Honestly, if it was me i would have laid in a course for the Cytherian home world. They live near the center of the galaxy and are able to move ships rapidly from one quadrant to another, as shown in the TNG episode "The Nth Degree". Very friendly, and only want to learn. If a price is needed, give them all the data you have accumulated from the Delta Quadrant.
If the Cytherian home world was located on the other side of the core, it might have taken them almost the same time, perhaps even longer, if they had to go around.
The question really is why dint they use the cytherian knowlegde just like barkley did to transport enterprise to the cytherian homeworld. Isnt that info in the federation database since they got that 10 years ealry or more that fact that they dint go home same day is astonishting
It’s a huge gamble going 60000 light years, bleeding resources, to a region of space you know is actively hostile against you. For a possibility that you could access a wormhole to get you home. The wormhole was pretty temperamental too
@@scpguy1381 the voyager crew weren't to know. Not sure how 'friendly' the Dominan were after the war either. They could have became more isolationist and xenophobic after the war
@@scpguy1381the federation hadn't even encountered the dominion directly when Voyager got stranded. It would have been 5 years into their journey by the time the peace treaties were signed. If they'd made it to dominion space at any point within that span not only would they not have been able to reasonably get around them (especially with Janeways consistent desire to plow straight through any obstacle in the midst direct path possible), they'd have been lucky if they didn't end up outright destroyed in their first encounter with the jem'hadar or thrown into internment camps for years of constant interrogation, torture, and summary executions. And how friendly they'd be after the peace treaties were signed if they just stumbled upon a Starfleet ship crossing their borders from the other side of the gamma quadrant is pretty up in the air. They'd just lost a war. Do vorta hold grudges? Do founders hold grudges and are they willing to just not tell Odo when they're overseeing things off on the fringes away from the great link? Hell a lot of jem'hadar almost definitely hold grudges so they might find themselves destroyed before it even gets as far as a founder making a decision.
That was the first ting i checked on the Star Charts as well. There was really no appreciable saving in time. So when it came to flipping a coin, Voyager ended up going up against the Krenim, the Kazon, the Hirogen,, The Vaaduar, the Borg , the Vidians and Species 8472. Had they gone through the Gamma Quadrant, who knows who they would have run into BEFORE running smack into Dominion space. They did not KNOW of the dominion, and the space between was a complete blank, they had NO reference to who or what might be there, BUT Voyager had picked up Neelix who claimed to have extensive knowledge of the delta Quadrant and it's races, so they at least had SOME idea what they would face. It was the choice between the path lit by a single candle, and the path through complete darkness.
Random theory: during the war with the dominion, starfleet had a classified plan known to all captains that destroying the wormhole may have been an option to end the war. Knowing this as a possibility, Janeway didn't even consider it as a viable option.
Voyager was already in the Delta Quadrant before the Federation knew about the Dominion. You’ll remember when the Doctor is transmitted through the Hirogen network to the Prometheus that the mark 2 mentions the Dominion War and the Doctor has no clue.
STUPID QUESTION. Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant which was about 60-70 years away from the Gamma Quadrant/s stable wormhole. So basically no time would have been saved .
I think the capricious nature of the Prophets, who Starfleet never really got comfortable with, is also a factor. 55 years is a big investment if you can't be sure the door will be open.
Yeah, it was "stable" _then_ but they didn't know it wouldn't be closed artificially or something else. The direct route, when it's a sure bet, is (to me) worth it over a maybe, especially when it's that big of a deal. They could have gotten to the Gamma quadrant only to find the "stable" wormhole wasn't stable, was mined, or was destroyed. You never know.
@@chemputer Worse, it was stable because the aliens who lived there, who Starfleet doesn't understand, trust or even really like keep it stable. At the point Voyager left they had no reason to believe those aliens wouldn't arbitrarily slam the door, let alone do so because of the problems of trying to communicate with a species who literally has no common frame of reference with you.
Ajay Sharma Sisko found the wormhole and made contact with the Prophets in 2369 at the start of DS9s first season. Voyager’s first season was 2371, around the time the Defiant came to the station and they got the new Generations commbadges.
According to the book Star Charts, the gamma quadrant end of the wormhole was just about as far from Voyagers spot in the Delta quadrant as the Federation.
Add to that the major gamble of not knowing what the status of the wormhole would be when they get there. Even if they didn't know about the dominion, it had only been a year or two since finding it and was the only known stable worrmhole in existence. That means it's "stability" is based entirely on the premise that it hasn't gone away YET. The 70,000 light year option, with hopes of finding some shortcuts along the way, is the much more sensible option.
Add to that of course the real reason, the show runners wanted to keep the two shows as separate as possible. Its also why the Borg didn't involve themselves in the Dominion War. The Dominion was for DS9, the Borg were for Voyager.
@@GreyAcumen And look at it this way...assuming they found "shortcuts" along the way like in the Delta quadrant, by the time they got to Dominion space they would have been at war with the Alpha quadrant, not having any defenses against Dominion weaponry a single bug ship could tear apart Voyager without even a challenge or if nothing else kamikaze Voyager to death
Funny Story: 24 years ago or so, i had started up a small email correspondence with Michael Okuda, I can't remember how I got his email, but he was very polite to answer a few of my emails. Seemed like a pleasant person. I was mainly contacting him on a design I had for a new star-ship and just wanted his approval whether or not it was a good design. He declined comment, stating that, if he did take a look at it, it could be problematic if my design matched something that showed up on any of the shows. I told him, I no aspirations that I would contest that in any way, I just wanted to know if my ship was bad-ass or not. Sorry, the point to this story was, that I made the very same reference to him; "Why doesn't Voyager head for the Gamma quadrant and the Bajoran wormhole? That journey, by my calculations, should only take them, roughly, 50 years instead of your 78 years." The only answer I ever got back on this was something along the lines of, "Hmmmm?? You know what? I guess we just missed that. You're right, that would have been a quicker trip." And that was my one brush with Star Trek fame LOL
I had him as a pen pal for a school project for about a year when I was 8 or 9! He even sent me a few recipe's for a class cookbook project. Antimatter Flambe if I recall was the one we used.
If you are starting a journey that takes a lifetime to complete, you'll make sure that at the end you actually arrive at the place where you want to go. You're not leaving that up to chance.
fair point. imagine attempting to save the 20 or so years by going to the wormhole only to find it long since collapsed and DS9 abandoned or relocated. Suddenly you find yourself faced with the continued journey and the knowledge that none of the original crew will survive the journey. it will be the following generation that will return the ship to the federation, assuming they even survive that long, as the ship gradually loses the skilled crew required to keep it together through the issues it faced.
No. It would take longer FOR TWO REASONS. 1: Voyager would have been anxious about using such a passage. - Bajoran Wormhole discovered Stardate 46379.1 (May, 2369) - First Contact with Dominion before Stardate 48212.4 (March 2371) along with abduction of Sisko/Qwark and destruction of USS Odyssey. - Voyager's Mission into Badlands before being Sent to the Delta Quadrant, Stardate 48315.6 (April 2371) So Federation was already well aware of Gamma quadrant was dominated by Dominion. Starfleet didn't know the extent of "Borg controlled space" but did know the Dominion had territorial holding not to mention already destroyed several starships; Janeway would have been made aware of, Traveling thru Dominion space besides being geopolitically enraging would also be Suicidal. Second, Look at a map of the Milky Way Galaxy, there's gaps of empty space between Galactic arms, THOUSANDS of lightyears long with few stars. Much like the Voyager episode "Night" where the ship is in a 2500 lightyear void, with no contact of others or various ports of call/trade and virtually No interstellar medium to replenish their most essential supply; Deuterium. Traveling 1000+ lightyears with NO hope of resupply. The solution would be to travel within perimeter of galactic arms where stars and presumably civilizations exist not all of them warp capable, traveling where you can stop for supply is a much longer voyage and add 10-20 thousand additional light years making it EVEN Longer to go to the wormhole.
Excellent point. I imagine most Starfleet captains accepted the idea of a stable wormhole with a grain of salt, especially at first. Hard to believe Janeway would have had enough faith in its stability to risk nearly doubling the length of their journey for the sake of saving only about 12.5 years.
The sheer length of the trip had me always wanting to see an episode exploring what the trip would've been like for an alternate-dimension version of the ship and crew minus all the shortcuts. A 75 year voyage would've made _Voyager_ a so-called "generation ship" - assuming that the crew was aged 25-40 upon departure, they would be absolutely elderly on arrival, even by 24th century standards. The active crew would mostly be composed of their children and people that they had picked up along the way, very few or none of them having any firsthand experience living in Federation space. Interesting concept, wouldn't you agree?
That's similar to the situation of being on foot away from home. You can walk straight home, through familiar neighborhoods. Or walk through neighborhoods you don't know, to a bus stop that is a shorter distance away. You know the first route, but unsure of the second. You have to think about the possibility of the bus not showing up for some reason, like the possibility of the wormhole not being there for some reason. If Voyager showed up in the Gamma Quadrant, and couldn't use the wormhole, their trip would have doubled. Me, I'd rather take the slightly longer, more guaranteed route.
And familiar... I'm an Artist, Musician and Programmer,.. i'm so in my head, I get lost easier than those Ants in 'ANTS' when the Leaf fell on their 'trail'!
@@RequiemPoete No. Once Voyager gets to the Beta Quadrant (half way mark), it's familiar. They'll encounter Romulans and Klingons. Going to the Gamma Quadrant would be almost 100% unfamiliar.
I think you’ve hit on the reason in this video: traversing the Delta Quadrant followed by the Beta Quadrant gives Voyager a fighting chance, as the Beta Quadrant contains familiar species and familiar territory; whereas going to Delta to Gamma Quadrant route means traversing two unknown regions, in the hope that the wormhole is still there once they arrive. Janeway chose the route that was more likely to be successful because it cuts the risks down to a relative minimum.
not to mention the known risk of traversing Dominion space at the time they were catapulted into the Delta Quadrant. And not knowing how far towards the Delta Quadrant the Dominion spread, but it was suggested by many encounters in the Gamma quadrant that the Dominion ruled the ENTIRE quadrant
The nature of the Dominion was not known to Voyager at the time it was lost in the Delta Quadrant. A single Borg ship could have destroyed Voyager if it had taken the route through the Gamma Quadrant, without the ship acquiring some protections beforehand (7 of 9's intel, the tech from fluidic space, etc).
@@unremoved You forget at the time all they knew of Borg territory was that they were active SOMEWHERE in the Delta quadrant a few years travel from the Federation borders thanks to Q's warning disguised as douchery. With what they know at the time, Janeway actually decreases the chance of running into the Borg by heading towards the Gamma Quadrant.
I am so glad there as so many ST fans that can map things out so clearly and who have so much info to offer up. It’s really awesome to see how invested people are in this show. You guys are great!
When Seven and Kim created the Astrometrics Lab, Seven managed to plot a quicker route home based on Borg alphanumerics. If she thought it was quicker to go to the Bajoran Wormhole, she would have done
@@kadindarklord Writers missed an opportunity to have a comedic moment for Seven going along the lines of decrying their first season decision to head for the Beta quadrant.
@@adamskyj69 Oooo yeah! "I've plotted a quicker route to Earth using Borg alphanumerics... however, this would have been irrelevant if Captain Janeway had simply plotted a course to the gamma quadrant wormhole in the first place. Or use the superior technological advantages of this vessel to destroy the Kazon and utilize the Caretaker's Array instead of destroying it with Tricobalt torpedoes that we don't use anymore. Were those the only one's we had Captain?"
Putting myself in Janeway’s shoes, the Neelix factor is most important. Being surrounded by unknowns, listening to someone with knowledge and experience in the neighborhood is the most practical choice.
At the time that Voyager departed they still weren't 100% sure it was a stable wormhole. It was *more* stable than anything they'd discovered until that point, but they had no reason to believe that it would be there in 60 years. They took the guaranteed route.
Also it was already well known that the wormhole was under strict alien control (the prophets) so this increased the risk that it may not be a passageway available to the ship by the time they would get there.
So if your option are go through a mine field where you don't know where the mines are or go around but the bridge could potentially be washed out but you know there is a bridge right now... which option will you take... the route you know will get you to your destination but will almost certainly get you killed? or the route that might not get you home as fast if the bridge is washed out... but you would still get home it would just take longer but you don't know of any mine fields that is almost certainly going to kill you? Personally I'll take the route that isn't going to get me killed by a known hostile force over going the way that will get me killed.
@@Kaziklu This is a bad analogy, here's how to fix it. There's also "mine field" albeit slightly smaller on the way to the "bridge". It's funny how you just made the other path completely safe. Also making a bridge analogy makes it seem like everything is in easy walking distance where you can just double back, you can't. Because if you get to "the bridge" and it's out you die of old age/starvation by the time you try to take another path. If you actually looked into people who've talked about this before the distance to the wormhole, and the path that they took were almost the same. 40-60 years to the wormhole 70 years as a straight shot.
@@Hotobu What minefield? That is just it when Janeway arrived in the Delta Quadrant the Dominion threat was totally unknown. They had known of no threat at all. So one way was known to be suicidal. The other way had no known threats but the wormhole might not be stable.. but is not showing any signs of instability when you left. So you have two options. One that has no known threats... and one that has a threat that if not for plot armor is suicidal. For Janeway to go through the Delta Quadrant makes her a monumental idiot. So lets use a different example. There are two ways home. One way takes you directly through the yard of a Serial Killer Preper Cannibal that will literally hunt you down and kill and eat you the second you step on his property. If you get past that you have to also go through the a town that has a history of locking people up for no good reason. The other way requires you to go down a road that may have a few towns that you know nothing about. Both will take you the same time... but there is a bridge going the way without the serial killer... that IF it is out means you could be stuck a lot longer than if you were to go the other way if there were no serial killer that would for sure kill and eat you. Which way do you go? The way that will result in you being killed and eaten or the way that you are much less likely to get killed and eaten?
@@MrBubbleJet Has there ever been an episode where the prime directive has so much as been mentioned that didn't involve violating it? It originally just meant hands off pre-warp societies which is good. Everything added to it later is just utter nonsense at best, evil at worst.
Voyager was badly damaged from both the Caretakers array pulling them into the Delta quadrant and the battle with the Kazon. Activating the technology to take them home would have taken several hours to do whilst enemy reinforcements were already on route. There's no way Voyager would have been able to hold the Kazon off long enough. All that would have happened is that the crew would be dead and the Kazon would have both the array and what ever tech they could salvage from Voyagers burning hull.
You know Picard would have negotiated with the Kazon to teach them now to use the array in exchange for using it to go home... Only sabotaging it to blow as soon as they use it to retuen home.
Having the show end at the same place it started would have been a fitting ending, I think. Would have also served as nostalgic advertisement to rewatch DS9 without breaking the fourth wall
@petulant Dramatic irony. Remember the audience knows what the characters do not. The original mission was to go in as SWAT van, find & tow a specific Maquis hot rod to the impound lot, then observer Tom gets cut loose and it's off on the next mission. Instead...
Since it was mentioned that they, probably, would still have encountered the Borg, Seven could still have been easily injected into the series. So, no loss of Seven would have occurred.
I'm pretty sure that the Voyager crew never heard of the Dominion until they were able to have limited contact with Starfleet in a later season. B'elanna and Chakotay got a letter from one of their old Maquis friends telling that that they had been wiped out "By something called the Dominion."
I agree with this, also, in the episode "Message in a bottle" where the Doctor goes to the Promethius, he is told the federation is at war with the Dominion, and he never heard of them. So I would assume, that the rest of the Voyage crew would not have either.
Yeah. Even if they left after the Odyssey had been destroyed it's possible that information was still highly classified and need to know. Since Voyager wasn't going through the wormhole, they weren't considered in need of knowing.
Which time period is first? DS9 or voyager? If voyager is before DS9 then voyager wouldn't know about the wormhole. Was the wormhole open during the Cardassian run DS9 era.
@@v8matey Voyager is 2nd, just over 2 years after the Wormhole was discovered. They definitely knew about the wormhole (as they visited DS9 before getting lost in the Delta Quadrant), and would have knowledge of the Dominion, but the Dominion war hadn't started yet.
They knew that they’d get home in X years aiming directly at earth. Aiming at the wormhole MIGHT save them 20 years, or it might not even be there when they arrive. Thus adding what, like 60+ years? Probably just not worth the risk
Abra Kadabra's response was pretty much my response too. They projected 70 years to Federation Space, so the time to the wormhole would be 55 or so? The wormhole had only been stable for less than a decade, so they couldn't really count on its still being open when they got there. On the other hand, the direct route to Federation space is more of a sure thing.
Agreed that the best reasoning is that it’s unknown if the wormhole would still be around by the time they got to it. However it’s still a plot hole that it was never mentioned. Chakotay: “what about heading to the Gamma Quadrant wormhole?” Janeway: “it’ll take us 55 years to get there, it’s stable now but it might not be for that long.” Chakotay: “good point.”...and that’s it, plot hole filled.
It seems that the Voyager writers were under instructions to avoid all mention of the Dominion. They are mentioned twice - once when Chakotay calls them "an ally" of Cardassia, once when an EMH mk2 tells the Doctor about them. It should have been the Jem'Hadar on board the Prometheus.
"Set course for the Gamma quadrant wormhole" "But captain, the Gamma quadrant hasn't been fully mapped so we're not entirely certain of it's position? Besides, it may collapse in the 60 years it takes us to get there" "Shut up Paris"
The Galaxy is not a perfect disc at its “edge “ but instead has spiral arms … with large areas of empty space between. From this perspective we should view voyager as a large wagon, the areas with stars as dry land and the areas without stars as empty seas rivers or lakes. Voyager is in constant need to replenish its resources , something it cannot do in very deep space. Therefore it is not possible for voyager to plot a straight line course to the Bajorian worm hole’s terminus in the Gamma quadrant as that would require it to cross the void space between spiral arms several times… where as a voyage back to the alpha and Beta Quadrants border is achieved by traveling along the spiral arm it is currently on and traveling through the denser packed main mass of the galaxy . The safest and easiest path is rarely a straight line
Similarly, and the thing that always bothered me when people reference these star charts, is everybody treats these things as if they are flat maps charting land. The galaxy is a massive three-dimensional object that's not just 100,000 light years across, but also about 1000 light years thick. So any journey across its breadth has to also account for its depth, which could tack on thousands of light years depending on the angle.
Voyager did play a very small role in the dominion war when they prevented the prometheus from being taken by Romans. Likely not a significant event, but consider the ship was an advanced starship it likely saw action following that incident and played some role in the overall outcome.
Wormhole stability is always questionable in the Star Trek universe. 55+ years through hostile Dominion territory only to find that the mouth of the wormhole has either closed or changed locations would be a very bad investment.
You're forgetting what made the DS9 wormhole a big deal in the first place. It's stable and consistent, barring active destruction by an outside force. It existed in that location for literally thousands of years without *known* issue. That makes it a pretty safe bet. Moreover, given the Federation's history of turning foes into at least frenemies, the Dominion's in the "devil I know" territory vs all those various people that Voyager pissed off along the way.
@@InfernosReaper But with the state of hostility with the Dominion, being a known quantity, it's entirely possible that Janeway, ever cautious, dismissed the Gamma Quadrant=Bajoran Wormhole option, due to too many unknown variables. The Dominions territorial expanse is unknown, but likely comparable to the Fed. The wormhole while being stable, might not be after 55 years, it may have even been purposefully de-stabilised by either the Fed or Dominion during a conflict. There is still a vast swath of unknown territory between their current position in the Delta Quadrant and Dominion space in the gamma quadrant. Thats alot of room for trouble, with definate problems at the other end, compared to similar uncertainty with the beta quadrant route, with another "sometimes" enemy on the other end, the Romulans, yet an enemy with whom Starfleet is more familiar, in colose proximity to a Federation ally (the Klingons, who were still allies when Voyager departed) and the Federation in possible commuincation distance, if worst came to worst, voyager could go around romulan space. I think both options, when weighed, present similar risk, but the one they chose, does make more sense. If perhaps, only just slightly.
