Voyager Reconceptualized.

[Anwar]

Hi,

I've been working on a new draft of this. Figured I'd repost it.
Any opinions or questions, I invite them!

Introduction

The Series 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.

The story thus far:

-Voyager is fighting one of the massive Kazon Carrier ships engaged in an all-out attack to keep VOY from leaving the Periphery/Wasteland and making it to The Central Core. The Carriers usually don't fight even though they're the best armed Kazon vessels because they have families, children and other non-combatants living on them (they serve as mobile “Homeworlds” to define Kazon space) but it was the only one in intercept range of Voyager. It's badly damaged, and Janeway is faced with a choice:


-Destroy 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/Wasteland, and they can't survive with the damage they've taken. So Janeway gives the order to destroy the ship and the thousands upon thousands on it. She leaves for her quarters to retire for the night and Chakotay stops by her quarters to tell her that she's gained more respect from the Maquis and proven to be at least a capable captain to the last of her detractors in the Fleet crew. Leaving the Periphery for the (hopefully) more stable Central Core things seem to be getting better.

The last scene would of her making a log entry:

"Today I got lucky, I destroyed an Key enemy vessel and did major damage to the Kazons’ pretense of an Empire...I probably killed a lot of Kazon who weren't soldiers...families…children...and I've been congratulated for it. Maybe I'll get luckier, next time I could destroy more ships and kill more people..." with her trailing off after that.


As she falls asleep the entire scene would flashback with a caption reading “One year ago” with Lt Cmdr Janeway, recently promoted science officer of the Starship Voyager arriving at Earth for the beginning of her current mission. 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.

More coming soon!

 

[Finn]

No. There's no way they would have Janeway as a Lt. commander.

And Janeway could have found a way to disable the ship's ability to communicate or call for help. There would be threads about this point in this forum if it was done this way.

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, but they'd excuse it just like no one cares Sisko poisoned a planet in "For the Cause".

Caretaker- Series Premiere

The year is 2371, the United Federation of Planets has signed a Peace Treaty with the Cardassian Union to end decades of hostility due to contested space and worlds. A product of the Treaty is that a Demilitarized Zone has been created as a Border Buffer area that encompasses worlds from both sides that were contested. Unhappy with this arrangement, colonists within the DMZ form their own militias. Federation Colonists form a group called the Maquis and Federation Starfleet Personnel also unhappy with the Treaty defect to join them to battle the Cardassian forces. The Maquis take to assaulting and stealing equipment from Federation forces who try to intervene.

A group of Maquis led by a man named Vetus Bellator (who is actually a retired Starfleet Commodore named Chakotay) disappears while being tracked by the Federation in an area where other vessels had been reported as missing as well. A member of his crew is a Vulcan named Tuvok. As it turns out, Tuvok is really an undercover Starfleet agent reporting their movements. Tuvoks’ ship, The USS Voyager commanded by Captain Cavit, is ordered to investigate and apprehend the Maquis as well as find out what happened to the other vanished ships. To this end recently promoted Lt Cmdr Kathryn Janeway is sent to Earth to release a Maquis Prisoner who served with Chakotay, Nicholas Locarno, to serve as a consultant.

Janeway is the ship Science Officer who was put in the Command Track due to the prior 3rd in command being killed in battle and her being the only available replacement on such quick notice. She actually had put in a request to be transferred to a planetary research center that was approved; she is getting ready to transfer when this mission suddenly came up and figured she’d end her tour on Voyager with this mission. She’s an old friend of Tuvok, which explains her staying for this final mission.

Her replacement as Science Officer is being picked up by Janeway as well, Ensign Harry Kim.

Upon entering the area of space the Maquis disappeared in Voyager is caught in some kind of teleporting beam that wreaks havoc on the ship and pulls them to an unknown, uncharted region of space inside a giant Nebula. The long-range sensors have been damaged and as such they can’t tell where they are. The Nebula is very dense and makes it impossible to pinpoint exactly where they are because there are hundreds of Nebulas like this all over charted space.

Captain Cavit has also been killed in the teleportation along with the Chief Medical Officer. Because this was supposed to just be a short mission, the rest of the Medical Staff wasn’t onboard and was waiting for them back at base. They have to activate the Emergency Medical Hologram to make up for the loss.

The ship is then dragged to a massive Space Station known as “The Array” and beamed onboard by the operator, a being known as “The Caretaker”. He has groups of various Alpha Quadrant species there (Klingons, Ferengi, Romulans, Cardassians) with their ships “impounded” elsewhere.

He experiments on the lot of them; When they all wake up they find out he took Harry, Torres and the Voyager’s XO (now in command) somewhere, leaving 3rd Officer Janeway in charge (reluctantly).

