"Star Trek: Long Trek Home" — AU reimagining Voyager

[BCyphered]

When I was 12 and a huge TNG fan, I had my own idea for a Trek show. It’d be about a Starfleet ship that gets tossed into the Delta Quadrant, and has to find its way home!! (Yes, I really liked “Q Who.”) (Why the Delta Quadrant? The Alpha and Beta quadrants were partially known territory, and DS9 involving the Gamma Quadrant had recently been announced. Delta was the only quadrant that hadn’t been spoken for!) A year or two later, Voyager got announced. Guess they really liked “Q Who,” too? (Sidebar: As a pro writer now, this "idea duplication" stuff happens CONSTANTLY.)

Anyway, I’ve clearly always had an affinity for Voyager’s core concept, but not so much the execution. I’ve been watching/rewatching a lot of the show recently (especially anything with the Borg in it!). I’m finding a lot to like, more than I realized when it was airing! But it’s still got a sense of missed potential about it. (Or at least, I think it does.) As I mentioned, I’m a professional writer these days (I write comic books), and as soon as I started watching the show earlier this year… and also taking copious notes… I started having ideas for how I’d do the show differently. After a couple months of watching Voyager and other Trek episodes, I have heaps of ideas for a Voyager-esque AU, a ground-up reimagining of the series — including 16,000 words about the Borg alone!

I don’t want to write a traditional fanfic of this, though. I’m more interested in sharing all the ideas that are otherwise trapped in my head, for fun! So I’m going to take more of an “informal series bible” approach to this. I have no idea if that’s something here people want to read! I hope so, though. I'll likely be jumping around and talking about different elements of the "project" as my fancy takes me.

Here (boldly!) goes!

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STAR TREK: LONG TREK HOME​

PREMISE
The U.S.S. Odyssey is a long-range exploration and science ship with a crew of around 200 — and no families aboard. While intercepting a Maquis vessel in a "Bermuda Triangle" of space where numerous ships have disappeared, the Odyssey and the other Maquis are carried to the far side of the Galaxy by an inscrutable alien and left to fend for themselves. The Maquis' ship is soon destroyed, and 1/3 of the Odyssey's personnel were killed in the transit —so the Maquis survivors join the Starfleet crew on their ship, in an uneasy alliance.

With their loved ones and Starfleet presuming them dead, the two crews begin a new mission: To get home in less than 75 years! And to not kill each other along the way...

CAST
I haven't actually fleshed out the cast at this point, because I've been more interested in other elements of the project. You should be able to imagine this with Voyager's cast, though I'd personally only keep a few of them: Likely Tuvok, the Doctor, Seven of Nine, and possibly a version of Kes. Other command crew would either be retooled and renamed, or replaced with new OCs. Here are some ideas about the cast, though!

The Maquis: The Maquis were a great potential source of tension on Voyager. ...But I felt like most of that tension evaporated the moment they showed up in Starfleet uniforms. The Maquis in Long Trek Home wouldn't ever put on uniforms! The two crews would mingle, become friends, date... but they remain separate blocs with different goals and different approaches. The Maquis are fierce individualists. Many of them are former Starfleet; all of them feel like the Federation has screwed up the Bajoran/Cardassian situation, and probably other things as well. They don't see the Federation in the rose-colored glasses we're used to. All they want is to get home, not to explore or make first contact or uphold Starfleet values.

Also, some of them are terrorists. So, that's going to be a problem. It really colors their bloc's view of what's acceptable behavior to get the job done!

The Core Triad: The Captain of the Odyssey sits at one point of a trio of characters, the same way Kirk did. In Kirk's case, the rest of the triad was McCoy saying "Have a heart, Jim!" and Spock saying "Have some logic, captain." In this case, the two poles are Idealism vs. Pragmatism. Tuvok, the Security Chief, is put in the unlikely position of advocating for Idealism: For being ambassadors of the Federation in an uncharted land, for sticking to their principles even when other things — like logic! — tell them not to. Meanwhile, the First Officer (aka the former captain of the Maquis ship, who represents about 1/3 of the people on Odyssey now — the power balance is different from Voyager!) argues for pragmatism. He's former Starfleet, is not impressed with the Federation, and is all about getting his people home as quickly as possible. And in one piece!