InfernosReaper, problem with that is the lack of knowledge as to the size of the Dominion controlled space, and that basically the only intel they had wa sweat they gathered from the world that Bashir visited, what they got from Quark and the Nagus’ misadventure in the Delta Quadrant (the first mention of the Dominion the series), and the fact that three or four bugships rather unceremoniously killed a Galaxy-class cruiser, which is significantly more combat capable than Voyager is when she left DS9. Even if we assume that they had an easier time of it than they did with the route they chose, there would still be 8-10 years of wear and tear on a vessel that would then have to spend about the same number of years dodging Jem’Hadaar bugships to get to the wormhole. Seems risky to me.
Also think about the route - if you assume there is a non-zero risk of the wormhole not being there when you arrive... You've just spent 55 years travelling in the wrong direction! (the Gamma quadrant end of the wormhole is further from federation space than where they started from) Basically, trying to get to the wormhole leaves you NO contingency options. If it doesn't work out you're worse of than when you started. ANY path into the Gamma quadrant leaves you worse off every day you travel in that direction in terms of changing your mind and trying for an alternate plan. It's a BIG gamble, and puts all your hopes on a single wormhole that somehow defies the known logic of wormholes...
@@InfernosReaper you're forgetting all those episodes where they were worried about the wormhole collapsing from natural phenomena or sabotage attempts. it only truly stabilized when the dominion messed with the federation's attempt to collapse it.
I can imagine the crew discussing it. Heading for the wormhole would, if all went well, shave a couple of decades off their journey but it would have been a massive risk in large part due to the inherent instability of wormholes. Furthermore, there's the issue of morale. While many species served on Voyager it was made up of a largely human crew. Voyager wasn't just heading for the Alpha Quadrant, it was heading for Earth. Going to the Gamma Quadrant would have meant moving further away from Earth and even if meant a shorter journey, given that we're talking about decades either way I think it would have been demoralising to many in the crew to be going further away from Earth with each passing day whereas by going in a relatively straight line towards Earth it was at least always directly ahead of them and getting closer every day.
Even "stable" wormholes in Star Trek have the tendency to close and never open again so it would be a great risk to fly in one direction just to come to a collapsed wormhole
The issue with your comment is that the Federation knew for Sure that the Bajoran Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant was stable and not going anywhere. This is due to Sisko having met the Entities inside that created the Wormhole....
@@Ami-vh7sr As far as I know its possible to collaps a Wormhole artificially as they did in DS9 so that would be a risk as well... Also when the Voyager started the Prophets where still a mystery so they couldn´t be sure that they keep the Wormhole open forever
@@man100111 Possibly, but by the time Voyager left and got pulled into the Delta Quadrant the Federation had been sending ships through the Wormhole for 2 years..... Would the Federation had let ships go through on Year to Multiple year assignments through the Wormhole had they not known it was stable?
Jordan Kopal It’s also under the control of aliens with motivations that can not be understood by linear beings, and it was collapsed after Dukat and the Pah-wraiths attacked the Orb of Contemplation. If Sisko hadn’t been able to reopen it, the wormhole would have been a single point of failure in the plan, leaving Voyager as far from home as they started.
@@leonanderson2473 You are sadly functioning upon the idea that the 'Prophets' would cut their 'Emissary' off..... You are also functioning under the Idea that beings who live outside of Time, viewing the past, present, and future all at the same time didn't already know the outcome of the 'Pah Wraith' issue.....
But they didn't actually start there, they started at earth and then went to DS9 on the way to the badlands, Kathryn Janeway visited Tom Paris in New Zealand penal colony on Earth before going on to DS9, Tom Paris was then later shuttled presumably from another ship. We know that the badlands mission was Voyagers maiden voyage and was launched from Earth Station McKinley after being built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards at Mars as seen in later episode 'Relativity' and that Kathryn Janeway was present on the ship prior to visiting Tom Paris. 😁
@@RicStorm616 You made your opinion clear already, and obv mine differs. In my mind, DS9 and the badlands was where they started together. I don't remember seeing them all together on Earth.
I can't believe I've never thought of that question myself. Oh, I know, it's Nelixes fault. He said we should go this way. There's some good food down there and some traders that are friendly. Lol
More likely they had no way of finding or determining the location of the wormholes opening from the delta quadrant side. On the other hand Voyager knows where earth is and how to get there.
Another factor I look at is there is a far higher density of stars on the original path of Voyager. More stars means more potential civilizations with potential technology. Also, more stars means more potential raw materials they'd need to resupply.
JarOfRats that’s actually a really good theory. Long distant road trip, do you go the little bit longer way to ensure you’re not running out of gas on a dirt road in the sticks, or do you go the “short cut” route.
What, how much, and when they need raw materials is less consistent than WTH a warp factor means. Even so, fictional nebulae, M class worlds, etc. are what they care about. And those could be more or less common in an area irrespective of the raw number of stars of all types.
@@patrickmccurry1563 Stars are gravitational attractors, so a higher concentration of stars does kind of imply a higher concentration of everything else, including civilisations, planets of every flavor, and nebulae.
Stars only generate the carbon necessary for life when they reach a particular age. Clustered stars are newer stars & so less likely to be carbon-producers. Counter-intuitively, life is actually more plausible in emptier areas of space.
They need supplies like all the time. They're always trying to set up trade, or mine for raw materials, or looking to harness some new technology. They even visit galactic scrapyards and scavenge battlefields. It's usually these kinds of missions going on that initiate the episode's shenanigans.
if I was Janeway, i'de made the same decision of not heading for the wormhole. the wormhole had mysteriously appeared out of no where just a few years before. there was no guarantee that come some 50+ years from now it would still be there. if they headed that way and, surprise, the wormhole had closed up then they had another 60+ year trip on top of the one they just experienced.
Agreed, no sane Captain nor Janeway would take that unnecessary gamble which would reduce the trip by about 20% if it worked and increase the trip by about 100% if it didn't.
If i was janeway i would have fought to keep the caretaker array and had a bomb get made so that immediately after sending them home it would explode...
I think that facet of it would be a judgement call. Janeway was an accomplished scientist on top of being a ship's captain and would have had access to the most current information about the wormhole as a potential concern or path of flight for the Marquis she was in pursuit of. The wormhole hadn't suddenly appeared but was know already to have been there all along. It was known to be stable and a very long term stellar fixture. I think the overriding concern would have been the Dominion. They had shredded well defended colonies and a heavily armed convoy already with relative ease. As far as anyone in Starfleet knew at the time Voyager left the Alpha Quadrant the Dominion had complete control over the entire Gamma Quadrant and would obliterate any Starfleet vessel it found. Janeway would have known that Voyager would have been laughably outmatched against the Dominion and be facing them with a crew of elderly officers past their prime and whatever younger officers had been born to the crew and half trained as best as possible during their journey. Add in that she knew they would have been traveling through essentially the entire Gamma Quadrant to reach a wormhole she knew was heavily guarded by cloaked ships...
• The Pythagorean theorem is more reliable than a temperamental wormhole. Ultimately it was as Rick said, between going throw two unknown quadrants or one mostly familiar quadrant and one that is mostly familiar to Neelix. • If they had decided to _Go West_ instead, they would still have had Kes and Neelix, but they wouldn't have had Seven or the Doctor's mobile-emitter.
Yeah, I'm going to seriously under-think this and go for the simplest possible explanation. Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant when all that is known about The Dominion is that it is a vast, technologically advanced and extremely hostile power in the Gamma Quadrant. Beyond that, intelligence about 'The Founders' is as close to non-existent as makes no odds. Janeway isn't above taking risks; but they're calculated ones. Soon after their arrival, she has more than enough on her plate -- most of her command crew is dead, she's trying to fill the gaps with the surviving terrorists she was sent to capture, and she can't exactly book her battered ship in at the nearest Starbase for repairs. Heading through totally uncharted space for the terminus of a wormhole she doesn't even know is still there, and probably through the space of an intensely xenophobic galactic empire. Yeah, but... no.
Well, but in light years, the nearest friendly space station they can encounter is 60000 lys and a Worm hole away. On the other side they have to travel through THREE territories of other species, of which one is hostile and one is a nightmare.
And the borg dominating the delta quadrant are so much mroe friendly for sure... It was a choise of shorter route and dealing with asshole dominion or longer route and dealing the storm that is the borg. Neither are ideal but gambling the dominion won't try to assimilate you into the collective seems the safer way to go. It's not like they didn't know they would have to cross through the very heart of borg territory and at the time Voyager got stranded there was no war with the Dominion. Sure, the UFP and Dominion didn't exactly get along very well but that still makes it a less deadly route then confronting the borg and possibly in the process inviting them to invade again. ("Do not provoke the borg" - Q)
@@roepi The Borg were already planning an invasion of Earth specifically. It is why the Borg had a full fleet at the Unimatrix when Voyager got there in Endgame. They were planning to assimilate Earth in a swoop, since they went to the effort to pop a transwarp portal entrance in Earth's orbit. The Borg only do that for full fleet wide invasions, and the Borg Queen was almost ready to give the invasion order when Voyager showed up. The fact of the reality is, if Voyager goes to the Wormhole, then there is no Earth to go back to, let alone a Federation. Instead of Starfleet fighting a full war against the Dominion starting from the Wormhole, it is a full war against the Borg starting at Earth, with the planet already gone.
Short answer is that Voyager was in the Delta quadrant while the wormhole was in the Gamma quadrant. It was far away no matter what. There I saved you 10 minutes.
Yeah i miss when playing halo youd suddenly get sniped by the (cant remember the name) fo going out of bounds in one of the creator maps. Sometimes theyd just kill you just to mess with you randomly. Plenty of times id be running the map and just die along with my streak. No reason.
@@Nighthawk1066_ yes, the guardians, lol. Miss those guys. I also miss teleporting across the map at light speed into a wall. My fav glitch was being in a wraith getting ready to plow through a a crowd on 8v8, and i get teleported into the sky. I come down and land on them, but their goes my invincible. The glitches were the best part of that game.
there was an episode where three ferengi ended up in the Delta Q, they were last seen in the Price a STNG episode. they had been using the population of a planet, can't remember why, but there was a wormhole involved which brought the ferengi back to the Alpha Q. I always imagine they showed up just as a dominion ship saw them and sent them to the afterlife.
If I were in command I would travel to the Cytherian's from the TNG episode "The Nth Degree". They are apparently in the centre of the galaxy, so closer than earth would be. They have tech that can travel long distances in what seems like seconds. Which has the added benefit of having demonstrated compatatibility with Starfleet technology (unlike that think Turvok stole that ended up not being compatible. As for what information I would trade in return for being taken home, you could trade all the information you have of the space and species encountered up to that point, and trade any new information about the alpha quadrant since they were last encountered.
It's possibly Janeway didn't know about them after all not every SF captain knows everything but even if they have a file that Janeway looks up. It's shown in course oblivion voyager couldn't normally go into the galactic core. The sliver blood copy voyager had to have a massive refit using tech that it would appear that prime voyager never came across. It be like trying to expore the bottem of the deepest part of the ocen in a tinny. They'd be crushed like a tin can
Knowledge of the Cytherians could be classified, because Voyager probably has the logbooks of all other Starfleet ships. Another possibility is the galactic core is too dangerous to navigate.
Presumably, if they had such advance travel the technology, they would already have the information you may have gathered and any historic and cultural information would already have been exchanged during the earlier contact featured in TNG.
I'm not sure Voyager can pass safely through the Barrier, as TOS and TNG established there is a Galactic barrier at the core and one at the rim of the galaxy that does bad things if you pass through them.
Could you imagine if they had done a 2 part cross-over episode where Voyager finally makes it through dominion space to the wormhole and then it picks up on the finale of DS9, and VOY breaks through the wormhole to help out. That would be epic.
I knew this wouldn't happen, but I thought it would have been nice if Voyager picked up some advanced technology or replaced Voyager with a more advanced ship, loosing their original and renaming the new one as Voyager NCC-74656-B and returning in time to help out at the Battle of Deep Space 9. Deep Space 9 with the Defiant, Voyager and the Enterprise-E at the same time in the same place. Now that would have been a finale. Fanboying here, sorry.
Kind of reminds me of an argument I had with this friend of some friends back in college. I think we'd tried dating prior to this, so that might have factored as well. We were watching Star Trek: First Contact on tv, and she was pondering why they chose to make Data's eye blue. I think she intended to try and sound smart, but she didn't know this was the kind of thinking I did by nature. She didn't like when I said it was because Brent Spiner's eyes are blue so they just left the contact out. Then she didn't like when I said because the dead crewman that the Borg Queen took it from had blue eyes. I think I had a few more answers just off the top of my head, and she just got madder at me and changing the parameters of how she meant the question. I just had all the obvious answers.
That's true, but lame unimaginative thinking and boring. Part of the fun is to get into a story and try to speculate about story elements from inside the story's world and logic.
That would have been dumped and very stupid if they would have went to the gamma quad..... They would have ran into the Dominion...... And then they never would have got home 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
@Maintenance Renegade at first I thought this was a plot hole, but I thought about it and I think I have a possible explanation, at least as to why they didn’t use a time delayed explosion to destroy the array. The only weapons in Voyager’s possession powerful enough to destroy the array were tricobalt devices, which (and this requires a bit a of a leap) may need to be fired at the target in order to detonate. Another possible explanation is that Janeway had to be absolutely sure that it was fully destroyed, which she couldn’t be if she wasn’t around to do the destroying.
As briefly touched on at the end of the video, I always figured there was no guarantee that the wormhole would still be open by the time they reached the gamma quadrant; imagine travelling 60,000LY in the wrong direction, only to find out the wormhole is closed for business
I think that theory is a pretty good one. They knew that it was stable at the moment they left, but they were still exploring it at the time. Scientists were interested why it worked and how it worked. Even what was on the other side was a new world for the Federation. There was absolutely no guarantee that it still would be a stable wormhole some decades later. Like you said...worst case you fly in the wrong direction just to land in front of a closed door...and then explain it to the crew that you now have another 30-40 years in front of you...years that you could have skipped if you had gone the direct route. I would say it's 50 : 50 that they throw you right out of the airlock after your speech.
It's a bit like walking 10 miles home, or walking 9.98 miles to the bus stop and taking the bus from there. In the end you take the same time, but one of these brings you closer to where you want to go with each step.
Imagine if they did go to the wormhole (maybe even found a shortcut to it so they werent great grandparents by the time they got there), the wormhole was active so they could go thru... and then we would've had a glorious scene of Voyager emerging infront of DS9 with a hail "Voyager, welcome back to DS9, you've been gone for too long" ...also I felt like they should've expanded on the Voyager landing on earth scene. It was too quick and final. No words from Janeway, no farewells by the crew...felt empty at the end...
It's not really a good theory, because what made the DS9 was that it was stable and had been so for thousands of years, since it was created and maintained by beings of fairly great power, the likes of which most foes of the era couldn't defeat.
and imagine if a wormhole or transwarp conduit had deposited them at the rear end of the romulan Star Empire....who could greet them there but none other than the son (or daughter as the case may be) of Telek R'Mor....who'd made a promise to his/her dying dad to see Voyager safely home should he/she encounter it
Imagine if Voyager was responsible for saving the Federation from the Dominion by providing valuable intel back to the Federation from their journey through the Gamma Quadrant.
I can imagine two additional reasons. First one being that the closer they would get to federation space the easier it would be to establish communication with the federation and receive their assistance as they actually did. Another reason would be the moral of the crew of the ship. When they started from the other side of the Galaxy with the combined crew of two opposing factions the tensions must have been quite high and their moral quite low. To keep the crew together they had to have some goal they all could stand behind and focus on. And what grabs the imagination of everyone involved better than aiming for home. Then getting the sense of everyday getting closer to home. Instead of increasing the literal distance to home that aiming for the wormhole in the gamma quadrant would have meant.
@@patricklyons794 dude I'm 48 & still sexy af... No I'm not sending you pix, just sayin don't age-shame the poor girl hahahahaa Also tho she's a Brazilianare so she can afford to spend the time to look good, have trainers & cooks etc
@@Endeavour255 Species 8472 never seemed to distinguish between species in the Galaxy. Which makes sense as they were the only life form in their universe. They were also very intolerant from what we saw initially.
I love this idea! It's a concept I never thought about. I woukd love to see them make another Roddenberry lore version of trek and give us an exploration of the gamma quadrant.
Imagine what it would have been like for the Voyager crew, after they finally passed into the Beta Quadrant (if they had to take the whole journey with no short-cuts), seeing something familiar for the first time, even if it WAS the Romulans. What an incredible feeling.
Also, I don't agree that the Romulans would have posed a threat. It's more than likely the Romulans would have helped Voyager get provisioned up and return safely to the alpha quadrant. It would serve zero purpose to antagonize the Federation over something like this and more of an opportunity to show good faith in this in exchange for something else.
@@oldtwinsna8347 in one episode the Voyager had contact to the Romulans. Well from the past, but the romulans were not hostile nor friendly. I think they would have to explain theirselfs.
The galaxy is 1,000 light years “thick” on average. I wonder where our known landmarks exist in terms of the z-axis of that map. Not saying it would make up for the distance problem, just a stray thought.
The milky way galaxy (as best known) is relatively (the x-y plane relative to the z axis) flat away from the the center. So cross quadrant interstellar space travel would be vaguely two dimensional in concept. It is closer spacial aspects that would be more 3-D but are usually presented as flat, case in point the shows nearly always show a group of ships (even opposing vessels in combat) with the same "up" orientation. Like why do they never encounter a Klingon Bird of prey approaching with a 90 deg roll from the enterprise, (nope always flat like they are surface vessels on the water)... I think that would have looked cool. P.S. Babylon 5 did the spacial geometry far better.
@@vrooooom4487 Also, the navigation screen on the NCC 1701 in TOS exactly showed that: it was a "flat" screen, but with a pointer, that could be raised or lowered, to show how much you move on the Z axle.
@@martincoates96 even every station/ array appeared right side up, though I guess it couldve just been shown that way 'on screen'. Itd be cool if they arranged to meet at a rendezvous point just for the other ship to show up upside down 😅
This question raises a really cool, crazy point - according to Memory Alpha, any given warp factor is not a relative speed, but variable based on proximity to mass and other spatial conditions. It tends to be faster in relation to more massive objects (thus the slingshot effect) and much, much slower (approaching c*1) in the void of intergalactic space. So as you move away on the z-axis, you move much slower (and become much less likely to be able to mine any dilithium), so the galaxy is effectively a 2d space. So wild to think about.
Actually, there was a heated argument about it. Chakotay wanted gamma. To avoid demoralizing the crew, Janeway and Chakotay went and replicated a coin to flip. Because "the sceenery never changes unless you're the lead dog of the pack," Janeway called heads, and the rest is history.
Memory Alpha lists "Caretaker" as stardate 48315.6 which puts it in between DS9 season 3's "The Abandoned"(stardate 48301.1) and "Civil Defense"(stardate 48388.8). So yes, Voyager would have known the Dominion was hostile at that point and that the gamma quadrant was too dangerous to go near. Let alone the whole "the wormhole may not even be there for all we know" aspect in the time it would take to get there as, until that point, "stable" wormholes were thought impossible and no one knew that one would last as the Prophets kept it going and could close it whenever they wanted. Plus even with the possibility of massive shortcuts and getting past Dominion ships, it would have been a tremendously bad ending if they somehow got there when DS9 had the other side blocked with a minefield. They also likely weren't totally aware of the location of "Borg space" until they got close enough to it to see it, since the Borg typically expanded and relocated their domain constantly. I know Voyager wasn't perfect but I swear some people(as seen in the comments section, not directed at any one person, but several) have an irrational hate of the show- more annoying when it's the crowd that defends that smear of used toilet paper that is Discovery or the trashfire canon defilement that was the Abrams film. Especially since these canon stardates took all of 2 minutes to look up to debunk the "they didn't know of the Dominion" argument(what? I don't remember this stuff! Memory Alpha does the job for me)
Not to mention the intrepid class is almost as close to being a warship as the defiant and bleeding edge tech at the beginning of the show. Definitely a ship that would be really bad to fall into a potential enemy's hand right before a war.
It was the perfect size ship for their journey. Galaxy class would have most of the usable decks for supplies and defiant and nova class would be to small.
I don't think it was that clear at all. "Message in a Bottle" takes place in stardate 51462.0 and the Doctor doesn't even appear to know what the Dominion is. It seems unlikely Voyager would be aware of the extent of the Dominion or the level of threat it posed.
