My Take on Voyager Mk II

[Anwar]

Okay, talking in the "Chakotay" thread with Justkate and Mirandafave inspired me to put this up again.

I got the VOY rewrite done in its' entirety and now I'll put up the first revision (I'm sure I'll keep revising it over time):

The basic pilot idea is the same, with the Caretaker dragging VOY and the Maquis ship away from the Alpha Quadrant. However the premiere would be the season finale. We’d be introduced to various characters that have already formed rivalries, friendships and romances amongst themselves. Established characters already well into their stories.

VOY is fighting one of the massive Kazon Carrier ships which is going for an all-out attack to keep VOY from leaving the Periphery and making it to The Major Regions. The Carriers usually don't fight even though they're the best armed Kazon vessels because they have families and children and non-combatants living on them (as Cullah's group have no homeworld) but they thought there was no other choice but to use it's heavy weaponry.

Voyager has it badly damaged, and Janeway is faced with the choice of destroying it even though she knows there's more non-combatant Kazon on it than combatants, or just running away. Tuvok tells her that if they don't destroy it, it'll transmit their coordinates and likely they'll face all the Kazon in the area in a swarm attack before they leave the Periphery, and they can't survive with the damage they've taken. So Janeway has no choice but to destroy the ship. And despite Chakotay telling her that she's gained more respect from the Maquis and proven to be at least a capable captain to her detractors in the Fleet crew, Janeway leaves for her quarters to retire for the night.

The last scene would of her making a log entry of how "today I got lucky, I destroyed an enemy vessel with thousands of Kazon aboard...I probably killed a lot of Kazon who weren't fighters...families, mothers with their babies, children...and I've been congratulated for it. Maybe I'll get luckier, next time I could destroy more ships and kill more innocent people..." with her being unable to finish the entry. As she falls asleep the entire scene would shift back with a caption reading “One year ago” with Lt Cmdr Janeway, recently promoted science officer of the Starship Voyager waking up to begin her tour of duty on her new assignment. Thus the second episode onwards would be the beginning of a season long flashback to explain how things got to the point they were in the first episode.


Series Bible

- Voyager is an older Ambassador class ship. This means there's a larger crew, so more people to kill off without severely hampering the ship, and it can stand up in a fight longer against Kazon raiders and Vidiian Cruisers, even though it's weapons and shields and stuff are outdated compared to Starfleet's present ships. So it's an older vessel with older tech more prone to need repairs and stuff but still able to survive.

- Have Janeway be the bridge science officer to fit with her more "scientist" characterization. The real Captain, XO and other bridge officers all get killed in battle with the Kazon at the end of the Caretaker story leaving Janeway as surviving senior officer. The Kazon are the ones who destroy the Array, rather than let Voyager keep it.

- The tension with the Maquis would then be over who should run the ship, as Janeway isn't a qualified commanding officer. Thus the Maquis tension would be somewhat more justified because it didn't make much sense for there to be Maquis tension in the actual show, because the Maquis had no quarrel with the Federation, it was the Cardassians they were fighting.

- They wouldn't be in the Delta Quadrant, in fact it would be a mystery for a while as to where exactly they are. It annoyed me how in the show they knew exactly where they were in the DQ relative to Earth, so now they'd have no idea. This would also justify them visiting alien worlds and learning new stuff, it would fit into the plotline of gathering information about where they are so they can find a way home, and also keep up the "Boldy going where no one has gone before" theme. Plus this means we can keep around alien races VOY encounters and have more time to flesh them out. My reasoning for why VOY can't tell where they are is that most of the stars in that region of space were blocked from Federation view by intervening nebulae, gases and other stars, so they wouldn't have ready fixes in star-mapping. That happens in real life, you know. We simply don't know what the other side of our galaxy looks likes. We don't know what the stellar regions look like behind nebulae like the Horsehead and Orion Nebulae. (Thank you Rastamon)

-The region of space they're in where the Caretaker and Ocampa were is on the edge of "mapped space" according to Neelix, and is considered an empty periphery by the major powers of the area of space they're in, with several areas of nebulas, empty/abandoned systems and asteroid fields separating it from the major inhabited areas. This is where the first season would take place, with them crossing all these frontier/periphery areas to get to the major regions in hopes of finding more clues or help as to where they are and what they can do about it. Neelix would drop some descriptions of who's waiting on the other side, so as to foreshadow the future seasons.

- Also, in several systems they pass and worlds they encounter when doing repairs or scavenging, they find evidence that there was once major life in the Periphery, inhabited worlds, and that something happened to ravage the planets, destroy entire star systems, and generally trash the place.

