Star Trek If I were to re-write Voyager

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Tom Paris/Nicholas Locarno: In my take on this show, they are one and the same person. Dishonorably discharged from Starfleet as a senior cadet, he was disowned by his father, a Starfleet admiral. He changed his name to put that past and the dishonor associated with it behind him, caught a transport to the outer colonies, and never looked back. He drifted for a few years, doing odd jobs that mostly revolved around running cargo and passengers between the colonies and to nearby stations. When the opportunity to join the Maquis arrived, he took it as fate and eagerly joined, offering his skills as an ace pilot. He ended up working for Hunapo, and will later become a helmsman for Voyager. As for why he and B'Elanna don't hook up while on Chakotay's ship, I'm thinking that they could've started out actually really not liking each other, even if he kind of had a crush on her. Or he found her too intimidating to approach. Or something. Anyway, eventually the crew will learn of his true identity, so that should be interesting.
I actually think this is a bad idea. Paris being Janeway's man a former Maquis who was captued but now a Starfleet officer was actually a good backstory and made him a complex character, as well as adding a bit of a Romeo X Juliette vibe to his relationship with Belanna as the "traitor" tension then went both ways in regards to him. Further, looking over your core cast, you've actually tilted things pretty heavily towards Maquis characters, with there being more of them than Starfleet while also mainly killing off Starfleet characters.

I'd actually suggest going with the headcannon some people have regarding Paris/Locarno, that Locarno was an assumed name he used at the Academy to prevent any nepotism and/or avoid embarrassing his Starfleet Admiral father.

This means you don't have to worry about why Paris and Bellana didn't hook up, and can even use their relationship and how it's going as a proxy for how well the Starfleet and Maquis crew are getting along. Early on they are constantly at each other's throats, sniping at each other, etc., but gradually warm up together and their eventually marriage is the point where you know that the crews HAVE integrated, even if they still have differing opinions.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I'd keep the Val Jean intact and possibly add a couple more vessels who had been previously pulled there by the Caretaker, who perhaps decided to hang around the area rather than leave because they hoped the caretaker would send them back and/or they figure out how it worked by observation and use that to get home instead of a 70 year trip. I like the idea of a Romulan Scout Ship, taken during the period where the Romulans were fighting the Dominion.

Having a small fleet instead of a single craft will help visually and tactically distinguish Voyager from the other Treks, much as Deep Space Nine very much has it's own look and style. The ships will wind up having to exchange crew as each suffered different losses but the Val Jean was chock-full of refugees so he has an excess anyway.

This adds a layer of tension, in the OTL it was either Janeway or suck vacuum, now Chakotay can take his ship and go home if she pushes him too much so there's a political element in play that wasn't there previously. It also has an easy way to get rid of or add new crew members, if X actor isn't working out, transfer to the Val Jean and get Ensign Y from them as a new cast member allowing for easier variety. It also allows for other stories, f'rex Voyager was almost always the biggest, baddest vessel on the block because it had to be to suspend disbelief that they could make it through alien-of-the-week's territory. There was no real threat unless they were facing four Kazon Vessels at once and Janeway had let the Kazon trick her into allowing suicide bombers to blow up part of Voyager. However if the Val Jean needed to split off from the fleet for some reason, it might well be caught in a bad situation facing a few more powerful enemy without the issues this would create for Voyager.

Each major event or season finale, blow away one of their ships and have them steal/buy an alien craft, or stop off and use Voyager's industrial replicator to build a new one after stopping off at a planet a few months. Have the tactical abilities and fighting styles of the fleet alter dramatically each time so each season has a unique look and style from it's blend of ships. Season 1, they have a cloaking vessel and much of their tactics rely on it sniffing out enemy positions and being sneaky. Season 2, they lose the cloak but gain an alien vessel they upgrade to Federation, well at least Maquis, standards which spams torpedoes like it's a refugee from Macross, their tactics revolve around whether they can afford to run out of ammo and how long before they can stop to build more torpedoes for it. Season 3, they obtain a biological living craft which extends their fuel situation by not needing antimatter or dilithium, but it has to land on planets to eat and drink periodically. Season 4, they lose two ships but gain a Borg probe. Season 5, they sell the probe (It's attracting too much hostility) to a budding proto-federation that wants to research anti-borg weaponry, and trade to a drone-fighter that controls dozens of robotic small craft. Voyager itself gets destroyed in the middle of the last season and the remaining craft are the ones to pick up the survivors and limp the last hundred yards home.
 
Last edited:

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on the ship itself. Did a lot of people actually like the ship as it was seen in the show, or would they have preferred another design? New ship? Old ship?
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on the ship itself. Did a lot of people actually like the ship as it was seen in the show, or would they have preferred another design? New ship? Old ship?

Personally, I'm not a fan of the ship designs that came after the TNG show. The Defiant, Voyager, Sovereign/Enterprise-E, and the NX Enterprise look very streamlined and formulaic. They dropped the vertical aspect of the earlier Starfleet designs. They also look fat, and they don't have interesting paneling or visual detail or color schemes. They look pretty bland.

