How would you change the show?

If I could make some huge changes to the show, I'd loved to have removed the Starfleet aesthetics. The Caretaker sent out a number of drone ships to scan for suitable candidates and upon finding them to collect samples (either by beaming people out of where they were or snatching shuttles), which are then returned to the Array. As such he has amassed a number of people from numerous races, some of which are more compatible and therefore go through the procedure, though none of them survive for long. The survivors must band together in order to learn what has happened and find a way to escape, with old enemies having to put their misgivings aside if they are to live. A little fuzzy on what the plot will actually be, but ultimately, one of those to lost to the experiments on is the son of a local warlord who tracked back the ship that abducted his son and attacks the Array, causing critical damage. The Caretaker will beam a group of the survivors to one of his drone ships and launches it, this will then become the ship the ragtag group of disparate people must use in order to get themselves home, all whilst never quite sure if their new shipmates will help them of scheme to kill them.

The crew would consist of/include:

• Commander Kathryn Janeway, whom the Caretaker tells the ship is its new master
• Rookie Ensign, who was with Janeway on their runabout and was experimented on but survived
• Maquis Lieutenant, a rogue intel officer who defected and was who Janeway was sent to recover before being dragged into the Delta Quadrant
• Centurion Tavok, a Romulan tactical officer
• Neelix, a scoundrel/trader from somewhere in the Delta Quadrant
• Kes, a young kid who was orphaned by the Caretaker's experiment and doesn't know where she's from
• B'Elanna Torres, a half-Klingon engineer who'd been working on a rundown freighter with serious anger issues
• Seska, a Cardassian scientist/engineer who never seems to give a straight answer
• Doctor, an artificial lifeform of alien origin programmed for little more than responding to medical emergencies
• Bajoran Militia Officer, could be Gerron, Celes, or Tabor
• Alien Helmsman, from an all new species

Thinking there definitely wouldn't be a huge crew, maybe picking up a few others along the way, though one thing is very clear, humans are the minority onboard (though are the ones who end up in charge of it). Thought of this as a touch of FarScape mixed with Star Trek, though probably without the awesome puppets.

 

Originally science officer Senior Lieutenant Janeway, limited command experience. While the designated commanding officer, some under her command occasional point out that they have more command experience then she, in a few cases significantly more.

 

Bring Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant sooner, say early to mid seventh season.

No "Fury".

Make "Threshold" a decent episode.

Never introduce the Malon.

Make First Maje Cullah become a Kahless-like figure uniting the Kazon sects and creating an empire as the first Grand Maje.

Find V'ger's Machine Planet.

Have Voyager inspire/help create a new Federation-like alliance in the Delta Quadrant.

 

Not saying I don't like these ideas, I think they're cool. Just some questions...

1. What do they do for the rest of Season 7?

2. How do you change Threshold?

3. Who's in charge of the Delta Federation? Please tell me it's not Neelix...

 

1) Well, there would be celebrations, remembrance ceremonies for those who didn't make it back, debriefings, hearings for the surviving Maquis members and possibly Seven as well, promotions and reassignments for most of the crew. Some crew members would adapt well to returning home, but others not so well. Seven years is a long time to be away. There may be a few missions after returning and then mothballing the USS Voyager so it becomes a museum and replacing it with the USS Voyager A.

2) Don't have Tom hyperevolve so no lizard children. Don't make Warp 10 infinite velocity, but rather the barrier between regular warp and transwarp. Have some other issue arise which prevents the Voyager crew from using this breakthrough.

3) Not sure and no not Neelix. He'd only be their ambassador to the Alpha Quadrant Federation. Becoming a leader of a colony is one thing, but becoming the leader of a multi-planetary alliance is something far different. Neelix would not be a good fit for that role. I don't even see him as being the main founder for said alliance or even the lead negotiator at the founding conference.

 

I've already posted my "what I would have done", but here are some interesting possibilities, if they had decided to carry out their original end of S3 plan.