- The Kazon would be a race of space nomads with no homeworld, they all live on those big carrier ships which they stole from their former masters (now extinct) who also destroyed their original homeworld. They have limited tech, limited resources and thus has to be scavengers and pirates to anybody and anything they encounter that's not a part of the larger powers on the other side of the empty zone. Cullah's own group is the major power in the empty periphery zone. In fact they may be the only Kazon pirates; the other Kazon Sects encountered are quite different from Cullah's Brigands. Some would sell themselves out as defenders of other Periphery races, mercenaries (so maybe get a story or two where a particular Kazon Sect defend Voyager from Cullah for a price), some would have given up combat and settle on a world for a peaceful life, other Sects would do various things, etc. Cullah simply refuses to do anything but fight for survival out of pride.

- The Vidiians are from the major regions with their space having long been quarantined to prevent the Phage from spreading. They don't want to attract the major powers into a war so they don't openly attack and harvest them, preying on whomever they encounter in the Periphery.


- The first season flashback (which is the entire season) would deal with the two crews having to learn to co-exist, with things extremely tense because Janeway is so inexperienced as a command officer Chakotay comes off as more assertive and showing more command qualities than her. But Janeway would earn her keep and respect by using her scientific knowlege and analytical mind to help their survival, like rigging a way for them to use the Nebula matter as fuel by making a fuel converter with B'Ellana, or harvesting water from comets, etc. She'd also begin using her scientific analytical skills more for tactical uses as well as survivalist science. They'd also have to deal with Cullah's attacks, as Voyager is the most advanced ship without a major power as a backer his group have encountered and they want it not just for the tech but for another reason, "why" is not revealed until season two.

- All the alien races use different kinds of FTL drives, different weapons (no Phaser, lasers, disruptors, cannons, torpedos, etc), different shield-type things (differently named, at least), and have most of it turn out to be just as good if not completely superior to anything any pre-existing ST race has (aside from the Borg) and Ships of the lines for the major Trek races.

- On the worlds they do find with markets and stuff, they all use a Capitalist economy with currency, so Voyager has to trade for money, and some of the crew even take jobs for money, and the Ship itself could do work as a courier due to their neutrality, or investigate missing vessels (a way of meeting the Vidiians) for money.

Characters

- In that episode where Torres is split into two women, one Klingon and one human, change it so that the Vidiians create two B’Ellanas out of her hybrid DNA, one human and one Klingon, instead of splitting her in two. That way we have three B’Ellanas, all different to do stuff with.

- Introduce Kes as a little girl, and have her turn into a teenager and then an adult as the show goes on until she dies. A 10 year old in S1, a 15 or so year old in S2, a 17/18 year old in S3 and a young woman in her early twenties in S4 onwards. By then she’ll develop her mental powers to the point her aging isn’t so bad (Ocampans with developed powers live much longer than normal Ocampa)

- Tuvok, there was nothing particularly wrong with his characterization, but rather that he was a mediocre Vulcan cliche even though Tim Russ is IMO the best guy to play a Vulcan since Nimoy himself. DS9 proved that Vulcans could be interesting - one episode featured a Vulcan arms dealer. Where's the logic in that? Where's the logic in a Vulcan secret agent? Remember, Tuvok had infiltrated the Maquis. That was an interesting idea that was never developed fully IMHO - aside from one scene in the pilot, they didn't often show the Maquis as distrusting or disliking Tuvok. This would of course be remedied, but what of Tuvok himself? I figure in order for a Vulcan to become a deep-cover agent, and a security officer, he would have to have decided at some point in his life that "the end justifies the means" is logical. Thus, he would often propose solutions to problems faced by Voyager, especially those involving encounters with other races, that might sound shocking to Janeway or the others. Remember, he's not just Starfleet - he's Starfleet Intelligence. I think of him as the sort of person that Sloane would've recruited, had he not wound up stranded in the Delta Quadrant. He would be cold, distant, but not in that semi-amusing "haha its funny because he doesn't get the joke because he has no emotions" way, but rather in a creepy, almost disturbing way. This wouldn't exactly endear him to the other crewmembers, Maquis OR Starfleet.


- Chakotay, would be a morally complex character whose "gray" sense of right and wrong often clashes with Janeway's black-and-white thinking. Furthermore, he would be more a "man of the people" stateman leader of the Maquis, who leads because he's the most respected and "honorable" (their version of honor involves "a large bounty count of spoonheads", though) member of the Maquis, not the other way around. This would contrast with Janeway' command style, which is dependent upon the chain of command, being very military in structure and practice. But rather than be immediate adversaries, I'd actually have Chakotay have no problem with Janeway as a person as he can see how a Science Officer becoming the Captain would stress a person. Plus he's ex-fleet himself so I'd think out of all the Maquis he would be the first to realize the necessity of working together to survive, and as such he would face insubordination and distrust from some of his own for being a "sell-out" much like the more open-voiced Fleeters would voice their concerns about a "lab rat" like Janeway being their Leader. Thus the conflict would be Chakotay and Janeway against their own groups as much as Fleet and Maquis conflicts.

