Chapter Text
So, the setting is to be the same, right? USS Voyager, a Maquis Ship whose name is... different, depending on who you talk to (would be part of the lore, rather than communication-breakdown between creators/didnt think to name it/etc). Caretaker, stealing ships, DQ, etc.
Broad strokes... same cast. Mostly. Different utilization though, after the first episode.
So.
Here, the journey home runs from the show's setting of 2371, to a must more distant setting. 2390s - not into the 25th century though.
I see it as three distinct eras, if you will. Early Years, A New Generation and I don't have a name for the third. The Early years, is, well, the Early years in the Delta Quadrant. A New Generation refers to that Naomi and Icheb aren't the only kids on the ship - growing older, and the same of the existing crew, with some role changes going on. The Third is basically 'home stretch'.
Each is separated into not-the-same-size chunks to encapsulate the different "arc enemy".
Kazon, Krenim, Hirogen, Borg (three times but for different specific concepts), The last three have placeholders of the not-enemy.
Each season does NOT equate to a year. For the most part, I'm presuming the use of DITL.org's stardate calculator would be used to map out stardates (to note, each +1 or +0.1 on a stardate is respectively eight hours forty-five minutes thirty-six seconds or fifty-two minutes thirty-three seconds. It also picks up on leap years, which do screw abit with the time. only a few seconds on the +0.1, but on the +1, it's about one minute twenty-eight seconds longer. Yes, this means a full day stretches across multiple stardates, but that's due to 365days=year vs 1000stardates=year.)
In my head, I'd say as a season length, there'd be only a dozen 'episodes' but imply other events between that arent' "important" (since also, removing filler episodes on the plot-of-the-week side.)
So lets go.
The Early Years
2371-2373 - Season 1, State of Flux (Kazon Vol 1) / Season 2, Basics (Kazon Vol 2)
2373-2376 - Season 3, Time and Again (Krenim Vol 1) / Season 4, Non-Sequitur (Krenim Vol 2) / Season 5, Year of Hell (Krenim Vol 3)
2377-2380 - Season 6, Hunters (Hirogen Vol 1) / Season 7, Prey (Hirogen Vol 2)
A New Generation
2380-2382 - Season 9, Child's Play
2382-2386 - Season 10, Unity (Dark Frontier Vol 1) / Season 11, Alliances (Dark Frontier Vol 2) / Season 12, Collective (Dark Frontier Vol 3)
2387-2390 - Season 13, Scorpion (Endgame Vol 1) / Season 14, Imperfection (Endgame Vol 2)
Need a new Era Name... Home Stretch?
2391-2394 - Season 16, Hope and Fear (Pathfinder Vol 1) / Season 17, Shattered (Pathfinder Vol 2)
2394-2396 - Season 18, Dauntless
2397-2399 - Season 19, Once Upon a Time / Season 20, Before and After
So.
The titles are a hint to what they're about. Also, names of actual episodes, so sometimes applicable in tight or loose, or just because the title fits better.
State of Flux is pretty clear to begin with, the overall story for season 1 being a few things that are 'in flux', what's going to happen to the crew, will they integrate or not etc, and also, the canon episode is the one that revealed Seska. I'm imaging this portion of the Kazon Volume is the shorter of the two, about a year, so partly into 2372.
Basics is that the starfleet crew are finally learning the basics of what they should be doing, the mentality they need to actually not just barely survive, but thrive. And in reverse, the Maquis crew finally letting go of any 'vs' thoughts, but most of them aren't ex-starfleet so they're finally learning the basics of what it means to be a ships crew on a starfleet ship, so they're not just passengers paying their way with labour.... Also yes, the episode its pulling from for the title is also the 'how it ends' story, just flipping a few things like Suder survives, no kid subplot, etc. As the longer, this is over a year so it covers 2372 into 2373, but probably before janeway... no definitely prior to Janeway's birthday of that year. so she turns 42 early in, and to approaching nearly 43 (she has a may birthday). Oh and Naomi's born in an episode where voyager doesn't get twinned.
Time and Again I know is a season one episode not involving the krenim, but it is about time mumbojumbo bullshit. So I'm making it that Janeway and Paris both remember, as well as Kes, and only partially because they went through, but a result of coming bullshit echoing back in time. you know. Like Kes' situation from that episode of season 3, that hinted to Year of Hell only to redo the scene with seven in the actual season 4? Anyway this is the one where there's a fair bit of time shenanigans, with long term effects like some people gaining partial immunity to changes in the time stream (so they, you know, 'also' get the new memories) The Krenim aren't actually in this one. I'd say this covers half of, but krenim bullshit means there's temporal issues, so I can have fun 'dating' events as being after other events of the following. Also, non-sequential, so Non-Sequitur occurs chronologically before some events here, but theme-wise split them. anyway starts before janeways birthday in 2373, and properly stretches into 2374 if I just had order of depiction as order of chronology with dating to reflect.
