Throughout their successful journey across the Delta Quadrant, Voyager not only recorded
their contact with other species, but also their exploration of stellar phenomenon, such
as a planet once populated by a prewarp civilization that was wiped out by an explosion of polaric
energy.
This event was so devastating it created subspace fractures which were inadvertently used by
Captain Janeway to travel into the past, where she learned it was her crew’s attempt to
rescue her which caused the explosion and so found a way to stop it from occurring and
saved the planet.
When Voyager found a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant, they began to hope it might
take them home.
But they soon learned that it was a temporal micro wormhole which led 20 years into the
past and was too small for their ship.
Though they could not use it to travel, the crew sent messages for Starfleet and their
families through a Romulan contacted on the other side of the wormhole, but he unfortunately
died before they could be relayed.
Continuing on, Voyager was forced to pass through the Nekrit expanse, a region stretching
across thousands of light years but was extremely difficult to chart due to constant plasma
storms, electrodynamic turbulence, Electrokinetic storms and other dangers which threatened
navigational readings.
Passing through the expanse, Voyager went on to find a species who suffered a disaster
after experimenting with Omega Molecules, a highly unstable substance so powerful, 1
molecule had the energy of a warp core, while a chain of them could power an entire civilization.
In the 23rd century, a Starfleet physicist synthesized a molecule which remained stable
for a fraction of a second before it exploded, killing 127 scientists and creating a subspace
rupture over several light years which made it impossible to maintain a stable warp field.
The Borg Collective, a cybernetic species native to the Delta Quadrant, who reproduced
by assimilating other species, were also familiar with Omega, believing it to be the pinnacle
of perfection and lost 29 vessels as well as 600,000 drones in their experiments to
create a single molecule which lasted one-trillionth of a nanosecond before it destabilized.
Though both the species they encountered and the Borg believed Omega should be harnessed,
the captain was duty bound to destroy them because of a standing order from Starfleet
to eliminate it wherever encountered.
While travelling through a largely empty part of space which stretched across 200 light
years, Voyager suffered power failures but were rescued by a Malon freightor who led
them to a spatial vortex which could transfer them to the other side of the region.
Though the crew this place The Void, that was also the name of a spatial anomaly encountered
years later, when Voyager was struck by a massive graviton force transporting them into
a pocket of space roughly 9 light years in circumference with no gases, stars or stellar
phenomenon, separated from the rest of the galaxy by an inert layer of subspace.
The only way in or out of this Void was through one of the funnels which periodically erupted,
bringing in new ships from normal space.
With most believing there was no way to escape, many turned to piracy, surviving by attacking
other ships and taking their supplies.
However Voyager took a cooperative approach, forging an alliance with other vessels and
pooling resources, eventually finding a way to use the opening of a funnel to get them
out.
Among the many new lifeforms they encountered, one of the most interesting was a protoplasmic
beast living in open space, which devoured ships by incapacitating their crews with telepathic
illusions.
When a male named Qatai lost his family to the beast, he dedicated the rest of his life
to hunting it, but was eventually tricked by an illusion and swallowed.
Yet once within, he found the starship Voyager which was recently consumed and worked with
the crew member Seven of Nine to get the beast to expel both ships.
Once free, Qatai again flew towards the beast, continuing the hunt.
During their time trapped in chaotic space, Voyager discovered that it was a region that
intersected the normal spacetime continuum at the eighteenth dimensional gradient and
as a result the laws of physics were in a state of flux, making navigation near impossible.
Fortunately, a species native to Chaotic species contacted Voyager and helped them escape.
Though the Federation crew made a great impact on many during their time in the Delta Quadrant,
their most significant effect on a single species may have been when they found a planet
displaced in time, which rotated 58 times per minute, meaning the native population
experienced roughly one day for every second in normal space.
Unfortunately, Voyager was pulled into its orbit by a gravimetric gradient, resulting
in severe seismic activity on the planet.
The people could also see ship in their sky and it became a central part of their culture,
with some even worshipping it as a god.
In the short amount of time Voyager was present, the population went from stone age tribes
to an advanced space faring civilization, which at last allowed them to visit voyager
and help them leave orbit.
In addition to the new species and stellar phenomenon encountered, the Voyager crew found
a number of connections to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, like a colony of humans whose ancestors
were abducted from Earth in 1937 by the Briori, to be used as slave labor, until they rebelled
and took the planet for themselves.
There was also the advanced species known as the sky spirits who began visiting Earth
roughly 45000 years earlier, inspiring an ancient tribe to migrate south and populate
the Americas.
During a mission to Rakosa V, Voyager was forced to disarm a Dreadnaught missle threatening
to destroy an innocent world, as the weapon had its origins in the Alpha Quadrant, created
by the Maquis as a superweapon to use against the Cardassians.
While investigating a strange power reading among the bronze age civilization of the Takarians,
Voyager found 2 Ferengi from the Alpha Quadrant ruling over the planet.
While attempting to escape from the USS Enterprise, the Ferengi travelled through the Barzan Wormhole
and became trapped in the Delta Quadrant where they found their way to the planet of Takar,
inhabited by a preindustrial civilization with a prophecy that stated 2 great sages
would appear on wings of fire to lead them.
Using this story to their advantage, the Ferengi posed as these mythical figures and convinced
the population by using transporter technology to perform miracles.
