jack

We skipped the one with the weird future Borg drone, because it's sad. And also the plot makes no sense - how can Seven's nanoprobes make a future drone just by assimilating the Doctor's mobile emitter? The logic does not hold up. Anyway, we'll go back to that episode later.

Then there's the one where we're told that Torres has been spiraling for months and that Paris has been pushing for his new Delta Flyer for at least as long, but actually both those things show up out of nowhere because TV hadn't really committed to arc-based storytelling at this point. And they resolve just as fast, too! Chakotay cures B'Elanna by shoving her forcibly into a holosimulation of watching all her Maquis friends die and then giving her a tough love lecture about how much people care about her. This can not be a valid therapeutic technique! Seems more likely to make it worse. But it doesn't - she develops new motivation, shakes off those survivor guilt blues, saves the (extremely rapidly built) Delta Flyer and all aboard with her brilliant quick thinking, and then eats banana pancakes with enthusiasm and a renewed zest for life.

Also, if she's got the medical knowledge of a first year nursing student then why the hell isn't she the one picking up extra shifts in Sickbay instead of Tom? That man gets too much plot. (For that matter, when Harry was in that weird AU, we found out that if he hadn't been on Voyager he would've gone into ship design and done pretty well for himself. The building the Delta Flyer plot should've been his endeavor, properly spread out over several episodes. Harry doesn't get enough of the plot.)

But really, Voyager needs to hire a few nurses, hire an extra doctor, and hire a fucking therapist. The Alpha Quadrant cannot possibly have a monopoly on therapy. (And in the meantime, would medication help B'Elanna?) The nurses and doctor could be hired temporarily, exchanging work for passage in Voyager's general heading. There's sure to be plenty of people willing to take that deal. The therapist would really be better off as a more long-term gig, but if they'd stop for a few weeks and really look I'm sure they could find somebody qualified who'd like to do some serious traveling.

Also also: Back when we met the Malon, the garbage hauler was pissy about them talking to their government about those converters because, as he strongly implied, the government would absolutely accept this technology, especially if it came free, with help from experts in setting it up. But... did Voyager even bother to talk to the Malon government, because they seem to have written off the entire culture.

And then we watched the episode where it turns out Species 8472, convinced that humans are a serious threat, have replicated the Academy in order to learn how to infiltrate Starfleet and gather intel for future defense. Which... honestly, the evidence they have against humanity is pretty damning. They only really have ever met two other cultures, one of whom is the Borg and the other of which allied with the Borg in order to slaughter them. And yes, Voyager even has a Borg on their very ship, like, I'd be worried about this too!

But this time Janeway flipped a coin and it landed on "diplomacy", so they tried that and it worked beautifully.

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The Rusty Quill Big Bang is open for writer signups.

And by the way, there's an Ao3 feed for Stellar Firma, except I misspelled it because they're all British and their accents are non-rhotic: ao3_stella_firma_feed.

Anyway, I definitely would recommend you listen to some of those audiodramas and maaaaaaybe do the fan thing as well.

It was so long we had to resetup Paramount Plus on the PS4, which was a job and a half.

Also, Jenn kept trying to guess the ending for one episode so I've banned her from watching with us. I mean, not really, but I'll probably keep saying it for a few more days.

We watched the one with the Demon class planet, which is sorta meh all around but which is important context for one of my favorite ever ST episodes. It's weird that that's my favorite episode, as it's sad and bleak and also doesn't really go anywhere, but I love it.

Then there's the one where Seven's basically all alone for a month, and honestly, this was a terrible idea all around. Voyager is a big ship, you can't run it with two people, and that's if you can expect everything to work smoothly with no problems which obviously they couldn't because of the scary nebula. They should've gone around. Also, at the end Harry makes an ill-conceived joke about Tom being locked up in small places as a child, and what if he had been, Harry? You'd feel awful, and from now on that's my new headcanon. Tom laughed, but he was only hiding his pain....

(Also, it's super weird to me that one of the first evil hallucinations Seven manifested was a creepy creepster. She was a Borg! She was assimilated as a small child! Where was she even drawing that from!?)

Then there's the one with the slipstream drive that's all an elaborate trap, and my man, I get that you're crazed with grief but I think you should have bigger priorities than some petty revenge.

And then there's Night. The crew spends half the episode moping that they're going through a boring, starless region of space. You'd think they'd be happy that they finally have time to finish their concertos and catch up on their reading, but apparently not! They only perk up when they have a chance to avert a genocide. Which, lemme say, they didn't even fucking try with that garbage hauler. I get that the episode and his behavior is supposed to be about us, but they could've pointed out to him that if he comes back with them he can have a monopoly over this cleansing device and make money hand over fist, easily twice as much as he's making now with a lot less risk and labor. But no, they'd rather write Hoggish Greedly instead, even though that characterization doesn't make any damn sense and it requires the crew to be completely undiplomatic.

I mean, I guess I'd be happy too if I could singlehandedly stop a genocide, but damn, I like a little downtime! What is wrong with them? I think they were just itching for a fight, and that's why they picked one.

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