Say you're the Captain and you saw it as futile to head home. Lets take a bit of realism: ships get beat up, their warp cores need overhauling, gathering tradable resources is a job for itself with dedicated ships/crews /equipment, etc. Maintenance in particular can 't be done without tools that aren't on the ship itself and Voyager just isn't going to last a decade straight in space without dedicated support, let alone the expected time of the trip. There are also real compatibilty issues with alien tech that doesn't get fixed in 45 minutes. What do you do? Stay put and build a new federation in the Delta Quadrant? Find a human-like civilization to adopt you? Babysit the Ocampa? Enslave the Ocampa? Kick Kazon butt while the kicking is good? Affix Neelix to the exterior of Voyager like a hood ornament and head straight into the nearest star?
I've thought about this a lot too Voyager probably would have fallen prey to the kazon or the vidiians or the alien species that fudged things up for the equinox during it's first week. There was also the potential risk of mutiny However if the crew did survive, i could see Janeway doing something similar to her actions when Voyager was trapped in the void. I could see her forging a coalition of races with the first member being the talaxians who voyager would have freed from haakonian rule. Voyager and the talaxians would have then allied with other friendly races, taken care of the kazon and brought peace to that region of space. I could see eventually a federation-like organisation forming and Janeway sharing technology and knowledge to make it a force to be reckoned with.
Good post mickmike. I don't think Janeway would have ever abandoned her identity and role as Starfleet officer and representative of the Federation in the Delta quadrant. She could lose half her ship, end up living a totally different life dressed in civies among non-humans for decades and she would still be identifying herself that way. Me, I would have thrown it all in in five seconds
Ideally, after realizing that they could never reach Federation space in their lifetime, they should have remained on the Planet of the 37s, and with those transplanted humans, built a foundation for the Delta Quadrant Federation. They had a magnificent city-that we never got to see, so with Voyager, they could have set up the appropriate base to fabricate resources, build more ships, all while making contact with strange new worlds and civilizations, pioneering alliances, and searching for the not so random anomalies and wormholes that could deposit them back home in an instant ... (And you know, I really hated Janeways' last lines in Caretaker...anomalies and wormholes are supposed to be special and unique phenomenon, not something you run into around the corner on the way to Albuquerque 7)
This would've given the show an excellent chance to actually be -about- something rather than just Voyager flying home, running into a random alien/anomaly of the week. Everything was there for it too. The Hakonaan occupation of Talax. The Ocampa coming into their own. The Trabe struggling for survival even as the Kazon sects war. The Viidians search for survival getting more and more desperate. Heck, there was everything neatly hand given in the 37's. You'd have thought that an alien power that could yank humans half way across the galaxy would be something worth looking into. Exploring strange new worlds is great and all... but what happens after that? That's part of why I liked DS9 a lot. It really defined a number of the species we had already met rather than just being about a new alien of the week with different makeup. Exploring new cultures and the conflicts and drama they contribute to is more entertaining than finding a new alien, assigning it a stereotype and moving on.
5 year trip to the galactic barrier. Fling Voyager at it. Half the surviving crew turn into silver eyed gods. They wish Voyager home.
If Voyager would have stayed in the Delta Quadrant, fans would have complained. "I thought Star Trek was about exploring new worlds." With TNG off the air, and DS9 still on the air, the franchise needed a return to its roots. As for what they would have done, they probably would have set up a new Federation, as several posters have already suggested.
DS9 being stationary was a good strength because it meant it could do that. VOY's problem was that the premise was essentially "We're in an unknown area of space never visited by our people before. Let's run away from it!" Berman even acknowledged that inherent flaw in the show later on.
I'd have thought a good episode, or string of episodes, would have been for Voyager to find an organization that's akin to the Federation in its scope and ideology --- a peaceful, cooperative network of many species --- which would be, if not literally home, at least spiritually home. The question of whether to stick with a place that might be alien in its details but shares your most important values, or whether to carry on for the uncertain prospect of getting those spots of soil where you grew up, seems to me interesting anyway. (It would be worth a couple of episodes because then Voyager could get to know them, by trading doing some work --- say, popular stuff, like medical rescue missions --- for needed supplies and safe harbor and such, and prove that they've found a place that could be plausibly home-away-from-home.)
I agree there were enough interesting races and politics in the Delta Quadrant that they probably could have done a better show if they didn't try to get home. Although I can't imagine them giving up immediately, and I also can't imagine them starting out trying to get home then giving up. So instead of the DQ which is really far but close enough to realistically make it eventually, maybe they should have ended up in another galaxy as other posters suggested. That way, they would have been able to have the 'Trying to get home' angle, only instead of flying in the direction of home they would have had to find some new technology or wormhole which they could have searched for by establishing a base of support where they were.
You'd have to damage the ship to the point where it isn't sustainable for a long term trip. Just maybe some short range things or whatever. Which isn't that hard if they stick to being low on resources, spare parts and what not.
More than any of the post-TOS captains, Janeway is possibly the closest to Kirk than any of them. Picard destroys Enterprise? Oh, well. He gets up and walks away. Sisko falls in love with Bajor, but doesn't seem to have any strong affection for the space station. Archer is too gee-whiz gung-ho about everything and too attached to his dog to give his ship any personal affection. But Kirk and Janeway have undying trust in their ships. They push their ships to the limit, confident in the belief that the ship will somehow survive. Roddenberry had intended the Enterprise to be something of another character in the setting, and Janeway's feelings for Voyager, the ship, are the same.
Objectophelia. Surely Starfleet would want their captain's to marry their Starships? In Andromeda it is forbidden for the ships and Captains to fall in love... Although it happens all the time.
One thing's for certain-- if Voyager had never headed home, the ship and the show probably would have had a different name. Like Star Trek: Crusoe, maybe. Or the USS Gilligan.
I always felt that Berman was being cock blocked when Ira snuck in under the wire using the USS Odyssey... However if you really think about it, the Odyssey was destroyed almost immediately, which means that surely the Odyssey II should have been on the lot, when Janeway was kicking tires trying to see which Starship she wanted.