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USS Voyager

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USS Voyager
USS Voyager
Class: Intrepid-class
Registry: NCC-74656
Affiliation: Federation Starfleet
Status: Active (2378)
USS Voyager with ablative generators

USS Voyager with ablative generators

The USS Voyager (NCC-74656) was an Intrepid-class Federation starship launched in 2371 under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway. The vessel was noted for independently, and successfully, completing an unscheduled seven-year journey across the previously unexplored Delta Quadrant between 2371 and 2378.

Contents

[edit] Construction and Initial Assignment

Voyager in drydock
USS Voyager docked at Deep Space 9
Voyager leaves Deep Space 9

The USS Voyager was constructed at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards orbiting Mars and was launched from Earth Station McKinley on stardate 48038.5 in 2371. At the time Voyager was considered one of the fastest and most advanced starships constructed. She was the first to test the class 9 warp drive, had a maximum warp factor of 9.975, bio-neural circuitry, and was one of the first ships to test the Emergency Medical Hologram.

Captain Kathryn Janeway assumed command shortly before Voyager left drydock. She was greeted and given a tour of the ship by Admiral Patterson.

Voyager's first assignment was to track down a missing Maquis raider, the Val Jean, commanded by former Starfleet officer Chakotay. The raider was also carrying an undercover Starfleet officer, Voyager's security chief Lieutenant Tuvok. Captain Janeway enlisted the help of Tom Paris, the disgraced son of Starfleet Admiral Owen Paris, whose knowledge of the Badlands was determined to be essential to the mission.

Shortly after departing Deep Space 9 to begin her search, Voyager encountered a coherent tetryon beam which pulled the vessel 70,000 light-years into the Delta Quadrant. The crew was subjugated to painful genetic testing to see if any crew members would be suitable to mate with the being responsible for the transfer, the Caretaker, however none were compatible.

By the time the Voyager crew was able to make any kind of meaningful contact with the Caretaker, he was near death and unable to send them back to the Alpha Quadrant. Although Lieutenant Tuvok believed he could activate the system that could send Voyager back himself, that would have meant potentially leaving the technology in the hands of a hostile native species, the Kazon.

Instead of allowing the Kazon to seize the Caretaker's advanced technology and potentially harm the peaceful Ocampa, Captain Janeway made the decision to destroy the Caretaker's array and strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. After the destruction of the Val Jean during the battle with the Kazon, Starfleet and Maquis crewmembers were forced to merge for the 70-year journey home. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Relativity")

[edit] Conflict With the Kazon

See also: Voyager-Kazon Conflict

The destruction of the Caretaker's Array combined with Captain Janeway's policy of not sharing technology did not leave Voyager in good standing with the Kazon. To make matters worse, Voyager crewmembers like Seska and Michael Jonas, both former Maquis, did not agree with following Starfleet rules and regulations, believing them to be not worth making an enemy of the Kazon.

In 2371, Seska defected to the Kazon-Nistrim. She immediately began to reassert her Cardassian physiology and began supplying information about Voyager and training the Kazon in Cardassian battle tactics. Michael Jonas remained on Voyager and started supplying information to the Kazon sometime in 2372, before he was discovered and killed by Neelix. (VOY: "State of Flux", "Maneuvers", "Basics, Part I")

The year 2372 was marked by several devastating attacks by the Kazon, at one point being attacked four times over a two week period and losing three crewmembers. Commander Chakotay suggested forming an alliance with a few of the Kazon sects to ensure Voyager's safety through the region. Although hesitant, Captain Janeway eventually agreed to a meeting. Unfortunately, the summit was attacked by the Trabe in an effort to wipe out the Kazon leadership. Hostilities between Voyager and the Kazon continued throughout the year. (VOY: "Alliances")

The Kazon surround Voyager.

By the end of the year, Voyager received a message from Seska saying that she had given birth to Chakotay's son and that the child was in danger of becoming a slave. The crew was immediately suspicious that Seska was luring Voyager into a trap, but rallied behind Chakotay and his responsibility to his son. After recovering Tierna, one of Seska's aids, the crew set a course of Kazon space. Unfortunately the crew's instincts proved to be correct: the whole thing was a setup, and during the ensuing battle Voyager was captured, and the crew was marooned on Hanon IV. (VOY: "Basics, Part I")

Fortunately, Tom Paris managed to escape the battle in a shuttle and reach a Talaxian colony nearby. With the help of the Talaxians, The Doctor, and Lon Suder, who had been left behind on the starship during the Kazon takeover, Paris and the Talaxians were able to retake Voyager and rescue the crew in early 2373. Seska was killed during the conflict, and her child was later found to be Maje Culluh's. Voyager left Kazon space a short time later. (VOY: "Basics, Part II")

[edit] Contact With Starfleet

[edit] The Equinox

The Equinox and Voyager.

