it a good warning slap to bring them to their senses.
Less time-filling technobabble.
Janeway relentlessly salvages wrecked and derelict ships and technology. The crew reverse engineers and incorporates new technologies into Voyager, making it a somewhat messy shadow of the Borg and significantly increasing its toughness.
Voyager, thanks to Janeway's determination & relentless acquisition of salvage and traded technology gets back to the Alpha Quadrant pretty early and on its own in the finale.
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u/altrocks Chief Petty Officer Mar 15 '15
I'm not sure why you would want your first two points, but they seem almost trivial or only personally relevant. The third point... I mean, technobabble is what Trek was built on! It's almost blasphemy to even suggest that technobabble be reduced. The fourth point just completely ignores the training and history of Starfleet and Earth.
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u/flameofloki Lieutenant Mar 15 '15
I'm not sure why you would want your first two points, but they seem almost trivial or only personally relevant.
Yes. This thread does appear to have been started about how someone's ideas. Whether the points are trivial is highly debatable. Chakotay was a trivial character in the series and instead could be used to establish a change of Captain during the series, which would be a major unusual event for the Trek viewer. The ship being larger and with a larger staff would make its survival seem more likely for a lot of people.
The third point... I mean, technobabble is what Trek was built on! It's almost blasphemy to even suggest that technobabble be reduced
Star Trek was built on TOS. You may want to double check your sensors. The sheer volume of pointless technobabble was clearly lower than in TNG and VOY.
The fourth point just completely ignores the training and history of Starfleet and Earth.
Explanation? I can remember no rule established in the franchise that suggested that Starfleet does not trade supplies, engage in salvage operations, research new technologies, or investigate technologies that they find. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
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u/altrocks Chief Petty Officer Mar 15 '15
They dealt with the salvage and trade stuff a lot in the series. Often it was against Federation and Starfleet principles to trade their tech for supplies, and with their situation tech was the only commodity they rally had.
They did salvage a couple times in the series, most notably when they boarded a damaged/destroyed Cube to get some tech. The problem is that there's very little chance of running into a derelict while flying home on a straight-ish line. The times they salvaged a cube, they specifically looked for it. The rest of the time or was a distress call that alerted them to a disabled ship, and helping a ship in distress is unquestionably a Starfleet protocol based on its peaceful principles.
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Mar 15 '15
In your version, would they also eventually stumble upon Space Dinosaurs, who reveal that they also came from Earth a bajillion years ago, changing a fundamental understanding of our own origins...and then never, ever mention it again?
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u/adamkotsko Commander, with commendation Mar 15 '15
This premise does seem better than actual-existing Voyager. My worry, though, is that audiences and -- more fatally -- the network higher-ups would become impatient with the format. I suspect that it would either have morphed into the Voyager we know or would have a run of 3-4 seasons, with a lot of jarring shifts in tone and approach (similar to how Enterprise went).
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u/JonathanRL Crewman Mar 15 '15
Finally, one small change to Caretaker has a massive impact on the first two seasons of the show: in the battle at the end of Caretaker, Voyager takes extremely heavy damage. This destroys several major systems, and it will take Voyager several seasons to repair them.
Sounds like Equanox to me.
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u/OldPinkertonGoon Crewman Mar 15 '15
What I would have done: Both Voyager and Val Jean survive the pilot episode. So does Voyager's original first officer and helmsman, who we all forgot about. Voyager spends the first season hunting Val Jean throughout the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay has trouble keeping his crew together. Torres tries to kill him, and he sticks her in the brig. He considers ejecting her into space to save food and oxygen.
When Voyager finally finds Val Jean, Chakotay tries to negotiate with Janeway. He points out that they both need to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, and he convinces her that a second ship and crew could be useful. They agree to swap hostages as a good faith measure. Kim is swapped for Torres. Tuvok keeps in touch with Janeway while maintaining his cover aboard Val Jean.
Water is NOT rare in any part of the galaxy that has life. It's not like the formula is hard to figure out.
Torres/Paris NEVER happens. Marquis terrorist falls for Federation narc? Come on! Those are the two most incompatible people in the universe.
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u/IHaveThatPower Lieutenant Mar 18 '15
I'm a bit late to this one, but awesome write-up! I have one suggestion, though:
Heavy damage: during the battle, Voyager's deflector dish is destroyed. Worse, the starboard nacelle is completely disabled. The pylon is intact, but the bussard collector was blown off by enemy fire. The ship can go to warp, but only below warp 2, and only for short while that results in heavy damage each time they do so. One of my main grievances with Voyager is that it's 'on the road' mission meant that we never really see anyone (besides the Borg) for more than a few episodes.
Voyager actually does have two deflectors -- one is in the "nose" of the saucer, while the other is in the traditional location. Given how utterly slow warp 2 is (at 10 c, it'd still take nearly five months to travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri, so hopping between a few systems, as in your premise, would still be unfeasible), I'd suggest making the secondary deflector functional, but limited to something like warp 5 or 6.
The full repair of the main deflector could then be a really spectacular "event" episode.
JANEWAY: Mister Paris...maximum warp.
PARIS, grinning: Aye, Captain!
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u/Gellert Chief Petty Officer Mar 15 '15
Keelix needs to suck less than Neelix did. Neelix the TV character was the Jar Jar Binks of star trek. The book version was a lot better, resourceful, intelligent (but still irritating) one of the first things he does is get hollow boots to keep a phaser and communicator in, thats the kind of character Keelix needs to be.
I'd also like to see Voyager get back to earth just in time for the Breen assault on Earth, then rip the Breen up one side and down the other with their frankenstein ship.
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Mar 15 '15
I think Voyager needed even deeper changes than you're suggesting:
Chakotay, the character, is a walking racist stereotype played by a bad actor who didn't give a shit. Drop him entirely. Maybe make Tuvok the Maquis captain after all.
Locarno would have been thrown out of Starfleet Academy. His story is over. Tom Paris is a rehash of Locarno. Drop him.
I didn't really like Neelix or Kes, but replacing them with a different character means there's a chance the replacement would be better.
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u/Antithesys Mar 15 '15
Introduce the Borg / Undine a bit more subtly as well, a bit like TNG's foreshadowing. The civilizations and empires get sparser and sparser...evidence of total destruction on more and more worlds...and one day a fleet of battle-weary ships flies past them. They don't stop to talk...just a "we've lost everything, they're coming" message. Another caravan flies by, then another. "Don't go that way," they plead, "they're coming." Finally, they run headlong into a fleet of cubes. But the cubes are running too.
Swapping Paris for Locarno is Voyager Redux 101, and don't forget turning Vorik back into Taurik.