Alternative Ending

[Anwar]

The best idea for a series plot were the 8472 aliens. Having VOY try to build up a Delta Federation to fight them would be good enough to sustain the entire series if they were introduced (or at least hinted at) in S2-onwards.

They can't communicate with them, so they try to pull the Kazon/Vidiians/etc together to repel them. When it looks really bad, the Borg show up and decide these invaders are worth assimilating but find out that they can't be assimilated which sets off a massive war between them.

The Borg get their asses kicked so badly that 90% of the Collective gets destroyed and the Borg are crippled for the next 100 years or so but they take out enough of the 8472 to halt the invasion. VOY uses stolen Borg tech to create effective weapons, and then the Female Caretaker creates a wormhole they can travel back and forth with.

After informing Starfleet of the situation, VOY goes back out there heading a Starfleet Task Force to deal with the 8472 invaders once and for all.

Something like that could work out as the series plot.

 

[tighr]

Actually, the "Lost in the Delta Quadrant" thing was kind of a problem: It's only a starter plot, something meant to begin the show but not enough to really sustain it long-term.

You could say the same about DS9. "Getting Bajor ready to join the Federation" is only a starter plot, something meant to begin the show but not enough to really sustain it long-term. Plus, it had a wormhole that really only went to one place, and the setting was a space station that couldn't really move.

Yet that ended up being a pretty darn good show.

 

[Anwar]

DS9 is exactly what I'm talking about. It started out just being about Bajor with the Wormhole as a secondary thing, but by S2 we got the Dominion and the new plot took over.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Yeah, all Farscape needed was two episodes or so for its "Crichton goes home" bit.

Would've been better if VOY got home in S5, but went back out there for some reason until the show ended.

Ugh no.

 

[Mr Silver]

I'd have Voyager encounter a seemingly abandoned, Borg transwarp network and face the dilemma of using it to return home and leaving it for the Borg to possibly return (and use it to conquer other species) or destroying it and taking their chances again. Janeway would be extremely reluctant this time, to make a decision either way and as she sends an away team to investigate the transwarp network, a Borg ship appears.

Voyager quickly beams the away team back and prepares for a fight with the Borg ship, but before a fight can break out they are hailed. The Borg Queen reveals that they detected Voyager entering the sector a few days ago and that they evacuated the transwarp hub with the intention of seeing what Janeway would do. The Queen would reveal that she is interested in Janeway and explains that she will allow the Voyager crew to return home, as long as Janeway stays (the alternative being assimilation).

Janeway agrees to the Queen's terms, but formulates a plan with the senior staff to destroy the Transwarp Hub as they are being escorted through it. The Doctor injects Janeway with the Neurolytic Pathogen and she beams aboard the Queen's ship. The Queen doesn't immediately assimilate her and reveals that she knew about the plan the whole time because they had placed a proximity transceiver device in Janeway the last time she was assimilated. The Doctor was unable to detect it during the removal of the implants and when the Queen arrived she activated it because she suspected a betrayal.

With that, the Queen orders the Sphere to intercept Voyager and assimilate them, but before the Sphere catches up, Seven of Nine appears behind the Queen and injects her with her assimilation tubules. Janeway is shocked at Seven's appearance and questions what she is doing there. Seven reveals that she detected the Borg proximity activation as a result of her latent connection to the hive mind, she formulated a plan with The Doctor using some form of code (or whatever). The Queen starts to break apart, as the realisation of the situation becomes clear - The Borg has been infected with the pathogen but Seven of Nine has Borg implants appearing on her. Somehow, the injection of the pathogen caused a feedback in Seven that has caused her to start changing back into a drone.

The Queen finds a way to tap into Seven and orders her to kill Janeway. After a fight where Seven has the upper hand, Janeway tries to appeal to the tiny part of individuality that Seven has left, she gets through and Seven shuts the Queen down and uses the link to the hive mind to destroy the sphere so Voyager can escape. She uses the link again and finds a way to activate the self destruct of the transwarp hub as she and Janeway run to the Delta Flyer. As they enter the gateway, the hub blows up and the Delta Flyer doesn't re-emerge with Voyager, leaving the fates of Seven and Janeway unknown.