In 2376, Voyager responded to a Federation distress call from the starship USS Equinox commanded by Captain Rudolph Ransom. The vessel had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker as well, and had been suffering attacks by an unknown Nucleogenic lifeform. Unknown to the Voyager crew, the Equinox crew had been performing illegal experiments on the aliens in an effort to enhance their warp drive and return home sooner. Upon discovering this, Captain Janeway had the Equinox crew arrested, but they soon escaped. Janeway began a manhunt for Ransom, much to the dissatisfaction of Chakotay, who believed that Janeway was crossing the line. He convinced her to negotiate a cease fire with the aliens, but was relieved of duty for opposing her harsh attitude towards Ransom. Eventually Voyager caught up with the Equinox. Ransom, in a last minute change of heart, decided to surrender to Janeway. Unfortunately, his first officer, Lieutenant Maxwell Burke had other ideas, and relieved his captain of duty. Ransom and chief engineer Ensign Marla Gilmore managed to beam the Equinox personnel to Voyager, but were unable to save Burke and the rest of the bridge crew. After dropping the shields around the warp core, the aliens caused a core breach, destroying the Equinox.

The five surviving Equinox crewmembers were stripped of rank and ordered to serve as crewmen aboard Voyager, under close supervision with limited privileges. (VOY: "Equinox", "Equinox, Part II")

[edit] The Pathfinder Project

Voyager was declared officially lost by Starfleet in 2373. Approximately 14 months later, The Doctor was transmitted to the USS Prometheus by way of a Hirogen relay station. He notified Starfleet of Voyager's position and returned with a message that the crew was "no longer alone." (VOY: "Message in a Bottle")

The Pathfinder Project was begun with the goal of establishing contact with the lost vessel. This was accomplished in 2376 thanks to the efforts of Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, formerly of the USS Enterprise. Barclay was able to open a small artificial wormhole allowing for brief two-way communication with Voyager, and a short time later the crew was able to receive monthly data streams from Earth. (VOY: "Pathfinder", "Life Line")

By 2378, two-way visual communication was established for 11 minutes a day. Starfleet left the Voyager crew with the option of how to allocate the comm time, with most of the crew opting to contact their families in the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Author, Author")

[edit] Official Assignment

In 2378, for the first time in seven years, Voyager was given an official mission by Starfleet. Captain Janeway was ordered to locate and retrieve the Friendship One probe, launched in 2064 to contact alien species. Contact had been lost over a century earlier, but the probe's projected course took it into an area near Voyager's current location.

The probe was located on a planet in grid 310. Upon arrival, the crew found the planet in the middle of a nuclear winter, a result of a containment failure in their power grid. No life signs were detected, but none the less the team sent down to retrieve the probe was taken hostage by the surviving inhabitants. Suffering from radiation poisoning and desperate, they demanded to be evacuated to another planet, holding the Voyager crew responsible for sending the probe and destroying their world. Although the away team was rescued, Lieutenant Joe Carey was killed during the incident. The crew was able to eliminate the radiation in the atmosphere using photon torpedoes and retrieve the probe. (VOY: "Friendship One")

[edit] Voyager and Time Travel

Voyager flying over 1996 Los Angeles
Tuvok, Captain Janeway, and B'Elanna Torres observing the temporal anomalies on the ship

As noted by one Starfleet officer in the 29th century, Voyager appeared on their temporal sensors quite often. The vessel was involved in numerous temporal incidents and paradoxes throughout her journey.

In 2371, Voyager became trapped in a quantum singularity while responding to a distress call. It was discovered that the distress call had actually been sent by Voyager herself, and the crew was trying to rescue a time-delayed "reflection" of themselves. (VOY: "Parallax")

Later that year, a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant was discovered. While it was quickly found be in an advanced state of decay and not suitable for travel, the crew was able to make contact with a Romulan ship on the other side. After finding a way of transporting the Romulan captain to Voyager, it was discovered that the Alpha Quadrant end of the wormhole was set 20 years in the past. The Romulan captain, Telek R'Mor, agreed to inform Starfleet of Voyager's location in 2371, but passed away in 2367, four years before he would have delivered the crews messages. (VOY: "Eye of the Needle")

A short time later, a future version of Kes arrived on Voyager, with the intent of handing the crew over to the Vidiians. During the ambush Kes helped set up, she was found trying to leave Voyager with her younger self and forced Captain Janeway to kill her. The younger Kes recorded a message to be played at some point in the future to make sure that the incident did not repeat itself. (VOY: "Fury")

