A Look at Spirit Folk (Voyager)
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- Опубликовано: 4 дек 2024
- Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide shows a Halloween story from the other side as the fictional people of Fair Haven become convinced the Voyager crew are terrible magical spirits, which is mostly wrong. They're just terrible.
I love it when Chuck gets so heated about stupid writing
It's actually his reviews that have shown me the good and bad episodes from the '90s for the different Star Trek series, Back Then I thought it was all excellent, now that I'm much more mature and wise, I understand some of it now is really bad.
If you like something then someone else has to explain you don't but your instinct was to enjoy it then you are being too critical lol. Even the bad episodes were still the cosy future we wanted to aspire to and live in. New Trek has mostly lost that with all the dark gritty trauma.
@@kommodore6691 yeah can't argue with that. I will NOT be watching STP. Not that I can't accept that some things aren't going to be perfect even in the far future but what little I've seen of it so far just isnt for me. It just doesn't feel right. And other reviews I've read have been mostly negative. I've been ok with DISC bec I just watch it for itself and evaluate it on its own merits. I tried SNW but it just wasn't for me. It seemed geared to a mainly younger audience, which is fine, but I couldn't maintain interest.
His poor ulcer.
That's not being too critical, that's called having a conversation.
Like, imagine you're talking to a bad guy and he tells you, "hmm it would be a shame if something happened to you or your family." And you take that at face value and say "it sure would be" and go on your way. Then you tell your friend what happened and they smack you upside the head and say "what are you stupid? He just threatened your life, as well as the lives of your family!" And then you say in return "bah! You're just being too critical!"
It's idiotic, and isn't constructive at all. In fact, it's used as a shutdown for critical thought process altogether, we kinda need critical thinking to survive.
I think one of the main issues with holodeck stories is studio resources. The holodeck can be fun for writers and actors, letting them explore new settings and aspects of the characters we wouldn’t normally get to see. Janeway is feeling the chains of commanding and is mourning the loss of her relationship, so she reaches out for a man on the holodeck in both the gothic romance and fair haven. Picard and Bashir are cultured characters, but they enjoy cheesy stories. O’Brien and Bashir enjoy their unwinnable Alamo even while in a real-life war. And Data and the Doctor can explore all sorts of things. The problem is we now require sets, costumes, and extras and all that cost requires justification. And you can’t be sure the audience will connect enough for an arc, so you need to justify it in one episode. Thus the whole episode needs to revolve around the holodeck, and since this is an action show most of the time, it must involve action.
This can be done well, like in Our Man Bashir where the primary danger is to the minds of characters trapped in the holodeck and it involves future tech interacting in unforeseen ways, or ship in a bottle where the danger only happens when Moriarty steals the passwords. Unfortunately, most of the time the lack of time the writers have to work leads them to fall back on old tropes, for example shoot outs with guns. Which instantly makes the programmers look like they are trying to get people killed. Why would you ever model an actual bullet inside a gun on the holodeck? The holodeck characters can just be told by the program that they got hit and you never want a person to be hit by an actual bullet. And so, lack of time and lack of thinking things through results in a scenario where the only reasonable response is to ban the holodeck completely for personal use, using it only for carefully controlled simulations, and if the problem can’t be fixed banning the technology entirely.
What's especially annoying is how Janeway regularly treats the Doctor like a malfunctioning piece of software, despite him routinely showing signs of full-blown sentience, only for her to turn around and treat a bunch of NPCs in a video game that Tom and Harry sketched out on their breaks like real people. The Doctor is vastly more complex than these programs and yet she regularly erases his memories but won't so much as CTRL+ALT+DEL a glitchy video game.
Well to be fair, Janeway wasn't banging the Doctor.
@@darthroden: "That's none of your business."
"Computer, add 7.5 centimeters. Wait, no, ten centimeters."
Apparently engineers in the future have no concept of backups, snapshots or data management of any kind.
Well they have - but only when the writers allow them to 😁
Let's not forget for example that Voyager appearently had an EMH-backup the whole time, but only for "Living Witness" ...
@@lordmontymord8701 I like Chuck's 'they eventually made one and then promptly lost it.' And then never made another.
In this epispde's defense, you'd be amazed at how often in tech people forget what they're trained to do, or what's safe and smart to do when in a rush. People still fall for ransomware scams and we've all been tpld not tp click thosw weird links.
