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Voyager was always rather comfortable.

The only real "we are roughing it" part was Neelix and the fresh cooking and, honestly they seemed to eat really well. The roughing was more "its not all replicated".

We don't really see them have to strip whole segments of the ships quarters to make room for a huge growing room to provide food; or see them slumming it with reduced heat/food for long periods to conserve power etc... In general so long as the alien of the week isn't attacking them, they live reasonably comfortably.


Granted once you've got replicators you only need power to have most of the resources you need for a comfortable life. I can well see how things like that can be darn hard for writers to write around because, it just makes anything you need within most circumstances.


Heck we don't really see Voyager take long lasting damage. All her fights and battles she should have been banged up with rips, tears and holes along with patched in bits of random tech and parts from other ships, salvage and what they can trade for to keep her together. But again if you've got a replicator, then so long as you've power you just make spares.

There was, of course, movements against all that in the studio. The Year of Hell two-parter was originally, on conception supposed to be the Year of hell.

Although, this might be a good thing too, that that didn't happen. There's probably a chain of causality that says if we actually did get that sort of take on Voyager, Ron Moore would have never been able to do Battlestar Galactica with the same concepts.

 Compel wrote:
There was, of course, movements against all that in the studio. The Year of Hell two-parter was originally, on conception supposed to be the Year of hell.

Although, this might be a good thing too, that that didn't happen. There's probably a chain of causality that says if we actually did get that sort of take on Voyager, Ron Moore would have never been able to do Battlestar Galactica with the same concepts.

Holy crap would that have been better for televised science fiction as a whole! Without Ron Moore’s edge lord BSG, we wouldn’t have had Stargate Universe, Star Trek Picard or Discovery, science fiction TV That is fun sometimes rather than just depressing...

What’s the current take on replicator technology? At one time my understanding was it’s not creating something from nothing, but rather they’ve got some vats of raw materials in the basement and the replicators are just recombining the stuff into new molecules and assembling it.

Also, if you are a fan of Spot I recommend checking this out;
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/mcCgJkY

Well, the guy from Deuce Bigalo and the previous Mummy franchise literally said to the Orion lady in STD s3 that the apple she was eating was made of their excrement so there is that. I don't know the context of the conversation though as it was just a clip.

 warboss wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
Another STE observation...

Why is it the show is so prudish that no one on board the ship dies? I am sure there are enough 'redshirts' to kill off one every so often and not obliterate the crew. Was STE for a different type of audience? The original Star Trek had crewman die in the first 30 seconds of some episodes.

..."He's dead, Jim..."

Dozens died but I think that was during the Xindi arc/season. Perhaps they do (I don't recall myself) and reference it in a damage/casualty report but don't necessarily show it gratuitously onscreen. Unlike STD and Picard, they didn't typically do it for shock value.

Yep... I am midway through season 3 with the Xindi arc.,,

 Overread wrote:


Heck we don't really see Voyager take long lasting damage. All her fights and battles she should have been banged up with rips, tears and holes along with patched in bits of random tech and parts from other ships, salvage and what they can trade for to keep her together. But again if you've got a replicator, then so long as you've power you just make spares.

This is pretty obvious but worth noting, it comes down to the change in how Voyager was made with models and practical effects in the last 90s and BSG in the 2000s with computer animation.

Changing the ship in any way required changing the one and only shooting model of it and creating new footage for every orbit, every maneuver, every time it fired a weapon rather than doing it once and reusing footage throughout the show.

An especially egregious example was when DS9 blew up the Defiant (spoilers!) but immediately replaced it with an identical ship that even had the same registry number! Not even an A on the end.

(If I was going for my no-prize I would say it was part of a deception to hide Federation losses.)

However BSG with its virtual Galactica could damage it and maintain consistency throughout the following episodes. So we saw it burnt to a crisp at the start of season... 3? and it remained a floating cinder for the rest of the show.

That’s some of my many issues with Voyager.