In 2373 Voyager was attacked by a 29th century Federation vessel under the command of Captain Braxton. The ensuing battle led Voyager and the time ship to be pulled into the 20th century, with Voyager arriving in orbit of Earth in 1996, and Braxton arriving approximately 30 years earlier. During this time Voyager's EMH acquired a mobile holographic emitter that allowed him to exist in areas he normally couldn't. Another version of Braxton detected Voyager in 1996 and returned them to the 24th century Delta Quadrant. (VOY: "Future's End", "Future's End, Part II")

While testing Voyager's newly completed quantum slipstream drive in 2375, Seven of Nine received a set of phase corrections through her Borg implants. Instead of stabilizing the slipstream, however, they collapsed it. Harry Kim, who was ahead of Voyager in the Delta Flyer mapping the threshold, insisted that he did not send the message. Embedded in the transmission received by Seven was a Starfleet security code belonging to Harry Kim. In it was a message from an older version of himself telling the younger Harry that he had made a mistake 15 years prior that costs the lives of the Voyager crew, and that if he was seeing the message then "all of that has changed." (VOY: "Timeless")

One of the more complex temporal incidents encountered by the Voyager crew came in early 2376. Voyager began experiencing numerous temporal paradoxes throughout the ship, with time passing more quickly in certain areas and slowing down in others. It was estimated that the temporal distortions would destroy the ship in a matter of hours. A few seconds before the explosion, two Starfleet officers from the future recovered Seven of Nine. She had been drafted by Captain Braxton and Lieutenant Ducane of the timeship USS Relativity to prevent the explosion and capture the individual responsible for Voyager's destruction. After traveling through various points in Voyager's history, the culprit was revealed to be a future version of Braxton, intent on taking revenge on Voyager for being responsible for so many temporal incursions that caused the need for him to go into rehabilitation a second time. Although Braxton was captured, several temporal paradoxes were created during the incident, such as Captain Janeway and Tuvok meeting Seven in 2372 instead of 2374. Lieutenant Ducane determined it necessary to "clean up" the timeline, and because Seven of Nine was unable to make any further time jumps without injuring herself, Captain Janeway was enlisted. She successfully captured Braxton seconds after initially setting foot on Voyager, preventing the paradoxes. Afterwords, Ducane decided not to wipe Seven and Janeway's memories of the events, but left them with orders to remember the Temporal Prime Directive and not to discuss the experience with anyone. (VOY: "Relativity")

Later that year, Voyager visited a planet with a tachyon core, causing time to pass faster on the planet than the rest of galaxy. (VOY: "Blink of an Eye")

In 2377, a temporal anomaly was detected. It emitted a surge of temporal energy that split Voyager into multiple time periods throughout the ship. The crew was able to restore Voyager to temporal sync, with only Commander Chakotay retaining memory of the events. (VOY: "Shattered")

[edit] Dealings With the Borg

See also: Borg-Species 8472 War

A Borg skeleton found by Voyager, signaling their proximity to Borg space.

Although the Delta Quadrant remained mostly unexplored by the the later half of the 24th century, one thing that was known about the region was that it was home to the Borg. The Voyager crew knew the day would come when they would come face to face with the Collective.

The first indications that Voyager was approaching Borg space came in 2373, when the remains of a Borg drone were discovered on the Sakari homeworld. A short time later, a derelict Borg cube was discovered adrift in the Nekrit Expanse. (VOY: "Blood Fever", "Unity")

Voyager follows the Borg cube

Voyager finally entered Borg space at the end of the year, however instead of facing assimilation, the crew found themselves on the sidelines of a brutal war between the Collective and an extra-dimensional alien species known only by their Borg designation of Species 8472. After determining that Species 8472 represented a significant threat to all life in the Milky Way Galaxy, Captain Janeway decided to form an alliance with the Borg in order to drive the aliens back into their realm. At the conclusion of the war, the Collective betrayed Voyager and attempted to assimilate the crew through Seven of Nine. Fortunately, the Voyager crew planned for this event and was able to disable the drone. (VOY: "Scorpion", "Scorpion, Part II")

A Borg probe attacks; Voyager defends itself...

