Kes and the Year of Hell

[Neutral Zone]

Earlier today I watched 'Year of Hell' where Voyager comes into contact with the Krenim. The contact lasted with a year of war.

I remember in an earlier episode ,Before and After' where Kes was going backwards in time she eventually warned Janeway and the crew about the Krenim (whom they had not yet met at that point) and that Kes would put information into the databanks.

What happened to the information and why did everyone forget about Kes' backward journey? Infact where was Kes during this battle?

 

[You_Guyz]

Kes had been written out of the show by this point and because Kes didn't live to be infected by the chroniton radiation, the whole episode "Before and After" didn't happen.
That what I'm sticking with. I would have loved to see what they would have done had Kes still been in the show though, how would it have worked out if she had been there and they did still have the warning?

 

[Anwar]

Probably Annorax's alterations of the timeline during YoH would've caused problems with Kes' own visions, with Janeway maybe talking with her about why events aren't matching her reports. Maybe Kes' exposure to Chronitons that time around would make her immune to the changes and she'd realize something was up ahead of time?

 

[JanewayRulz!]

My take is that Annorax changed the timeline so that when "our" Voyager arrived in Krenim space, that particular sequence of events (with Kes) never happened. I always assumed that having Seven act out the part where she (instead of Kes) finds the torpedo and it blows up means that we are just watching one of many quantum realities.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Gods.

(Sometimes I feel that all I do is pass surman's on this episode.)

In limbo, relatively outside of time, Annorax's crew had been changing the shape of reality for 200 subjective years. Which by even a modest estimate must have seen then deal out "thousands" of temporal incursions transforming the universe ass backwards and back again. We did not see the first few thousand renditions of Janeway and crew under the thrall of Annorax's chronal fumbling because they were just pawns getting pwned.

In many of those timelines which played out, which annorax overwrote, kes did experience the events of before and after and she did get debriefed by Tuvok and upon entering Krenim space they knew to play nice, and not get these peopels goat and get out without their lives turning to shit. janeway was supposed to die in the first Volley. Honestly? Do you think that would make her more aggressive or more passive with these people?

But as long as Voyager remained temporally inert Anorax was above them like a god, giing them enough slack to play out their lives until he groundhogdayed everyione back to starting positions (birth really.) but dealt a slightly hand.

They were never going to meet Annorax so long as kes difused all conflict with the Krenim. They were never going to escape the constant loops Annorax was making them jump through until invented temporal shields and faced him directly.

Which they did.

In the new timeline formed after the destruction of Annorax's temoral weapon, we discovered that the Borg assimilated Anorax, asituating that this was a timeline in shich that he could never rise to dominance because the Borg were suddenly more powerful they they should be because of the events in Star trek XIII First Contact where their interplexing beacon did transit enough data to the DQ to make the Borg of the 21st century night unstoppable in the Delta Quadrant boondocks.

 

[Kai Winn]

i guess the timeline of 'before and after' couldn't materialize because kes left the ship before the encounter with the krenim. no croniton dose, no travelling back in time, no warning to janeway.
in other ones she might have remained aboard, and there they crossed krenim space without as much as a scratch.

 

[Lynx]

The events in "Before And After" took place in an alternate timeline.

Still, Kes's warning should have been there to see. But since they dumped the character and at that point pretended that she had never existed, I guess they just had to come up with a clumsy attempt to erase her from that story too.

 

[exodus]

Earlier today I watched 'Year of Hell' where Voyager comes into contact with the Krenim. The contact lasted with a year of war.

I remember in an earlier episode ,Before and After' where Kes was going backwards in time she eventually warned Janeway and the crew about the Krenim (whom they had not yet met at that point) and that Kes would put information into the databanks.

What happened to the information and why did everyone forget about Kes' backward journey? Infact where was Kes during this battle?

In "Before & After" Kes never encounters the Borg or Species 8472. So what she saw was her furture if she remained on Voyager. Everything for "B&A" to happen relies on Kes being exposed to the Kerniums Kronoton Radiation. If she isn't, then it can't. That's the most important thing to remember to figuring this out.

However, seeing that she does encounter Species 8472 which in turn causes her mental powers to manifest full force, she leaves Voyager and doesn't become exposed to the Temporal radiation from the torpedo in "YOH". If she isn't exposed to the kronoton radiation, she can't time jump backwards. If she can't time jump, then she wouldn't have any memories of the Krenium and all that info becomes non-existant.

Remember, the one rule of time travel is: the slightest change in the timeline can alter ALL the events of the future. Species 8472 is the unknown variable that alters Kes' experances.

 

[Guy Gardener]

8472 wasn't the root variable.

Lots of changes came into effect before they were tapped.

A strong expanding Borg Culture because of ST XIII or Annorax might have been the red letter moments.

i did have a thought yesterday.

kes in before and aafter most certainly WAS NoT temporally inert.

