Should Star Trek Voyager been a Star Trek: New Federation type show?

[Nobody700]

Much has been said about Voyager. Wonderful, excellent, the best of Sci Fi, magnum opus. Words no one has ever said about Voyager. Ahh I am harsh, I admit, but I think everyone here knows Voyager could have been, and should have been, so much more. I think the main reason Voyager failed... was it was Diet TNG. We didn't need Diet TNG, we wanted Star Trek Voyager. Thus, I'm here to propose a rather popular idea, but expand on it. What if, instead of leaving and heading for Earth... they stay with the Ocampa?

Imagine this scenario, and please understand I'm not gonna go into EXTREME depth unless asked about it. What if Janeway, Chakotay, and TWO Cardassian ships were caught by the Caretaker. Afterward, Voyager is the most damaged, Chakotay's ship least, and the two Cardassian ships near paralyzed. They are informed by the Caretaker they were brought in by accident, because of his attempts to gain aid from a species nearbye called Prophets but he is on the last stretch of power so he can no longer do anything. His world is under attack by the Kazon, and he wants to save the Ocampa. The three factions are thus forced to work together, but with the promise after they do so, they can go back home. Of course, interpersonal drama (I will NOT be writing everything, I have a life) but finally, as the Kazon fleet comes... Janeway makes a choice. To prevent the Kazon invading the Alpha Quadrant, given this is a suicide run... she destroys the Array.

So, a badly wounded Voyager with half the crew dead, a rather weak Maquis vessel, and two mid Cardassian warships engage a fleet of 30 Kazon ships, certain of absolute defeat but the hope they can defeat enough to protect the Ocampa long enough for them to flee... and the heroes win. EASILY. Janeway and the others realize the Kazon... are PATHETIC, and this isn't a big hero moment, it's the realization they are doomed for nothing. Thus, stuck 75,000 light years away from the CLOSEST place called home... they decide to create a new Federation. One made up of values from Janeway, a somewhat cocky captain known for her maverick ways but strict belief in the principles of Starfleet, a Maquis captain who used to be an Admiral in Starfleet but felt they lost their ways, and a Cardassian captain who while a strong believer in his ways, was a staunch objector to Bajor's occupation and is thus a bit more moral.

This way, you have a new dynamic. NO ONE is in charge, but each one provides what the other needs. Voyager is the strongest ship, the Maquis outnumber Voyager and the Cardassians, and the Cardassians have two ships instead of one so they provide extra power. With no federation to back them up, they have to form one and so, the Ocampa gladly join in to better themselves and survive. Now where does Neelix come in? Easy, he's no longer a junk trader... he's the head of a junk trader union. Instead of a conman like Quark, he's a staunch believer of the rights of the workers rights because of his forced draft into a war he was terrified of, and after his people were shattered, he has become one of the few large voices for a broken people and is now a minor power in this section of the Delta Quadrant, but wants the new Federation to protect him from the Kazon or a bigger worse threat, the Vidiians. Thus you have a show where the characters debate what a new Federation should be, change as they evolve, and find new species that could be friend or foe. A massive expanding roster of characters, and one of the main ideas of the first season is them trying to prevent the Kazon from becoming wanabee Klingons, to an actual species with culture, after finding out they were slaves who broke from their shackles but have no CULTURE to unite them beyond raiding parties. That way, the characters have a much larger voice, you have Janeway not be always right, the Maquis being the Mquis stays very important, and with a added bonus of Cardassians, strife between the factions as they aren't evil, but far less moral.

If anyone has anything to add to this, I'd love to hear. Been having this idea for a long while.

[Madner Kami]

Getting the Cardassians to cooperate, rather than opportunistically ally with the Kazon is tough at that point in Trek-history. I rather see them defecting and trying to capture Voyager, ideally while attempting to kill Chakotay. This is great from a story-telling point of view, as it gives you conflict to work with, but it undermines the "New Federation"-approach from the get-go. The one species from the major Alpha-powers that would instantly cooperate while still leaving you potential for intelligent conflict, would be the Romulans.

[Nobody700]

Getting the Cardassians to cooperate, rather than opportunistically ally with the Kazon is tough at that point in Trek-history. I rather see them defecting and trying to capture Voyager, ideally while attempting to kill Chakotay. This is great from a story-telling point of view, as it gives you conflict to work with, but it undermines the "New Federation"-approach from the get-go. The one species from the major Alpha-powers that would instantly cooperate while still leaving you potential for intelligent conflict, would be the Romulans.