Non-Sequitur also now is the theme - alternates, essentially, as a result of yet more krenim bullshit interacting with said crew's weird kinda-immunity. So this is Kim's double-bill of alternates. Waking up on Earth - you know the actual episode Non-sequitur, and later on revealed that the reason the timeline shifted like that was somehow the krenim of later-on tried to 'erase' his decision to go to voyager. but also the way kim resolved the situation didn't even work - it resolved because they - the krenim - followed up with undoing it by deleting the other posting option - aka they deleted him CHOOSING VOYAGER OVER Earth-assignment, so it was the act of choosing, not the choice itself they deleted, then to undo that, they deleted what the other choice was to get him back and Kim just through it was his own actions. because shits and giggles. but that's not all folks. The BORG show up. Once. and after the fact, the only evidence of it is having a new crewmember in the form of SEVEN OF NINE because fuck I want her on the crew at the same-enough time as canon. A months later, or so, aka mid-2374, not around newyears of 73-74. And she happens to have temporal shielding (and enough of the crew at that point immune-enough to not panic at what otherwise would appear like just suddenly appearing) because of issues that the story is about (and not scorpion 8472 wackiness) that again ties into Krenim b.s. It's new to her though as a result of interacting locutus-like with the crew. it's still same level though as the others who end up with competing memories of 'what happened yesterday'. I'd like to say she's in more than half of the season. So yeah, this is early/mid-2374 through to nearly the end of 2375 (there'd be a skip between this and the following).
Year of Hell but if it was the entire season, like originally pitched. Going from timelines where the Krenim barely interacted with the region they're leaving, to their location being 'approaching the heart of' Krenim territory (if they expanded in the one direction they could: AWAY from the Hirogen and Borg aka in the direction of Kazon space) Note that yes, this means I'm putting Krenim (and hirogen) further away than the Borg. Then all the merry-hell that being at odds causes. The fact that the Krenim sometimes use time weapons mean that some people died... but then a change in the timeline causes them to arrive with wondering why they're missing time from the other timeline they suddenly remember (because their partial immunity means merry hell and PTSD.) It's just a ShitShotPTSDConga for the Crew. Not only that, but some of this is clearly affecting Naomi, who keeps popping in and out of existence, and sometimes even looks different, like different ktarian elements, or even unexpected non-ktarian elements etc. so this is, to the audience the confirmation of WhatTheHellThreeorFourHornsCostumers and also She'sOnlyLikeTwoWhyIsShePlayedByAEightYearOld. Because it DOES, by the end, when all the temporal shenanigans are over, leave her actually older. And year, is correct, this one is fully start-of-to-end-of 2376
Hunters Hirogen time! Except not really. I imagine this one as being 2377-2378 abouts, so a good two years, where they encounter the Hirogen intermittently. "Hirogen Space" is a misnomer - more hunting ground, their own actual space being the systems they colonised (which, they do), and those are even less hunter-heavy on the culture side. they're really not the one-note we got until JGHertzler's Tsunkatse character in season 6 and the technician dude from the hirogenVhologram episode. Anyway, yes, Hunters is also, toward the end, where they encounter a (reasonable) society of Hirogen. So the season title should have a question mark, because 'wait they're not ALL hunters?'. (also editing out that B.S.) Weirdly, this is a breather for the crew because this is the first time since the alpha quadrant that they end up actually able to fix the ship fully, which means that they crack passed 500 ly/y. THroughout, they find out more about the hunter culture, and the non-hunter Hirogen they meet even are amused at the crew who can't really imagine it much - except for that one 'half-warrior-race woman in engineering'. Specifically, this is the season that Voyager is not prey. Also, Message in a Bottle, the network is Hirogen, not hunter, and their access is negotiated and they give Holographic technology. (to a culture that isn't just going to use it to kill fake-prey, but more general entertainment and 'de pron'.) to be clear, the non-hunters are in a reasonably good relationship that Captain 'wont give replicators' Janeway gives them holodeck tech without needing to spend a month or so mind-controlled as a french resistance fighter of world war two. Killing Game does NOT happen.