@@populuxe1 The Doctor isn't a reliable source or proof, that they embarked prior to the Dominion. Before the first Voyager's mission, the EMH was basically just a program, that got a "reset" after each use. In the sense of information about the surrounding world, it didn't have the need for updates other than medical progress. Surely not political situation. After he became the main doctor of Voyager, he spent more and more time in developing himself, but that happened after Voyager took their route towards the Beta (and eventually Alpha) Quadrant, not prior. The "Message in a bottle" is another thing, I give you that. But I don't remember that episode, so can't give you counter arguments for that (if there are some, that is).
I think there's also a human element. Feeling you're heading in the right direction is reassuring even if you think it's not the shortest route. The pull would be to plot a direct course to federation space.
The wormhole was also fairly new at that point. It was known to be stable, but would it still be stable in 30 years when they finally reach it? It would be a big bummer to show up in Dominion Space, ask for safe passage to the wormhole, and learn that it collapsed 20 years ago because the Romulans inverted a deflector array or something.
I'd say the easiest answer is kind of... "Meta." It's easier to explain to the audience to set a course "for home" than it is "set a course for a place that's nowhere near home but wherein lies a portal than can get us home 20-something years sooner."
Brian Straight its also the reason a crew composed of dozens of different species (and statistically speaking, probably many humans who were from colonies) always talked about getting home to Earth. Because UPN thought the viewers were morons and would get confused by Tuvok wanting to go home to Vulcan.
@@ianshaliczer Of course, that's like a two day hop if you're not in a hurry from Earth. Earth was like a hub airport for them- look, no one wants to go to Atlanta, but that where you're going to get the connecting flight
Plus, worst-case scenario, the trip takes 50-60 years. There was never a stable wormhole in existence before, and even if the Bajoran wormhole was considered "stable," 60 years is a long time to hinge your hopes on a method of travel that is notoriously unreliable. Not to mention that the wormhole came close to being closed before Starfleet even became aware that Voyager was still out there, and had been kept open only by the will of one of the most alien beings Starfleet was aware of. So even if Janeway were to consider using the Gamma Quadrant wormhole, it would probably be too great of a risk to leave to chance, especially if failure meant adding another 40 or so years on Voyager's trip.
Jeremy Owens The Sol System is in the middle of the sector designated as “Sector 001” because it is (more or less) the astrogeographic center of the UFP... Vulcan and Andoria are in the same sector. It’s also right on the boundary between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. So it’s like being lost at sea in the middle of the Pacific and being desperately trying to get home to Des Moines... when half your crew are from Northern Ireland. Yes, sure, if you are 75,000 LY from Earth, it’s basically inconsequential that you’re 74,984 LY from Vulcan when it comes to travel time. The sixteen light years between Sol and 40 Eridani A can be crossed in about a weekend at cruising speeds for ships like the Enterprise-D or Voyager. It’s just weird that _every_ member of the crew talked about Earth as their home. Approximately half of Voyager’s crew were Marquis terrorists/freedom fighters trying to reclaim their colonies on the UFP’s frontier with the Cardassian Union. They shouldn’t feel so fondly about Earth! Then there’s all the aliens. Of the top of my head, there were at least two Vulcans, a couple Betazoids, a Bollian, and whatever the hell Naomi Wildman’s father’s species was named... I think there might have been a Trill as well.
@@ianshaliczer Yeah, I'm generally familiar with Trek stellar cartography... but it's less like Des Moines, and more like London (presuming the destination was the UK). We're talking about the Capital, not a provincial backwater- plus, it is also the HQ of the military organization they are in- not to mention, Sector 001 could easily be Voyager's home port- they DID start there, after all (while recruiting Paris). (Granted, I couldn't find anything supporting or countering this- aside from being constructed at Utopia Planatia) But, if Earth was their home base, er, port, that would make a lot of sense that everyone wanted to get there, (since military families tend to move with the servicemember).
I'd say Janeway took the route she did because she is a part of Starfleet. They are all about exploring new parts of the galaxy, so being flung into the delta quadrant would be an opportunity that she, and probably the rest of the Starfleet crew, wouldn't want to pass up.
Unofficial maps do place Ocompa "geographically" closer to the Gamma aperture of the wormhole Janeway (and Tuvok) probably knew about The Dominion....Voyager launched a few scant weeks after the Odyssey Incident, likely they decided to give the Gamma Quadrant a wide berth without knowing the extent of Dominion Territory
Honestly the most sensible assumption is that the Wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant was simply as far from the voyager's starting position as the furthest most reaches of the Federation, or possibly Klingon territory. Or even further.
Nope Janeway and Tuvok didn't know about the Dominion. Voyager was lost before contact with the Dominion was made. And remember when the Doctor was sent to the Prometheus. The EMH on the Prometheus told Voyager's EMH that the Romulans have not entered the war against the Dominion. The Doctor responded with "Who?" Then when crewmembers got mail from home. Commander Chakotay got a letter from a friend that was in the Maquis. The letter told him that Cardassia allied with a power alien empire from the Gamma Quadrant. And this power wiped out the Maquis.
I would have loved to have seen this addressed in Voyager, even if it was just a quick throw away line in the first couple of episodes, like someone suggests it but then Jayneway gives reasons for why it’s a bad idea.
Yes, it should have been addressed, even in a quick Q and A where a crew member asked the question and Janeway said that would be longer. Something, anything of this should have been mentioned.
Honestly, it's such a stupid idea it's not even worth addressing. For one, they don't know where it is and have no way to update their maps. For two, they wouldn't be in comms range of the federation until they literally went through the worm hole. Three, wormholes in the Star Trek universe are extremely unstable. Not a single one has ever been open for that long without collapsing, absurdly high odds it doesn't last that long. Four, even if the wormhole was still open the federation doesn't even have control of it and they might not have been allowed access to it anyways.
Wait Wait Wait...) at that point the station was still close to Bajor and thye wormhole had yet to be discovered. Voyager was lost very shortly after leaving the station as they headed out to capture the Maquis. Originally, the Federation took over the station to offer protection while Bajor was recovering from the occupation. A couple of episodes later the "only known stable wormhole" was discovered. It was even hypothesized that the Cardassians would have never left had they knew the wormhole existed. So, at the time Voyager was lost due to its runnin with the Caretaker, no one, including anyone in Star Fleet, was aware that the wormhole even existed. Homework People! Lets do our homework before we run out and make videos based on inaccuracies. Matter of fact, they could have only learned of the wormhole AFTER the Doctor was sent into Federation Space to deliver a message that those on Voyager were still alive. They could only have learned about the wormhole after Barclay was able to establish communication with Voyager through The Pathfinder Project a number of years into their journey.
@@MaxLaingDMP The wormhole was discovered in the first episode of DS9, which was about two years before the first episode of Voyager. Voyager would certainly have known about the wormhole, but would have had limited info at the time.
@@thebatman8895 over the past hour I have sat here in complete embarrassment and humility while forced to ponder how it is I have made such a vast, and monumental mistake in the timeline. Though the easy path would be to scurry away - I will further expose my embarrassment by revealing the fact that for the past 20 years my wife and I cycle through the seasons of each series (minus TOS) averaging around 2 episodes a night about 5 nights per week. Every now and then, as other shows make their respective appearences (The Orville, The Mandalorian, etc), or the time arises to pepper in something from the Marvel Universe, we give Trek a slight break though always returning faithfully to our "staple". The only thing that offers the slightest momentary respite from this most painful, public blunder, is the fact that we literally just made it to the end of DS9 and started Voyager. Before Voyager's "voyage" begins, we see a couple of her crew at Quark's bar as they are handing the viewers over from the "familiar and proven" to the "new and yet to be established" as the sendoff for the new show. Though the way we watch the episodes offers not a reason nor an excuse, the fact of the matter is (as you have brought to mind) the series are not successive as they run partially parallel with a 2 year offset. So, having just "started" a new series, coupled with the fact of the show (Voyager) "starting" at DS9, and having just finished the entirety of DS9 a few days ago, I can only guess that in my eagerness to praticipate in one of these threads, to my detriment, a number of things became conversationally misaligned. What makes this all the more painful is the fact that my position is that of CEO over Project Development. It is literally my job to keep a vast array of facts straight during the development of the large-scale projects we are called upon to forge into existence. Something I have taken great pride in over the years. Having gotten what I injected into a conversation so wrong as a direct result of the incorrect compilation of data - data that I should have had a rather extreme handle on - has really knocked me back on my ass. So, in closing to this self-induced smackdown, thank you for the correction and my deepest apologies for having to suffer through reading that crack-headed submission I initially put forward. Should I ever decide to brave an expedition into such public waters again, I will surly redouble my efforts prior to offering an opinion in an effort to prove my worthyness of being allowed to play along in the first place. Sincerely and without hesitation, Max Laing
Exactly, and why this video is utterly unnecessary. No one would take that chance to save a few years on a generational trip, when there's a good chance by the time you got there that there'd be nothing there for you.
Plus the Dominion threat made it highly likely that the Federation would try and collapse the wormhole. Starfleet captains would have been aware of this scenario.
Also, it was stable for now and perhaps for much of the Bajoran's recorded history which in cosmological time scale is all of 5 seconds in a human time scale. That is to say that it would not make much sense to assume that a few thousand years of stability was not, in fact, a mere short term anomaly in the timeline of an object that for all anyone knows could have been around for billions of years perhaps even dating back to the early universe who knows?
While the Dominion War had not yet begun the Dominion had already closed its borders to the Federation. Shortly before the destruction of the Odyssey the Dominion declared that they would no longer allow Federation vessels to violate their territory. Going to the Bajoran Wormhole would require either a circuitous route around the Dominion or fighting through them. Even without the war it was still a non starter as a route
There's an argument to say that the original route also had the same issue with the Romulans, but I suppose the Romulans are a lot more known and open to diplomacy, and, worse case scenario, they take a couple months detour to pass through allied Klingon space instead.
@@kabobawsome Yeah, I’ve wondered about what their plan was for Romulan space, though like you said it was probably just to go through the Klingon Empire. How they would know where the northern Romulan border was in order to avoid accidentally entering their space I have no idea.
Because Voyager's 75 years journey was to *Earth,* not to Federation space. Even if the wormhole was closer, help from Federation and Starfleet personnel was probably easier to find on the direct route, see the USS Prometheus. But we all know, truth is because it was essential to the plot, and that's that :)
Making it to Federation Space would be the same as making it to Earth. Once in UFP space they would be safe from agressors and only a few weeks from an escorted trip home.
@@RequiemPoete It depends on the episode. If it's essential to the plot to move from the border of the quadrant to Earth, it will take 5 minutes. If the plot is "we are far away, it will take time", it will take time.
From an internal-to-story, logical standpoint - travelling 60 years to get to an artificially created wormhole that is home to non-linear time beings (in the hope that they haven't seen fit to close up shop after all the increased travel within their living room, or that some other power (Federation, Klingon, even Dominion) haven't forced it shut) just to shave a decade off their journey would be foolish in the extreme. At the time they were thrown to the Delta Quadrant, they wouldn't have known how bad the Dominion situation would have gotten, but they DID know that Dominion Space was huge, vastly bigger than the Federation (the next biggest they knew of) and they DID know the Dominion were powerful and aggressive. One Galaxy Class ship had already been handily blown to hell by the point they left on their mission. They also knew that the Wormhole was a home to aliens they couldn't understand and didn't fully trust. It would be a hell of a thing to have made it (somehow) to the Gamma end of the Wormhole, only to find it closed forever, then face another 70+ year journey to get home. The straight line route would have been the surer bet. You don't walk 45 miles to the nearest bus stop to get home five minutes quicker from a presented 50 mile walk - what if the busses have been cancelled? Then you'd have another 50 mile trek on top of your already covered 45 miles. You just walk the 50 miles... in the hope you get a lift from a kindly soul, or something.
Well, yes, they knew of the fade of the Odyssey. But don't forget, that the Odyssey was destroyed, because the federation effectively had INVADED the Dominion space to rescue Benjamin Sisko. That was an act of war. We often tend to see the actions from the Federation side, but what the Odyssey did, was an aggressive move on an unknown empire, that badly paid off. Voyager on the other side could have asked the Dominion, if they are allowed to cross the territory to get to the wormhole - and at the time of arrival would have (which they couldn't know) been greeded with open hands because of the peace treaty and Odo. Yes, it would have been a lucky encounter - but the Dominion are not as dangerous as the Borg...
I'd like to think they'd have encountered an Iconian gateway or two on their way through the Gamma Quadrant. That would have been the ultimate shortcut to look for, really.
Jef Willemsen Assuming Iconian security features don’t force a self destruct and they are able to work a hopefully functioning example of their sub space tech if they find one at all. It’s a long shot.
problem was the single gateway discovered was person sized and also blew up every starship that tried visiting it. Also the federation probably classified that to way above new captain paygrade, though they did tell her about Omega so who knows.
I've always wondered why, when facing a blockade, or a hostile species border or something like that, don't they just fly "up" and over (I know there's no up, but you know what I mean)
It is a little thing called "supplies" they need sources of supplies so you know they can survive and keep the ship going. Well our galaxy is a thick disc so if they fly up enough to clear the enemy territory they will be in true empty space. With no source of supplies. Blows my mind this kind of shit needs to be pointed out. I mean you people watched the show right? They made it pretty clear on many occasions as they were looking for supplies and it was a problem sometimes. And just how many of you never went to school and never formed the common sense that would of brought these details to mind before posting such dumb shit?
Just by the information given in the show itself, we do not know for certain the Bajoran wormhole is closer. Although it would have been nice of the show to discuss it. But even if we assume it was: -Heading for the alpha quadrant means they had more navigation data than for the mostly unexplored gamma quadrant. -There is no guarantee the wormhole was still there when they reach it. -The wormhole could be controlled by a hostile power when they reach it. Since their target is a single point, they can't go around enemy space. -The other side of the wormhole could be controlled by a hostile power when they reach it. It would be quite a nasty surprise to be greeted by a minefield on the other side. I remind you the exit of the wormhole really was mined at some point.
Would be something interesting to point out somewhere in ep 2-5 while they were still close to where they landed. Like if some onboard prefer that route for whatever reasons and they have a big talk and Janeway questions if she should have a vote on it (since the crew will be there for most of their lives instead of a few weeks like promised) It could get an interesting moral showdown that ends with her staying with Starfleet principles etc.
Yeah, what if they did manage through some plot magic to get through to the Bajoran Wormhole while it was still mined. "Yay! We just made it back to DS-9!" "Captain! Sensors are detecting numerous small objects decloaking and heading towards us" "Ships?" "They're too small! It's like they're . . . " "MINES!" *BOOM*
Also I do believe they had mentioned in at least one DS9 episode that while they knew exactly where one end of it was. The other end moves about, either that turned into a plot hole latter or the Dominion developed a way to track it's movements so they could make more stable use of it when they started their war.
@@joelellis7035 They'd have run into the Dominion fleet before then. Of course, by the time they actually got there, the war would've been over and the mines would've been gone anyway.
@@CrossRoadsOfTime If it did that, then the wormhole would've been utterly useless for the exploration and trade that was its primary use before the Dominion war....
The lack of a map and basic rules on distance and travel has always been one of most annoying things about all of Star Trek. That kind of ambiguous thing from the 60s just doesn't work any more, post Got and Expance
Keep in mind that most of the world/space in both GoT and The Expanse is unexplored just like it is in Star Trek. It's just that the geographical ambiguity doesn't matter as much in those stories because they're not about explorers.
A major reason in addition to that is that we're talking multiple series across decades of production with radically different writers, producers, and viewers. Canon has to get "timey wimey" bullsh*tted around in that context. But I agree, that Star Trek never even tried to maintain much internal consistency from episode to episode let alone across seasons.
@@patrickmccurry1563 at least they finally settled on stardates so that unlike TOS, time actually moved forward instead of just some random number that kirk made up
Well, the TOS and the movies have Kirk go for both the edge of the galaxy and the center of the galaxy, without much issue, so during that part, they did more than quarter of the voyager route in days.
I thought this was obvious? The worm-hole leads to the Gamma quadrant, and Voyager was in the Delta quadrant. The distance between Voyager and the worm-hole exit in the Gamma quadrant was almost as far as Earth was to them, and it's not like they'd know for a fact it was still operational by the time they'd get to it.
My thoughts? Trusting a wormhole, even a rather stable one, to remain open for 55 years (and they couldn't count on it being less at the outset) is a gamble. The payoff is a 15 year reduction in trip length, but the risk is 55 years wasted (if it closes in that time). I would think that gambling 55 years to save 15 wouldn't be something Janeway would have done at the outset of the journey. She didn't really favor high risk strategies until later in the show.
I've wondered this as well and personally concluded that it was due to the uncertainty of the wormhole being there or even if DS9 would be under federation control in the 50 years or so it takes to get there. However, now that the Dominion has been defeated I assume that future slipstream journeys to the delta quadrant would launch from DS9 and use the wormhole.
Well: 1) You're assuming it's closer based on flimsy evidence. 2) The series premise hinges on them taking a route through Delta and Borg space. 3) Wormholes are never stable and they had no knowledge of what it's long term state was. 4) Any sudden major change would potentially require heading through the center of the galaxy, which is effectively a nest of uninhabitable star systems, high radiation and giant nests of super black holes. So, a pretty bad plan to try to go after a vague notion that an anomaly may shave off a little time. Only seems better if you apply viewer logic gained after the fact.
i think the simplest explanation is that since we don't have a canon star chart of Gamma that the wormhole is closer to Alpha than the middle and would, from where Voyager started, in the end be as far if not farther than the straight line
Don’t forget, Janeway would have known about the Barzan Wormhole. She also knew it was unstable in the Delta Quadrant but that it remained in one place long enough to possibly get through. She would not have told the crew about this as to not get their hopes up only to be disappointed. This may have been Janeway’s motivation for the course set she did. They did find the Barzan Wormhole, but thanks to Ferengi greed the Delta quadrant side became even more unstable and disrupted the Alpha quadrant end as well.
You could also say it was because Janeway bothered interfering with what was really a small-time exploitation of an insignificant planet by 2 Ferengi shlubs.
The odds of being "delayed" would have been perceived has high with either route. Being "delayed" while getting closer to home is better than being "delayed" while moving away from home (or not getting any closer). Also, the communication ability with starfleet could have taken place (even without the hirogen tech) well before arriving home which would have allowed for significant advantages in many ways. The gamma wormhole would have been an "all eggs in one basket" solution with no other benefits and subject to: "if it doesn't work, now what". Fun video.
True but by the time they got half way to the wormhole star fleet would have developed speeds much faster than warp speed. They would have had a presence in the Gamma and Delta quadrants just for exploration sake and gotten the crew home that way.
@@gravis2000 I don't know about that. The series Star Trek Picard takes place 20 yrs after Nemesis --- I've seen 4 episodes so far and haven't seen any evidence of significant speed tech increases. Maybe I missed it or it is still to come.
@@gravis2000 There was literally one episode of Voyager with Warp 10 (well the Delta Flyer reached Warp 10, not the Voyager herself), that didn't end up well. So higher speeds wouldn't really solve the problem, would it? Unless you would want to end up with a ship full of hundreds of salamander like creatures on board.
It's actually very easily explained, nobody knew exactly where the end of the wormhole was in the Gamma quadrant. At least at the time of Voyager being lost. The Gamma quadrant was very little explored, chances are Starfleet wasn't quite sure the exact location of the wormhole, so searching for it simply wasn't a viable option. The Dominion would have destroyed Voyager if their ship was detected, and they would have been if they were going around asking everyone where the wormhole is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in the show.
They absolutely knew where the Wormhole was, very specifically, at that. In the DS9 pilot, Dax and Sisko figure out their location by using nearby star systems as a reference, and they even utter a specific one by name: Idran. It took literally seconds to figure out. Apparently Starfleet had sent out a probe into the Gamma Quadrant, hell, knowing Starfleet, they sent out several. The systems were obviously unmapped and unsurveyed, but they did know their locations. Coupled with their crazy powerful arrays and deep space telescopes it's almost certain they knew very specifically where the Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole was.
Yeah. They knew where the end of the wormhole was. Also, voyager was in the delta quadrant. It was on the opposite side of the Galaxy from the wormhole
Their primary mission was still to explore. So it would make sense for them to go through the Gamma quadrant and learn as much as they can considering that they might not be able to make it home either way
When you mention Voyager approaching Romulan space, it is directly stated in a later episode of Voyager that the Romulans "have been interested in Voyager for years". They would have known it was coming.
