Allegiance

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Evidence points towards the Ocampa not changing gender over the course of their lives, by the way. We saw in one episode a future-Kes which was older and still clearly female.

Oh, right. Forgot about that.

Kes repeatedly stated that her elogium was the only chance she would have to have a child. If she could store the sperm, there would be no angst about it; do the nasty with neelix and then pop a kid or kids out whenever she's ready

The best explination I can come up with is that she can't control when she pops out a kid, which might fit what she said since she was also in a stressed out/panicked state with the kid and all, but I'll admit that's still not a strong arguement. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a rational explination in a future series that revisits the Ocampa, and simply be able to dismiss what Kes said as a character making a mistake, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Captain Seafort]

The best explination I can come up with is that she can't control when she pops out a kid, which might fit what she said since she was also in a stressed out/panicked state with the kid and all, but I'll admit that's still not a strong arguement. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a rational explination in a future series that revisits the Ocampa, and simply be able to dismiss what Kes said as a character making a mistake, but I'm not holding my breath.

Given that Kes was pretty emphatic about the singular child (it's not exactly something that can be passed off as a slip of the tongue), and the fact that she, her daughter, and her grandson were all single children, I think we can rule that out.

[Graham Kennedy]

Lol, maybe there's some rare genetic thing where one in every fifty or so Ocampans give birth to a litter of like 500 babies

[Mikey]

Second, I came across a possible solution to the Ocampa problem. While the Ocama only mate once it might be possible that Ocampan women store the father's genetic material like a queen bee.

It would solve a lot of the problems with the "current" Ocampan situation, but the statement was not that they only mate once - it was that they only bore one child.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Second, I came across a possible solution to the Ocampa problem. While the Ocama only mate once it might be possible that Ocampan women store the father's genetic material like a queen bee.

It would solve a lot of the problems with the "current" Ocampan situation, but the statement was not that they only mate once - it was that they only bore one child.

Well, visuals would trump dialog since characters can make mistakes, and she was just a kid, even by her culture's standards which increases that possibility, but somehow I don't expect that the writers are smart enough to ever write a scene that fixes this problem. So canonically we're stuck with a race destined to die off from it's own flaws.

[Teaos]

Does anyone know why they wrote off Kes?

They already knew they were bringing Seven into the show and needed to write out another character since they couldnt afford and didnt want a bigger cast. Originally they had planned to write out Harry Kim but like a month before they were going to film the actor that plays him got on the top 50 sexiest tv stars list. So he stayed and Kes went.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Does anyone know why they wrote off Kes?

They already knew they were bringing Seven into the show and needed to write out another character since they couldnt afford and didnt want a bigger cast. Originally they had planned to write out Harry Kim but like a month before they were going to film the actor that plays him got on the top 50 sexiest tv stars list. So he stayed and Kes went.

Really? I never thought he was that sexy. But couldn't they have written off Tuvok(I just don't like him)? Or Neelix? Or Janeway? Dangit...Kes had so much potential as a character

[Teaos]

I would have gotten rid of Neelix.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Well, the loss of him or Tuvok would've made for a good point for Kes' character development, dealing with the loss of someone she loved.

[Teaos]

Geti rid of Neelix would have left more room for Kes to grow, he always held her back.

[Graham Kennedy]

I didn't mind losing Kes. The character had oodles of potential, but it became clear that they weren't going to explore the whole "rapid ageing" aspect of her. So what else does she contribute as a character? There's "girlfriend of Neelix", there's "potential girlfriend of Tom", and there's "magic abilities girl". That's it.

Girlfriend of Neelix was played out fast. Potential girlfriend of Tom? Tom and B'Elanna were waaaay more interesting than Tom and Kes would have been. Magic powers girl was okay, but the level of powers a fully capable Ocampan would have would give the crew too many easy outs from bad situations. It would be like having a Q crewmember; every story resolved with a finger snap.

They really had nothing more to do with her. And Seven of Nine made a huge, huge contribution to the show.

[Teaos]

Two huge ones actually.

[Graham Kennedy]

Two huge ones actually.

Why do you think I said huge twice?

Still, gorgeous as the woman certainly is, she was also the only other person in the cast who came close to Robert Picardo's level of acting ability, and Seven was an inherently interesting character to boot.

The only major mis-step was making her attracted to Chakotay late on in the series. WTF was that about?!

[Blackstar the Chakat]

The only major mis-step was making her attracted to Chakotay late on in the series. WTF was that about?!

Memory Alpha had some information that might shed some light on that:

This episode[Endgame] introduced a seemingly out-of-place romantic relationship between Chakotay and Seven of Nine, and ended with little closure. This may have something to do with the fact that both the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise and the film Star Trek Nemesis were in preproduction at the time. Also, writer Ken Biller admitted to waiting until "the last minute" before starting the final episode. However, in an interview on his website, Robert Beltran says that he requested the inclusion of the relationship, in order to give him something to do. The validity of this assertion is questionable however, as the genesis of the idea of a romantic involvement between them is suggested in the episodes "Human Error" and "Natural Law" prior to when "Endgame" was filmed.

[Graham Kennedy]

I seem to remember hearing that Beltran was utterly sick of Voyager by the end. He had virtually nothing to do on the show after Janeway's main relationship shifted to be with Seven; became the kind of glorified extra that Mayweather ended up being.

If they ever do another series, they really should cut down the number of main cast by at least two. As is they always seem to end up with a couple of people that they don't use much.