A small issue

[indolover]

lol... Janeway would have no chance against the Dominion.

They didn't even know that the Dominion existed. At the least, Chakotay didn't, and neither did the Doctor.

It was only when the war started that Sisko developed a way to protect Federation installations from Dominion weapons. Considering Voyager was lost when DS9 was in its third season, when the Dominion only started to become a major threat to the Federation, Kathy and co. would be toast.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The jem'Hadar had annihilated the colony of New Bajor in the last episode of season 2 ds9. Rule of thumb says that that should have been general information resting on most of the 2 crews constitution during the pilot.

Maybe planets get blown up all the time and it doesn't seem special to future people, but they must have been briefed about scuttlebutt before they birthed at DS9 that there was a new big bad on the rise?

 

[SpyOne]

Chakotay had left Starfleet and joined the Maquis, so he could be forgiven for being a bit out-of-the-loop on current events not directly impacting the Maquis.
Similarly, the Doctor basically came to life in the pilot, and up until then had only been programmed with medical knowledge. "What's a Jem'hadar" is not really a question you need the answer to when you are treating a phaser burn.

Just saying, the data may have been in the ship's computer, and on the minds of the Starfleet crew, and we can still explain Chakotay and the Doctor not knowing.

 

[exodus]

lol... Janeway would have no chance against the Dominion.

They didn't even know that the Dominion existed.

Yeah, they did.

"Caretaker" takes place after DS9's "The Jem Hadar".
The Dominion had already announced to Starfleet that any ventures into the Gamma Quad. would be seen as trespassing and would be met with deadly force.

I think that's a damn good reason for Janeway not to set a course for the Gamma Quad. to get home, as you said.

The Maquis gather their info second hand, they weren't up to date about the Dominion by the time Chakotay got lost with Voyager. The Dominion weren't a primary threat yet, the Maquis still were. The EMH wouldn't know because intelligence on the Dominion would be tactical info, not medical. When Voyager was lost, there was little to no info on the Dominion to download into his database.

 

[Deks]

Voyager got pulled into the DQ after the events of 'The Search' two-parter episode.
So, at least the SF personnel on the ship should be aware of the Dominion and what they did to demonstrate how trespassing into their territory would not be tolerated.
Taking the direct route to Earth through the DQ was a more sensible choice though.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They didn't know how big the Dominon was at that point. Although NOT knowing the Dominion was what about as large as Borgspace would have been a deal breaker, but then if Borg space wasn't a deal breaker, exactly what was going to stop these people inveterately ploughing into each new horizon no matter what's on the other side of the glare?

 

[Sorak]

They didn't know how big the Dominon was at that point. Although NOT knowing the Dominion was what about as large as Borgspace would have been a deal breaker, but then if Borg space wasn't a deal breaker, exactly what was going to stop these people inveterately ploughing into each new horizon no matter what's on the other side of the glare?

Game, set, match.

Plus, when encountering that Borg corpse meaning they are close to entering Borg space, they seem to take it with philosophy, like "We knew this was coming, ehhh, that's life in the Delta Quadrant, one day you are happily exploring space, the next one you are assimilated and part of the hive mind bent on the pursuit of perfection and the assimilation of other species. What can you do?"