The map you use makes the route to the Gamma quadrant look very sparsely populated with stars compared to the route they actually took. This makes me think we should consider the ability to procure food and other supplies needed for such a long journey.
Fun thought experiment that really highlights the in-universe risk: *All other wormholes are unstable* -- sure maybe this one seems stable but after how 50 or 60 years will that still be the case? If that bet didn't pay off, we're even *further* away now, but that _direct path_, even with 15,000 extra light years is a "sure thing." -- though maybe that's 15 extra years? Yikes. Still ending up 90,000ly away if that wormhole, for any reason, collapsed, would be unforgivable.
Case in point: the one wormhole they DID find onscreen was a few meters across. The reason they didn't beam through it, using a probe as a relay, was that the Alpha quadrant end was located at T-20 Years to the Delta end.
There’s also the fact that Federation Space is a much bigger target than the wormhole, and there’s something comforting about heading in the direction of home, even if it’s not the fastest route.
This is the main reason. Uncharted space, with a rotating galaxy, dwindling resources, no backup, no one to trust, and you'll most likely all die right upon arrival so the physiological implications of the mission are overwhelming. That's why it's called K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid.
There’s another question. The Enterprise D has a specific mission to explore unexplored space. Yet Starfleet never assigns it to the Gamma Quadrant and instead sends it on every mission except the one it’s supposed to be conducting!
Most of the early seasons were spent exploring the edges of UFP space. Picard even makes a comment in an episode to his other captain friend that they'd "been on the outer rim for a while". I think later on in the series tensions were ramping up with the Borg, the Romulans and the Cardassians, so it made sense to put Picard, a master diplomat in more diplomatic, peacekeeping types of missions.
Don't forget how incredibly vast the galaxy is. They were exploring plenty and just hadn't gone out that far yet cause there's just so much to explore.
@@Seetiyan I think also that despite the area of "known space" in the 24th century being pretty large, there were still plenty of blank spots in-between on the map that hadn't yet been charted or explored in depth. So that might explain why Enterprise D was constantly judggling between exploration missions in unexplored sectors and diplomatic missions within explored sectors. They weren't actually doing a ton of long-range, deep space exploration, rather zig zagging back and forth around the little pockets of unknown space that existed between the bigger pockets of charted federation space.
Couple reasons to go the way they did: 1) Space is 3D, and the "short cut" to the wormhole at DS9 may not have been a short cut. 2) It would have taken Voyager close to the center of the galaxy collecting valuable data. 3) Given that Starfleet wouldn't have known where they were, a straight line home would make better sense in order to contact home at some point. 4) Availability of resources. Going from one arm to another farther out from the center gives more space to be crossed without coming across planets for water, food, dilithium, etc.
Counter arguments for the fun of it; 1) Spiral galaxies like our own are flat, so the wormhole was actually closer. 3) wormhole would have allowed them to contact home sooner as it's closer. 4) there's plenty of objects and solar systems to mine all around the outer edges of our galaxy. It's still relatively dense. They weren't on the very edges of our galaxy. Given how fast Voyager can travel, realistically, resources shouldn't have been a problem at any point. Though the show doesn't show this as voyager frequently has issues with resources, so I'm sure the narrative would make this a problem at some point. My major argument for why the wormhole isn't a good way to go is that it's a single point of failure. Incredibly high risk for very little reward (not taking into account the Borg in the other direction).
@@nicholasbrown5013 Yeah it's not true for all galaxies, but it is for spiral. Spiral galaxies are driven by a black hole at their center which drives the motion for most of the galaxy. And I believe that's what helps keeps a spiral galaxy flat. There are other types of galaxies though that may not have a central black hole, and those are irregularly shaped. Some are spherical.
@@nicholasbrown5013 I would also say the term flat is pretty relative. While our galaxy isn't as deep as it is wide, it is still roughly 1000 l.y. thick.
I thought about that, too. That was the first priority and it *may* have left the gamma quadrant out of the picture as a viable route. Ideally, that would have been addressed in the show.
I think you've given a reason already that being the show's route was the route with the most mapped regions. That route had the most data so there was a significantly less likely change at unknown factors, events, ect. even with the large section of unknown space and the slightly longer voyage.
Indeed. And let's face it going for the wormhole option is ridiculous, you are actually heading awya from Federation space, on another decades long journey in the hole a wormhole might still be open. If not you'll be further away than ever and never return in hostile space. vs head straight to your home, a bit longer but the chances of meeting known elements is great and you know for sure you are heading back. Plus for the first part you have a guide who can help and for the latter parts you have known races. Can I also say one aspect of the maps I dislike is how big they are. In the shows if you take Voyager needs to take 70+ years to go in a straight line to get home, then with those maps Federation Space takes more than a decade to cross. Yet we know in days/weeks a starship can make the centres of Romulan space or the Klingon Empire if in a hurry. Heck the Enterprise can go from known worlds to earth in months if needed. Those outlines of the federation and other local empires should be way smaller.
They went the route that Nelix was familiar with. Besides, that's a long way to take to reach a wormhole. Although it's known to be stable, they can't know if it would remain as such. They would be pretty screwed if they showed up at the wormhole only to find the Pah-wraths had taken over or the Prophets closed it up. Therefore, they took the most direct route, but kept a lookout for a shortcut.
I don't think they said in it the episode, but they couldn't leave the Ferengi behind because of the Prime Directive. The Ferengi had interfered with the natural development of a species and they had to do what they could to fix it and then again had to prevent the Ferengi from being able to return and cause further damage.
That is a very good question. They made Janeway mull over some stupid detail of the Prime Directive and let the Ferenghi go back, rather than toss them in the brig under heavy guard and use the wormhole to go back to the Barzan (or whatever) sector, smack in the middle of the Alpha quadrant. Of course, that would have meant the end of the series, but at least the writers could have done a better job at the plot.
@john simmons if memory serves, it would have been safe for Voyager to go back through the Barzan Wormhole if they'd just secured the Ferengi properly. It was the Ferengi shuttle technobabbling out of Voyager's tractor beam that messed what Voyager had done to keep the Delta end of the wormhole in place. It didn't collapse though, it destabilised so that both ends were jumping erratically, rendering it useless.
My understanding was that it was stable until the very end when it was destabilized. They could’ve taken the entire crew of voyager back to the Alpha quadrant. Then the Federation and the Ferengi could figure out what to do with these two bozos and go back if need be.
Also, Janeway was probably THE worst offender of the Prime Directive. Everything from destroying the Caretaker Array to help with the Ocampa (Tuvok even said so) to bringing a war on the Federation by Species 8472 they didn’t even know about. Her actions to save 150 crew members put several star systems and billions of lives in danger of assimilation. Arturus was correct in “Hope and Fear“.
Janeway: [To crew] Crew of the USS Voyager. We are stranded in the Delta quadrant and I aim to do everything in my power to get us all back home. I will use everything at my disposal, including the wormhole in the Gamma quadrant... Kim: Wait, Captain? Why are we going 60,000 lightyears in the wrong direction, taking about 60 years on the off chance that a wormhole might still be there and still active? Janeway: Because we know that it is there, and we know it it stable, and it will allow us to travel back to Deep Space 9 in just a few minutes, saving us about 15 years in travel time. Kim: Um, Captain? Are you unaware of the Barzan Wormhole? Janeway: Of course. [Looks at Tuvok] Tuvok: [Whispers to Janeway] Wormhole in orbit of Barzan II, thought to be stable, until it was discovered that only the Barzan side was fixed in place, and that the far end was not fixed, jumping around. Additionally, the ships passing through the wormhole had destabalised it and the Barzan end alos became unfixed. Janeway: [To crew] I can asure you that the Bajoran wormhole is stable because it is controlled by a race that has no concept of linear time, and they keep the wormhole open. Kim: Um, Captain? Did you ever read Commander Sisko's logs in relation to the wormhole and the beings who inhabit it? They once closed it, because passage through the wormhole was harmful to their species. How do you know that they'll still have it open in 60 years? How do you know that the lifeforms that control the wormhole won't relocate it before we arrive? How do you know that the wormhole won't have destabalised in the time it takes us to get there. just like the Barzan wormhole did? Janeway: [Now annoyed because she hasn't had her coffee yet and her brain hurts from trying to use it] Because I said so, and I'm the Captain, and that means you do what I sa... [Sound of a phser blast followed by the thump of Janeway's body hitting the floor] Chakotay: Okay! Clearly Captain Janeway is nuts, so who's with me for the direct approach? Crew: We're with you, Captain Chakotay. All hail Chakotay, Captain of the USS Voyager. ____ Or, in short. Who the hell, in their right mind is going to go in the wrong direction for upto 60 years in the hopes that something might be available to them, even though there are plenty of reasons for it not to be? Yes. It'll take them 15 years more to complete the journey, but there are fewer variables involved. After a decade or two of going the wrong way, and hence getting no closer to home, the Voyager crew will have reached a point where what Captain Ransom did would seem like a mild social deviation to what the Voyager crew will have gotten up to. By taking the direct route, the crew can point to distance covered and distance remaining, and therefore how long it'll be before they can see those that they care about. People can take little morale boosts by going the direct route, particulary when they get those bigger speed boosts. Counter this by heading to the Gamma end of the Bajoran wormhole. No matter how much time they shave, or distance travelled, they still aren't getting any closer to the Alpha quadrant, and home. Don't know about anyone else, but I'd be upset, and planning a mutiny.
Actually, I mostly agree with everything. Exception being the Romulan reaction to all this. Supposing that Voyager encounters them at some point between the end of the Dominion War and the Hobus Supernova, I could see them not instantly seizing the ship and first asking Starfleet what they thought they were up to. Assuming that they had encountered the Hirogen network along the way, Starfleet would be aware of them, and probably would even have forewarned the Romulans about everything, just to avoid any sort of incident. And yeah, Voyager rocking up out of the Wormhole a few days after Operation Return would have indeed been amazing.
and they spoke to that Romulan from 2351. Although he died in 2367 and we never found out if he arranged for Voyager's messages to reach Starfleet after his demise, it's possible that the Romulans already knew Voyager was out there... and if they didn't before, they likely found out because of the Prometheus incident.
@@ZoeMalDoran Yeah... I think given the possibility of that the Romulans were at least peripherally aware of Voyager. And given Voyager's increased contact with the Federation as they got closer (hirogen network, the array) - The Romulans would have been notified one way or another. I think, at worst, the Romulans would have treated Voyager in a similar fashion to the B'omar (VOY:"The Raven"). "You will have an honor guard at all times, and you must follow THIS path, that avoids highly populated / military / industrial areas. The Romulans may have been a bit less adversarial after the Dominion War, but they('re government) were likely still as insular/xenophobic/secretive as ever.
@@ZoeMalDoran I bet, the romulans knew about it. But they are Romulans. They would have kept that secret for themselves. Perhabs they even would have themselves hijacked the Voyager and seized the ship, if they wouldn't knew, that the Federation is aware, that the Voyager still exists. Don't forget: They never send back the surviving crew of the Enterprise C from 2344, also not Tasha Yar. They are not friendly people, when it comes to their prisoners.
I was right. Captain Ransom stated they traveled 10,000 lightyears in 14 days with the enhanced warp drive. So Equinox should have gotten home in roughly 14 weeks.
@@theindooroutdoorsman But given the reaction to how they'd enhanced it, would Starfleet have welcomed them back . . . or had a similar reaction: "This is wrong."
@@kereminde perhaps some of them were going to turn themselves in and spend the rest of their lives in prison, or else they would've been on the run from Starfleet. Or maybe they would've become space pirates.
Would have probably been the better option in hindsight, as spooky as the Dominion is the Delta quadrant proved to be a utter hellhole. But they didn't know that at the time... Also the real best route would have been "use the caretaker array in episode 1" :)
I remember asking that question after seeing one of those maps that had the Gamma end of the wormhole closer to the Delta Gamma border. Some quick trigonometry had me thinking "Why would you go for a 70-year trip when a known shortcut is 20ish years away?" That map had it so that the wormhole was between Voyager and Dominion space a far more attractive gamble.
Except you need Minkowski geometry to apply to Einsteinian space. How do you think 7of9 had been able to opptimize their trahectory? She had mpre knowledge over dealing with gwravitational lensing and such.
That's an interesting idea. Instead of hiding from the Borg, a different villain could have been the Dominion (assuming they found a shortcut that plopped them in the middle of Dominion space in the middle of the war) 🤔
Voyager would be destroyed. Except for endgame. Voyager never went toe toe against more than one borg ship. Dominion would send enough ships to overwhelm voyager. If that isnt bad enough dominion could just kamikaze voyager like they did the Olympia
@@Shadothecat you mean oddessy. the real issue is voyager left early in their contact w/ the dominion. at this point voyager has the shields that dominion phased polaron beams go straight thru
@@insertcognomen The biggest problem for Voyager when they encounter the Dominion is simply that they don't know the Dominion is an enemy or how big of a threat they are. While Voyager knew the Dominion existed, and was a vague possible threat, they would have been completely blindsided to find that they were in the midst of/had just lost an all-out war with the Federation and its allies.
Go through the Delta with the first few years having a guide, or go west to end up with a likely hostile empire to get to a wormhole that may or may not still be active once you get there. And if it isnt.... you are pretty much the same distance from home. Correct choice was made.
Every time a photon torpedo is fired, an anti-photon torpedo is generated in and unloaded from the adjacent tube. Then they simply reconfigure the power conduits and modulate the carrier wave so it's inverted, and you have a photon torpedo again, ready to quantum-tunnel in an endless series of torpedoes, although some stipulate there only ever has been and always ever will be only one photon torpedo that tunnels through spacetime.
My head canon is just that photon torpedoes can be manufactured, they just weren't set up to do so at the time they said that line. They can replicate all the parts, so it's really just getting the antimatter that's a challenge. A problem which they had to solve repeatedly.
![ปฏิเสธไม่ไหว (Crush on you) - LIPTA feat. No One Else [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NBw1jF342vw/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm pretty confident they would have reached home in 7 years, regardless of which route they took.
They might as well have headed in the opposite direction, for the galactic edge 🤣
Depending on how long they were in the turbolift, it's pretty clear that spacetime works different there.
Um would've been a lot less season wise had they not up the show with Seven, her mother-daughter dynamic with Janeway and the Borg.
@Maintenance Renegade wow cpt. obvious...
drunkrumjack, it was not Seven’s dynamic that had us watching.
Honestly, if it was me i would have laid in a course for the Cytherian home world. They live near the center of the galaxy and are able to move ships rapidly from one quadrant to another, as shown in the TNG episode "The Nth Degree". Very friendly, and only want to learn. If a price is needed, give them all the data you have accumulated from the Delta Quadrant.
I agree with this idea -- definitely shorter and wouldn't add that much time to the total journey if they told them to bugger off.
Of course, nothing lives in the center of the galaxy because of how densely packed the stars are, and the problems that entails...
If the Cytherian home world was located on the other side of the core, it might have taken them almost the same time, perhaps even longer, if they had to go around.
YES
The question really is why dint they use the cytherian knowlegde just like barkley did to transport enterprise to the cytherian homeworld. Isnt that info in the federation database since they got that 10 years ealry or more that fact that they dint go home same day is astonishting
It’s a huge gamble going 60000 light years, bleeding resources, to a region of space you know is actively hostile against you. For a possibility that you could access a wormhole to get you home. The wormhole was pretty temperamental too
By the time they reached to wormhole their would be a friendly Domion with Odo in the great link, only 3 ish years after they left
I agree, the possibility that it might be closed or not existent after 60 years, It's too great.
@@scpguy1381 the voyager crew weren't to know. Not sure how 'friendly' the Dominan were after the war either. They could have became more isolationist and xenophobic after the war
@@ThatanOmega but when Voyager left they had destroyed the USS Odyssey
@@scpguy1381the federation hadn't even encountered the dominion directly when Voyager got stranded. It would have been 5 years into their journey by the time the peace treaties were signed. If they'd made it to dominion space at any point within that span not only would they not have been able to reasonably get around them (especially with Janeways consistent desire to plow straight through any obstacle in the midst direct path possible), they'd have been lucky if they didn't end up outright destroyed in their first encounter with the jem'hadar or thrown into internment camps for years of constant interrogation, torture, and summary executions.
And how friendly they'd be after the peace treaties were signed if they just stumbled upon a Starfleet ship crossing their borders from the other side of the gamma quadrant is pretty up in the air. They'd just lost a war. Do vorta hold grudges? Do founders hold grudges and are they willing to just not tell Odo when they're overseeing things off on the fringes away from the great link? Hell a lot of jem'hadar almost definitely hold grudges so they might find themselves destroyed before it even gets as far as a founder making a decision.
I think in the very early episodes they were relying on Nelix's knowledge of the Delta quadrant and their hopes of finding the other caretaker,.
I legit have no idea why this didnt come up in the video, usually hes more thorough...
That was the first ting i checked on the Star Charts as well.
There was really no appreciable saving in time.
So when it came to flipping a coin, Voyager ended up going up against the Krenim, the Kazon, the Hirogen,, The Vaaduar, the Borg , the Vidians and Species 8472.
Had they gone through the Gamma Quadrant, who knows who they would have run into BEFORE running smack into Dominion space.
They did not KNOW of the dominion, and the space between was a complete blank, they had NO reference to who or what might be there, BUT Voyager had picked up Neelix who claimed to have extensive knowledge of the delta Quadrant and it's races, so they at least had SOME idea what they would face.
It was the choice between the path lit by a single candle, and the path through complete darkness.
@@theendofthestart8179 Simpliest answer is they assumed the federation would find a wayto expand out towards the Delta quadrant over a 75 year span.
I think it also made more sense to head directly home. There’s no guarantee the Bajoran wormhole would’ve been there in 50 years.
@@Oleoay Also true, after all it "just appeared, it could as easily "just vanish"
Random theory: during the war with the dominion, starfleet had a classified plan known to all captains that destroying the wormhole may have been an option to end the war. Knowing this as a possibility, Janeway didn't even consider it as a viable option.
This makes a lot of sense. It was common knowledge in DS9 that the wormhole could blown up relatively easily.
There was no war when voyager left
@@d.w.1567 It's the DOMINION, and that is the only way to alpha in less than 50 years.
Sisko did mine the wormhole
Voyager was already in the Delta Quadrant before the Federation knew about the Dominion. You’ll remember when the Doctor is transmitted through the Hirogen network to the Prometheus that the mark 2 mentions the Dominion War and the Doctor has no clue.
Imagine if they used all their resources to reach the Gamma side of the wormhole in just 7 years, and Sisko wasn't bluffing about destroying it.
Or when they returned they realised that it was lined with deadly mines
Or they get close only to get destroyed by the Dominion.
Or Voyager was the one that took down the minefield lol. Dammit Janeway!!
STUPID QUESTION. Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant which was about 60-70 years away from the Gamma Quadrant/s stable wormhole. So basically no time would have been saved
.
He wasn't bluffing. He tried but was sabotaged.
I think the capricious nature of the Prophets, who Starfleet never really got comfortable with, is also a factor. 55 years is a big investment if you can't be sure the door will be open.
They can't be threatened, bribed, or even understood by humanoids. Trusting your crew's lives to such an unknown over decades sounds foolish.
Yeah, it was "stable" _then_ but they didn't know it wouldn't be closed artificially or something else. The direct route, when it's a sure bet, is (to me) worth it over a maybe, especially when it's that big of a deal. They could have gotten to the Gamma quadrant only to find the "stable" wormhole wasn't stable, was mined, or was destroyed. You never know.
@@chemputer Worse, it was stable because the aliens who lived there, who Starfleet doesn't understand, trust or even really like keep it stable. At the point Voyager left they had no reason to believe those aliens wouldn't arbitrarily slam the door, let alone do so because of the problems of trying to communicate with a species who literally has no common frame of reference with you.
@Ajay Sharma They had Sisko's reports of wormhole aliens who had at best a loose understanding of the physical universe.
Ajay Sharma Sisko found the wormhole and made contact with the Prophets in 2369 at the start of DS9s first season. Voyager’s first season was 2371, around the time the Defiant came to the station and they got the new Generations commbadges.