Tom Paris would be Nick Locarno (that was a money and royalties issue, because they really did want him to be Locarno), explaining that he joined the Maquis to pay off his bar bills (which were to fight his depression over being expelled from the Academy) and to fly in space again.

I'd keep Lon Suder alive.

Neelix is an older guy than what he was, a soldier who went AWOL in the Talax-Haakonian war and used his skills to survive as a merchant, although he found himself trapped as a scrap dealer on the edge of the periphery until Voyager came along. Now he sees this not only as a chance to make up for his past cowardice but also to get out of the Periphery and closer to the Major Regions without attracting the Kazon.

 

[msbae]

I did like Voyager, despite it's flaws. However, this would have been a much better show than what we got.

Also, what about 7 of 9? I don't see her mentioned anywhere...

 

[Thestral]

I really like this, Anwar. Good stuff!

 

[Anwar]

I did like Voyager, despite it's flaws. However, this would have been a much better show than what we got.

Also, what about 7 of 9? I don't see her mentioned anywhere...

She'll show up eventually, but she wasn't in the show until S3.

 

[msbae]

I did like Voyager, despite it's flaws. However, this would have been a much better show than what we got.

Also, what about 7 of 9? I don't see her mentioned anywhere...

She'll show up eventually, but she wasn't in the show until S3.

Just make sure the catsuit isn't too uncomfortable for the actress this time. Jeri is a team player but, she doesn't need to suffer for our amusement. This isn't bondage porn...

 

[Lynx]

Despite the flaws in the "real" series, I prefer that one to the solution presented here. I don't like the idea for Kes at all.

 

[Akiraprise]

I've always liked the idea of Voyager being an older Ambassador class starship. Not top of the line anymore, but a solid starship.

 

[Brit]

Anwar, you have an interesting idea and I can see how it might attract some viewers but (yep a but) the big thing I don't like is the way you are handling Janeway. The one thing that attracted me to Voyager and in fact attracts a lot of women to Voyager is Kathryn Janeway, the experienced Captain and very strong female character.

The one major theme that has to be in Voyager is that she is a strong character and her strength and experience is what holds that crew together, both maquis and starfleet.

Voyager's greatest strength, some of it born out of the characters, some out of the premise is that we all might have done it a little differently. We all have directions that for each of us would have made the show more appealing but again to each of us not the group as a whole.

My vision would have been people having "adult" relationships that turn into committed relationships and from that children being born. And yes even for the Captain.

The thing is my idea is no more Voyager than Anwar's. Both ideas are viable and could be written, Anwar's as a science fiction novel, mine as a science fiction romance novel.

Anwar, have you considered that in light of the fact that you have changed everything, you have in fact created a unique and stand alone idea. One that could be its own story because Voyager is only the inspiration, or the springboard.

Anyone can learn the mechanics of writing, but not everyone can build a world and even though it doesn't fit with what I think Voyager is, it's not a bad idea. Anwar's is an imaginative world, with a pretty good plot and he built it in his own mind and should be applauded for it and personally I hope you are able to use it somewhere.

Brit

 

[mirandafave]

A pretty solid new take on the show Anwar. It all works within itself - though the three Be'lannas thing might be hard to continue. Likewise the kes thing not so sure of.

The Tuvok interpretation is especially scary ass stuff - with Tim Russ well able to pull that off.
And the Neelix re-invention would have added a few other dimensions to his character as opposed to the joker in the pack.
I like how you plan to differentiate between Janeway and Chakotay as well as the ramifications for their working relationship. That would prove very dynamic and interesting in storyline ideas.

I however, wouldn't want Janeway to be promoted to Captain by fact of being the most senior officer left alive. I liked the fact she was the captain from the outset. Again with the post TOS choices for captains, Star Trek was making a statement through their choices. I think to start Janeway off as less would diminish that slightly. By all means maybe point out her lack of experience or maybe this was her first command but have her as captain.
I understand your approach is have Janeway prove herself as well as face difficulties within her own crew and the jostle for power initially with Chakotay.
I think the way around it though would be to beef up Chakotay's Fleet background. He is some sort of war hero from the Cardassain Wars who was outraged at the peace settlement and how their hard won victories were undermined by the colonists in the DMZ to be sold out by the Federation, thus turning him to the cause of the Maquis where he goes on to have an even bigger reputation for fighting the Cardies. This makes him a man of principles but also willing to do what is necessary to beat the enemy - including some unscrupulous acts by dent of his Maquis experience and seeing how Starfleet morals still allowed them to stand back and allow the Cardies to perpetrate their crimes.

As for the ship - whilst I'd like to see more of an ambassador class ship - I really liked the Intrepid class design.

 

[Anwar]

My reasoning for having Janeway not be the captain from the get go was to evoke something similar to President Roslin (I did like SOME things about nuBSG). Maybe I should make the real captain of VOY also be a woman who ultimately ends up killed when they get to the DQ.