Prey but becoming prey does! This is shorter, but basically Hunters who don't know about the recently-acquired authorisation to use it. Yeah you know where I'm going with this. it kills the network (but not the stations) as per in the show, so only limited two-way contact with starfleet. It's maybe a year and a half, opening and closing on them becoming and no longer being Prey... but only because they exceed the reach of this particular part of Hirogen "space" (read: hunting ground). Their hunting ground being divided in the middle essentially by what's soon to come. anyway. The Hirogen really tests their ability to adapt - the Kazon just had to be endured, the Krenim worked around, and Hirogen? they had to figure out how to go toe-to-toe because otherwise it would be a matter of attrition and being chased across sector after sector... which it is at points. Consider it... practise.
if you tracked the season numbers, yes there's a jump here, for a between-era-story ... sort of. more of a flashbacky thing. We get to see BIG on a few characters' various pre-DQ history. consider it my version of Mosaic/Pathways. Janeway and Paris - the revelation that they're actually (sort of) childhood friends which was only somewhat implied before. Chakotay's forming the Val Jean crew. Maybe more exploration of the non-seniors, like Ayala. for the framing scenes set in the DQ, it takes place in 2380, maybe over a few weeks.
Okay, I'll call it Pathways. Just no 'prison' thing where they do the great escape thing of slowly chipping away a tunnel into the yard. More like, using 'Night', but just as a 'we're bored, low power so no holodecks' because the shortcut chucked them out into a void sort of area and its a few weeks at warp six, the speed that they get the most efficiency out of the engines, hoping that the low-resolution long range scans are accurate enough that that's how far they've got to go - any further and they will be stranded with no FTL. anyway its basically then like how haunting of deck twelve was a setting for 'lets tell stories'. Not really a 'conflict in current day' just 'lets tell stories'.
Child's Play it's KIDDOS TIME! ... So Naomi, in 2380, would be turning eight, right? except she's a little older, somehow in her teens (result of the mess with the Krenim, and most of the crew kept the memories when the big reset happened) and getting too old for "childs play". See what I did there? Except that episode in the show was about Icheb who isn't here ye... he's here. Azan, Rebi, Mezoti. Baby. THIS IS THE BORG ERA FOLKS! I was going to name this one Collective, but that fit the naming theme for what I term the three "Dark Frontier" seasons, and since this one is basically about the crew count expanding... we start to see evidence that whilst some rumors of who dating who was wrong, some was right. Like Torres and Kim... *cackles* Did you think I'd stick with canon couple of P/T? Nah, I prefer a healthier one! and Kim gets the girl! Voyager really is becoming a Generation ship of sorts, hence the era here, because aside from the Canon kids, the new ones are basically the crew accepting they're in the long long haul. (and if you know your lore, we're already way passed the show's canon year end, and not even encountered the borg properly yet in events that stayed part of the timeline!). So anyway this subtly lays the foundation for the Borg era, on both sides, and the expansion of the count by pregnancies and people joining the crew. And since its from conception to first birthday for the eldest out of the new-by-pregnancy characters, it's across 2380-82. Azan, Rebi and Mezoti don't leave, after this timelines' version of the actual plot of 'childs play' they basically are too worried and, amount of time, too emotionally attached to the Voyagers' pseudo-collective.
Unity is the start of Dark Frontier, aka 'Beware, here be dragons cyborgs.' think of the potential that season 4 could have been without kes' throwing them across borg space. also consider that 8472 aren't in the picture yet. And the episode it's named after, which was symbolic of the show basically saying 'yeah we're getting to that lot, folks!' The idea is that they encounter another stricken borg vessel (having already done so for whom I call 'IMAR' for Icheb, Mezoti, Azan and Rebi. Except this one is basically devoid of all drones. easy pickings, right? Seven thinks so, so she's leading a team to scavenge things (*mickey mouse voice* "Remember this kids, this is a surprise tool that can help us later"). Anyway nearby is, as per the episode, a bunch of people of various races that had been assimilated but seem to have been disconnected from the collective, but are still connected and would like to be fully disconnected, and start a colony. They're not even assholes about it. Everything goes to plan, things are nice, and the crew leave glad to have done a good thing, and after being told, Seven can't help think about her own start on voyager (she wasn't happy and 'wished to return to the collective, but knew being hostile would not be a safe choice.')... two weeks later, they're in battle against the Borg. Christmas, is spent hiding in a nebula making repairs. Unity then covers all of 2383, were the ship is barely able to finish repairs before another borg encounter that sets them back, yet somehow they're not slowed down like they had been by the Kazon. helps that they have the spare parts that said previous experience taught them to have as many of as possible. Basically this season is very Borg-heavy. And the kids are still growing up. Naomi starts running starfleet academy courses, and actually properly Janeways' assistant. Icheb, not far behind (they're both four years older than when he came aboard, afterall.)