Some time has passed following the celebration of the Voyager crew's return and a memorial service for Janeway and Seven. The crew of Voyager are at DS9, marking the anniversary of the ships launch on its first mission. As they reminisce about the time spent in the Delta Quadrant, a ship is detected emerging from the wormhole. It's the Delta Flyer and Janeway and Seven are both onboard. They reveal that the network collapsed and they fell out of transwarp in the Gamma Quadrant. They travelled for 6 months until they found the Bajoran Wormhole.

The episode concludes with Janeway being promoted to Admiral and the Doctor realising that Seven of Nine's link as the controller of the collective has restored her humanity, he can now remove the remaining implants and she can have full access to her emotions.

The End (or something like that)

- No Future Janeway.
- No overpowered future technology.
- The possibility that two of the shows main characters have died in the process of getting Voyager home.
- A nice, welcome and appropriate ending where Janeway gets home on the anniversary of her first mission.
- The same ambiguous end to the Borg collective.

And just for shits and giggles you could show everyone getting promotions, except Harry Kim who falls for it until Janeway personally presents him with his promotion and imparts some really emotional stuff.

 

[exodus]

I would have left the ending just as it is, I'd only add 5 or 10 more minutes to it.
I would have ended the series with the same party Janeway is having at the start.Have everybody mingling and trading tales of what their lives have become now.
I'd have the last scene be Janeway looking at the photo they took in "11:59".
I think it wraps up the what happened to everyone after getting home and put to rest all the bitching about the idea that Janeway murdered people by changing time.

I wouldn't bookend the series because that's exactly what TNG & DS9 did.
Doing it again to Voyager would be too expected and redundant.

 

[tighr]

- No Future Janeway.
- No overpowered future technology.
- The possibility that two of the shows main characters have died in the process of getting Voyager home.
- A nice, welcome and appropriate ending where Janeway gets home on the anniversary of her first mission.
- The same ambiguous end to the Borg collective.

I like it. Very creative and suspenseful! The reason I've never liked time travel is because if it doesn't work the first time, you can always just try it again (in fact, they do exactly that in Timeless, when Harry sends two messages).

As they reminisce about the time spent in the Delta Quadrant, a ship is detected emerging from the wormhole. It's the Delta Flyer and Janeway and Seven are both onboard. They reveal that the network collapsed and they fell out of transwarp in the Gamma Quadrant. They travelled for 6 months until they found the Bajoran Wormhole.

Awful fortuitous that they pop out a mere 500 light years from the Bajoran Wormhole, eh? Unless the Delta Flyer still has the slipstream drive in it.

 

[Sandoval]

Have them traverse a wormhole and finally arrive back in a desolate Alpha Quadrant where the Federation, Klingons and everyone else has vanished. Voyager orbiting an abandoned future Earth of crumbling buildings and overgrown plants. Either that or an Earth with dinosaurs.

End it on a downer.

Lovely.

 

[Anwar]

Well, problem with that is that they could just do the "go around the sun" trick and arrive at their proper time.

 

[Sandoval]

Well, problem with that is that they could just do the "go around the sun" trick and arrive at their proper time.

Flying through the wormhole cocked-up Voyager's warp drive.

And the Delta Flyer's.

And all the shuttlecraft.

And the aeroshuttle if that had a warp drive/was actually there.

 

[Mr Silver]

Awful fortuitous that they pop out a mere 500 light years from the Bajoran Wormhole, eh? Unless the Delta Flyer still has the slipstream drive in it.

I did say it took around 6 months for Janeway and Seven of Nine to reach the wormhole. So it could be more than 500 lightyears, depending on how to interpret VOY's erratic warp speed calculations.