Anyone else think Section 31's Dominion plan was bad?

[Q99]

You are correct.

While that may be canon, though, it was still a daft plan, because unless they had a superbeing on staff, there's no way Section 31 could know that the Dominion wouldn't cure it, or retaliate by blowing up the suns of every Federation planet the moment they found out.

Of course, one of the Weyouns defects to Odo in Treachery, Faith and the Great River, perhaps Section 31 thought he would inherit a large part of the Dominion and be trusted/able to cancel the Founders orders.

Odo being able to call a stop to things would definitely be a best-case scenario.

But yeah, while the Founders don't apparently know it's from the Federation, that's really not something they could rely on them not finding out, as without the divine intervention that they didn't know was going to happen, the Jem'hadar would be in Section 31 bases, attaching nerve-inducers to Section 31 commanders' genitals, before the end of the year. When a nation falls, its intelligence agency falls, its records are siezed and its agents are put to the question; that's been happening since World War two and ever since in the real world.

Frankly, the Dominion would have taken the cure by force, in a rare case of rubber-hose epidemiology, if it wasn't for the Prophets' space magic.

Even if they didn't know who did it for sure, who are the suspects, really? Not the Klingons. *Maybe* the Romulans. The species on their borders who've they've had eyes on forever? Or, the biggest candidate, the best scientists who've actually had a lot of time to study a Founder in the form of Odo.

They're top of the suspect list regardless, and lacking in proof, they're the type to go for the biggest suspect. Rubber hose indeed.



Ultimately, I view it as a very fragile plan.

Dying Founders can give final orders, Infiltrating Founders could be entirely unaffected and command the Dominion from quarantine (and with much greater reason to hate solids forever), cure is a possibility, stealing the cure from the Federation is both possible and a highly logical choice for them....

Heck, due to the high priority of getting the cure, I could see them offering truce terms to the Romulans and Klingons that they never would've without the virus.

[Tribble]

IIRC the main problem with the slipstream drive was that the magic crystals they were using were breaking down, and it would take years to synthesize / locate another batch. It was basically a one-shot deal, which is why they weren't able to make multiple jumps. IMO that's a bigger bottleneck than having to design new ships; the magic crystals would probably be very rare in the AQ as well, and building/maintaining the infrastructure needed to synthesize enough of them to sustain a fleet would be a pretty daunting task.

[NecronLord]

Addendum to the above; The Wounded Sky, the Crystal Spider drive in the apocryphal Star Trek books was written by Diane Duane, one of the writers of TNG: Where No One has Gone Before, so it was more 'reworked' than 'ripped off.'

IIRC the main problem with the slipstream drive was that the magic crystals they were using were breaking down, and it would take years to synthesize / locate another batch. It was basically a one-shot deal, which is why they weren't able to make multiple jumps. IMO that's a bigger bottleneck than having to design new ships; the magic crystals would probably be very rare in the AQ as well, and building/maintaining the infrastructure needed to synthesize enough of them to sustain a fleet would be a pretty daunting task.

The crash was unrelated to the crystals' instability, I believe, but was a navigation issue.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Well, Humans and every other race ever shown in Trek. Female founder said, they dislike taking solid form - their natural state is that lake.

Except there are multiple canon examples of Founders who accepted multi-year solo missions.

Well... there's a thing between 1 and 0. It's called 0.5. As you point out there's probably a few out there doing missions on Qo'Nos or Romulas or Earth - or in the GQ who knows how many? No one. but the vast, vast majority are in a big lake. It's what they do and who they are.

Yes there'd be a "few" who were not infected over the 3 year period. But it would be a "few" compared to the "many" of the Great Link. We have no numbers to compare. But I hope you'd agree that the survivors / non-infected would be "much less" than the "whole" of the normal supply of changelings ?

And Bashir *couldn't* find the cure - he needed it handed to him by the creator(s) of the virus. No one could find the cure.

