TrekWI: Voyager, with Ron Moore as Executive Producer

The team of Berman and Braga has been criticized for the downfall of Star Trek, replacing a vibrant creative staff with mediocrity and failing to explore the potential in the concepts for Voyager and Enterprise, with all the problems therein. Not only did they fail to explore creative, unique areas to the stories and characters. They turned down, if not were offended by people who were critical of their direction, and who offered these ideas.

One of those people was Ronald D. Moore. Moore continued on to the early seasons of Voyager, despite wanting to leave. However, Moore stayed on in a move he later regretted. His proposal for the show, and what he had been promised, was something where they were forced to survive far from the comfort of home, and it was going to be a struggle, and not the same prim and proper Starfleet.

"Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and [scenic illustrator, technical consultant Rick] Sternbach and [scenic art supervisor, technical consultant Michael] Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn’t going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn’t going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at all, and it’s a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. VOYAGER is not true."

Moore was annoyed with the writing and creative culture by the time of Voyager. If I remember the quote correctly, and if it came from him, he criticized Berman and Braga for being the problem, and keeping the show going more for their own personal ego than for story. He felt that the Voyager should evolve into something where the ship and every deck evolved into it's own culture, which was an idea that was shot down. The interesting thing is that Moore seems to have taken all these ideas and frustrations, and used them to create his Battlestar Galactica reboot.

What if Ron Moore had actually been an Executive Producer on Star Trek: Voyager? Much in the vein of Ira Steven Behr on Deep Space Nine, he could create a unique vision and explore the setting and characters.
 
The general premise of ST:Voyager was a very unique one; and had it seen competent producers and writers, the series wouldn't have tanked the franchise the way it did.

With Ronald D. Moore as the Executive Producer and writer of ST:Voyager, the series would certainly have been much darker, much more intricate in the interpersonal relations of the characters. What was created in the end was a farce, just another shiny bling-bling happy-world TV show where everything is wonderful and Starfleet always holds the moral high ground.

Only very rarely had there been interesting episodes. The Equinox arc comes to mind, or "Course: Oblivion" for example. The Krenim arc was fairly enjoyable as well, albeit it too carried a lot of moral high ground gobbledygook.

To cover up for the lack of character development and story depth, they inserted an amount of technobabble that was never seen or heard before on any other Star Trek series; with Ronald D. Moore at the helm, I assume this would never had happened either.
 
What if Ron Moore had actually been an Executive Producer on Star Trek: Voyager? Much in the vein of Ira Steven Behr on Deep Space Nine, he could create a unique vision and explore the setting and characters.

There's a couple roadblocks to that. First, you need to deep-six Rick Berman. That only happened very belatedly OTL, and even then he was still a big fish in the franchise until it the Next Generation Era finally died and gave way to NuTrek. Second, Voyager was largely built with the idea of running away from the conflict of the DS9 model. DS9 did poorly in focus groups of Star Trek fans, so they made Voyager conflict-free. Hell, VOY even carried on the episode production numbering of TNG.

Basically, short of Berman getting hit by a car, you're going to need to do something to DS9 in order to get the VOY you're aiming for. Like, DS9 is either never made or it's somehow a bigger ratings success. You could also toss in having the TNG movie franchise fail somehow, making the suits more desperate to get back their golden goose somehow.

Alternatively, you have Moore take over Voyager midway through its run, and he performs a soft reboot on its later seasons to address his personal bugbears with the premise. "How" is still an issue.
 
Alternatively, you have Moore take over Voyager midway through its run, and he performs a soft reboot on its later seasons to address his personal bugbears with the premise. "How" is still an issue.

It's simple. We kill the Janeway.
 
Let's also remember that UPN isn't going to want a dark, continuity-building show - they want something like TNG because that made ££££££s and is still a recent, popular hit. Moore would never get everything he envisioned through. (DS9 did but DS9 isn't tied to a single network, IIRC) UPN knew what they wanted.

So you'll get a Voyager that's more challenging and inventive and dark-ish and all that, but only to a certain extent. Enough of one for fans to go "WHOA THIS IS COOL" but never the full Galactica. (okay, mystical guff about Sexy Mystic-Talking Entities would probably go in.)
 
Some pod's
Rick Berman rise in paramount hierarchy to high and can't return to TV Producer role in 1986/87
or in 1987, Roddenberry selected someone else as Co-producer of STNG like Robert "Bob" Justman or Michael Piller
here Ronald D. Moore join the Producers and take over as Roddenberry's health declined

We have still DS9 but allot altert to OTL and STY that's more "Battlestar Galactica" mindset and Characters in struggle with Starflleet ethics and struggle to survival.
It would have shock allot Treckies to see A Starfleet Captain violate regular the Prime directive in order to keep the Ship and crew alive.
like offer there service as mercenary

Alternative the Paramount pull the Plug out STY and fire Berman after THIS TV Pilot
that Rick Berman original choice Geneviève Bujold as Captain Nicole Janeway...
 
