This isn't going to evolve into a Voyager-bashing thread, ok? I do love Voyager but I've always felt the setup (and to varying degrees, execution) of the premise lacked a little something. I've never really bought the Caretaker pulling them across the universe thing. Thinking about it earlier, I thought up a slightly different scenario.
First of all, in this scenario the U.S.S. Voyager is not a brand new ship, probably just about the age of the Enterprise-D if not a few years older. The ship is clearly defined as the equivalent of a destroyer/frigate: designed for speed and power, but not for long missions away from starbase. Most recently she has been patrolling the Badlands and the Cardassian border, her Captain, Kathryn Janeway, charged with getting a hold of the Maquis problem. The other characters are pretty much the same. Also slightly different: here the Maquis have grown from a group of colonists who oppose the creation of the DMZ to a multi-goal organization comprised of variously disenfranchised Federation citizens. Among their members are the 'warp environmentalists' that we saw in TNG's 'Force of Nature.' This is what gets our pilot rolling.
At the beginning of the episode, we find the Maquis group, including Chakotay, Tuvok, and Torres, as well as another character (probably a new character who I'll call Sal) raiding a small Federation outpost (Regula One style) for supplies, but also for information. We see that Torres is downloading specs on something called 'Project Hyperion.' Chakotay and Torres briefly chatter, saying that 'it was her, but they've moved it' when the station is hailed by Voyager. The Maquis quickly retreat, and their ship engages in a brief chase with Voyager, escaping into the Badlands. Janeway visits Tom Paris at the Federation Penal colony (not on Earth... maybe Elba II or Tantalus.) She approaches him for largely the same reasons... her security officer had infiltrated the Maquis and has given them information that the Maquis are after Project Hyperion, and Tom, as a former Maquis and apparently once having something to do with this Project Hyperion is critical to the mission. Janeway explains the deal and Paris agrees.
The next bit of the episode goes mostly as it did regularly: Tom is brought to DS9 by Lt. Stadi to meet Voyager. Tom Paris meets a young operations officer for the ship named Harry Kim (note he is not the chief ops officer yet) and we are introduced in turn to the various officers of Voyager... introduced in such a way that we do not yet know which of them will live and which will die... each seems like they could be a potential series regular, perhaps with a bit of stunt casting. (In Voyager's pre-show PR I would have made it a point to slightly mislead the audience into thinking all of the senior staff and Maquis main characters would live with fake bios and so forth.)
Voyager departs DS9 bound for the Badlands. We learn about Paris' accident, and learn that it also involved Project Hyperion. Through an en-route mission briefing, we learn that Project Hyperion is a Starfleet experiment to create a quantum slipstream drive, the first phase of which is a small test craft akin to the U.S. Navy's Sea Shadow: a small vessel never meant for real service designed to test various advanced technologies. Starfleet believes that the Maquis wish to sabotage the project for environmental concerns, and also fear what could happen if they put the prototype to tactical use. Starfleet uses the uninhabited regions of space near the Badlands to test various technologies in secret, and must also test the prototype here. Janeway's plan is to search the Badlands for the Maquis and try to find Tuvok, or at least their ship's warp signal, in a coordinated search with other Starfleet ships to prevent the sabotage of the first test flight.
Suddenly Janeway receives notice from the nearby Starbase 351: Maquis ships are on approach. Janeway is concerned because this is the location of the Hyperion prototype and orders a course change. They arrive at the classified outpost soon after, finding several Maquis ships led by Chakotay on approach. In quick succession, Chakotay is able to take control of the prototype, with his lead ship following and the others trying to waylay Voyager. Other ships arrive for support, and Voyager is able to give chase to the prototype. We learn that Sal is in fact one of the environmentalists, and is a little unstable like the ones in forces of nature. Trying to escape, the quantum slipstream drive is engaged, pulling the prototype and the lead Maquis ship into the slipstream. Voyager follows, trying to use its own warpfield to collapse the slipstream, but this backfires combined with an error in the slipstream that locks the into their course to wherever they're going. Sal has sabotaged the slipstream drive, intended to detonate it as a political statement, but Torres is able to prevent the overload. A short phaser fight results in Sal's death. The prototype and the Maquis ship accelerate out of Voyager's sensor range, and the Voyager takes a beating because she is not designed for slipstream flight.
