How should Voyager have gotten home?

[Pseudo]

Okay, here's how I would do it.

I'd have Voyager actually start building some friends and alliances due to a common enemy, then discover the possibility of a way home. There'd be the build up to some titanic battle which Janeway knows her allies and friends can't survive without Voyager, but the window of opportunity for getting home is small. The series would end much as it began, with Janeway making the choice between the death of civilizations and her ship returing to Federation space.

The series would end on a black screen with the words "Voyager never made it home."

 

[Guy Gardener]

And Quantum Leap would sue.



I like Bookends.

Although Janeway was constantly willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good, which revealed some of her greater moments on screen.

I really liked how this sort of thing played out in Dreadnaught.

 

[tomalak301]

I wanted to see Suspiria come back or even Species 8472. Having it be a Borg story made it feel like a "been there, done that" feeling that plagued Voyager in the later seasons.

 

[PsychoPere]

I'd have Voyager actually start building some friends and alliances due to a common enemy, then discover the possibility of a way home. There'd be the build up to some titanic battle which Janeway knows her allies and friends can't survive without Voyager, but the window of opportunity for getting home is small. The series would end much as it began, with Janeway making the choice between the death of civilizations and her ship returing to Federation space.

This is similar to how I would've wanted to handle it, as a multi-episode arc starting no later than the mid-way point of the final season. The penultimate episode would end with Voyager heavily damaged, seemingly about to be destroyed but with one last desperate gamble still to attempt to stave off defeat.

Then the final episode would have been "Living Witness." What precisely happened to Voyager never would've been revealed in the series itself - the journey was more important than the goal.

 

[Purdy Bear]

I think the disappointment for me was that it ended too soon.

There were lots of unanswered questions that could have and should have been answered by showing a few more episodes.

Could the Borg attack earth again through the hubs nearby?

Who replaced the Borg Queen - maybe one of 7s relatives?

The fact that the 7 and Chakotay relationship would never last and she would end up with a Vulcan instead.

What happened about Janeways dogs and her pups and the reunion of the same?

How the Marque were except back into starfleet, would they have been court martialed or worse?

What happened with Paris and the penial colony?

Would 7 have been experimented on and then rescued by the crew?

Would Harry finally get his promotion?

To see Janeway get her Admiral promotion.

Oh the list goes on and on. I know as a writer they kept it open for a film, but it wasnt well done.

I think killing off Chakotay would have been a better move - the final act for Janeway, which would bring 7 and herself together in the mother and daughter situation that obviously was.

Gosh Id make a good writer!

How would I have ended it:

7 steals information on the hubs and they have to break her out of a reinforced castle place, then have a race to the hub which is blocked by a cube. This they get past with cunning and Paris's great flying into the hub, but cubes are closing in on all sides. They get through but two cubes come through too and there is a massive battle, in which Chakotay dies protecting Janeway.

They arrive home and then it follows the court martial of the marque, and 7 taken into labratories for experiments. Only by the Dr getting into the system can the crew rescue her. Meanwhile Janeway has been reunited with her elderly dog and is recognised instantly but she has to meet her ex-F's new family, says shes not effected but is. The security forces come to arrest her but shes beemed out onto Voyager.

They then have to escape to the badlands, and other adventures begin from there.

 

[Captain Ransom]

While I like the idea of the final episode being "Living Witness," I think the idea of Voyager *not* making it home is too fatalist for Star Trek plots.

 

[Anwar]

I'd like it if they returned home in Season 5 or so, then go back out there on an official mission and the show ends that way. They CAN go home but for now choose to be out there.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Dude that was the pilot.

Janeway chose to stay and B'Elanna tried to thump her.

 

[Anwar]

That really wasn't a "choice"...

But if it is like the Pilot, so what? Book Ends are cool.

Though the Book End ending I'd go for would be to reveal that the Female Caretaker was the villain of the show behind every villain they ever fought.

 

[Destructor]

Something that involved Suspiria.

Yes. Yesyesyes. A loooong time ago, back in 2001, I wrote some fan fiction on this very BBS which basically rewrote the final episode as I would have liked to have seen it. My primary idea was the take the many, many threads that the series had laid down over the years and combine them into a single forward-looking narrative that justified the entire journey. So yes they should have combined Kes, Suspiria, Seven's existence, and the many, many allies they made in the Delta Quadrant over the years into a single event. The boards were overhauled since I wrote the story so I think it's probably lost in the sands of time (if anyone knows this to not be the case I'd very much appreciate it!), but I still see it as my perfect vision of how it all ended.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That really wasn't a "choice"...

But if it is like the Pilot, so what? Book Ends are cool.

Though the Book End ending I'd go for would be to reveal that the Female Caretaker was the villain of the show behind every villain they ever fought.

It was so a choice.

Captain Ransom would have let the Kazon eat the Ocampa and given them directions to Tallax for pudding, and the Prime Directive would have sided with him.

Janeway had to break the Federations highest law to maroon her crew.

It was criminal to stay.

It wasn't an easy choice, it was a batshit choice.

But yes, book ends are cool.

 

[Anwar]

The PD got tossed out the window when the Caretaker abducted them and brought them there for the purpose of raping the lot of them in the first place.

But we've been over this quite a bit...

Yeah, having the Female Caretaker be behind everything would've tied it up nicely. They fight one last battle with her, kill her, and then use her Array to go home while making sure that they can return whenever they want. The End.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Quite a bit.

