Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site

PREMISES & SOME THEMES

RED ALERT  This site generally assumes that you have seen all of [Voyager]. If you have only just started to watch [Voyager], please be warned that pages in the SERIES BASICS site section, though written with beginners mainly in mind, does contain spoilers.

 

Main premise

A Federation starship, stranded in deep space on the wrong side of the galaxy, no friends, desperately trying to reach home.

 

Opening premise

USS Voyager is a state-of-the-art starship from Starfleet, the space navy of the United Federation of Planets located in the Alpha Quadrant. At that time Starfleet encounters a Gamma Quadrant empire (the Dominion, mentioned but not seen in [Voyager]) that threatens to conquer the Alpha Quadrant. More immediately, Starfleet is opposed by a small but organised paramilitary group called the Maquis. Commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway, Voyager's maiden voyage is a mission to find a missing Maquis starship commanded by Chakotay who has aboard, unbeknown to him or his crew at the time, a Vulcan called Tuvok who is really a Starfleet officer acting as a spy. Both ships, however, are catapulted by a strange powerful force 70,000 light-years into the Delta Quadrant, which is on the other side of the galaxy to the Alpha Quadrant. There the two ships' crews meet up and, amid initial mutual distrust, learn they have been deliberately brought here by the Caretaker. He is a dying alien who wants someone to take over his job of looking after a telepathic and vulnerable race, the Ocampa. The Voyager and Maquis crews together thwart the Ocampa enemies. But that means destroying the Caretaker's Array, the sophisticated alien technology that brought the two starships to the Delta Quadrant and the only technology which seems capable of sending them home again. During the conflict, the Maquis ship gets destroyed, so Janeway invites the Maquis crew to join her Starfleet one on Voyager, with Chakotay replacing her dead first officer. Two others also join Voyager at this point - Kes, a young Ocampan, and her lover, the Talaxian called Neelix. USS Voyager starts the long long journey home - it could take 70 years!

Continuing premise: In the uncharted expanse of the Delta Quadrant and cut off from the back-up might of Starfleet, USS Voyager heads back on the very long journey home but, however desperate the crew is to get home, from time to time they stop to explore deep space and encounter new lifeforms on the way. That adheres to the founding principle of Starfleet set out in its charter in 2161 (and to the Star Trek entertainment tenet) "to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before", which are words from the original Star Trek series (slightly altered in the charter). Voyager's crew is always on the look-out for a shortcut home, such as a wormhole that will lead quickly back to the Alpha Quadrant. The journey brings interesting adventures but, with Voyager being the first Starfleet vessel to travel in the Delta Quadrant, its uncharted sectors are often fraught with high danger. The Starfleet and Maquis people on Voyager must learn to work together, not only simply to survive, but also to cope with the loneliness of being so remote from home.

 

Some Themes

During the long journey, the crew finds friends as well as deadly enemies and, during Seasons 1, 2 and the Season 3 opener, are dogged by a traitor (can the crew discover who it is?) and the traitor's dangerous alien allies, the Kazon.
From time to time during Seasons 3-7 Voyager encounters the Borg, a 'species' of technologically advanced collective of humanoids that 'recruit' its population of cybernetically enhanced drones by preying on other species and ruthlessly 'assimilating' them. The Borg Collective is a most feared enemy because, in earlier Star Trek, mankind encountered them and suffered huge losses. In earlier Star Trek it is established that they come from the Delta Quadrant, so a show-down between the Borg and Voyager becomes inevitable.
As one romance dies, that of Kes and Neelix, another starts to bloom - that of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres. And in addition a new romance starts in Season 7. There are various doomed romances for other crewmembers, but one romance that fans hoped for, that of Janeway and Chakotay, never really gets going.
There are several stories involving time-travel or related to time. In one story USS Voyager crewmembers end up on Earth, but in the past, in a desperate bid to save the future.
During Season 6 a Starfleet project on Earth manages to contact Voyager. There are several stories involving Pathfinder Project, as Starfleet and Voyager tries to develop regular contact. Certain other stories give glimpses into the Starfleet of the future.
Throughout the journey USS Voyager takes repeated batterings and parts go wrong quite often, though admittedly a lot of those times is due to hostile alien attack - exciting for us but worrying for the Voyager repair crews.

 

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