Kes, well it would require like 3 actresses but I think it could work. Plus she'd stop aging by S4 since her emerging powers would prolong her life.

3 B'Ellanas would resolve eventually, while giving Roxanne a chance to flex her acting chops and give the split screen tech some workouts too.

 

[Anwar]

Season 2

The opener of S2 would have Voyager making it out of the Periphery, past Cullah's group of Kazon Pirates and enter the central core where the major powers and central worlds/commerce areas and stuff are, hoping they can find some ports to stop and do repairs and maybe find more information on where they are. There is in fact a large Station that serves as an entry-point into the Central Core from the Periphery. It’s a military base to repel invaders as a port of call for any non-hostiles who want entry. Think of it as the equivalent of a Babylon station. It identifies itself as a League Guardian Outpost.

The dominant power in the Core is The League of Space faring Civilizations, a multi-species group that was originally formed as a military alliance for mutual defense against their greatest foe (known only as the "Fluidics") that eventually evolved into a Federation-esque group, only with more of a military bent. They put less emphasis (little to none) on purely scientific or exploratory endeavors and dedicated their sciences and star forces to military applications. The only explorations or archeological missions they undertake are to uncover and seek out alien technologies for their own advantages.

They became so military-oriented that they eventually started ignoring the lesser wars and plights of non-League civilizations (not doing anything to help the Vidiians fight the Phage, or end the Haakonian Occupation of Talax) so they could focus more on their own defenses (because they're so scared of the Fluidics who are IMMENSELY powerful). They're not bad guys or some generic space military state, but they have military bases and garrisons on practically every League world and colony; however the civilians all understand their need and are grateful for their presence.

Imagine the meeting from the beginning of Trek VI, only they're discussing increasing militarization and mothballing their scientific and exploration branches to increase military spending (they use a capitalist economic system).

So as long as VOY obeys their laws and stuff, they can use their ports and trade, and the League may even rescue them from Kazon Pirates if it's in their patrol space, but once VOY leaves League influence (or even the outer reaches of League space, at the very beginning of entrance into the nebulas/asteroid fields/empty systems leading to the Periphery), they're on their own against pirates and stuff because the League isn't interested in defeating the Kazon pirates once and for all and saving anyone in the periphery.


League Of Spacefaring Civilizations

Size wise, they're a little smaller than the Federation, and maybe technologically on par in some areas, below in some others (because of the military bent) and superior to them in ship design and military technologies.

The League's best ship would be similar to the Voth City-Ship, which is a "Mobile Command" they only have a handful of. They serve as mobile HQs and Super-Flagships. To borrow from Star Wars they have automated battle drones that serve as their smallest craft (sorta their take on Fighters). Like the Battle Drones from TNG's "Arsenal of Freedom".

As for the League's weapons, they're basically supposed to be what if the Federation was near-totally militant with little to no scientific or exploration divisions. This would mean they're more rigid in tech development and don't have the "Jack of all Trades" style that the Federation uses. But they don't grow expendable clone armies to be sent out to die or make mass-production warships that are meant for ramming and stuff like the Dominion does either. They try to make mass-production ships that can hold up in a fight, and their military is made up of trained League citizens who volunteer for service (like a regular military).

So their ship-building skills are below the Dominion's because they try for quality AND quantity, and they're more rigid in design than the Federation. But they do have superior vessel design with more powerful weapons, hulls that are harder to breach, good military training and tactics, more maneuverable (isn't very good as a warship if it's a lumbering brick.)

To command a Mobile Command, you have to be at least a Senior full Admiral, or a Fleet Admiral. That’s how important/powerful it is.

In general, their ships are larger than Federation or Dominion ships, with the Sovereign maybe being their equivalent of a Heavy-Destroyer, but not a Cruiser.


Central Core

The other powers would be the Krenim, who're going through a new expansionist campaign due to a military uprising on the Krenim homeworld against the Ruling Imperial family.

The Devore Imperium, who're very anti-telepathic, due to the "Great War" 2000 years ago which involved telepathics enemies who used their abilities to great offensive effect.

The Heirarchy and the Malon, just to add some more names and stuff in to flesh out the region.

Think Tank here would be a private corporation that sells itself out to solve problems for other races (incurable diseases, super computer viruses, new ship or weapon designs), for extremely high fees of course. Their HQ is a station built around a Micro-Star they created which is their power source.


It'd be revealed that the reason Cullah was so determined to get his hands on Voyager wasn't because he wanted its tech, it was because he's been trying to apply to the League for Kazon membership and kept getting rejected because they don't offer anything worthwhile to the League's well-being. He saw that VOY's tech was around League level and thought of capturing it and presenting it as a gift to the League.

The VOY crew would have to do more work and stuff once in League space to earn money to pay for the ship repairs, do trading and gather information and allies once they're past the Periphery area and don't have to worry about any more Kazon or Vidiian attacks if they stopped anywhere.