The problem with this epispde is playing it for comedy. I have a soft spot for the Last Action Hero style of fourth wall breaking, amd this could have played to it, but with the crew having to face the monsters they come off as to the townsfolk. Imagine a scene in this or later episode where Sullivan finds out about his lost wife and how violated that would make him. Others the trauma over cow pranks or the realization they don't have the free will they think they do.Imagine learning your whole existence is to be the NPC in someone's game. It's horrorfying.
Nope, they went for bad comedy.
Yes, people fall for the oldest tricks, even experts. But failing without some outside force is just so Voyager 😂
Perhaps Starfleet needs to put in more warnings into their computer programs: "Warning! Doing this might turn all the holodeck characters into bloodthirsthy monsters and turn the safety off. Do you really want to go on?"
Harry of course would click "Yes" immediately, but at least they tried ...
Btw: Today wee need to close programs to update them - it's great this isn't necessary any longer in the 24. century!
100% agree, real human lives trump even a billion fictional characters.
I'd even go so far as to say that if my beloved pet cat were drowning, and some random stranger or even a guy I hate was also drowning, and I could only save one, I must save the guy, leave the cat to die, as sad as it is.
Human lives are more important, no matter the human.
While you ragging on Voyager (both ship and show) is always good fun, I will point out that Quark's Holosuite being able to handle Vic's Holosuite running for extended periods of time may be more Rom being an engineering savant than Voyager (the ship) being substandard. I mean, it absolutely COULD be the latter, but I would say there is value in considering that the difference between a starfleet holodeck falling apart after two months of constant use and a ferengi holosuite having no issue doing the same for thrice as long may be a well-placed spatula welded somewhere.
Vic's is also a single building, not a full town.
Why not both? I mean We know Rom is an engineering savant, and we know that Voyager wasn't finished. Holodecks aren't that important for a "quick" fetch mission.
Also Quark's Holosuite is running on non-federation teck. As is well known the only issues DS9 had involved the Federation doing dumb shit, like telling the computer to put the transporter patterns anywhere and it dumped them into the Holosuite and there was no issue.
3:57 Devil's advocate- Quark charges his clients to use his holosuites 24/7. He caters to clients who are disembarking from various starships on their way to all corners of the galaxy or on deep exploration assignments into the unknown reaches. His business DEPENDS on his holosuits being bigger, more sophisticated, and creating more life like and memorable entertainment than the standard holodeck that you will find on any hum drum ship. Why else would you pay him to get what you can just as well have for free back on your ship? Also, his energy source comes from the much larger and presumably more powerful Deep Space Nine reactor, which despite its age can probably afford to pump more power into those holosuites than the warp core of an average federation ship can.
(phoenix wright voice) objections!!!. Quark`s holodeck is being held together with a spatula. that`s not a joke a spatula is being used as replacement parts. that`s level of constant repair and degraded condition.
Counterpoint, Quark's holodecks are always at the bottom of the list for repairs. He almost never gets regular maintenance because DS9 is a clusterf*** of degrading tech. It's also decades old and running on 2 mostly incompatible technologies. And he's too cheap to pay someone for repairs that Starfleet will do for free if he just waits.
Additionally, Voyager wasn't ready to be launched. It was supposed to be a quick mission, I believe that the Holodecks were in but not properly hooked up. That's why they had trouble with getting the power from them, as well as why they broke so much; does anybody really believe that the Voyager crew could properly finish off the installation?
@@MrDj232 And Quark is a cheap guy. He wouldn't invest more than he has to. I'm sure not every species - including the Cardassians and Bajorans - have technology like this, so he earns enough without getting the "good stuff".
@@JayJayM57 Spatula or no spatula, Quark's stuff is maintained by his "idiot" brother who unironically ends up being one of the most effective repairmen on station that is, by necessity, practically full of repairmen 24/7.
Also it's possible that Quark's holosuites are just better than federation tech. Federation tech can't be #1 at EVERYTHING, and who else but the Ferengi to develop (or purchase) what is basically a super high-end toy?
Well, that old automobile was state of the art in 1897...
I can't be the only one that chuckled when Janeway described a bunch of simulated Irish people as "programmed to be nonviolent".
