If Janeway had not destroyed the Caretaker....

This was a thought that stemmed from another thread.

So what if Janeway had not destroyed the Caretaker and used the array to get home. What would have been different?

Off the top of my head,
The maquis crewmembers would be dead or in prison
Tom and B'Elanna would not have gotten married
There would have been no Q civil war
Species 8472 would have tried to wipe out all life in the galaxy

 

The Borg would be toast.

 

Kes would be still captured by the Kazon, Neelix a criminal
The Dreadnought would destroy a planet (episode 2.17)
The 2 Ferengi still exploit the natives of a planet (episode 3.05 False Profit)
Yes, species 8472 would probably destroy everything, and the borg too
Seven of nine would still be in the hive-collective
Annorax would still destroy worlds/planets out of time (Year of hell)
Romulans would have stolen the new prototype of the USS Prometheus (Message in a bottle)
Hirogen would not develop hunting with holo-technologie
Voyager would never found Omega
Equinox would probably completely destroyed instead of 5 survivors
The aggressive Vaadwaur would still be sleeping
Voyager solves the dissappearing from Ares 4 (One small step) and Friendship One
Voyager would not befree the borg-children
Dr. Lewis Zimmermann would die on the illnes, just the Doctor can heal (episode 6.24)

 

So overall Voyager entering the DQ had a positive impact all around.

 

Pretty much.. but I was watching Hope and Fear and it reminded me that Arturis belonged to a species that would not have been assimilated if the Borg had been distracted by Species 8472. As much as it is easy to go with Kes' initial 'reading' from Species 8472 that they would cleanse the Quadrant, it is hard to really know as they were capable of just going for the immediate enemy and ignoring those who were no longer a threat. Of course in Endgame the Janeways deal their own blow to the Borg.

 

Umm, the Caretaker died of natural causes. The fact that he was dying was the whole reason he abducted people in the first place. Janeway needed him alive to send them home, but he died before he could. Janeway then destroyed the Caretaker's array after his death, to prevent the Kazon from getting control of it.

 

Aww.. I think she meant more destroyed the Caretaker's array.

 

The EMH wouldn't have evolved.

 

There certainly would have been no ECH

 

The Borg wouldn't have killed billions citizens when they attacked the Federation in the Destiny trilogie

 

I think I know what spawned this.

The Hirogen wouldn't have developed their holographic prey, and their communications array would still be intact, which could carry larger implications.

This is now making me wonder what might have occurred if Annorax had "destroyed" the Caretaker's array instead of Janeway.

 

Honestly, this whole debacle over the Array and Janeway would've been avoided easily if the writers had just stated that it was the Caretaker himself who brought Voyager to the DQ and not the Array. He overestimated himself and was too weak to send them back when he died.

Going home was never an option.

 

that's what Janeway said in 'Treshold'

 

I think I would have liked some version of this. If Tuvok had not said he found a way to use the array to get them home I think it would have been better...I think. It certainly would have avoided many debates over the years of whether she violated the prime directive or not.

 

She didn't destroy the array arbitrarily... she did it to keep it from Kazon hands... else the Kazon would've probably destroyed Voyager anyway (if not right when they gained control of the array certainly once they figured it out).

Which leads to an obvious consequence if Voyager hadn't destroyed the array: the Kazon-Nistrim would've gained control of it.

 

But Janeway could have tried an old military tactic known as subterfuge. Offer the Kazon the array if they will allow them to use the array to return home, and just leave a few explosives behind set to detonate after the array is activated.

 

A little earlier in the script Janeway was willing to let the Kazon have the array, but they didn't take her up on that deal if it meant that she would use it first or at all, because they though that she was shifty.

The Kazon would not share, so they got nothing.

NOTHING!

 

I did think of that, but as I recall it was a "race for the array" situation where Voyager was obviously going to lose and the Nistrim's intentions were clear.

Exactly. :-D

 

Voyager was present during the Big Bang.

That would have effected every quark in the universe from the beginning of the universe forward.

Why was the Boy who could Fly, a theoretical physicist, making new theories about the beginning of the universe, when he was there in the beginning?

 

One technical point: it was the Kazon-Ogla, not the Kazon-Nistrim.