Actual Plot

Story-wise S2 would open with the crew splitting up inside the Outpost: Some staying to supervise repairs, some going to see what trading can be done/information can be gathered, and some crew going with Neelix to find some friends of his who might be able to help as allies. Here we'd run into some Talaxian ex-soldiers working as mercenaries, with their leader willing to help out as an escort because Neelix is an old friend. But others in the squad would be hostile to the idea because they remember how Neelix also went AWOL and turned his back on the military effort, even though they would've lost anyways.

The information gatherers would discover that whatever maps they can get aren't very helpful because the League hasn't done much deep exploring in a very long time, they've been focusing more on defenses and military tech to defend against the Fluidics that they hadn't gone on any exploration missions for centuries. The best map is an old one that goes out only as far as a 900 light years beyond the Periphery, and it doesn't match very well with any Federation maps they have in the Astrometrics Lab.

They'd have more run ins with maybe some occasional League soldiers who have a grudge against the Talaxian escorts, as well as more benign League soldiers who end up rescuing them or lending a hand when they get in trouble, as well as VOY searching around League space for more information from maybe the black market on anything that can tell them where they are, like DNA testing to see if any others of any of the various Fed species have been around here before, or anything close to them (yeah it's a Farscape rip, but they were in the same situation...). The remaining tension between the Maquis and Fed crews would settle down by now, as they accept that they have to work together and co-exist if they want to survive and Janeway has proven herself a worthy leader.

I've been watching Nausicaa and as such I've decided that the League Commodore/Admiral that VOY would encounter most of the time as the Sector Commander of the League forces they may run into would be a female cyborg with a powerful authoritative presence and her second would be like Kurotawa.

When the VOY crew are trying to learn more about the major races they'd find out that the robotic armies from the "Prototype" episode (of the actual TV show) are the main army of the Lokirrim Union, who are AI-Dependent for a lot of things (they're the ones who hated Photonic beings in canon). This would be the arc after the Outpost one, running into the Lokirrim and their AIs.

To recover from the Fluidic Wars they started using lots of robots after they got their FTL capacities back and started re-establishing their colonies on ravaged worlds or re-establishing contact with surviving colonies (The Fluidic War survivors weren't just left ravaged by the wars, some were blown back to an early industrial state and had to re-develop FTL all over again).

Anyways, several Lokirrim are angry at the mass-usage of AIs since it takes jobs away from real Lokirrim, or they are afraid of what will happen when their AI becomes too powerful. But they rely on them too much to just stop using them without weakening themselves.

Some Lokirrim who are in the army (regular Lokirrim can join, but most don't because they prefer the AIs dying in their place) are somewhat hostile upon meeting VOY due to the Doctor, while others are more accepting because of all the help the AIs have done for them.

There are renegade AIs in the Lokkirrim, modified military Robots who no longer have the programming blocks that keep them loyal to the Lokkirrim. They're mainly terrorists or pirates attacking Lokkirrim shipping or bases (and maybe occasional independent ships, but not major power ones like League vessels) so they'd encounter VOY as well.

As a hint of things to come I'd reveal the main group of Lokirrim robot revolutionaries are under the leadership of the AI from the Think Tank, but it would seem Korris and the others are unaware of what it's doing.

Seska would've been discovered and driven of by this point, having gone to the Kazon and learnt the truth behind Cullah's actions towards Voyager (wanting it as a bargaining chip to get membership in the League), things going as they did in the real show, with some traitors on VOY loyal to Seska and stuff, meeting Denara Pel, etc. The B’Ellanas would discover that they are decomposing, due to the incomplete duplication process used (it was meant to be temporary to begin with) and the Doctor can’t stop it.

Seska starts a re-organizing plan of Cullah's forces to make them into a fighting force capable of taking Voyager. It turns out that most of their bad luck in combat with VOY was primarily due to poor vessel deployment and poor equipment, due to Cullah's incompetence as a tactician and resource manager, making them more a force to be reckoned with.

B’Ellana and Chakotay would leave, since she and the other B’Ellanas have come to a personal conclusion over something and feel it’s the right thing to do. They tell Janeway that they'll be back.

Voyager would come to an area of League space that's near the edge of it, where they could come under attack and wouldn't be able to rely on a League Patrol Cruiser picking up their distress if the Talaxians can't defend them.

The same set-up as the first part of "Basics" would occur, with a Kazon suicide agent getting onboard, the new-and-improved Kazon force attacking and out-manuevering Voayger, the suicide bomber would detonate, further damaging the ship. Realizing that this may be it, Janeway pulls a Captain Forrest and orders everyone to abandon ship while she stays behind to try and distract the Kazon long enough for them to escape with the Talaxian escorts.