In the center is the Captain. She'll have to weigh the arguments for idealism and pragmatism, and either decide on one over the over, or figure out how to synthesize both. (This constant struggle, and the burdens of trying to keep the ship alive, will take a serious toll on her over time.)

The Passengers: After the Odyssey is displaced to the Delta Quadrant, they end up with a number of passengers. Some were also displaced from points all over the Galaxy by the same phenomenon, unable to get home. Others, the ship meets in its first few weeks. Some of these passengers will come and go over the course of the show, and will be replaced by Delta Quadrant locals. Others (like Seven) will stick around. Some details:

• Neelix is absolutely not in the cast.​
• Kes might be in it, mostly as the Doctor's assistant. Her powers would be like a "psychic tricorder," able to scan and visualize things that the ship's technology can't — and maybe "psychokinetic surgery."​
• Seven of Nine is basically perfect. No notes. She'd join the ship in the first season, though, and would act like sort of a "Borg interpreter," explaining the actions of the inscrutable Collective.​
• There'd be local guides in different regions of the quadrant. The first might be a Mikhal Traveler. He'll be invaluable in the first stellar "neighborhood" that the ship ends up in — but he's only "hitching a ride out of town," and once the Odyssey is deep in uncharted territory, he'll jump ship.​
• A xenoarchaeologist, with her own Runabout-sized ship that attaches to the Odyssey. The Delta Quadrant is full of ancient ruins and weird artifacts, and she's invaluable at interpreting them — and making them work! ...She's also a looter and dealer in stolen antiquities who's just using the Odyssey as a convenient ride... so she'll get kicked off the ship at least once!​

Alright! That's it for right now. I'm probably going to talk about my version of the Delta Quadrant next. Please let me know if you found this interesting!

 

[tenmei]

• Kes might be in it, mostly as the Doctor's assistant. Her powers would be like a "psychic tricorder," able to scan and visualize things that the ship's technology can't — and maybe "psychokinetic surgery."​

An early idea that they abandoned for Kes was that given the Ocampa lifespan of nine years, she would visually age the equivalent to a decade each season.

• 
  
• A xenoarchaeologist, with her own Runabout-sized ship that attaches to the Odyssey. The Delta Quadrant is full of ancient ruins and weird artifacts, and she's invaluable at interpreting them — and making them work! ...She's also a looter and dealer in stolen antiquities who's just using the Odyssey as a convenient ride... so she'll get kicked off the ship at least once!​

You may as well just use Vash as the continuity character to run from TNG to DS9 and onto VOY

 

[BCyphered]

An early idea that they abandoned for Kes was that given the Ocampa lifespan of nine years, she would visually age the equivalent to a decade each season.



You may as well just use Vash as the continuity character to run from TNG to DS9 and onto VOY

I thought about Vash, but... the Galaxy is a HUGE place. 100-400 billion estimated stars, probably trillions of planets (per NASA). As much as I like Vash — and as similar as I'm thinking this character would be — I find having any familiar faces makes the Galaxy feel like a small town where everyone knows each other. I get away from it in the stuff I imagine.

And that's an interesting take on Kes! I like it better.

 

[BCyphered]

Basically, somewhat Vash-esque, without reinforcing the feeling that there's only one archaeologist in the Galaxy. (This character is also more of an "Indiana Croft" action heroine type, as well.)

No Ferengi or Klingons or abducted 1930s humans in the Delta Quadrant in this idea, either. No familiar faces at all. It takes away from the "we're far from home" feeling if everything's from the Alpha/Beta Quadrants.

 

[BCyphered]

Exploring The Delta Quadrant​

My goal in this Long Trek Home idea is to not just make a watered-down version of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants (which is what I feel Voyager did), but to make the Delta Quadrant interesting and unique — both "geographically" and through the species that live there.

