Colonialism. Star Trek.

From a post on Google+, which posited, that the Prime Directive from Star Trek was/is a safeguard against European and American colonialism.

The Prime Directive is a safeguard against any and all colonialism — not only European and American, but also those events of colonialism that are taking place now. Trouble is, that large EU members' leaders do not seem to be taking any notice.

In terms of rhetoric, past European and American colonialism is discussed often to the exclusion of colonialism of other nations and sociums, such Japanese and Soviet colonialism.

The bigger overall issue is any colonialism, especially that which is performed by peoples who possess nuclear weapons. Some of that colonialism is overt, some more insidious. See VOY:Displaced, a very useful episode. It started slowly...

Europeans and Americans themselves reflect on their own past colonialism (note that not all European nations were colonialist), as they are now mostly enlightened enough to do such reflecting. And also because it's history, and this history is now further in the past. (Or is it?) The distance of this history, of course, permits other nations to talk about European and American colonialism.

Yet some large and non-enlightened nations are very keen to usurp this reflective narrative to their own selfish and nationalistic purposes. And this is dangerous.

There are nations that actually do colonise, while at the same time they would feel insulted, if told that they do this, and if told that their colonialist behaviour is such. As it is with colonialism, people of such conviction do not respect the native language(s) and native customs of the country.

Voyager: I really would have kept Kes

This is a comment to a poll post on Google+.

AFAIK, the powers that be introduced Seven, but then were short on money, so they had to remove either Kim or Kes, but Kim's actor was named one of "50 most beautiful people", and so it was Kes who had to leave.

Instead, I would have definitely kept Kes, but given the actress some time to recover from the stress of work during the show's hiatus.

And as one of "50 most beautiful people" that season, the actor who played Kim would have been easily lapped up by another show.

So, I would have certainly kept Kes as part of the primary cast, because Kes was the soul of the show. Imagine the friendship between Seven and Kes :-)

I would either have removed Kim, Neelix, and Chakotay (and maybe Tom) from the show, or at least from the primary cast, and given them recurring roles instead.

The PR spin would have been about keeping the show within budget.

And in-universe, there would have been a realistic story depicting discord within the crew about having a former Borg onboard, while at the same time they met USS Equinox or another old Starfleet ship.

Preferably, I really would have given the pink slip to Kim, but the episode "Nightingale" showed another potential future path for Kim et al.

One. Drone. Voyager. Borg.

This is in reply to a thread in IMDb about actor Todd Babcock, who played in Star Trek: Voyager episode "Drone".

In one of my earlier posts, I'd listed several cute guys on Voyager, and "Mulcahey" made the list.

In "Star Trek: Voyager", "Drone" is one of the show's best episodes, and it could have been the beginning of a longer arc, given that "One" was based on the DNA of Ensign Mulcahey (Babcock).

While "Drone" the episode was more-or-less whole, they could have expanded the storyline in order to explore the fact, that "One" and Ensign Mulcahey were essentially relatives, and this could have been the base for additional drama.

Since "One" was so valuable because of the superior technology he possessed, then USS Voyager running from the Borg could have been the leitmotif for at least half a season. The ending would have been somewhat predictable in the story arc's grand telemovie two- or three-parter, but at least it would have kept viewers on the edges of their seats, and given the series a substantial ratings boost.

Given all of the above, a much more complicated and expanded Delta Quadrant would have been on order.

I should be perplexed, that they didn't make this storyline at least into a two-parter, but the show's standard was to have self-contained episodes.

Todd Babcock looked good enough to be a regular on the series, and maybe even Seven's date and an eventual beau. Given the fact, that starship Voyager was already so far into deep space, it's not inconceivable to speculate, that Mulcahey might have already been in a relationship with someone.

In episode "Collective", Voyager encounters a Borg cube full of child drones, who have been rejected by the actual Borg Collective, because the young drones are immature, and therefore unimportant. The story ends with the destruction of the cube.

Given the presence of such a large cube, there are several flaws in the story:

1. First off, Voyager could have gotten itself another transwarp drive from that cube, and gotten closer to home.
2. Secondly, the writers could have chosen to have the cube disabled instead of destroyed by malfunction, and the cube could have been appropriated by the Voyager crew to accelerate their way home through hostile Borg territory (this can always be conjured up from hammerspace); essentially masking themselves as Borg in order to avoid assimilation and possible certain death.

Were One per above premise kept alive longer, and included into that cube appropriation development, then the stories going forward could have been extremely interesting; Many of the unimportant episodes of Voyager would just not have happened, and the series' run could even have been extended by one or two seasons, with changes in primary crew. Even "Endgame" would have been very, very different and much more exciting.

Handsome men of Voyager

Right, so, this was inspired by this tiny poll at Google+. Took me a while to compile the list.

I've looked through Memory Alpha's USS Voyager personnel list, and found 13 (yes, thirteen) men, who were handsome during Voyager's run.

Unfortunately, the hairdos of crewmen look particularly dated (oh wow, it was all 20+ years ago), and so it's impossible to tell if and how they would have looked more handsome with nowadays' hairdos.

Gleaned from USS Voyager Personnel at Memory Alpha wiki. I'm not going to include pictures, but I might link to more of them sometime later.