Already conceded. Rubber Hose Epidemiology it is.

Yup my own bad reading due to that part

[NecronLord]

Well, Humans and every other race ever shown in Trek. Female founder said, they dislike taking solid form - their natural state is that lake.

Except there are multiple canon examples of Founders who accepted multi-year solo missions.

Well... there's a thing between 1 and 0. It's called 0.5. As you point out there's probably a few out there doing missions on Qo'Nos or Romulas or Earth - or in the GQ who knows how many? No one. but the vast, vast majority are in a big lake. It's what they do and who they are.

Yes there'd be a "few" who were not infected over the 3 year period. But it would be a "few" compared to the "many" of the Great Link. We have no numbers to compare. But I hope you'd agree that the survivors / non-infected would be "much less" than the "whole" of the normal supply of changelings ?

The thing is, there's a difference between being conquered by people the writers have said are supposed to be broadly similar to the Romans, in that they would provide a decent quality of life to those who succumbed.

And being conquered by a gal/guy whose entire family your intelligence agency has killed.

Without the Divine Intervention of the Prophets, the Section 31 plan was only going to end up with the second; conquest would happen either way unless you got all the Founders, or Odo is able to take over instead of the surviving Founders, somehow.

Good plans do not feature "we still get conquered, but this time with extra brutality." Loss of the super-majority of the Founders would make the Dominion somewhat less capable, but it would almost certainly change Dominion policy from conquest to extermination.

Of course in the canon they manage to get all the founders, so Weyoun talks about the Dominion serving Odo:

WEYOUN: Odo, there's something you need to know. A sickness has spread throughout the Great Link. The Founders are dying. I was summoned to a meeting by the female changeling. She wanted to discuss troop deployments with me, and suddenly her hands began to shrivel. It lasted only a second or two, but over the last few weeks, it's happened a number of times. It's like she's withering.
ODO: And you're sure the other changelings are also infected?
WEYOUN: She said the entire Link is suffering from the disease.
ODO: Everyone but me.
WEYOUN: If they're unable to find a cure, you'll be the last of your kind.
ODO: Why didn't you tell me this earlier?
WEYOUN: Because I knew how much it would hurt you. I'm sorry to bring you such sad news. But at least you're not infected. The Dominion will survive.
ODO: Meaning what?
WEYOUN: Think about it, Odo. You have an opportunity to rectify the mistakes your people have made. To build a new Dominion based on cooperation, not conquest. On peace, not war. A new order under your leadership.
ODO: And what's your role going to be in this new order?
WEYOUN: Whatever you want it to be. I wish only to serve you.

But there's no plausible means they could have known they'd get all the Founders, if indeed they did and Weyoun simply wasn't aware of others. Also Weyoun doesn't think mass-suicide is on the cards.

[Tribble]

The crash was unrelated to the crystals' instability, I believe, but was a navigation issue.

In the original event, and Future Harry's first attempt at correcting things, yes. But in the 2nd attempt Future Harry sent instructions to Seven that collapsed the field and caused the Slipstream drive to shutdown. During the time Voyager was in the Slipstream it shaved 10 years off their journey, which is ~10,000 ly or so. In theory Voyager should have been able to hop back to the AQ via multiple jumps, because all they had to do was drop out of slipstream before the phase variance became critical. It's never stated exactly why they didn't try that, Janeway just decides that it's too risky to use the drive again and dismantles it. That seems a pretty odd decision given they had just proven that using the slipstream for a couple of minutes at a time was perfectly feasible, however her decision would make sense if the crystals had degraded to the point where they were too dangerous to use again. Of course, she may have done it just to keep her playthings trapped in the DQ for a few more years

[NecronLord]

Yes. And doing so required people in the future with a borg temporal transmitter, and a borg with an interplexing implant on board. In no way is that technology the Federation can rely on.

Let's look at what they get when they simulate using it without a pilot-ship leading them.

