# Star trek Voyager inconsistency? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898 "2013-03-14T05:40:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/41 "2013-03-14T19:29:37Z")
Generally boarding parties don’t beam aboard until the boarded ship’s defensive systems have been taken offline, or they have superior technology and transporters don’t work on them anyway. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/42 "2013-03-14T19:51:21Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > At the beginning of the series, the lack of sufficient power was used to explain why they couldn’t simply replicate all their food or weapons or more CPUs or whatever and why holodeck time was limited. Even worse… they explain the Holodecks. And it’s a horrible, _horrible_ answer. The Holodecks have their own power, and also are completely incompatible with the rest of the ship. Which routinely grabs random technology from across the universe when convenient. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/43 "2013-03-14T20:11:21Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Even worse… they explain the Holodecks. And it’s a horrible, _horrible_ answer. The Holodecks have their own power, and also are completely incompatible with the rest of the ship. Which routinely grabs random technology from across the universe when convenient. 110v, 60 Hz and 220 v, 50 Hz. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/44 "2013-03-14T20:11:27Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Nothing about the “warp speed factor”, time & distances mentioned in Star Trek make sense. > > Trips that should have taken months seem to take minutes. (In the latest Star Trek movie, the NewEnterprise goes from Earth to Vulcan (40 Eridani, a little over 16 light years) in less than ten minutes. That’s (if my math is right) 841,536 times the speed of light. > > Warp = speed of plot. Well, ISTR seeing a graph once that seemed to indicate that warp indices are on something like a logarithmic scale, so that warp 8 is an order of magnitude greater than warp 7 – on what base value is not clear, but if it were ten, warp seven would be one mega-C, relatively speaking. Still, warp has nothing on Infinite Improbability or Bistromathics. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > NCC1701D had several transporter rooms, did it not? NCC1701, the TOS ship, had six or eight or more of the 7-pad transporter rooms and at least one 2-pad room. I may still have blueprints in a drawer around here somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/45 "2013-03-14T20:40:11Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > You’re assuming that the Federation still exists 800 yrs later. And don’t say Captain Braxton is proof. He’s from the 29th century; 800 yrs after the 24th century would make that episode set in the 32nd century. Also why bother? The Fed has limited resources and issues to deal with, why bother sending a party to retrace Voy’s footsteps home? Lets say some kwaaazy accident blew some Americans into the Mongolian Steppe and they eventually make it back to civilization, why would the US government bother sending a team to retrace their steps and find all those tiny isolated hunters and villages they encountered? ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/46 "2013-03-14T20:42:13Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > For me the biggest inconsistency was not creating a replacement crew. They knew it was a 70+ trip back home. The logical solution was to pair up and make babies. They’d be the replacement crew within thirty years (that’s allowing ten years of Star Fleet training). But, as I recall there was only one baby born (Naomi Wildman). There was also the Paris/Torres baby but that was at or near the end of the series. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > NCC1701D had several transporter rooms, did it not? Several transporter rooms, plus there were bigger ones in the cargo bays. And on top of that, they had transporters in the shuttles too. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/47 "2013-03-14T20:52:14Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Also why bother? The Fed has limited resources and issues to deal with, why bother sending a party to retrace Voy’s footsteps home? > > Lets say some kwaaazy accident blew some Americans into the Mongolian Steppe and they eventually make it back to civilization, why would the US government bother sending a team to retrace their steps and find all those tiny isolated hunters and villages they encountered? Hot space chicks. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/48 "2013-03-14T20:52:44Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Well, ISTR seeing a graph once that seemed to indicate that warp indices are on something like a logarithmic scale, so that warp 8 is an order of magnitude greater than warp 7 I believe Warp n is C raised to the nth power. Some disagree. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/49 "2013-03-14T21:06:15Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Well, ISTR seeing a graph once that seemed to indicate that warp indices are on something like a logarithmic scale, so that warp 8 is an order of magnitude greater than warp 7 – on what base value is not clear, but if it were ten, warp seven would be one mega-C, relatively speaking. Back when I was enough of a fan to fanwank, I posited the theory that warp factors are more like the gears of a standard transmission than literal speeds. Warp 5 is faster than warp 4 in the same way that fifth gear is faster than fourth gear, but how fast it actually is depends on the particulars of the “transmission” rather than there being a direct mapping from warp factors to speeds that is valid for all ships. Of course fancier and more technologically advanced ships can have better “transmissions” so in general fancier and newer ships are going to be faster than older and cheaper ones. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/50 "2013-03-14T21:09:42Z")
I just think it’s funny the OP picked an inconsistency that is actually explained and explained well… To be fair, of course, it isn’t explained right away, and Voyager’s track record doesn’t lead someone to assume it will be explained in the future. What’s weird is that they’ve had a direct route to the Alpha Quadrant all this time. So why all the indirect attacks? Why did they invent a new method of time travel in order in order to try and conquer us before we advanced? Why go to all that trouble when a direct frontal assault with multiple cubes would completely devastate us? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/51 "2013-03-14T21:19:15Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > Back when I was enough of a fan to fanwank, I posited the theory that warp factors are more like the gears of a standard transmission than literal speeds. Warp 5 is faster than warp 4 in the same way that fifth gear is faster than fourth gear, but how fast it actually is depends on the particulars of the “transmission” rather than there being a direct mapping from warp factors to speeds that is valid for all ships. > > Of course fancier and more technologically advanced ships can have better “transmissions” so in general fancier and newer ships are going to be faster than older and cheaper ones. That’s not a fanwank. That’s pretty much the official explanation, except that Warp has been more standardized to equal speed since the TNG era. The formula, btw, was w[sup]3c[/sup] in the TOS era (at least, for the _Enterprise_) and w[sup]10c/3[/sup]; w \< 9 for TNG. (For 10 \< w \< 9, it’s just a hand drawn curve that approaches infinity at w = 10, added so that warp factors wouldn’t keep increasing like they had in TOS.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/52 "2013-03-14T22:17:16Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Lets say some kwaaazy accident blew some Americans into the Mongolian Steppe and they eventually make it back to civilization, why would the US government bother sending a team to retrace their steps and find all those tiny isolated hunters and villages they encountered? To civilize them, of course - in other words, to open McDonalds there. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/53 "2013-03-14T23:21:09Z")
Voyager didn’t always leave behind friendly aliens. There were many times Janeway barely got the ship out alive. Janeway didn’t rigidly follow the Prime Directive either. She really screwed around with several planets and even altered the balance of power in several areas of space. We used to joke about the Janeway effect. Voyager is probably not fondly remembered by some of those alien species. > [@grude](#): > > Also why bother? The Fed has limited resources and issues to deal with, why bother sending a party to retrace Voy’s footsteps home? > > Lets say some kwaaazy accident blew some Americans into the Mongolian Steppe and they eventually make it back to civilization, why would the US government bother sending a team to retrace their steps and find all those tiny isolated hunters and villages they encountered? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/54 "2013-03-15T00:25:56Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Yup. I never really watched Voyager, but I vaguely remember watching one episode, where the doctor had to save a patient who, for the sake of simplifying the obvious analogy, I’ll call a Space Jew. The problem was that the person who had discovered how to cure his particular condition was Space Hitler, or at least a member of the Space Nazi Party. > > Now, some reasonable people might say, oh, well, that sucks, but hey, the information is in the database, here’s your cure, who’s next? But no. In Voyager land, the only way to access the cure was to create a hologram version of Space Hitler, so that Space Hitler and Space Jew could have dramatic face-to-face confrontations and Deep Arguments about Worrying Philosophical and Ethical Issues, and so that the doctor could attempt to _talk_ Space Hitler into explaining the cure, and _talk_ Space Jew into accepting the cure that was discovered by this horrible war criminal, yadda yadda yadda. It was utterly ridiculous. > > Again, I didn’t really watch the show, and it’s been a decade or two since I saw this episode, and I wasn’t really paying that much attention to begin with, so I probably have some of this wrong. Sppppaaaaaacccceeeee HHHHIIITTTTLLLLEEERRR!!! > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > For reference: [[http://sfdebris.com](http://sfdebris.com)](SF Debris) > > Chuck Sonnenberg has got enough Star Trek reviews to choke a camel, and his Voyager reviews are probably the best, with a combination of head-shaking and over-the-topness. _Enterprise_ was possibly the worst series, but that was largely just going through the motions. In _Voyager_, they seemed to actually thought they didn’t completely suck. IMHO Voyager was by far the worst series. Enterprise was the next worst by far ahead. It was getting better as it went along. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/55 "2013-03-15T00:45:39Z")
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s more good episodes to be found in the four seasons of _Enterprise_ than in the seven seasons of _Voyager_. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/56 "2013-03-15T00:59:44Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Again, I didn’t really watch the show, and it’s been a decade or two since I saw this episode, and I wasn’t really paying that much attention to begin with, so I probably have some of this wrong. No, you’ve got it right. The only thing I’d add is that after the Space Jew decided they’d rather die, Janeway forced them to go through with it anyway, stating that she’d “deal with the consequences afterwards”. Of course, in true Voyager fashion, the events of the episode were then never mentioned again. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/57 "2013-03-15T01:43:39Z")
Personally, I prefer _Enterprise_ merely for the fact that it felt real and not so plasticky. Most of that Xindi season was pretty silly, though. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/58 "2013-03-15T02:56:50Z")
I thought there was such rich story potential in exploring proto-Federation themes, where humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites (and whatever else you could cull from TOS) overcome hostilities and suspicions to cobble together a reasonably stable alliance. The whole “temporal cold war” and “Xindi weapon” arcs were just wastes of time - was it really super-critical that the show have original aliens that fit nowhere else in the continuity? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/59 "2013-03-15T13:46:25Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Personally, I prefer _Enterprise_ merely for the fact that it felt real and not so plasticky. Most of that Xindi season was pretty silly, though. Yes, but the crew included: _Tucker_, a man who defines incompetence. (He’s also a shameless redneck stereotype.) _Hoshi_, a woman less interesting than my goldfish and who is mostly scared of her own shadow. _T’Pol_, a vulcan who went right past logic straight into “Obnoxious Self-Indulgent Jerk”. _Mayweather_, who’s been in space before, and who is less interesting than Hoshi - HOSHI for pete’s sake! _Captain “Crazypants” Archer_, a manic-depressive whose chases blindly after any idea which comes to him. And guest starring Phlox, who used Insane Troll Logic and a complete misunderstanding in every conceivable way or what evolution was to justify the deaths of an entire species. I will grant that Reed was mostly a well-balanced individual, interesting as a human being, and not afflicted with Teh Stupid. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/60 "2013-03-15T13:56:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That’s not a fanwank. That’s pretty much the official explanation, except that Warp has been more standardized to equal speed since the TNG era. > > The formula, btw, was w[sup]3c[/sup] in the TOS era (at least, for the _Enterprise_) and w[sup]10c/3[/sup]; w \< 9 for TNG. (For 10 \< w \< 9, it’s just a hand drawn curve that approaches infinity at w = 10, added so that warp factors wouldn’t keep increasing like they had in TOS.) > **[Warp factor](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor)** > > Time-Warp factor, better known as warp factor, was the primary means of measuring speeds attained using warp drive. (TOS: "The Cage") The term was often shortened to warp when followed by its value, so that saying "warp six" was the same as saying... Amongst all the text, there are three charts. The first illustrates the changing absolute speeds based on “in screen” dialog or display charts. The second chart is the “old” scale, where the absolute speed (in “c”) is warp factor cubed. The third chart is your readjusted chart, with the greatest differences being in the higher warp factors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898.md?page=4)