It had real potential for being a new angle on Star Trek.

TNG as a more mature take on the basic setup (less Captain fist fighting/bonking his way to galactic unity).

DS9 as something a bit more “real”, as in “hey, your actions have consequences you’ll have to deal with it”.

Voyager? TNG but......like, way over there. What a waste of potential.

Imagine if we got a BSG type setup. Have the Caretaker’s array be a sort of ship’s graveyard. Something in the transportation thing damaging the systems of older ships. Voyager’s neural gel providing protection.

From there, a tag tag BSG type fleet seeking the Alpha Quadrant. You could’ve had anything from the preceding series dropped in. Have a sort of Federation forged across their ongoing journey. Using the skills and aptitude’s of the constituent species to aid progress (such as Ferengi to ensure you don’t get ripped off in trade, Romulans for detached scientific specialities etc.

Even just the blended Federation/Maquis crew concept was utterly squandered, as Everyone Just Played Nice Because Reasons.

They could even have had a schism within the fleet, as some just can’t bear to be all Happy Clappy, considering the Federation Ideals to be a hindrance compared to Necessity.

But no. We just got a mix of “Gerrof Moi Laaaand” stories, bizarre side stories (Devolution Babies) and a crew which just doesn’t grow. Poor old Harry Kim. Does well under extremely trying circumstances - and no promotion for him. Even Worf, who jeopardised his career got promotions.

Rag tag Voyager dleet, I like it.

You're hired for when we do Voyager the Next Generation

 warboss wrote:
Well, the guy from Deuce Bigalo and the previous Mummy franchise literally said to the Orion lady in STD s3 that the apple she was eating was made of their excrement so there is that. I don't know the context of the conversation though as it was just a clip.

Isn't that a bit of a 'meats back on the menu boys' moment though? It makes total sense for a 21st century person to find that disguising, but to people who had been using replicators to recycle waste for centuries it would be completely normal and mundane.
In fact they would probably be offended by the suggestion of throwing away all that organic matter!

 Kroem wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Well, the guy from Deuce Bigalo and the previous Mummy franchise literally said to the Orion lady in STD s3 that the apple she was eating was made of their excrement so there is that. I don't know the context of the conversation though as it was just a clip.

Isn't that a bit of a 'meats back on the menu boys' moment though? It makes total sense for a 21st century person to find that disguising, but to people who had been using replicators to recycle waste for centuries it would be completely normal and mundane.
In fact they would probably be offended by the suggestion of throwing away all that organic matter!

Or they just don't know/think about it. Human waste and animal waste gets thrown on the farm fields every year, yet there are many people today who have no idea that either practice ever happens*; or just don't like the thought of it and don't think about it. Plus unless you're a farmer it likely never comes up in conversation so, again, many people are blissfully ignorant/ignoring it.


*they might know that "muck" is put on fields but won't really know what muck is

What’s the difference between using poop to fertilize an apple tree, and breaking down the poop at the molecular level and manually rearranging the atoms into an apple yourself?

 AduroT wrote:
What’s the difference between using poop to fertilize an apple tree, and breaking down the poop at the molecular level and manually rearranging the atoms into an apple yourself?

Only the apple that naturally grew has the added potential bonus of a free worm inside when you bite into it.

I bet you more often than not the replicated apple comes out mealy.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
I bet you more often than not the replicated apple comes out mealy.

Still an improvement over modern day. About the only thing I can make out of my poop is corn and even then its only one kernel at a time.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
I bet you more often than not the replicated apple comes out mealy.

Yes, but in the TNG universe the worm would then take over the crew, or eat the warp core or something...

 Jadenim wrote:

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
I bet you more often than not the replicated apple comes out mealy.

Yes, but in the TNG universe the worm would then take over the crew, or eat the warp core or something...

Eh, that’s more of a holodeck issue than a replicator one.

It would be interesting to know how many ships are lost to holodeck accident each star-year!

