The USS Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, and all the information it brought with it, was a major benefit to Starfleet and the Federation for when it came to understanding the Delta Quadrant and the species that lived there,
so naturally they had to go back, right… right?
Welcome to Trek Central, my name is Captain Jack and today we’re exploring the events and characters surrounding Starfleet’s mysterious Project Full Circle.
The novel, Full Circle, by Kirsten Beyer is the first in a running series of 10 books from the same author chronicling the adventures of the Project Full Circle fleet.
Full Circle was an initiative sponsored by Starfleet to send an exploration fleet mission back to the Delta Quadrant.
The kickoff novel takes place after the events of the Star Trek: Destiny series, and exists in that continuity.
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It took 7 years and the intervention of a time-travelling Admiral from the future to finally get the U.S.S. Voyager home from its unintentional banishment to the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant.
Over the course of that seven years, the Intrepid-class ship and her crew picked up new information, techniques and technologies that didn’t exactly come stock on the ship when it launched.
Starfleet, it turns out, was very interested in unpacking every aspect of Voyager’s ordeal.
So much so that they gave the endeavour a name, Project Full Circle, and assigned a Captain to lead the team.
Next on the agenda for the Project was to break Voyager back down to its original design, removing all traces of new technology,
including the futuristic modifications made to the ship by Admiral Janeway as well as the Borg Technology added in the final days of the journey.
The idea was to put Voyager back into service as a standard Intrepid-class ship.
In the background of all of this, the powers that be were planning another phase of the Project that would send Voyager, and a small number of specialized ships,
back to the Delta Quadrant to expand on the work that the crew started during their time there, and to answer an important question: Are the Borg really gone?
Now might be a good time to provide a little bit of context.
The Full Circle novels exist in the Star Trek: Litverse, a Continuity in trek which includes the shows before 2005 and many books, including the Destiny series of novels,
which revolved around a race of people known as the Caeliar and a massive Borg invasion that crippled the Alpha Quadrant.
At the end of those novels - Spoiler Alert - The Borg are absorbed by the Caeliar, who then split town, leaving the Alpha Quadrant to lick its wounds and recover from the devastating Borg Invasion of 2381 t
that successfully and tragically i might add, crippled many Alpha Quadrant powers.
In 2381, when the Full Circle fleet leaves to explore Borg space: Admiral Janeway is dead, Chakotay - who was in a relationship with her before her death - is the Captain of Voyager,
Tom Paris is Chakotay’s first officer, Harry Kim is a Lieutenant, finally getting that well deserved promotion.
B'elanna and her daughter Miral have faked their own deaths and fled to the Delta Quadrant, Tuvok is serving aboard the USSTitan under Captain William Riker,
Seven of Nine is taking care of her dying aunt, and The Doctor is The Doctor.
As the fleet takes shape it is revealed that neither Chakotay, nor Seven of Nine will be making the journey.
The expedition is led by Admiral Willem Batiste and the newly minted Captain of Voyager, Captain Afsarah Eden.
The fleet itself consists of three main ships: Voyager and two Vesta-class starships. Each of those three ships was given its own dedicated science vessel for support.
Rounding the fleet out at nine ships are three more specialized vessels that serve to support medical, engineering and agricultural functions.
Things are going to be a little bit easier than they were for Voyager during her original trip to the Quadrant. Slipstream drives, for instance, make it much easier to travel between Alpha and Delta Quadrants.
If necessary, and it does become necessary, slipstream-capable ships can replenish the crews, supplies or even whole ships within the fleet.
A set of communication relays, strategically placed during the trip, allow for much better and faster communication than in the previous trip.Support and Supply ships make the fleet less vulnerable as well.
So let’s take a look at some of what the fleet managed to accomplish, and the effect it had on some of the characters that we got to know and love over Voyager’s seven year TV run:
When the fleet reaches its destination in the Delta Quadrant, they come immediately upon the supposed-to-be-dead B’Elanna Torres and Miral and save them from an attack by a completely unknown ship that looks suspiciously like, but isn’t, a Borg cube.
At the same time, Captain Chakotay, Seven of Nine and Icheb have reconsidered staying behind and set out to join the Fleet in the Delta Quadrant.
The fleet isn’t in the Delta Quadrant for very long before they run afoul of Species 8472.
As it turns out, Admiral Batiste - the commander of the fleet - is actually a sleeper agent for Species 8472.
Chakotay once again contacts the 8472 that was posing as Valerie Archer in Voyager’s last encounter with the shapeshifting species.
A deal is eventually reached that sees the fleet leave the traitorous Admiral behind. Captain Eden takes command of the Fleet.
Upon her decision to remain onboard Voyager, B’Elanna Torres is promoted to Chief Engineer of the Fleet.
The USS Planck is the first Full Circle Fleet ship destroyed when they are caught in a confrontation with a mysterious - and powerful - species known as The Children of the Storm.
Captain Eden reveals that she is not sure of her origins, but is having visions that tell her she is getting closer.
Elsewhere, as the fleet continues to explore former Borg space, Q Junior - with help - manages to resurrect Admiral Janeway, who was busy being very dead.
At the same time, within the fleet, a large anomaly is discovered that turns out to be something known as the Omega Continuum,
an opposite to the Q Continuum, and home to the Omega Molecule - one of the most destructive forces in the known universe.
