Star Trek: Questions you always wanted answers to

[Riceball]

I thought they just used the replicator? :confused

No, although they never really enforced it in the writing they were supposed to be limited in their use of the replicator; each member of the crew was issued replicator rations presumably each month. On top of that, I'm not sure that it was ever established that Federation starships were equipped any form of industrial replicator that would allow them to replicate something as large as a photon torpedo.

 

[jarroth]

Can someone give me an in universe explanation of that short skirt uniform? and it's not just the women who where them. occasionally you will see a guy in a few shots showing some leg too. other than the fact that I think it was a hold over from TOS....it really serves no purpose.

can't explain it realy, but question back: why long uniforms if short skirts look better?

 

[jarroth]

That was the problem with the show, they should have been in much worse shape by the end of the series than they were. After 7 years, assuming that each season represented a year in their time, with no time in space dock for proper refit and maintenance and not to mention the lack of Starfleet parts there's no way that the Voyager could have been in the shape that it was. Then there's expendables like photon torpedoes, something that the writers seem to forget are actually finite, I imagine that if they gave a count to their photon torpedo compliment once hitting the Delta Quadrant and counting how many they used over the course of the show I'm betting that they used more than they actually had. Of course, they'd probably explain that problem by saying they acquired torpedo housings somewhere, guidance systems elsewhere, propulsion systems yet somewhere else, and they provided the anti-matter themselves.

Then there's the matter of crew, between all of the baddies they encountered over the course of the show, shouldn't they really be down to a skeleton crew? The crew compliment of an Intrepid class ship isn't all that large and they lost quite a few when arriving in the Delta Quadrant, of course, most, if not all, of those losses were replaced by Maquis from Chakotay's ship but they were the last Alpha Quadrant reinforcements they got. They only managed to acquire 3 new crew members from the Delta Quadrant with one of those eventually leaving for a net gain of 2 people. Yet despite all of the battles they got into and the bad things that happened they somehow managed to arrive back home with pretty much a full compliment, how's that possible?

Then there's the matter of their free rides of hundreds or thousands of light years at a time from various sources. I've always wondered if the producers kept track of those numbers along with the progress that Voyager was supposed to have made from episode to episode because, personally, I always thought that Voyager was much closer to home than the writers said it was because I seem to recall them getting a lot of free rides every season that knocked off years from their travel time every time it happened.

yeah these things bothered me too. although i realy liked voyager it missed the chance of becoming the best ST spin off of all. the numbers of crew doesnt bother me that much but the prestine ship as series progressed seemed, not logic shame they didnt use the potential of the Voyager series. in my head sometimes i imagined voyager with for excample kazon nacells instead of original propulsion, bit more of scavanged borg technology and quite some other stuff bought/scavengd/traded. they found enough wrecks along the route.
the free rides where just shortcuts just in case the series got cancelled early. that way it would always be a happy end for the crew in my opinion.

one question still wonders around in my head. did the final run through the borg hub actualy completely destroyed all Borg (so did the comit genocide?) or just the transwarp tunnels?

ps, dont bother about photon torpedos, they come from same suplier as Hershel's shotgun shells :lol

 

[The Terminator]

No, although they never really enforced it in the writing they were supposed to be limited in their use of the replicator; each member of the crew was issued replicator rations presumably each month. On top of that, I'm not sure that it was ever established that Federation starships were equipped any form of industrial replicator that would allow them to replicate something as large as a photon torpedo.

Well seeing as how Voyager would obviously need to restock their photon torpedoes, the magic of the replicator would have been a reasonable explanation but yeah, nothing was ever really established. A little peculiar :unsure

 

[Treadwell]

What about a replicator big enough to create all the shuttles and runabouts that were destroyed over the course of the series? No way there was room for all of them.

On a related note, Rick Sternbach has said that the Delta Flyer was actually too big to fit through the shuttle bay doors.

 

[Riceball]

What about a replicator big enough to create all the shuttles and runabouts that were destroyed over the course of the series? No way there was room for all of them.

On a related note, Rick Sternbach has said that the Delta Flyer was actually too big to fit through the shuttle bay doors.

They obviously found friendly planets with shipyards capable of building them shuttles to Starfleet spec, that's the only possible explanation for their seemingly endless supply of shuttles.

Ad for the Delta Flier, it's exact size has been a source of endless debate since they were always very careful to never show it next to something where you could get an idea of scale. You never saw anybody stand next to it, or saw anybody inside it from the outside, nor did they show next to or leaving Voyager. All we ever were shown was it flying about or people inside it but I don't think looking out though since that would show windows which would give you an idea of scale.

 

[robn1]

I'd always assumed shuttles and torpedoes could be built on starships as needed, as long as power and raw materials were available. Replicators would only produce the materials or maybe some base components.

