What continuity errors are there on Voyager?

[Luther Sloan]

I always keep hearing that the continuity on Voyager is horrible. That things would change from one episode to the next.

Well, I don't want to get into a debate. That is not why I started this thread. But I am curious to know what issues there are within the series, though.

Any or all help would be appreciated.


~Thank you.

 

[Shatinator]

Luther,
How much time do you have?

-The Shatinator

 

[Luther Sloan]

I was kind of hoping for the 24th Century type work ethic on this one. You know... the whole mumbo jumbo junk about working to better ourselves philosophy.

 

[Joeman]

I've taken notice of all the mentions about that since I got here as well, and I'd be curious to hear some of it too.

All the talk about "canon" is also new and interesting to me.

I guess I'm really somewhat of a Star Trek hermit, just coming out for the first time and learning what's going on in the rest of the Trek world.

P.S. I've already gathered quite a bit about the "reset button" issue. Never gave it much thought, but I can see how that could bug people.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

As far as the reset button issue is concerned...

1) No matter how badly Voyager is damaged (the multiple Kazon attacks in Season 2 or the "Equinox" two-parter come to mind), the ship is always in top shape the next episode, despite the fact that it is tens of thousand of light-years away from the next starbase. This trope is later often averted in Enterprise, notably in Minefield/Dead Stop and Azati Prime/Damage.

2) The "Space: 1999" syndrome: Seemingly unlimited supply with shuttles, torpedos, energy, and ressources in general. Voyager lost a total of 17 shuttles (not counting the first Delta Flyer) and fired at least 93 of its 38 torpedoes: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/inconsistencies-voy.htm - It must be pretty easy to have replacement shuttles and torpedoes built, even if you're trapped in the Delta Quadrant.

3) The crew complement remains between 140 and 150 throughout the show, despite the fact that the deaths of ca. 33 crew members are shown or mentioned during the seven years. Again, this is later averted in Enterprise: The NX-01 loses almost no crew members in the relatively save years of Season 1 and 2, while it is acknowledged by Lt. Reed that more than 20% of the crew have died during the Xindi mission as of "The Council".

 

[Tiberius]

Of course, to think that a starship wouldn't be able to replace its own shuttles is ludicrous. All they need is energy to run the replicators. They can rig up a solar panel when they are near a star for that, if nothing else.

Same argument for the torpedos.

And they've got repair crews. They can get the hull back in shape with a few panels. We've got no way of knowing that all the damage has been repaired though. I mean, if we watch an episode, it's entirely possible that the secondary command preprocessors that were damaged last week are still being repaired. I mean, since when does an episode start with a complete account of the ship's status?

As for how many crew, is there a list of how many crew were on voyager at the end of caretaker? And how many were killed during the series?

Here's a casualty list I found...

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Of course, to think that a starship wouldn't be able to replace its own shuttles is ludicrous. All they need is energy to run the replicators. They can rig up a solar panel when they are near a star for that, if nothing else.

Same argument for the torpedos.

And they've got repair crews. They can get the hull back in shape with a few panels. We've got no way of knowing that all the damage has been repaired though. I mean, if we watch an episode, it's entirely possible that the secondary command preprocessors that were damaged last week are still being repaired. I mean, since when does an episode start with a complete account of the ship's status?

However, the purpose of the thread was to list Voyager inconsistencies, not to fanwank them away.

Number of crew members The original crew complement of Voyager was 140. VOY: "Nightingale" eventually tells us that "more than a dozen" people died when the ship was pulled to the Delta Quadrant (VOY: "Caretaker"). This includes the first officer, helmsman, chief engineer, chief medical officer and nurse which were all seen or mentioned dead in the episode. The number of original crew members of the Maquis ship is not mentioned in "Caretaker" or any other early episode, although it ought to have played an decisive role when the two crews had to work together at the very beginning. "Repression" creates the impression that there are about 35 of the Maquis left on Voyager, considering that "almost a quarter of the crew" is from the Maquis, and the current crew count is 150. Taking into account the high death toll among the Maquis, they should have been 50 in the beginning, which seems way too many for the small ship. Anyway, in all later episodes the joined crew consists of about 140 individuals again, as mentioned in VOY: "The 37's", after several have been killed or have left the ship. These are too few, if we simply reckon 140-12+2+50-x. I doubt that so many (the "x") were killed in the conflict with the Kazons, which would also leave not enough crew members for the following seasons. The number of crew members even *increases* during the 3rd, 4th and 5th season, although again some people are killed. "Distant Origin" establishes a crew complement of 148, as indicated by the Voth's sensors. 150 crew members, except for Chakotay and Harry, die in the alternative timeline in "Timeless". In the 6th and 7th season the number is constant at 150.