Since she’s been trying to leave Starship duties behind she doesn’t have that much animosity towards the Maquis and figures getting their missing crewmembers back is the important matter (while members of her crew are still up for a fight with the Maquis rebels).

Unfortunately, she has trouble accessing the Higher Command Systems on Voyager since she’s not a proper Line Officer. Chakotay reveals his identity as a retired Commodore to everyone present (this stuns most of the Maquis, since only his closest comrades knew who he was). Since Starfleet was unaware of his defection his own access hasn’t been revoked so he’s able to access the systems Janeway can’t, but he’s also willing to let her stay in charge (for now).

Truth is, Chakotay volunteered to infiltrate the Maquis when they first started. However his reports to Starfleet Intelligence had been becoming less frequent the deeper in he got and Tuvok had actually been sent in to ascertain whether he'd "Gone Native" or if he had always planned to defect and used Starfleet to do so. Chakotay KNEW Tuvok was a spy all along, but that he didn't expose him or kill him leaves it ambiguous as to what his stance was.

 

[Anwar]

Is anyone interested in this, or should I call it quits? The story does pick up and move into its own thing after the initial storyline with the Caretaker.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I, for one, would just say "F" it and forge ahead... a little bit of what you fancy does you good!

 

[Anwar]

As Voyager is a larger (but outdated) Heavy Cruiser, they just park the Maquis Raider on it and travel as one ship to the Ocampa Homeworld since they’re detecting Warp Engine trails leading there (where the other Alien ships were deposited). The planet has a shield around it generated by the Array to keep anything the Array recognizes as hostile away but they run into an Alien Soldier named Neelix (played by Ron Perlman) of a species known as Talaxian (they resemble Gargoyles) who claims to know how to get by the shield. He lives on a Talaxian Gunship that also becomes part of Voyager's Inventory of smaller ships.

He helps them in exchange for them helping him rescue an Ocampan friend of his and his daughter, Kes. They’re being held at makeshift detention center run by alien Raiders known as the Kazon who use Ocampa as a Supply Depot world since they also can get by the shield and know how to hide behind it. The Kazon have an Interstellar Protection Racket going on where they protect worlds and allow interplanetary commerce/transportation in space they control in exchange for Tribute. They’re collecting Ocampans as part of their Tribute to sell off as Slaves to other worlds.

Kes (a little girl) and her father explain they live in underground cities that the Caretaker made for them and that for as long as the Ocampa can remember he protected them. But in the last few decades he’s become weaker which allowed the Kazon to come to their world. He used to just send the people he’d bring back home but sometimes he can’t and they come to stay on Ocampa until they either leave or are killed by the Kazon.

They find their crew-mates, affected by the Caretaker’s experiments, but the Voyager XO dies battling the Kazon as they try to escape back to the Array. Before he dies he formally passes command to Janeway as the Fleeter’s new CO.

The Caretaker explains his story of how he and his wife were explorers who came to this area of space 2000 years ago and how they began studying the native life, accidentally destroying the Ocampa’s world. He stayed to care for them while she left for other scientific pursuits, and soon after a horrible cataclysm occurred that left him and the Ocampa essentially isolated; He never heard from his mate again and has been alone all this time.

He’s been dying from a disease for the last century and has been pulling various aliens to the Array for him to try and formulate a cure from, but it’s too late. He reveals that it was his own power boosted by the Array that brought them there, but he’s too weak to send them home. He’s programmed an AI into the Array to keep it working and protecting the Ocampa once he dies, but he was rushed and it’s imperfect.

As he dies, the Kazon attack to capture his Array but the AI activates and immediately fights them off. But its incompleteness means it doesn’t recognized Voyager as a non-hostile and targets them as well. The combine crew evacuate the Array and land on the Ocampa world in low power mode until they can find a way to get by the Array’s weaponry.

 

[Sophie74656]

I'd keep reading it, I kind of liked it. But the bottom line is if you're having fun writing it then keep writing

 

[Anwar]

Series Bible


- Voyager is a 35 year old Ambassador-Class Heavy Cruiser. 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. It has the capacity to make its own torpedoes and shuttlecraft. It’s fully capable of sustaining itself in battle even against multiple opponents, and if necessary could serve as the mobile command center for a war. It’s big enough to keep the Maquis Raider as the “Flagship” of its own fleet of smaller ships, along with a Talaxian Gunship Neelix had. The fleeter crew outnumber the Maquis by a significant margin.

- The Caretaker's "Impound Lot" had an advanced and automated maintenance drydock (since it was originally for looking after the Nacene's own ships when they arrived) that overhauled Voyager and the Maquis ship. It repaired any systems that needed it and replaced older more worn out parts, as well as giving "Upgrades" to them that they will explore over the series.


