When Voyager returned home, she brought with her shields and weapons from 23 years into the future. These tools are clearly far in advance of anything the usual suspects in the Alpha Quadrant possess.
So, what would be done? Would the Federation keep the technology? Would they consider it temporal contamination and destroy it?
As for the whole Voyager's future tech thing, I can see a situation that parallels the Pegasus incident. Officially, the Bureau of Temporal Investigation would probably come and site the Temporal Prime Directive and either destroy or lock away the technology. Of course, you'd have some Starfleet Admiral(s) who believe that, with Starfleet probably still in shambles after the Dominion War, that they should use everything at their disposal to protect the Federation, and they'll somehow steal away some of that future tech and do experiments with it or whatever, and then they'll get busted.
Or something like that.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
If the principled Janeway doesn't destroy it first, the Temporal Investigations guys from "Trials and Tribbleations" will try to do so, and will likely be supported by the more conservative part of Starfleet. After all, the Dominion War had been over for more than two years at that point.
On the other hand, there will always be those who'll say that another Dominion War isn't something they can afford to be unprepared for. They'll push for the technology to be kept, and maybe a compromise will be reached in which the technology will be stored somewhere in a high security location until needed most. Sure, as Krenim said, the Nasty Admirals (tm) will probably try to get their hands on it and do stuff.
Then there's also the 29th century time police who could choose to intervene and simply destroy the weapons when nobody's watching. Personally, #3 seems most consistent with the way the writers have chosen to forget about so many other technologies and technical solutions discovered in random episodes.
posted
Personally, I think the Timecops from the 29th century are morons. They let the Holodoc keep his mobile emitter, didn't bother erasing the memories of Janeway and Seven after "Relativity", and if they knew that Voyager would be bringing back all sorts of toys, they wouldn't have let Admiral Janeway leave in the FIRST place.
Actually, if anything those guys are probably only really concerned with stuff originating in THEIR century, and as such wouldn't care about something happening that was STILL centuries in their past. So, I think the temporal mash that Voyager caused over its seven years would be mostly in the jurisdiction of the people in that century, and as such they couldn't do much about undoing it.
So for Voyager, the Temporal Investigations people would probably get a hold of all the tech and lock it away, and slap "Don't ask me how I got back - it's a Temporal Prime Directive thing" stickers on all the crew's foreheads. Then they'd either wait for someone from the future to take it away, or destroy it themselves, making a lot of brass very angry.
However Mojo, if you want to get another explanation of what they could have done with the future technology, then you may want to wait for the release of the Voyager relaunch novels starting late next year (I think - anyone have a solid release date?). I dunno how Pocket Books works, but since the novels are supposed to tell the story of what happens following "Endgame", they may want to keep a thing or two consistent.
posted
Perhaps this is an instance of a "predestination paradox;" the only reason Starfleet of the future had such technology is because "Voyager" of the past brought it back.
Personally, I hope we do not see the technology again. The "super-shields," as a visual effect, looked worse than the Batmobile shields featured in "Batman" over 10 years ago. Besides, the concept of little boxes on the hull turning into a huge metallic cover is just stupid, in my opinion. As for the "uber-torpedos," what is next? A giant laser that can blow up entire planets with one shot?
Though my preference for the fate of the technology requires a lame, cop-out explanation, I would write off its non-appearance in future Treks as the result of the Temporal Prime Directive, just so we do not have to see it again. In fact, I would probably not even offer an on-screen explanation, I would just let "tech fans" debate over the technology's fate . . .
Registered: Oct 2001
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
Ya, that's probably the meat and potatoes of that debate.
But if you want an absolute concrete air tight answer:
Wait for Star Trek: X
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Considering this topic continues to be debated online on a fairly frequent basis, I'm assuming no spoilers for Trek X have leaked indicating that the Enterprise-E will show up with Batmobile armour and ass-whomping spatial torpedoes. I haven't been reading Trek X spoilers beyond the fairly light stuff, so I'm probably not the best to talk, though.
Personally, were I given the choice, I'd assume they don't continue on. For starters, getting Voyager's crew home early is a breach of the TPD on one level, but changing the balance of power in the quadrant is another entirely. While Janeway was irrational here and there, I don't think she was willing to do something that abusive to that natural flow of history. (Indeed, if "The Void" is any indication, Janeway would be quite ready to toss away technology that she had come in contact with through less-than-morally-white means.) Perhaps all the uber-torpedoes were used-up and the armour stuff needs a finite number of magic beans to make it deploy and the Admiral only brought enough for one deployal [is that even a word?].
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
Magic beans... I like that!
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
so thats what powers it..
ooh.. it could be a whole story in itself.. we know that the 29th timecops are bunglers.. in Future's End Braxton lets his ship get captured then he lets the Doc keep his mobile emitter then in Relativity they need 7 to do their dirty work. .they let everyone remember what happened, even though they have the ability to abort the whole problem before it happened (and DO, in reference to Braxton).. plus in Double Time, Braxton is short sighted enough to let the Enevians get the better of his trying to contain Calhouns ill-considered slingshots.. PAD even writes a nice crack about his 'multiple shortcomings' ( an alternate version of him joke, im sure)
so lets say they try to recover the goodies. But they screw up.. and fracture the timeline somehow so that some of Voyagers crew doesnt remember this, discontinuities start occurring and they have to fix the mess before the whole continuum collapes.. it has dramatic potential..
