So, to carry on:
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. Its’ weapons, shields and general equipment are outdated compared to Starfleet's present ships. However despite this, it is still a Heavy Cruiser with 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 Mini-Warship Neelix had.
- 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.
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 first season flashback (which is the entire season) would deal with the two crews having to learn to co-exist, with things starting off tense because Janeway is so inexperienced as a command officer Chakotay comes off as more assertive and showing more command qualities than her since he’s a Veteran Fleet Flag Officer. To the extent that he seems like a better Captain while she would work out better as the XO with her more logical mind being better at carrying out orders or helping him with theorizing.
-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 groups have encountered. Voyager’s technology would easily propel the Kazon Piracy into the Empire 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.
- 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.