Alliances they finally reach a part of space that is lighter on the Borg... because there's various habitable worlds. This is also when Seven (is not forced to) finds the Raven, rather than miraculously right after being freed from the Collective. Surviving in a region where there's lots of borg just looking for a reason to stop outright farming, (they attack enough to make the races develop further, then assimilate that and go for another round), there's plenty of species who are too guarded, but Janeway gets a Federation Boner or something, decides that since these groups didnt work together before (or atleast haven't prior to when Seven was disconnected...), maybe that would help. It's a good year and a half (2384-2385) were it works too, even making use of a certain quadrant-spanning communication network which recently got reactivated in the region since they don't have transwarp drives to run back-and-forth to talk to others they haven't already met. a network that the borg ignore and may not even know about - Seven didn't, and its been there longer than the Borg, who explored a lot in search of things to assimilate, have even been a thing (several thousand vs a few centuries). yeah. this is the 'dark period' (darker than the krenim bullshit and year of hell) so you can guess how well this works... ... it does, off screen, but never on screen, but it features on screen a lot... so... of course we see when it doesn't, rather than when it does.
Collective is where they're getting nearer the 'heart' of borg space. The Alliance has... fallen off, but the borg are suspiciously quietening. Why, there's weeks were they only encounter smaller ships, that they're getting better at defeating 1v1, to the point that they 1v2 and get victory... which is which cinches it for Janeway. something is going on with the b- yes its 8472 but we dont see it yet.. Just the aftermath of the 'opening stages' of the war. We get whispers that a project by the Doctor and Seven is 'needing to be tested'. It goes wrong, a lab explosion... and then suddenly people aboard start connecting to a collective. not the borg collective... Yeah. oops. But when everyone aboard is connected... they're strangely not borg connected like Seven informs everyone at once, no memories are getting shared. it's ... more than instant transmission of thought, command, but not the 'move with one voice' of the hive mind, it's not a hive. And it's gonna take some doing, undoing the whole thing, and the Doctor secretly feels left out. But, Naomi jokes to Seven that 'she feels closer now', able to understand her second mom (because its also a sam/seven pairing story like A Fire of Devotion. just go with it. Seven has been aboard by the start of Collective for over a decade already, eleven years. canon seven tried dating on approaching four years i think it's allowed to fanfic her doing so at least when she became a mom of her own adopted borg kiddies, which was after more than the two-and-a-bit that it was in the show.) So. It ends with the crew in their own Collective... and better able to fight the borg because of it. But...
Scorpion they find out why the Borg stopped their attacks, stopped forcing Voyager to run and hide. There's another species on the Bloc. Species 8472. And it's not even a sort of intelligent species they can communicate with. unlike the show - yeahno that stuff I'm passing over completely. It's very much a 'combine forces with the borg' thing like in Scorpion with less "and later we found out" guilty-tripping, even though the borg totally invited it with opening portals into fluidic space when trying to figure out quicker the transwarp tunneling from the canon show's finale... yeah this is why Scorpion is part 1 of 'Endgame'. anyway, 2387-2388. The alliance between the Borg Collective and the Voyager Collective lasts THAT LONG. Time that someone (doctor) continues to use to his advantage, learning more and more. They even meet the latest manifestation of the Hive Mind in a Singular Body (the queen), who finds the retaining-individual collective of Voyager as 'quaint'. and 'blast from the past' (which gives them an eye as to how the borg even came about.) Scorpion ends with plans for 'if borg betray us' about to be triggered by that the borg have finally gotten their own weapon against 8472 sorted, and learned how to block the formation of 8472's own portals at long-range distances.
Imperfection is like the part two of Scorpion, except the shows' part two of scorpion was the 'and now Seven is aboard voyager as the liaison, rather than just beaming Janeway onto a cube'. this is the 'now the alliance is dissolved, and voyager has TWO enemies to fight'. Here, we start to find out that some of the goodies Seven took from a disabled cube, meant enough tactical and engineering data on borg cube construction to engineer weapons more effective and harder to adapt against... she names them 'transphasic torpedoes' but the kicker, is that the doctor has managed to figure out how to sever their collective link. most everyone wants it gone, and since they know how to make mini-links that are 'switch on for on' rather than the seemingly-permanent always-on it has been since the accident inm 2383... well it's 2389. And seven confirms that... it could even work on the borg. Because the solution is actually one they've sort of had since the borg Kids came aboard: Icheb's bio-engineered pathogen that attacks the collective on a drone-by-drone basis. Problem is, The doctor had to figure out how to stop the Borg from.. well.. 'firewalling' infected ships, meaning it couldn't be a purely physical one, it had to be able to spread through information. And all borg ships happen to be able to near-instantly innoculate borg against dangerous pathogens when the cure is adapted up/assimilated,etc. And since the cube Icheb was on was destroyed before the collective could remote-scan it for what went wrong... Yeah. THIS is the ENDGAME plot thread of 'infect the queen, destroy the borg'. Just without the transwarp hubs - those were destroyed because they were the FIRST places 8472 attacked, since by their nature, couldn't block the portals to fluidic space as modified transwarp conduits. So no time-travelling admiral janeway for this story. and yes. They defeat the borg almost entirely... but also still stuck int he delta quadrant. MUAHAHAHA! Of course it takes them awhile to get into a position, like say, Unimatrix zero one.