PARIS: Twenty three simulations, twenty three catastrophes. This is no sensor glitch. We've got to tell them.

[2375 Engineering]

TORRES: That can't be right. We tested this engine molecule by molecule.
PARIS: I'm sorry, B'Elanna.
SEVEN: I wish to examine the results of the simulation.
PARIS: Holodeck two. Run them for yourself. That is, if you don't mind being vaporised a few dozen times.

And when they have a pilot-ship leading them...

[2390 Delta Flyer - lab]

KIM: Acknowledged.
EMH: I'm no time travel expert, but can't we just call Voyager again? The past isn't going anywhere.
KIM: That's not going to help if we don't know what to tell them. The Slipstream kinetics look right. Hyperdimensional progressions, perfect. Maybe it's the deflector geometry.
[2390 Delta Flyer - lab]

CHAKOTAY [OC]: Coming back there?
KIM: Great, just great! It took me ten years to make these corrections. I can't fix it in three minutes!
EMH: You've got to try.
KIM: I can't! It's not working. Why won't it work? I killed them!
EMH: Control yourself!
KIM: They trusted me, and I killed them!
EMH: Mister Kim! I didn't spend all those years in an ice bucket so I could listen to you berate yourself. If you want to wallow in self-pity, fine! Do it on your own time.
KIM: Don't you see? History's repeating itself! I destroyed Voyager once, and I'm doing it again!
EMH: Somebody has got to knuckle down and change history, and that somebody is you.
KIM: It can't be done, Doc. I told you.
EMH: No, you told me you can't correct their phase variance. All right, we have to accept that. But what about sending Voyager a warning? Is there a way to get them to abort the Slipstream flight?
KIM: Yes. Yes! I could send a phase correction which would disperse the Slipstream entirely.
EMH: If we can't get the crew home, at least we can save their lives.

Future Harry Kim can't fix the math with ten years of trying for one flight.

Even with time travel letting him work on it for ten years, all they can ultimately think of is 'give up.'

Normally it explodes seventeen seconds after you turn it on. Once, it worked briefly, with the use of a borg time signal that they don't normally have, and even then, disaster was narrowly averted, and on top of that, it's tremendously expensive.

And Harry Kim is a guy who in one alternate reality, where he was not assigned to Voyager, became a starship design specialist who received the Cochrane Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Advances in Warp Theory and produced designs for starship warp engines as a solo project. This is a man who certainly has the capacity to be one of the Federation's leading lights in military starship warp engine design.

He can't make it work, after ten years of trying, for one flight.

It's not safely usable and there's no canon sign it will become so in measurable time.

[Tribble]

Yes. And doing so required people in the future with a borg temporal transmitter, and a borg with an interplexing implant on board. In no way is that technology the Federation can rely on.

Let's look at what they get when they simulate using it without a pilot-ship leading them.

PARIS: Twenty three simulations, twenty three catastrophes. This is no sensor glitch. We've got to tell them.

[2375 Engineering]

TORRES: That can't be right. We tested this engine molecule by molecule.
PARIS: I'm sorry, B'Elanna.
SEVEN: I wish to examine the results of the simulation.
PARIS: Holodeck two. Run them for yourself. That is, if you don't mind being vaporised a few dozen times.

And when they have a pilot-ship leading them...

[2390 Delta Flyer - lab]

KIM: Acknowledged.
EMH: I'm no time travel expert, but can't we just call Voyager again? The past isn't going anywhere.
KIM: That's not going to help if we don't know what to tell them. The Slipstream kinetics look right. Hyperdimensional progressions, perfect. Maybe it's the deflector geometry.
[2390 Delta Flyer - lab]

