50 Fun Facts About Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager was the first series to air on which new network in January 1995?

UPN, the United Paramount Network, launched on 16 January 1995 with the Voyager pilot as its first broadcast; Paramount commissioned the show partly to anchor the new network.

Voyager is stranded in which quadrant of the galaxy?

The Delta Quadrant, on the far side of the Milky Way from Federation space, is where the Caretaker's array drags the ship; getting home to the Alpha Quadrant drives all seven seasons.

Roughly how far from Earth is Voyager when the Caretaker's wave strands it?

70,000 light-years is the distance the Caretaker's displacement wave throws the ship, to the far side of the galaxy; wormholes, Borg technology and one helpful admiral later shorten the trip.

How long is the journey home projected to take when the ship sets off?

75 years is Janeway's estimate at maximum warp; she strands the crew deliberately, destroying the Caretaker's array so the Kazon cannot use it against the Ocampa.

Which actress plays Captain Kathryn Janeway?

Kate Mulgrew took the role in 1994 after the original choice quit days into shooting the pilot, and she went on to play Janeway for all seven seasons.

Which film actress was originally cast as Janeway but quit after two days of shooting the pilot?

Geneviève Bujold, the Canadian star of Anne of the Thousand Days, had the character renamed Nicole, then walked after two days, unhappy with the punishing television pace.

In early drafts, what was Captain Janeway's first name?

Elizabeth was the name in the earliest drafts, before Kathryn was settled on; the character's given birthplace, Bloomington, Indiana, unveiled a Janeway bust in October 2020.

Which actor plays the Doctor, Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram?

Robert Picardo plays the EMH, whose program wears the face of its creator, Lewis Zimmerman, also played by Picardo, and was only designed for short-term emergency use.

Robert Picardo auditioned for Voyager's Neelix, a part that went to which friend of his?

Ethan Phillips won Neelix and sat through hours of prosthetics for every episode, while Picardo, who had also read for the part, was cast as the hologram instead.

The Doctor's actor won the part by improvising a line riffing on which classic Trek catchphrase?

McCoy's 'I'm a doctor, not a…!' was the model: left alone in sickbay with no lines, Picardo ad-libbed 'I'm a doctor, not a night light' and got the part.

Who plays Seven of Nine, who joined the cast at the start of season four?

Jeri Ryan joined in 1997 as the liberated Borg drone, a role the producers conceived as Data in reverse: a human turned machine rediscovering her humanity.

What was Seven of Nine's human name before the Borg assimilated her?

Annika Hansen was her name; her parents Magnus and Erin Hansen were exobiologists who pursued the Borg aboard the USS Raven, and the episode 'The Raven' revisits their fate.

How old was Seven of Nine when she was assimilated?

Six is her age at assimilation: born in 2350, she was taken with her parents in 2356 and spent eighteen years as a drone before Voyager freed her.

Which two-part episode introduced Seven of Nine and a species from "fluidic space"?

The title comes from the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which Chakotay tells with a fox, warning Janeway against allying with the Borg.

Which enemy, native to fluidic space, is so powerful that Voyager allies with the Borg to fight it?

Species 8472 is the Borg designation; the Borg started the war by invading fluidic space to assimilate their biological technology, and 8472's bio-ships could destroy a cube.

Which Delta Quadrant species harvests organs from other races because of a disease called the Phage?

The Vidiians strip organs from living victims to replace their own, rotted by the Phage; they were invented for the series, as were the Kazon.

Which nomadic hunter race controls the ancient relay network that first lets Voyager contact Starfleet?

The Hirogen hold the relay stations, built by a long-vanished civilisation, and object when Voyager borrows the network to send the Doctor to the Alpha Quadrant.

Which Next Generation character establishes regular contact with Voyager from Earth in 'Pathfinder'?

Barclay's obsession with the lost ship pays off with a communications array and micro-wormhole tech.

Kes belongs to the Ocampa, a telepathic species with a lifespan of how many years?

Nine years is the Ocampan span, which is why Kes ages fast; Jennifer Lien played her until 'The Gift' in season four and returned once, in 'Fury'.

Neelix, the ship's cook and morale officer, belongs to which species?

Neelix is a Talaxian from Rinax, a moon of Talax; his family died in the Haakonian attack there, and in season seven he leaves to join a Talaxian colony.

Which rank does Tuvok reach when Janeway promotes him during the journey?

Lieutenant commander is the rank Janeway gives Tuvok in the season-four episode 'Revulsion'; the Vulcan had earlier infiltrated Chakotay's Maquis ship as a Starfleet spy.

Which actor plays Tom Paris?

The casting notice literally asked for 'a Robert Duncan McNeill type', which his agent spotted.

Robert Duncan McNeill played which disgraced cadet in The Next Generation's 'The First Duty' before Tom Paris?

The producers swapped Locarno for a new character with a near-identical backstory, reportedly to avoid paying royalties to the TNG writers.

Before joining Voyager, Tom Paris was serving time at a Federation penal settlement in which country?

New Zealand hosts the Federation Penal Settlement where Janeway finds Paris in 'Caretaker'; the admiral's son had been cashiered from Starfleet and then caught flying for the Maquis.

Chief engineer B'Elanna Torres is half human and half what?

Klingon is her other half: her mother Miral was Klingon and her father John Torres human; she marries Tom Paris early in season seven and names their daughter Miral.

Which actor plays first officer Chakotay?

Robert Beltran, a Mexican-American stage actor, plays Chakotay; he knew little about Star Trek when he auditioned and simply liked the 'Caretaker' script his agent sent over.

Ensign Harry Kim, played by Garrett Wang, holds which post aboard the ship?

