Nate the Great fixes Voyager

[Nate the Great]

Things will get more complicated as the episodes progress. There isn't that much wrong with Caretaker besides the impossible task that it set itself to establish...


1. Three crews (old Starfleet, New Starfleet, Maquis)
2. Old setting (remember, you had to be familar with the end of TNG and the start of DS9 to really get a grasp on this stuff, VOY didn't exposit enough. Weird, considering that the Federation/Maquis stuff was supposed to be a CENTRAL PLOT, one that TNG and DS9 gave up multiple episodes over YEARS to do and the VOY creative staff just threw away!)

3. New setting
4. New friends and enemies
5. A mystery


Compare with the other pilots. DS9 only had to deal with one crew, one setting, one enemy, and one mystery. TNG also one crew, one setting, one enemy, and one mystery. I haven't watched Broken Bow since the premiere, but to my recollection they also bit off more than they could chew.

[Nate the Great]

"Parallax"


My first draft was getting very Retrospective-like, so I'm going to try a new strategy:


Plotlines:
1. Chakotay is trying to soften Torres enough to convince Janeway to make her Chief Engineer, creating friction with the captain at the same time.
2. Kes and Neelix join the senior staff.
3. Chakotay is defending the Maquis officers, attempting to promote their careers, but Janeway doesn't want to place them over Starfleet officers.
4. Voyager has problems (including a shrinking Doc) because of the S.A.O.T.W., eventually they're trapped and can't escape.
5. The Maquis already want to mutiny at the earliest chance.


1. Fine, my only problem is that Carey could've used more development before Torres attacked him. He's supposed to be the best officer for the job except for Torres' larger knowledge. We'll get back to this after a sidestep with...
3. While I can see Janeway's point about promoting Maquis officers over Starfleet ones, Chakotay is right. If Janeway states outright "those of you who previously held a Starfleet rank can have them back, but everyone else are crewmen only", she'd have a mutiny on her hands Chakotay or no Chakotay. Consider how Wesley achieved Acting Ensign status by proving his value even if he hadn't gone to Starfleet Academy yet. So the non-Starfleet Maquis would be crewmen and Tuvok's "night school" to earn their commissions should have been moved to this point. Back to...
1. The Torres/Carey thing should've been a longer-running subplot, lasting a few episodes before Torres gets the job.

4. I don't have a problem with the anomaly itself, but shrinking Doc was a bad idea for right now. He should be defending his rights and expanding his sentience right now.

5. TOO SOON. The Maquis and their cause need to be established over a few episodes (and introducing more recurring Maquis than Seska, probably Ayala), both their cause and their personalities, before doing this. As it is it looks like every single minor Maquis doesn't even want to try to fit in, which means that they don't deserve Chakotay's efforts to give them provisional Starfleet ranks.

[Nate the Great]

"Time and Again"


Plotlines:


1. The Weird Planet of the Week destroyed themselves and Janeway and Paris accidentally go back in time and could be killed the same way. There are Prime Directive implications.

2. Kes takes the new job of nurse, plus the new job of resident psychic plot device.


Fix them:


1. Actually, it's not just the Prime Directive that needs to be discussed, but the Temporal Prime Directive. Sadly, Janeway has a point. This plot is okay, but should've been pushed a few episodes down the line.

2. Memory Alpha doesn't give this episode a stardate, but Memory Beta says 48498.5, so they've been in the Delta Quadrant over two months. The issue of replacement medical staff should have been a second-episode plot. In fact Episode Two should've been everyone getting settled in this new paradigm and kept the external plot to a minimum. Furthermore giving Spock power after power was okay for TOS since they were creating a universe, but by this point we need there to be limitations to Kes's powers. Her body weakens when she uses her power, her innocent mind is disturbed, etc.



Now lets talk about the Kes/Neelix dynamic here. Neelix is still thinking in scavenger terms: take what you can get, avoid dangerous situations, etc. Kes has already embraced the Federation ideal. Going forward we need more interaction along these lines instead of just Neelix being jealous.

[Nate the Great]

"Phage"


Plotlines:


1. Voyager is looking for dilithium and encounter the Vidiians.

2. The Vidiians have stolen Neelix's lungs and Voyager has to get them back.
3. Paris is being trained as medical assistant, but Kes looks like a better fit.


1. The problem with the Vidiians is the notion that their transplant technology is lightyears ahead of their ability to cure diseases. And even Doc has a problem curing it. Can't they move memories into clones? Furthermore, later episodes establish that not ALL Vidians have the Phage. Don't their unborn children have immunity that could be exploited a la "Genesis"?



I just had a great idea: the Phage isn't natural. The Borg made it. Don't mention the Borg at this point, of course, but have vague mentions of ancient invaders here and there. What if the Vidiians can't be assimilated, but they could still be used by the Borg to test genetic technology? The Vidiians don't know about any of this and neither does the Voyager crew, but there would be a hint here and there that could be built on later.


2. The whole idea of Kes donating a lung is stupid, if only because her lung would be half the size of Neelix's and wouldn't be powerful enough. Just have the Vidiians and the Doctor collaborate and find a way to modify the Vidiian tech to allow for cloning of organs to be used by the original (involuntary) donor. Of course, this would introduce a new power struggle as one group of Vidiians tries to help their victims, another tries to exploit them by "selling a cure", another turns it into a plague that would create lots of new "donors", etc.


3. I never liked Paris as medical assistant. He had enough to do already. Upon reflection Harry should've taken the job. He's the kind of guy that would assume new duties to impress Janeway. Furthermore Paris already had enough to do dealing with the Starfleer AND Maquis crewmembers that hate him. All Harry had to deal with was missing home. But what if his mother was a doctor or something?


Of course, like I said before the nurses should've survived the trip to the Delta Quadrant in the first place.

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

I just had a great idea: the Phage isn't natural. The Borg made it. Don't mention the Borg at this point, of course, but have vague mentions of ancient invaders here and there. What if the Vidiians can't be assimilated, but they could still be used by the Borg to test genetic technology? The Vidiians don't know about any of this and neither does the Voyager crew, but there would be a hint here and there that could be built on later.

The Borg using a species as genetic testers seems antithetical to the Borg ideology. They wouldn't have problems using drones in experimenting with technology.

A more likely culprit would be the Vaadwaur 900 years ago using a bioweapon against the Vidiians.

But Voyager writers in S1 weren't really about setting up things for later.

[Nate the Great]

But you can't test genetic technology with drones; their entire biology has been altered to be the perfect cybernetic life form. Inject a drone with the Phage and the drone would quickly become so corrupted it would have to be destroyed. No useful medical research.

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

But you can't test genetic technology with drones; their entire biology has been altered to be the perfect cybernetic life form. Inject a drone with the Phage and the drone would quickly become so corrupted it would have to be destroyed. No useful medical research.

The Borg lost how many drones when they were experimenting with synthesizing Omega? They have trillions of drones, experimenting on the population of a contained cube would not be much of a loss.

There's also the question of why would the Collective deploy a virus like this. Sure, it could explain some of the adaptive properties of the sickness and the inability to cure it (until that Think Tank episode comes along, ugh), but I just can't see them coming up with a reason for it. It does not appear to be an efficient use of resources, nor a strategy the Collective has been observed using in the past.

With a time frame like two thousand years, that most likely predates the Borg Collective, or at the very least predates its ability to get to Vidiian space. Later, the Collective is only referenced to have a handful of systems 900 years prior to the current date ("Dragon's Teeth"), which would mean that their reach is not as far out as what would be, and implies they do not have transwarp capabilities yet, even at that point.