Keeping Kes: Kes goes through her expected years of development: growing, marrying, possibly having a child at 5, and finally passing away at age 9, shortly before Voyager reaches home.

Eliminating Harry: Move "Non Sequitur" to late Season 3. Have him spend the whole episode trying to figure out what happened. Eventually, he does, and finds out that it truly can't be reversed. Have him accept his good fortune and presumably live happily ever after.
Two possibilities, regarding Voyager... one, have Harry be presumed dead, and have a somber few moments, then hit the reset button and have either Seven or an endless series of goldshirt non-entities take ops after that. Two, and much crazier... have the young officer who was posted to Voyager in the NS timeline unexpectedly turn up in his place, but with three years of memories of a completely different past. So there's a sort of paranoid "who are you and where's Harry" twist.

 

Hmmm... I like that last idea (of that replacement from another timeline arriving). There's a scene in Parallels (TNG) that has Deanna say 'From what I understand, there's a good chance my Worf won't return.' Always wondered wat happened to her Worf to make room for our Worf in that reality).

Whether Harry might accept his 'good luck' as you write or not might depend on how guilty he would feel about it all (see Timeless, where he does feel guilty because he messed up and doesn't move on with life). He just might accept it only if it really was a freak accident that had nothing to do with him doing anything wrong.

 

This aspect of Harry's personality was established in "Timeless" and the original "Non Sequitur". The former wouldn't have happened, and the latter would unfold differently.

Also, the alien barista could remind Harry that if he tried to reverse things, he would almost certainly fail (because of the sheer number of parallels out there) and that every time he tried, he would risk deleting his entire existence, put the entire space time continuum at risk, and/or violate the temporal equivalent of the Prime Directive. I think he could have been convinced.

 

Season 3 Episode Warlord when Kes broke up with Neelix i didn't really like it. It hurts me seeing Neelix heartbroken at the end when she became herself again i would want her to be back with Neelix and that she didn't mean the things she said because it wasn't really her and she would hug him tight and kiss as they are back together.
If Suspiria helped Kes for her to live longer than 9 years then her and Neelix would finally remain together forever. She wouldn't even leave Voyager either. Then years later Neelix and Kes would have their daughter on Voyager as well.
I never really liked Episode Homestead when Neelix left Voyager it really hurted my heart and started crying. So maybe if he'd stay on Voyager with Kes and their daughter they would go to earth with Janeway and the crew and him and Kes would start a brand new life living on earth and raising their daughter while remaining in contact with Janeway and goes off to work and save the day. That would be a better change.

 

I found the episode Homestead to be a touching and satisfying conclusion for Neelix. After so many years of loyal service he realised it was time to think of himself for a change and choose to stay with his own kind. I like to think he went on to become a revered master of ceremonies and local hero. His exit was sad but it's a nice touch when he's playing that game with Seven in End Game. I can't remember Seven ever being that personable with Neelix. She always seemed to just tolerate him but they are talking like friends having a catch up in End Game.

 

I agree with most of what you have written.

Even if I think that the relationship between Kes and Neelix had run its course and maybe should have ended already in season 2, some time after "Parturition", it should have been a decent break-up. Not like the badly written break-up In "Warlord" which otherwise was a great episode. The break-up should have taken place during two-three episodes and been more realistic and better explained.

And who knows what could have happened in the future?

As for Kes's lifespan, it could and should have been prolonged. It could have happened with the help of The Doctor, Suspiria or Q.

I wrote a story about it once which is on the Kes Website where Q give Kes a human lifespan. The story also wipes out the damage made to the character in a horrible and insulting episode which name should never be mentioned, an episode which should never have been done.

As for Neelix, he should have remained on Voyager. It was ridiculous to ditch him so near the end of the show for no reason at all. It made neelix look like a hypocrite, he had always promised to stay with Janeway and the others.