- The original Captain is killed off when VOY is pulled to the Array while the original XO is then killed off battling the Kazon at the Ocampa Homeworld. Being the 3rd in command Science Officer, Janeway is left as the default Captain according to Starfleet Chain of Command.

- The tension with the Maquis (even though they're outnumbered) would be over who should run the ship, as Janeway isn't an experienced Command officer. Chakotay on the other hand was a real Command Officer of the Fleet beforehand and has serious command experience which he utilized to his success as Maquis leader. Also he has better access to the High level systems than she does due to his old rank access having never been revoked (since he was officially on an undercover mission). Of course Chakotay has problems of his own when his status as a Fleet Infiltrator is let out, although his closest colleagues knew all along.

-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 Kazon attacks, as Voyager is the most advanced unaffiliated ship that none of the Major Powers have noticed yet. Voyager’s technology would easily propel the Kazon Piracy into the Empire their Leader Cullah wants them to be. A second reason would be hinted at, that they want VOY so they can curry favor with the “League”, which is explored further in Season 2.

-Eventually, Chakotay would be incapacitated due to injury and Janeway has to assume command as Full-time Captain without his help. She pulls it off and so when he recovers he fully embraces that they’ve switched roles and he’s okay being the XO to her Captain. She won't accept him giving up his higher rank so he technically becomes her "Senior Advisor".

- They aren’t 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.

 

[Anwar]

The reasoning for why VOY can't tell where they are is that they are within a massive nebula that encompasses light years of space in every direction. The Nebula is dense enough they can’t see past it to the outer stars that they’d recognize and the Nebulas density meant Federation long-range sensors and probes weren’t able to penetrate it and map it correctly. Since there are hundreds of Nebulas that size all over the Galaxy in every Quadrant, Voyager could be in any of them so they don’t know where they are. Basically imagine in the show when they're flying around that they're in a big multicolored fog and even the audience can't see the stars we'd usually see in other Trek backgrounds.

-The region of space the Caretaker and Ocampa were located is on the edge of "mapped space" according to Neelix, and is considered an empty periphery/wasteland by the major powers of the area. This is where the first season would take place, and the later seasons would return to, with them crossing all these wasteland/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.

-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 (nothing but asteroid fields and the remains of destroyed Suns), and generally trash the place.

- On the worlds they do find with markets and stuff, they all use a currency based system/barter system 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. This wouldn’t be a huge issue though, simply a background matter. Also, VOY wouldn’t be afraid to use its’ replicators to circumvent the system by stockpiling replicable items that are of good value to the merchants.

 

[Finn]

^I'm sorry but having Janeway as the third officer is a big cop-out.

 

[Anwar]

Villains

- The Kazon encountered as enemies, led by Maje Cullah, would be a powerful group of Space Pirates. The Kazon as a whole are Nomads in the Periphery/Wasteland who no longer have a homeworld, since about 100 years ago it was destroyed by the Trabe.

- For the last century or so the 3 big powers in the Periphery were the Talaxians, Trabe and Haakonians. But Trabe were overthrown and mostly destroyed by their Kazon servants, whilst the Talaxian and Haakonian Empires devastated each other in their big war. So now there’s no real power in the Periphery, it’s a big power vacuum. The closest thing are the Kazon, who stole most of the Trabe fleet for themselves but couldn’t maintain the Trabe’s infrastructure. So their fleet is really a Hodgepodge of whatever ships and technology they could find and can maintain. They don't have one Homeworld, but rather their major populations live on those gigantic Kazon Carriers which function as mobile cities.

- Cullah has decided that his Sect will be the new Order to the Periphery/Wasteland and be more than nomads. They go to inhabited worlds and strike protection rackets with the natives: Tribute (which can range from monthly to bi-annually to yearly depending on the quality of the world) and the Kazon will “protect” them. As it turns out they’re honest about this and WILL come to the aid of a Contracted world. They need to protect their resource base after all. The tribute can be resources or people (for use as slaves/soldiers/sold off as slaves to others), and in the cases of advanced worlds (remaining Talaxian colonies, refugee worlds, etc) the Kazon have conquered them using them as supply depots or repair bases while stealing Talaxian tech for themselves.

- Essentially, the Kazon Piracy is a Pirate Clan that wants to become a Kingdom. But the other Kazon groups encountered are quite different: some have settled worlds as their own colonies to rebuild their old cultures and live in peace, others have become mercenaries who will do whatever you want for the right price (perhaps stories of VOY hiring the Kazon to protect them from the Kazon), some have become legitimate businessmen, etc.