CHAKOTAY [OC]: Coming back there?
KIM: Great, just great! It took me ten years to make these corrections. I can't fix it in three minutes!
EMH: You've got to try.
KIM: I can't! It's not working. Why won't it work? I killed them!
EMH: Control yourself!
KIM: They trusted me, and I killed them!
EMH: Mister Kim! I didn't spend all those years in an ice bucket so I could listen to you berate yourself. If you want to wallow in self-pity, fine! Do it on your own time.
KIM: Don't you see? History's repeating itself! I destroyed Voyager once, and I'm doing it again!
EMH: Somebody has got to knuckle down and change history, and that somebody is you.
KIM: It can't be done, Doc. I told you.
EMH: No, you told me you can't correct their phase variance. All right, we have to accept that. But what about sending Voyager a warning? Is there a way to get them to abort the Slipstream flight?
KIM: Yes. Yes! I could send a phase correction which would disperse the Slipstream entirely.
EMH: If we can't get the crew home, at least we can save their lives.

Future Harry Kim can't fix the math with ten years of trying for one flight.

Even with time travel letting him work on it for ten years, all they can ultimately think of is 'give up.'

Normally it explodes seventeen seconds after you turn it on. Once, it worked briefly, with the use of a borg time signal that they don't normally have, and even then, disaster was narrowly averted, and on top of that, it's tremendously expensive.

And Harry Kim is a guy who in one alternate reality, where he was not assigned to Voyager, became a starship design specialist who received the Cochrane Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Advances in Warp Theory and produced designs for starship warp engines as a solo project. This is a man who certainly has the capacity to be one of the Federation's leading lights in military starship warp engine design.

He can't make it work, after ten years of trying, for one flight.

It's not safely usable and there's no canon sign it will become so in measurable time.

Not quite. All Future Harry did was get Seven to disperse the Slipstream before it became too unstable. At the end of the episode the crew knew that Voyager could survive up to 17 seconds in slipstream before they'd have to drop out, and that each one of those jumps would cover ~10,000 ly. Add in a safety margin and make the trip last 10 seconds. Even in that scenario would have been able to cover ~6,000 ly per jump. 7-8 jumps, and they'd be back in Fed space. IMO it's more likely that the main danger was in using the crystals again since they were already degrading when they made the attempt.

I agree with you that it might have been too prohibitively expensive to use on the entire fleet given the rarity of the crystals needed and the difficulty in replicating them. I could see Starfleet building a handful of ships with the tech as it's still far faster than regular warp, and there are times when having having ships that fast could come in handy.

[FaxModem1]

I think he's noting that's why Voyager never used slipstream again, you can't unless you have the special crystals. Without them, the slipstream engine just makes a pretty addition to the engine room without doing anything. It's the probable reason why Voyager didn't attempt another jump in season 6 or 7, even if it would only have shaved a couple years off their journey if they played it safe by limiting the amount of time they spent in slipstream.

Though, there is the question, why did the Delta Flyer make it through? Why didn't she crash somewhere as well? They made it the way back to Earth, according to Harry. Slipstream works for the Delta Flyer, and Voyager to a limited extent, but Harry's calculations weren't up to par. And the Delta Flyer didn't have future Harry sending him updates into Seven's mind. So, it is workable, to an extent.

It's possible Harry's math isn't up to the task due to his mind due to the timeline, or Voyager isn't suited for slipstream due to the hull not being made for that kind of stress. After all, there are math problems that can stump mathematicians for decades, or even generations. Considering Harry's state of mind for the past 15 years, of living with the guilt of the people he spent five years with dying because of him, he might have picked an answer that he thought was correct, but when clashed with reality, it really wasn't.

He might have Chakotay to check his math with, but Chakotay is a commando and tactical leader, not a mathematician, and probably trusted that Harry was right.

It's the difference between Harry working on slipstream technology while happily married to Libby, with the full help of Starfleet's Corps of Engineers to check his math, and Harry being John Nash, PADDs everywhere in his apartment, scrambled with nonsense, trying to think of something that fits, until he thinks he has the answer, and pursues the plan.

A timeline where the crew of Voyager aren't all dead would probably lead into some grounded work into it.


