Near the end of the show Voyager is onits way home and being pursued by a borg ship. They say the nearest exit leads to the delta quadrant. The next thing i know Voyager is back in the Alpha quadrant within the borg sphere. Could someone explain to me how this happened?
1) When Janeway ordered Paris to stand by for maneuvers, we were supposed to think that she had decided to once again sacrifice the chance of getting home - she would take that side exit and save the ship. But perhaps she simply did a little illegal U-turn on that exit ramp and ended up being behind the Borg sphere?
2) Or, considering that during the final Starfleet-Borg battle we apparently saw an inside view of the sphere, perhaps Janeway in fact ordered the Voyager to fly INTO the sphere, through that prominent opening we saw on the Borg ship's "bow" a moment earlier? The Voyager would then have been freed as the sphere exploded from around her.
I have no idea what the writers originally intended to happen, but clearly the execution of the scenes was sloppy.
Timo Saloniemi
As a matter of fact, I think it would have worked better if, despite future Janeway's good intentions (read: callous disregard for disrupting the timeline for personal reasons), Voyager still ended up in the Delta Quadrant, perhaps even back where they started from. Imagine the scene:
Janeway: "Where does the nearest corridor lead?"
Paris, Tuvok, or Kim: "Back to the Delta Quadrant."
Next scene: Voyager exiting a conduit into the orbit of a planet.
Janeway: "Where are we? What planet is that?"
Tuvok: "Sensors & galactic maps read...the Ocampa homeworld..."
Everyone stares at the two Janeways. Then both Janeways stare at each other with an "oh shit, we just fucked up big time" look on their faces, as the scene fades to black.
Oh yeah. Now that's good storytelling.
[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: Dukhat ]
Borg Sphere chases Voyager to destroy it, preventing it from returning to the Alpha Quadrant.
Paris finds route back to the Delta Quadrant, which they must take for *mumble* reason. Crew prepares to do the brave and noble thing.
Borg Sphere, finding its weapons still not quite up to the task of blowing up Voyager in time, thinks to itself: "Vell, Ms. Janevay. Ve have vays of making you stop."
Borg Sphere swallows Voyager.
Collective disrupted by galaxy's largest Denial of Service attack.
Borg Sphere coasts to the end of the Alpha Quadrant conduit.
Voyager blows its way out.
Rejoicing.
This is how I have come to interpret the scene. Admiral Janeway gives the Borg a big Denial of Service attack (as Sol System so eloquently puts it). As the Admiral and the Borg Queen trade their baseball cards, Voyager is in the transwarp conduit. In a nearby conduit, a Borg sphere manages to hotwire a better antenna using a calculator, duct tape, and some chicken vindoloo. That sphere manages to get the Queen's instructions: get that damn ship!
So, we're in the conduit headed to Earth. The Sphere is closing in on Voyager and attacking her. Janeway knows that Voyager can't take much more, she decides that she's going to head them out of the Sphere's path and (unfortunately) back to the Delta Quadrant. At this time, however, the Sphere opens her assimilation bay doors and shallows Voyager. Insert oral sex joke here.
Instead of reversing course or whatnot, the Sphere decides to go on through and exit the conduit near Earth. She's likely planning on them high-tailing it back to the Delta Quadrant, assimilating Voyager and her crew on the way. However, the Sphere encounters the fleet of starships and Voyager manages to fire off one more torpedo -- destroying the Sphere.
Once Voyager was trapped inside the Sphere, the crew obviously projected that the Sphere had not changed course and was still headed to the Alpha Quadrant. Thus, once the Sphere is back in normal space, Paris's reply is that they ended up right where they expected: near Earth. They managed to fire that torpedo at that moment to escape the Sphere and fly to safety of her Starfleet brethren.
A lot of the confusion would have been erased had they actually showed Voyager getting shallowed and the crew talking about the predicament. Instead, the director and editor opted to build tension and suspense. Their efforts backfired as this was really just a confusing jumble of images that prompts, "What the hell?"
quote:
That Noriega thing, good. Berlin Wall thing, good. Dan Quayle, still gaining acceptance. Tax increase, BAD! BAD!- Dana Carvey as George Bush on Saturday Night Live, late 80's or early 90's.
quote:
Originally posted by Dukhat:
Imagine the scene:Janeway: "Where does the nearest corridor lead?"
Paris, Tuvok, or Kim: "Back to the Delta Quadrant."
Next scene: Voyager exiting a conduit into the orbit of a planet.
Janeway: "Where are we? What planet is that?"
Tuvok: "Sensors & galactic maps read...the Ocampa homeworld..."Everyone stares at the two Janeways. Then both Janeways stare at each other with an "oh shit, we just fucked up big time" look on their faces, as the scene fades to black.
Oh yeah. Now that's good storytelling.
I think that that would have been beautiful and a real change from the normal "happy ending" senario that Star Trek series' suffer from. It would also have made for a great start to a possible Voyager Motion Picture. Still, they got home and that's that. No more Voyager for us and certainly no Voyager movie . . .
I got to admit though, i tried to imagine what it would be like to be on that bridge, geting home after seven years.. I would probably be pretty dumbstruck, just like they were.