Star Trek Ships Of The Line-USS Voyager NCC-74656

Belonging to the United Federation of Planets and operated by Starfleet, the USS Voyager is a famous vessel once commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway that is best known for its unscheduled seven year journey through the Delta Quadrant, the first expedition of that region undertaken by the Federation and Starfleet.

Noted Crew Members

The USS Voyager crew is held in high regard by Starfleet and the Federation and included:

• Captain Kathryn Janeway
• Security Chief Tuvok
• First Officer Chakotay
• Operations Officer Harry Kim
• Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres
• Flight Control Officer Tom Paris
• Astrometrics – Seven of Nine
• Chief Medical Officer – The Doctor (Hologram)
• Science Officer Samantha Wildman
• Morale Officer, Chef and Ambassador Neelix
• Nurse Kes

Construction

One of the earliest of the Intrepid-class starships produced by the Federation, USS Voyager NCC-74656 was built at the Mars-orbiting Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. With 15-decks, 257 rooms,the 700,000-metric-ton Voyager was the first Starfleet ship to include many technological advances that had only become available during the 2370s such as the Emergency Medical Holographic {Program, Variable Geometry Warp Nacelles, and Bio-Neural Circuitry to name a few.

With a length of 343 meters, a crew complement capacity of approximately 160, Voyager was only about half the size of the Galaxy-class starships (introduced in the 2350s). However, what the Intrepid-class starship lacked in physical size she made up for with technological advancements: Voyager was equipped with some of the most advanced sensor equipment in the Federation fleet and was capable of reaching a sustainable cruise velocity of warp factor 9.975. It was also equipped with bio-neural circuitry that contained gel-packs with bio-neural cells that organized information more efficiently and sped up response time. Its computer processor was capable of simultaneous access to 47 million data channels, transluminal processing at 575 trillion calculations per nanosecond.

The ship's motto engraved on its dedication plaque, is a quote from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "For I dipt in to the future, far as human eye could see; Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.”

Notably, the starship was the first to undergo tests with the new Class 9 Warp Drive through deep space. Although Q thought the highly decorated William Thomas “Will” Riker would be assigned to Voyager, it was Captain Kathryn Janeway who was given the commanding position.

Maiden Voyage and First Mission

After it was launched, Captain Janeway was at the helm for the USS Voyager’s first mission. The second officer and chief of security for Janeway, Lieutenant Tuvok had been on a mission to infiltrate the Val Jean, a Maquis starship captained by Chakotay, a former and very bitter Starfleet officer. Tuvok and the ship disappeared somewhere in the Badlands and the Voyager crew was tasked with locating and capturing it.

After recruiting Tom Paris, another former Starfleet officer who had knowledge of the Maquis and the Badlands, the ship entered the Badlands only to be thrown 70,000 light-years into the region of space known as the Delta Quadrant, where the Val Jean was found.

The Caretaker, Nacenes, Ocampa, and Kazon-Ogla

It was during that first unscheduled mission that the crew met an entity simply known as the Caretaker. He was a Nacene, a race of sporocystian lifeforms, and was looking for a suitable mate so he could reproduce and continue his dedicated work of looking after another species known as the Ocampa. When Tuvok and the Maquis ship had arrived in the Delta Quadrant it transpires that the Caretaker had abducted the crew to perform painful medical examinations for three days to assess their compatibility and suitability as mates.

The reason he felt so obligated to care for the Ocampa was that many years before, his people inadvertently destroyed the atmosphere of the Ocampa’s planet, forcing them to move underground. As a way of trying to make amends, the Caretaker provided safe living areas for them and provided everything they needed.

When he was unable to find a suitable match from any of the crew members of the two ships, he sent them back to their ships. However, as a result of the testing, Harry Kim and B’Elanna Torres became sick and the Caretaker sent them to the Ocampa planet to be looked after.

That is when Chakotay and Janeway teamed up to find the crew and try and get home to the Alpha Quadrant.

Once the crew found the Caretaker, they discovered that his health was deteriorating meaning he was not able to send the starships home. After he died, Tuvok suggested that he would be able to operate the system to send Voyager back. They decided against it as it would mean leaving advanced technology in the hands of the Kazon-Olga people, who would have used it nefariously against the Ocampa.

Janeway decided to have the Caretaker’s equipment and tech destroyed. Following a battle against the Kazon, the Val Jean was destroyed, both the Maquis and Starfleet crew joined together for the 75-year journey home.

The Ship’s Dealings with Time Travel

Throughout it’s journey home, The USS Voyager built a reputation for itself as being involved in temporal events. For instance, the ship became trapped in a quantum singularity in 2371, while it was answering another ship’s distress call. Curiously, the distress beacon was sent out by Voyager, and its crew was trying to save a “reflection of the crew that was time-delayed.

At a later point in the same year, they found a wormhole that leads homewards to Alpha Quadrant. Even though it was discovered the wormhole was decaying and unsafe to travel through, Voyager was able to contact a Romulan ship on the other side. They were able to transport that ships captain, Telek R’Mor to Voyager. Soon after it was learned that the Alpha Quadrant side of the wormhole was 20 years in the past. The crew made an agreement for Telek to tell Starfleet where they were in 2371. However, he died in 2367, 4 years before he was able to deliver the message.

Cases of Doppelgangers

There were two interesting cases where the crew of the Voyager was duplicated. The first incident occurred in 2372 while the ship headed through a plasma shift to avoid traveling through territory owned by the Vidiian. Although they successfully avoided the Vidiian airspace, on its exit from the plasma shift, multiple proton bursts were fired at the starship. As well as causing heavy damage, it also resulted in Ensign Kim and Samantha Wildman’s baby to die.

The proton shots were actually from a duplicate Voyager stuck in the same point in time and space due to spatial scission. The same antimatter reserves were being used by both ships, meaning both ships couldn't exist. In the end, the second Voyager was destroyed, when the self-destruct was initiated when Vidiians attacked the ship. Just before that, though, the doppelganger versions of Harry Kim and Samantha Wildman’s baby made it onto the remaining Voyager.

Another instance involving doppelgangers was when Silver Blood, a bio-mimetic lifeform, was found by the Voyager crew on a Y-Class planet while they searched for deuterium sources. The Silver Blood first duplicated Harry Kim and Tom Paris, and once the crew discovered that it was a sentient lifeform, they offered their DNA so that the Silver Blood could duplicate them in exchange for deuterium and free passage of Voyager.

In 2378, high levels of neutrino emissions consistent with wormholes were detected inside a nebula. Voyager immediately set a course, only to discover it overrun 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 (transphasic torpedoes) and ablative generators that proved highly resistant to Borg weaponry.

With the new technology installed in the ship,Voyager returned to the nebula. However, after discovering a Borg 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 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 lose 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 01 and the death of the Queen and Admiral Janeway. Unfortunately, a single Borg sphere that was still in contact with the Borg Queen before her death intercepted Voyager while traveling through the collapsing hub. After allowing Voyager to be brought inside the sphere, Tuvok fired a transphasic torpedo, destroying the sphere as Voyager emerged victorious in front of a fleet of Federation ships in the Alpha Quadrant less than a light year from Earth.

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

During its journey back home, Voyager made more first contacts than any other Federation starship since the era of James T. Kirk and the original USS Enterprise.