Another inter-era partition intermission But don't know what just yet.
Hope and Fear because its such a good episode, but not the Dauntless. (that's for later.) No slipstream, either. Instead Arturis has a different setup, revenge - since they did destroy the borg, but the whole 'working with against 8472' for awhile also made the intergalactic news or something, and becomes this seasons' theme - killing the borg, but also you worked with the borg, were you nuts!? Janeway retires. She was born 2330, so 2391, she's sixty-one. Tom isn't far behind, and Icheb actually shows to be a pretty good pilot. Chakotay dies in his sleep, he was the oldest on the ship behind... Tuvok acquieces to becoming Captain, but makes Harry his first officer. (also no disease thing from endgame. really, wtf show.) Loosing a member of the crew to OLD AGE and that they're still only at the halfway point, just brings up the hope and fear the crew have regarding ever getting home. And... if the Federation will ever know the Borg are gone? Yeah, this is why it's the (first of the) Pathfinder Arc. It ends, toward the end of 2392, on Pathfinder Project on earth... where an Admiral Barclay is giving his orders, and people are wondering why he's targetting a different location from where they're aiming for.
Shattered yes the episode is the instigator for just HOW barclay knows where to target on that day. The information makes it back with the message in a bottle episode back in the hirogen part disguised among messages from the crew. it's the only lead SFC have on Voyager after loosing contact, and its a message that was just coordinates and a date, prefaced with 'pathfinder'. and yes, that episode had chakotay... but he's dead, so, bittersweet when versions of his younger self show up. This is a two year span season that just simply goes into more isolated self-contained stories with the run-through arc of being in communication with Starfleet.
Dauntless is actually a starfleet ship for real. And... TIMELESS happens because of it, as they can't all fit on Dauntless. It even takes a whilst to copy the tech so this is a slightly-more-than-two year span (from mid to mid, hence the three years going just off the year numbers) with a lot more shotcuts, in essence. Also Voyager Conspiracy happens during, (seven induces skitzophrenia through absorbing too much too quickly) . Timeless is toward the end, when they realise it wont work... and then the Dauntless blows up (they save the crew aboard first, luckily).
Once Upon A Time would be a somewhat off-the-world take, Neelix (yes he's still here) telling a new generation of kiddos stories of voyager, almost like he was narrating the above stories when kids ask him to repeat other stories again... and at the end, find out that its 2398, he's been telling these stories for over a year no from 2397, and these are the growing kids born in a baby-boom that happened after the destruction of the Borg. This, from the oldest of the 2380s kids who happens to be the 17-year old child of former-Captain Paris. Kathryn Paris. because its also J/P I forgot to say.
Before And After is... well... Kes is old, As is Neelix - they've both lucked out in that her extended lifespan and therefore, slowed aging, means she's reaching her end in line with Neelix. Their kids are gathered to say goodbye, neither knowing how soon the end is, but wondering how long after they're gone that Voyager would get home. That day. the answer is that day. Also, it's the final time shenanigans story.... Taking the very one from early Voyager, as Kes, in her dying days, experiences seemingly-lucid flashbacks... and we see that it's KES that embedded the information for Pathfinder. Also, Kes who caused a certain lab explosion that created the Voyager Collective. Convinced the Krenim agent who had kidnapped her alongside tom and chakotay to make a particular erasure to 'get him back on voyager were he can mitigate the damage'... I think you get where I'm going here. And then... we see her first day on Voyager. Where she spoke to the then-Captain Janeway, asking her to forgive neelix his dishonesty, but promises that they'll help voyager get home. then flash FORWARD through what we saw, the memories of meeting others like her, who lived with suspiria... she feels she can do it now, as she returns to her proper time. She can do it, it's not like its important that her body cant hanle it...d Just... a little... push...
PHEW. Lets see the reaction to this. please. PLEASE. also, I CANT write this myself to save my life. (Yeah I'm a troll)