The show's co-creators and producers are Rick Berman (executive producer), Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor.

The producers intended for there to be a certain amount of conflict between the two crews in the first few episodes. Then, as the series evolved, there would be fewer rough edges and less frequent tension between the Maquis and Starfleet. The potential for conflict was as far as Rick Berman, senior executive producer, was willing to go. Berman was determined to avoid creating a mixed crew that would be constantly "banging heads". He was convinced that most people liked and identified with the family that got along well.

Rick Berman: "We were looking for a middle ground here. We wanted to get the Maquis into Starfleet uniforms, with a captain who had to pull together diverse groups of people into a functioning, solid, effective unit. It would get pretty irritating, and cumbersome, to have the Maquis tension in every episode. But it comes up now and then during the course of each season."

For the purposes of dramatic storytelling, the Maquis as a plot device offer unique opportunities. Certain [Star Trek Voyager] episodes would be impossible without them. The second-season episode [#32 Meld], for instance, in which, during a murder investigation, Tuvok mind-melds with a sociopathic killer who is a Maquis called Lon Suder.

Michael Piller: "The whole story is based on the fact that nobody really knows about the backgrounds of these Maquis. Nobody knows where they came from, nobody asks for resumes. The murderer is a man who joined the Maquis because he really, really likes to kill. Finally he kills somebody aboard Voyager. If we had no Maquis on the ship you would never find a human Starfleet officer one who's gone through the complete Starfleet training-who would do that. It just doesn't happen. In another series of episodes we had a spy (Michael Jonas) aboard Voyager who is a Maquis, spying against the Federation, sending reports to the Kazon. Ordinarily, no one in Starfleet would ever be a spy for the other side. It would never happen. So there are stories to be told because of the Maquis background, and they are coming out. It's just not every week.

The Maquis, integrated with a Starfleet crew, is felt to represent yet another facet of Gene Roddenberry's original vision of the future: infinite diversity in infinite combination (a tenet which specifically appeared in the show - as a Vulcan tenet, complete with a symbol for it; it was first espoused by Spock in [TOS]). Behind the desire for a fairly conflict-free crew throughout the series there was the need to support a more basic tenet - consistency. Although [Star Trek Voyager] was a new series, it still had to operate within the existing Star Trek universe whose parameters had been established over decades. It was the tenet of consistency which drove the approach to the way in which Voyager's crew would function and conduct themselves, from day to day. Hence, even though the ship and crew are in the Delta Quadrant, seventy thousand light years from Federation territory, and Voyager could therefore function pretty much as it wanted to (the end of Season 5 and start of Season 6 story [#120 and #121 Equinox] later showed how far different if the crew wished it), Janeway with Chakotay's agreement decides that Voyager will function as a Starfleet ship i.e. they will obey Starfleet's principles, rules and regulations, they will obey the Prime Directive, they will do everything as though they were operating back in the Alpha Quadrant and accountable to Starfleet. This is the way the hero group has always operated in Star Trek. There is a certain framework within which the Star Trek universe has always operated, and as a consequence, millions of viewers now have decidedly firm expectations about its behaviour. There are all kinds of endless things the producers have no wish to violate, and indeed if anything they originally set out to have [Star Trek Voyager] as a ship-based series to be seen very much in the spirit of both [TOS] and [TNG]. [DS9] had been set on a space station because the writers and producers felt it was too much to have two ship-based shows running at the same time. But the time was right for a return to a ship-based show, along with [TOS]' and [TNG]'s upbeat, hopeful, positive view of the future. This of course means a positive view of people, showing them as somehow better behaved than people now, generally handling their problems in a more rational fashion....and therefore of course the Maquis crew had to become integrated with the Starfleet crew fairly soon into the first season.

Michael Piller expresses the fact that he is disappointed that the show resolved the initial conflicts between Starfleet crewmembers and the Maquis so quickly, presumably, in the light of the information above, wanting it to happen later in the series:

"I think there was an opportunity missed early on to slowly create a group of characters that had to grow to know and trust another. We essentially solved the conflicts and they were a pretty bonded crew probably from episode 3 or 4 on."

Apart from [#1 and #2 Caretaker], some of the Starfleet/Maquis conflict was maintained in the following episodes:

[#16 Learning Curve], in which Tuvok has to drill four Maquis crewmembers in Starfleet protocols. The screenshot shows Crewman Dalby, one of those four Maquis, talking back to Tuvok.

[#30 Alliances], where Hogan and Chakotay tackle Janeway about the Maquis/Starfleet way of dealing with the Kazon.

[#144 Life Line], where Admiral Hayes' message to Janeway includes the words: "I'm anxious to know the status of your crew - the Maquis, ..." Janeway discusses it with Chakotay:

Janeway: "Status of the Maquis."
Chakotay: "Do you find that surprising?"
Janeway: "I don't think of you, or B'Elanna or the others as Maquis.  I think of you as part of my crew."
Chakotay: "You may have forgotten but we haven't. You heard the Admiral: it'll be years before we have to deal with those issues. Let's worry about it then."
Janeway: "Do you have lunch plans?"
Chakotay: "Is that an invitation?"
Janeway: "I was hoping you'd help me compose a response."
Chakotay: "You're on."

[#150 Repression], in which a Maquis mutiny was incited by Teero Anaydis' mind-control. Even before Chakotay succumbs to Anaydis, he says "Your crew" to Janeway, distinguishing between Maquis and Starfleet crewmembers, a phrase Janeway notices.