I unironically love these episodes, I enjoy holodeck mayhem and NPCs gaining sentience, and the overall 'Irish' theme and uplifting music, comedic moments and low stakes make these a relaxing fun romp with excusable inconsistencies since it's obviously not taking itself too seriously. They may have sidestepped the ethics of giving life to holodeck characters, but they explored how the crews emotional connections to those virtual characters are nonetheless real and how that makes'em more than vanilla NPCs, and it's a rare show of Janeway just being herself, and confronting issues she hadn't really dealt with before this, and without that we'd never have gotten the immortal line of: "Delete the wife." :)
I get the feeling that Voyager was built by the British government's contractors.
You take that back! It didn’t explode on launch so definitely not one of ours.
Although that would explain the incredibly stupid Intrepid class kitbashes given how UK ships are cannibalising each other dur to the poor workmanship.
- _hears Chuck rage against the episode about being Belgium_ -
I.. I still like this episode though ... 👀
17:13 ...Okay, I'm not gonna lie: This scene ALWAYS kills me. Every time I see it, him barging in like that is AMAZING. XD
Yeah I'm convinced they made the Doctor the town priest because he would put on a performance like this.
Robert Picardo was too good for this show.
Me too. Sometimes over the top just works so well. And Picardo is great at it.
@@horaciosi 100% correct, his talent was squandered and he should have been on DS9.
@@jeffreysummerhays5922 He was in DS9, just not as a regular.
I like to imagine that this episode resulted in a segment in the 24th century version of Shake Hands with Danger
Needs more heavy machinery.
Janeway wanted to shake hands with danger . . . but danger was too scared.
Dear lord, can you imagine what would happen to Chuck Hamlin if Janeway was around?
Oh hey, it's one of the episodes that I remembered wasn't available to watch on Chuck's site. Looking forward to watching this episode for the first time.
"The arms race of crazy" 🤣
"Our Lady of Generic Unstated Vaguely Catholic Stuff" 😭
The EMH, a long running, sentient member of the crew that everyone depends upon: Janeway treats as an afterthought or a malfunction at times.
Irish stereotype town where Janeway has a holographic boy toy: Oh they would never hurt anyone. NO! You may not turn it off to fix.
Seems typical of the worst of Janeway. Puts her desires over the lives of her crew.
Yep that's what really drags this show down for me (well that and everything else). All the times that JW's personal need to exercise her Very Special Personal Snowflake Principles and the crew crossed purposes, the crew as a group came a distant second every SINGLE time. That's NOT the mark of a good captain. You are supposed to be able to always put them first, and yourself second.
JW only seems to care about people on an individual basis. As far the crew as a whole - apparently they're just extra arms and legs for her personal pleasure.
And Jeri Taylor has the gall to continuously pull a Gaslight5000 on everyone and present this as not at all highly problematic if not deeply troublesome but Awesome, Rad, and Only the very Best of GirlSpaceBoss!
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999I that respect, this show was truly ahead of its time.
I accept the random sudo-religion for the Doctor's "Sinners!!" line
I'm just going to assume someone on thr writing team decided to look up what branch of Christianity is the dominant one in Ireland, read halfway into the article about Ireland and religion and decided they weren't going to touch that subject with a ten foot pole.
Ya know, the audience understands this episode was about debugging a video game - but I'm not sure the writers did.
Yeah the S5-7 janeway really departed from earlier "just usual Can-Never-Be-Wrong janeway" into something way more "fun" and well, crazy.
They could have easily tweaked the episode to say that the Doctor was somehow accidentally integrated into Fair Haven or that the Fair Haven residents got possessed by some weird energy alien so they can't just shut the program down.
Or that they were showing signs of true sentience. So many wasted opportunities.
I sometimes wonder if the Enterprise, DS9, and Voyager are the only places these things happen too. And other Federation ships are just more lucky.
I almost think it would've been better if we were shown the cow first, *then* have the character recount what happened when she's fixed so we could save a bit of time and feel the impact from the perspective of the townsfolk instead of seeing it how the crew does first.
I have admit. Spirit Folk is a guilty pleasure for me. It’s absolutely a screwball of an episode with plenty of problems but I honestly love just dicking around on the holodeck episodes maybe because it’s something I wanted to do when I first watching Voyager as a 12 year old. And given this has 12 year old human maybe that’s why it’s stuck with me.
Surprised Tom hasn't created a Fair Haven Brothel, filled with tastes both bizarre and weird that it would make Q blush.
Am I the only one who thinks that the Captain Proton episode was better thought out than this?
15:05 This from the woman who thought deliberately getting assimilated by the Borg was a good Plan A.