“Our latest estimate is that no less than 32% of Starfleet personnel have been replaced by holograms, parallel universe clones, energy beings curious about humanity, and guilt-ridden doppelgängers.”

DS9 question that’s been bugging me.

Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
DS9 question that’s been bugging me.

Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

I don't think we ever really learn that much about them. I think in part because the story tries to preserve the balance between science and religion regarding them. So they aren't studied; neck not even interacted with as starfleet normally does. It's subtle (until the very very last episode) in general. I think in the end its more a case that the wormhole is so useful that starfleet doesn't want to push boundaries.

In the end its their home and it seems that there's some benefit to them in retaining the link; what it is and why they do it is one of the mysteries of space

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
DS9 question that’s been bugging me.

Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

Most people tend to build their house with a front and a back door.

Assuming they built the wormhole in the first place. I’ve always read it as the “celestial temple” is a construct inside the wormhole, so it could just have been “hey, here’s a comfy looking spatial anomaly in which to build our home”.

I, for one, I'm very glad that Spock will continue to have a phenomenal butt.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
“Our latest estimate is that no less than 32% of Starfleet personnel have been replaced by holograms, parallel universe clones, energy beings curious about humanity, and guilt-ridden doppelgängers.”

Haha this sounds about right. The lack of bio-security protocols in Starfleet is actually pretty shocking!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

No direct answer is ever given. I suppose the cheeky answer is that if they hadn't, there would be no plot, so of course they did! The Prophets are wise indeed XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:
Assuming they built the wormhole in the first place. I’ve always read it as the “celestial temple” is a construct inside the wormhole, so it could just have been “hey, here’s a comfy looking spatial anomaly in which to build our home”.

Last episode of season 1 does have Keiko state the wormhole was artificially created.

In my area, B5 was on the exact same channel/"network" as Star Trek Voyager/DS9 which was pretty cool.

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
DS9 question that’s been bugging me.

Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

I don't think we ever really learn that much about them. I think in part because the story tries to preserve the balance between science and religion regarding them. So they aren't studied; neck not even interacted with as starfleet normally does. It's subtle (until the very very last episode) in general. I think in the end its more a case that the wormhole is so useful that starfleet doesn't want to push boundaries.

In the end its their home and it seems that there's some benefit to them in retaining the link; what it is and why they do it is one of the mysteries of space

Given the technobabble 'non-linear existence' angle, future Sisko could have asked them to (after all, his being born depends on it existing), and thus it non-linearly always happened.
If it helps illustrate the mind-bending timey-whimey aspect of it, his 'ascended' self would have been present for the beginning on the series when the 'prophets' quiz him on linear existence. Perhaps even participating.

Voss wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
DS9 question that’s been bugging me.

Did we ever find out why the Prophets created a Wormhole between the two quadrants?

I don't think we ever really learn that much about them. I think in part because the story tries to preserve the balance between science and religion regarding them. So they aren't studied; neck not even interacted with as starfleet normally does. It's subtle (until the very very last episode) in general. I think in the end its more a case that the wormhole is so useful that starfleet doesn't want to push boundaries.

In the end its their home and it seems that there's some benefit to them in retaining the link; what it is and why they do it is one of the mysteries of space

Given the technobabble 'non-linear existence' angle, future Sisko could have asked them to (after all, his being born depends on it existing), and thus it non-linearly always happened.
If it helps illustrate the mind-bending timey-whimey aspect of it, his 'ascended' self would have been present for the beginning on the series when the 'prophets' quiz him on linear existence. Perhaps even participating.

This is a really interesting interpretation. He's giving himself the push he knows he needed back then so he'd stay at the station. I like it.

Ok, this one is just a funny pic that brought a trek related smile to my face which has been pretty rare over the past few years (and in 2021 in general frankly). It's probably old and some of you may have seen it already but it's the first time I've come across it despite surfing various parts of the internet for trek stuff since 1994.