Complete Voyager and First Contact/Insurrection Rewrite Fanfiction

[Yukaphile]

Yes, Chakotay needs a tribe. That's one issue to address. Don't worry, I'll do it. My Peruvian friend who's part native can help me find him a tribe. Maybe fix "Tattoo?" Eh...

I also wanna adapt Chuck's idea. The Borg are only for limited special events. Other than that, it's those robots from "Prototype."

[MissKittyFantastico]

Okay step one, lose the idea of a "Maquis crew". The whole idea of 'two crews' being on the same ship and causing friction is a non-starter, because either the Maquis back their own - in which case, B'Ellana disagreeing with Janeway on how to handle a situation means 30% of the crew isn't obeying the captain, and that's a situation the captain has to put down (or surrender to) now, not let fly for seven seasons - or the Maquis don't back their own (as happened most of the time, since Chuckles was so deferential to Janeway) in which case what the heck is the point of them? No, you have a ship full of Sevens - individuals with their own beliefs and agendas, who can disagree with the captain, but who ultimately have no choice but to buckle down and do what the majority says because you can't mutiny on your own. There's your workable friction - any episode, somebody could be against the captain's plan and say so, giving us those ethical debate scenes we love, but that doesn't mean there isn't a functional crew.

Since TNG and DS9 already went to all the trouble of setting up the Maquis for Voyager to use (pointlessly), let's use that as a starting point - but don't have a 'Maquis ship' and 'Maquis crew' coming on board, make it more chaotic. Voyager's called to the Badlands to investigate, who cares, they're there. The Maquis are scrapping with the Cardies, maybe there's a freighter in the middle that has no politics and just wants to get out alive, bam, they're scooped up by a space butthole, massive damage to everyone, buncha dead people, Voyager's the only one that doesn't blow up so they take on escape pods from the others - couple of Maquis (from a couple of different fightercraft, so they may not all be under one person's 'command', couple of Cardassians, couple of merchants or smugglers or whatever - and hey what do you know, there are other people from species we've never heard of trapped in here too, and they say once you're stuck in here there's no way to get out. Cue that episode where everyone's trapped in a space butthole and Janeway makes with the alliances to get them out - only when they pop out, they're in the Delta Quadrant, because the space butthole has been jumping around the galaxy picking up randoms this whole time, and that's where it happened to be when they escaped. Janeway's all "set a course for the Federation," a bunch of their unknown-species allies from the butthole decide to come along because the Delta Quadrant's not their home either, might as well stick with the lady who's gotten us this far... there you go, diverse ship of individuals. And they're following Janeway not because "this is a Starfleet ship" (the remaining Starfleet officers might be in the minority) but because Janeway got them out of the butthole when nobody else was willing to try, and let's be honest it's her ship, so she's got the moral authority, and practical right, to ask for everyone's loyalty as a crew.

So off they go bumbling around for the next seven years, and the network wanted basically standalone adventures like TNG, so that's what we're doing because they're paying the bills. A few arcs, recurring characters (but not for too long unless it's made plain they're pursuing Voyager far beyond their 'home' area of space, and they have a good reason to), it's kinda Farscape season two. But here's the thing - and this'll probably need someone to keep track of a whole lot of post-it notes on the whiteboard in the writers' room, but I think it's important - no reset button. Someone when they were heading into TNG season three (I think it might even have been Rick Berman, back when he still had the humility to check whether his ideas were good before going ahead with them) said "every episode has to be about something for our crew," no random problems that we solve and go on our merry way without a second thought, what happens in the episode matters, on a personal level, to one of the main cast. Similar idea, only now it's "every episode has to change something." Doesn't have to be big, but maybe this episode Janeway goes all 'Prime Directive is god!' and it blows up in her face so from here on she's more open, this episode B'Ellana's doubting her techie skills but has a brainwave, from here on she's more confident - it can even be this episode they find some bizarre space crystal that they can make new torpedoes out of (remember when they were a limited resource?), so from now on the torpedoes are purple. It doesn't have to upend the status quo every week, just something that in later episodes you can see and remember "Oh yeah, Thing X is like that because of Episode X a while back."

Where this is going is, by the time they get back to the Federation, Voyager has become something totally new and unique. The warp drive has been turned inside out and works on slipstreams, half the main computer got wrecked and they turned half of Deck 3 into an arboretum to replace it because they found a species of tree that's a living computer, the shields are Borg (those boxy ones that look like they're from Dune), they've got three shuttles and none of them are Starfleet issue, the deflector dish looks like it's made from mercury, nobody on the bridge crew is the same species, and Starfleet has to download Voyager's universal translator settings before they can even understand what half the crew is saying. People have died, people have joined the journey along the way, some people have left because they found somewhere they liked, some babies have been born, the whole deal. Which admittedly is going to be expensive, because you're going to have to have people constantly modifying your standing sets and you can't keep reusing the same stock footage of the ship and don't even ask about the prosthetics and makeup department, but screw it, fanfic has no budget. And it's important to do this, because Voyager is a scale model of the Federation - it started out with a bunch of strangers bumping into each other, all from different places and lives, but now they're all wearing Starfleet combadges because they've come together, and Voyager is united.