The next significant encounter with the Borg came in 2375, during which Voyager was attacked by a small Probe. Captain Janeway intended only to disable the vessel and steal a Transwarp coil, but ended up destroying it by accident when Harry Kim transported a photon torpedo into an area near the power matrix. After analyzing several recovered data nodes, the crew was able to conduct a successful raid of a damaged Borg sphere and get away with a working transwarp coil, although Seven of Nine was captured during the operation. An away team led by Janeway was eventually able to recover her. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

In 2377, the Borg became aware of Unimatrix Zero. The Borg Queen immediately began to research a way to destroy the realm, believing it to be a threat to the Collective. The drones occupying Unimatrix Zero found a way to contact Seven of Nine, who had previously been able to access the region during her time as drone, and through her were able to convince Captain Janeway to assist them. Janeway, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres were inoculated with a neural suppressant and allowed to be physically assimilated in order to plant a virus into the Collective. The virus liberated the drones of Unimatrix Zero from the Hive mind, allowing a resistance movement to form against the Borg. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part II")

[edit] Getting Home

Voyager is escorted home

In 2378, high levels of neutrino emissions consistent with wormholes were detected inside a nebula. Voyager immediately set a course, only to discover it crawling with Borg. Captain Janeway intended to continue the journey home by conventional means, until a future version of the captain from the year 2404 arrived. This Admiral Janeway provided Voyager with advanced weapons and a deployable hull armor that proved highly resistant to Borg weaponry. With this new technology, Voyager returned to the nebula in force. However, upon the discovery of a transwarp hub at the center of the nebula, Captain Janeway withdrew and immediately began plans to destroy it. Admiral Janeway at first objected to this, but a later change of heart encouraged her to cooperate with her younger self. The plan called for Admiral Janeway to be assimilated by the Borg Queen herself. The admiral was carrying a neurolytic pathogen, which immediately infected the Queen and caused her to loose control of the transwarp hub's manifold shielding, allowing Voyager to destroy the hub from the inside. The pathogen continued to spread throughout the Collective, resulting in the destruction of Unimatrix One and the death of the Queen and Admiral Janeway. Unfortunately, a single Borg sphere managed to successfully assimilate the pathogen and intercepted Voyager while traveling through the collapsing hub. After allowing Voyager to be brought inside the Sphere, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok fired a transphasic torpedo, destroying the Sphere as Voyager emerged victorious to a Federation fleet in the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Endgame")

Voyager spent a total of seven years in the Delta Quadrant before returning to Federation space. The original estimate of the time needed for the return trip had been 75 years, but intervention by numerous alien races, spatial anomalies, and the acquisition of new technologies considerably shortened the journey.

[edit] Technical Data

[edit] Overview

With 15 decks, a length of 343 meters, and weighing in at 700,000 metric tons, Voyager was only about half the size of the Galaxy-class starships introduced in the 2350s. However, where the Intrepid-class starship lacked in physical size she made up for with technological advancements. Voyager boasted some of the most advanced sensor equipment in the Federation fleet. She was also the first starship to test the class 9 warp drive and was one of the first starships to be equipped with an EMH. Voyager's speed was equally impressive, with a maximum warp factor of 9.975. Admiral Patterson described Voyager as "quick and smart" during Captain Janeway's initial tour of the vessel. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Phage", "Relativity")

[edit] Weaponry

USS Voyager firing tricobalt devices. These weapons are not normally used on Federation ships.

Voyager carried a total of 13 phaser arrays located at various points on the hull. She was equipped with four torpedo launchers with a compliment of 38 type-6 photon torpedoes, at least four class-10 photon torpedo warheads, two tricobalt devices, and spatial charges. Quantum torpedoes were also compatible with Voyager's launchers, with some modification. (VOY: "Caretaker", "The Cloud", "Dreadnought", "Scorpion", "In the Flesh", and more)

A fifth torpedo tube is seen firing in VOY: "Resolutions", however this is most likely a VFX error as the torpedo tube is in the same position as the aft tractor beam emitter.

[edit] Borg Enhancements

Following Captain Janeway's brief alliance with the Borg from 2373-74, Voyager had acquired a substantial amount of Borg technology. The modifications the Borg made to the power relays on deck 8 were allowed to remain intact after B'Elanna Torres noted that they worked better with the Borg improvements. Additionally, an Astrometrics lab was constructed with Borg-enhanced sensors. A 29th century Borg drone encountered in 2375 was able to further enhance Voyager's defensive systems, albeit in a limited manner, in order to escape from an attacking Borg sphere. Voyager's engines were also compatible with Borg transwarp technology. In 2375 a transwarp coil was used to cut 15 years off of their journey back to Earth. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II", "Year of Hell", "Drone", "Dark Frontier")

[edit] Crew

See also: USS Voyager personnel

Voyager was launched with a crew compliment of 141. Her initial assignment did not call for a counselor to be assigned. Over the course of her journey, Voyager gained crewmembers from species indigenous to the Delta Quadrant, former Borg drones, as well as receiving the five surviving crewmembers from the starship USS Equinox in 2376. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Equinox, Part II", "Collective").