Captain Eden, it turns out, is actually a being born from the Omega Continuum. When the Q -who are the enemies of the Omega Continuum - show up to confront Eden.
The fleet commander overpowers them and tries to take them into the anomaly, which would annihilate the Q.
Instead, though, Q Junior manages to convince the Omega Continuum to take him instead and he sacrifices himself to save the rest of this people, as well as the Full Circle Fleet.
The newly resurrected Vice Admiral Janeway is sent back to Earth for an assessment before being installed as the new commander of the Full Circle Fleet.
The fleet also makes contact with a large confederation of planets known as The Confederacy of the First Quadrant.
This group consisted of 53 member worlds, and could easily pose a threat to the Federation, should it come to that..
When the Vice Admiral returns to the fleet - and to Voyager - she is tasked with opening diplomatic talks with the Confederacy.
The more the crew learns about their potential allies, though, the more holes they see in their morality and history.
For example, things like medical care and food security are not guaranteed to the Confederacy’s people.
The poor, and those not conforming to the state’s expectations are left to suffer and starve.
Obviously going against the closest-held Federation values that all citizens enjoy. At the same time though, an alien alliance known as the Kinara attack and force the Fleet to work with the Confederacy.
After negotiations, the Kinara ask for Janeway to be handed over to them for “trial”, the Admiral volunteers to surrender herself.
At Janeway’s trial, she is able to reveal important intelligence, and cause a rift in the Kinara’s alliance that allows her rescue by the Confederacy The fleet moves on, but the two parties manage to part on good terms.
While everyone else is dealing with an alternate universe version of Captain Janeway who is leading an army against the Zahl on a planet near Krenim space,
yes the time manipulating species from the “Year of Hell”,
Lieutenant Harry Kim is dealing with a more personal matter. He has just learned that his current partner, an extremely talented engineer from another ship in the fleet named Nancy Conlon,
has not only been diagnosed with a very serious genetic disorder, but is also pregnant with their child. The mother reveals to him that she plans to terminate the pregnancy.
Before Conlon has a chance to act on the proclamation, she collapses with a brain hemorrhage.
he complicated emergency surgery that saved her life also meant that the fetus had to be transported out of her womb and into a special incubator.
Meanwhile, the Fleet has discovered a large habitation that is strangely uninhabited.
The entire fleet engages in a mission to solve the mysteries contained there. They learn that all of the many habitations were built by a race that called themselves the Edrehmaia.
Unfortunately, the Fleet’s presence on the planet seems to set off a self-destruct mechanism, with energy building to impossible levels.
The planet, however, does not explode.
Instead, the energy goes into literally pushing one of the system’s two stars away, leaving a whole new system in its wake. When the fleet is attacked by a mysterious asteroid/ship, their sensors show that one of their own ships, the USS Galen, has been destroyed.
Rumors of their deaths being greatly exaggerated, the Galen and her crew (along with Lieutenant Kim) are very much alive,
but 47,000 light years closer to Earth than they had been a moment before.
The ship crippled and her Captain out of commission, it falls to Lieutenant Kim to lead the crew in repairs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Fleet discovers that the Galen was transported away and not actually destroyed.
The crews of the Fleet begin to search for a way to communicate with the Edrehmaia. Once they do, they learn that the powerful species is trying to breach the Galactic Barrier in order to explore the space beyond..
In order to do this, they need a ship capable of slipstream.
Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay decide that Voyager will volunteer to make the voyage.
In the most Voyager move ever, the ship will move past the Barrier, and will once again be far away from Earth with no means of communication with home.
Before Voyager leaves, and the Full Circle Fleet goes on with its mission, there is some personal business to attend to.
First, Nancy Conlon informs Harry that she will be leaving both him and the baby, turning the lieutenant into a single father who decides to take his daughter and go along with Voyager into the unknown.
Tom Paris, on the other hand, elects to take himself, B’Elanna and their two children (The pair had a son during the Fleet’s mission) back to Earth with the intention to find postings on a family-friendly Galaxy class ship.
Finally, Vice Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay are married in a small ceremony onboard Voyager before it sets out for its next great adventure, ending the hero ship’s time with the Project Full Circle Fleet.
The fate of the Borg is revealed within these books, with the Borg Collective itself having been defeated and absorbed into the Caelia Gestalt in February 2381,
leaving behind members of the Borg Cooperative, a faction of Liberated Borg drones.
Voyager and the Full Circle fleet eventually caught up to the remnants of the faction, with only 48 members still remaining.
Captain Chakotay and the forces of the Fleet protected and eventually resettled members of the Cooperative to a planet known as Arehaz,
which actually was the first planet assimilated by the Borg Collective, thousands of years ago, so a rather fitting home for liberated Borg members.
And that is a really brief summary of Project Full Circle in the Star Trek: Litverse Continuity.
If you would like to learn more about this Project, we highly recommend the Voyager relaunch novels by Kirsten Beyer which will give you the full Voyager experience.
That’s a wrap on our video exploring the Project Full Circle Fleet and what the USS Voyager got up to, still some interesting stories to explore, so perhaps we’ll do some videos on that in the near future.
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For now, I’ve been Captain Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!