Alone on the ship as everyone leaves, Janeway keeps fighting at Tactical with the bridge exploding in sparks and flames all around her (Seska wants to blow up the bridge first to kill off the senior officers before the Kazon take the ship), and the screen would fade to black and as the Exec Producers names appear, a huge explosion is heard. To be continued.

 

[JustKate]

I am sooooooo behind at the moment, so I can't give this the attention it deserves, Anwar, but I like a lot of what you have here. Particularly interesting is your flashback setup...I'm not sure I can imagine it completely, but I am attracted to the idea.

And as you know, I really like the idea of making the Federation-Maquis split last longer. Quite a bit longer.

I'll try to be more thorough in the next couple of days, but I didn't want you to think I wasn't paying attention.

 

[nx1701g]

I remember the original well - I still have your original draft saved on my hard drive actually.

 

[mirandafave]

Interesting turns in this season and what a rocking way to end the season. Janeway proving her toughness I would imagine to Chakotay at last.

 

[StarTrekker]

Sorry I hate it, they're trying to get home but you have them getting jobs and flying around in circles. Their technology is more advanced than what you seem to think.

 

[Lynx]

Sorry, but too much screwing up of the main characters. Besides that, I was happy with seasons 1,2 and 3 as they were.

 

[Anwar]

Sorry I hate it, they're trying to get home but you have them getting jobs and flying around in circles. Their technology is more advanced than what you seem to think.

Not in circles, they went in a linear path from the Periphery to the Central Core to see if they could find help there. A friend gave me a justification/handwaved contrivance to explain how they didn't know exactly where they were because otherwise the show couldn't flesh out the alien races and polities they encountered into the greater storyline.

 

[Anwar]

I forgot to mention, that ending bit with VOY being attacked by the Kazon was the middle of Season 2 and not the finale.

Second half of Season Two

The next episode would open up with the huge explosion having come from the Kazon Carrier, as several Vidiian Cruisers show up and open fire on the Kazon force.

They destroy Cullah's ship, killing him. But I'd leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Seska got out alive.

The rest of the Kazon forces break off the attack and retreat back to the Periphery while the Vidiian ships pick up the VOY escape pods and tractor the ship away from the battlefield to Vidiian space, along with the Talaxian fighters.

The pods are put in the same large cargo area and the crew exit, ready to fight to the death rather than be harvested, when a figure appears and tells them that it's alright, they will all live nice healthy long lives.

It's Chakotay.

End teaser.

The Vidiian crewmembers all come to Voyager crew and thank them for ridding them of the Phage. Chakotay explains that the B'Ellanas found out that since weren’t meant to last and their bodies were falling apart they decided to use what time they had left to help Voyager. They asked to be given back to the Vidiians so they could create a cure for the Phage from them. This would then make them grateful enough to ally with VOY and give them the major allies they needed at that point (as the League was turning out to be a dead end).

Janeway (who was recovered from the ruined bridge of Voyager) would wake up to Chakotay and Tuvok in a Vidiian med-bay, where Chakotay would explain everything to her.

The Vidiians now have the cure and have taken VOY to a Vidiian outpost to repair it. It will take time so the crew can rest and recover. A lot of them need it, especially the ones who are rather taken back at the idea of the Vidiians being their allies now.

Fortunately, Denara Pel is there to serve as the Vidiian liaison to the crew, so they can at least trust her.

The Conclave

Time would pass, with Neelix seeing how worshipful the Vidiians now are acting towards the VOY crew, and how they talk about how they can finally return to their older ways of being "teachers and scientists" and stuff, like they were millennia ago. But others are more depressed, wondering how they can make up for what they've been doing, who would stand up for them or believe them? One ship full of unknown aliens isn't enough.

Neelix would then come up to the Vidiian Commander of the base and offer a proposal to them.

Janeway would be going over some repairs/upgrades the ship is getting from the Vidiians, when a Vidiian diplomat would come to her and tell her what a wonderful idea she proposed and how it will be the old age of greatness again.

Janeway would wonder what this guy is talking about, and is stunned when she finds out:

Neelix told the Vidiians that if they want their old reputation, or anyone willing to stand up for them, they could give a good message by liberating the Talaxians from the Haakonian Occupation as the Talaxians were a well-liked people with a reputation for honesty. The Vidiians are already assembling a military force to begin the campaign if the Haakonians refuse to withdraw via diplomacy.

Moreso, the Vidiians returning to the old ways and with allies can recreate the "Conclave", an interstellar alliance of worlds that once existed millennia ago but came to an end when the Vidiians (who were the primary proponents of the original Conclave) were infected with the Phage and the Conclave was all but destroyed in the "conflict" 2000 years ago that left most of the members of the Conclave extinct and their worlds ruined.

It turns out that what is now known as the Periphery was once a rich area teeming with intelligent life, but the "great war" left it all virtually destroyed and the life extinct, with the surviving races in what is now the Central Core joining into the League of Spacefaring Civilizations. This is the origin of the ruins and devastated worlds VOY encountered on their way through the Periphery.