 

Unfortunately he had broken his promise when it comes with women he falls in love with. Every characters in every shows and movies always end up leaving their team whenever they meet someone and fall in love

 

Agreed about Homestead. Neelix had served his purpose with Voyager. Naomi was growing up, the ship would be home soon, and he had the opportunity to rejoin his own people. It was a satisfying end to his journey.

 

This may be blasphemous (and possibly a rip off of Battlestar Galactica), but I thought it would be cool if there were a fleet of Alpha Quadrant ships trying to make it back from the Delta Quadrant, all brought there by the Caretaker.

Maybe Voyager isn't he most powerful out of the fleet. Keep her an Intrepid-class, but with all the other ships they're traveling with (a Maquis ship, a Cardassian Galor-class, a Romulan warbird), maybe Captain Janeway has to defer to one of the more over powered ships in times of emergency.

Commander Chakotay could still be her first officer, but still be in charge of the Maquis raider.

 

Spoiler: Disco

Disco has been doing something similar this season with bringing Emperor Georgiou from the Mirror Universe to the Prime timeline.

 

But after a year or so on that isolated rock, he'll be so bored that he'll go out and start looking for his best friends.

 

The first thing I can think of is I'd get rid of most of the time travel episodes. Voyager did a lot of uninteresting ones early on. I'd also show visible signs of visible scarcity, and the Maquis people would wear different clothes. Even if it's a little cheesy and people wear torn bandanas on their heads, at least it would feel a bit different from TNG.

 

Maybe ditch some of the namedropping in episodes as well. The episode "One", for example, features a self-aggrandizing callback via "Mutara class nebula", which is renamed to simply "mutara nebula". (Never mind that chucking a bunch of people into beddiebye time wouldn't change a thing, the neural bio-gel packs would be fried a lot sooner, Kirk and crew didn't get fried in the nebula which coined the phrase for which all within it are named, and one could debate Seven not withstanding being alone considering how quickly she was ripped from the Collective. Maybe in season 5...)

But I digress. A lot of stories were good to great or had great potential but the balls got dropped more than on 00:00:00.01 on New Year's Day, or if nothing else needed some smoothing out.

 

I've said on other threads that I wish Shelby had been the captain and that Ro had been on the series as well. But keeping the characters and basic premise that we got, here are some of my thoughts:

-Maquis would not be putting on Starfleet uniforms at the end of "Caretaker". It would take a season, two, or more before they put on the uniforms, and even then, it might be piecemeal and not all just one uniform decision.
-More interpersonal conflict, between Starfleet and Maquis, but also within both sides too.
-No Neelix or Kes. I'm fine with them having Delta Quadrant denizens on board, I just found Neelix very annoying as a character and Kes was sort of bland. If I kept Neelix I would've played up more his more unsavory side.
-Make the Viidians and not the Kazon the main villains in the early seasons.
-Give the series a more desperate air, where it's a more of a struggle to find resources. And we see the ship dinged up more, for longer time.
-Make Species 8472 the next major series big bads, taking out the Borg completely, or almost completely. Also, do more with the Swarm, Voth, and Vaadwaur.
-No Borg overload and no Borg children onboard.
-Keep Seska around longer, perhaps recurring or as a prisoner on Voyager.
-Have Seven of Nine's physical transformation be slower. As she reclaims her humanity we see the physical changes so we get sexpot Seven more toward the end of the series than at the end of "Scorpion Part 1".
-Like the idea I saw of a DS9/VOY crossover, so I'm pilfering that one. It would've been neat to see the crews interact and to see Voyager have to deal with the Dominion.
-I wouldn't have minded a flashback episode or two about the original Voyager crew. If I recall, the mission against the Maquis was the first for the vessel, but it didn't have to be. There could've been room there to have it where Voyager has been around for a while. I think it could've been a nice change of pace and let viewers see what the original crew was like and perhaps to see how Janeway's command style had changed. That could've also been a sneak way to do a TNG/DS9/VOY crossover as well.

 

The whole point of her being on there was to appeal to the 18-35yo male demographic.

The fact that Jeri Ryan is an amazing actor was icing on the cake.