OR, alternatively, the Delta Flyer is better at handling turbulence and is more state of the art than Voyager, which she is, as Tom designed her to handle almost anything. And future ships with the same designs can handle slipstream better.

[Tribble]

And to be specific, Future Harry wasn't able to get the Slipstream to work properly on Voyager, which was never designed to use it. This isn't the only occasion when Voyager's limitations were shown; "One" wasn't able to modify Voyager enough to repel the Borg sphere for example, and Future Janeway's cloaking tech wasn't compatible despite her having intimate knowledge of the ship. A purpose built ship would probably do better, or at least be able to make the "short" jump that Voyager did with a greater degree of safety. Again, the crystals are likely the biggest bottleneck.

EDIT: I agree that the Delta Flyer was an interesting case as it was able to "coast" in slipstream all the way back to the AQ without problems. Perhaps if they could build a Slipstream drive at that size and/or shape it would work better? It does have a passing resemblance to the ship Arturis had.

[FaxModem1]

The thing is, there's a difference between being conquered by people the writers have said are supposed to be broadly similar to the Romans, in that they would provide a decent quality of life to those who succumbed.

And being conquered by a gal/guy whose entire family your intelligence agency has killed.

Without the Divine Intervention of the Prophets, the Section 31 plan was only going to end up with the second; conquest would happen either way unless you got all the Founders, or Odo is able to take over instead of the surviving Founders, somehow.

Good plans do not feature "we still get conquered, but this time with extra brutality." Loss of the super-majority of the Founders would make the Dominion somewhat less capable, but it would almost certainly change Dominion policy from conquest to extermination.

Thing to keep in mind, at the point the plan was implemented, middle of season 4, during the Federation and Cardassians fighting the Klingons, it made sense to do so. The Dominion had no allies in the AQ, and blame could be thrown at the Cardassians or the Romulans, since both did similar actions the year before. It's only a year later, when the Romulans sign a non-aggression pact and the Cardassians join them, that the only likely suspect is the Federation, that it looks really bad and the blame can only go to one government.

That might have been Section 31's original plan. Infect the Founders, have them eventually die, blame the RSE or CU, invade and interrogate them, but by then, the Founders are dead and the Dominion falls apart. Unfortunately for them, Dukat made negotiations and had the Cardassian Union join them.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Of course in the canon they manage to get all the founders, so Weyoun talks about the Dominion serving Odo:

But there's no plausible means they could have known they'd get all the Founders, if indeed they did and Weyoun simply wasn't aware of others. Also Weyoun doesn't think mass-suicide is on the cards.

This Weyoun was broken, though - maybe he isn't correct.

[NecronLord]

Not quite. All Future Harry did was get Seven to disperse the Slipstream before it became too unstable. At the end of the episode the crew knew that Voyager could survive up to 17 seconds in slipstream before they'd have to drop out, and that each one of those jumps would cover ~10,000 ly.

The 10,000 ly jump was longer than the 17 second ones, it lasted longer because there was the Delta Flyer acting as a pilot boat.

The pilot boat was also the Delta Flyer, a ship equipped with borg components that are not replicable, including borg shielding. It was piloted by Tom Paris, the best pilot in starfleet, who was so good that Janeway felt it necessary to get him out of the Federation criminal rehabilitation programme for terrorism - that's right, Tom Paris is so good a pilot that he gets parole from terrorism charges. Candidates of that quality aren't common.

Add in a safety margin and make the trip last 10 seconds. Even in that scenario would have been able to cover ~6,000 ly per jump. 7-8 jumps, and they'd be back in Fed space. IMO it's more likely that the main danger was in using the crystals again since they were already degrading when they made the attempt.

Chaos theory; there may not be a margin for errror. it might just blow up when you push the start button next time.

Under every other circumstance but time travel, with the best pilot in starfleet, and the best warp field engineer on a pilot boat containing irreplaceable borg tech, the thing blows up.

