Star Trek: Voyager

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Fandom
Name: Star Trek: Voyager
Abbreviation(s): VOY, VGR
Creator: Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor
Date(s): 1995-2001
Medium: Television series
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: IMDB page

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Star Trek: Voyager is the fourth live-action television series set in the Star Trek universe. After three shows focusing on a male captain, Voyager features the first female captain as the main character of a Star Trek franchise. The premise of the series was a return to Star Trek roots after DS9 - ship-based exploration with Voyager being stranded and lost in the unexplored Delta Quadrant. As TNG had already established that the Delta Quadrant was the home of the Borg, Voyager's later seasons added popular character Seven of Nine and delved deeply into the backstory of the cyborg baddies.

It aired for 172 episodes over 7 seasons, between January, 1995 and May, 2001, and was followed by a 'Relaunch' series of novels[1] in June, 2003.

After being widely panned, Ron D. Moore would get fired from the Star Trek franchise after this show and later use his frustrations with the premise to reboot Battlestar Galactica.

Canon

The show follows the adventures of the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager, stranded 70 years from home in the Delta Quadrant, as they meet new species and try to find a way back to the Alpha Quadrant. In the pilot episode, Voyager winds up in the Delta Quadrant while tracking a group of Maquis rebels (a group of renegade Federation citizens), so the Maquis rebels they find are incorporated into the starship's crew. Tensions between the Maquis crew and Starfleet crew feature in early episodes, but this theme is abandoned in later seasons.

Voyager is the first (and only) series in the franchise to feature a female captain as a main character. The fact that the first thing the first female captain does is get lost has resulted in criticism from some fans.

The new setting was designed to allow for the invention of new species, including new enemies like the Kazon (often described as a pale imitation of the more popular Klingons). However, Q and especially the Borg (both from Star Trek: The Next Generation) also appear, and fans have criticized the show for making the Borg less frightening.

Characters

Name Position Loyalty Species
Captain Kathryn Janeway starship captain Starfleet Human
Commander Chakotay first officer Maquis Human
Lt. B'Elanna Torres chief engineer Maquis Human/Klingon
Lt. Commander Tuvok security chief Starfleet Vulcan
Lt. Tom Paris pilot Starfleet/Maquis Human
Ensign Harry Kim operations Starfleet Human
The Doctor chief medical officer Starfleet hologram
Neelix chef private citizen (Delta Quadrant) Talaxian
Kes hydroponics, medical private citizen (Delta Quadrant) Ocampa
Seven of Nine astrometrics private citizen (Alpha Quadrant) Borg (Human)

Fan Reception

Unknown Date

Randall Landers' comments regarding Star Trek: DS9 and Star Trek: Voyager:

Rick Berman and Brannon Braga completely failed with their "vision" for Modern Trek. Next Generation was on auto-pilot when Berman took over, and Deep Space Nine was controlled by Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr. Berman and Braga wrested control of Voyager from Jeri Taylor, and then ruined it (Chakotay/Seven? Puh-leeeez!). And then when they came up with this temporal war nonsense, I was critical from the start. They ruined the Vulcans by turning them into interstellar assholes. As a result, I couldn't stand much of Enterprise. I liked "North Star" and some of the Andorian episodes fairly well, but that was it. By the time they had turned the creative reins over to Manny Coto, it was too late. He tried, and was giving it a valiant effort, and then they came back in, wrote the finale, killing the most popular character, well, it was a giant "fuck you" to the fans, just as the "space nazis" of the Enterprise third season finale (they didn't expect the series to be renewed, so they put out this piece of crap as the finale) and Nemesis had been. Frankly, if they ever let Rick Berman back into the Star Trek studios, it'll all be over for Star Trek. His last ditch film effort was canned, so good riddance!" [2]

1996

Alara Rogers: I think all of us can say this about a show... I was heavily into a *very* primitive show with an incredibly number of scientific idiocies, characters who we never got to see do anything, and all kinds of annoying stuff for seven years, and I still am fond of it. :-)

[R'rain Prior]: All right, I've had enough. I will venture to be the first person to *defend* Voyager on here. Yes, the stories posted here have 10 times as much depth as any of the episodes thus far, but I *will not* give up on the show so long as it entertains me. Yes, they really screwed up Q, but we'll just pretend that the episode existed in an entirely separate reality and leave it at that. I don't think that its sufficient reason to give up on a series that, we must admit, prompted a lot of very, very good fanfic. I, for one, would like to support the series. It's not award-winning drama, but it's some pretty good escapism once a week.
Okay, rant over <smile>
Macedon: Maybe we'll give them some ideas. They can feel free to borrow ol' Nanahboozhoo any time. ;>
Peg Robinson: Mmmm. They might be wise not to attempt it. They can get away with messing up Q (though one would prefer that they didn't)-- they invented him. They mess up Nanahboozhoo, and they might find out how miserable it is to have a Real, Genuine, Accredited Trickster Manitto on their cases. Not a fate I'd wish on anyone... even the PTB. (Most of the time.)
Me, I just wish they'd borrow the idea of treating the characters and the premise as though they were real, and worth investigating a bit more complexly, and sympathetically. It would seem the "logical thing to do", after all........[3]

2000

From a fan in April 2000:

I still like Voyager.