Remember, though... on this show, the manual for boning other species is the size of a phone book... but ONLY if your name is Harry Kim. For everyone else, it's just "do what you want, when you want, to whoever you want".
Lol.....😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 HAHAHAH....I loved this analysis. SOOOO FUNNY....BUT GENIUS!¡!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK 👍💪
Brand-new State of the art, launched prematurely Ship. That's having issues with the holodeck, yeah I can see that.
4:04 - Jaresh-Inyo.
so 30 watts is how much energy it takes to run a holodeck program that simulates a human being huh? The LED light bulb in my lamp uses 9 watts, so for only slightly more energy than it takes to run 3 of those things a person can be simulated. No wonder Voyager can keep the holodeck running despite the fact that they are lost in space and don't know how often they can get their reserves topped off.
I guess if computers 50 years ago were the size of houses and needed their own generator to run (UNIVAC needed 125kw), a computer 250 years in the future might be so advanced yet efficient it could power a hologram from 30w? Or the writers didn't know what they were talking about. Either or.
@@Here_is_Waldo Well, for what it's worth, the human brain uses ~12 watts. So that's another eighteen watts for the physics, maybe a little more since some of that energy is likely used for 'alive' rather than 'compute.'
On the contrast with Quarks bar, in DS9 while teaching Ziyal how to fire a weapon she remarks that a Federation has more features and is more sophisticated, a Cardassian rifle was more reliable and less likely to fail. It is arguable that it is merely canon that while Federation has cutting edge tech, likely due to the share and share alike, motivation is it’s own motivation ethos, the ish breaks. Which again, given engineers generally enjoy and get pride from their duties, possible a feature not a bug. Meanwhile, for Quark where downtime is lost profit, reliability is highest priority.
Given that Starfleet has access to industrial replicators and can basically just make nearly anything at any time, I get the feeling that they don't really care much for making some things reliable and robust. If something breaks, they can just make another one.
And even if it is vital and could be dangerous, quality control seems to be lax anyway. Just look at TNG's The Drumhead, where they nearly had a warp core breach due to manufacturing error. If something that can blow up a ship, much less THE FLAGSHIP OF THE FLEET can have such issues, imagine the lack of quality assurance on things that aren't considered vital.
If the holodeck breaks on most Federation ships, they can just head to the local starbase to have it gutted and replaced if need be. Voyager, though highly inconsistent with... everything... doesn't have the luxury of that.
17:40 To be fair, if he were in contact with the ship, wouldn’t that still be a danger?
I'm starting to see a theme for this week.
When Voyager became Westworld...
"shes the USSR and IM FUCKING BELGIUM!" fucking sent me lol
18:18 Ehh, might as well at this point. Not only is he the best bet at stopping this now without any bloodshed, but...well, real or not, gotta admire the guy's balls to get to this point. lol
Fair Haven really was a blight on Voyager. This was a dumb popcorn episode at best, and then you look at how stupid everyone acts.
I recall a theory about why Holodecks are so dangerous, it may have even been this channel that came up with it. A holo-suite like Quarks is meant for entertainment purposes only, so it's far more stable and safe. A holo-deck is meant for scientific simulations and as realistic creations as possible, so it has the potential to go wrong far more often. Such as: a holo-suite character will point a gun at someone, work out the physics of if a bullet hits that person were it to be fired, then just makes a bang and decides who gets the score. A holo-deck will actually create a bullet, fire it, then safety protocols will delete the bullet before it hits a person.
But that's a software side thing, because it seems obvious both systems can transition between 'stuff that can only be sensed' and 'stuff that can physically interact.' Mind, a focus on the former by default for the holosuite and the latter for the holodeck might go some way towards explaining the apparent discrepancy in reliability. Except that then _Voyager's_ crew is _also_ dumb because they're using the method that causes extra wear and tear on the components in pursuit of verisimilitude.
Basically, the voyager crew don't realize that they appear to be Q to the holo characters. LOL
Haha! Boothby's romulan scag cakes!
I know why he is from the character point of view, but making the EMH sentient seems pointless on starfleets part.
I mean if he's only supposed to on when needed why does he need to be self aware?
The sheer complexity and potential for entirely new stuff to turn up means for the EMH to be safe enough to use the in the likely extreme dire situations it is going to used in it going to have enough capacity to learn and adapt that for sentience is only a matter of time. It seems to be a rule in star trek that any learning A.I. will be become fully sapient it given enough time and data; it happened with the exo-comps, whelsey's nanites, Vik Fontain and it happened very quick this the doctor because he had to learn a lot very fast much of it being completely unknown to anyone.