Janeway is understandable furious when she realizes who suggested this idea to the Vidiians, claiming the VOY crew were the ones who originated the idea. Confronting Neelix is a scene similar to the Sisko-Garak confrontation at the end of "Pale Moonlight" she accuses him of exploiting the Vidiians for his own ends.

He counters that what he's done is best for everyone involved. The Talaxians will be free and will be more than willing to join this new "Conclave" the Vidiians want to create as to gain a powerful military ally (the Talaxians however will still see the Vidiians as organ harvesters, and when they liberate Talax they'll just think Neelix went nuts and sold them all out in mass-harvest so at first the Talax rebels will fight against the Vidiian and VOY forces), and their PR skills will be enough to convince other powers in the Periphery to join. VOY will have helped to stabilize what was a chaotic, disjointed region.

And he states he also did it for VOY as well, because "Since you can't go home, you can bring home here". He's been studying their "Federation" and while he finds some of it to be left wanting, he thinks it's a good basic idea. Janeway shoots back that the Federation’s values are something she and the crew worked hard to preserve, and it got them this far. Neelix should know better than to just discard them right in her face. Neelix then apologizes and admits that maybe there is such a thing as too much cynicism.

Janeway reluctantly agrees with Neelix, after even Tuvok (it's logical) and Chakotay (it helps people and give VOY all the allies they'll ever need) also side with him.

But as punishment, she makes Neelix the VOY Ambassador to the Vidiians, so he has to spend all his time around the guys who took his lungs.

The History of the Conclave’s Fall

The "Great War" that caused the Vidiians to be infected with the Phage, made the Conclave fall apart and destroyed all the life that existed in the Periphery was against the Fluidics when they first entered this dimension from a huge Fluidic Rift that closed soon after they arrived.

They fought a war against the alien races of the region 2000 years ago, using their bio-infection (that thing they did where if you get punched or slashed by them their DNA enters you and eats you alive), their telepathic powers and their vast bio-weapon power to destroy planets and entire species, with the Conclave and other powers desperately fighting for their lives.

There was another major power around, the mysterious and isolationist Voth, and it was their aid in the war that beat back and held off the Fluidics for the most part. But they took so much loss of life and damage in the war they removed themselves from the Galactic Public in all ways and practically disappeared after the war, no one having seen them since.

The Conclave's best minds were able to come up with a bio-weapon that halted the Fluidic advance and killed many of them, but not before the Vidiians themselves were infected with Fluidic DNA. They tried using their advanced medical tech to stop it, but instead they caused the Fluidic DNA to mutate into the Phage, which then spread to their entire race and turned the Vidiians into the desperate organ-hunters they were in the beginning of VOY. The Conclave's knowledge was lost to time and so was the bio-weapon they used.

The few surviving Fluidics then retreated and have spent the last 2000 years rebuilding their species and their forces for another war, with the League of Spacefaring Civilizations preparing for their return.

Also, due to the Fluidics' destructive usage of telepathy in the Fluidic Wars, this is what caused the Devore Empire to be so anti-telepathic and develop anti-telepathy technologies.

 

[StarTrekker]

Voyager doesn't necessarily need such fleshing out of alien races. For me, Voyager is about moving on and exploring, that's why the Kazon arc was so annoying. The show should have been fairly episodic with new wonderful and unique plots each episode. It just needed much more continuity and even character development.

 

[Anwar]

Season 3

Kes would take over as a second Doctor on the ship, as Ocampa maturation is also faster mentally and she studied as the Ship Nurse long enough to take in Federation Medical knowledge. By this point she’d be physically in her mid-twenties and now played be Jennifer Lien.

The crew would have to deal with the fact that the child they used to all see as a younger sister or even a daughter (in Janeway's case, for example) is now an adult just as mature and intelligent as them or even more mature and intelligent as them in some cases.

Tom would have to deal with his attraction to her because to him she was only a kid when they first met.

After helping to go through old Conclave technology and databanks that the Vaadwaur and Vidiians held onto (since Federation technology is the result of several races putting their sciences together it’s the similar basis for the Old Conclave’s multi-species sciences) VOY uploads some old Conclave Starmaps onto the Astrometrics computers. When combined with the Federation Starcharts they figure out that they're in the Beta Quadrant, but 30,000 LY from the edge of the known BQ so the area they're in is now designated the "Deep-Beta Quadrant".

The Ocampa are allowed into the Neo-Conclave at Kes' request so they can have some telepaths/telekinetics and Kes' people can be properly aided in surviving without the Caretaker. This causes tensions with the Devore Empire due to their anti-telepath stance.

Year of Hell

The Neo-Conclave is then contacted by the Krenim Imperial Family who request their aid in stopping their civil war.