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Well, 'em big guns and armor is a problem all by itself, yes. But people seem to be forgetting the other problem the "Endgame" solution created. Namely, the two Janeways managed to piss off the Borg worse than ever before.
It would make sense for the Borg to now see the Feds as a real threat. No more pussyfooting around with single cubes on intricate missions of reconaissance or time-tampering. A good solid invasion with, oh, a dozen cubes should finish off Starfleet and its allies easily enough. The Feds cannot discount that possibility, not when Janeway can stand witness to such assaults and their success against civilizations more advanced than the 2370s UFP.
I'm pretty sure that even the most enlightened UFP decisionmakers would happily waive all temporal protection laws (And most of the civil rights [Heck, they could even accept a salary decrease! Or perhaps I shouldn't exaggerate.]) in order to have the one and only Borg-proof technology installed on a greater number of Starfleet ships.
Whether the known time-traveling agencies would interfere is another matter, but it's pretty much clear that if they do, then Earth gets assimilated. And Braxton's timecop organization and Daniels' folks both seem to be associated with Earth somehow, so they wouldn't want to take away Starfleet's new toys.
Frankly, I don't want to watch what happens next in the TNG era. I want to jump forward a couple of decades or centuries to check if the Feds are guerilla-fighting desperadoes without a homeworld, or an almighty galactic superpower with allies and adversaries on a wholly new level.
posted
I'm currently participating in a fan fiction project that is set 25 years after DS9, and we had a bear of a time trying to figure out what to do with the "Endgame" technology.
In the end, we decided that Starfleet would be extremely foolish to just throw away the technology, considering the enemies that are out there and the thrashing they'd just gotten from the Dominion. Plus, we've seen that a larger number of officers in Starfleet have become more practical, willing to bend the spirit of the law to achieve the "greater good." The safety of the Federation is sufficient reason to not repair the timeline by destroying the advanced technology.
However, I also doubt that any time-travelling tricks would take the technology away from the Federation involuntarily. Admiral Janeway only cared about getting Voyager home, and flouted the Temporal Prime Directive enough that I doubt she'd care about cleaning up the mess by planting some sort of "trojan horse" in the tech so that it couldn't be used later. For instance, there was really no reason for Admiral Janeway to give Voyager those transpatial torpedoes, anyway. All she needed to do was get Voyager through the Borg transwarp hub; she didn't need to piss the Borg off as well by blowing up a number of cubes.
Also, I think we can rule out interference from the future for a number of reasons. Mainly, because they didn't interfere with Admiral Janeway in the first place (unless you count Krenim's "Series ?" version of events ). So why would they worry about the technology afterwards, when the largest mess (probably) was Voyager getting home in the first place.
Another problem with the armor and torpedoes, is what happens to the Federation's allies and the other races? Are they going to get the technology too, or is the Federation going to try to keep a monopoly on it? I think that there would be a serious interstellar incident resulting from this, either way; with Starfleet ships achieving a power at least an order of magnitude greater than any other ship in the quadrant, it not only upsets storytelling but also the balance of political and military power. Sure, the Federation is the "good guy," but that doesn't ensure stability. For example, other races could form a big alliance against the Fed just to counter their newfound immense power.
Mojo, I have a request if you end up doing images of starships deploying that "Batmobile" armor. Could you restyle it a bit so that it includes some features of the ship? I thought that the design looked extremely ugly when the armor was deployed, it covered up the beauty of the starship. The shape isn't enough.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I'm not sure how useful the future tech would be against the Borg now. They did manage to assimilate Admiral Janeway, and now know how the technology works. The only reason I think that last transphasic torpedo worked (the one Voyager used to blow up the sphere from the inside) was because the Collective had other things to worry about (The Queen falling to pieces, the loss of both Unimatrix One and the transwarp hub) besides adapting to the weapons. I'm sure they've adapted by now, though.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
I had always assumed that the Queen, Janeway and a lot of the Borg infrastructure was irretrievably destroyed.. i.e. the Borg have no benefit from assimilating Janeway or knowledge of her designs.. no one seems willing to say that was the permanent end of the Borg, but we have to admit it was a defeat they should feel the effects of.
But i just came up with another idea.. Admiral Janeway somehow survived, and since the Borg queen was toasted, she is made a Locutus-type administrator.. in a future Voyager story they would have to go up against the assimilated Janeway.. shades of Best of Both Worlds? it would be a helluva show.. like BoBW on crack! they should make that the VGR TV movie.. and then end the Borg shit for good.. they were worried that the Borg were played out after BoBW, and every time since we beat them 'once and for all' and then they come back better.. and the original problem remains.. its just bad storytelling to have to continuously up those stakes to the point it becomes repetitive.. VGR did great stuff with the Borg, and explored all of the off-key non-major-battle eps they could, a la 'I,Borg'.. its probably time to finish them off
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
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Ok, A call to arms! I need some help here, folks. Believe it or not, I'm having a very tough time tracking down reference of the Borg Cube model from Next Gen. I've got plenty of screen captures from the show, but I'm looking for model referece.
My usual sources are scouring their archives, but that could take until after the holidays.
Does anyone out there know of anything?
A credit in the book awaits ye who can provide :-)
There's also an extreme closeup of the FC model surfacing in the TNG Sketchbook, pages 216-218, wit hthe TV version on page 219. The sphere is also shown on page 207.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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