And just personally, I'd like it if they got 'home' by reaching DS9, not Earth - it's where they set out from, and I want to see Colonel Kira again.

[Yukaphile]

I actually want to adhere as closely to the original canon as possible, so I'm sticking to those ideas. However, I think I've got a good starting point, and as I'd said, I'm gonna be borrowing ideas from Chuck.

I think what he'd hypothetically said during his review "In the Pale Moonlight" is a good starting point. Janeway is actually the science officer, and Tuvok is the tactical/security chief like Worf had been. Or perhaps one of them, except that it's the unnamed Captain going to track him down, and Janeway considers Tuvok a colleague, a friend, same as in canon, only both subordinates of the captain. Maybe make it a formerly seen TNG captain for a continuity nod. Someone the audience didn't like? Maybe instead of being killed, he or she is rendered comatose? OMG, imagine that... and then finally, years later, the EMH manages to revive them, comes out of their coma, and we have that conflict!

Anyway, yeah, I think the idea here is that Janeway will learn to "relax" Federation principles a bit, over the course of the series, perhaps start seeing them as less dogmatic. For instance, the Prime Directive is going to get tossed out early on, but make it a slow change. I still want her to get her own "In the Pale Moonlight" moment where she feels she's crossed the line... and perhaps unlike Sisko, feels as if she can't live with it, so turns command over to Chakotay or Tuvok. I do think the idea of Starfleet/Maquis tension was a good one, if you don't have a limited imagination like the Voyager writing team did.

One idea I'm toying with is that as they get closer to home and Project Pathfinder succeeds in getting more communications through, her "battlefield commissions" to officers, like promoting Harry to Lieutenant (FINALLY!) and perhaps more, is put before an official review board, and we see her butting heads with Starfleet Command, who might feel as if the Maquis had changed her. This all leads up to an "episode" where Janeway is court-martialed, perhaps over questionable things she's done in the Delta Quadrant. Perhaps even the events of "Scorpion," which will largely remain unchanged.

I do also wanna do what Chuck had said in "Cold Fire," explore this idea that they're representatives of Starfleet out here, and maybe color their past in a checkered light, instead of making it outright lies. And perhaps it's not water the Kazon are seeking in the first episode, but, well... something rare, like plasma or whatever. Neelix "borrowing" plasma would make far more sense than... that.

I know another thing I wanna do is expand on the Q past "Death Wish," but in a good way. Make more them like the Xeelee or Time Lords without completely changing them. Can it be done?

What do you guys think?

[technobabbler]

An idea that the Rick Berman would have never approved---I'd make the USS Voyager a 60-ish year old Excelsior-class ship that was re-purposed as a pure science vessel five year ago. But now stuck in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway has to jury-rig tactical systems through the parts they have, replicators and bartering.

[Yukaphile]

OMG! That's an excellent idea! I'm using it!

[technobabbler]

OMG! That's an excellent idea! I'm using it!

if you want to be realistic in-universe....Starfleet repurposed older ships as colony transports, science ships, unmanned probes, whatever. Until Wolf 359.

USS Voyager was the last Excelsior-class ship turned into a pure science vessel. Post-Wolf 359 that program was cancelled and all older Excelsior-class ships were refitted with modern weapons, shields, sensors, engines, structural reinforcing, etc.

And as a pure science vessel, it has random stuff that other ships don't-----like (fill-in-the-blank here ____________) and pools like the Georgia Aquarium for aquatic research---Rick Sternbach finally can have his whales.

[Yukaphile]

Loving it, writing it down.

I hear Chakotay is a Sioux or Hopi. Which one should I go with? I really wanna be consistent with his ethnic background.

[Admiral X]

Chakotay doesn't strike me as a Sioux name, not that I know terribly much of my native language unfortunately. Most Natives I know typically use the English form of their surname, which is simply whatever their father or grandfather was named when they got sent off to the boarding schools. I was tempted to go that direction with his character in my version, but I was a bit worried I'd create a self-insert. I suppose I could have picked one of the other tribes.

If you want a tribe that traditionally had tattoos, I know some of the eastern tribes, like the Algonquins had them. You should just do research on some of the tribes and settle on one that you can put more focus on if you want to do this. Most tribes have heritage centers that can help with that kind of thing in case you're worried about getting some bullshitter like the one that got us Chuckles to begin with, even if it's just to recommend some books that have good information on whatever aspect you're looking for.

[Yukaphile]

He also needs a first name, rather just... so much... Spocking. Forgive the descent into Buffy Speak here.

[Admiral X]

Unless he's from some kind of traditionalist revival group, he'd probably have a typically American first name. If he was from some kind of traditionalist revival group, he wouldn't have a surname, he'd just be whatever name he had earned as he became a man.