Comments on "The Swarm"
Timothy Bruening
Beware! You are about to be swarmed by spoilers below:
In this episode, Voyager attempts to cross the territory of an alien race,
and a swarm of green alien ships attacks Voyager. Meanwhile, the Doctor's
memory circuits break down. At the beginning of the episode, the Doctor was
singing opera in the Holo deck. His opera program pushed his personality
program over its limit of 15,000 gigaquads, leading to a class 4 memory
fracture which caused him to progressively lose his memory.
The Doctor is incapacitated by the cascade failure of his memory circuits
well before Janeway orders Voyager into Swarm territory, a move which
endangers the ship and crew. Why does Janeway order Voyager into a
situation which threatens to harm Voyager crew members at a time when the
Doctor isn't able to provide medical care to injured crew members? Why
couldn't she wait until the Doctor had been repaired? Surely on a 75 year
journey, Janeway could afford to wait a few days for the Doctor to be
repaired before sending the ship and crew into danger.
Janeway decides to enter Swarm space rather than spend 15 months going
around Swarm territory. 15 months is only 1/60 of the total anticipated
time back to the Alpha Quadrant. Why put the ship in danger just to avoid
increasing the trip time by 1.67%?
As Voyager goes through Swarm space, a swarm ship polarizes Voyager's
shields to 60 gigahertz to make it easy for the other Swarms ships to find
Voyager. Why doesn't the crew immediately remodulate the shields?
A few minutes later, a fleet of swarm ships emit an interferometric pulse in
opposition to Voyager's shield frequency, thereby nullifying the shields and
bouncing Voyager's phasers back at Voyager. Again, why doesn't the crew
immediately remodulate the shields?
As swarm ships attach themselves to Voyager's hull (sucking out its energy),
the crew finally remembers to remodulate Voyager's shields. They change
the frequency to the inverse of the swarm's pulse and fires at the swarm.
As a result, the swarm ships attached to the hull explode, as well as
several other swarm ships. Why didn't the explosions tear holes in
Voyager's hull? The Swarm retreats, and Voyager proceeds on through.
At the same time that the Swarm was sucking out Voyager's energy and
exploding off Voyager's hull, Voyager's computer was running a program to
graft the matrix of the Holographic Doctor Diagnostic Program to the
Doctor's matrix. I am amazed that the program still worked!
At the end of the episode, it is obvious that the Doctor has lost most of
his memory, although he still remembers how to sing opera.
--
Timothy S. Bruening (tsbr...@wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us)
Davis Community Network
Steven Janeway
Timothy Bruening wrote:
>
>
> Janeway decides to enter Swarm space rather than spend 15 months going
> around Swarm territory. 15 months is only 1/60 of the total anticipated
> time back to the Alpha Quadrant. Why put the ship in danger just to avoid
> increasing the trip time by 1.67%?
Because the effect on morale when you say, "We'll take a 15 month detour and *then*
start the rest of our 70+ year trip" will be disastrous.
>
> As Voyager goes through Swarm space, a swarm ship polarizes Voyager's
> shields to 60 gigahertz to make it easy for the other Swarms ships to find
> Voyager. Why doesn't the crew immediately remodulate the shields?
>
Good question, noone even suggested that.
> A few minutes later, a fleet of swarm ships emit an interferometric pulse in
> opposition to Voyager's shield frequency, thereby nullifying the shields and
> bouncing Voyager's phasers back at Voyager. Again, why doesn't the crew
> immediately remodulate the shields?
Another good question. Perhaps they anticipated that the Aliens would cancel the *new*
frequency, so the solution had to be one that would not allow Swarm countermeasures.
>
> As swarm ships attach themselves to Voyager's hull (sucking out its energy),
> the crew finally remembers to remodulate Voyager's shields. They change
> the frequency to the inverse of the swarm's pulse and fires at the swarm.
> As a result, the swarm ships attached to the hull explode, as well as
> several other swarm ships. Why didn't the explosions tear holes in
> Voyager's hull? The Swarm retreats, and Voyager proceeds on through.
The precedent is just as silly. In "Deadlock" the second Voyager is hit with a Vidiian
weapon but even though the explosion takes place in the *same* space the ship takes no
damage. Then, when the second Voyager self-destructs, Voyager again takes no damage.
Perhaps she's immune to 'collateral' damage!?
>
> At the same time that the Swarm was sucking out Voyager's energy and
> exploding off Voyager's hull, Voyager's computer was running a program to
> graft the matrix of the Holographic Doctor Diagnostic Program to the
> Doctor's matrix. I am amazed that the program still worked!
>
> At the end of the episode, it is obvious that the Doctor has lost most of
> his memory, although he still remembers how to sing opera.
>
> --
> Timothy S. Bruening (tsbr...@wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us)
> Davis Community Network
--
Steven McKinnon "Chief Inspector Tuvok leaves
no stone unturned"
Janeway is GOD - Chakotay, "Ex Post Facto"
Chakotay is her PROPHET
Tim Bruening
> Timothy Bruening wrote:
> >
> >
> > Janeway decides to enter Swarm space rather than spend 15 months going
> > around Swarm territory. 15 months is only 1/60 of the total anticipated
> > time back to the Alpha Quadrant. Why put the ship in danger just to avoid
> > increasing the trip time by 1.67%?
>
> Because the effect on morale when you say, "We'll take a 15 month detour and *then*
> start the rest of our 70+ year trip" will be disastrous.
tsbr...@gmail.com
> As Voyager goes through Swarm space, a swarm ship polarizes Voyager's
> shields to 60 gigahertz to make it easy for the other Swarms ships to find
> Voyager. Why doesn't the crew immediately remodulate the shields?
tsbr...@gmail.com
> memory circuits break down. At the beginning of the episode, the Doctor was
> singing opera in the Holo deck. His opera program pushed his personality
> program over its limit of 15,000 gigaquads, leading to a class 4 memory
> fracture which caused him to progressively lose his memory.
tsbr...@gmail.com
> Timothy Bruening wrote:
> >
> >
> > Janeway decides to enter Swarm space rather than spend 15 months going
> > around Swarm territory. 15 months is only 1/60 of the total anticipated
> > time back to the Alpha Quadrant. Why put the ship in danger just to avoid
> > increasing the trip time by 1.67%?
>
> Because the effect on morale when you say, "We'll take a 15 month detour and *then*
> start the rest of our 70+ year trip" will be disastrous.