Communications Research Center, home of Project Pathfinder. [Pathfinder], [Inside Man], [Author, Author]

The home of Project Pathfinder is in San Francisco on Earth, at Starfleet Headquarters, and situated within the Communications Research Center which is a tower block emblazoned with the Starfleet crest. Pathfinder is the designation of Starfleet Command's project devoted to establishing contact with USS Voyager. The project was set up in 2374 after Voyager's EMH visited the Alpha Quadrant and helped recover Starfleet's prototype ship USS Prometheus [#82 Message in a Bottle] (terminus ad quem stardate 51501.4), at which time the Alpha Quadrant first learned that USS Voyager had not been lost but was in the Delta Quadrant trying to reach home. Messages from home were received by some of Voyager's crew via the Hirogen relay but the relay was put out of commission due to Hirogen hostility [#83 Hunters].

Project Pathfinder's overall commanding officer is Admiral Owen Paris, who happens to be the father of Tom Paris, Voyager's helmsman, but the day-to-day management of the Project is done by Commander Pete Harkins. The team comprises several personnel including Lt. Reginald Barclay, formerly assigned to USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Thanks mainly to Barclay's effort and talent, contact was established with USS Voyager in 2376 (stardate unknown) via the Midas Array - this historic moment, depicted in [#130 Pathfinder], was hugely significant, causing the Project to move into high gear. Admiral Paris referred to the project as "Project Voyager", possibly a slip of the tongue or another name by which Project Pathfinder was known.

the Midas Array, which transmits communications between USS Voyager and Project Pathfinder, as seen on a Pathfinder monitor display [Pathfinder]   Admiral Owen Paris and Commander Pete Harkins [Pathfinder]

The Project deals with various issues regarding USS Voyager: The Project works to discover, if possible, a faster way home for the vessel. Janeway was informed that two deep space vessels would rendezvous with Voyager in a few years' time. The Project works to find a way to establish live communication with Voyager, which was achieved in 2377, stardate 54732.3 - Barclay achieved this by following a tip from Voyager's Ensign Kim and Seven of Nine. Operation Watson bounces a tachyon beam off a quantum singularity and allows 11 minutes of live air-time per day. As a gift to Voyager's crew Barclay showed them a live image of Earth taken from Earth Station McKinley. Commander Harkins told Janeway that how the 11 minutes are allocated was up to her to decide. The crew drew lots to determine the order in which they would make personal calls to friends and family at home - each will have 3 minutes of uninterrupted com.-time. Janeway's reports on Voyager's encounters in the Delta Quadrant are relayed through Project Pathfinder. This includes information about first contacts with alien species, casualties and status of the Maquis [#144 Life Line]. The initial request for information about the status of the Maquis was an answer (content unknown) which Chakotay helped Janeway to draft. The Project passes on to the relevant authorities the information received from USS Voyager. Some of it, notably data about Delta Quadrant species, ends up in Federation schools and occasionally a school party visits the Pathfinder lab. One such visited is shown in [#152 Inside Man].

Three wicked Ferengi. [Inside Man] The modified Barclay hologram dupes Voyager's crew. [Inside Man]

In 2377, stardate unknown, depicted in [#152 Inside Man], Project Pathfinder tries to send Voyager a hologram (of Lt. Barclay) but three Ferengi hijack it and reconfigure it to lure Voyager into a lethally dangerous geodesic fold. The modified Barclay hologram persuades Voyager's crew that Federation scientists are orbiting red giant 23139 in the Alpha Quadrant, and by targeting the red giant's magnetic field with a verteron beam, a geodesic fold will be created adjacent to the giant's north pole that will simultaneously generate a fold in the upper atmosphere of the Delta Quadrant red giant, so that space will be effectively punctured, generating a gateway between the two points, allowing Voyager to journey the equivalent of 30,000 light-years in a matter of seconds. In fact a Ferengi ship awaits them, and the aim of the three Ferengi was to obtain Seven's (dead) body in order to sell the nanoprobes contained in it (3.6 million, 20% more than the Ferengi predicted). The evil plot, which if successful would have destroyed Voyager and all aboard, is foiled by Reginald Barclay, hero.

Later in 2377, stardate 54732.3, in [Author, Author], Project Pathfinder, in an operation codenamed Operation Watson, succeeds in establishing daily live contact with USS Voyager thanks to work by Lt. Reginald Barclay after Seven and Ensign Harry Kim suggested bouncing a tachyon beam off a quantum singularity to produce a trans-galactic comlink. The singularity stays in alignment for 11 minutes a day, and thereafter the two-way stream of information between Project Pathfinder and USS Voyager increases. Due to the increased contact, Voyager's crew can talk to their friends and relatives back home, taking turns in an order decided by lot (sequentially numbered isolinear chips drawn from Neelix's hat).

The Federation Adjudicator and Ardon Broht in Pathfinder's lab. [Author, Author]

Voyager's Doctor uses his call-time to talk to his publisher, Ardon Broht of Broht & Forrester (publishers of the Dixon Hill holoseries seen in [TNG]). Not long afterwards the Pathfinder lab is the setting for a hearing by a Federation Adjudicator on whether Voyager's EMH was covered by the legal definition of a "person" and "artist". While unprepared to rule that the Doctor was a "person", the Adjudicator rules that he was an "artist" and thus has the right to control his work, namely the version of the holonovel 'Photons Be Free' which his publisher had issued without consent and before receiving the Doctor's amendments. Janeway decides it is necessary to prove the Doctor is a person Janeway's speech    Adjudicator's decision

The Pathfinder Project team does not play a direct role in bringing Voyager home, but they are among the first Starfleet officers to sight the returning starship at the end of 2377 [#171 and #172 Endgame]. Admiral Paris and his team are watching from the Pathfinder lab when a transwarp aperture opens in Federation space, indicating the beginning of a Borg incursion. Admiral Paris orders every starship in the area to converge on the co-ordinates but the fear of Borg invasion is unfounded and the emergency arrangements prove unnecessary - the Borg sphere which emerges from the transwarp aperture is destroyed from within, and USS Voyager flies out to meet the assembled fleet. The Pathfinder team are the first to make contact with Captain Janeway.

Starfleet Academy cadets at Pathfinder. The other picture is of Commander Barclay. [#171 and #172 Endgame]

Once USS Voyager has returned home, Project Pathfinder's reason for existence and its main driving agenda are redundant, but the project has made great strides in transgalactic communications. The complex remains active, and is apparently still known as Pathfinder, in the alternate future of 2404 [#171 and #172 Endgame] - it is a centre for learning and research, and several parts of its facility are given over to Starfleet Academy teaching courses. Reginald Barclay, now a Commander, retains his post here, where he lectures cadets on, among other things, the species they may encounter throughout the galaxy.