Lol the plot of Picard!
I’m liking this utter teardown of what seems to be a truly unrealistic response to the situation by the Voyager crew - especially Tom & Harry.
ON THE OTHER HAND, though, we should consider the glaringly obvious motivation for the pair putting so little concern into even the tiniest adjustments, for the sake of their own safety - they are gullible.
The two have both been proven to be quite gullible characters, even in episodes where their pursuits seem to be so noble, yet clearly flying in the face of authority and principle. The only difference, in the case of this episode, is that they’ve assumed they have ALL the authority , and they take for granted the fact that they can whimsically ignore what any residents of Fair Haven might do, because “they’re just holodeck characters”.
Could the writers have made more effort to bring greater emphasis on this into the episode? Sure. But would they have made this a better episode by instead opting for the “cautiously by-the-book because we’re Starfleet” approach? I don’t think so.
“Gods do not blindly fumble and half-ass the work that they put into their own creations” is a trope meant for high-concept science fiction.
And let’s face it, Voyager - especially holodeck episodes of Voyager - is hardly what you’d call “high concept”!
Except these two characters are _Star Fleet officers,_ not the average bumbling Soap Opera morons.
"High concept" just means an idea which is easy to explain and describe.
@@antney7745 Ah. Probably not the term I meant, then.
Would it have made it a better episode? No. It wouldn't have been filmed and its slot would have gone to some other script where that week's problem couldn't have been summed up with a sentence or two in the log about fixing a holodeck glitch.
The core problem with this episode is that it shouldn't have been a problem.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog They do bumble more than the average bridge officers though, you have to admit 💁♂️
Wanna know what gives this episode an even more bitter taste for me, personally?
In the U.K., the BBC pulled the Borg-centric episode that had been scheduled on the night of 9/11 and aired this one instead…
Computer! dot dot deet. Make every character able beat the crew of Voyager at Parcheesi. Now all of them are riding a space shuttles inside a tiny holodeck box. Yes, this episode does hurt my brain.
The sad thing is I can totally see the premise still happening. We live in a world where people argue over which 2D character with boobs is the better Waifu, having people get defensive about restarting a program and erasing progress with said characters they've formed attachments too is not that far out. So what does it say when Futurama not only handled this topic but actually did it better in both terms of comedy and seriousness when Fry wanted to have a holographic version of Lucy Lu as his girlfriend?
No chuck most sociopaths are smarter then that they me nuts but they do understand fantasy from reality
thanks chuck...I guess I am a sociopath
I don’t see why a and be can’t be right
Imagine being trapped in the ass end of the universe, your only food is whatever the ship’s hedgehog has caught that day and your only entertainment is a ridiculous Irish stereotype theme park.
To be fair, the ship has been running non stop for years while being shot at from almost daily.
Yeah if you go driving over ever curb in the hood, doesn’t matter how state of the art your car is, it’s not going to run properly after 7 years straight of constant damage.
Everytime i think of Fairhaven i think of how they let Tuvik died. Someone said he could have been turnred to AI or a hologram. Yes they could have but janeway wasnt screwing him.
As far as I'm aware, OTT Irish people have only occurred on-screen in Star Trek four times, but it is clearly four times too many.
So are you a full time racist or is it just somthing you do on you tube 😂😂
They should just use the holodecks as the brig, and convert the brig to ... swimming pool?
As opposed to just having a simulation of a swimming pool in the holodeck?
@@noblehelium3794 but wouldn't a holodeck simulation of a swimming pool turn into an artificial black hole that disengages the safeties and just swallows the ship? I think the Borg assimilated holodeck technology but knew not to use it
It actually would've been interesting if their church had been a hodgepodge of Earth religions, since it would give them an opportunity to talk about how people in the 24th century have been atheists for so long that they've forgotten basically all religions. But why would Star Trek ever delve into the deeper implications of how human culture would evolve and adapt to the discovery of aliens and interstellar travel?
Real Trekkies know that the only true religion has gods that live in a wormhole. Walk with the Prophets.
May the Prophets be with you
Generally I wouldn’t call unrepentant rapists worthy of divinity.
Then again that never stopped the Greek pantheon.