What you're saying, is the US Military should do away with parachutes because there was that time where a guy managed to land in a haystack and walk away when his parachute didn't work. After all, troops would be deployed quicker. And if it happened once, there's got to be a way to replicate it, right?

No. They can't replace the Delta Flyer, they can't replace Tom Paris, they can't replace Harry Kim.

[FaxModem1]

Actually, they can replace the Delta Flyer, as it was blown up in the horrible "Unimatrix Zero", and a new one was made in time for "Drive".

[tezunegari]

No. They can't replace the Delta Flyer, they can't replace Tom Paris, they can't replace Harry Kim.

The Delta Flyer was piloted by Chakotay, not Paris. Paris piloted Voyager.

[NecronLord]

I stand corrected @ Paris. It is still pertinent though, that the one time it "worked" they had literally the best pilot in Starfleet involved, and literally the best warp-field engineer. And it was still a disaster where near-everyone died.

Delta Flyer II was a similar craft, but said to have different weapons technology (than the original "borg inspired" ones) among other things. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't blow up seventeen seconds into a slipstream flight.

[NecronLord]

Oh, and in case people want to complain that I'm emphasizing the use of borg technology here for no reason:

JANEWAY: Quantum Matrix, benamite crystals, Borg technology. Can you imagine what Starfleet is going to say?
CHAKOTAY: I don't think we'll hear any complaints. The Federation's first Slipstream drive. They'll probably nominate us for the Cochrane Medal of Honour.
JANEWAY: I'll start working on my acceptance speech.
CHAKOTAY: I'd like to thank the Borg Collective.

Janeway wouldn't mention the borg technology in the same breath as the other things essential to operating the drive unless it were relevant, now would she? There's no reason to believe that they can reproduce borg technology, and every reason to believe they can't (they cannot replicate the far more reliable borg transwarp coils) replicate many parts of borg technology, even when they use them.

[Captain Seafort]

Janeway wouldn't mention the borg technology in the same breath as the other things essential to operating the drive unless it were relevant, now would she? There's no reason to believe that they can reproduce borg technology, and every reason to believe they can't (they cannot replicate the far more reliable borg transwarp coils) replicate many parts of borg technology, even when they use them.

That depends on what they mean by "Borg technology" - is it stuff they've nicked, in which case I agree that it probably can't be reproduced, or stuff they've manufactured or replicated themselves based on technical data provided by Seven, in which case there's no reason why they can't reproduce it.

[NecronLord]

It's not explicitly stated in the episode; but I'd presume it's stuff they've nicked, as she says borg technology, not borg knowledge. If you get the know-how to build something from France, you're likely to call it french knowledge, or science, not French technology, that makes me think of physical goods from France. Hardly hard and fast, but I'd say balance of probability is she's talking about actual equipment. In various other episodes they explicitly go about nicking things, such as the slightly later Dark Frontier. Voyager's deflector itself - the thing used to generate the slipstream remember - was altered by the Collective in Scorpion.

[FaxModem1]

There are also various episodes in which Seven uses her Borg know-how to save the day using Borg tech that Voyager is able to replicate or approximate in some fashion, without calling it Borg science, but Borg technology, or use them interchangeably.

SEVEN: When the Borg assimilated the Caatati, the survivors lost their ability to replicate the isotopes. But I have retained that knowledge. I could design an energy matrix that would produce thorium in large quantities.
CHAKOTAY: If you've had this knowledge all along, why didn't you say so?
SEVEN: I am not accustomed to thinking that way. Borg do not consider giving technology away, only assimilating it.
JANEWAY: And what do you suppose made you consider it now?
SEVEN: I am not certain.
JANEWAY: Maybe it was just an unexpected act of kindness. Work with Vorik to build the energy matrix, while I convince the Caatati there's a better way out of this.

