Here's a question--how did New Zealand end up being used as a convict colony, :confused: as mentioned in Star Trek Voyager, where Matthew aris was picked up from NZ by the Voyager crew?

It wasn't. You watch too much tv.

New Zealand was never intended to be a convict colony as Australia was used. There were some sent there, but only a couple of shiploads made up of young boys from England - the "Parkhurst boys". Public outcry from New Zealand, which had been promised that no convicts would be sent there, forbade any further shipments.

The south island of New Zealand was almost a French colony. The first British settlers on the south island only beat the French to it by a few months - in fact the French ships carrying their intended settlers were en route prior to the first white settlement of the south island.

That's not quite what I meant, Koyanisquatsi; I know New Zealand isn't a convict colony at the present time, 'cos I live here. What the Star Trek Voyager story line suggests is that some time in the 21st Century or thereafter, NZ becomes a convict colony, which is why Matthew Paris was sent there, and subsequently picked up by Janeway et. al. What I'm asking is, how did New Zealand (according the STV people) become a convict colony, 'cos it's never explained. It could be a whole new story-line.

Oh.
Thats what I get for not paying attention to which subforum I'm in.

Xylene:
It's Tom Paris. Not Matthew Paris.

I think because it's a large land mass that is easily isolated from society. Maybe the island contains some sort of ore that makes it impossible to gain a sensor or transporter lock?

Or maybe, after the Bell riots (That were shown on DS9) the world government had to move convicts and other ordinary citizens to a place that seemed convenient. Maybe there were more walled up cities in NZ than any other place?

Xylene:
It's Tom Paris. Not Matthew Paris.

I think because it's a large land mass that is easily isolated from society. Maybe the island contains some sort of ore that makes it impossible to gain a sensor or transporter lock?

Or maybe, after the Bell riots (That were shown on DS9) the world government had to move convicts and other ordinary citizens to a place that seemed convenient. Maybe there were more walled up cities in NZ than any other place?

Thanks for the correction on the name, Counseler; actually, I think I can go some way to answering my own question, once I actually start thinking for a change. Back in '91 I was doing an Earth Science course thru Waikato University, and we did a field trip down to Hamilton (home-base of WU) to have a look at some of the volcanology of the central North Island--the Taupo Volcanic Zone or TVZ for short. While we were at Waikato University I got talking to the head of the Earth Sciences Department, and he told me that the really dangerous volcanoes were the rhyolitic ones, because their lava was so rich with silica. What the silica does is stiffen up the lava, so it becomes very viscous. Its viscosity is so extreme that the largest rhyolitic volcanoes don't form cones at all, they just blow enormous holes in the ground--and I do mean big holes--they can only be seen in their entirity from an arial flyover. He told me that there is an early warning indicator for when one of these beasts is going to go off. About one hundred and fifty years before a major rhyolitic eruption, there is a 'throat clearing' eruption, as he termed it, which inevitably produces basaltic lava. The last time this happened was June 10th 1886, when Mount Tarawera blew its top. Tarawera is part of the Okataina caldera, which includes several active vents in the Inland Bay of Plenty area. He said that the major rhyolitic eruption was expected (at that time, 1991) in about 45 years time. BY 2036, the 150 year time-limit will run out. He said that the eruption could be expected in that decade, and said further that it would be of the same magnitude as the eruption of Lake Taupo in 232 AD--i.e. about 100 km3 of ash being released in one blast. That would cover the whole North Island and the top half of the South Island with ash, and cause the inevitable evacuation of the North Island. If there was ever a place you would thereafter establish a convict colony, the North Island would the place--and I guess with all those clouds of volcanic ash swirling around every time the wind blew, transporting someone through that haze would be pretty difficult.