I so see what you're coming from, and do agree with ya, it's just something I felt would work for the show to have a 'enemy race' be good guys and join in forming a Federation without going in the 'We're the super nice ones so we'll act like you!' Romulans would 100% work, just dunno how to put them into this situation that makes sense.

[CharlesPhipps]

The artistic failures of VOY are really something beyond the cast's ability to deal with as well as the behind the scenes people because there's fundamental lack of agreement about what everyone (or anyone realy) wanted from the show:

* UPN wanted their own version of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They continually commented on the fact they wanted something as close to the classic Picard success as possible to headline their science fiction prime time slot.
* Piller wanted to make a weird completely different show in bold unknown territories.
* Most of the writers wanted to use their TNG scripts and were annoyed Piller had put the Ferengi, Klingons, and other races on the other side of the galaxy.
* Berman and Braga had very specific ideas about how episodic television should work and how Star Trek, in particular, should work.
* Jeri Taylor wanted to write her Self Insert Fanfic about the greatest female captain who ever lived.
* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

[Madner Kami]

* Jeri Taylor wanted to write her Self Insert Fanfic about the greatest female captain who ever lived.

Criticism of Taylor? That's something you don't read often, when it comes to Voyager. Gonna leave that quote here:

I always thought of Janeway is just me, I wrote her. I can’t say that I wrote her as me, but as I would like to be. I felt full of her. And I think she is full of me, although, in many ways, far more skilled and able than I am. But it was my fantasy that Janeway was me and I tried to approach it like that. Flaws—we all have flaws. I could name my own; I don’t know that I could name Janeway’s.

There are times when Taylor reminds me very much of Gene "Humans will have no interpersonal conflicts in the future" Roddenberry.

[clearspira]

* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

I'm actually kind of glad that Ron Moore didn't get Voyager in the end. If BSG is anything to go by, you'll get two great seasons followed by two seasons of magic and asspulls. Star Trek Generations was also magic and asspulls and is widely considered one of the worst Trek films. Caprica was a failure. Mission Impossible 2 is widely regarded as the worst. I guess there is For All Mankind but i've already made my opinions on that clear over on the thread.

His track record outside of DS9 is mixed. And even that arguably ended with magic and asspulls too.

[Nobody700]

The artistic failures of VOY are really something beyond the cast's ability to deal with as well as the behind the scenes people because there's fundamental lack of agreement about what everyone (or anyone realy) wanted from the show:

* UPN wanted their own version of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They continually commented on the fact they wanted something as close to the classic Picard success as possible to headline their science fiction prime time slot.
* Piller wanted to make a weird completely different show in bold unknown territories.
* Most of the writers wanted to use their TNG scripts and were annoyed Piller had put the Ferengi, Klingons, and other races on the other side of the galaxy.
* Berman and Braga had very specific ideas about how episodic television should work and how Star Trek, in particular, should work.
* Jeri Taylor wanted to write her Self Insert Fanfic about the greatest female captain who ever lived.
* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

Hence why I like to pretend they all don't exist and I was in charge

But yeah the behind the scenes is M E S S Y

[CharlesPhipps]

* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

I'm actually kind of glad that Ron Moore didn't get Voyager in the end. If BSG is anything to go by, you'll get two great seasons followed by two seasons of magic and asspulls. Star Trek Generations was also magic and asspulls and is widely considered one of the worst Trek films. Caprica was a failure. Mission Impossible 2 is widely regarded as the worst. I guess there is For All Mankind but i've already made my opinions on that clear over on the thread.

His track record outside of DS9 is mixed. And even that arguably ended with magic and asspulls too.

Ron Moore, Chris Carter, and JJ Abrams are all guys who think that they can lay the groundwork for mysteries in their shows and then think, "I'll come up with an answer later."

And it always crashes and burns.

JMS is the only scifi writer who seems to have had the answers ahead of time.

[McAvoy]

* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

I'm actually kind of glad that Ron Moore didn't get Voyager in the end. If BSG is anything to go by, you'll get two great seasons followed by two seasons of magic and asspulls. Star Trek Generations was also magic and asspulls and is widely considered one of the worst Trek films. Caprica was a failure. Mission Impossible 2 is widely regarded as the worst. I guess there is For All Mankind but i've already made my opinions on that clear over on the thread.