Operations officer is Kim's post, running the ops station on the bridge; fresh from the Academy in the pilot, he is still an ensign when the ship gets home.

Which crew member has a child, Naomi, the first baby born aboard Voyager?

Samantha Wildman, a xenobiologist, gives birth to Naomi in season two; half Ktarian, Naomi grows up fast, makes Neelix her godfather and befriends Seven of Nine.

Which former Borg child chooses to stay aboard Voyager after being rescued from a malfunctioning cube?

The other three eventually find adoptive homes; Icheb's fate years later became one of Star Trek: Picard's most controversial scenes.

In which Voyager episode, often called Star Trek's worst, does Paris break warp 10 and turn into a salamander?

'Threshold' is the episode: Janeway ends up mutated too, the pair spawn amphibian offspring the crew leaves on a planet, and it still won a 1996 Emmy for makeup.

What is the being called when Tuvok and Neelix are merged in a transporter accident?

Tuvix, played by guest star Tom Wright, is the merged being; Janeway's decision to split him back into Tuvok and Neelix became one of Star Trek's most debated choices.

Which That '70s Show actor guest-starred as timeline-rewriter Annorax in 'Year of Hell'?

Kurtwood Smith, Red Forman on That '70s Show, played Annorax; the Year of Hell had been foreshadowed a season earlier in 'Before and After', and the reset button undoes it all.

Which Voyager cast member directed 'Living Witness', where a backup Doctor is reactivated 700 years later?

Tim Russ, Tuvok himself, directed 'Living Witness', a regularly top-ranked hour about historical revisionism; its ending is the last we see of that backup Doctor.

Which TNG star directed the 100th episode, 'Timeless', and cameoed as Geordi La Forge?

LeVar Burton directed 'Timeless' and appears as Captain Geordi La Forge of the USS Challenger; the episode opens with Voyager buried under ice in a doomed timeline.

Tom Paris's black-and-white holodeck serial, the setting of 'Bride of Chaotica!', is called what?

Captain Proton is the Flash Gordon-style serial Paris runs on the holodeck; a small fire on the bridge set during 'Bride of Chaotica!' forced scenes to be rewritten.

In 'Message in a Bottle', the Doctor is transmitted to the Alpha Quadrant and lands on which new Starfleet ship?

USS Prometheus, an experimental warship with multi-vector assault mode, is where the Doctor materialises, finding it hijacked by Romulans; with its EMH Mark II he retakes the ship.

What is the Borg-enhanced shuttle, introduced in 'Extreme Risk', that replaced Voyager's standard shuttlecraft?

The Delta Flyer, built by the crew in 'Extreme Risk' with Borg-inspired systems, could even submerge, diving into an ocean world in 'Thirty Days'.

In the finale, Admiral Janeway travels back in time from which year to get the ship home sooner?

2404 is the year Admiral Janeway leaves: in her timeline the ship took 23 years to get home, Seven of Nine died and Tuvok's mind failed, a history she chooses to break.

What is the title of the two-hour series finale?

'Endgame' aired on 23 May 2001; the crew destroys a Borg transwarp hub on the way, and Torres gives birth as the ship bursts out of the conduit near Earth.

Voyager was the first Star Trek series to do what for its exterior space shots?

Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for the CGI title sequence, though weekly episodes still used miniatures until midway through season three.

Which composer wrote the show's Emmy-winning main theme, rather than reusing his Motion Picture music?

Jerry Goldsmith composed the theme, which won the 1995 Emmy for main title music; unlike The Next Generation, Voyager did not recycle his Motion Picture march.

Roughly how many US viewers watched the two-hour pilot 'Caretaker' in January 1995?

21 million US viewers saw 'Caretaker' on 16 January 1995, the biggest audience the series ever drew, and the pilot was one of the most expensive yet made.

How many days did the pilot 'Caretaker' take to shoot?

31 shooting days went into 'Caretaker', against about seven for a regular episode, filming from 7 a.m. on the Paramount stages The Next Generation had used.

How many episodes of Voyager were made across its seven seasons?

172 episodes is the total over seven seasons, from 'Caretaker' in January 1995 to the finale in May 2001, counting each feature-length instalment as two.

USS Voyager, registry NCC-74656, belongs to which starship class?

Intrepid class is Voyager's type; its variable-geometry warp nacelles let it exceed warp 5 without damaging subspace, the problem raised in TNG's 'Force of Nature'.

Voyager's sickbay set became which ship's sickbay in First Contact and Insurrection?

The Enterprise-E's sickbay in First Contact and Insurrection was Voyager's sickbay set redressed, as was its engineering set in First Contact; Voyager's exterior also played her sister ship, the Bellerophon, on DS9.

Which astronaut tweeted Janeway's 'There's coffee in that nebula' from the ISS in 2015?

Samantha Cristoforetti, the Italian ESA astronaut, tweeted the line as a Dragon cargo craft arrived with the ISSpresso machine in April 2015, posing in a Starfleet uniform.

In which animated series does Janeway return, first as a hologram and later commanding the USS Dauntless?

Star Trek: Prodigy, the animated series that began in 2021, has hologram Janeway mentor the Protostar's young crew while Vice Admiral Janeway hunts the missing ship, once captained by Chakotay.

How much did the 2021 Indiegogo campaign for the documentary 'To the Journey' raise?

Over $1.2 million came in from fans for 'To the Journey', making it Indiegogo's most-funded documentary; 455 Films had earlier made the DS9 film What We Left Behind.

Which 2000 first-person shooter, built on the Quake III engine, is set aboard Voyager?

Elite Force, Raven Software's 2000 shooter on the Quake III engine, puts players in the Hazard Team aboard Voyager; a sequel, Elite Force II, followed in 2003.