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Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe.
The show takes place during the 2370s, and begins on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy, 75,000 light-years from Earth. It follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which became stranded in the Delta Quadrant while pursuing a renegade Maquis ship.[1] The two ships' crews merge aboard Voyager to make the estimated 75-year journey home.[2]
The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, and is the fifth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry. It was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is the only Star Trek TV series with a female captain, Kathryn Janeway, as a main character.
Star Trek: Voyager aired on UPN and was the network's second longest running series, as well as the final show from its debut lineup to end.
As Star Trek: The Next Generation ended, Paramount Pictures wanted to continue to have a second Star Trek TV series to accompany Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The studio also planned to start a new television network, and wanted the new show to help it succeed.[3] Paramount formed Paramount Stations Group after purchasing the TVX Group, which owned several independent stations in major markets. In late 1994, the studio announced the United Paramount Network, a joint venture between Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries; the "U" in UPN came from United Television, a Chris-Craft subsidiary. Both companies owned independent stations in several large cities in the United States. The new network launched on January 16, 1995; less than a year earlier, Paramount had been bought by Viacom. This was the second time that Paramount had considered launching a network anchored by a Star Trek show: the studio planned to launch a network showcasing Star Trek: Phase II in 1977.
Initial work on Star Trek: Voyager started in 1993, and seeds for the show's backstory, including the development of the Maquis, were placed in several The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine episodes. Voyager was shot on the stages The Next Generation had used and the pilot, "Caretaker", was shot in September 1994. Around that time, Paramount was sold to Viacom, making Voyager the first Star Trek TV series to premiere after the sale concluded.
Star Trek: Voyager was also the first Star Trek TV show to eliminate the use of models for exterior space shots and exclusively use computer-generated imagery (CGI) instead. Other television shows such as seaQuest DSV and Babylon 5 had previously used CGI exclusively to avoid the huge expense of models, but the Star Trek television department continued using models, because they felt models provided better realism. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for the opening CGI title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were captured using hand-built miniatures of the Voyager, shuttlecraft, and other ships. That changed when Star Trek: Voyager went fully CGI for certain types of shots midway through Season 3 (late 1996).[4] Paramount obtained an exclusive contract with Foundation Imaging, the studio responsible for special effects during Babylon 5's first three seasons. Season 3's "The Swarm" was the first episode to use Foundation's effects exclusively. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started using Foundation Imaging in conjunction with Digital Muse one year later (season 6). In its later seasons, Star Trek: Voyager featured visual effects from Foundation and Digital Muse.
In the pilot episode, "Caretaker", USS Voyager departs station Deep Space Nine on a mission into the treacherous Badlands to find a missing ship piloted by a team of Maquis rebels, which the Vulcan Lt. Tuvok, Voyager's security officer, has secretly infiltrated. While in the Badlands, the Voyager is chased down and eventually enveloped by a powerful energy wave, which ends up damaging Voyager, killing several of its crew, and stranding the ship on the far side of the galaxy, known as the Delta Quadrant, more than 70,000 light-years from Earth.
Voyager eventually finds the Maquis ship, and the two crews reluctantly agree they must join forces to survive their long journey home. Chakotay, leader of the Maquis group, becomes first officer. B'Elanna Torres, a half-human/half-Klingon Maquis, becomes chief engineer. Tom Paris, whom Janeway released from a Federation prison to help her find the Maquis ship, is made Voyager's helm officer. Due to the deaths of the ship's entire medical staff, The Doctor, an Emergency Medical Hologram designed for short-term use only, is employed as the ship's doctor and Chief Medical Officer. Neelix, a Talaxian scavenger, and Kes, a young Ocampan, natives of the Delta Quadrant, are welcomed aboard as the ship's chef/morale officer, and The Doctor's medical assistant respectively.
Due to the great distance from Night", fifth season), a large area of empty space called the Void ("The Void", seventh season), wormholes, dangerous nebulae, and other anomalies.
However, Voyager does not always deal with the unknown. It is the second Star Trek series to feature Q, an omnipotent alien, on a recurring basis (Q made only one appearance on Deep Space Nine). Also, Starfleet Command learns of Voyager's survival when the ship discovers an ancient interstellar communications network, belonging to the Hirogen, that the crew can tap into. Although this relay network is later disabled, becoming unusable, Starfleet (thanks to the efforts of Reginald Barclay, who was featured more prominently on The Next Generation) eventually establishes regular contact with Voyager by using a communications array and microwormhole technology. This ability to communicate and to transmit data would figure prominently in the series' later years.
In the show's fourth season, Kes is replaced on the ship by three of them eventually find a new adoptive home while the fourth, Icheb, chooses to stay aboard Voyager.
Life for the Voyager crew continued to change over their seven-year journey. Traitors (Seska and Jonas) were uncovered in the early months ("State of Flux"); loyal crew members were lost late in the journey; and other wayward Starfleet officers were integrated into the crew. During the second season, the first child was born aboard the ship to Ensign Samantha Wildman; as she grew up, Naomi Wildman would become great friends with her godfather, Neelix. Early in the seventh season, Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres married after a long courtship, and Torres would give birth to their child in the series finale. Late in the seventh season, the ship finds a colony of Talaxians on a makeshift settlement in an asteroid field; Neelix chooses to bid Voyager farewell and live once again amongst his people.
