# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/61 "2013-03-15T16:27:10Z")
> [@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. Well, it would have taken Voyager around 70 years at max warp to make it back to Alpha Quadrant assuming nothing fantastic happened along the way (which is impossible in the ST universe). Even at the normal outward speed of exploration, you’d think the Federation would be in the DQ within a couple hundred years. When Q first encountered Voyager in the DQ, he commented that humans weren’t supposed to be there for another 100 years. Plus, Voyager shared all its intel on the DQ with the Federation. I don’t see how they couldn’t have stumbled onto this planet within several hundred years unless something was physically preventing them. ---
**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, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/62 "2013-03-15T16:58:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I thought there was such rich story potential [in _Enterprise_] 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? > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > 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 agree. Even so, you can cut all the TCW and Xindi episodes, and “Dear Doctor,” and several other bad/lame episodes, and still have more good Trek than _Voyager_. > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I will grant that Reed was mostly a well-balanced individual, interesting as a human being, and not afflicted with Teh Stupid. This is the only time I have ever seen Reed positioned as a favorite from that crew. ---
**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, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/63 "2013-03-15T18:24:04Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > This is the only time I have ever seen Reed positioned as a favorite from that crew. No, I actually _like_ Trip Tucker better. He’s just an idiotic redneck on top of everything. ---
**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 15, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/64 "2013-03-15T18:49:20Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > No, I actually _like_ Trip Tucker better. He’s just an idiotic redneck on top of everything. I disagree about his being an idiotic redneck, especially since the actor copied a Missouri Arkansas accent of his relatives. 🙂 ---
**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, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/65 "2013-03-15T20:14:35Z")
The starship Voyager has been hijacked by the crew of the Enterprise! (With the help of Shran, Soval, Silik et al) ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/66 "2013-03-15T20:35:32Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > _Tucker_, a man who defines incompetence. (He’s also a shameless redneck stereotype.) I’ve not watched Enterprise for a good while, but folksy speech patterns notwithstanding, I’m not sure I’d call Tucker a redneck stereotype. Wasn’t he at least usually portrayed as a competent engineer? > [@](#): > > _Captain “Crazypants” Archer_, a manic-depressive whose chases blindly after any idea which comes to him. Captain Archer, who’s that? My memory might be shaky, but wasn’t the Enterprise captained by a Scott Bakula thrown into the 22nd century? That must be it. My mind can’t come to terms with the possibility that _anyone_ could could cast Bakula except as the script-reciting Ken doll that he is. ---
**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 15, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/67 "2013-03-15T20:40:11Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Captain Archer, who’s that? My memory might be shaky, but wasn’t the Enterprise captained by a Scott Bakula thrown into the 22nd century? Yes, he leapt into a Star Ship Commander, and hadn’t a clue what to do. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/68 "2013-03-15T21:24:01Z")
> [@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.) I don’t think the c should be in the exponent, otherwise you get different answers depending on whether c is measured in m/s or furlongs/fortnight. I think it should be w[sup]10/3[/sup]c ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/69 "2013-03-15T21:56:40Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I don’t think the c should be in the exponent, otherwise you get different answers depending on whether c is measured in m/s or furlongs/fortnight. I think it should be w[sup]10/3[/sup]c “My starship gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!” /grandpa simpson ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/70 "2013-03-15T22:32:56Z")
The worst and most ridiculous episode of Voyager was when they showed future humans after eons of future evolution. It was such a fundamentally misguided understanding of a major scientific tenet that I stopped regarding the programme as science fiction. Ridiculous. ---
**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, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/71 "2013-03-15T22:49:08Z")
Are there _any_ _Voyager_ episodes, even good ones, that stand up to scrutiny as science fiction, as opposed to space opera or whatever? I happen to like “Distant Origin” and “Blink of an Eye,” but the ‘science’ is pretty much laughable. The former even features a ridiculous computer ‘projection’ of what a hadrosaur ‘would have’ evolved into. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/72 "2013-03-15T22:57:12Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Are there _any_ _Voyager_ episodes, even good ones, that stand up to scrutiny as science fiction, as opposed to space opera or whatever? > > I happen to like “Distant Origin” and “Blink of an Eye,” but the ‘science’ is pretty much laughable. The former even features a ridiculous computer ‘projection’ of what a hadrosaur ‘would have’ evolved into. Perhaps i was confusing the hadrosaur episode in my mind with something else as that must be the episode I was thinking of. Sorry! Star Trek, with the universe that’s Ben built up around it, could be so much better with decent science fiction writers but perhaps it wouldn’t have mass appeal. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/73 "2013-03-15T23:05:08Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Wasn’t her mom pregnant before even getting caught by the Caretaker? I think she found out she was pregnant shortly after the start of the show, which shouldn’t have been a source of too much stress as she had all that top of the line med equipment and crew. > > I thought it would be neat to have Voyager damaged and repaired so much, or having taken on so much unknown strange crew Janeway would find a hostile reception back on Earth. I always thought it would be cool if the next series had featured a patchwork Voyager finally reaching Federation space, and still stalwartly clinging to Federation values, only to find that in the intervening seventy years, the Federation has entered a political decline and no longer represents the values the crew of the Voyager profess, leading the Voyager to be treated as outlaws by the society to which they’d tried to hard to return. ---
**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, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/74 "2013-03-15T23:06:56Z")
**Fiendish Astronaut** : I wondered if you were thinking of “Distant Origin.” The thing that makes that one kinda good is the theme of the scientist struggling for truth against cultural orthodoxy. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/75 "2013-03-15T23:57:41Z")
> [@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. The holodeck explanation was when I knew the show would not live it to its initial promise, which I thought was considerable. Basically, the writers/producers were unwilling to give up the story crutch which the holodeck represented. They were unwilling to tell essentially different stories than had been told on TNG. Every other consistency problem – the endless supply of shuttlecraft, the lack of an eventual manpower crunch, the fact that the ship, crew, & uniforms were as pretty at the end of the series as at the beginning – stems from that attitude. Also they insisted no giving Torres clothes in every episode. HUGE mistake. ---
**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 16, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/76 "2013-03-16T00:51:17Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Also they insisted no giving Torres clothes in every episode. HUGE mistake. Is that “no” a typo for “on”? They were making shuttlecraft. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898/77 "2013-03-16T01:12:40Z")
Personally, I think that the Holodeck is a lot more tolerable if you strip away the thin veneer of science fiction. It’s a portal to the spirit world. The spirits will entertain humans, for a price. And some of the spirits are mischievous, and occasionally one of them manages to break out of the pentagram. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-voyager-inconsistency/652898.md?page=3)