CHAKOTAY: Before there were maps and globes, let alone radar and subspace sensors, mariners navigated by the stars. We're returning to that tried and true method, but this time there's a difference.
JANEWAY: Ensign Kim and Seven of Nine have merged Starfleet and Borg ingenuity to create this new technology.And I'm sure I speak for the entire crew when I say, thank you. Now, how the hell does it work?

SEVEN: That's precisely what I'm saying. The Borg have assimilated species with far greater medical knowledge than your own. We are capable of reactivating drones as much as seventy three hours after what you would call death.
CHAKOTAY: Neelix wasn't a Borg drone.
SEVEN: We will adapt.
EMH: What does this procedure involve?
SEVEN: Nanoprobes are used to reverse cellular necrosis, while the cerebral cortex is stimulated with a neuroelectric isopulse.
EMH: But there's nothing left to stimulate. His brain functions are gone.
SEVEN: By your narrow definition, perhaps, but not by mine. You will extract seventy micrograms of nanoprobes from my bloodstream. I will modify them to match his Talaxian physiology. His function in this crew is diverse. If you wish to salvage him we must proceed immediately.

They switch between calling it tech and knowledge, to the point that Janeway could be talking about the stuff they salvaged from the episode "Drone", "Scorpion", or the other episodes they had encountered beforehand, or they just used Seven's knowledge to work on it, in the same way they did with Astrometrics.

[Solauren]

I think everyone is forgetting something.

Section 31's plan left ODO alive.

What was the first thing that rogue Weyoun clone did when he woke up and said 'nope, the war is wrong'.

He went to serve Odo.

Section 31 was probably counting on that fact.

So, kill the current leadership, and put their own choice on the throne of the Dominion.

No evidence it was the UFP, and the Dominion is now lead by a UFP ally.

Section 31 didn't try to wipe out the dominion, they were going for a coup.

[Tribble]

The 10,000 ly jump was longer than the 17 second ones, it lasted longer because there was the Delta Flyer acting as a pilot boat.

The Delta Flyer never sent any successful corrections, so its role here is moot.

Chaos theory; there may not be a margin for errror. it might just blow up when you push the start button next time

While that's technically a possibility, it contradicts on-screen evidence. In both the simulation and actual use, Voyager was able to enter Slipstream and use it for several seconds before the phase variance became a problem. We'll never know if "hopping" would work because they never tried it, but balance of probabilities suggests that it should (provided they had enough special crystals).

What you're saying, is the US Military should do away with parachutes because there was that time where a guy managed to land in a haystack and walk away when his parachute didn't work. After all, troops would be deployed quicker. And if it happened once, there's got to be a way to replicate it, right?

I'm not saying that at all. Based on the on-screen evidence, there was never any real risk that Voyager would blow up the moment they pressed the button. The crew may be morons, but even they wouldn't have designed, built, and tested the drive without taking that into consideration. The phase variance was only discovered at the last minute by Tom Paris, and from what we've seen it only started to take effect after Voyager had been in the slipstream for several seconds. They attempted to compensate by using the Delta Flyer, but Voyager just wasn't up to the task of going all the way to the AQ in one jump. While it's mere speculation on my part, it seems more likely than not that the main reason why they didn't try "hopping" was because of the crystals, which were specifically mentioned to be degrading and becoming unusable.

It should also be noted that Voyager built two Slipstream drives. The first one was built in time to chase the "USS Dauntless", and they were able to whip that one up very quickly. Apparently all it required was some modifications to the warp core. We don't know exactly what the modifications were, but as there was no mention of things like the special crystals or Borg tech being used it's more likely than not that exotic parts weren't necessary. They were able to get a full hour of use out of it, so navigation wasn't an issue. The problem with their first drive was that it was considerably slower than the second one (IIRC it would still take days/weeks to get back to the AQ using it) and Voyager's hull wasn't capable of withstanding that kind of stresses for that long.

Apparently their solution was to build a 2nd Slipstream drive that was many times faster, and hope that Voyager wouldn't be in Slipstream long enough for the hull integrity issue to matter. Obviously that didn't work out as intended.