Once in charge, they created a financial empire by exploiting their followers, and transformed
Takarian society by extolling the virtues of greed, materialism and the rules of acquisition.
A highly advanced reptilian species who lived aboard an enormous city-ship, the Voth had
a history dating back millions of years when they originated on Earth, evolving from the
Hadrosaur to develop a space faring civilization which left the planet and settled in the Delta
Quadrant.
Yet while some Voth scientists understood and accepted the genetic evidence presented
by their examination of humans, the government denied and censored their work, in favour
of upholding their mythological beliefs that they were the first intelligent species to
evolve in the region and therefore were its rightful rulers.
To the surprise of many, the Voyager crew soon discovered another Starfleet ship in
the Delta Quadrant called the USS Equinox, a short range research vessel transported
from Federation space by the Caretaker in much the same way as the others.
Nowhere near as large, powerful or well armed as Voyager, the Equinox suffered many losses
as they made their way home, losing half their people to the Krowtonan Guard for violating
their space.
By 2375, the Equinox was down to a skeleton crew who largely abandoned the principles
of the Federation, instead doing whatever was necessary to survive.
In their desperation to make it home, they found a way to summon nucleogenic lifeforms
from an extradimentional realm, in order to kill them and use the bodies as fuel to enhance
their warp core, allowing them to travel 10,000 light years in just 2 weeks.
However the alien lifeforms fought back and started killing crew members, leading them
to send out a distress call, answered by Voyager.
Though the reunion of Federation officers was joyous at first, Janeway soon learned
the truth of what they were doing, and they crews turned against each other, resulting
in the death of the Equinox Captain and first officer, while the survivors were stripped
of rank and accepted into Voyager.
Two years later in 2377, they found a Klingon generational ship, populated with the descendants
of a small sect who long ago left the Beta Quadrant on a journey to find the prophesied
kuvah'magh, a savior they believed would lead them to a new homeland.
When they encountered Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, and learned that their chief engineer
B’elanna Torres was a pregnant half Klingon,the captain destroyed his own ship so they could
stay aboard he federation vessel and await the birth of their savior.
The Klingon Captain later revealed he was not really sure if the child was their savior,
but felt their journey had to end, and with the help of Voyager, they settled a new world.
Having a significant impact on many while serving aboard Voyager, B’elanna also spent
time on a pre-industrial world, where her presence inspired a writer to create a series
of plays about the Starfleet crew, which encouraged their local ruler to avoid war and make peace
with his enemies.
Coming across a ruined planet with only a small population of survivors living underground,
Voyager was shocked to learn that the Earth space probe Friendship One, launched in 2067,
ended up crash landing on this world.
The prewarp civilization native to the planet had no knowledge of such technology but were
able to reverse engineer it and start experimenting with anti-matter leading to a terrible disaster
which destroyed them.
Having become famous throughout the Delta Quadrant, a group of con artists began impersonating
the Voyager crew in order to forge fake alliances and extract resources from unsuspecting victims.
When these criminals robbed the Telsians, a group known to be honest and trusting, they
attacked the real Voyager in retaliation, leading the crew to learn about and arrest
the imposters.
Although the information collected by Janeway and her crew became the Federation’s primary
source of knowledge on the Delta Quadrant, one of their many discoveries was that they
were not the first humans in the region or even the first federation ship.
In 2354, the USS Raven followed a borg ship into the delta quadrant trying to study their
behaviour.
Though the family on board was eventually assimilated, the daughter Annika Hanson was
eventually liberated from the borg and became the Voyager crew member seven of nine.
Though they survived hostile encounters, the greatest threat in the Delta Quadrant was
without doubt the Borg Collective, who held vast regions of space and used transwarp hubs
to travel to other parts of the galaxy.
Fortunately Voyager had more opportunities to study them than anyone else in Starfleet,
and so were able to find new ways of upgrading their weapons and shields to deal with the
threat.
For a brief time they even allied with the collective, in order to defeat an even greater
threat posed by the Undine, also known species 8472, who were native to Fluidic Space, another
dimension which was invaded by the Borg, only for them to be quickly overpowered and chased
back into the Delta Quadrant.
Though their hostility with the Borg remained after the war ended, the Undine later made
peace with Voyager and established diplomatic relations.
Although at the time, Voyager believed the Undine to be the larger threat, some saw them
as heroes because they were taking on the hated Borg.
Among these people were species 116, which were all wiped out but for 1 survivor, who
went on a mission of vengeance against Voyager, blaming them for helping the collective win
the war which allowed them to continue assimilating innocent worlds.
The borg also wiped out the Caatati, leaving them with only 27 ships which turned to begging
and piracy in order to survive.
The Brunali people were so traumatized by years of relentless attacks, they started
using their own children as living bombs, altering their genes so that when they were
assimilated they would spread a virus that killed all borg in the area.
In the end it was borg technology and their transwarp hub which allowed Voyager to make
it home, and they even managed to launch a final attack as they passed through, crippling
the collectives ability to communicate with each other and travel great distances.
Although Neelix remained in the Delta Quadrant to serve as a Federation ambassador, it would
be many years before any ship would have a chance to explore this quadrant again, though
the being Q once stated that humans would arrive by the 25th century.