Im getting westworld vibes... funny i didnt remember this episode
"They take away the Doctor's mobile emitter, so he's integrated into the program now. "
What? That's like if closing your laptop uninstalled all the software from it and moved it to your PC. It might be even dumber than the recurring "disrupting a holographic projection damages its program somehow" plot point.
Voyager either has stupid explanations or no explanations at all.
Bad writers seem to have no concept of remote operation even when it’s explicitly written into the lore. See also: EDI in Mass Effect 3zM.
Oh man I love your reviews, no ambiguity here 😑. tell us how you really feel 😀...
Don’t mind me, just gonna hang out in the background, hoping for dragon age inquisition part 4 (god knows i don’t have a will to play this dull game)
Trek seems to have a weird " laugh at outdated Irish stereotypes " obsession .
I normally like escalation, but this is just weird
O Janeeay could told them it was a rare species of shrooms which makes them see young women turning into cows and fairy folk, WHICH WHERE THESE FOLKLORE COMES FROM.
I'm for alternative c). This is a stupid show _and_ the characters are monsters.
so Voyager is really a holo-novel. No other explanation.
Romulan marijuana 😂 I think I wanna try some 😂
If you hated this show; why would you watch it?
Of all the programs to run endlessly on a loop in the holodeck, Tom picks a boring po-dunk Scottish Village. He could've made it a theme park or a tropical island or ski resort, a hot spring, a fantasy world, the wild west, some kind of forever present mystery simulator where you can solve crimes, even his Cheesy Sci-Fi Serial! But no... he picked a dumb village. Who would find this a fun place to hang out in forever? This place has nothing to offer but drunkards, religious intolerance and stereotypes!
What is it with Star Trek and Rural Scotland/Ireland that keep forcing us to come back to it?
It's like they'd not even heard of "Risa".
This is why Star Trek should be animated. They can have any setting they want without having to fly actors anywhere or build insane sets or alien models.
.... are you saying we shouldnt be proud of my vibrators collection of ties? So the new christmas tie is redundant then....
I think people who complain how fairhaven isn't accurate to the real Ireland, the church having no Christian iconography etc etc, are missing the point. Fairhaven isn't supposed to be accurate , it's Tom paris' design for fun. In world, Tom Paris made fairhaven, not an Irish historian. Tom Paris designed it with his own stereotypes and character flaws in tow. Plenty of flaws with the fairhaven episodes I'm sure , but the inaccuracy and stereotypes in the simulation are not one of them, they're actually part of the story.
The new holodeck safety protocols are stuck in comitee. Things bogged down during the introduction of the members phase, over a procedural filibuster over the andorian representative refusing to state their pronouns.
Eww,
Chuck is a Destroy Ending fan? Gross
All the endings are gross.
It’s space genocide, space dictatorship or space rape all because an award winning author was replaced with an incompetent drunk who was Casey Hudson’s friend.
So in the end, who cares. Mass Effect 3 was a mistake.
Good God _Voyager_ was just freaking _asinine._ It's like the entire series was a deliberate exercise in seeing how lazy and slapdash the writers and producers could be and have people still watch it mindlessly just because it said _Star Trek._ Just like all of those Godawful lazy, half-baked _Star Wars_ EU "novels" with stories like how Han Solo's great-uncle met Chewbacca's grandfather and saved Shmi Skywalker's mother from early Drizzle Troopers in Cloud Town, back before it grew to become Cloud City.
_Voyager_ was _Star Trek_ as done by people who didn't care and were half-assing everything.
One of the tallest, steepest cliffs that _Star Trek_ as a whole ran off the end of was when it began the idea that Goddamn Holodeck characters could become sapient. Sorry, Moriarty, as much fun as the episode _Elementary, Dear Data_ was, the entire concept just creates so many headaches and moral problems that it absolutely was not worth it.
If the _Enterprise's_ main computer is capable of creating and running a _freaking program_ that is sapient, then that means _the ship's computer _*_necessarily_*_ has to be sapient._ If the _Voyager's_ Doctor was somehow sapient, then that necessarily means that _Voyager itself is also sapient._ A non-sapient computer _cannot_ create and execute a program that is sapient; that makes no sense. And _that_ would mean that _every Goddamn starship in Starfleet_ is a sapient entity held in slavery by the Federation. Did _no one_ put any thought at all into the implications of this stuff?
Gah, I know I'm ranting, but that's what _Voyager_ does to my me; it's _so damn stupid_ that it tears apart my mind and reduces me to to angry ranting about _how stupid it is._