Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

I've been pondering how to flesh out the Voyager aliens so there are fewer blatant knockoffs of Alpha Quadrant races...


PNQ: Other ideas?


The first thing that comes to mind for the Kazon is a twist on the Ferengi. Instead of money (the Delta Quadrant doesn't seem to have anything approaching a de facto universal currency like gold-pressed latinum), they covet resources. In their area of the quadrant water isn't as plentiful as elsewhere, and they don't have anything approaching replicator technology. Expand it beyond just water, what about fertile cropland, mines of usable ore, fungi with medical purposes. They play Settlers of Cataan instead of Monopoly like the Ferengi do.



KAR: I must protect my territory. Territory is power.


As for the Hirogen, hunting shouldn't be their only hat. Emphasis shouldn't just be on the kill, but it should instead be on showing superiority by becoming better than their prey. Outthinking them, predicting their movements, and above all not being discovered. Good predators don't reveal themselves until just before they attack. The Hirogen shouldn't even be a known quantity, nobody should know their name until Voyager outthinks them. What if Voyager encounters a number of races who talk of their destroyed ships and outposts, but who have no idea who did it? The sensor network should be hard to find and extremely resiliant. There was no need to destroy it, just have the Hirogen increase their computer security and increase the number of ships guarding the network. Eventually Voyager would be made to detour around it to avoid the Hirogen.