According to the book Star Charts, the gamma quadrant end of the wormhole was just about as far from Voyagers spot in the Delta quadrant as the Federation.
yeah I think the difference is about 5,000 light years. it was literally a difference between 65,000 and 70,000 light years.
Add to that the major gamble of not knowing what the status of the wormhole would be when they get there. Even if they didn't know about the dominion, it had only been a year or two since finding it and was the only known stable worrmhole in existence. That means it's "stability" is based entirely on the premise that it hasn't gone away YET.
The 70,000 light year option, with hopes of finding some shortcuts along the way, is the much more sensible option.
Add to that of course the real reason, the show runners wanted to keep the two shows as separate as possible. Its also why the Borg didn't involve themselves in the Dominion War.
The Dominion was for DS9, the Borg were for Voyager.
@@GreyAcumen And look at it this way...assuming they found "shortcuts" along the way like in the Delta quadrant, by the time they got to Dominion space they would have been at war with the Alpha quadrant, not having any defenses against Dominion weaponry a single bug ship could tear apart Voyager without even a challenge or if nothing else kamikaze Voyager to death
Funny Story: 24 years ago or so, i had started up a small email correspondence with Michael Okuda, I can't remember how I got his email, but he was very polite to answer a few of my emails. Seemed like a pleasant person. I was mainly contacting him on a design I had for a new star-ship and just wanted his approval whether or not it was a good design. He declined comment, stating that, if he did take a look at it, it could be problematic if my design matched something that showed up on any of the shows. I told him, I no aspirations that I would contest that in any way, I just wanted to know if my ship was bad-ass or not. Sorry, the point to this story was, that I made the very same reference to him; "Why doesn't Voyager head for the Gamma quadrant and the Bajoran wormhole? That journey, by my calculations, should only take them, roughly, 50 years instead of your 78 years." The only answer I ever got back on this was something along the lines of, "Hmmmm?? You know what? I guess we just missed that. You're right, that would have been a quicker trip." And that was my one brush with Star Trek fame LOL
Your a proper star trek stan.
Me too.
But your still looking into this with normal eyes.
7 of 9 was there and the Borg. Her catsuit man...
I had him as a pen pal for a school project for about a year when I was 8 or 9! He even sent me a few recipe's for a class cookbook project. Antimatter Flambe if I recall was the one we used.
@@thomas91169 what he sent the same to u both??
That's what I figured-basically the writers and crew never thought of it before it got locked into stone during production
@@samhilly8518 Not a catsuit. A "dermaplastic garment." ;)
If you are starting a journey that takes a lifetime to complete, you'll make sure that at the end you actually arrive at the place where you want to go. You're not leaving that up to chance.
fair point. imagine attempting to save the 20 or so years by going to the wormhole only to find it long since collapsed and DS9 abandoned or relocated.
Suddenly you find yourself faced with the continued journey and the knowledge that none of the original crew will survive the journey. it will be the following generation that will return the ship to the federation, assuming they even survive that long, as the ship gradually loses the skilled crew required to keep it together through the issues it faced.
No. It would take longer FOR TWO REASONS.
1: Voyager would have been anxious about using such a passage.
- Bajoran Wormhole discovered Stardate 46379.1 (May, 2369)
- First Contact with Dominion before Stardate 48212.4 (March 2371) along with abduction of Sisko/Qwark and destruction of USS Odyssey.
- Voyager's Mission into Badlands before being Sent to the Delta Quadrant, Stardate 48315.6 (April 2371)
So Federation was already well aware of Gamma quadrant was dominated by Dominion. Starfleet didn't know the extent of "Borg controlled space" but did know the Dominion had territorial holding not to mention already destroyed several starships; Janeway would have been made aware of, Traveling thru Dominion space besides being geopolitically enraging would also be Suicidal.
Second, Look at a map of the Milky Way Galaxy, there's gaps of empty space between Galactic arms, THOUSANDS of lightyears long with few stars. Much like the Voyager episode "Night" where the ship is in a 2500 lightyear void, with no contact of others or various ports of call/trade and virtually No interstellar medium to replenish their most essential supply; Deuterium. Traveling 1000+ lightyears with NO hope of resupply. The solution would be to travel within perimeter of galactic arms where stars and presumably civilizations exist not all of them warp capable, traveling where you can stop for supply is a much longer voyage and add 10-20 thousand additional light years making it EVEN Longer to go to the wormhole.
Excellent point. I imagine most Starfleet captains accepted the idea of a stable wormhole with a grain of salt, especially at first. Hard to believe Janeway would have had enough faith in its stability to risk nearly doubling the length of their journey for the sake of saving only about 12.5 years.
@@spikedpsycho2383 I thought about the spiral arms and empty space, too, but you said it much better than I could. :)
The sheer length of the trip had me always wanting to see an episode exploring what the trip would've been like for an alternate-dimension version of the ship and crew minus all the shortcuts. A 75 year voyage would've made _Voyager_ a so-called "generation ship" - assuming that the crew was aged 25-40 upon departure, they would be absolutely elderly on arrival, even by 24th century standards. The active crew would mostly be composed of their children and people that they had picked up along the way, very few or none of them having any firsthand experience living in Federation space. Interesting concept, wouldn't you agree?
What constantly amazes me is the incredible history of Star Trek, your narratives amazing...
If this was a Pitch Meeting, the obvious answer would be "so the show could happen!"
"Ok, then!"
But the Borg are going to be an insurmountable problem, no?
Barely an inconvenience.
"Wormholes are tight!"
@@davegarrett231 artificially constructed one are even *TIGHTER!!*
Literally this.. I wish I had seen this sooner. Voyager just shouldn't have happened.
Then Janeway did a backflip and snapped the bad guys' neck.
Imagine watching DS9, and Voyager pops out of the wormhole. The possibilities are abound.
@Welsh Lad sounds like a catch 22
Nah, they would just head to Earth almost immediately after.
At the time I wondered if that would be how the Dominion War would end - Voyager arriving with loads of new tech that tipped the balance
@@GrahamPointer1972 that would actually be pretty cool
Imagine if the timing was really bad.
Gul Dukat: Welcome, Voyager... to Terok Nor!
Captain Janeway: 😱
That's similar to the situation of being on foot away from home.
You can walk straight home, through familiar neighborhoods. Or walk through neighborhoods you don't know, to a bus stop that is a shorter distance away.
You know the first route, but unsure of the second.
You have to think about the possibility of the bus not showing up for some reason, like the possibility of the wormhole not being there for some reason. If Voyager showed up in the Gamma Quadrant, and couldn't use the wormhole, their trip would have doubled.
Me, I'd rather take the slightly longer, more guaranteed route.
And familiar... I'm an Artist, Musician and Programmer,.. i'm so in my head, I get lost easier than those Ants in 'ANTS' when the Leaf fell on their 'trail'!
Yes...this^
Except in this case BOTH Routes are unfamiliar
@@RequiemPoete No. Once Voyager gets to the Beta Quadrant (half way mark), it's familiar. They'll encounter Romulans and Klingons. Going to the Gamma Quadrant would be almost 100% unfamiliar.
Or you could, you know, call a cab
I think you’ve hit on the reason in this video: traversing the Delta Quadrant followed by the Beta Quadrant gives Voyager a fighting chance, as the Beta Quadrant contains familiar species and familiar territory; whereas going to Delta to Gamma Quadrant route means traversing two unknown regions, in the hope that the wormhole is still there once they arrive. Janeway chose the route that was more likely to be successful because it cuts the risks down to a relative minimum.
not to mention the known risk of traversing Dominion space at the time they were catapulted into the Delta Quadrant. And not knowing how far towards the Delta Quadrant the Dominion spread, but it was suggested by many encounters in the Gamma quadrant that the Dominion ruled the ENTIRE quadrant
Also, they may be able to contact starfleet through the help of the Klingons.
Darth Tyranes Yes! That’s an excellent point! Hell, even the Romulans might have helped out in exchange for maps and other info on the Delta Quadrant.
The nature of the Dominion was not known to Voyager at the time it was lost in the Delta Quadrant. A single Borg ship could have destroyed Voyager if it had taken the route through the Gamma Quadrant, without the ship acquiring some protections beforehand (7 of 9's intel, the tech from fluidic space, etc).
@@unremoved You forget at the time all they knew of Borg territory was that they were active SOMEWHERE in the Delta quadrant a few years travel from the Federation borders thanks to Q's warning disguised as douchery. With what they know at the time, Janeway actually decreases the chance of running into the Borg by heading towards the Gamma Quadrant.
I am so glad there as so many ST fans that can map things out so clearly and who have so much info to offer up. It’s really awesome to see how invested people are in this show.
You guys are great!
When Seven and Kim created the Astrometrics Lab, Seven managed to plot a quicker route home based on Borg alphanumerics. If she thought it was quicker to go to the Bajoran Wormhole, she would have done
They were also quite a ways into the journey at that time. So it may have been from the start, but not by the time they got that.
In-Universe, absolutely. Real-World, they didn't want to end the show that early.
@@kadindarklord Writers missed an opportunity to have a comedic moment for Seven going along the lines of decrying their first season decision to head for the Beta quadrant.
@@adamskyj69 Oooo yeah! "I've plotted a quicker route to Earth using Borg alphanumerics... however, this would have been irrelevant if Captain Janeway had simply plotted a course to the gamma quadrant wormhole in the first place. Or use the superior technological advantages of this vessel to destroy the Kazon and utilize the Caretaker's Array instead of destroying it with Tricobalt torpedoes that we don't use anymore. Were those the only one's we had Captain?"
Assuming, of course, Seven knew bout the womhole.
Putting myself in Janeway’s shoes, the Neelix factor is most important. Being surrounded by unknowns, listening to someone with knowledge and experience in the neighborhood is the most practical choice.
Yes, that would be why, either that or the agreement between Janeway and Chakotay was that they would not go near the Mokkey.
In an insane quadrant, he was the only sane choice 😎
Neelix should have been put out of an airlock at earliest opportunity.
@@jamiemarchant Do you mean the Maquis?
@@teabearchurchill5600 Yes sorry, my spelling is not the greatest.
Janeway didn't have Wesley Crusher on board so she was willing to take the long way home.
Get the hell outta here with your pro-Wesley propaganda
@@Torian1o1 Uh, op was insulting Wesley, how was that pro Wesley?
@@Torian1o1 The joke was that she took the longer root just to avoid seeing him.
Janeway would toss Wesley out of a air lock without a suit.
Shut up, Wesley.
At the time that Voyager departed they still weren't 100% sure it was a stable wormhole. It was *more* stable than anything they'd discovered until that point, but they had no reason to believe that it would be there in 60 years. They took the guaranteed route.
Also it was already well known that the wormhole was under strict alien control (the prophets) so this increased the risk that it may not be a passageway available to the ship by the time they would get there.
So if your option are go through a mine field where you don't know where the mines are or go around but the bridge could potentially be washed out but you know there is a bridge right now... which option will you take... the route you know will get you to your destination but will almost certainly get you killed? or the route that might not get you home as fast if the bridge is washed out... but you would still get home it would just take longer but you don't know of any mine fields that is almost certainly going to kill you?
Personally I'll take the route that isn't going to get me killed by a known hostile force over going the way that will get me killed.
@@Kaziklu This is a bad analogy, here's how to fix it.
There's also "mine field" albeit slightly smaller on the way to the "bridge". It's funny how you just made the other path completely safe. Also making a bridge analogy makes it seem like everything is in easy walking distance where you can just double back, you can't. Because if you get to "the bridge" and it's out you die of old age/starvation by the time you try to take another path.
If you actually looked into people who've talked about this before the distance to the wormhole, and the path that they took were almost the same. 40-60 years to the wormhole 70 years as a straight shot.
@@Hotobu What minefield?
That is just it when Janeway arrived in the Delta Quadrant the Dominion threat was totally unknown. They had known of no threat at all.
So one way was known to be suicidal. The other way had no known threats but the wormhole might not be stable.. but is not showing any signs of instability when you left.
So you have two options. One that has no known threats... and one that has a threat that if not for plot armor is suicidal.
For Janeway to go through the Delta Quadrant makes her a monumental idiot.
So lets use a different example.
There are two ways home. One way takes you directly through the yard of a Serial Killer Preper Cannibal that will literally hunt you down and kill and eat you the second you step on his property. If you get past that you have to also go through the a town that has a history of locking people up for no good reason.
The other way requires you to go down a road that may have a few towns that you know nothing about.
Both will take you the same time... but there is a bridge going the way without the serial killer... that IF it is out means you could be stuck a lot longer than if you were to go the other way if there were no serial killer that would for sure kill and eat you.
Which way do you go? The way that will result in you being killed and eaten or the way that you are much less likely to get killed and eaten?
More importantly, why didn't they just beam timed bombs onboard the Caretaker Array and go back home in the second episode?
Plothole! I thought this from the first episode. Besides this, they violated the prime directive by destroying the caretakes.
@@MrBubbleJet Has there ever been an episode where the prime directive has so much as been mentioned that didn't involve violating it? It originally just meant hands off pre-warp societies which is good. Everything added to it later is just utter nonsense at best, evil at worst.
That’s exactly what they did with the Borg right?
Voyager was badly damaged from both the Caretakers array pulling them into the Delta quadrant and the battle with the Kazon. Activating the technology to take them home would have taken several hours to do whilst enemy reinforcements were already on route. There's no way Voyager would have been able to hold the Kazon off long enough. All that would have happened is that the crew would be dead and the Kazon would have both the array and what ever tech they could salvage from Voyagers burning hull.
You know Picard would have negotiated with the Kazon to teach them now to use the array in exchange for using it to go home... Only sabotaging it to blow as soon as they use it to retuen home.
Having the show end at the same place it started would have been a fitting ending, I think. Would have also served as nostalgic advertisement to rewatch DS9 without breaking the fourth wall
@petulant Why?
@petulant Dramatic irony. Remember the audience knows what the characters do not. The original mission was to go in as SWAT van, find & tow a specific Maquis hot rod to the impound lot, then observer Tom gets cut loose and it's off on the next mission. Instead...
@Pope Marinus III but their original mission was to capture the Maquis ship that was in the BAdlands. It was the natural set-off point for it.
Any theoretical route home that might have prevented Voyager from encountering Seven of Nine is totally unacceptable.
You will adapt.
Since it was mentioned that they, probably, would still have encountered the Borg, Seven could still have been easily injected into the series. So, no loss of Seven would have occurred.
A definite and unacceptable travesty.
Jason Sharp I don’t think I could have turned down Seven’s proposition to Kim if it was me.
@@2bituser569 Take off your clothes, Resistance is futile.
I'm pretty sure that the Voyager crew never heard of the Dominion until they were able to have limited contact with Starfleet in a later season. B'elanna and Chakotay got a letter from one of their old Maquis friends telling that that they had been wiped out "By something called the Dominion."
I agree with this, also, in the episode "Message in a bottle" where the Doctor goes to the Promethius, he is told the federation is at war with the Dominion, and he never heard of them. So I would assume, that the rest of the Voyage crew would not have either.
Yeah. Even if they left after the Odyssey had been destroyed it's possible that information was still highly classified and need to know. Since Voyager wasn't going through the wormhole, they weren't considered in need of knowing.
Which time period is first?
DS9 or voyager?
If voyager is before DS9 then voyager wouldn't know about the wormhole.
Was the wormhole open during the Cardassian run DS9 era.
@@v8matey DS9 aired before Voyager. Go watch them to get your answers.
@@v8matey Voyager is 2nd, just over 2 years after the Wormhole was discovered. They definitely knew about the wormhole (as they visited DS9 before getting lost in the Delta Quadrant), and would have knowledge of the Dominion, but the Dominion war hadn't started yet.
They knew that they’d get home in X years aiming directly at earth. Aiming at the wormhole MIGHT save them 20 years, or it might not even be there when they arrive. Thus adding what, like 60+ years?
Probably just not worth the risk
Given that all other worm holes are unstable. And beta quadrant while not federation is at least known.
Abra Kadabra's response was pretty much my response too. They projected 70 years to Federation Space, so the time to the wormhole would be 55 or so? The wormhole had only been stable for less than a decade, so they couldn't really count on its still being open when they got there. On the other hand, the direct route to Federation space is more of a sure thing.
Agreed that the best reasoning is that it’s unknown if the wormhole would still be around by the time they got to it. However it’s still a plot hole that it was never mentioned. Chakotay: “what about heading to the Gamma Quadrant wormhole?” Janeway: “it’ll take us 55 years to get there, it’s stable now but it might not be for that long.” Chakotay: “good point.”...and that’s it, plot hole filled.
This seems like the most logical answer
A sure thing 75 year trip OR a gamble on a 50 year trip that if you lose, means another 75 years
It seems that the Voyager writers were under instructions to avoid all mention of the Dominion. They are mentioned twice - once when Chakotay calls them "an ally" of Cardassia, once when an EMH mk2 tells the Doctor about them. It should have been the Jem'Hadar on board the Prometheus.
"Set course for the Gamma quadrant wormhole"
"But captain, the Gamma quadrant hasn't been fully mapped so we're not entirely certain of it's position? Besides, it may collapse in the 60 years it takes us to get there"
"Shut up Paris"
Paris: But, the Dominions are there!
Mr. Paris
THANK YOU.
Also even without Hirogen relays, the route they took would have seen the Voyager entering comms range with the federation a lot sooner.
@Mark King BAM! Nailed it!
The Galaxy is not a perfect disc at its “edge “ but instead has spiral arms … with large areas of empty space between. From this perspective we should view voyager as a large wagon, the areas with stars as dry land and the areas without stars as empty seas rivers or lakes. Voyager is in constant need to replenish its resources , something it cannot do in very deep space. Therefore it is not possible for voyager to plot a straight line course to the Bajorian worm hole’s terminus in the Gamma quadrant as that would require it to cross the void space between spiral arms several times… where as a voyage back to the alpha and Beta Quadrants border is achieved by traveling along the spiral arm it is currently on and traveling through the denser packed main mass of the galaxy . The safest and easiest path is rarely a straight line
thats a very good point and accounts for the little dogleg in their projected path as they pass the centre
Similarly, and the thing that always bothered me when people reference these star charts, is everybody treats these things as if they are flat maps charting land. The galaxy is a massive three-dimensional object that's not just 100,000 light years across, but also about 1000 light years thick. So any journey across its breadth has to also account for its depth, which could tack on thousands of light years depending on the angle.
Voyager did play a very small role in the dominion war when they prevented the prometheus from being taken by Romans. Likely not a significant event, but consider the ship was an advanced starship it likely saw action following that incident and played some role in the overall outcome.
Wormhole stability is always questionable in the Star Trek universe. 55+ years through hostile Dominion territory only to find that the mouth of the wormhole has either closed or changed locations would be a very bad investment.
You're forgetting what made the DS9 wormhole a big deal in the first place. It's stable and consistent, barring active destruction by an outside force. It existed in that location for literally thousands of years without *known* issue.
That makes it a pretty safe bet. Moreover, given the Federation's history of turning foes into at least frenemies, the Dominion's in the "devil I know" territory vs all those various people that Voyager pissed off along the way.
@@InfernosReaper But with the state of hostility with the Dominion, being a known quantity, it's entirely possible that Janeway, ever cautious, dismissed the Gamma Quadrant=Bajoran Wormhole option, due to too many unknown variables.
The Dominions territorial expanse is unknown, but likely comparable to the Fed. The wormhole while being stable, might not be after 55 years, it may have even been purposefully de-stabilised by either the Fed or Dominion during a conflict. There is still a vast swath of unknown territory between their current position in the Delta Quadrant and Dominion space in the gamma quadrant. Thats alot of room for trouble, with definate problems at the other end, compared to similar uncertainty with the beta quadrant route, with another "sometimes" enemy on the other end, the Romulans, yet an enemy with whom Starfleet is more familiar, in colose proximity to a Federation ally (the Klingons, who were still allies when Voyager departed) and the Federation in possible commuincation distance, if worst came to worst, voyager could go around romulan space.
I think both options, when weighed, present similar risk, but the one they chose, does make more sense. If perhaps, only just slightly.
