From the existential terror of replacing Harry Kim with an exact duplicate to casually populating a planet with Warp 10 post-human salamander babies, “Star Trek: Voyager” committed to some strong writing decisions. In a series so willing to throw everything from Starfleet values to basic Star Trek universe rules everyone has to follow out the airlock, it makes perfect sense that “Voyager” writers couldn’t give a flying tribble about continuity. And nowhere is this more obvious than the starship’s apparently limitless supply of torpedoes and shuttlecraft.
Stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the U.S.S. Voyager has no way to replenish its arsenal short of fabricating new ammunition. It’s a fact that Tuvok states directly early on in the Season 1 episode “The Cloud” when he reports, “We have a complement of 38 photon torpedoes at our disposal, Captain,” to which Janeway grimly responds, “And no way to replace them after they’re gone.” For anyone keeping count, they’ve blown through around 15 of these all-purpose space bombs by the two-parter episode “Basics,” linking Seasons 2 and 3. This causes Janeway to remark of the Kazon, “They may have torpedoes to waste, but we don’t.” Unless they’ve fabricated more at some point, the Voyager should run completely out of torpedoes around the time they pick up Seven of Nine and begin modifying torpedoes for combat with the Borg.
According to YouTuber TazG2000’s Voyager torpedo compilation, the final photon torpedo count stands at -85 by the end of the series, with the show’s writers effectively giving up on continuity altogether by Season 5. The ship’s shuttlecraft count runs a similar course, with the Star Trek Nitpickers counting a total of seven lost shuttles by the series finale.