[edit] The Maquis

With the destruction of the Val Jean during their first days in the Delta Quadrant, Starfleet and Maquis crewmembers were forced to merge aboard Voyager. By 2377, about one quarter of Voyager's crew consisted of former Maquis members. Early in the ships journey, Lieutenant Tuvok believed with so many Maquis on board there was a serious risk of mutiny and went so far as to design a holodeck training program to prepare for such an event. Despite Tuvok's concerns, the opposite proved to be the case. The two crews integrated well with few incidents occurring in 2371. In fact it took mind control for the Maquis to finally temporarily mutiny on Voyager. Eventually Captain Janeway stopped thinking of them as "Maquis" and simply as members of her crew. She was offended when Admiral Hayes requested their "status" in 2377. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Worst Case Scenario", "Life Line", "Repression")

Several key positions on Voyager were filled by former Maquis crewmembers, including the position of chief engineer (B'Elanna Torres) and first officer (Chakotay).

[edit] Command crew

[edit] The journey of Voyager

At the beginning of its journey, Voyager was approximately 70,000 light years from Earth. As the Milky Way has a diameter of approximately 100,000 light years, one side of a galactic quadrant equals 50,000 light years. The Sol system including Earth, is about 25,000 light years from the galactic center; thus, we can conclude that the Caretaker's Array and Voyager's starting point was on the far edge of our galaxy. At maximum warp, it was estimated that Voyager would take 75 years to get back to Earth. However, there were various factors which substantially shortened Voyager's stay in the Delta Quadrant:

  • 2374 - Kes uses her new and more powerful psionic abilities to push Voyager 9,500 light years closer to Earth, simultaneously pushing them out of Borg space. (VOY: "The Gift")
  • 2374 - Using the new astrometrics lab, Ensign Harry Kim and Seven of Nine plot a new course to the Alpha Quadrant that takes 5 years off of Voyager's journey. (VOY: "Year of Hell")
  • 2374 - Quantum slipstream drive technology is discovered aboard the USS Dauntless, which brings Voyager 300 light years closer to home. (VOY: "Hope and Fear")
  • 2375 - Within a region of space called The Void, Voyager discovers a wormhole which brings them 2,500 light years closer to Earth, also having the advantage of sending them out of the dark region they had been trapped in for the last few months. (VOY: "Night")
  • 2375 - Voyager attempts to use quantum slipstream drive again. The ship travels 10,000 light years before the slipstream collapses due to intervention from an alternate future. (VOY: "Timeless")
  • 2375 - Voyager raids a Borg sphere and manages to steal a transwarp coil. After using it on a rescue mission in the Delta Flyer, the coil allows the ship to travel 20,000 light years closer to home. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")
  • 2376 - Voyager accidentally enters the Vaadwaur species' underspace corridors, which propel the ship 200 light years from its entry point. The direction, however, was not mentioned, however it is logical to assume it was within the direction of Earth, based on Gedrin's information to Janeway.(VOY: "Dragon's Teeth")
  • 2376 - Voyager uses a graviton catapult designed by an alien called Tash to travel about 3000 light years closer to Earth. (VOY: "The Voyager Conspiracy")
  • 2378 - Grateful for her assistance with his son, Q provides Janeway with a map containing a shortcut to the Alpha Quadrant that would shorten Voyager's journey home by "a few years"; whether they used this route before they managed to reach home wasn't revealed. (VOY: "Q2")
  • 2378 - Voyager concludes its trip home by using the Borg transwarp network to return to the Alpha Quadrant, while destroying it with the help of an alternate future-timeline Admiral Kathryn Janeway. (VOY: "Endgame")

Combining these distances, Voyager was able to cover 48,100 light years in addition to that covered by normal means at warp speed. The distance covered by normal warp drive however, remains unclear, as the position of the transwarp hub was not stated. Furthermore a transwarp conduit allows passage to distant parts of the galaxy within minutes, which makes an estimation difficult.

[edit] First Contacts

See Also: Delta Quadrant species encountered by Voyager.

Voyager made more first contacts than any other Federation starship since the era of James T. Kirk and the original USS Enterprise. (VOY: "Friendship One")

Notable first contacts include:

[edit] Embarked craft

[edit] Voyager references

[edit] Appendices

[edit] Background

  • The first series bible describes Voyager as being "smaller, sleeker and more advanced than the USS Enterprise-D. It holds a crew of some two hundred, and does not have families on board."

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External link

Intrepid-class starships
USS Bellerophon • USS Intrepid • USS Voyager
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