InfernosReaper, problem with that is the lack of knowledge as to the size of the Dominion controlled space, and that basically the only intel they had wa sweat they gathered from the world that Bashir visited, what they got from Quark and the Nagus’ misadventure in the Delta Quadrant (the first mention of the Dominion the series), and the fact that three or four bugships rather unceremoniously killed a Galaxy-class cruiser, which is significantly more combat capable than Voyager is when she left DS9. Even if we assume that they had an easier time of it than they did with the route they chose, there would still be 8-10 years of wear and tear on a vessel that would then have to spend about the same number of years dodging Jem’Hadaar bugships to get to the wormhole. Seems risky to me.
Also think about the route - if you assume there is a non-zero risk of the wormhole not being there when you arrive...
You've just spent 55 years travelling in the wrong direction! (the Gamma quadrant end of the wormhole is further from federation space than where they started from)
Basically, trying to get to the wormhole leaves you NO contingency options.
If it doesn't work out you're worse of than when you started.
ANY path into the Gamma quadrant leaves you worse off every day you travel in that direction in terms of changing your mind and trying for an alternate plan.
It's a BIG gamble, and puts all your hopes on a single wormhole that somehow defies the known logic of wormholes...
@@InfernosReaper you're forgetting all those episodes where they were worried about the wormhole collapsing from natural phenomena or sabotage attempts. it only truly stabilized when the dominion messed with the federation's attempt to collapse it.
I can imagine the crew discussing it. Heading for the wormhole would, if all went well, shave a couple of decades off their journey but it would have been a massive risk in large part due to the inherent instability of wormholes.
Furthermore, there's the issue of morale. While many species served on Voyager it was made up of a largely human crew. Voyager wasn't just heading for the Alpha Quadrant, it was heading for Earth. Going to the Gamma Quadrant would have meant moving further away from Earth and even if meant a shorter journey, given that we're talking about decades either way I think it would have been demoralising to many in the crew to be going further away from Earth with each passing day whereas by going in a relatively straight line towards Earth it was at least always directly ahead of them and getting closer every day.
Even "stable" wormholes in Star Trek have the tendency to close and never open again so it would be a great risk to fly in one direction just to come to a collapsed wormhole
The issue with your comment is that the Federation knew for Sure that the Bajoran Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant was stable and not going anywhere. This is due to Sisko having met the Entities inside that created the Wormhole....
@@Ami-vh7sr As far as I know its possible to collaps a Wormhole artificially as they did in DS9 so that would be a risk as well...
Also when the Voyager started the Prophets where still a mystery so they couldn´t be sure that they keep the Wormhole open forever
@@man100111 Possibly, but by the time Voyager left and got pulled into the Delta Quadrant the Federation had been sending ships through the Wormhole for 2 years.....
Would the Federation had let ships go through on Year to Multiple year assignments through the Wormhole had they not known it was stable?
Jordan Kopal It’s also under the control of aliens with motivations that can not be understood by linear beings, and it was collapsed after Dukat and the Pah-wraiths attacked the Orb of Contemplation. If Sisko hadn’t been able to reopen it, the wormhole would have been a single point of failure in the plan, leaving Voyager as far from home as they started.
@@leonanderson2473 You are sadly functioning upon the idea that the 'Prophets' would cut their 'Emissary' off.....
You are also functioning under the Idea that beings who live outside of Time, viewing the past, present, and future all at the same time didn't already know the outcome of the 'Pah Wraith' issue.....
Having them return back where they started, DS9, would have been a poetic ending
Here, here!
But they didn't actually start there, they started at earth and then went to DS9 on the way to the badlands,
Kathryn Janeway visited Tom Paris in New Zealand penal colony on Earth before going on to DS9, Tom Paris was then later shuttled presumably from another ship.
We know that the badlands mission was Voyagers maiden voyage and was launched from Earth Station McKinley after being built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards at Mars as seen in later episode 'Relativity' and that Kathryn Janeway was present on the ship prior to visiting Tom Paris. 😁
@@RicStorm616 They were there in the first episode, at the start of the series.
@@iamise yes but the series did end with them returning to where they started off which was Earth 😉
@@RicStorm616 You made your opinion clear already, and obv mine differs. In my mind, DS9 and the badlands was where they started together. I don't remember seeing them all together on Earth.
I can't believe I've never thought of that question myself. Oh, I know, it's Nelixes fault. He said we should go this way. There's some good food down there and some traders that are friendly. Lol
Yes it's actually Neelix's fault.
He knew the space in the direction they went.
Same I kinda feel like a dick head now 😂😂
Oh my gosh 😂
For someone who sat and thought about interesting aspects of Star Trek over the years, I'm absolutely stunned that I never considered this.
More likely they had no way of finding or determining the location of the wormholes opening from the delta quadrant side. On the other hand Voyager knows where earth is and how to get there.
I love how voyager used a huge space relay that one time and then they broke it, making the hirogen pissed at them even more xD
Another factor I look at is there is a far higher density of stars on the original path of Voyager. More stars means more potential civilizations with potential technology. Also, more stars means more potential raw materials they'd need to resupply.
JarOfRats that’s actually a really good theory. Long distant road trip, do you go the little bit longer way to ensure you’re not running out of gas on a dirt road in the sticks, or do you go the “short cut” route.
What, how much, and when they need raw materials is less consistent than WTH a warp factor means. Even so, fictional nebulae, M class worlds, etc. are what they care about. And those could be more or less common in an area irrespective of the raw number of stars of all types.
@@patrickmccurry1563 Stars are gravitational attractors, so a higher concentration of stars does kind of imply a higher concentration of everything else, including civilisations, planets of every flavor, and nebulae.
Stars only generate the carbon necessary for life when they reach a particular age. Clustered stars are newer stars & so less likely to be carbon-producers. Counter-intuitively, life is actually more plausible in emptier areas of space.
They need supplies like all the time. They're always trying to set up trade, or mine for raw materials, or looking to harness some new technology. They even visit galactic scrapyards and scavenge battlefields. It's usually these kinds of missions going on that initiate the episode's shenanigans.
There is also the fact that Neelix was guiding them thru a good part of the trip and know his way around to get missing ressources.
if I was Janeway, i'de made the same decision of not heading for the wormhole. the wormhole had mysteriously appeared out of no where just a few years before. there was no guarantee that come some 50+ years from now it would still be there. if they headed that way and, surprise, the wormhole had closed up then they had another 60+ year trip on top of the one they just experienced.
Agreed, no sane Captain nor Janeway would take that unnecessary gamble which would reduce the trip by about 20% if it worked and increase the trip by about 100% if it didn't.
Yup, when in doubt choose the most direct route home
Agreed. Don’t rely on something to shave a marginal amount of time off your trip, when failure means doubling trip time...
If i was janeway i would have fought to keep the caretaker array and had a bomb get made so that immediately after sending them home it would explode...
I think that facet of it would be a judgement call. Janeway was an accomplished scientist on top of being a ship's captain and would have had access to the most current information about the wormhole as a potential concern or path of flight for the Marquis she was in pursuit of. The wormhole hadn't suddenly appeared but was know already to have been there all along. It was known to be stable and a very long term stellar fixture.
I think the overriding concern would have been the Dominion. They had shredded well defended colonies and a heavily armed convoy already with relative ease. As far as anyone in Starfleet knew at the time Voyager left the Alpha Quadrant the Dominion had complete control over the entire Gamma Quadrant and would obliterate any Starfleet vessel it found. Janeway would have known that Voyager would have been laughably outmatched against the Dominion and be facing them with a crew of elderly officers past their prime and whatever younger officers had been born to the crew and half trained as best as possible during their journey. Add in that she knew they would have been traveling through essentially the entire Gamma Quadrant to reach a wormhole she knew was heavily guarded by cloaked ships...
• The Pythagorean theorem is more reliable than a temperamental wormhole. Ultimately it was as Rick said, between going throw two unknown quadrants or one mostly familiar quadrant and one that is mostly familiar to Neelix.
• If they had decided to _Go West_ instead, they would still have had Kes and Neelix, but they wouldn't have had Seven or the Doctor's mobile-emitter.
@The Premier thus ending all life
I think they still would have gotten the mobile emitter, the time ship came to them in that episode, not the other way around.
Yeah, I'm going to seriously under-think this and go for the simplest possible explanation. Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant when all that is known about The Dominion is that it is a vast, technologically advanced and extremely hostile power in the Gamma Quadrant. Beyond that, intelligence about 'The Founders' is as close to non-existent as makes no odds.
Janeway isn't above taking risks; but they're calculated ones. Soon after their arrival, she has more than enough on her plate -- most of her command crew is dead, she's trying to fill the gaps with the surviving terrorists she was sent to capture, and she can't exactly book her battered ship in at the nearest Starbase for repairs. Heading through totally uncharted space for the terminus of a wormhole she doesn't even know is still there, and probably through the space of an intensely xenophobic galactic empire.
Yeah, but... no.
right...i normally like this guys vids...but this is way stupid.
Well, but in light years, the nearest friendly space station they can encounter is 60000 lys and a Worm hole away. On the other side they have to travel through THREE territories of other species, of which one is hostile and one is a nightmare.
@@ScottGenX still an interesting question even if this is the answer
And the borg dominating the delta quadrant are so much mroe friendly for sure... It was a choise of shorter route and dealing with asshole dominion or longer route and dealing the storm that is the borg. Neither are ideal but gambling the dominion won't try to assimilate you into the collective seems the safer way to go. It's not like they didn't know they would have to cross through the very heart of borg territory and at the time Voyager got stranded there was no war with the Dominion. Sure, the UFP and Dominion didn't exactly get along very well but that still makes it a less deadly route then confronting the borg and possibly in the process inviting them to invade again. ("Do not provoke the borg" - Q)
@@roepi The Borg were already planning an invasion of Earth specifically. It is why the Borg had a full fleet at the Unimatrix when Voyager got there in Endgame.
They were planning to assimilate Earth in a swoop, since they went to the effort to pop a transwarp portal entrance in Earth's orbit.
The Borg only do that for full fleet wide invasions, and the Borg Queen was almost ready to give the invasion order when Voyager showed up.
The fact of the reality is, if Voyager goes to the Wormhole, then there is no Earth to go back to, let alone a Federation. Instead of Starfleet fighting a full war against the Dominion starting from the Wormhole, it is a full war against the Borg starting at Earth, with the planet already gone.
Short answer is that Voyager was in the Delta quadrant while the wormhole was in the Gamma quadrant. It was far away no matter what. There I saved you 10 minutes.
Voyager: Enters Dominion space during the war
Is destroyed immediately like she just went out of bounds on CoD
Yeah i miss when playing halo youd suddenly get sniped by the (cant remember the name) fo going out of bounds in one of the creator maps. Sometimes theyd just kill you just to mess with you randomly. Plenty of times id be running the map and just die along with my streak. No reason.
@@nunyabisnass1141 killed by the guardians
@@Nighthawk1066_ yes, the guardians, lol. Miss those guys. I also miss teleporting across the map at light speed into a wall. My fav glitch was being in a wraith getting ready to plow through a a crowd on 8v8, and i get teleported into the sky. I come down and land on them, but their goes my invincible. The glitches were the best part of that game.
there was an episode where three ferengi ended up in the Delta Q, they were last seen in the Price a STNG episode. they had been using the population of a planet, can't remember why, but there was a wormhole involved which brought the ferengi back to the Alpha Q. I always imagine they showed up just as a dominion ship saw them and sent them to the afterlife.
If I were in command I would travel to the Cytherian's from the TNG episode "The Nth Degree". They are apparently in the centre of the galaxy, so closer than earth would be. They have tech that can travel long distances in what seems like seconds. Which has the added benefit of having demonstrated compatatibility with Starfleet technology (unlike that think Turvok stole that ended up not being compatible.
As for what information I would trade in return for being taken home, you could trade all the information you have of the space and species encountered up to that point, and trade any new information about the alpha quadrant since they were last encountered.
That's what I am saying!!! They had to have had the ability to contact them since the cytherians were willing to dialogue.
It's possibly Janeway didn't know about them after all not every SF captain knows everything but even if they have a file that Janeway looks up. It's shown in course oblivion voyager couldn't normally go into the galactic core. The sliver blood copy voyager had to have a massive refit using tech that it would appear that prime voyager never came across. It be like trying to expore the bottem of the deepest part of the ocen in a tinny. They'd be crushed like a tin can
Knowledge of the Cytherians could be classified, because Voyager probably has the logbooks of all other Starfleet ships.
Another possibility is the galactic core is too dangerous to navigate.
Presumably, if they had such advance travel the technology, they would already have the information you may have gathered and any historic and cultural information would already have been exchanged during the earlier contact featured in TNG.
I'm not sure Voyager can pass safely through the Barrier, as TOS and TNG established there is a Galactic barrier at the core and one at the rim of the galaxy that does bad things if you pass through them.
Could you imagine if they had done a 2 part cross-over episode where Voyager finally makes it through dominion space to the wormhole and then it picks up on the finale of DS9, and VOY breaks through the wormhole to help out.
That would be epic.
Too obvious. If they were setting a course for the worm hole, you'd see that coming a light year away.
Dominion war ended two years prior
I knew this wouldn't happen, but I thought it would have been nice if Voyager picked up some advanced technology or replaced Voyager with a more advanced ship, loosing their original and renaming the new one as Voyager NCC-74656-B and returning in time to help out at the Battle of Deep Space 9.
Deep Space 9 with the Defiant, Voyager and the Enterprise-E at the same time in the same place. Now that would have been a finale.
Fanboying here, sorry.
They could have done that by getting their hands on Starlin's files.
Samantha Davidson that would of been epic
Why didn't the Captain just sleep with Q and then talk him into sending them back?
She has standards. Also she didn't want to cuck Picard.
So captain repeat that one more time for the council.... You slept your way home? In which way to you mean?
Why? That's easy to answer.
As my wife says when I ask such questions;
"That's because dear heart...it wasn't in the script."
Kind of reminds me of an argument I had with this friend of some friends back in college. I think we'd tried dating prior to this, so that might have factored as well. We were watching Star Trek: First Contact on tv, and she was pondering why they chose to make Data's eye blue. I think she intended to try and sound smart, but she didn't know this was the kind of thinking I did by nature. She didn't like when I said it was because Brent Spiner's eyes are blue so they just left the contact out. Then she didn't like when I said because the dead crewman that the Borg Queen took it from had blue eyes. I think I had a few more answers just off the top of my head, and she just got madder at me and changing the parameters of how she meant the question. I just had all the obvious answers.
That's true, but lame unimaginative thinking and boring. Part of the fun is to get into a story and try to speculate about story elements from inside the story's world and logic.
That would have been dumped and very stupid if they would have went to the gamma quad..... They would have ran into the Dominion...... And then they never would have got home 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
But your wrong the dominion are in the script season 4 Ep:15
@Maintenance Renegade at first I thought this was a plot hole, but I thought about it and I think I have a possible explanation, at least as to why they didn’t use a time delayed explosion to destroy the array. The only weapons in Voyager’s possession powerful enough to destroy the array were tricobalt devices, which (and this requires a bit a of a leap) may need to be fired at the target in order to detonate.
Another possible explanation is that Janeway had to be absolutely sure that it was fully destroyed, which she couldn’t be if she wasn’t around to do the destroying.
As briefly touched on at the end of the video, I always figured there was no guarantee that the wormhole would still be open by the time they reached the gamma quadrant; imagine travelling 60,000LY in the wrong direction, only to find out the wormhole is closed for business
I think that theory is a pretty good one. They knew that it was stable at the moment they left, but they were still exploring it at the time. Scientists were interested why it worked and how it worked. Even what was on the other side was a new world for the Federation.
There was absolutely no guarantee that it still would be a stable wormhole some decades later. Like you said...worst case you fly in the wrong direction just to land in front of a closed door...and then explain it to the crew that you now have another 30-40 years in front of you...years that you could have skipped if you had gone the direct route. I would say it's 50 : 50 that they throw you right out of the airlock after your speech.
It's a bit like walking 10 miles home, or walking 9.98 miles to the bus stop and taking the bus from there.
In the end you take the same time, but one of these brings you closer to where you want to go with each step.
Good theory.
Imagine if they did go to the wormhole (maybe even found a shortcut to it so they werent great grandparents by the time they got there), the wormhole was active so they could go thru... and then we would've had a glorious scene of Voyager emerging infront of DS9 with a hail "Voyager, welcome back to DS9, you've been gone for too long" ...also I felt like they should've expanded on the Voyager landing on earth scene. It was too quick and final. No words from Janeway, no farewells by the crew...felt empty at the end...
It's not really a good theory, because what made the DS9 was that it was stable and had been so for thousands of years, since it was created and maintained by beings of fairly great power, the likes of which most foes of the era couldn't defeat.
Flaws and all, I still have very fond memories of Voyager; and I still rewatch it after rewatching TNG. Thank you for this video.
and imagine if a wormhole or transwarp conduit had deposited them at the rear end of the romulan Star Empire....who could greet them there but none other than the son (or daughter as the case may be) of Telek R'Mor....who'd made a promise to his/her dying dad to see Voyager safely home should he/she encounter it
Imagine if Voyager was responsible for saving the Federation from the Dominion by providing valuable intel back to the Federation from their journey through the Gamma Quadrant.
If Janeway had ignored those Ferengi they would have been home in two years.
My head hurts
When did Janeway encounter the Ferengi?
@@matthew8153 The ones that were stranded in the Delta from the Barzan Wormhole- TNG's The Price.
@@matthew8153 Season three episode five. False Profits.
True! Janeway is an expert in sabotaging herself with her moralility.
That's the problem with the whole series: Janeway was Gilligan.
I can imagine two additional reasons. First one being that the closer they would get to federation space the easier it would be to establish communication with the federation and receive their assistance as they actually did.
Another reason would be the moral of the crew of the ship. When they started from the other side of the Galaxy with the combined crew of two opposing factions the tensions must have been quite high and their moral quite low. To keep the crew together they had to have some goal they all could stand behind and focus on. And what grabs the imagination of everyone involved better than aiming for home. Then getting the sense of everyday getting closer to home. Instead of increasing the literal distance to home that aiming for the wormhole in the gamma quadrant would have meant.
Thank goodness they went the way they did. If they hadn’t been there to help, Species 8472 would have killed the Borg and like half the galaxy.
I don’t think 8472 was after humanity till Janeway went in league with the Borg
More importantly the series would've been cancelled early if not for the addition of a ridiculously hot Borg to the cast if not for that storyline
@@tingley428 Seven of Nine 😍😍😍. Jeri Ryan is 50, and still looks hot in her pictures from Picard.
@@patricklyons794 dude I'm 48 & still sexy af... No I'm not sending you pix, just sayin don't age-shame the poor girl hahahahaa
Also tho she's a Brazilianare so she can afford to spend the time to look good, have trainers & cooks etc
@@Endeavour255 Species 8472 never seemed to distinguish between species in the Galaxy. Which makes sense as they were the only life form in their universe. They were also very intolerant from what we saw initially.
I love this idea! It's a concept I never thought about. I woukd love to see them make another Roddenberry lore version of trek and give us an exploration of the gamma quadrant.
Because flying right into Dominion space didn’t seem like a good idea. At all.
Imagine what it would have been like for the Voyager crew, after they finally passed into the Beta Quadrant (if they had to take the whole journey with no short-cuts), seeing something familiar for the first time, even if it WAS the Romulans. What an incredible feeling.
Also, I don't agree that the Romulans would have posed a threat. It's more than likely the Romulans would have helped Voyager get provisioned up and return safely to the alpha quadrant. It would serve zero purpose to antagonize the Federation over something like this and more of an opportunity to show good faith in this in exchange for something else.
@@oldtwinsna8347 in one episode the Voyager had contact to the Romulans. Well from the past, but the romulans were not hostile nor friendly. I think they would have to explain theirselfs.
@@christinamaier5610, That could have been a nice call back if the romulans knew they were coming and let them through.
The galaxy is 1,000 light years “thick” on average. I wonder where our known landmarks exist in terms of the z-axis of that map.
Not saying it would make up for the distance problem, just a stray thought.
Most people only think in two-dimensions.
The milky way galaxy (as best known) is relatively (the x-y plane relative to the z axis) flat away from the the center. So cross quadrant interstellar space travel would be vaguely two dimensional in concept.
It is closer spacial aspects that would be more 3-D but are usually presented as flat, case in point the shows nearly always show a group of ships (even opposing vessels in combat) with the same "up" orientation.
Like why do they never encounter a Klingon Bird of prey approaching with a 90 deg roll from the enterprise, (nope always flat like they are surface vessels on the water)...
