Abandoned ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Finale Ideas Could Have Given the Sendoff It Deserved

[Qonundrum]

Using them and so many other starships in battle was an appalling waste of resources, since they were designed for exploration, research, and only given weapons for defense.

And with so many design flaws. I still feel numerous conflicting emotions* when Sisko tells his officers how oh-so-great it is to get this ship, a prototype, specifically made to fight the Borg, but it was discontinued because they didn't add enough bolts so it was close to flying itself apart. So they give it to that forgettable little corner of deep space...

* no worries, I hate them all...​

Spoiler

Say what you want about the Defiant, every aspect of her from warp core to outer hull was designed and built as an implement of destruction.

Trek has been somewhat uneven** regarding the Fleet's purpose, but the Borg did seem unstoppable and how would one otherwise stop them?

** read: grossly inconsistent​

 

[Amasov]

I didn't like Endgame then and I still don't really like it much now. I never thought the story was very original or compelling and the ending was extremely not unsatisfactory. While the goal was to get them home, there were other ramifications to be explored that are brought up in passing throughout the series: what happens to the Maquis crew? How does Seven begin coping with being back on Earth? These also aren't HUGE things; if given enough time, they could've been addressed in the finale.

 

[Pikirk_Janesisko]

"Endgame" is baffling as the end of the series. One of the main points was the consequences of them returning home, like, what will happen with the Maquis crewmembers? How Seven will adapt to her return home? How about a court martial for Janeway? Those are the main points that series raised and never anwsered.

I always thought they should've return to the Alpha Quadrant during the second-to-last episode, they could even do the same Borg thing that they were doing. Then show the crew re-adapting to Earth, have those very needed character moments and conflicts between Starfleet and Maquis. While this happens, have some kind of threat from the Delta Quadrant (perhaps the Borg) coming to destroy Earth and only the Voyager crew could defeat. A bit hookey, but certainly a real ending, unlike "Endgame".

 

[Oddish]

A lot of the incidents in the book series could easily be cut and pasted: they wouldn't interfere with any likely canonical events. Most notably, that in the Dominion war, Starfleet needed people with combat expertise, so they offered a general reprieve to the remnants of the Maquis. This would, of course, apply to the crew of Voyager.

 

[suarezguy]

The way they did "Endgame" was a vicious slap across our face... they gave us fairly happy endings fo r most of the surviving characters: the Doc is accepted as a sentient being, Tom is a successful holonovelist, B'Elanna is an ambassador, and Harry's got his own command. Then, they have Janeway destroy that reality and replace it... with NOTHING!

I thought and still think we're supposed to interpret that they ended up pretty much like they originally did, them coming home 16 years earlier shouldn't and wouldn't change a lot of the endings, aside from that Janeway and Chakotay would have been happier and less distraught, Tuvok healthier and Seven alive, she the only big left-to-your-imagination aspect.

 

[suarezguy]

"Endgame" is baffling as the end of the series. One of the main points was the consequences of them returning home, like, what will happen with the Maquis crewmembers? How Seven will adapt to her return home? How about a court martial for Janeway? Those are the main points that series raised and never anwsered.

The Maquis will be pardoned and extremely likely be allowed to formally be in Starfleet while Janeway will get commended, both the stories and tones of nearly all the episodes pointed to that rather than that they will have bad endings.

 

[Oddish]

The people who would need to worry are the five "Equinox" survivors.

I wonder if the name was deliberate, BTW? The name "Equinox" implies equal measures of darkness and light. Suggesting that however immoral their actions, they weren't pure evil. Just shades of gray.

 

[Mogh]

Such a good show (sure, it had its faults) but the writers totally phoned in most of the last two seasons.

A Return of The King style finale would have helped - the "arc" option, in which we get to see what happened to them at the end. We sort of got this in DS9 with each of the crew wrapping their story up. After seven years of watching, we deserved to know how their real journey continued; not just the knowledge that the interstellar one ended.

 

[Bork359]

I don't know of late 90s television makeup could have handled it well, but I would have really enjoyed the series actually following voyager home for their full duration journey, making some time jumps and aging up the characters as the show went along. Maybe not the full 75 years, but perhaps 20 or 30, aided by some more alien technology along the way. It could have opened up a lot more significant character development, adoptionion of technological changes, and changes to the physical ship. It would have allowed for a more emotionally impactful finale insead of the rushed borgus ex machina thing.

 

[Jonesy]

My issues with the ending has everything to do with the deus ex machina concept of future Janeway taking care of everything, rather than the main cast (in the shows present time) being the ones who come up with the plan and carrying it out. I do like the alternate version of the ending in the article, for no other reason than that it is the crew who come up with the plan.