[...]

I'm saying it because I've read one too many "fan" reviews that blister the paint off the ship's walls. I'm saying because I've read one too many "fan" commentaries that call the current executive producer everything but the product of a legal marriage. I'm saying it because I'm tire of seeing the series ripped to shreds by any - and everyone who feels it failed to live up to their personal goals for it.

Which is not to say I like everything TPTB have done lately. There have been times this season (for the mater of that, times in every season except perhaps Season One) where Voyager has made me so mad that the only thing that's kept me from putting a brick through the TV is the replacement cost of the TV. To cite the most obvious example: this hard-fore "relationshipper" doesn't accept that it's somehow "better" for a starship captain to have a relationship with a fictional character than with another person.

[...]

Do I think everyone who watches Voyager should sing its praises? Not at all. I could do with a little more balance in my commentary, that's all. Because, on balance, I have to say it again: I still like Voyager. [4]

2009

A fan's comments 2009 regarding the female characters:

Voyager was a groundbreaking show. The first half of the show's run was shaky, but once 7 of 9 stepped in, the show became truly groundbreaking. In the 7 of 9 era, the characters and roles were slightly reshuffled, until the ship was led by a triumvirate of strong women. In fact, the ship, and the show, were led by the three archetypes of crone, mother, and virgin (that's Janeway, Torres, and 7 of 9 to you.) It took a little while for these roles to shake out, but watching them develop was thrilling. And watching how Voyager took these three archetypes and thoroughly subverted them, was even more thrilling. [5]

Fandom

Much of early Voyager fandom was centered around the alt.startrek.creative (ASC) usegroup and a number of general and pairing specific mailing lists. Much of the fiction produced by these lists were stored at multi-author archives maintained by their members, many of which were lost with the death of Geocities. After the show's conclusion, and the advent of livejournal, many authors migrated there.

Pairings

The fandom was unusual in that it had two main het, slash, and femslash pairings, with fairly amicable relations between different groups of fans (many fans of one pairing were fans of another without perceived conflict).

At least one fan felt there to be more slash stories than other pairings. This opinion that may reflect which communities this fan hung out at, and/or when this fan was active in fandom, which was 2008:

I'd say there's definitely more slash written in the Voyager fandom, though I'm only in that fandom as a reader so I could be wrong. I find it surprising simply because of the opportunity given the fairly equal number of male and female characters and the bent towards het or ship that the show itself had. [6]

Het

The fandom was generally weighted towards the het pairings in terms of sheer popularity, with those stories focused mainly on Janeway/Chakotay (the largest of the het pairings) and Paris/Torres. Others het pairings included Janeway/Paris, Kim/Seven, Doctor/Seven, Doctor/Kes, Kim/Torres and Chakotay/Torres. While the pairing of Chakotay/Seven was reviled by many fans as being introduced towards the very end of the series with no prior buildup, some fans were supporters of this pairing, such as members of csfic list.

Slash and Femslash

Chakotay/Paris, with their enemyslash dynamic, and Paris/Kim slash had a strong following right from the beginning. After Seven of Nine joined the crew, Janeway/Seven became the pairing that heavily drew Xena/Gabrielle writers into the Voyager fandom and Torres/Seven with their more antagonistic relationship followed soon after. Janeway/Torres could also be found, especially in the early days of the fandom.

Endgame, the Final Episode

Voyager's final two-part episode proved to be extremely controversial within the fandom. Not only did it feature time travel and a heavy Borg presence, two story tropes often singled out as being over-used throughout the show's run, but it saw the sudden introduction of a romantic relationship between Seven of Nine and Chakotay which was unexpected for everyone as there was no previous canon interaction that indicated a romantic interest on either side. This extremely jarring development was seen as being little more than a calculated slap in the face of the fans because it badly jossed several popular ships -- which the showrunners had been aware of and had even hinted at in several episodes. Such was the negative reactions to "Endgame" among Janeway/Chakotay shippers that a Die Seven Die! challenge to the Usenet discussion newsgroup Alt.startrek.creative ultimately garnered over 100 responses and spawned a short-lived sub-genre of Seven death fics. Also, The Shipper Boycott of Trek was organized, a group of fans that vowed not to purchase anything Trek-related and voiced their displeasure, via e-mail, to Paramount.[7]

Discontent was so widespread that two separate groups of fans began virtual season projects to provide fans with alternate, more satisfactory endings to the series. One group of respected BNFs decided to collaborate and re-write not just "Endgame", but the entire second half of Voyager's 7th season. The result was the Voyager Virtual Season 7.5 project [8], an acclaimed but ultimately unfinished work spanning three 'seasons'. Another group of fans, led by Executive Producer Thinkey opted to begin their virtual season after the events of "Endgame", and Voyager Virtual Season Eight (VVS8) was launched in June 2001.[9] A second season -- Voyager Virtual Season 9 -- followed, and the combined seasons were known as the Voyager Virtual Season Project (VVSP).[10]

A fan in 2009 commented:

[The last episode] was mostly notable for ticking off every fan who wasn't a fourteen year old boy who was only there to watch Jeri Ryan in a catsuit. Because, instead of providing resolution to any one of three or four possible romantic situations that the writers had been stringing us along for years on, they decided to take two characters with little previous interaction at all and have them tell the fans they meant the world to each other. Which, had they been giving hints or something about it for even a few episodes, would have been functional, if not popular, but as it was, it was clearly an insert to give the pretty blonde in the catsuit a future that included a love life with someone (who wasn't a hologram). So they picked the one guy she had no on-screen chemistry with, who already had plenty of on-screen chemistry with another woman, and gave her to him. Which was very fourteenth century of them. Fandom exploded in righteous indignation. It would have been fun, if it wasn't so depressing. [11]

Distracted Boyfriend Meme illustrating how a large portion of fans felt about the Endgame pairing, with over 2000 notes on Tumblr as of October 2018

A succinct comment from 2009:

I had stopped watching Voyager, but caught the series finale and was hit with surprise Chakotay/Seven. Goddamn I was angry. Seven needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. [12]

A Fan comment in 2018:

No doubt there were a lotta angry J/C and Doc/7 shippers making noise, but this was one that was nearly universally despised by those who otherwise couldn’t have cared less about who got with who because it read as such a cheap angst device for the series finale,[13]

"Endgame" was one of the reasons Orion Press discontinued all of its non-Classic Trek fanzine publishing. From Randall Landers' explanation on the press's webpage:

Why did Orion Press drop all of its non-Classic Trek material from the website?: Answer: This was not an easy decision for me to make, and it hurt a lot of people's feelings, including some very dear friends. Long time readers know that we have published 152 non-Classic Trek fanzines over the years from 1987 until 2001 (that's slightly more than the Classic Trek zines we published, especially if you discount the reprint anthologies). We sold more copies of those 152 non-Classic Trek fanzines on average than our Classic Trek fanzines, got more acclaim and won more awards for them, and were even recognized as THE fanzine source for Next Generation and Voyager zines. But in May 2001, Voyager's producers (Berman and Braga) unleashed the series finale, "Endgame," on fandom, and I sat there, stunned in complete disbelief, at how fans had been crapped upon by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga (something they would do again in the Enterprise series finale and in their last Star Trek film, Nemesis). I made the decision then and there to shut down our non-Classic Trek operations. I gave everyone notice to save their TNG, DS9 and VOY stories to files (many did, many more did not), sent all the TNG, DS9 and VOY zine masters back to their editors (none of them really kept their zines going), and basically I divorced myself from Modern Trek. Oh, it pissed off some friends of mine who felt that I had somehow betrayed them, and while I can't understand that, I do feel for them. None of them really seemed interested in trying to keep their zines going; they had come to rely on Orion Press to publish all their stuff. I, however, decided to not only maintain our Classic Trek website, but to expand it further.[14]

Fanworks

Fan art depicting Capt. Janeway. This art was used in The Cardassian Mask, a fanzine published around 1996. Artist: L.R. Bowen. She writes: Mechanical pencil in various lead weights. For the zine printing itself I toned it in Photoshop.
Art from Warp (Star Trek zine published in Germany) by unknown artist, featuring characters from the early seasons

Fanfiction

For a full listing of Voyager Fanfiction on Fanlore, see Category:Star Trek VOY Fanfiction

An Extensive 2006 Fan/Fic Finder

In 2006, Seperis made a post in hopes of reconnecting past VOY fans with each other. It has 288 replies.

See Where Are They Now? (Dreamwidth); Where Are They Now? (Livejournal).

Vids

Zines

For a full listing of Star Trek: Voyager zines on Fanlore, see: Category:Star Trek VOY Zines

Mailing Lists

Meta

Archives and Websites

For more see:

Category:Star Trek VOY Websites
Category:Star Trek VOY Slash Websites
Category:Star Trek VOY Femslash Websites

1999 Interview with Ron Moore

References

  1. ^ Trek Today article on the Voyager relaunch. Published February 16, 2003
  2. ^ Randall Landers of Orion Press: from Orion Press: Questions and Answers, accessed March 10, 2012
  3. ^ from Alara Rogers and R'rain Prior and Macedon and Peg Robinson at Thank you, Macedon and Peg (Dec 9-12, 1996)
  4. ^ from the editorial by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring in Wayfarers #3
  5. ^ Geek Post: Why Voyager Rocked, Archived version
  6. ^ from a mailing list, quoted anonymously (June 2008)
  7. ^ The Shipper Boycott of Trek webpage, archive link
  8. ^ Virtual Voyager Season 7.5 Project homepage. Accessed Novemeber 2, 2008.
  9. ^ Lisa. Voyager Virtual Season 8 Launches, published on 22 June 2001 at TrekToday. (Accessed 9 March 2011.)
  10. ^ Voyager Virtual Season Project
  11. ^ quinfirefrorefiddle at Major Fannish Moments, July 11, 2009
  12. ^ aethel at Major Fannish Moments, July 15, 2009
  13. ^ Meme comment Mar 2018
  14. ^ Orion Press, accessed 12.7.2010
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