I know Voyager has a pretty bad rep, which is often times well deserved. But it did have a lot of potential. It's really sad it couldn't have been something awesome.
This is my idea for a Voyager redemptive relaunch. Instead of showing the adventures of Voyager in the Alpha Quadrant, my idea is to get Voyager back out in the Delta quadrant and have it portrayed the way we all hoped it would have been.
To start it off it would take place less than twenty years since Voyager's miraculous return to earth. The only problem is almost all of Voyager's crew have taken ill. Writhing in pain every crew member grotesquely vanishes into thin air. Even voyager herself just dissolves and vanishes all except for a few components. Icheb, and possibly the Doctor, are the only ones of the Voyager's crew left alive. Starfleet is stumped on how this could happen and why only two crew members were left alive.
Back in the Delta Quadrant Voyager is landed on an asteroid-like planet undergoing extensive repair. They've would have been there for about a year; but the ship would triumphantly relaunch during the season premier. Voyager is now with two other ships. Chakotay has taken command of a derelict ship they found. And since Voyager can no longer haul around the Baxial, Nelix is in command with a small crew.
On earth, Starfleet has to figure out what happened to Voyager and where they went. Icheb and the Doctor, and Barclay, and perhaps a new person, lead the way on this front. But eventually they will figure out the the Voyager and all the crew were copies.
This all happened is becasue between episodes 15 and 16 of Season six, Suspiria (or some other alien) made a "subspace (or some other technobabble) copy" of Voyager and held the real one suspended. It was this copy that made it home and dissolved in front of Starfleet. Icheb didn't dissolve becasue we wasn't a copy. He was picked up in episode 16 by the copy Voyager. The Doctor could survive becasue he is just a copy of the subspace copy data. But if the doctor was in his mobile emitter at the time the emitter vanished then the Doctor would go along with it.
At this point Voyager is free to fulfill all the missed potential in the previous seasons. I would show the ship all beat up and damaged, with repairs on top of repairs. Not necessarily jarringly ugly, but clear they have been out here a while.
At some point I would like to introduce a another crew and try and redo the mixed crew tensions. But make it a real issue instead of simply fading away. I'd put the crew back on rations and no holodecks.
I'd probably run it for two or three seasons, most likely two. And it would end with Voyager having made the long trip back with some triumphant destruction of Suspiria at the end.
I set the divergence point intentionally because I didn't want seasons six and seven turned into pointless "it was just a dream" seasons. So i wanted Icheb and the other Borg children to be real, not copied. Also the copy Voyager left a real impact in it's wake, such as Unimatrix zero, copy Nelix's new family, etc. Some of these could possibly be explored. But it also allows us to rewrite some of the less pleasant stuff in seasons six and seven. The reason I went with the copy thing was becasue of the stupid scene in Nemesis where Janeway talks with Picard. Without that I could have just made the series finale a dream. But unless I went the subspace copy route I would have had to Gilligan's Island Voyager and just throw it back into the delta Quadrant and that seemed more contrived.
I haven't come up with any stories for this. But it's just so sad Voyager didn't get to reach it's potential and this would be my way of letting it do that.
This is my idea for a Voyager redemptive relaunch. Instead of showing the adventures of Voyager in the Alpha Quadrant, my idea is to get Voyager back out in the Delta quadrant and have it portrayed the way we all hoped it would have been.
To start it off it would take place less than twenty years since Voyager's miraculous return to earth. The only problem is almost all of Voyager's crew have taken ill. Writhing in pain every crew member grotesquely vanishes into thin air. Even voyager herself just dissolves and vanishes all except for a few components. Icheb, and possibly the Doctor, are the only ones of the Voyager's crew left alive. Starfleet is stumped on how this could happen and why only two crew members were left alive.
Back in the Delta Quadrant Voyager is landed on an asteroid-like planet undergoing extensive repair. They've would have been there for about a year; but the ship would triumphantly relaunch during the season premier. Voyager is now with two other ships. Chakotay has taken command of a derelict ship they found. And since Voyager can no longer haul around the Baxial, Nelix is in command with a small crew.
On earth, Starfleet has to figure out what happened to Voyager and where they went. Icheb and the Doctor, and Barclay, and perhaps a new person, lead the way on this front. But eventually they will figure out the the Voyager and all the crew were copies.
This all happened is becasue between episodes 15 and 16 of Season six, Suspiria (or some other alien) made a "subspace (or some other technobabble) copy" of Voyager and held the real one suspended. It was this copy that made it home and dissolved in front of Starfleet. Icheb didn't dissolve becasue we wasn't a copy. He was picked up in episode 16 by the copy Voyager. The Doctor could survive becasue he is just a copy of the subspace copy data. But if the doctor was in his mobile emitter at the time the emitter vanished then the Doctor would go along with it.
At this point Voyager is free to fulfill all the missed potential in the previous seasons. I would show the ship all beat up and damaged, with repairs on top of repairs. Not necessarily jarringly ugly, but clear they have been out here a while.
At some point I would like to introduce a another crew and try and redo the mixed crew tensions. But make it a real issue instead of simply fading away. I'd put the crew back on rations and no holodecks.
I'd probably run it for two or three seasons, most likely two. And it would end with Voyager having made the long trip back with some triumphant destruction of Suspiria at the end.
I set the divergence point intentionally because I didn't want seasons six and seven turned into pointless "it was just a dream" seasons. So i wanted Icheb and the other Borg children to be real, not copied. Also the copy Voyager left a real impact in it's wake, such as Unimatrix zero, copy Nelix's new family, etc. Some of these could possibly be explored. But it also allows us to rewrite some of the less pleasant stuff in seasons six and seven. The reason I went with the copy thing was becasue of the stupid scene in Nemesis where Janeway talks with Picard. Without that I could have just made the series finale a dream. But unless I went the subspace copy route I would have had to Gilligan's Island Voyager and just throw it back into the delta Quadrant and that seemed more contrived.
I haven't come up with any stories for this. But it's just so sad Voyager didn't get to reach it's potential and this would be my way of letting it do that.
- but it was nice to see her get killed by something dumb and undignified at least once after her horrible (but admittedly retconned) behavior in "Year of Hell", and for being too dumb to put her crew in stasis and use transwarp to get home - the Doctor could have reversed it even if any of the crew turned into salamanders. 
