Two facts about the titular starship reveal that the problems with limited resources were a lie that Star Trek: Voyager would never admit to. Stranded in the Delta Quadrant more than 70,000 light-years from Earth, the USS Voyager was decades away from the nearest Starbase. This meant that they faced a serious issue with supplies and a lack of resources due to the fact that Voyager was only equipped for a short rescue mission into the Badlands. However, this issue only reared its head when the story demanded it, such as in the episode “The Cloud” in which Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) memorably states that “there’s coffee in that nebula“.
For the majority of Star Trek: Voyager‘s seven seasons, however, the issues with food rationing and supplies rarely became an issue. The ship remains in good condition, considering the apparent hardship of traveling through the Delta Quadrant. It’s possible that Voyager adopting Gene Roddenberry’s rules about conflict resulted in the supplies and resource issues being ignored to avoid raising tensions between the crew. The ignorance of Voyager’s apparent lack of resources is highlighted in the disparity between information given in the official Star Trek Voyager Technical Guide V1.0 and what’s actually seen on screen.
Voyager’s Shuttles & Photon Torpedos Never Made Sense
Star Trek Voyager Technical Guide V1.0 was a handbook for writers which contained all the information they would need about the ship. Subtitled “Yes, but which button do I push to fire the phasers?” it stated that the USS Voyager was equipped with two standard shuttlecrafts, four smaller shuttlepods, and four EVA workpods. However, over the course of seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, three different models of shuttlecraft appeared and far more than two shuttlecrafts were lost or destroyed. Ex Astris Scientia estimates that Voyager lost about 17 shuttles across the entire series, raising the question of how Janeway and the crew kept their shuttle bays replenished.
Similarly, the writer’s handbook stated that the USS Voyager was equipped with 40 photon torpedoes but actually fired 93 of them. It’s certainly possible that the replicators could have been deployed to replace photon torpedoes and shuttlecrafts, but this was never established on screen in Star Trek: Voyager. Five years later, as depicted in Voyager sequel Star Trek: Prodigy, Starfleet has installed a vehicle replicator aboard the USS Protostar which can quickly build shuttles. Perhaps this technology originated somewhere in the Delta Quadrant and was used to replenish Voyager’s lost shuttlecrafts and fired photon torpedoes.
Why Star Trek Had To Ignore Voyager’s Resources Problem
There’s great dramatic potential in showing the USS Voyager crew making do with limited resources and lashing up solutions to problems with whatever they have to hand. Sadly, Star Trek: Voyager never explored this in great detail, instead focusing on a back-to-basics approach that focused on exploration and discovery. Voyager‘s Neelix (Ethan Phillips) as the ship’s cook got round issues with replicators because he was able to source fresh ingredients and cook things from scratch. The issues with shuttlecrafts and photon torpedoes were harder to get around, but if the writers were to rigidly stick to the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Guide then there would have been no show.
Shuttlecrafts and photon torpedoes are such an intrinsic part of a Star Trek show that it would have been ridiculous to leave Janeway and the crew without them. Lieutenant Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) led the construction of the Delta Flyer, so it’s easy to square the idea that Voyager possessed the technology and equipment to rebuild or replace their damaged and lost shuttles. Ignoring the problem with resources allowed Star Trek: Voyager to go back to basics by exploring strange new worlds and meeting new civilizations.