- The appearance of the Kazon Pirate officers and Captains would vary the higher up you go in the Hierarchy. The random ones VOY encounters at first would wear more worn-out armored suits, patchwork armor really and the ships would also be clearly older vessels with patches of Talaxian and Haakonian tech here and there. The higher-ups an Cullah himself would have a much cleaner appearance and wear actual uniforms (as it turns out, these would be Trabe uniforms with some elements of League that Voyager encounters in S2) with their vessels being more factory-spec. His personal flagship itself would be almost like a palace.

- None of the species in the Wasteland/Periphery can track VOY’s Warp Drive since Warp isn’t their method of FTL: Iif VOY warped away fast enough and the enemy couldn’t sustain a pursuit velocity they wouldn’t be able to track them. They’d just warp away without possibility of tracking. So they have a major advantage in that if someone loses sight of them. This just makes the Kazon want them even more since studying the Warp Drive would make them perfect for sneak attacks.

 

[LJones41]

Sigh! And I thought it was bad enough encountering posts and article about redoing the STAR WARS Prequel Trilogy.

 

[Anwar]

So some focus on the "Big Three" of Voyager.

Characters

- Kathryn Janeway is the bridge science officer, to fit with her more "scientist" characterization. She’d be someone in her early 30s, not a seasoned captain in her 40s. Only recently promoted to the rank of Lt Cmdr and had a transfer to a research outpost approved, she was ready to go after one last mission. She finds herself the defacto Captain after the Captain and XO are killed off. Old friend of Tuvok whom she sees as a Mentor figure; Her replacement as Science Officer (Harry Kim) sees her as his defacto Mentor. Chakotay offers his experience as a Command officer to her as well as his superior access to the Ships Command Systems, whether she will rely on him (possibly too much) or choose her own way will be her arc for S1, as she’ll be contending with hostile but primitive pirates and an area that offers resources and comforts but not easily.


- (this all comes from someone on the Allspark forums) Tuvok…Tim Russ is IMO the best guy to play a Vulcan since Nimoy himself. DS9 proved that Vulcans could be interesting beyond the people who badmouth humans - one episode featured a Vulcan arms dealer and we know they can use their logic to justify nearly everything if need be. So what are the logical limits of a Vulcan secret agent? Remember, Tuvok had infiltrated the Maquis. That was an interesting idea that was dropped too fast, meaning here it would be maintained a bit longer that the Maquis don’t like this guy who (from their eyes) betrayed them and manipulated them.


So 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 logic basically meant that anything was worth the end result. Thus, he would often propose solutions to problems faced by Voyager, especially those involving encounters with the species of the Wasteland, which 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 Sloan would've recruited, had he not wound up stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Spock could be pretty cold, but Tuvok would be worse. This wouldn't exactly endear him to the other crewmembers, Maquis OR Starfleet. But he would still be Janeway’s closest friend (at first) among the crew and her main Fleet advisor. He would try to maintain a secret network of agents in the crew to keep an eye on malcontent Fleeters and Maquis.


He’d be the main opponent to Chakotay, because his real mission was to see if Chakotay had “gone native” and truly become a Maquis instead of the plant he was meant to be. Chakotay however would always be one step ahead of him which would serve to be a point of contention and frustration for the Vulcan. Tuvok made things harder for Chakotay by explicitly outing him as a deliberate plant by Starfleet, which only makes things worse because this divides the Maquis meaning now Chakotay has a divided crew as well.


Imagine a far more adversarial and darker take on Spock vs McCoy, with the two as true enemies who also represent two sides (Tuvok’s dark pragmatism vs Chakotay’s more humane approach) and the two fighting over which one the Captain should consider as the Primary Advisor. Eventually as Janeway becomes stronger, this rivalry lessens since with her making her own choices there’s less reason to fight with one another over who gives her advice.


- Chakotay would be a more mysterious character with his character being unfurled as the first season goes on. A former Senior Fleet Officer (a 1 Pip Admiral/Commodore) sent to infiltrate the Maquis but went native, becoming more a "man of the people" statesman leader of the Maquis with only his closest allies knowing the truth about who he was. He used his Fleeter training (and connections with Starfleet Intelligence) to acquire better weapons and materials for his group to use. But he also made sure not to do anything to tip Starfleet off to his true defection so he made sure to focus mainly on fighting Cardassians while avoiding Starfleet confrontations as much as possible.

• This expert “double-triple agent” performance was why he was able to maintain his Access Codes to Starfleet systems. But it didn’t go unnoticed which is why Tuvok was sent in to “evaluate” him. His style of command is at its core still Fleeter but tempered with decades of experience and knowing what it’s like to be cut off from higher command and having to fend for yourself (having been put in these situations plenty of times during his career by idiot admirals). This would contrast with Tuvoks’ 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. Thus the conflict would be Chakotay and Janeway against their own groups, not each other.