Alternative the Paramount pull the Plug out STY and fire Berman after THIS TV Pilot
that Rick Berman original choice Geneviève Bujold as Captain Nicole Janeway...

Oh dear... I would never have thought there could have been a worse casting choice for Captain Janeway, but apparently there was.
 
Let's also remember that UPN isn't going to want a dark, continuity-building show - they want something like TNG because that made ££££££s and is still a recent, popular hit. Moore would never get everything he envisioned through. (DS9 did but DS9 isn't tied to a single network, IIRC) UPN knew what they wanted.

So you'll get a Voyager that's more challenging and inventive and dark-ish and all that, but only to a certain extent. Enough of one for fans to go "WHOA THIS IS COOL" but never the full Galactica. (okay, mystical guff about Sexy Mystic-Talking Entities would probably go in.)

That argument has been made before, by Berman and Braga as a matter of fact. But the thing is, UPN actually did not give that much in the way of directives, and did not have any draconian dictate that strangled the franchise. They'd say a few things they wanted, and then let the show go forward. The failings were Berman and Braga. They did not have the mean old network breathing down their necks, as they pretend. They did largely what they wanted to do. They tried to make this argument with why Enterprise was bad as well. And again, UPN gave very loose directives of a few things they wanted, the most of which was that Braga could not have the first season set only on earth with the ship in spacedock.

The only thing you would see directed from UPN is maybe Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson getting a show because of the WWE being on the network. And I think even that was Berman's partial doing as a way of getting more fans. Other than that, VOY and ENT were the shows as made and directed by Berman and Braga. They act like executives were on set and yelling at them and the show was killed by anyone and anything but them. Bologna. Berman was always a suite who had no real interest in Star Trek other than a job. Braga was a writer who had exhausted himself, and failed to realize it. The creative team of the TNG and DS9 eras had left. Especially Michael Pillar, who was so critical to TNG becoming what it did around season 3. New blood was not properly brought on. Interesting ideas were discouraged. Terrible decisions were made. And Berman and Braga were sensitive to criticism, and developed egos that were too large. And all these decisions had their names on them.

People keep focusing on Berman. I'm the opposite. Remove Braga. Michael Pillar and Ira Steven Behr worked with Berman fine. Braga did not.
 
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UPN actually did not give that much in the way of directives, and did not have any draconian dictate that strangled the franchise.

They didn't give much in the way of directives when Voyager as-is exists, but we're talking about Moore doing a very different type of show for their flagship. They're going to have dictates then, ones fans may later see as draconian but a mid-90s big network would see as reasonable. Like, "no you can't do that long a story arc, audiences will start to lose interest" or, to go back to BSG, "no your male secondary lead in the space show can't blow up a plane that's probably got hundreds of civilians in it, why would you think we'd allow that Ron". His Voyager would be very different - and better - to what we got but we're not getting an early Battlestar Galactica, we'll be getting what he can get past UPN.
 
What could be done is have Janeway and crew encourage the different races to talk to each other, essentially forming a proto-Federation as they travel. Have Voyager trade its navigational data to different planets in exchange for resources, encourage the other races to use Voyager as a neutral ground to try to end wars, to encourage the other races to talk to each other, aso.

You could even have a quote like:
Alien Ambassador: "Do you seriously expect us to make peace with our enemies? We have been fighting them for over a hundred years and many families have taken blood feuds against them."
Janeway: "Your counterpart asked me the same thing. My answer to them was 'No. I expect that ending that war will take many more meetings, for many decades to come. But for this meeting on this ship, for the next few hours, both of you have agreed not to fight. If you want to fight after we leave, that is your choice. But perhaps, you both can continue to not fight.'"

Another example would be Voyager trading antimatter waste reprocessing services to the Malon, in exchange for resources. Similar to the offer to the one Malon captain (who turned down the offer as it would drive him out of a job), but slowly offering the technology to the whole. (Plus that Captain should have agreed to the technology, then on his ship he would decide to not share it. It would make him more profit that way.)


One good Voyager episode (too far to the end though), is The Void. The basic premise of the episode is that Voyager is snatched away and put into a void where there are no resources to draw upon, other ships there are mainly hostile (and will steal Voyager's resources), and the only way to get 'home' safely is to form a friendship with other races and work together.
 
Yes, The Void is probably what a good Voyager would look like. SFDebris noted that The Void was one of the very few times that Voyager actually capitalised on its premise.
 
Yeah, most of the series should be like "The Void". The crew should be tired, with regular conflict, and desperate for the first season or so, but afterwards they should start to move and progress--building a coalition of low-tech species and helping them buff up to fight local nasties like the Kazon (who should either be genuinely competent or have some sort of powerful backer) and eventually the Borg. Any and all contact with the Borg should be unintentional and involve running like hell trying to survive. Species 8472 should be number 1 on Janeway's potential allies list.

Also, space Neelix and replace him with a character like space Captain Ahab from that telepathic space pitcher plant episode.
 
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