Her flailing about should have frakked with Annorax's experiements.

maybe they chronally castrated her at some point which caused the happy resolution at the end of the episode Before and After, so that their math would work out and they could keep trying to rebuild their empire?

And Lynx, I prefer to think of before and After as the real Voyager story, and what we did eventually see as the next 4 years of programming as the alternate time line.

 

[JoeD80]

I remember in an earlier episode ,Before and After' where Kes was going backwards in time she eventually warned Janeway and the crew about the Krenim (whom they had not yet met at that point) and that Kes would put information into the databanks.

What happened to the information and why did everyone forget about Kes' backward journey? Infact where was Kes during this battle?

Kes had been written out of the show by this point

IIRC, the plan was to have "Year of Hell" as the cliffhanger for the end of season 3, but it got pushed back and then Kes was gone by the time they got to that episode.

 

[exodus]

8472 wasn't the root variable.

I think it was because it's the one factor that took Kes out of the equation. Without her, nothing in "B&A" is possable.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Doctor only had a stiing of new names and grew "hair" because Kes, or maybe Lynnis was sharing his sick bay with him?

GODS!

That dirty old codger wanted to steal Kim's wife!!

....

By the time Kes met 8472, Seven of Nine stated on screen that Borg losses numbered in the hundreds of planets, thousands of cubes and millions of drones.

That's certainly the result of a lengthy conflict.

Several months.

Maybe a year or more?

The Borg expedition into Fludic space could have occurred as early as half way through season 2 of Voyager. And once that happened, the Borg/8572 war was unavoidable, followed by the extermination of all life in our universe, unless as later discovered that that bold comment was just a touch of drama on 8472's part. But nothing kes did in season two had any impact on the Borg or 8472 as they were gearing up for a put down.

One possibility I don't think that I have ever thought of before is that if 8472 was content to stop with the extermination of the Borg and then return home, what if they had done that in the before and after time line? If they'd have wound the war up quick and that that is why Captain Chakotay's Voyager never saw so much as a single cube while trekking though mostly the same space of Janeway did in the alternate timeline we regard to be "prime" or "real".

 

[exodus]

^^So they would have exterminated all life in the universe......................expect for those on Voyager?

 

[Guy Gardener]

"Your galaxy will be purged".

It's a pretty clear statement.

But then, maybe Kes just doesn't get 8472 humour?

SEVEN: If our previous experience is any indication, they will try to destroy Earth.
TUVOK: A logical assumption. They did threaten to purge our galaxy of all life.
JANEWAY: Tuvok, keep working on a way to target their habitat's power source. We're going to need nanoprobe warheads and plenty of them. Seven, see to it.

SEVEN: This species intends to purge our galaxy of all life. It's time you resisted your Starfleet philosophy.

And neither does Seven of Nine.

 

[Neutral Zone]

If all this time changing was going on why was the Voyager always constant, there was never any change to it, except at the end. Voyager is returned to just outside the Krenim space boarders, they are warned that the area is unstable, so Janeway says go around the area. Why? A simple dispute has never stopped her before, usually she works out how much time will be lost by taking the long route.

 

[Guy Gardener]

because the route hiome is the route home.

Unless they found tech or a wormhole, that's how you get tlo earth, straight through Krenmi space.

Superior Borg science and cartography only knocked three years off the complete journey from adjusting the orginal course set in the beginning after Caretaker..

But seriously, how many different ways are there to your grandmothers mothers house from where your sittign right now?

 

[mythme]

There is a small hint within "Before and After" which suggests that the story for "The Year of Hell" was written and probably intened to be filmed before it was decided they would release Lien. In the script, when Kes takes the torpedoes chroniton reading, it is mentioned that the Stardate is 50973 which would have placed this event at the end of Voyager's third season; possibly as the intended cliff-hanger.

When Lein left and Ryan came in, it seems the script was slightly re-written. I could easily believe that it was Kes who was leading around the blind Tuvok originally. It is also of note that Seven, the new "major character" really doesn't have all that much to do in "Year of Hell".

 

[You_Guyz]

Wow, I never noticed that.
I would have absolutely loved to see a YOH if they had actually known about the warning and Kes hadn't been written out (most things would have been better without Kes written out). I would have liked Seven and Tuvok together in YOH though even if Kes was still there, I liked how they found common ground. Their relationship had a lot of potenital but was not explored unfortunately.

 

[Anwar]

Braga originally wanted "Year of Hell" to be the Season 3 finale and last for all of Season 4 (so it would be a real year) but UPN said no, so he had to write Scorpion instead.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Now, what would have been just spiffy if there had been a "Before and After" like Seven of Nine falling backwards through the events of a season long Year of Hell too, if we really wanted to rape Kes' corpse.