But it's quite unforgivable stealing one of the few chances that the Kazon had to make it out of the dark because Janeway thought they were thugs. How is outthugging a thug proof that you are civilizd?

The kazon were the true victim.

Susperia was just as senile as banjo Man.

If she had been handled differently, less dementia riddled in Coldfire, then perhaps she would have been a good choice for a mastermind villain at the end, but the facts stand that she was a minimind.

However, she was powerful enough not to need a plan or rationality. Just her thrashing about would be an awesome concern for most anyone.

Characters I would have liked to have seen play the Borg Queen since Susanna was busy.

Kes
Stadi
Both DelaneyTwins.
It had always been Seven of Nine.
Tal Celest
Annorax's Wife.
Janeway
Riley (Hells, she was already Borg.)
Nachayev (Because the Federation had already fallen)

And of course...

Raine Robinson preganat with Tom's lovechild.

 

[Anwar]

When I say Suspiria should have been the villain behind everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Like having her be in control of the Borg and the 8472.

But what Janeway did to the Array is no more worse than Mad Max helping the Refinery folks fight off the Raiders in "Road Warrior".

 

[Gary7]

The idea of Admiral Janeway going back in time to help Voyager was interesting, but way out of line IMHO. Just because Janeway's friends didn't have the good life she wanted didn't mean that she had the right to change the course of countless thousands of lives in the Alpha quadrant, which would happen with Voyager returning earlier and with far more crew members alive.


I'd prefer the following to have taken place:

1. Voyager "spies" on the Borg and learns of their extensive conduit system. 7of9 helps the crew figure out which conduit is the "likely" candidate for getting them to the Alpha quadrant.
2. Finally, they make a run for it. Voyager manages to zip past a network of cubes taking minimal damage before entering the conduit. One nearby cube jumps in after them. Voyager fires a number of torpedoes at the Borg ship, causing them damage but not complete destruction. Several torpedoes are fired at hopes of destroying the conduit node, but Borg shielding is too great and it remains intact. A message is sent forward in hopes of alerting Starfleet of the incoming trouble.
3. Voyager appears in the Alpha quadrant and discovers the message was received--a number of ships are present. The Borg cube emerges and all ships begin firing. 7of9 coordinates the attack, directing several ships to fire in specific places on the cube. The Borg ship is destroyed.
4. 7of9 detects several more ships coming through the conduit. They find some way to disrupt the end point, such that when the ships emerge, they are destroyed. No further ships are detected approaching, so the danger is averted for the time being.

Voyager is welcomed back. There is a commemoration and celebration held in honor of the crew, which are all given up to 6 full months of leave in compensation for their extremely long period of duty aboard Voyager. Janeway gives a debriefing to several admirals about their more notable encounters in the Delta quadrant, mainly the increased awareness of the Borg threat and the danger of species 8472. Later, we see a number of the crew reunited with family and friends... and then Janeway calls for a little informal reunion with several crew members. She then informs them of what happened in her debriefing and about the difficult state Starfleet is in. She has been requested to curtail her leave to participate in a Borg defense project. Several of the crew volunteer to join her, while a few decline to get caught up with their new found lives in the Alpha quadrant, which includes Tom and B'Elanna. Janeway has a private conversation with them, trying to convince them to change their minds. But they do not... they want the chance to be a family for a while.

The last scene is of the Voyager crew who decided to stay behind, looking out of the Starbase viewport as Voyager prepares to get underway. Tom contacts Janeway. They all exchange good wishes and Voyager leaves.... end of episode. End of Voyager.

 

[anothertrekfan]

^That's pretty cool. I like that.

 

[cwl]

they should have found a lost colony of ferengi who sell them a dodgy transwarp drive which lands them in the middle of the Gamma quadrant which causes the Dominion to think they are a federation invasion so they flee through the wormhole and get home but start the dominion war.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember the Iran Contra scandal?

Reagan exchanging weapons for the safe return of American Citizens?

if the Dominion were not on better terms with the federation after the War concluded, i could see them leveraging the Starfleet for the Return of... But then they would have had a litter of prison worlds drowning in Starfleet POW's before the Founders surrender.

Although.

If the Founders caught Voyager during the war, they would have infiltrated or outright replaced Janeway's command and sewed a little discord and misinformation as returning heroes.

Goodness gracious me!?

Why the Hells didn't that happen on DS9?

Voyager pulling into port at DS9 and Janeway says "We're home!"

But it's really just a moustache twirling Changeling plot!!!

 

[Sisko4Life]

I'd like it if they returned home in Season 5 or so, then go back out there on an official mission and the show ends that way. They CAN go home but for now choose to be out there.

Voyager returning in season 5 puts them right in the Dominion War. After the War just ended could be interesting though...

 

[The Overlord]

The PD got tossed out the window when the Caretaker abducted them and brought them there for the purpose of raping the lot of them in the first place.

But we've been over this quite a bit...

Yeah, having the Female Caretaker be behind everything would've tied it up nicely. They fight one last battle with her, kill her, and then use her Array to go home while making sure that they can return whenever they want. The End.

How does that negate the Prime Directive? Whenever a Star ship is thrown into the past, they don't throw out the temporal prime directive just because they didn't go into the past willingly. If a Star ship was forced to crash by a Romulan Warbird on a planet with a primitive alien civilization, I don't think the crew would be allowed to give tech to the aliens in exchange for help for surviving on the planet.

Why is that different? Why does Janeway go from saying the Prime Directive is more important then stopping a planet from exploding, but in the pilot it was okay to throw out the PD? That's a huge contradiction.