The actual problem is that many more than 150 different faces of actors and extras could be seen. Actually, only very few of the supporting cast and the extras were seen more than only once. Not even established names of crew members (who might be shown or only mentioned) are re-used, although this would be imperative on a small and isolated ship. This is why the maximum number of 150 names was finally reached in the seventh season, according to the now defunct site "Roll Call: The Minor Crew Members of Voyager". So unless the crew frequently change their names (maybe many of them got divorced and now use their maiden names ;-)) and even their faces (I think the Doctor can do miracles ;-)), the inexhaustible crew supply is impossible.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/inconsistencies-voy.htm

The total crew losses of 33 is given elsewhere on the same site.

 

[Garak007]

I thought the crew of voyager managed to find a way to replicate the torpedoes another way using different materials as they stated at the start they could not do this.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I thought the crew of voyager managed to find a way to replicate the torpedoes another way using different materials

Never stated or shown on-screen though. We have Tuvok's statement from "The Cloud" that Voyager has only 38 torpedoes and that they can't be replaced. And we know that Voyager then used far more than 38 torpedoes during the seven years of the show. This makes it a continuity error.

Fanwank theories which explain this inconsistency away exist. But again, this isn't the purpose of this thread as far as I understood the OP.

 

[DevilEyes]

As far as the reset button issue is concerned...

1) No matter how badly Voyager is damaged (the multiple Kazon attacks in Season 2 or the "Equinox" two-parter come to mind), the ship is always in top shape the next episode, despite the fact that it is tens of thousand of light-years away from the next starbase. This trope is later often averted in Enterprise, notably in Minefield/Dead Stop and Azati Prime/Damage.

2) The "Space: 1999" syndrome: Seemingly unlimited supply with shuttles, torpedos, energy, and ressources in general. Voyager lost a total of 17 shuttles (not counting the first Delta Flyer) and fired at least 93 of its 38 torpedoes: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/inconsistencies-voy.htm - It must be pretty easy to have replacement shuttles and torpedoes built, even if you're trapped in the Delta Quadrant.

3) The crew complement remains between 140 and 150 throughout the show, despite the fact that the deaths of ca. 33 crew members are shown or mentioned during the seven years. Again, this is later averted in Enterprise: The NX-01 loses almost no crew members in the relatively save years of Season 1 and 2, while it is acknowledged by Lt. Reed that more than 20% of the crew have died during the Xindi mission as of "The Council".

There are also inconsistencies in the behavior and ethics of the VOY crew. Janeway's strange changes in decision making have already been noted (and even made the OP start a thread about her possibly being bipolar)... Don't get me started on Janeway's actions in the finale - why she now feels that it's OK to break the Temporal Prime Directive to get a better life for herself and few of her friends; and why does she choose that point of time to go back, rather than a previous one, when she could save some other people as well?

But it can extend to the entire crew. One example is Nothing Human, which makes everyone look very hypocritical, as they are arguing whether it's acceptable to use the medical knowledge obtained from the records about Crell Moset, who got them through unethical and criminal experiments on Bajorans... while all that time, the VOY crew never had any problems with using the Borg technology!

The same episode is also an example of the inconsistency in treating holograms and differentiating between sentient and non-sentient ones. The attitudes towards the Moset hologram are really baffling - everyone is treating him as if he is Moset himself and responsible for his crimes, even though it's been emphasized time and again that the Doctor is very different from Lewis Zimmerman, and even though the hologram was programmed by the Doctor himself, based on the Starfleet's incomplete data about Moset, which would make the Doctor responsible for anything that might be ethically wrong with the Moset hologram. Unless the Moset hologram is sentient, which still wouldn't make him responsible for Moset's crimes, but would make him responsible for any of his own views. If that is the case - and it seemed so from what we saw on screen - then the Doctor committed murder at the end of the episode, destroying a sentient hologram for nothing else but having views that he dislikes! But this is never mentioned and doesn't seem to bother the Doctor in the slightest, even when he's fighting for the rights of the holograms.

