Hi all, Ric here and Looking into its over 50 years of history, Star Trek does have many
little and large plot holes and contradictions which is understandable, there is a lot of
lore to juggle. One of the worst contenders is Star Trek Voyager that necessitated a weekly
reset of the show’s status quo. For a lone Federation Starship, isolated in the Delta
Quadrant and struggling to make it home, the fact that it suffers little in the way of
consistent damage or resource depletion I think is a little strange, however there is
one plot hole that gets pointed out a lot that I don’t think is actually a big deal.
That is the number of shuttlecraft that the Federation vessel seems to maintain, even
as they get destroyed or damaged as the series progresses, but I think there is an in-universe
explanation and what’s more, one supported by evidence within the shows itself.
So, let’s look at this in detail. For the usual Federation vessel, Shuttlecraft are
small axillary craft that are part of a starship’s inventory and can be restocked at Starbases
or outposts, maybe even delivered to a vessel out on patrol. The amount of shuttles carried
depends on the type of vessel, for example the Galaxy Class USS Enterprise D can carry
a compliment of around 20-25 craft with a minimum of at least 11 prepped for duty at
any one time. The USS Voyager however is an intrepid class
a lot smaller than the gigantic Enterprise at only 345 meters long and whereas the Enterprise
was estimated to have almost a dozen ready to fly at any one time, the Voyager was required
to house …two. These launch from the shuttle bay that occupies decks 9 and 10 at the very
rear of the main hull. The ship utilises these craft to perform a
variety of tasks. As Voyager continues it odyssey across the stars, one chief goal that
is always prevalent is that the starship is always in motion, frequently at warp moving
ever closet to home, parsec by parsec. So in order to avoid compromising its forward
progress, shuttles were deployed ahead to scout out new routes or resources, or sent
on courses and excursions that would be considered too much of a detour for the main vessel.
These scouting missions were a requirement for the crew as the Intrepid design only carried
enough fuel reserves to last for 3 years at most. So resource acquisition became something
of a necessity for them. Well, clearly we see more than two shuttles
in use throughout the show and there are even four types of shuttles deployed from the mothership.
Type 2s, Type 6,8 and 9s are all seen, not to mention the Delta Flyer. So if the bay
is only big enough to support 2 active small craft, where are the others coming from?
Either the Intrepid has two active craft and then a whole myriad in storage somewhere taking
up a lot of room, or they are acquiring them from somewhere else. Considering the ship’s
situation as being the only Federation vessel for 70,000 lightyears (ish) “Equinox”,
this too is unlikely. So that leaves us with another option. Q did it. Or more likely,
the crew of the ship manufactured replacements. But could they?
Well, the Intrepid class Starship was a rapid deep space vessel so maybe it was deemed a
necessity that the creation of new auxiliary craft on the fly would aid in its mission
profiles? Seems a little odd though as Voyager was capable of planetary landing and expected
to be able to return to federation space quickly as it was the fastest vessel in the fleet
frequently. Hence the lack of luxuries on the ship.
So that’s doesn’t add up to me, but ignoring that for now, What would it take to make a
new shuttlecraft then, there’s a lot of circuitry and materials that go into the manufacture
of such a vessel. Replicators are capable of producing many
materials, compounds and items, fully formed based on schematics stored in the computer
and among these files are the blueprints for many craft, for maintenance purposes to Voyager
and the shuttles. So they had the know-how to create more, but did they have the capability?
One of the earliest modifications to the USS Voyager saw the switching out of some of its
bio-neural gel packs for the slower, but more reliable processing power of isoliner circuitry.
Unless the ship had banks of unused spare parts, I would suggest that producing such
circuitry is well with then capabilities of the engineering staff and replicators.
The same can be said of hull plating. Voyager takes a lot of damage over its 7 years in
the Delta Quadrant and much of that is repaired meaning they have the supplies or at least
acquired the supplies along the journey to repair the hull of the vessel and if they
can do that, they could surely manufacture the frame of a small ship. The only thing
that I think stands out as a potential problem is that to create new hull panels, you’d
either need entire smelting and forging facilities akin to those you find on a Starbase or shipyard,
or an industrial replicator. Such replicators do exist in Star Trek lore
and are basically giant replicators which have their recipe list swapped out for a schematics
library and are capable of creating compounds and alloys such as Durinum, Tritanium and
other materials used in construction and industry. The only question is does an intrepid class
have such a piece of equipment? Possibly, I think it would be a wise investment for
any Starfleet vessel to have at least one for the purpose of repairs but I could not
find a definitive answer. We don’t see every day of Voyager’s journey
and several events are often alluded to on screen that were not in the show. I’ve always
interpreted it that during these times, there just was not much interesting happening and
that duties were running as normal. Honestly, I would have liked to have seen these sorts
of things pop up every now and then too, the crew making a successful trade to acquire
some dilithium crystals or a quick scavenger hunt on a planet surface to obtain some ores,
maybe even an opening shot of the hull being repaired. But although we never see that,
it must have happened in between episodes as the vessel is returned to its fresh zesty
state in time for the next adventure. All that matters for this argument is that
they have the ability to repair major hull damage so therefore, they can somehow obtain
and produced the necessary raw materials for starship construction,.
I find it overall, not that much of a stretch to be able to fabricate new shuttles so the
last step is looking for the means to do so and this is one thing that clearly they can
do. Tom Paris, B’elanna Torres, Seven of Nine and others were able to construct and
entirely new ship small craft, the Delta Flyer based off of completely original designs.
This vessel was constructed at the rear of the shuttlebay over a maintenance pit and
built within days in a race against the Malon. The Flyer not only included a lot of Starfleet
design aspects but also completely new components shaped by Borg influences and other advancements
discovered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. I’d argue that it would be much simpler
to create something built from tried and true design plans, such as a class 8 shuttlecraft
than the Flyer, so if they could accomplish that, then the former would be a piece of
cake. So yeah, the Intrepid class has a fully equipped
shuttle maintenance bay that seems completely capable of housing the construction of a new
vessel from scratch. They have the know-how and must routinely have gathered the materials
required to keep the starship operational so therefore would have been able to dedicate
some of these resources to the construction of new craft. The only snag really is that
I don’t think the capability to manufacture new axillary craft was expected to be required
for the intrepid design because they were so fast that they should never have been in
a situation where resupply was impossible. I also think that it would have been a major
investment to build a new shuttlecraft too, after all, any antimatter you put in the warp
core of a Type 6 shuttle that is then exploded in a fight against the Kazon or something
is fuel that could have been added to the Voyager itself.
But overall I think my conclusion is that the USS Voyager could fabricate replacement
ships and it’s damn lucky that some Starfleet engineer on the intrepid design team added
the required facilities despite it not fitting its mission profile. Thanks insistent nameless
gold shirt. As for the photon torpedo quantity? Probably
more of the same, materials acquired through trade, survey and pit stops, generous use
of the replicators and the ingenuity of the crew to put it all together based on the Starfleet
archives on the vessel. To be fair to the crew it was an adapt or die situation they
found themselves in and we do see away teams engaged in barter and scavenging, but only
when there’s another more interesting plot to be had.
Most of this video is speculation. Speculation based on evidence, but nonetheless, the lack
of definitive answers provided by the shows does leave a lot to be desired. Shows like
battlestar galactica clearly displayed the degradation of a vessel and while not to that
extreme, I would have liked to have seen more of Voyager undergoing repairs.
Anyway, I think my head canon here is at least feasible, so what about you? Any more plot
holes that can be rationalised away? I’ll see you next time, thanks again for
watching I’ve been Ric. Goodbye!