 

[Riceball]

I'd always assumed shuttles and torpedoes could be built on starships as needed, as long as power and raw materials were available. Replicators would only produce the materials or maybe some base components.

Photon torpedoes maybe, but shuttles would be pointless and a waste. Think about, how large of a replicator would you need to be able to replicate shuttle components, some of which would be fairly large and complex, then you'd have to people on standby to put the parts together. That's space that could be better used for crew quarters, cargo holds, science labs, sensor suites, etc. since you' (normally) need to replace shuttles once in a blue moon and if it did happen you'd have spares and could always go back to the nearest Starbase for a replacement. Then there's the personnel, so you're going to have a whole team of people just sitting waiting for a shuttle to be replaced and doing nothing until that happens. You can't use regular crew members because even if they have the training they'd have other duties to take care and assigning them to build a shuttle means that their regular duties aren't being done.

 

[Angelus Lupus]

IIRC there's a few times (across Trek) when it's mentioned you can't replicate anti-matter, which would be necessary for photon torpedo warheads or the warp drive of shuttles.

edit- I'm struggling to back this up, so I could be wrong.

 

[robn1]

Antimatter is something else that can be made on ship. Obviously shuttles wouldn't be built routinely, but it could be done if needed. The crews who maintain the shuttle fleet would be the ones to build, again if needed.

 

[Angelus Lupus]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering because they explicitly stated at the start of Voyager that they couldn't replace torpedoes or shuttles (and we all know how that went). Really, by the time they got home, Voyager should have looked like a kitbash of all the parts they'd had to scavenge/modify to replace stuff that broke or ran out.

 

[Jeyl]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering because they explicitly stated at the start of Voyager that they couldn't replace torpedoes or shuttles (and we all know how that went). Really, by the time they got home, Voyager should have looked like a kitbash of all the parts they'd had to scavenge/modify to replace stuff that broke or ran out.

You're not mis-remembering anything. From the first season episode 'The Cloud'.

CHAKOTAY: We have a complement of thirty eight photon torpedoes at our disposal, Captain.
JANEWAY: And no way to replace them after they're gone.​

 

[Riceball]

Antimatter is something else that can be made on ship. Obviously shuttles wouldn't be built routinely, but it could be done if needed. The crews who maintain the shuttle fleet would be the ones to build, again if needed.

That's the thing, despite what they showed in BSG a maintainer wouldn't know how to build what they've been maintaining, much less design a new one. Just because they know how to fix a part and put it back doesn't mean they'd know how to build one if given all of the parts, even someone with decades of experience wouldn't know how to do it. Even if they received training in shuttle building they'd be lousy at it because they'd have so little practice at it that it would be faster and easier to just go back to the nearest Starbase and get a new one or have one shipped out to them on another ship.

 

[Riceball]

You're not mis-remembering anything. From the first season episode 'The Cloud'.

CHAKOTAY: We have a complement of thirty eight photon torpedoes at our disposal, Captain.
JANEWAY: And no way to replace them after they're gone.​

And yet they fired them with little concern, maybe never in the same carefree manner that we would see the Enterprise firing them but certainly never any mention of making each shot count since they have so few with no way to replace them. It would be interesting to rewatch the series and count the number of PTs fired and note any mention of somehow making more and see if the numbers add up or do they run out well before the end of the series.

I think that the problem stemmed from a combination of lazy writing (doing things without thinking about the possible repercussions given their circumstances) and a possible lack of understanding of how photon torpedoes actually work, Because of the VFX and the way they appear on screen I suspect that many writers didn't realize that photon torpedoes weren't energy weapons like phasers and was actually an expendable munition.

 

[Treadwell]

It would be interesting to rewatch the series and count the number of PTs fired

Did you not watch the video I posted that started this conversation? post 98

 

[Riceball]

Did you not watch the video I posted that started this conversation? post 98

I must have missed it, now I'm going to have to go back and track it down to watch.

 

[Riceball]

I just watched that Voyager photon video and it was as I suspected, the writers never bothered to keep track of the number of photon torpedoes fired. Now I wonder, did they ever mention acquiring new ones at any point, even adapting other tech to make more or was 38 supposed to have been it throughout the series?

 

[The Terminator]

Great music 123 torpedos, that is definitely more than the 38 :lol

Maybe I'm mis-remembering because they explicitly stated at the start of Voyager that they couldn't replace torpedoes or shuttles (and we all know how that went). Really, by the time they got home, Voyager should have looked like a kitbash of all the parts they'd had to scavenge/modify to replace stuff that broke or ran out.

It should have looked like it did during the "year of hell", basically

And they lost at least 10 shuttles.

 

[Treadwell]

The unfired high yield and biomolecular ones could have been reconfigured back to standard, that would knock the deficit down a little. But only a little.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Did they replenish from the Equinox?

--Jonah