It's not explicitly stated in the episode; but I'd presume it's stuff they've nicked, as she says borg technology, not borg knowledge. If you get the know-how to build something from France, you're likely to call it french knowledge, or science, not French technology, that makes me think of physical goods from France. Hardly hard and fast, but I'd say balance of probability is she's talking about actual equipment. In various other episodes they explicitly go about nicking things, such as the slightly later Dark Frontier. Voyager's deflector itself - the thing used to generate the slipstream remember - was altered by the Collective in Scorpion

It's just as possible that at least some of the parts they nicked had equivalents in the AQ, but they weren't able to build / replicate them themselves. To use the French analogy, if you take your car to France and a part breaks, the fact that you used a French mechanic with a French part doesn't necessarily mean that your country is incapable of producing cars, it could just mean that you don't have the tools and parts in your car to fix it yourself. I would imagine that a place like Utopia Planitia would have more options when designing and building things than a small starship trapped across the galaxy without support.

Also, IIRC while the Borg used the deflector to open a singularity to S8472 realm, that was done within a couple of minutes and there wasn't any mention of the dish being physically altered by Borg tech. There is no evidence to suggest that the Borg had permanently modified the deflector beyond the capabilities of Starfleet to reproduce, nor was Borg tech mentioned being used when they built their first Slipstream Drive in "Hope and Fear".

Of the two drives that were built I agree that the 2nd drive would probably be a lot more difficult for Starfleet to successfully reproduce given the navigational issues, special crystals and explicit use of Borg tech. IMO it's probable that Starfleet would eventually be able to reproduce the first drive, and their only real issue would be designing a vessel that's capable of withstanding the stress over long periods. Sure, it may be slower than the second drive, but it's still much quicker than their conventional warp engines.

[Crazedwraith]

I think everyone is forgetting something.

Section 31's plan left ODO alive.

Section 31 didn't try to wipe out the dominion, they were going for a coup.

Err... what? Odo was dying of the disease the same as the other founders.

Unless you're theorising this was unintentional and only happened because Odo was turned human/back to a changeling and then melded again. But I don't think it's ever mentioned in the series itself.

[NecronLord]

There are also various episodes in which Seven uses her Borg know-how to save the day using Borg tech that Voyager is able to replicate or approximate in some fashion, without calling it Borg science, but Borg technology, or use them interchangeably.

They switch between calling it tech and knowledge, to the point that Janeway could be talking about the stuff they salvaged from the episode "Drone", "Scorpion", or the other episodes they had encountered beforehand, or they just used Seven's knowledge to work on it, in the same way they did with Astrometrics.

Quite. I note that seven talks about the difference between ability and knowledge in one of those, but yes. As I said, it's speculative, but there's no reason to think that the borg technology was replicable, and various forward timelines don't have it.

They don't even have it aboard 29th century timeships. The Aeon pootles along at warp in Future's End.

Spock's jellyfish ship in the reboot doesn't have it (even when getting to Hobus was a priority and it's said to be 'our fastest ship'!) sixteen years after Voyager's return.

The renegade Q states that it will be another century (2472) before humans will reach the Delta Quadrant, apart from Voyager.

It's not on the Defiant or mentioned in DS9's future episode (The Visitor) in the future.

What is it about Trek that makes people go 'reverse engineering will totally happen?' And usually only that the Federation will be the ones doing it. Regardless, every canonical future timeline features warp as the predominant method of propelling federation starships for centuries to come.

This is getting rediculous. We've been talking about this two-episode wonder for pages now. Demonstrate the adaptation of slipstream in the future, when we see various future episodes where it is not in evidence, using canon sources, or concede that either they chose not to for some reason (safety) or cannot (lacking parts) people.

[NecronLord]

Just to nail the coffin lid shut on this thing.



The Federation's fastest ship went to warp, not slipstream.