The Borg suit was torture for Jeri Ryan (it was SO tight, it kept cutting off the circulation in her neck. She was constantly passing out.) That's a tall order.
It would have to be a different design.
I don't like getting Q involved. He's too much of a deus ex machina.
In my little idea, I had to think of a way to get Voyager out of what would be a 10,000 light year graveyard in post-Borg Borgspace, so connecting it back to Q made it work in my mind. Otherwise it would be years with nothing happening because the Borg would be no more and nobody else would be in their space.
You would permanently take the crew away from their families and loved ones to serve the Federation's interests.
That's a bridge too far, IMO.
The thing is, it doesn't take them away from their families. Sending the Doctor home with Quantum Slipstream technology gives Starfleet the way to come to them, and presumably, the way for anyone who wants to reunite with their families the opportunity to do so. I'm trying to turn the idea of "getting home" on it's head by both emphasising that Voyager is home (which the later seasons of the show actually did) and allowing a way for home to come to them. I remember it airing and people were like "will Voyager get home this season.... or this season... or this season", and I think it would have been fun to make that a moot point by giving Starfleet a way to reach them.
It IS a landmark event -- so much so that Voyager becomes only the second ship in Federation history to receive a letter designation following its name (after Enterprise -- see Disco S3).
Absolutely. I believe it was said in the show Voyager charted more new sectors and made more first contacts than anyone since Kirk's Enterprise. But a subtext of the show (that is underplayed unless you rewatch it carefully) is Voyager improving on and trading on their technology. I don't think the show went far enough, but it was an element of it. By tying the "technological legacy" to Quantum Slipstream, which would open the whole of the galaxy to fast travel by Starfleet, you pave the way for the next evolution of Starfleet and the Federation in the 25th century, beyond what TNG/DS9/Voyager showed us, which itself was considerably evolved beyond the Starfleet/UFP of Kirk's time (a point Voyager sometimes made).
Especially in light of the Federation of the 33rd century in Discovery, I think that would have been great to see.
How about them having the Quantum Slipstream drive and using it to get home?
To have it and then not use it makes no sense.
To put the focus on getting home for seven years and then turn around and keep them in the Delta Quadrant is a slap in the face to all the fans who committed to their journey.
I think it's an interesting story point to give them to choice to do that, but have them decide not to, in order to do something grander. I also think it would have upended viewers expectations (in a good way) to go against the "when do they get home mentality" and make them choose not to, even though they could, at any time, because it turns out their purpose and reason for being there, in the Delta Quadrant, is more important than simply getting home.
To put it another way, getting home absolutely should be the goal of Season 1 Episode 1, and the focus of the show, but it makes sense to me that by Season 7, if this is a more serialized show we're talking about, that the characters will have somewhat moved past that as they made peace with their predicament. And when the opportunity to get home does come up, they don't rush and take it. That they do that would be character growth. I think it would underserve the characters if they elect to just jet home.
Equinox conflict: Make it occasional... not sure this issue could last a whole season..
What I'm picturing is a different kind of USS Equinox. It would be a different class of ship. Probably a new class that is a step between Voyager and the Sovereign class. It would be the significantly superior ship to Voyager, and superior to most other ships in that region of space. It would also have harvested technologies on its own journey to grow even more dangerous, to the point that Voyager would need a substantial number of allies to take down this marauding ship.The Season would have been partially an ongoing story of one chasing the other, the tables turning a few times, beforre Voyager and 20 ships finally succeed in taking it down.
This is the weakest idea I got to be sure, but I think you do do something with interesting with two Starfleet ships, one good, one bad, and them spending a season trying to off the other.
Create new Federation in DQ: I like this idea, but have Voyager get home. A few crew stay behind to oversee the fledgling coalition of planets.
Please read what I wrote above about this. The idea would be that Voyager doesn't need to get home because it gives Starfleet the means to reach them (and implicitly, any crew who wanted to go home could). It turns the "when will Voyager get home?" question on its head by making it a moot point. Also it wouldn't be a new Federation (yet) per se. It would be more akin to the Coalition of Planets (but larger). Long term, as Starfleet equipped itself with Quantum Slipstream as a third mode of propulsion and became a regular presence in that region of space, it would formally unite with the Federation. But at that point in time, in the late 2370s, it'd be too far away still. But one day it would be the staging ground for the actual Federation to expand into the Delta Quadrant.