They decide to intervene when the Imperial Family tell them about who is leading the military revolt and what kind of power he wields:

The Krenim people are a society who consider existence to be one big equation that they seek to manipulate and add new variables to in order to create their ideal future. They have this machine they found on ancient ruins of an extinct elder race that basically is a very accurate simulation predictor: It takes into account all available data on everything and shows you the most probable outcome. They used it to make the Krenim a powerful empire by identifying whatever variables can threaten them, then destroy/alter/remove those variables (alien races that may become future rivals, Krenim who can become dangerous revolutionaries, etc).

One of their best minds, a military scientist named Annorax studied the device and used the temporal knowledge to eventually develop temporal technologies and stuff that have made the Krenim a major power that most don't cross other than the unlucky guys who get conquered/defeated because they're "unstable variables in the equation".

Annorax's greatest achievement is the timeship weapon, which can only be used sparingly (the core uses vast amounts of power and takes a long time to recharge for a full incursion) and he built it as an anti-Fluidic weapon to defend themselves with.

The Imperial Family tell the Conclave that Annorax eventually just became full of himself and started the military coup to take over the Imperium, and he armed the forces loyal to him with temporal weapons he designed based on information he gained from the artifact, like the Chroniton warheads and stuff. So even though they are outnumbered from the forces loyal to the Imperial Family, they have superior weapons and are winning in battle.

VOY and the Conclave get involved due to the extreme danger the Timeship poses and what kind of damage it could do to the time-space continuum, but since the Talaxians are still rebuilding and the Vidiians and Kazon are spread out thinly protecting Talaxian space and the other new worlds of the Neo-Conclave, VOY is barely able to match the Annorax Krenim’s numbers with what available Vidiian, Kazon, Talaxian and Vaadwaur ships there are, but the tables are turned when they combine with what remains of the Krenim Loyalist faction. The League occasional help out.

Things go okay for a while until Annorax "deletes" other races, changing the timeline so now VOY and their side are getting trashed in continuous battle until they manage to find a way to create temporal shields like they did in-canon, and give this information to the Krenim loyalists. They then encounter Annorax himself with his Timeship and learns the whole truth: Annorax originally built the Timeship as a last resort anti-Fluidic weapon, but under heavy pressure from the Imperial Family politicians and the military he was forced into using it on the Rilnar, whom the Krenim were in a losing war with. He succeeded in erasing them and turning the Krenim Empire into an even stronger power but it also erased his family and their home colony world. Millions of Krenim also ended up dying from plagues they were immune to in the original timeline because of antibodies they got from the Rilnar (who no longer exist), like in the original TV story. When he returned to the Krenim Imperials and told them of what happened (they didn't remember, as they were also affected by the time change) he begged them to let him keep using the Timeship to try and restore his family and those lost, but the Imperials were horrified at the true power of the Timeship and ordered Annorax to cease.

In his grief he launched his coup to take over so that he could guide the Krenim destiny and restore what was taken from him and began erasing other races as well. So the Imperial family’s abuse of the Anti-Fluidic tech and the twisting of Annorax's good intentions is what really caused this mess to begin with.


Tomorrow's Voyager

During one battle near the end of the Krenim War arc, the first experimental temporal shields that VOY creates to counter Annorax's weapons reacts with a temporal warhead/photon torpedo exchange and opens a temporal rift that sucks VOY 30 years into the future.

Once there they find that in this future the Borg assimilated the Fluidics but instead of just absorbing them the Fluidics’ own collective mind merged with the Borg one, creating a hybrid race one that has inherited the Fluidics' xenocidal desires and the power/infrastructure of the Borg Collective, meaning the Borg/Fluidics have been using all their power to destroy everything they encounter instead of just assimilating what they think is worth it. The Neo-Conclave and League have been all but destroyed and the remnants of the Alpha Quadrant powers are desperately fighting off endless Borg/Fluidic attacks (they're busying attacking the whole galaxy so they can't focus entirely on the small area of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants Trek takes place in).

So when they get back through the time warp and back to the Krenim war they have more of a reason to help out in the Fluidics situation.

In the end they succeed in destroying the Timeship, but VOY and the Imperial Flagship keep their time-shields up so they are unaffected by the change back to the original timeline. The Imperial Family remember everything and so do VOY (so whatever damage they took is still there, and whatever permanent injuries crewmembers took is still there, etc), Annorax is reunited with his wife and stuff only in the revised timeline he never built the Timeship, so the Krenim Imperium isn't the Megapower it was, but is still a great power due to the Temporal Weapons Annorax did build (Chroniton Warheads and stuff, still exist) and the deleted races are back.

The Krenim join the Conclave out of gratitude, but agree not to develop anything like the Timeship again, burying such dangerous knowledge.

And the ancient artifact the Krenim civilization has been guided by is revealed in the end as the same "species" as the Guardian of Forever.