Nate the Great fixes Voyager

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Oh, and I'm going to be outright chucking an episode here and there that just can't be redeemed. "Fury" comes to mind immediately.

Actually, I didn't mind "Fury", but I'm a sucker for time travel episodes, especially ones that play with their own history. Blame the Whovian in me.

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

And the whole water shortage thing in the Kazon years was just dumb. It's enough that Voyager has replicators and they don't. Any warp-capable ship can find planets with free water. Don't tell me that every planet in Kazon/Vidiian space is short of water!

If everyone used water the same way Neelix did in the first episode, then yeah I can see it. It was seen that the Kazon were less advanced than the Federation technology-wise like recycling, they might not have the filtration systems in place to mass refine water from snowball planets and dwarfs. And the Vidiians were more interested in Bee Gee'ing it in the short term (you're welcome for that ear worm) than long-term planning, which probably bit them in the butt.

[Nate the Great]

And some episodes will be heavily modified. Right now I picture "Threshold" without the Warp 10 or lizards, but instead merely being much closer to Warp 10. It's enough of a problem that navigation is impossible at that speed. Do we take the chance of the jump taking us farther away, even another galaxy or intergalactic space?

[Nate the Great]

Last night I had a breakthrough regarding how to fix the Maquis. I can't believe it took me this long to figure this out. To summarize my main complaints about the premise:


1. The DMZ settlers had a simple choice: return to the Federation or stay unarmed and not bother the Cardassians.
2. And yet the Maquis claim that the DMZ settlers were abandoned by the Federation in the name of peace.


Okay, let's fix it. Here's a possible timeline:


1. Starfleet informs the DMZ colony leaders of the new deal and the choice that they have to make.
2. Some DMZ leaders do this, but most choose to stay. Some want to maintain their power, some were already discontented with the Federation, some are Bajorans who feel that the Cardassians should've given up more.
3. The leaders who choose to stay don't tell the actual colonists that they had the chance to return to the Federation.

4. The Federation pulls out of the DMZ, believing that everyone who wanted to leave has left. The ones left behind now believe they have been abandoned.
5. The remaining colonists stay armed because they haven't been told the full conditions of the deal. They attack the Cardassians because they haven't been told not to, or because their leaders tell them to.
6. So now we have chaos. The Federation tries telling them again that they should leave, but now it's too late as far as the colonists are concerned. It's not really because of Federation hospitality, now it looks like the Federation is avoiding a political disaster, just like they did when they "abandoned" the colonies in the first place. The Federation (through no fault of their own) has lost trust and needs to rebuild it.

7. Now we have a self-perpetuating circle. The Cardassians attack the Maquis because the deal is broke, the Maquis attack the Cardassians to defend "their" land, the Maquis attack the Federation because they hate them (based on misinformation), etc.
8. And by now the leaders who started this whole thing are now either dead, insane, or have stolen what they could and abandoned the barrel fire that they started.



Opinions?

[Flying Gremlin]

Plausible. However, from what I remember, the Maquis were formed because the Cardassians were breaking the DMZ by shipping weapons to their colonies, and Starfleet was sticking to the treaty too much to balance the power by arming their own citizens in response. The Federation colonists got peeved as did several Starfleet officers, hence the Maquis were formed.

[Nate the Great]

Could someone explain why the Klingon and Romulan Neutral Zones mostly worked, when the DMZ never did? Like, ever? Was the Cardassian War really so bad that we wanted to end it in any way we could ASAP?


I will agree, however, that Picard was a little too optimistic in "Ensign Ro", etc. He wanted the quick and easy solution to the immediate problem, not a long-lasting one.

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Could someone explain why the Klingon and Romulan Neutral Zones mostly worked, when the DMZ never did? Like, ever? Was the Cardassian War really so bad that we wanted to end it in any way we could ASAP?

The Neutral Zones of the empires did not have as many settled worlds as this border. From the backstory I refreshed myself on at Memory Alpha about the DMZ and the Cardassian War, there wasn't much to go on as to why the conflict started. As the latter document guesses, it could be due to expansionist policies of the Cardassians due to resource shortages, like the ones that led to the occupation of Bajor.

Or it could be that Cardassians are the douches of the galaxy.

[Nate the Great]

Before I start "Caretaker" proper, let's deal with the opening infodump:


Unhappy with a new treaty, Federation Colonists along the Cardassian border have banded together.
Calling themselves 'The Maquis', they continue to fight the Cardassians.
Some consider them heroes, but to the governments of the Federation and Cardassia, they are outlaws.

Ugh. Let's try "The peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Union gave the colonists within the Demilitarized Zone a choice to either return to the Federation or remain without their citizenship. Because of misinformation and corrupt leadership, most of the colonists believe themselves abandoned by the Federation. Calling themselves the Maquis, they have chosen to stay and fight to evict the Cardassians from their homes. This has created renewed tensions between the two powers, with the Maquis trapped in between and being considered outlaws."