If Kes had not left Voyager were there long range plans on how to age her? Voyager went 7 seasons, but it was well established that Kes had a life span of about 9 years. Would she have become elderly? Would she have had a stronger control on her natural abilities? Would she have stayed the same basic character the whole run?
A nebula tachyon virus would have spared her after one terrible episode of decrepification. Because Star Trek wouldn't have coped with 3 seasons of an elderly woman as the main character.
I was 17 when Voyager started, and 10 when tng started. Picard in my eyes, started off as an impossibly old man.
I have always preferred Kes to Seven. I would love to have seen where they went with the character. But with the EMH able to leave sickbay they didn't have need of a medic who could go anywhere, and after Seven came onboard she would have suffered the same fate as the rest of the cast--stilted development (if any) and reduced screen time in favour of bionic boobs.
Kes was really the only dynamic character on that show; she was the one who got involved in the other crewmembers' problems and helped them out. I'm convinced that there could have been some fascinating dialogue between Kes and Seven, especially given how she spend the first three seasons teaching the Doctor what it means to be human. Ultimately, though I have to agree with you that it wouldn't have worked because the writers were more interested in sex appeal than anything else when they introduced Seven.
Our shitstorms are in teacups now. It's not like the days of yore. We've grown old, LIKE JANEWAY Seasoned. Delicious.
Given that Harry was originally going to be written out and not Kes, it would have been been interesting to see how much development she would have gotten. I thought until the third season she was pretty much underutilized, which is a shame since I really liked Jennifer Lien. For me it was her voice that made her more sexy than Seven.
This is one of the things that make me wonder if they really did plan on getting rid of Kim over Kes. Jennifer Lien had a major reaction to the ears, I don't see how she could have dealt with what was required to age Kes. Not day in day out.
They wouldn't have to age Kes if she stayed. Ocampa don't appear to age until they reach 9, as seen in "Before and After". "Fury" messed up on that by showing her aged even though she's supposed to only be 6, but that's just one of the many errors featured on that episode.
I had initially thought that Kes' short lifespan would have played a role in Voyager getting home, that somehow she would make some sacrifice that would have made a difference to the crew's well-being. It seemed like the writers were telegraphing too much, but I still would be interested in knowing how she would get to that point.
Brannon Braga originally conceived the Borg crewmember as male, so it's possible Wang was on the potential chopping block then (painful metaphor given the spelling of the name, I know). Rick Berman suggested making it female, so he must have already known what was coming down.
He'll be dried up and shrill!! And we can all shake our heads and say, "that bitch? HOT? no thanks, he reminds me of my mother."