I think that would have looked cool.
P.S. Babylon 5 did the spacial geometry far better.
@@vrooooom4487 Also, the navigation screen on the NCC 1701 in TOS exactly showed that: it was a "flat" screen, but with a pointer, that could be raised or lowered, to show how much you move on the Z axle.
@@martincoates96 even every station/ array appeared right side up, though I guess it couldve just been shown that way 'on screen'. Itd be cool if they arranged to meet at a rendezvous point just for the other ship to show up upside down 😅
This question raises a really cool, crazy point - according to Memory Alpha, any given warp factor is not a relative speed, but variable based on proximity to mass and other spatial conditions. It tends to be faster in relation to more massive objects (thus the slingshot effect) and much, much slower (approaching c*1) in the void of intergalactic space. So as you move away on the z-axis, you move much slower (and become much less likely to be able to mine any dilithium), so the galaxy is effectively a 2d space. So wild to think about.
Actually, there was a heated argument about it. Chakotay wanted gamma. To avoid demoralizing the crew, Janeway and Chakotay went and replicated a coin to flip. Because "the sceenery never changes unless you're the lead dog of the pack," Janeway called heads, and the rest is history.
Memory Alpha lists "Caretaker" as stardate 48315.6 which puts it in between DS9 season 3's "The Abandoned"(stardate 48301.1) and "Civil Defense"(stardate 48388.8). So yes, Voyager would have known the Dominion was hostile at that point and that the gamma quadrant was too dangerous to go near. Let alone the whole "the wormhole may not even be there for all we know" aspect in the time it would take to get there as, until that point, "stable" wormholes were thought impossible and no one knew that one would last as the Prophets kept it going and could close it whenever they wanted. Plus even with the possibility of massive shortcuts and getting past Dominion ships, it would have been a tremendously bad ending if they somehow got there when DS9 had the other side blocked with a minefield.
They also likely weren't totally aware of the location of "Borg space" until they got close enough to it to see it, since the Borg typically expanded and relocated their domain constantly.
I know Voyager wasn't perfect but I swear some people(as seen in the comments section, not directed at any one person, but several) have an irrational hate of the show- more annoying when it's the crowd that defends that smear of used toilet paper that is Discovery or the trashfire canon defilement that was the Abrams film. Especially since these canon stardates took all of 2 minutes to look up to debunk the "they didn't know of the Dominion" argument(what? I don't remember this stuff! Memory Alpha does the job for me)
Not to mention the intrepid class is almost as close to being a warship as the defiant and bleeding edge tech at the beginning of the show. Definitely a ship that would be really bad to fall into a potential enemy's hand right before a war.
It was the perfect size ship for their journey. Galaxy class would have most of the usable decks for supplies and defiant and nova class would be to small.
I don't think it was that clear at all. "Message in a Bottle" takes place in stardate 51462.0 and the Doctor doesn't even appear to know what the Dominion is. It seems unlikely Voyager would be aware of the extent of the Dominion or the level of threat it posed.
@@populuxe1 The Doctor isn't a reliable source or proof, that they embarked prior to the Dominion. Before the first Voyager's mission, the EMH was basically just a program, that got a "reset" after each use. In the sense of information about the surrounding world, it didn't have the need for updates other than medical progress. Surely not political situation. After he became the main doctor of Voyager, he spent more and more time in developing himself, but that happened after Voyager took their route towards the Beta (and eventually Alpha) Quadrant, not prior.
The "Message in a bottle" is another thing, I give you that. But I don't remember that episode, so can't give you counter arguments for that (if there are some, that is).
I think there's also a human element. Feeling you're heading in the right direction is reassuring even if you think it's not the shortest route. The pull would be to plot a direct course to federation space.
Exactly, the parallels to Odyssey and why it happened cannot be ignored.
The wormhole was also fairly new at that point. It was known to be stable, but would it still be stable in 30 years when they finally reach it? It would be a big bummer to show up in Dominion Space, ask for safe passage to the wormhole, and learn that it collapsed 20 years ago because the Romulans inverted a deflector array or something.
I'd say the easiest answer is kind of... "Meta."
It's easier to explain to the audience to set a course "for home" than it is "set a course for a place that's nowhere near home but wherein lies a portal than can get us home 20-something years sooner."
Brian Straight its also the reason a crew composed of dozens of different species (and statistically speaking, probably many humans who were from colonies) always talked about getting home to Earth.
Because UPN thought the viewers were morons and would get confused by Tuvok wanting to go home to Vulcan.
@@ianshaliczer Of course, that's like a two day hop if you're not in a hurry from Earth.
Earth was like a hub airport for them- look, no one wants to go to Atlanta, but that where you're going to get the connecting flight
Plus, worst-case scenario, the trip takes 50-60 years. There was never a stable wormhole in existence before, and even if the Bajoran wormhole was considered "stable," 60 years is a long time to hinge your hopes on a method of travel that is notoriously unreliable.
Not to mention that the wormhole came close to being closed before Starfleet even became aware that Voyager was still out there, and had been kept open only by the will of one of the most alien beings Starfleet was aware of.
So even if Janeway were to consider using the Gamma Quadrant wormhole, it would probably be too great of a risk to leave to chance, especially if failure meant adding another 40 or so years on Voyager's trip.
Jeremy Owens The Sol System is in the middle of the sector designated as “Sector 001” because it is (more or less) the astrogeographic center of the UFP... Vulcan and Andoria are in the same sector. It’s also right on the boundary between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
So it’s like being lost at sea in the middle of the Pacific and being desperately trying to get home to Des Moines... when half your crew are from Northern Ireland.
Yes, sure, if you are 75,000 LY from Earth, it’s basically inconsequential that you’re 74,984 LY from Vulcan when it comes to travel time. The sixteen light years between Sol and 40 Eridani A can be crossed in about a weekend at cruising speeds for ships like the Enterprise-D or Voyager. It’s just weird that _every_ member of the crew talked about Earth as their home.
Approximately half of Voyager’s crew were Marquis terrorists/freedom fighters trying to reclaim their colonies on the UFP’s frontier with the Cardassian Union. They shouldn’t feel so fondly about Earth!
Then there’s all the aliens. Of the top of my head, there were at least two Vulcans, a couple Betazoids, a Bollian, and whatever the hell Naomi Wildman’s father’s species was named... I think there might have been a Trill as well.
@@ianshaliczer Yeah, I'm generally familiar with Trek stellar cartography... but it's less like Des Moines, and more like London (presuming the destination was the UK). We're talking about the Capital, not a provincial backwater- plus, it is also the HQ of the military organization they are in- not to mention, Sector 001 could easily be Voyager's home port- they DID start there, after all (while recruiting Paris). (Granted, I couldn't find anything supporting or countering this- aside from being constructed at Utopia Planatia) But, if Earth was their home base, er, port, that would make a lot of sense that everyone wanted to get there, (since military families tend to move with the servicemember).
I'd say Janeway took the route she did because she is a part of Starfleet. They are all about exploring new parts of the galaxy, so being flung into the delta quadrant would be an opportunity that she, and probably the rest of the Starfleet crew, wouldn't want to pass up.
Unofficial maps do place Ocompa "geographically" closer to the Gamma aperture of the wormhole
Janeway (and Tuvok) probably knew about The Dominion....Voyager launched a few scant weeks after the Odyssey Incident, likely they decided to give the Gamma Quadrant a wide berth without knowing the extent of Dominion Territory
Honestly the most sensible assumption is that the Wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant was simply as far from the voyager's starting position as the furthest most reaches of the Federation, or possibly Klingon territory. Or even further.
Nope Janeway and Tuvok didn't know about the Dominion. Voyager was lost before contact with the Dominion was made.
And remember when the Doctor was sent to the Prometheus. The EMH on the Prometheus told Voyager's EMH that the Romulans have not entered the war against the Dominion. The Doctor responded with "Who?" Then when crewmembers got mail from home. Commander Chakotay got a letter from a friend that was in the Maquis. The letter told him that Cardassia allied with a power alien empire from the Gamma Quadrant. And this power wiped out the Maquis.
The doctor comes back and says the federation is at war with the dominion. Janeway says "the dominion?" As if she hadnt heard of them
@@Joesolo13 I tend to agree. The assumptions about where the gamma end of the worm hole is must be wrong.
@@rinoz47 What if she did actually know about them, but it was regarded as classified knowledge like Omega?
I would have loved to have seen this addressed in Voyager, even if it was just a quick throw away line in the first couple of episodes, like someone suggests it but then Jayneway gives reasons for why it’s a bad idea.
Yes, it should have been addressed, even in a quick Q and A where a crew member asked the question and Janeway said that would be longer. Something, anything of this should have been mentioned.
Honestly, it's such a stupid idea it's not even worth addressing.
For one, they don't know where it is and have no way to update their maps. For two, they wouldn't be in comms range of the federation until they literally went through the worm hole. Three, wormholes in the Star Trek universe are extremely unstable. Not a single one has ever been open for that long without collapsing, absurdly high odds it doesn't last that long. Four, even if the wormhole was still open the federation doesn't even have control of it and they might not have been allowed access to it anyways.
Wait Wait Wait...) at that point the station was still close to Bajor and thye wormhole had yet to be discovered. Voyager was lost very shortly after leaving the station as they headed out to capture the Maquis.
Originally, the Federation took over the station to offer protection while Bajor was recovering from the occupation. A couple of episodes later the "only known stable wormhole" was discovered.
It was even hypothesized that the Cardassians would have never left had they knew the wormhole existed.
So, at the time Voyager was lost due to its runnin with the Caretaker, no one, including anyone in Star Fleet, was aware that the wormhole even existed.
Homework People! Lets do our homework before we run out and make videos based on inaccuracies.
Matter of fact, they could have only learned of the wormhole AFTER the Doctor was sent into Federation Space to deliver a message that those on Voyager were still alive. They could only have learned about the wormhole after Barclay was able to establish communication with Voyager through The Pathfinder Project a number of years into their journey.
@@MaxLaingDMP The wormhole was discovered in the first episode of DS9, which was about two years before the first episode of Voyager. Voyager would certainly have known about the wormhole, but would have had limited info at the time.
@@thebatman8895 over the past hour I have sat here in complete embarrassment and humility while forced to ponder how it is I have made such a vast, and monumental mistake in the timeline.
Though the easy path would be to scurry away - I will further expose my embarrassment by revealing the fact that for the past 20 years my wife and I cycle through the seasons of each series (minus TOS) averaging around 2 episodes a night about 5 nights per week. Every now and then, as other shows make their respective appearences (The Orville, The Mandalorian, etc), or the time arises to pepper in something from the Marvel Universe, we give Trek a slight break though always returning faithfully to our "staple".
The only thing that offers the slightest momentary respite from this most painful, public blunder, is the fact that we literally just made it to the end of DS9 and started Voyager. Before Voyager's "voyage" begins, we see a couple of her crew at Quark's bar as they are handing the viewers over from the "familiar and proven" to the "new and yet to be established" as the sendoff for the new show.
Though the way we watch the episodes offers not a reason nor an excuse, the fact of the matter is (as you have brought to mind) the series are not successive as they run partially parallel with a 2 year offset.
So, having just "started" a new series, coupled with the fact of the show (Voyager) "starting" at DS9, and having just finished the entirety of DS9 a few days ago, I can only guess that in my eagerness to praticipate in one of these threads, to my detriment, a number of things became conversationally misaligned.
What makes this all the more painful is the fact that my position is that of CEO over Project Development. It is literally my job to keep a vast array of facts straight during the development of the large-scale projects we are called upon to forge into existence. Something I have taken great pride in over the years. Having gotten what I injected into a conversation so wrong as a direct result of the incorrect compilation of data - data that I should have had a rather extreme handle on - has really knocked me back on my ass.
So, in closing to this self-induced smackdown, thank you for the correction and my deepest apologies for having to suffer through reading that crack-headed submission I initially put forward. Should I ever decide to brave an expedition into such public waters again, I will surly redouble my efforts prior to offering an opinion in an effort to prove my worthyness of being allowed to play along in the first place.
Sincerely and without hesitation,
Max Laing
The wormhole had only been discovered for a year ish, and before that point wormholes were not stable, so they wouldn't bank on that chance.
Exactly, and why this video is utterly unnecessary. No one would take that chance to save a few years on a generational trip, when there's a good chance by the time you got there that there'd be nothing there for you.
Plus the Dominion threat made it highly likely that the Federation would try and collapse the wormhole. Starfleet captains would have been aware of this scenario.
Also, it was stable for now and perhaps for much of the Bajoran's recorded history which in cosmological time scale is all of 5 seconds in a human time scale. That is to say that it would not make much sense to assume that a few thousand years of stability was not, in fact, a mere short term anomaly in the timeline of an object that for all anyone knows could have been around for billions of years perhaps even dating back to the early universe who knows?
While the Dominion War had not yet begun the Dominion had already closed its borders to the Federation. Shortly before the destruction of the Odyssey the Dominion declared that they would no longer allow Federation vessels to violate their territory. Going to the Bajoran Wormhole would require either a circuitous route around the Dominion or fighting through them. Even without the war it was still a non starter as a route
Plus the Dominion were actively looking for Federation ships near the wormhole at that point.
There's an argument to say that the original route also had the same issue with the Romulans, but I suppose the Romulans are a lot more known and open to diplomacy, and, worse case scenario, they take a couple months detour to pass through allied Klingon space instead.
@@kabobawsome Yeah, I’ve wondered about what their plan was for Romulan space, though like you said it was probably just to go through the Klingon Empire. How they would know where the northern Romulan border was in order to avoid accidentally entering their space I have no idea.
Because Voyager's 75 years journey was to *Earth,* not to Federation space.
Even if the wormhole was closer, help from Federation and Starfleet personnel was probably easier to find on the direct route, see the USS Prometheus.
But we all know, truth is because it was essential to the plot, and that's that :)
Making it to Federation Space would be the same as making it to Earth. Once in UFP space they would be safe from agressors and only a few weeks from an escorted trip home.
no check my comment
@@jeremypitts6144
No, write your comment.
@@RequiemPoete
It depends on the episode.
If it's essential to the plot to move from the border of the quadrant to Earth, it will take 5 minutes.
If the plot is "we are far away, it will take time", it will take time.
Because wrong quadrant.
From an internal-to-story, logical standpoint - travelling 60 years to get to an artificially created wormhole that is home to non-linear time beings (in the hope that they haven't seen fit to close up shop after all the increased travel within their living room, or that some other power (Federation, Klingon, even Dominion) haven't forced it shut) just to shave a decade off their journey would be foolish in the extreme. At the time they were thrown to the Delta Quadrant, they wouldn't have known how bad the Dominion situation would have gotten, but they DID know that Dominion Space was huge, vastly bigger than the Federation (the next biggest they knew of) and they DID know the Dominion were powerful and aggressive. One Galaxy Class ship had already been handily blown to hell by the point they left on their mission. They also knew that the Wormhole was a home to aliens they couldn't understand and didn't fully trust. It would be a hell of a thing to have made it (somehow) to the Gamma end of the Wormhole, only to find it closed forever, then face another 70+ year journey to get home.
The straight line route would have been the surer bet. You don't walk 45 miles to the nearest bus stop to get home five minutes quicker from a presented 50 mile walk - what if the busses have been cancelled? Then you'd have another 50 mile trek on top of your already covered 45 miles. You just walk the 50 miles... in the hope you get a lift from a kindly soul, or something.
Well, yes, they knew of the fade of the Odyssey. But don't forget, that the Odyssey was destroyed, because the federation effectively had INVADED the Dominion space to rescue Benjamin Sisko. That was an act of war. We often tend to see the actions from the Federation side, but what the Odyssey did, was an aggressive move on an unknown empire, that badly paid off. Voyager on the other side could have asked the Dominion, if they are allowed to cross the territory to get to the wormhole - and at the time of arrival would have (which they couldn't know) been greeded with open hands because of the peace treaty and Odo. Yes, it would have been a lucky encounter - but the Dominion are not as dangerous as the Borg...
@@acmenipponair The Dominion had the attitude of all empires- everything is theirs.
@@acmenipponair they never asked to cross any other territory
In fact, Invasion! cycle #3 indicates that the wormhole and surrounding space, including Bajor, would have been time-shifted to a bit over 2600 BCE.
I'd like to think they'd have encountered an Iconian gateway or two on their way through the Gamma Quadrant. That would have been the ultimate shortcut to look for, really.
Jef Willemsen Assuming Iconian security features don’t force a self destruct and they are able to work a hopefully functioning example of their sub space tech if they find one at all. It’s a long shot.
Voyager was in the delta quadrant not the gamma quadrant
@@xR0N1Nx Ummm.... the whole video is a hypothetical about making for Gamma and the wormhole.......
@@xR0N1Nx dude lol
problem was the single gateway discovered was person sized and also blew up every starship that tried visiting it. Also the federation probably classified that to way above new captain paygrade, though they did tell her about Omega so who knows.
They didn’t use the wormhole because Paramount wanted 7 seasons of Voyager. Ba-dum-Tiss.
I've always wondered why, when facing a blockade, or a hostile species border or something like that, don't they just fly "up" and over (I know there's no up, but you know what I mean)
@d c for a better idea of what I mean, look at the blockade in the TNG episode Redemption. I mean... Space is...y'know... Big
It is a little thing called "supplies" they need sources of supplies so you know they can survive and keep the ship going. Well our galaxy is a thick disc so if they fly up enough to clear the enemy territory they will be in true empty space. With no source of supplies.
Blows my mind this kind of shit needs to be pointed out. I mean you people watched the show right? They made it pretty clear on many occasions as they were looking for supplies and it was a problem sometimes. And just how many of you never went to school and never formed the common sense that would of brought these details to mind before posting such dumb shit?
Because the universe is flat....
@@Dtitilator ...balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle?
@@Dtitilator Har. I appreciate that one even if no one else does.
Just by the information given in the show itself, we do not know for certain the Bajoran wormhole is closer. Although it would have been nice of the show to discuss it.
But even if we assume it was:
-Heading for the alpha quadrant means they had more navigation data than for the mostly unexplored gamma quadrant.
-There is no guarantee the wormhole was still there when they reach it.
-The wormhole could be controlled by a hostile power when they reach it. Since their target is a single point, they can't go around enemy space.
-The other side of the wormhole could be controlled by a hostile power when they reach it. It would be quite a nasty surprise to be greeted by a minefield on the other side. I remind you the exit of the wormhole really was mined at some point.
Would be something interesting to point out somewhere in ep 2-5 while they were still close to where they landed.
Like if some onboard prefer that route for whatever reasons and they have a big talk and Janeway questions if she should have a vote on it (since the crew will be there for most of their lives instead of a few weeks like promised)
It could get an interesting moral showdown that ends with her staying with Starfleet principles etc.
Yeah, what if they did manage through some plot magic to get through to the Bajoran Wormhole while it was still mined.
"Yay! We just made it back to DS-9!"
"Captain! Sensors are detecting numerous small objects decloaking and heading towards us"
"Ships?"
"They're too small! It's like they're . . . "
"MINES!"
*BOOM*
Also I do believe they had mentioned in at least one DS9 episode that while they knew exactly where one end of it was. The other end moves about, either that turned into a plot hole latter or the Dominion developed a way to track it's movements so they could make more stable use of it when they started their war.
@@joelellis7035 They'd have run into the Dominion fleet before then. Of course, by the time they actually got there, the war would've been over and the mines would've been gone anyway.
@@CrossRoadsOfTime If it did that, then the wormhole would've been utterly useless for the exploration and trade that was its primary use before the Dominion war....
The lack of a map and basic rules on distance and travel has always been one of most annoying things about all of Star Trek. That kind of ambiguous thing from the 60s just doesn't work any more, post Got and Expance
Keep in mind that most of the world/space in both GoT and The Expanse is unexplored just like it is in Star Trek. It's just that the geographical ambiguity doesn't matter as much in those stories because they're not about explorers.
Because we don't have enough nitpicking about continuity already? Lol
A major reason in addition to that is that we're talking multiple series across decades of production with radically different writers, producers, and viewers. Canon has to get "timey wimey" bullsh*tted around in that context. But I agree, that Star Trek never even tried to maintain much internal consistency from episode to episode let alone across seasons.