I also would have loved to have seen the true consequences of some of the crew upon arriving back at earth. Would Chakotay and the rest of the (former) Maquis on the ship be given a complete pardon? What about Tom Paris' return, particularly given his sordid past? While I know we have some idea of what happened to Seven over the years, it would have been interesting to see her return to earth. What happens to her next?

 

[Jonesy]

In fairness, these are just kids. I don't think they should be able to figure everything out. Janeway is pretty much going to be the mother figure looking over them.

I don't entirely agree, with the exception of Seven who in many ways is a kid. They've certainly earned their stripes in terms of solving or coming out of dozens of situations. The same should have been there in the finale. At the very least, have present-time Janeway come up with the plan.

 

[Oddish]

A Return of The King style finale would have helped - the "arc" option, in which we get to see what happened to them at the end.

Only question is who says "well, I'm back" at the very end of the series?

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't entirely agree, with the exception of Seven who in many ways is a kid. They've certainly earned their stripes in terms of solving or coming out of dozens of situations. The same should have been there in the finale. At the very least, have present-time Janeway come up with the plan.

I fucked up. I posted in this forum when I meant to post in the Prodigy forum. Don't mind me.

I went to the bottom forum of the 2364-2378 Section when I meant to go to the bottom forum of the Streaming Trek Section and, without carefully reading, thought this was a new page of another discussion over in the Prodigy Forum.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

Though I generally like "Endgame," it should have had a build-up over the entire last season. And instead of a future-Janeway being selfish with time-travel, it should have been someone like the Unimatrix Zero rebels helping Voyager, in return for everything they'd done for them. Keep the plotline of defeating the Borg, but make it more epic.

Make Voyager lead an armada consisting of the Borg vessels that the Unimatrix Zero gang hijacked, plus the Klingons that worship B'Elanna's baby, and other allies Voyager has gained through its goodwill endeavors. That would not only be more epic, but really emphasize why Voyager deserves to get home.

 

[Oddish]

Make Voyager lead an armada consisting of the Borg vessels that the Unimatrix Zero gang hijacked, plus the Klingons that worship B'Elanna's baby, and other allies Voyager has gained through its goodwill endeavors. That would not only be more epic, but really emphasize why Voyager deserves to get home.

Oooooo, I REALLY like this idea. A coalition of various races, ready to pancake the Borg once and for all.

 

[Mogh]

A sign that writing had started to fade: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, by the seventh season, were being outwritten by a WarpTenLizard

That's an awesome proposed ending. And would have been far more in keeping with the show's message. There's a lot to love about Voyager, but it always feels the most tragic of the shows: it had so much *more* potential that was consistently wasted/opportunities missed.

 

[Oddish]

Just read "The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway", and though it's presumed non-canonical (several character fates in it have already been contradicted by "Lower Decks" and future "Prodigy" episodes), it has some good thoughts.

Spoiler

Naomi Wildman, who delivered the book's preface, was a Commander in Starfleet, for instance. And Janeway's last act as Voyager's captain was to FINALLY promote Harry Kim (she never says why she didn't do so earlier, probably because no rational reason exists), and as he often seems to do in non-canon stories, he ends up commanding his own ship. But my favorite bit is that Janeway's sister Phoebe received some of Kathryn's frozen ova after her presumed death and decided to honor her sister's memory by making use of them; Kathryn returned home to find that she had a young daughter, raised alongside her cousins.

 

[DigificWriter]

Endgame's ending was fine because, in the end, VGR's story was never about the destination, but about the journey, as Harry Kim so eloquently and poignantly states.

 

[Oddish]

Endgame's ending was fine because, in the end, VGR's story was never about the destination, but about the journey, as Harry Kim so eloquently and poignantly states.

Respectfully disagree, largely because of the nature of the series. In DS9, the station stayed put, but the characters took a journey. In VOY, the ship traveled 140,000 light years, but the majority of the cast grew and changed very little.

 

[Mogh]

I might broadly agree with "the journey being more important than the destination" - but as Robbie Duncan McNeill points out regularly on the Delta Flyers podcast, the hero's journey is one in which the hero has to lose something and then emerge better than they started.

The idea that Voyager night have built a mini-Federation to take on the Borg as the act that delivers them would have shown far more growth than a sacrifice from Janeway, who had been prepared to do that all along.

As oddish alludes to - the show was deliberately written to be shown out of order, so short of Janeway's hair or Tuvok's pips, it'd be hard to pin where they were and thus show any growth.

If it was a hero's journey therefore, it was closer to Bill Murray's Groundhog Day and 170+ resets than an actual odyssey.