Deadlock: which was the real Voyager?

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

"Deadlock" (S2) is one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. This was the first time the ship got pretty trashed since "Caretaker," yes? It also introduced Naomi Wildman who'd be 10 in what, 3 years? Long-term pregnancy, rapid childhood. Now the big question: which Voyager was the real Voyager, or were both ships equally legit? I always understood both Voyager's to be equally real, like cell mitosis, chopping an Earth worm in half and having two, and so on. This means that it didn't matter which Voyager and crew survived so long as one did. Why didn't pristine Voyager just abandon ship via escape pods once the Vadiian ship showed up? Maybe not everyone gets out, but enough one. After pristine Voyager went boom, the survivors could join the Voyager crew, and lots of people would be twinned. Did they ever go looking for Harry's frozen corpse, or is he just forever adrift in deep space? Why didn't pristine Voyager exploding take trashed Voyager with it? When Harry steps through with the baby, why aren't they all dodging as explosion and debris flies through the rift?

Lots of questions with this one.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The two Voyagers were equally real, but if they had both survived then one of them would've had to change their name to 'Thomas'

I love the episode, it's one of my favourites of the early seasons, but I always thought it worked out a bit too clean with no change to the status quo. We got no extra 'duplicates' lingering around and the incredibly serious damage was repaired by next week. Also something like 140 people died in this episode, including the entire main cast, so it's pretty damn bleak. I think that should've had more of an impact on the survivors than 'space is weird, moving on'.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

The two Voyagers were equally real, but if they had both survived then one of them would've had to change their name to 'Thomas'

I love the episode, it's one of my favourites of the early seasons, but I always thought it worked out a bit too clean with no change to the status quo. We got no extra 'duplicates' lingering around and the incredibly serious damage was repaired by next week. Also something like 140 people died in this episode, including the entire main cast, so it's pretty damn bleak. I think that should've had more of an impact on the survivors than 'space is weird, moving on'.

Blame UPN, can't have story arcs, nope nope nope, can't have that, gotta be able to show reruns in random order. I don't know why, but UPN was like extremely anti-arc. By S3, UPN through their hands in the air and said do wha'cha gotta do to save the show. Braga dusted off his "Year of Hell" idea that he didn't get to do on Voyager and reworked it into the Xindi saga.

 

[Oddish]

Since they each hailed from a distinct parallel reality, each was equally real. The Tasha Yar from the "Yesterday's Enterprise" AU was quite real, real enough to produce Sela, despite being from a universe that "shouldn't have been".

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Since they each hailed from a distinct parallel reality, each was equally real. The Tasha Yar from the "Yesterday's Enterprise" AU was quite real, real enough to produce Sela, despite being from a universe that "shouldn't have been".

Neither Voyager was from a parallel world. Tasha in "Yesterday's Enterprise" wasn't from an AU, she was from an alternate timeline. It's how she ended up in the past of the prime timeline, leading to Sela. The future Tasha came from is gone.

 

[CommanderTrip]

If you think about it logically, you can assume the Voyager that was destroyed was the original, and the copy survived with the original Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman, but of course, YMMV.

In the episode, Voyager hits anomaly and is split into two copies occupying the same space, VOY-A and VOY-B.

VOY-A is the pristine ship which emitted the pulses first to stop the antimatter supply from "draining" between the duplicate ships. On this ship, Janeway sees a "ghost" version of Janeway-B on the Voyager bridge. This version of Voyager is boarded by the Vidiaans and ultimately self destructs.

VOY-B is the ship which was being bombarded with pulses before they could start the procedure. Takes extensive damage, with death of Harry Kim-B being blown out of a breach on Deck 15. VOY-B was a few seconds behind VOY-A in terms of actions, and ultimately survives to keep chugging along the Delta Quadrant.

VOY-A must have been original as it had a few second lead over VOY-B, and VOY-B was proceeding down a course of action identical to VOY-A, albeit, with a delay of a few seconds, similar to that of an echo.

The real question I have is: What if the crews attempted to disembark from the ship? Would they both exist in the same space, or would one be out of phase, so to speak? If the former, that means there was a lifeless Harry Kim floating around the Delta Quadrant for a while there.(STO tugged on this thread in one of their episodes) If the latter, that must be some kind of purgatory to exist but not be seen/heard except as a faint apparition by your duplicate self.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

If you think about it logically, you can assume the Voyager that was destroyed was the original, and the copy survived with the original Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman, but of course, YMMV.

In the episode, Voyager hits anomaly and is split into two copies occupying the same space, VOY-A and VOY-B.

VOY-A is the pristine ship which emitted the pulses first to stop the antimatter supply from "draining" between the duplicate ships. On this ship, Janeway sees a "ghost" version of Janeway-B on the Voyager bridge. This version of Voyager is boarded by the Vidiaans and ultimately self destructs.

VOY-B is the ship which was being bombarded with pulses before they could start the procedure. Takes extensive damage, with death of Harry Kim-B being blown out of a breach on Deck 15. VOY-B was a few seconds behind VOY-A in terms of actions, and ultimately survives to keep chugging along the Delta Quadrant.

VOY-A must have been original as it had a few second lead over VOY-B, and VOY-B was proceeding down a course of action identical to VOY-A, albeit, with a delay of a few seconds, similar to that of an echo.

The real question I have is: What if the crews attempted to disembark from the ship? Would they both exist in the same space, or would one be out of phase, so to speak? If the former, that means there was a lifeless Harry Kim floating around the Delta Quadrant for a while there.(STO tugged on this thread in one of their episodes) If the latter, that must be some kind of purgatory to exist but not be seen/heard except as a faint apparition by your duplicate self.

Scary thought what if neither ship is the original, neither is the duplicate. Imagine taking a glass of water, pouring half in a 2nd cup, half in a 3rd cup, then topping off both cups. Which is the original glass of water? I feel like that is what happened to Voyager. It's entirely possible that at the moment of duplication, they began to diverge in actions and circumstances. If the duplication was instantaneous, one Voyager would not be seconds or minutes behind the other. I would love to what Braga was thinking with this one.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

Ignoring how the novels re-connect things, I always assumed that both were halves of the "real" crew, like a fertilized egg splitting into identical twins.

 

[matthunter]

The stakes might have been higher if the two Voyagers had more time to diverge. The IDW Transformers comics played with this using the ship Lost Light which was duplicated after an accident with her quantum engines. Similar to this ep, the story is used to replace a dead character, though the plight of the duplicate ship is glossed over more since:

Spoiler

Everyone except the replacement version of Rewind has been brutally murdered by the Decepticon Justice Division. Though the discovery that the dead body of Brainstorm has a hidden Decepticon insignia does lead to some plot developments.

 

[Orac]

Sorry, but you're all wrong. Neither Voyager in this episode was real, they're both total fiction.

 

[CommanderTrip]

Sorry, but you're all wrong. Neither Voyager in this episode was real, they're both total fiction.

Unfortunately, have to point out that you are wrong as well. Voyager would be science fiction

 

[Paul Weaver]

The biggest issue I have with Deadlock is the amount of energy in Voyagers ovens -- one overloaded and "vaporised an entire pot roast"

Starfleet ships really need fuses. To deliver that much energy in a short amount of time would be something like a megawatt of power for say 5-10 seconds. That's orders of magnitude more than a kitchen needs, and even if Neelix had tapped into the replicator power systems a few months earlier, the engineers really should have fixed this major safety hazard.

As for the "real" one, that would presumably be the non-damaged one which blew up -- the Vidieans could detect it and board it.