His track record outside of DS9 is mixed. And even that arguably ended with magic and asspulls too.

I think it was a good idea to keep Voyager from being dark. It was one of the early criticisms of DS9 that it didn't have that bright future feel TNG had. I don't think fans would take yet another series like that.

One of Voyager's main criticisms is the magic reset button. Always clean and fresh every episode except on a handful of occasions. Any sort of battle damage was repaired and looks like she was straight out of dry dock.

In this regard, I think right around when they went over to CGI that they could have started to show lasting damage. I always liked this idea that resources to repair Voyager started to dwindle after Basics Part 2. For example that one area where the Kazon were targeting could be the first of many patch jobs that was never repaired. Since it's on aft underside of the ship, you could still use certain stock shots of Voyager but you could have that one area shown on some selected flybys.

Delta Flyer is actually the unused Aeroshuttle thing. Make it like it was never completed, but they had to because they were down to working shuttles that could be repaired anymore. Like they were just parts for other shuttles until they had none left. So they cannibalized the remaining shuttles to complete the thing. Even add all of the stuff Seven can bring and Paris's little flourishes.

I think Voyager should have had a larger crew before getting dragged to the Delta Quadrant. Like 320. The number gets dragged to 100. Add 40+ Maquis from the other ship. The ship is understaffed, no nurses or second doctors. The real science officer is killed, along with a handful of others forcing Harry Kim to take the post even as an Ensign.

But make it like the ship is struggling to get home.

Nevermind some story arcs for the characters. Make the Maquis an issue early on. Chakotay straddling that line. Do something with Harry Kim. Redo Neelix as someone who could perhaps bridge the Maquis and Starfleet together as an outsider.

Seven remains Borg for part of the season, slowly removing Borg components until she is human. No skintight outfits.

[Nobody700]

* Ron Moore wanted to take all the dark and edge of DS9 and take it to the 11, which NO ONE wanted but him (and he went on to make Battlestar Galactica)

I'm actually kind of glad that Ron Moore didn't get Voyager in the end. If BSG is anything to go by, you'll get two great seasons followed by two seasons of magic and asspulls. Star Trek Generations was also magic and asspulls and is widely considered one of the worst Trek films. Caprica was a failure. Mission Impossible 2 is widely regarded as the worst. I guess there is For All Mankind but i've already made my opinions on that clear over on the thread.

His track record outside of DS9 is mixed. And even that arguably ended with magic and asspulls too.

I think it was a good idea to keep Voyager from being dark. It was one of the early criticisms of DS9 that it didn't have that bright future feel TNG had. I don't think fans would take yet another series like that.

One of Voyager's main criticisms is the magic reset button. Always clean and fresh every episode except on a handful of occasions. Any sort of battle damage was repaired and looks like she was straight out of dry dock.

In this regard, I think right around when they went over to CGI that they could have started to show lasting damage. I always liked this idea that resources to repair Voyager started to dwindle after Basics Part 2. For example that one area where the Kazon were targeting could be the first of many patch jobs that was never repaired. Since it's on aft underside of the ship, you could still use certain stock shots of Voyager but you could have that one area shown on some selected flybys.

Delta Flyer is actually the unused Aeroshuttle thing. Make it like it was never completed, but they had to because they were down to working shuttles that could be repaired anymore. Like they were just parts for other shuttles until they had none left. So they cannibalized the remaining shuttles to complete the thing. Even add all of the stuff Seven can bring and Paris's little flourishes.

I think Voyager should have had a larger crew before getting dragged to the Delta Quadrant. Like 320. The number gets dragged to 100. Add 40+ Maquis from the other ship. The ship is understaffed, no nurses or second doctors. The real science officer is killed, along with a handful of others forcing Harry Kim to take the post even as an Ensign.

But make it like the ship is struggling to get home.

Nevermind some story arcs for the characters. Make the Maquis an issue early on. Chakotay straddling that line. Do something with Harry Kim. Redo Neelix as someone who could perhaps bridge the Maquis and Starfleet together as an outsider.

Seven remains Borg for part of the season, slowly removing Borg components until she is human. No skintight outfits.

It's the classic problem that Voyager WANTS to be like TOS and TNG that doesn't demand you need to watch every episode... but the thing is, this is the kind of show that SHOULD have continuity. The last bits I remember mattering by season seven... was Tom being demoted for defying Janeway.