Voyager's power flickers on, and Voyager finds itself orbiting the Ocampa homeworld. The prototype and the Maquis ship are also in orbit, but there are no life signs and the prototype seems to have taken severe damage. Most of the senior staff is dead, including the ops manager, so Harry Kim takes over. The EMH is activated. They detect the Caretaker's array nearby, and human life signs aboard. The crew is transported to the Caretaker's array...
That's all for now, I might write the rest but it would basically go as normal. The Caretaker is under constant attack from the Kazon and is suspicious of everyone because he is dying and has no replacement, but he is not seeking to find a replacement. The crew would find that the slipstream would still be open several light years away but only temporarily. Janeway would have to chose whether or not to intervene in the Kazon-Ocampa-Caretaker thing and it ultimately means they don't get to go right back home because the slipstream corridor is collapsed. They have no idea where they are; the computer has lost many of it cartography logs and they don't recognize the stars, so exploring is the only way to try to figure out where home is. The crew runs out of supplies a lot, and there is a greater sense of despondency than we saw. The prototype wouldn't be destroyed, but its slipstream drive would be irrevocably fused and it would be rebuilt using parts from the destroyed Maquis ship into the Delta Flyer. The crew would be able to adapt some of its tech, such as the bio-neural circuits, to the Voyager. The Maquis ship crew would be brought aboard Voyager. There would be more tension because not only do the Maquis resent Starfleet but the Starfleet crew blame them for getting them into this in the first place. They would only sort out the crew situation in the third episode; a third of Voyager's original crew would have been killed, with the Maquis filling them out to about 3/4 the original crew.
Later on the show, we would find out that they are in another galaxy, but a rip will allow them to return to the Milky Way, specifically the Delta Quadrant, near Borg Space. Seven of Nine would be introduced in more or less the same way. 'Hope and Fear' would actually be the Hyperion Project come to fruition: the Dauntless would look the same but be called Hyperion and actually be a Starfleet ship whose crew had been kidnapped mysteriously. 'Timeless' would be more or less the same, and indeed more or less I would play out big events the same way, but the show would end differently.
Well, what do you think, and how would you reimagine Voyager?
First of all, in this scenario the U.S.S. Voyager is not a brand new ship, probably just about the age of the Enterprise-D if not a few years older. The ship is clearly defined as the equivalent of a destroyer/frigate: designed for speed and power, but not for long missions away from starbase. Most recently she has been patrolling the Badlands and the Cardassian border, her Captain, Kathryn Janeway, charged with getting a hold of the Maquis problem. The other characters are pretty much the same. Also slightly different: here the Maquis have grown from a group of colonists who oppose the creation of the DMZ to a multi-goal organization comprised of variously disenfranchised Federation citizens. Among their members are the 'warp environmentalists' that we saw in TNG's 'Force of Nature.' This is what gets our pilot rolling.
At the beginning of the episode, we find the Maquis group, including Chakotay, Tuvok, and Torres, as well as another character (probably a new character who I'll call Sal) raiding a small Federation outpost (Regula One style) for supplies, but also for information. We see that Torres is downloading specs on something called 'Project Hyperion.' Chakotay and Torres briefly chatter, saying that 'it was her, but they've moved it' when the station is hailed by Voyager. The Maquis quickly retreat, and their ship engages in a brief chase with Voyager, escaping into the Badlands. Janeway visits Tom Paris at the Federation Penal colony (not on Earth... maybe Elba II or Tantalus.) She approaches him for largely the same reasons... her security officer had infiltrated the Maquis and has given them information that the Maquis are after Project Hyperion, and Tom, as a former Maquis and apparently once having something to do with this Project Hyperion is critical to the mission. Janeway explains the deal and Paris agrees.
The next bit of the episode goes mostly as it did regularly: Tom is brought to DS9 by Lt. Stadi to meet Voyager. Tom Paris meets a young operations officer for the ship named Harry Kim (note he is not the chief ops officer yet) and we are introduced in turn to the various officers of Voyager... introduced in such a way that we do not yet know which of them will live and which will die... each seems like they could be a potential series regular, perhaps with a bit of stunt casting. (In Voyager's pre-show PR I would have made it a point to slightly mislead the audience into thinking all of the senior staff and Maquis main characters would live with fake bios and so forth.)