Speaking of Borg technology, one of the biggest "WTF" plots was Seven using nanoprobes to revive dead Neelix - and this being completely ignored in every following episode. This is huge! Why didn't they use the nanoprobes to revive anyone else? Why didn't everyone else in the quadrant try to get the technology from them? Should we expect to see the people in the Federation being revived after any violent death after VOY comes home?

 

[exodus]

I thought the crew of voyager managed to find a way to replicate the torpedoes another way using different materials

Never stated or shown on-screen though. We have Tuvok's statement from "The Cloud" that Voyager has only 38 torpedoes and that they can't be replaced. And we know that Voyager then used far more than 38 torpedoes during the seven years of the show. This makes it a continuity error.

Fanwank theories which explain this inconsistency away exist. But again, this isn't the purpose of this thread as far as I understood the OP.

..but we also know from "Dreadnaut" & "Warhead" that Be'Lanna, Harry & Tuvok know all the ins & outs of torpedo design and programming. So it's not hard to believe they can build new ones. Seeing how both take place after "The Cloud", we can assume Tuvok wasn't aware of Be'Lanna's capibilities...............but I don't see why. Who else would be building these things other than Engineers & Tactical officers?

 

[Mareika]

There are also inconsistencies in the behavior and ethics of the VOY crew. Janeway's strange changes in decision making have already been noted (and even made the OP start a thread about her possibly being bipolar)... Don't get me started on Janeway's actions in the finale - why she now feels that it's OK to break the Temporal Prime Directive to get a better life for herself and few of her friends; and why does she choose that point of time to go back, rather than a previous one, when she could save some other people as well?

You`ve noticed that too?
Every time when I`m watching "Endgame" I`m wondering about that. It`s the perfect opposite of what Janeway said otherwise. That`s one of the reasons I don`t like "Endgame".It`s a implausible and unworthy ending.

Another issue (not in canon, but also annoying) is the fact that we never heard something about the former Equinoxcrew after beeing on Voyager.

I can see the issues but I love Voyager!

 

[exodus]

There are also inconsistencies in the behavior and ethics of the VOY crew. Janeway's strange changes in decision making have already been noted (and even made the OP start a thread about her possibly being bipolar)... Don't get me started on Janeway's actions in the finale - why she now feels that it's OK to break the Temporal Prime Directive to get a better life for herself and few of her friends; and why does she choose that point of time to go back, rather than a previous one, when she could save some other people as well?

You`ve noticed that too?
Every time when I`m watching "Endgame" I`m wondering about that. It`s the perfect opposite of what Janeway said otherwise. That`s one of the reasons I don`t like "Endgame".It`s a implausible and unworthy ending.

Another issue (not in canon, but also annoying) is the fact that we never heard something about the former Equinoxcrew after beeing on Voyager.

I can see the issues but I love Voyager!

I'm surpised you didn't make the connection.
Years of staying in the Delta Q. turned Janeway into Ransom.

The longer she stayed lost there, the more she lost faith and she knew that. She didn't want to come home to Earth and die the hardened cynical person she became. She spent years saving strangers but couldn't save herself. Sisko would have ended up the same way if he didn't have the Prophets to guide him. It was Trek's way of giving Janeway post tramatic stress disorder, which should be natural for anyone in her position. Adm. Janeway = Vietnam Vet.
Just the psychological and physical abuse the crew recieved at the hands of the Hirogen alone in "The Killing Game" is bound to leave anybody mentally screwed up. How many other times before and after than has Janeway been kidnapped & tortured?

 

[Garm Bel Iblis]

Well Janeway's morality and the continuity errors of the torpedoes and shuttles and hull damage are quite different things.

Janeway was at most a hypocrit. From "The Swarm" Tuvok tells her she's violating Starfleet regs by intruding on a hostile power against their wishes. She says, "Well we're gonna be doing a lotof that. Same thing when she enters Krenim space and almost gets them all killed.

The she comes along to Ransom andjudges him on his depserate measures. But then becomes Ransom but all is forgiven because she brings the croutons to the party after all the killing.

Janeway was a very reckless commander, justifying her means to get her crew home no matter what it took. But she tried to present herself as a reg-following pinnacle of Federation morality and not the headstrong James Kirk that she became.

