The distance tally left off the Slipstream run in "Timeless".
"Equinox" is a mess for a few reasons.
1. Ankari being far far away according to the Equinox in Part 1, Ankari being just 50ly back according to Janeway & Chakotay in Part 2. He can find a ship with little looking.
2. Ransom's description of their pre-Ankari voyage is quite different from Voyager's Season 1-3 voyage.
3. They say they've been lucky and haven't encountered the Borg. Let's see, there's a 10,000ly wide section Voyager jumped over and there have been Borg highways and other things in a few spots in Season 5 and who knows what was in the 10,000 & 20,000ly Voyager jumped over in Season 5. Luck? It seems quite improbable the Borg weren't on the Equinox's sensor range once or the specter of their terror encountered in some people along the way if they originated out near Ocampa.
Here's a key passage:
JANEWAY: I'm afraid I'm not going to be very receptive this time, either. It's an interesting idea, but the Ankari are fifty light years in the wrong direction.
CHAKOTAY: I understand that, but they're the ones who introduced Ransom to these life forms. It stands to reason they might be able to communicate with them, tell them to call off their attacks.
JANEWAY: Then he couldn't have gotten far. Without his enhanced drive his ship's only capable of warp six.
(and based on the numbers provided in another passage, it seems like enhanced warp isn't much over six. And that Ankari vessel is found 2ly away)
I tried to for fun figure out the most logical explanation for each of Voyager's problem episodes (Threshold, Equinox, Homestead, etc). With "Equinox", the weakest link that once removed, makes the episode make more sense is the Equinox crew is not being truthful. The Ankari being easy to find is a hard fact, we merely have the Equinox's word they've come this far.
Point 1 makes it seem like Equinox did not travel very far. Point 2 makes it seem like they arrived at a very different place. Point 3 also supports them not traveling very far because going long distance, Borg or some indication of Borg should've been encountered.
Equinox encountered the Krowtonan Guard their 1st week in the DQ. Janeway said she never heard of them. If they were so dangerous to inflict such casualties on Equinox, you'd think Neelix would have warned Voyager about them, thus familiar with the name and to avoid their territory. Equinox "Season 1" does not jive with Voyager "Season 1".
I think the Equinox crew is so shell-shocked, their minds are too damaged to process information correctly (read: they're crazy). Look at the US, 70% believed Iraq was behind 9/11 in 2002. Certain figures were to blame for fueling that (yet no one noticed how legalistic they were in insinuating it, mentioning the 2 in the same sentence, yet not coming out directly and saying it). Traumatized minds are ripe for manipulation. It's actually a bit like cult-think. Their ship, we see the kind of damage on it, so their sensors and their diagnostic equipment was probably fubared. They think they're covering so much distance but in reality they've only got conventional warp. Or maybe a property of dolphin-powered warp is it tricks the sensors into thinking they're going faster than they are, kind of like running on a long carpet in a cartoon and folds of carpet keep piling up behind the runner.
(on the subject of Iraq, I think "Bliss" seems to closely fit the lead up to that war in how from a distance there was [more] skepticism but close up everyone was drinking the koolaid and the comparison between the crew vs. Seven and how anti-war and case for war skeptics were treated in the media in the lead-up. Saw it in spring/summer 2003 again and it seemed to take on a new tone)
JANEWAY: The alien compound. Ten isograms. If I understand your calculations, that's enough to increase your warp factor by what, point zero three percent for one month? Unfortunately, that boost wouldn't get you very far, so you'd need to replenish the supply and that means killing another lifeform, and then another. How many lives would it take to get you back to the Alpha quadrant? I think you know the reason we're under attack. These aliens are trying to protect themselves from you.
RANSOM: Sixty three, that's how many more it will take. Every time I sacrifice one of those lives, a part of me is lost as well.
Janeway's skeptical here. Their exchange seems like they're talking over each other. Ransom is saying 63 will get them home, Janeway is saying it's just warp factor x0.03%. With what, 35,000ly til Earth 63 x 0.0003 on warp is 0.0189 x warp. The math doesn't favor Equinox. The dolphins were substitute fuel not booster juice. Gilmore says somewhere they have virtually no dilithium crystals left. Dolphin fuel wasn't enhanced warp, it was ghetto fuel.
Elsewhere he says they went over 10,000ly in 2 weeks, 5000ly a week on the remains of just 1 death dolphin. If true, their dolphin-unsafe warp is getting diminishing returns because that early rate would mean just 3 1/2 dolphins to get back to Earth. Unless maybe they summoned a killer whale with their summoning device that first time...
In Part 2, they are still close to Voyager, yet say this:
BURKE: We're going to need more fuel. We've only got enough left to jump another five hundred light years.
From their existing fuel they had going into Part 1, they talk about only enough for 500ly as if it's a small distance, yet since Part 1, they are still in reach of Voyager, which plugs into the Equinox= delusional hypothesis.
At a few points they sound like a cult, like this exchange:
GILMORE: What happens to Voyager?
BURKE: They have weapons, shields, a full crew. They'll survive.
LESSING: Maybe we should abandon ship. Try to forget everything that's happened here.
RANSOM: A shower and a hot meal. I guess that's all it takes for some of us to forget what's at stake here. We're going home, We can't let Voyager stop us now, not when we're this close. Now we're proceeding as planned. Are there any other objections? I need each and every one of you to give me your very best, as you always have. Max.
They are oblivious to how far Voyager has gotten and are deluded to think their way is better and will get them home. They also quickly enter into cover-up mode once aboard Voyager. What did they have in mind on Earth, faking a warp core breach and blowing up the ship or perhaps a habitable world in hailing range of the Federation but remote enough to destroy all the evidence before rescue?
Ransom says the Caretaker pulled Equinox there, but the Caretaker is a generic title. There could be 2 Caretakers, an Ocampa one and another one half a quadrant away. The galaxy is a big place, even 1/4th the galaxy is still big... big enough for multiple Caretakers. Or Equinox was pulled to Ocampa space by the Caretaker and he screwed up and sent the ship to the wrong area, somewhere else in the DQ (perhaps swapping destinations with a Krowtonan ship which ended up where Equinox was pulled?). He does mention a wormhole along with the engine enhancements, of course no distance tag on it nor time tag.