Over the course of the series, the crew of Voyager found a number of ways to shorten their journey by many decades, thanks to shortcuts (in the episodes "Night", "Q2"), technology boosts ("The Voyager Conspiracy", "Dark Frontier", "Timeless", "Hope and Fear"), subspace corridors ("Dragon's Teeth"), and a mind-powered push from a powerful former shipmate ("The Gift"). There were also other transportation and time travel opportunities the crew were not able to use ("Prime Factors", "Future's End", "Eye of the Needle"). All these efforts shorten their journey from 75 years to 23 years. However, one final effort (involving time travel) reduces the total duration to seven years, as shown in the series finale ("Endgame").
Their first mission was to locate and capture a Maquis vessel last seen in the area of space known as the Badlands. While there, the Maquis ship and Voyager were transported against their will into the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light-years away, by a massive displacement wave. The Maquis ship is destroyed while fighting the Kazon-Ogla, and although Voyager survives, there are numerous casualties. To protect an intelligent species (the Ocampa), Janeway destroys a device, the Caretaker Array, that has the potential to return her crew to Federation space, stranding her ship and crew seventy five years travel from home.
Before serving as Voyager's first officer, he had resigned Starfleet after years of service to join the Maquis to defend his home colony against the Cardassians.
In 2371, Tuvok was assigned to infiltrate the Maquis organization aboard Chakotay's Maquis vessel and then he was pulled into the Delta Quadrant. He served as tactical officer and second officer under Captain Kathryn Janeway during Voyager's seven-year journey through this unknown part of the galaxy. He is the only Voyager crew member to be promoted in the Delta Quadrant (Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander).
The son of a prominent Starfleet admiral, he was dishonorably discharged from Starfleet and later joined the Maquis before being captured and serving time at the Federation Penal Settlement in New Zealand. After joining Voyager to retrieve Chakotay's Maquis ship from the Badlands, he was transferred with the crew of Voyager 70,000 light years across the galaxy, deep into the Delta Quadrant.
B'Elanna was pulled into the Delta Quadrant on Chakotay's ship and was forced to merge with the crew of the Voyager during its seven-year journey home.
When Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant, Harry was fresh out of the Academy and was nervous about his assignment.
The EMH Mark I was a computer program with a holographic interface in the form of Lewis Zimmerman; the creator of the Doctor's program. Although his program was specifically designed to only function in emergency situations only, Voyager's sudden relocation to the Delta Quadrant and the lack of a live physician necessitated that The Doctor run his program on a full-time basis, becoming the ship's Chief Medical Officer. He evolves full self-awareness and even has hobbies.
Kes was Neelix's partner, who had promised to save her from the Kazon who had captured her. She leaves the show in the episode "The Gift" and returns temporarily for the episode "Fury," then leaves and never returns.
She was born Annika Hansen on stardate 25479 (2350), the daughter of eccentric exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen. She was assimilated by the Borg in 2356 at age six, along with her parents, but was liberated by the crew of the USS Voyager at the start of Season 4.
As with all other Star Trek series, the original Star Trek's Cardassians, Bajorans, Betazoids, and Ferengi, along with Deep Space Nine's Jem'Hadar (via hologram), as well as the Maquis resistance movement, previously established in episodes of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.[5]
One notable connection between Voyager and The Next Generation appears regarding a wormhole and the Ferengi. In The Next Generation season 3 episode "The Price", bidding takes place for rights to a wormhole. The Ferengi send a delegation to the bidding. When the Enterprise and Ferengi vessel each send shuttles into the wormhole, they appear in the Delta Quadrant, where the Ferengi shuttle becomes trapped. In the Voyager season 3 episode "False Profits", the Ferengi who were trapped have since landed on a nearby planet, and begun exploiting the inhabitants for profit.
Unlike The Next Generation, where composer Jerry Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture was reused, Goldsmith composed and conducted an entirely new main theme for Voyager. As done with The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, a soundtrack album of the series' pilot episode ("Caretaker") and a CD single containing three variations of the main theme were released by Crescendo Records in 1995 between seasons one and two.[7][8]
A total of 22 numbered books were released during the series' original run from 1995 to 2001. They include novelizations of the first episode, Caretaker, The Escape, Violations, Ragnarok and novelizations of the episodes Flashback, Day of Honor, Equinox and Endgame. There are also an amount of so-called "unnumbered books", which are still part of the series, though not part of the official release. These novels all consist of episode novelizations except for Caretaker, Mosaic (a biography of Kathryn Janeway), Pathways (a novel in which the biography of various crewmembers, including all of the senior staff is given); and The Nanotech War, a novel released in 2002, one year after the series' finale.
A series of novels focusing on the continuing adventures of Voyager following the TV series finale was implemented in 2003, much as Pocket Books did with the Deep Space Nine relaunch novel series, which features stories placed after the finale of that show. In the relaunch, several characters are reassigned while others are promoted but stay aboard Voyager. These changes include Janeway's promotion to admiral, Chakotay becoming captain of Voyager, Tuvok leaving the ship to serve as Tactical Officer under William Riker, and Tom Paris' promotion to First Officer on the Voyager. The series also introduces several new characters.
The series began with Homecoming and The Farther Shore in 2003, a direct sequel to the show's finale, Endgame. These were followed in 2004 by Spirit Walk: Old Wounds and Spirit Walk: Enemy of My Enemy. Under the direction of a new author, 2009 brought forth two more additions to the series: Full Circle and Unworthy . In 2011, another book by the same author called Children of the Storm was released. Other novels – some set during the relaunch period, others during the show's TV run – have been published.
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