 

[kathrynjaneway]

One continuity error that's ALWAYS bothered me hasn't been mentioned yet...

What happened to the Borg baby from Collective??? After the Doctor treated it in Sickbay it was never seen again. We saw Icheb in a few more episodes, Mezoti, Rebi and Azan. Why did the baby disappear? Because the writers didn't know what to do with it? I can see that it must have been pretty difficult to make a baby fit into the story, but then why bring it up in the first place?

 

[exodus]

One continuity error that's ALWAYS bothered me hasn't been mentioned yet...

What happened to the Borg baby from Collective??? After the Doctor treated it in Sickbay it was never seen again. We saw Icheb in a few more episodes, Mezoti, Rebi and Azan. Why did the baby disappear? Because the writers didn't know what to do with it? I can see that it must have been pretty difficult to make a baby fit into the story, but then why bring it up in the first place?

I agree with the reasons you gave.
The only reason I think they did the Borg baby thing was to drive home the idea of when the Borg sets it sights on a civilzation, they don't discriminate. They take EVERYBODY.

I just assumed that because the baby was an infant, it had to come from a near by system.
So between "Collective" and the next ep., they took it home.

........or they sent it on an express shuttle to the Vidiians.

It's the same thing with the ex-Borg lady from "Survival Instinct".
Did she die on Voyager?
Did they have a funeral for her?
What did they do with her body?
Is Seska's body still in stasis?

 

[kathrynjaneway]

Right. She said she wanted to stay on Voyager, but why was she never seen again either? But then, the Doctor said she'd only live a matter of weeks. So I'd say we can assume that she actually did die on Voyager. As she said "It's nice to be on a Federation Starship again" she probably was a Starfleet Officer, so it's likely that there was a memorial service the "Starfleet Way". But, of course, we never got to see any of that.

Back to the Borg baby...as cruel as it sounds, it might have been better to let the baby die. That way TPTB would have solved the problem of how to fit a baby into any following episode instead of leaving the fans wondering what happened to it

 

[Delta1]

In Day of Honor, Paris says he's never navigated in transwarp before. But there was an entire episode dedicated to Tom developing, testing, and using a transwarp drive back in the second season. He was such a good navigator he could drop out of transwarp almost precisely where he wanted to be. I don't think this was so much a continuity error as a retcon of Threshold, an abrogation of the episode in its entirety.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Sure, I would have liked some explanations on the show's inconsistencies. However, to me they were still acceptable or explainable in some way.

The extra amount of crew (i.e faces shown & names mentioned) counted on Voyager could have been time travelers or aliens for all we knew.

Heck, maybe the crew number fluctuated from all the time travel incidents they been in.

As for the Doctor killing the Cardassian Program and later defending Hologram rights and freedoms: I personally feel that those two incidents are unique and different by their own right. The holograms the doctor was defending were supposedly self aware and had time to grow outside their original program like himself. They also were not causing Voyager any direct harm either. The Doctor was willing to let the Cardassian Program be destroyed because it was pretty much either him or the entire ship's overall well being.

Also, concerning the torpedo or ship getting fixed miraculously: The crew could have easily created more torpedoes and fixed the ship in-between episodes. Now, maybe the stardates would suggest that there might have not been enough time for them to do such a thing: But who knows what goes on in-between episodes. Maybe they ran into an alien species that helped fixed their ship. Maybe they had a contest to see who could fix the ship the fastest. Maybe the time line was altered without their knowledge.

The thing is that Voyager is the more optimistic or ideal version of getting somewhat stuck far away from your home. ...And I really liked it because of that. I didn't want some dark, gritty, depressing, no hope in sight type show.

 

[exodus]

I don't even know why Crell Moset & having Civil Rights are even in the same sentence as a inconsistancy issue. Since when does wanting equal rights make one oblivious to knowing that members of your "race" aren't criminal? Is Al Sharpton a member here? The EMH wanted equal rights but even in "Flesh & Blood" have became aware that the Bajorian hologram was suffering from megalomania and needed to be put down.

As far as fixing the ship, aren't the replicators tied into the transporters?
How much time can it take to beam a ruined panel back into the replicator, recycle it and beam it back out to the hull? How else would Voyager have gotten all that Borg tech on it during "Scorpion" with no planet to land on? Besides, "Nightingale" shows how the ship is repaired anyway.