Listed in no particular order:

1. Crewman Yosa;
2. Ensign Bennet (KIA);
3. Doug Bronowski and Fitzpatrick (same uncredited actor);
4. Crewman Emmanuel;
5. Crewman James Morrow;
6. Ensign Mulcahey — Cute.. Oh, he played the DNA donor to One in "Drone";
7. Ensign Murphy (security);
8. Ensign Michael Parsons (Command Division);
9. Ensign Tabor (Maquis, Bajoran);
10. Crewman William Telfer (giving him some benefit of the doubt there);
11. An Unnamed male security officer accompanying Chakotay to the Borgified cargo room in "Scorpion, Part II" — I always remember that he stood out during that sequence;
12. Chief Medical Officer (KIA)
13. Unnamed Male Science Officer, who was previously handsome as one Roga Danar in TNG.

Lieutenant Russell was there, too, but he appears to have been handsome in 2366.

I'll also give some benefit of the doubt to Ensign Rollins.

Oh, Neelix, Jonas, Carey, Vorik, Chell, Golwat, and Lon Suder, and most everyone else do not count. So, Very few from Memory Alpha's Voyager personnel list look appealing. And all their hairdos look heavily dated.

Icheb doesn't count.

There wasn't any other place I could post than this blog. Memory Alpha has a non-commercial license, and there might be issues with such a userspace page; and a similar userpage at Wikipedia would have relevancy issues.

This post is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Tuvix

This was essentially an IMDb forum post reply, but I decided to put that up here first, becuse I thought my ideas are just so compelling :gt; to let them go away, as forum posts sometimes do on IMDb...

Janeway had to choose between not keeping Tuvix alive and not having Tuvok and Neelix around. Essentially her obligation was to her crewmembers Tuvok and Neelix, who she felt she had to save. — Especially Tuvok, who was the only one who Janeway could talk to, because no-one else would listen unless absolutely necessary :>

Chances are that if the writers and producers were willing to have Tuvix alongside Tuvok and Neelix, then it would have been quite a bit more intersting a tv show than what dreck Voyager ended up being. I am not sure how it would have fared budget-wise, but perhaps Tuvix could have been made a regular...

My mind went into overdrive around here:

Neelix would be completely sidelined in his cooking duties much to his chagrin (loss of any culinary status and interaction with crew in the kitchen), and then to add insult to injury, Tuvix could have knocked up Kes in very quick order :9 (I wouldn't have minded that after "Warlord", which was Jennifer Lien's best episode). All that would have given Neelix two very good reasons to be extremely jealous, jealous, jealous!!1 :>

But if Tuvix were kept, then I would have done away with Harry Kim (I'd say he should have been assimilated into Species 8472) and Chakotay (assimilated by the Borg). In the process, "Voyager" could have for some time been a battlefield, and its crew desperately caught between Borg and Species 8472 fighting one another, with the poor ship disparately flying to and fro Borg space and occasionally the Fluidic space.

There should have been some reason for Voyager to be the bone of contention between the two big powers. Maybe the super-important Omega molecule (or even a collection of them) freeflying 'round the ship of its (their) own volition, with neither power being able to get it, because of its rather elusive nature...

For all that time, that would have been very taxing to Janeway, who'd end up having PTSD, making multiple mistakes and judgements of error after Chakotay's assimilation — cuz she was secretly pining for him... And the Borg Queen terrorizing Janeway by privately showing the capt'n not just the first time the Borg actually reproduce themselves (by then, Chakotay would be the sperm donor 1+n times). Because of all that, Janeway would probably end up a poor crazy woman by the end of the show. (Kate Mulgrew's chance at Emmys.)

In the end, Tuvok would have become Commander and Tuvix would have gotten some or all of Tuvok's duties (suppose Tuvok was out of commission for a short while, so Tuvix would have gotten valuable battlefield experience). Once the doctor decided Janeway was no good anymore, Tuvok would be acting captain or something. Torres would be second-in-command, Seven of Nine would do engineering.

Chances are also, that Tuvok's impending mental disease issue would have withered away, given that Tuvix was half-Vulcan and 'family' enough to help with the healing. I wonder how that would have looked like... Anyways, if that wouldn't help right away (since Tuvix is only half-Vulcan and might genetically harbour the same disease, which would perhaps emerge much later than in Tuvok), Torres would get command and Tuvok would give her progressively insane advice (which against all odds ends up working).

Tom Paris would still be the flyboy, maybe even literally after accidentally getting into a transporter accident with some flying bug. (Emmys for makeup or even sfx!)

And attrition would have allowed for some new faces (and perhaps also better actors) to emerge to the fore on the ship to replace lost senior crew. Romulans, anyone?

Star Trek: Voyager episodes that made me emotional

This is a post on an IMDb Forum. Posts on these forums may eventually get lost, so I post here, too, just for the sake of showing which some episodes of Voyager I liked.

I won't say cried, because it's corny and mostly I didn't, but definitely misty-eyed and choked up.

In no particular order from all the episodes mentioned here:
"Jetrel"
"Tuvix"
"Drone" (Jeri Ryan's best moments)
"Riddles" (Tuvok attacked by mysterious aliens, loses memory)
"Once Upon a Time" (where a shuttle crashes and Ensign Wildman records a farewell message to her daughter)

"Imperfection" is good, but I can't remember the episode very well. (about 7 of 9 getting too emotional and Icheb worrying about it)

"Lifesigns" was poignant (The Doctor getting to be with a Vidiian woman).

"Innocence" (Tuvok stranded on a planet with kids)

"Remember" was really good (Torres getting memories from an older lady about genocide).

"Timeless" is very good in execution, but Garrett Wang's acting wasn't so much, though he tried.