@@patrickmccurry1563 at least they finally settled on stardates so that unlike TOS, time actually moved forward instead of just some random number that kirk made up
Well, the TOS and the movies have Kirk go for both the edge of the galaxy and the center of the galaxy, without much issue, so during that part, they did more than quarter of the voyager route in days.
I thought this was obvious? The worm-hole leads to the Gamma quadrant, and Voyager was in the Delta quadrant. The distance between Voyager and the worm-hole exit in the Gamma quadrant was almost as far as Earth was to them, and it's not like they'd know for a fact it was still operational by the time they'd get to it.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious, it saved me from pointing it out.
My thoughts? Trusting a wormhole, even a rather stable one, to remain open for 55 years (and they couldn't count on it being less at the outset) is a gamble. The payoff is a 15 year reduction in trip length, but the risk is 55 years wasted (if it closes in that time). I would think that gambling 55 years to save 15 wouldn't be something Janeway would have done at the outset of the journey. She didn't really favor high risk strategies until later in the show.
I've wondered this as well and personally concluded that it was due to the uncertainty of the wormhole being there or even if DS9 would be under federation control in the 50 years or so it takes to get there.
However, now that the Dominion has been defeated I assume that future slipstream journeys to the delta quadrant would launch from DS9 and use the wormhole.
Well:
1) You're assuming it's closer based on flimsy evidence.
2) The series premise hinges on them taking a route through Delta and Borg space.
3) Wormholes are never stable and they had no knowledge of what it's long term state was.
4) Any sudden major change would potentially require heading through the center of the galaxy, which is effectively a nest of uninhabitable star systems, high radiation and giant nests of super black holes.
So, a pretty bad plan to try to go after a vague notion that an anomaly may shave off a little time. Only seems better if you apply viewer logic gained after the fact.
i think the simplest explanation is that since we don't have a canon star chart of Gamma that the wormhole is closer to Alpha than the middle and would, from where Voyager started, in the end be as far if not farther than the straight line
Don’t forget, Janeway would have known about the Barzan Wormhole. She also knew it was unstable in the Delta Quadrant but that it remained in one place long enough to possibly get through. She would not have told the crew about this as to not get their hopes up only to be disappointed. This may have been Janeway’s motivation for the course set she did. They did find the Barzan Wormhole, but thanks to Ferengi greed the Delta quadrant side became even more unstable and disrupted the Alpha quadrant end as well.
You could also say it was because Janeway bothered interfering with what was really a small-time exploitation of an insignificant planet by 2 Ferengi shlubs.
The odds of being "delayed" would have been perceived has high with either route. Being "delayed" while getting closer to home is better than being "delayed" while moving away from home (or not getting any closer). Also, the communication ability with starfleet could have taken place (even without the hirogen tech) well before arriving home which would have allowed for significant advantages in many ways. The gamma wormhole would have been an "all eggs in one basket" solution with no other benefits and subject to: "if it doesn't work, now what". Fun video.
True but by the time they got half way to the wormhole star fleet would have developed speeds much faster than warp speed. They would have had a presence in the Gamma and Delta quadrants just for exploration sake and gotten the crew home that way.
@@gravis2000 I don't know about that. The series Star Trek Picard takes place 20 yrs after Nemesis --- I've seen 4 episodes so far and haven't seen any evidence of significant speed tech increases. Maybe I missed it or it is still to come.
@@gravis2000 There was literally one episode of Voyager with Warp 10 (well the Delta Flyer reached Warp 10, not the Voyager herself), that didn't end up well. So higher speeds wouldn't really solve the problem, would it? Unless you would want to end up with a ship full of hundreds of salamander like creatures on board.
It's actually very easily explained, nobody knew exactly where the end of the wormhole was in the Gamma quadrant. At least at the time of Voyager being lost. The Gamma quadrant was very little explored, chances are Starfleet wasn't quite sure the exact location of the wormhole, so searching for it simply wasn't a viable option. The Dominion would have destroyed Voyager if their ship was detected, and they would have been if they were going around asking everyone where the wormhole is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in the show.
They absolutely knew where the Wormhole was, very specifically, at that. In the DS9 pilot, Dax and Sisko figure out their location by using nearby star systems as a reference, and they even utter a specific one by name: Idran. It took literally seconds to figure out. Apparently Starfleet had sent out a probe into the Gamma Quadrant, hell, knowing Starfleet, they sent out several. The systems were obviously unmapped and unsurveyed, but they did know their locations. Coupled with their crazy powerful arrays and deep space telescopes it's almost certain they knew very specifically where the Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole was.
Yeah. They knew where the end of the wormhole was. Also, voyager was in the delta quadrant. It was on the opposite side of the Galaxy from the wormhole
Their primary mission was still to explore. So it would make sense for them to go through the Gamma quadrant and learn as much as they can considering that they might not be able to make it home either way
When you mention Voyager approaching Romulan space, it is directly stated in a later episode of Voyager that the Romulans "have been interested in Voyager for years". They would have known it was coming.
The map you use makes the route to the Gamma quadrant look very sparsely populated with stars compared to the route they actually took. This makes me think we should consider the ability to procure food and other supplies needed for such a long journey.
Fun thought experiment that really highlights the in-universe risk: *All other wormholes are unstable* -- sure maybe this one seems stable but after how 50 or 60 years will that still be the case? If that bet didn't pay off, we're even *further* away now, but that _direct path_, even with 15,000 extra light years is a "sure thing." -- though maybe that's 15 extra years? Yikes. Still ending up 90,000ly away if that wormhole, for any reason, collapsed, would be unforgivable.
Case in point: the one wormhole they DID find onscreen was a few meters across. The reason they didn't beam through it, using a probe as a relay, was that the Alpha quadrant end was located at T-20 Years to the Delta end.
There’s also the fact that Federation Space is a much bigger target than the wormhole, and there’s something comforting about heading in the direction of home, even if it’s not the fastest route.
This is the main reason. Uncharted space, with a rotating galaxy, dwindling resources, no backup, no one to trust, and you'll most likely all die right upon arrival so the physiological implications of the mission are overwhelming.
That's why it's called K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid.
Plus if they got to the border battered and the ship on its last legs. It wouldn’t be long before a federation ship finds them and brings them home.
There’s another question. The Enterprise D has a specific mission to explore unexplored space. Yet Starfleet never assigns it to the Gamma Quadrant and instead sends it on every mission except the one it’s supposed to be conducting!
Except it did explore new space
Most of the early seasons were spent exploring the edges of UFP space. Picard even makes a comment in an episode to his other captain friend that they'd "been on the outer rim for a while". I think later on in the series tensions were ramping up with the Borg, the Romulans and the Cardassians, so it made sense to put Picard, a master diplomat in more diplomatic, peacekeeping types of missions.
Don't forget how incredibly vast the galaxy is. They were exploring plenty and just hadn't gone out that far yet cause there's just so much to explore.
The Enterprise-D was often exploring uncharted areas of Federation space.
@@Seetiyan I think also that despite the area of "known space" in the 24th century being pretty large, there were still plenty of blank spots in-between on the map that hadn't yet been charted or explored in depth. So that might explain why Enterprise D was constantly judggling between exploration missions in unexplored sectors and diplomatic missions within explored sectors. They weren't actually doing a ton of long-range, deep space exploration, rather zig zagging back and forth around the little pockets of unknown space that existed between the bigger pockets of charted federation space.
Couple reasons to go the way they did:
1) Space is 3D, and the "short cut" to the wormhole at DS9 may not have been a short cut.
2) It would have taken Voyager close to the center of the galaxy collecting valuable data.
3) Given that Starfleet wouldn't have known where they were, a straight line home would make better sense in order to contact home at some point.
4) Availability of resources. Going from one arm to another farther out from the center gives more space to be crossed without coming across planets for water, food, dilithium, etc.
Counter arguments for the fun of it;
1)
Spiral galaxies like our own are flat, so the wormhole was actually closer.
3) wormhole would have allowed them to contact home sooner as it's closer.
4) there's plenty of objects and solar systems to mine all around the outer edges of our galaxy. It's still relatively dense. They weren't on the very edges of our galaxy. Given how fast Voyager can travel, realistically, resources shouldn't have been a problem at any point. Though the show doesn't show this as voyager frequently has issues with resources, so I'm sure the narrative would make this a problem at some point.
My major argument for why the wormhole isn't a good way to go is that it's a single point of failure. Incredibly high risk for very little reward (not taking into account the Borg in the other direction).
David Evans I’ve always wondered about that... different galaxies flatness.
@@nicholasbrown5013 Yeah it's not true for all galaxies, but it is for spiral. Spiral galaxies are driven by a black hole at their center which drives the motion for most of the galaxy. And I believe that's what helps keeps a spiral galaxy flat.
There are other types of galaxies though that may not have a central black hole, and those are irregularly shaped. Some are spherical.
David Evans is the flat shape caused by the centripetal force of the objects rotating around the black hole?
@@nicholasbrown5013 I would also say the term flat is pretty relative. While our galaxy isn't as deep as it is wide, it is still roughly 1000 l.y. thick.
Are we forgetting that Jayneway was adamant to find the partner to the Caretaker which led her to head the way she did?
@Vicious Snail Yes. Yes we are.
Good point.
I thought about that, too. That was the first priority and it *may* have left the gamma quadrant out of the picture as a viable route. Ideally, that would have been addressed in the show.
true, she may have forgot about the iro... eeehm, the Caretaker
I always wondered why Voyager didn't use the Bajoran's hole. They were very attractive people, after all.
Good One!
I think you've given a reason already that being the show's route was the route with the most mapped regions. That route had the most data so there was a significantly less likely change at unknown factors, events, ect. even with the large section of unknown space and the slightly longer voyage.
Indeed. And let's face it going for the wormhole option is ridiculous, you are actually heading awya from Federation space, on another decades long journey in the hole a wormhole might still be open. If not you'll be further away than ever and never return in hostile space. vs head straight to your home, a bit longer but the chances of meeting known elements is great and you know for sure you are heading back. Plus for the first part you have a guide who can help and for the latter parts you have known races.
Can I also say one aspect of the maps I dislike is how big they are. In the shows if you take Voyager needs to take 70+ years to go in a straight line to get home, then with those maps Federation Space takes more than a decade to cross. Yet we know in days/weeks a starship can make the centres of Romulan space or the Klingon Empire if in a hurry. Heck the Enterprise can go from known worlds to earth in months if needed. Those outlines of the federation and other local empires should be way smaller.
They went the route that Nelix was familiar with. Besides, that's a long way to take to reach a wormhole. Although it's known to be stable, they can't know if it would remain as such. They would be pretty screwed if they showed up at the wormhole only to find the Pah-wraths had taken over or the Prophets closed it up. Therefore, they took the most direct route, but kept a lookout for a shortcut.
The Nelix thing is an interesting point. He and Kes were the only ones on board who knew anything about the Delta quadrant.
Yeah, if you ended up in/near the Alpha Quadrant and something goes wrong…
(There’s a lot more you can do to fix it…)
A bigger question IMHO is why Voyager in “False Profits“, simply didn’t take that wormhole back. They could deal with the Ferengi later.
I don't think they said in it the episode, but they couldn't leave the Ferengi behind because of the Prime Directive. The Ferengi had interfered with the natural development of a species and they had to do what they could to fix it and then again had to prevent the Ferengi from being able to return and cause further damage.
That is a very good question. They made Janeway mull over some stupid detail of the Prime Directive and let the Ferenghi go back, rather than toss them in the brig under heavy guard and use the wormhole to go back to the Barzan (or whatever) sector, smack in the middle of the Alpha quadrant. Of course, that would have meant the end of the series, but at least the writers could have done a better job at the plot.
@john simmons if memory serves, it would have been safe for Voyager to go back through the Barzan Wormhole if they'd just secured the Ferengi properly. It was the Ferengi shuttle technobabbling out of Voyager's tractor beam that messed what Voyager had done to keep the Delta end of the wormhole in place. It didn't collapse though, it destabilised so that both ends were jumping erratically, rendering it useless.
My understanding was that it was stable until the very end when it was destabilized. They could’ve taken the entire crew of voyager back to the Alpha quadrant. Then the Federation and the Ferengi could figure out what to do with these two bozos and go back if need be.
Also, Janeway was probably THE worst offender of the Prime Directive. Everything from destroying the Caretaker Array to help with the Ocampa (Tuvok even said so) to bringing a war on the Federation by Species 8472 they didn’t even know about. Her actions to save 150 crew members put several star systems and billions of lives in danger of assimilation. Arturus was correct in “Hope and Fear“.
Janeway: [To crew] Crew of the USS Voyager. We are stranded in the Delta quadrant and I aim to do everything in my power to get us all back home. I will use everything at my disposal, including the wormhole in the Gamma quadrant...
Kim: Wait, Captain? Why are we going 60,000 lightyears in the wrong direction, taking about 60 years on the off chance that a wormhole might still be there and still active?
Janeway: Because we know that it is there, and we know it it stable, and it will allow us to travel back to Deep Space 9 in just a few minutes, saving us about 15 years in travel time.
Kim: Um, Captain? Are you unaware of the Barzan Wormhole?
Janeway: Of course. [Looks at Tuvok]
Tuvok: [Whispers to Janeway] Wormhole in orbit of Barzan II, thought to be stable, until it was discovered that only the Barzan side was fixed in place, and that the far end was not fixed, jumping around. Additionally, the ships passing through the wormhole had destabalised it and the Barzan end alos became unfixed.
Janeway: [To crew] I can asure you that the Bajoran wormhole is stable because it is controlled by a race that has no concept of linear time, and they keep the wormhole open.
Kim: Um, Captain? Did you ever read Commander Sisko's logs in relation to the wormhole and the beings who inhabit it? They once closed it, because passage through the wormhole was harmful to their species. How do you know that they'll still have it open in 60 years? How do you know that the lifeforms that control the wormhole won't relocate it before we arrive? How do you know that the wormhole won't have destabalised in the time it takes us to get there. just like the Barzan wormhole did?
Janeway: [Now annoyed because she hasn't had her coffee yet and her brain hurts from trying to use it] Because I said so, and I'm the Captain, and that means you do what I sa...
[Sound of a phser blast followed by the thump of Janeway's body hitting the floor]
Chakotay: Okay! Clearly Captain Janeway is nuts, so who's with me for the direct approach?
Crew: We're with you, Captain Chakotay. All hail Chakotay, Captain of the USS Voyager.
____
Or, in short. Who the hell, in their right mind is going to go in the wrong direction for upto 60 years in the hopes that something might be available to them, even though there are plenty of reasons for it not to be? Yes. It'll take them 15 years more to complete the journey, but there are fewer variables involved.
After a decade or two of going the wrong way, and hence getting no closer to home, the Voyager crew will have reached a point where what Captain Ransom did would seem like a mild social deviation to what the Voyager crew will have gotten up to.
By taking the direct route, the crew can point to distance covered and distance remaining, and therefore how long it'll be before they can see those that they care about. People can take little morale boosts by going the direct route, particulary when they get those bigger speed boosts.
Counter this by heading to the Gamma end of the Bajoran wormhole. No matter how much time they shave, or distance travelled, they still aren't getting any closer to the Alpha quadrant, and home. Don't know about anyone else, but I'd be upset, and planning a mutiny.
Actually, I mostly agree with everything. Exception being the Romulan reaction to all this. Supposing that Voyager encounters them at some point between the end of the Dominion War and the Hobus Supernova, I could see them not instantly seizing the ship and first asking Starfleet what they thought they were up to. Assuming that they had encountered the Hirogen network along the way, Starfleet would be aware of them, and probably would even have forewarned the Romulans about everything, just to avoid any sort of incident.
And yeah, Voyager rocking up out of the Wormhole a few days after Operation Return would have indeed been amazing.
and they spoke to that Romulan from 2351. Although he died in 2367 and we never found out if he arranged for Voyager's messages to reach Starfleet after his demise, it's possible that the Romulans already knew Voyager was out there... and if they didn't before, they likely found out because of the Prometheus incident.
@@ZoeMalDoran Yeah... I think given the possibility of that the Romulans were at least peripherally aware of Voyager. And given Voyager's increased contact with the Federation as they got closer (hirogen network, the array) - The Romulans would have been notified one way or another. I think, at worst, the Romulans would have treated Voyager in a similar fashion to the B'omar (VOY:"The Raven"). "You will have an honor guard at all times, and you must follow THIS path, that avoids highly populated / military / industrial areas.
The Romulans may have been a bit less adversarial after the Dominion War, but they('re government) were likely still as insular/xenophobic/secretive as ever.
@@ZoeMalDoran I bet, the romulans knew about it. But they are Romulans. They would have kept that secret for themselves. Perhabs they even would have themselves hijacked the Voyager and seized the ship, if they wouldn't knew, that the Federation is aware, that the Voyager still exists. Don't forget: They never send back the surviving crew of the Enterprise C from 2344, also not Tasha Yar. They are not friendly people, when it comes to their prisoners.
Don't forget the U. S. S. Equinox!
Literally EVERYONE forgot about the Equinox Haha
I'm about to rewatch the episode to make sure, but I'm pretty sure Equinox should have gotten home in like 14 weeks with the enhancements.
I was right. Captain Ransom stated they traveled 10,000 lightyears in 14 days with the enhanced warp drive. So Equinox should have gotten home in roughly 14 weeks.
@@theindooroutdoorsman But given the reaction to how they'd enhanced it, would Starfleet have welcomed them back . . . or had a similar reaction: "This is wrong."
@@kereminde perhaps some of them were going to turn themselves in and spend the rest of their lives in prison, or else they would've been on the run from Starfleet.
Or maybe they would've become space pirates.
Im glad they went through the route they did, They made the potential for an alliance with many new friends.
Would have probably been the better option in hindsight, as spooky as the Dominion is the Delta quadrant proved to be a utter hellhole. But they didn't know that at the time...
Also the real best route would have been "use the caretaker array in episode 1" :)
I remember asking that question after seeing one of those maps that had the Gamma end of the wormhole closer to the Delta Gamma border. Some quick trigonometry had me thinking "Why would you go for a 70-year trip when a known shortcut is 20ish years away?" That map had it so that the wormhole was between Voyager and Dominion space a far more attractive gamble.
Except you need Minkowski geometry to apply to Einsteinian space. How do you think 7of9 had been able to opptimize their trahectory? She had mpre knowledge over dealing with gwravitational lensing and such.
That's an interesting idea. Instead of hiding from the Borg, a different villain could have been the Dominion (assuming they found a shortcut that plopped them in the middle of Dominion space in the middle of the war) 🤔
That raises some possibilities and also a good way to bring in the year of hell story arc as a series finale #nore-sentbutton 😃
Voyager would be destroyed. Except for endgame. Voyager never went toe toe against more than one borg ship. Dominion would send enough ships to overwhelm voyager. If that isnt bad enough dominion could just kamikaze voyager like they did the Olympia
@@Shadothecat you mean oddessy. the real issue is voyager left early in their contact w/ the dominion. at this point voyager has the shields that dominion phased polaron beams go straight thru
@@Shadothecat Definitely. I think it would be a cat and mouse game of Voyager hiding and them maybe having an edge with Borg technology.
@@insertcognomen The biggest problem for Voyager when they encounter the Dominion is simply that they don't know the Dominion is an enemy or how big of a threat they are. While Voyager knew the Dominion existed, and was a vague possible threat, they would have been completely blindsided to find that they were in the midst of/had just lost an all-out war with the Federation and its allies.
Go through the Delta with the first few years having a guide, or go west to end up with a likely hostile empire to get to a wormhole that may or may not still be active once you get there. And if it isnt.... you are pretty much the same distance from home.
Correct choice was made.
I always loved their photon torpedo's, and how they kept multiplying lol.
Every time a photon torpedo is fired, an anti-photon torpedo is generated in and unloaded from the adjacent tube. Then they simply reconfigure the power conduits and modulate the carrier wave so it's inverted, and you have a photon torpedo again, ready to quantum-tunnel in an endless series of torpedoes, although some stipulate there only ever has been and always ever will be only one photon torpedo that tunnels through spacetime.
My head canon is just that photon torpedoes can be manufactured, they just weren't set up to do so at the time they said that line. They can replicate all the parts, so it's really just getting the antimatter that's a challenge. A problem which they had to solve repeatedly.
Yeah that "and no way to replace them" thing was forgotten about pretty quickly.