The biggest difference between the other quadrants and Delta is: Alpha and Beta have the Federation and Gamma has the Dominion, multi-species polities that dominate politics in the region... but the Delta Quadrant doesn't have one of those that we know of. (Unless you count the Borg, but the Borg don't care about politics, and it's hard to call them a "polity" because they're so weird.) Instead, it's every species for themself in Delta. And I think there's should be a reason for that.

The 900 Pound Gorilla In The Quadrant
The Borg are the powerhouse in the Delta Quadrant. Hell, as far as we know, they're the biggest power in the Galaxy! It stands to reason that they're the kind of superpower that knocks down any would-be challenger, any species that gets too powerful or any alliance of species that looks like it's going places. The Borg show up and assimilate anyone who might stand up to them. (The lone exception being the Voth and other species who substantially out-tech them). Maybe there was a "Federation"/"Dominion" in the quadrant previously, and the Borg just ate it? Anyway, it stands to reason they've left a shattered, wary quadrant in their wake.

(I see the Borg having a "Dark Forest" effect, almost. Species in the Delta Quadrant rarely seem to know their neighbors, or their neighbor's neighbors, because it's safer to sequester information. When your neighbor's neighbor could be Borg tomorrow, the less they know about you, the better! This hampers communication, trade, mutual defense and exploration, deforming the quadrant's development in ways other quads didn't have to deal with.)

In the other quadrants, the presence of a multi-species superpower also means that the other powers can "orient" them around it, the way the Cardassians, Romulans, Klingons, etc. are all partially defined by their relations with the Federation. Here, I'd make that "orienting force" the Collective. Species are partially defined by their approach to the Borg; the cyborgs exert a dark gravity no one can escape. Does a species arm themselves to the teeth, to fight them? Try to run, becoming nomads or fleeing to a different part of space? Look to outsmart the Collective? Stick their heads in the sand and pretend it's not a real problem?

I don't feel like the Delta Quadrant has much of an identity now. The Borg could help give it that.

Sidebar: Where's all the hyperwarp tech coming from?
The Delta Quadrant is lousy with what I call "hyperwarp:" Transwarp coils and networks, coaxial warp drives, subspace corridors, quantum slipstream drives, displacement waves, graviton slingshots, spatial trajectors... We may have seen more hyperwarp systems in Voyager than on all the previous Trek shows combined! And while traditional warp drives seem to operate under similar nacelle-driven principles for most galactic species, Delta Quadrant hyperwarp technologies all seem based on different principles (though there's some conceptual overlap at times, like Seven mentioned with slipstream and Borg transwarp). Meanwhile, most of the species with hyperwarp don't have a substantially higher overall technology level than the Federation (excepting the Borg, Voth, Species 116 and 8472, etc.). Their FTL drives are an anomaly. How did these species get hyperwarp, without making similar advances elsewhere?

In Long Way Home, there's an answer for that: The modern species plucked their FTL drives from the bones of older, more advanced species. This Delta Quadrant would be littered with ruins and artifacts of older civilizations assimilated by the Borg, destroyed through other means, or who met as-yet unknown fates. The Deltan equivalents of the Tkon and Iconians, but probably precursor species unknown in the rest of the Galaxy.

Every time the Odyssey finds a new high-tech ruin, they face a dilemma: Do they comb through the bones, hoping to find an undiscovered hyperwarp system? Or do they continue on their way and not risk wasting more time? It's hard to keep the crew on-mission when ruins are found — especially the Maquis, who have more of a "loot first, ask questions later" approach. The "Indiana Croft" archaeologist character is invaluable in these situations — though she also wants to loot things if it's more expedient.

 

[BCyphered]

Delta Quadrant Geography​

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

― The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy​

One thing Sci-Fi writers sometimes forget is... just how BIG space is. Our Galaxy is an estimated 100,000 light years wide (remember, that means it'd take 100,000 years for light, the fastest thing we know to exist IRL, to cross from one edge to the other!). And it holds something like 100-400 billion stars! On top of that, NASA says there are potentially trillions of exoplanets in the Galaxy. That's so big!