The TOS movie and TNG show ships were distinctive, with the Miranda, Galaxy, Cheyenne, Nebula, Oberth, and Olympic classes being pretty iconic and appealing to me.

If I were to redesign the look of Voyager, I'd either go with one of STO's variations on the ship (slight tweaks to make it less fat and make the paneling and visual detail more interesting), or I'd completely change the silhouette and go for something more interesting like the Destiny (STO fan contest entry, IIRC) or Pacific 201 (fan film ship). Those ships look like they could have come out of a TOS movie or the TNG show when there was a lot of variation in Starfleet ship design and they had a lot of verticality.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
I think Voyager's design was fine. It's visually clearly related to all the other major Trek ships while still being unique enough that anybody who's seen it could pick it out of a lineup immediately.
My only complaint is that I feel the nacelles felt to short, lengthen them a bit, though keep the moving aspect (which was actually pretty cool as an idea) and maybe slim the hull down a bit, as when looked at from the fore the Intrepid class is kinda chunky.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Lately I've been mulling an idea that would be along the lines of a New Orleans and/or Springfield class, which would put it immediately prior to TNG in terms of design aesthetic. The interiors could then either keep the TNG look, or be changed if the ship had been recently refitted in order to modernize it. I would definitely keep the ship/crew at about the same size, though.

12274662_1175447702473356_5038124002092345393_n.jpg 12734160_1175447762473350_5575816341445420741_n.jpg 10400320_1175435012474625_1348618093628712303_n.jpg 12417908_10153820414743398_723419650278627382_n.jpg 12728965_1175435215807938_7496762922292416619_n.jpg
 

Battlegrinder

Someday we will win, no matter what it takes.
Moderator
Staff Member
Founder
Obozny
I've never been a fan of the various Galaxy class remixes aside from the Nebula class. Most of them never really clicked as as unique ship class rather than "a bunch of GCS parts kitbashed together", and I don't think any of them are really suitable as hero ships, precisely because they're too evocative of the Enterprise D and don't stand out as thier own thing.

The New Orleans/Springfield class in particular has a hard time standing out, because the GCS parts don't mesh well with the nominsl size of the ship. They're on a much smaller ship, and have windows set up to show the smaller size, but the proportions are the same as on the GCS so the ship just looks weird (which is why the Nebula class works, it's about the same size as the GCS).
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
I'd be tempted to merge Chakotay and Tuvok or rather, make Tuvok actually a maquis loyalist and the captain of the Val Jean rather than a starfleet spy. Having a vulcan who's legitimately disenchanted with the federation and its values over its failure to defend its citizens and their colonies from the cardassians would be a neat new perspective.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Once again, I'm punting this back to the top of the thread list to see if anyone has any interesting thoughts on this topic.
 

AJW

Well-known member
Having just reread the thread I do think its a good idea though I wouldn't change quite so much some things could stay as they were like Tom Paris as I kind of liked his backstory but it could be expanded upon a bit and confront Janeway with a reality that Admiral Paris might not be as nice a guy as Janeway has always believed him to be. For example its hinted at, and even outright stated in the episode with the ocean planet, that Owen Paris never let Tom choose his own path and insisted he join Starfleet as "Paris's have always served in Starfleet" and generally treated Tom like a cadet his whole life instead of a son.

Expand on that a bit more and maybe actually have Tom not show up initially since he ran away from home as a teen, changed his name - he could still use Thomas as his first name but change his surname to something generic like Walker - and went his own way and actually learned how to be the xeno-marine biologist that he had actually wanted to be. Have it that he's on his own little ship - similar to the Raven - that was owned by the Daystrom Institute which gets pulled into the Delta Quadrant another way. The vessel ultimately crashes on an uninhabited planet that is a mixture of both shallow oceans and islands some volcanic some built from coral reefs and begins broadcasting a distress beacon on all Federation and Alpha Quadrant frequencies.

After several months Voyager picks up the distress call and changes course to investigate. Where they find the remains of the ship - which still has enough power to function as a home but it will never fly again and they find evidence in orbit that the warp core was ejected after the incident that brought the ship here damaged it - but no sign of anyone around though one of the marine diving suits is gone. A short time later Tom returns having been diving for fish - since his replicator is toast - and other items from a nearby reef that was suitable for eating. Initially he is wary of the Starfleet personnel but goes along with them since he's the only one of the crew who survived the impact.

While being checked over on Voyager by the Doctor his DNA is run through a routine check and finds out that Dr Thomas Walker is actually Thomas Paris. Which confuses Janeway and she actually ends up asking him why and gets something like "because I wanted to be my own person, not what that bastard who calls himself my father wanted me to be, I never wanted to join Starfleet but he wouldn't have it, would never let me do anything else. After he blocked my application to a marine xeno-studies course for the third time I said fuck him and ran away creating a new life for myself outside of what he wanted".

Could make his character a bit more interesting and show a bit more about how Starfleet is not always the good guys like they like to think they are.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top