USS Voyager and borders

Founder · **Fri May 18, 2007 8:18 pm USS Voyager and borders**

You know, I was thinking about all this border issues going on in the United States and I realized that each interstellar government in Trek has their own set of borders.

I wonder...why is it that so many species allowed VOY to just...fly through their space, undocumented or what not. Can you imagine over a hundred illegals entering the U.S. and simply traveling accross it to enter Canada? We'd be all over them in a second.

So how did VOY get away with it so often and why don't species protect their borders more? I mean, in DS9, the Breen managed to fly into Sol and attack Earth! I guess there are no planetary defenses or even system-wide defenses...

JupiterPrime · Lieutenant Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 208

By conventional means, there is no basis for comparing the size of a provincial border to that of even just our own planet for the purpose of policing that border except for randomly placed border patrols, capable of reacting at a moment's notice, and fast enough to intercept them once (and if) detected.

now expand that several orders of magnitude. Plus also as far as Voyager is concerned, the entire quadrant is uncharted space and they would have no idea who controls which region until after the fact.

Politically speaking, once its positively determined that the vessel is not from the region and is returning home, it would be resourcefully ineffective to escort it through, and wiser to just maintain vigliance and observation until such time as it is verified that the vessel has left your space, and if not, then pursue and detain.

Founder · **Tue May 22, 2007 7:27 pm**

Yay, someone finally responded to my topic!

Good post, but I have some questions as a result.

I agree that it is probably much more difficult to set an established border in space, then it would be on a planet. However, it seemed like in Trek they found a way to do that. But I agree that it could simply be that they WANTED to stop VOY from violating their borders, but they simply reacted too slowly. That excuse even works for Earth with the Breen attacks, but it is still strange that during a WAR, Earth was so defenseless. Especially after Betazed fell, which proved to the Federation that no world was really safe...

Actually, I have to dissagree on your second point. In the episode "Year of Hell", Seven of Nine, using the newly built Astrometrics, told the others they were about to enter Krenim space. So VOY clearly knew that they were gallavanting through other species' space, they simply did nothing about it because going around each space would take forever. So, Janeway stupidly flew into the space without any negotiations and assumed that the governments that controlled the region would just let them fly by.

Your third paragraph makes sense though. You're probably right that it would not really be important enough to escort a little science ship through an entire region just because they could potentially attack the home world. However, there is a chance that this ship isn't all it appears to be. But, you answered that when you said the ships should let it pass through, but keep observations on it.

Omok · Lieutenant Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 170

Space borders are hard to manage.

JupiterPrime · Lieutenant Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 208

the Astrometrics lab, I felt, was used as a "plot hole explianer" far too much - logisitically speaking that is. the only reason it worked as well as it did, was the "convenience" of having a borg on board who would (and apparently did) have somewhat detailed knowledge of the political status of the quadrant.

Otherwise VOY would have had no idea of anything they were flying through, until after making contact with whomever may govern the region.

Much would be the same with the GQ in DS9...having the major power controlling the quadrant (the Dominion) situated at the far end of the quadrant rather than closer to the center, would make it more difficult to that power to police the quadrant from so far out, but they needed it to be out there because otherwsie it would have been a much shorter flight to simply have Voyager fly towards the exit aperture of the Bajor Wormhole and get home through there, rather than fly all the way through the DQ

Sonic74205 · **Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:57 am**

Well i dont really think voyager got away with flying in alien space very well at all. Voyager was under almost constant attack from the kazon for around a year when they were flying through Kazon space. Just like with the Vidiians. Don't forget in "The Raven" voyager was not allowed past the alien races borders. In "Counterpoint" voyager was only allowed to pass through Devore space without following a flight plan with constant inspections and rules they had to follow and it happened in "Dragons Teeth". There was also a reference to voyager trespassing in "Year of Hell" too. I'm guessing alot of the other times perhaps the alien races were pacefist or maybe they werent technologically advanced enough. Don't forget voyager is a fast ship. Im sure they are going to come across alot of species that don't have the speed or power to stand a chance against them.

Hyprodimus Prime · Crewman Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 2

JupiterPrime · Lieutenant Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 208

Even as a nomadic race, they wouldnt know everything about the entire quadrant. Look at the civilzation of the AQ, hundreads of known civilzations that barely stretch out across 1/8 to 1/4 of known space in the area, and thats just from roughly under 400 years of warp travel.

I certainly doubt 1 Talaxian knows more about 20,000 light years of space than hundreds of civilizations do about less than half of their own space. ANd even in our space, we were constantly sending out the Enterprise to to explore "An unknown, uncharted region of space" yet they were still close enough to be able to make it back to the Starbase in time for dinner.

TrekkieMage · **Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:04 pm**

Knowing Neelix's character, he may have BSed some of his knowlege, or just gone on word of mouth. There were a lot of times he claimed to "know" something, but it had come from a friend of a friend of a friend.

bluerow · Sophomore Cadet Joined: 31 May 2007 Posts: 12

jupiterprime above had said that that was what nelix was for, but remember in one of the seasons, in a certian episode, didnt nelix have this whole thing where he needed a star chart for the next part of the journey because he'd never been this far out before?

just wondering, i could be wrong, bluerow

JupiterPrime · Lieutenant Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 208

Yes he did need a map - VOY had reached the edge of space where he had any knowledge of - thats not what I was trying to say.

What I was trying to say is that the show had Neelix knowing more about a vast region of space in just his space-faring life-time....more apparently than do the hundreds of civilizations in the alpha quadrant know about thier own region of space in almost 400 years.

Unlikely.

Voyager2004 · **Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:03 pm**

But, TM up above is very correct. His knowledge not only came from what he knew himself, but from what he had also heard. It makes PERFECT sense that his character would do that...

And even then, it was sometime in the 2nd season, I THINK, that he needed that map. And Voyager traveled less than 1000 LY by that time. Probably less than 300 LY, because they were still with the Kazon up until the end of season 2. So he didn't really know as much as you make it sound.