So the Delta Quadrant would be 50,000 light years from the Galactic Center to the "edge" of the Galactic Halo, and would have 25-100 billion stars in it... with billions/trillions of exoplanets. The Odyssey's long trek home wouldn't even scratch the surface of what's there! Here's some of what the ship does find, astrometrically-speaking...

The Long Path Home: How Voyager Did It
If you look at a star map of Voyager's trip home, their flight path would be an erratic broken line. The first line segment would represent their flight through "normalspace," from the Caretaker's Array into Borg space. Then a blank spot, where Kes "leapfrogged" them forward 9,000 light years psychokinetically. Then another segment on the map (with one brief 300 light year interruption), until they leapfrog another 2,500 light years via the Malon's vortex in the first Void... and it goes on like that, with the ship passing through five major "regions" of the quadrant (if my math is right).

How Long Trek Home Does It
The Odyssey's trip is similar, but more orderly (from a storytelling perspective!). It features weeks, months or years spent traveling and exploring a region of normalspace... then a discontinuity, as they "skip" ahead by 1,000, 9,000, even 20,000 light years. The kind of distances that would take two to 15 years to travel by regular warp speeds! ...Then more months/years traveling through and exploring a whole new area of the quadrant.

Here though, each "line segment" on the Odyssey's flight path represents what I call a "stellar neighborhood:" A single area of space, with a recurring selection of inhabitants, neighbors, problems and high points — and its own "geography" and astrometric features. Every Season of Long Trek Home features its own "neighborhood." The Season ends when the ship passes to the next neighborhood — either by hyperwarp-speed "leapfrogging," or by crossing into the next contiguous area in realspace.

This means we'd get to know each neighborhood quite well over the course of a full season. We'd get a deep-dive into the cultures present, their problems that the ship might help with, and any potential allies or enemies in the area. Then the Odyssey would continue on, leaving it all behind them. ...Usually.

(Obviously this is how it worked with the fucking Kazon continuing to show up far from where they first appeared, and long after they outstayed any welcome they might've had. What I'm describing is a more focused, deliberate version of that. Without the Kazon, and featuring unique species and astronomical features in each neighborhood.)

Recurring Species: "Localized" Species
Most recurring cultures in Long Trek Home are confined to one region of the quadrant. Once we're away from their territory, we're unlikely to see them again — we're years or decades from their territory at warp speeds. (This is especially the case with how insular Delta Quadrant species have been established to be.) I call these "localized" species.

As an example, imagine moving through the Alpha Quadrant. You might pass through part of the Federation first, then Bajor on the "frontier." Perhaps you take a tour through the wormhole and visit the Gamma Quadrant! Then back to Bajor, followed by Cardassian space. Then maybe cross over into Romulan territory, or Breen space (if you're suicidal or poorly informed!)... and so on. You may continue to encounter some of these species after you've left their territories — but you aren't likely to run into heaps of Klingons or Romulans in Breen territory (unless there's a war going on! ...Or it's a Breen labor camp). And encounters with any given species get less likely, the further you get from that species' sphere of influence.

Recurring Species: "Cosmopolitan" and Hyperwarp Species
Not all species are localized, though!

A species may have spread so far through the quadrant, either during a current expansionist period or in some previous phase of their society, that they're common over a disproportionately larger area of space. I call these "cosmopolitan" species, after the biology term for species that are found all over the world (basically wherever there's a habitat that can support them). The Borg are the major cosmopolitan species; as are "xBs," former Borg who've been disconnected from the Collective; and probably the Xenocytes (my version of Species 8472).

Then there are "hyperwarp species." There are plenty of them about. They don't live everywhere, but they can go pretty much everywhere! The Borg and the Xenocytes are hyperwarp species in addition to being cosmopolitan; as are the Voth, the survivors of Species 116, the Sikarians, the Vaadwaur, the Turei, and any Nacene that might be hanging around.

Having civilizations that recur for a while before being left completely behind — while other species have a good reason to recur in the long term! — would help Long Trek Home feel less episodic and disconnected than the show it's inspired by.​