Voyager departs DS9 bound for the Badlands. We learn about Paris' accident, and learn that it also involved Project Hyperion. Through an en-route mission briefing, we learn that Project Hyperion is a Starfleet experiment to create a quantum slipstream drive, the first phase of which is a small test craft akin to the U.S. Navy's Sea Shadow: a small vessel never meant for real service designed to test various advanced technologies. Starfleet believes that the Maquis wish to sabotage the project for environmental concerns, and also fear what could happen if they put the prototype to tactical use. Starfleet uses the uninhabited regions of space near the Badlands to test various technologies in secret, and must also test the prototype here. Janeway's plan is to search the Badlands for the Maquis and try to find Tuvok, or at least their ship's warp signal, in a coordinated search with other Starfleet ships to prevent the sabotage of the first test flight.
Suddenly Janeway receives notice from the nearby Starbase 351: Maquis ships are on approach. Janeway is concerned because this is the location of the Hyperion prototype and orders a course change. They arrive at the classified outpost soon after, finding several Maquis ships led by Chakotay on approach. In quick succession, Chakotay is able to take control of the prototype, with his lead ship following and the others trying to waylay Voyager. Other ships arrive for support, and Voyager is able to give chase to the prototype. We learn that Sal is in fact one of the environmentalists, and is a little unstable like the ones in forces of nature. Trying to escape, the quantum slipstream drive is engaged, pulling the prototype and the lead Maquis ship into the slipstream. Voyager follows, trying to use its own warpfield to collapse the slipstream, but this backfires combined with an error in the slipstream that locks the into their course to wherever they're going. Sal has sabotaged the slipstream drive, intended to detonate it as a political statement, but Torres is able to prevent the overload. A short phaser fight results in Sal's death. The prototype and the Maquis ship accelerate out of Voyager's sensor range, and the Voyager takes a beating because she is not designed for slipstream flight.
Voyager's power flickers on, and Voyager finds itself orbiting the Ocampa homeworld. The prototype and the Maquis ship are also in orbit, but there are no life signs and the prototype seems to have taken severe damage. Most of the senior staff is dead, including the ops manager, so Harry Kim takes over. The EMH is activated. They detect the Caretaker's array nearby, and human life signs aboard. The crew is transported to the Caretaker's array...
That's all for now, I might write the rest but it would basically go as normal. The Caretaker is under constant attack from the Kazon and is suspicious of everyone because he is dying and has no replacement, but he is not seeking to find a replacement. The crew would find that the slipstream would still be open several light years away but only temporarily. Janeway would have to chose whether or not to intervene in the Kazon-Ocampa-Caretaker thing and it ultimately means they don't get to go right back home because the slipstream corridor is collapsed. They have no idea where they are; the computer has lost many of it cartography logs and they don't recognize the stars, so exploring is the only way to try to figure out where home is. The crew runs out of supplies a lot, and there is a greater sense of despondency than we saw. The prototype wouldn't be destroyed, but its slipstream drive would be irrevocably fused and it would be rebuilt using parts from the destroyed Maquis ship into the Delta Flyer. The crew would be able to adapt some of its tech, such as the bio-neural circuits, to the Voyager. The Maquis ship crew would be brought aboard Voyager. There would be more tension because not only do the Maquis resent Starfleet but the Starfleet crew blame them for getting them into this in the first place. They would only sort out the crew situation in the third episode; a third of Voyager's original crew would have been killed, with the Maquis filling them out to about 3/4 the original crew.
Later on the show, we would find out that they are in another galaxy, but a rip will allow them to return to the Milky Way, specifically the Delta Quadrant, near Borg Space. Seven of Nine would be introduced in more or less the same way. 'Hope and Fear' would actually be the Hyperion Project come to fruition: the Dauntless would look the same but be called Hyperion and actually be a Starfleet ship whose crew had been kidnapped mysteriously. 'Timeless' would be more or less the same, and indeed more or less I would play out big events the same way, but the show would end differently.
Well, what do you think, and how would you reimagine Voyager?
They'd mutiny against Janeway and her crew, forcing Janeway to earn her trust in Chakotay in later seasons. 
