Barzan Wormhole?

[Crewman47]

Saw the episode "The Price" last night and I started to wonder what might have come about storywise if the writers had decided to have the other end of the wormhole fixed permantley on it's position in the Delta Quadrant? Would another series have been made around it or would it become part of a story arc in TNG (I don't think there were that many of them)?

One thing that would be different though would be that Voyager, 5 years later, would've been able to use it there and then when they discovered, it also does mean that Voyager may have met a Federation ship early in the season if Starfleet decided to explore the DQ, thereby having Voyager get home even earlier.

What do you suppose would've happened if this is how the episode ended, with a stable fixed position in the DQ?

 

[Timo]

Well, Star Trek is built around the idea that ships move at warp speed (aka "speed of the plot"); availability of a travel method of any other speed would be disruptive to the story structure, and would warrant some sort of a dramatic nod.

Killing the wormhole like they killed the Iconian transporters was good for TNG drama. But the writers could have resurrected the wormhole at their dramatic leisure, like they resurrected the Iconian transporters for DS9 "To the Death", and many fans would have gone "Aah! Ooh! Continuity and arcs!" (I know I would have ). If they felt like doing a spinoff, they could very well have written DS9 around the Barzan wormhole and Barzans, rather than the Bajoran one and Bajorans. It would just have been a poor choice economically, as Barzan makeup would be clumsier and more expensive than Bajoran...

I think the same "rules" would have applied, no matter which wormhole was the first stable one made available to the UFP. The locals would go from nobodies to somebodies, everybody would want to profit, and Starfleet would step in and mediate somehow. A static presence instead of a roaming starship would become the center of the story. Some sort of an intriguing lead would be followed from Alpha to Delta, leading to the uncovering of deep secrets and previously unknown connections between the histories of the Quadrants. A frightening new enemy would be encountered on the other side eventually, perhaps several, and the action would spill to the Alpha side.

The main adversaries on the Alpha side would not have been the Cardassians, but the offscreen Chrysalians might have been turned into an interesting species with an interesting history. The Ferengi would probably have been external enemies rather than comic-relief insiders. And so forth.

I'm sure a good set of writers could turn any random reference from TNG into a spinoff show by tying it to half a dozen other random references and spinning a good tale around it. I think the Bajorans vs. Cardassians thing was one of the top things to be used in this manner, though. It might have felt more forced with the Barzans...

Timo Saloniemi