Star Trek: Voyager remains one of the most fascinating series of the franchise for me. It features a good deal of actors who I genuinely believe play the best Trek characters, and it has some truly WTF moments that make you question how a script got approved. It also ended up being the series that convinced Ronald D. Moore to move on to pursue other projects, and after he shared with CinemaBlend some of the pitches he had before leaving, I wish he would’ve stuck around.
I spoke with Moore at San Diego Comic-Con and asked about his short stint on Star Trek: Voyager, which ultimately ended due to a falling out with EP Brannon Braga. I’d heard that the creator pitched serialized storylines for the series much like ones he’d contributed to on Deep Space Nine, but that they weren’t embraced in the same way by writers. I asked Moore about some of the pitches he made in those months, and learned some of them came to be on his acclaimed reboot of Battlestar Galactica:
I was only on Voyager for a few months. But in that period, there was a storyline being developed that was the Voyager for a time starts shepherding some other ships, some alien ships, through some region. I don’t remember if it was a war-torn region or if it was some kind of spatial phenomenon or something. And I remember bringing up explicitly, ‘Oh, you could do a ragtag fleet here,’ sort of like [Battlestar] Galactica did, ‘And maybe that becomes something you do in multiple episodes. There’s a whole community here.’
The idea of Voyager leading a fleet of ships through the Delta Quadrant is intriguing and something I would’ve loved to see. Unfortunately, I feel some of the most advanced civilizations the crew came across that had decent ships also happened to be villains on Star Trek: Voyager. So, I can see how the idea might’ve fallen apart. Still, imagine a fleet of Voyager, Hirogen, and Kazon uniting under one banner to take on a Borg faction? That would be pretty awesome.
That was an ambitious idea by Ronald D. Moore, but not as ambitious as his other proposal that could’ve upended the series entirely. The sci-fi television creator, who also teased that Star Trek tech could be coming to his Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, had a pitch for an idea that had the potential to remove Kathryn Janeway as Captain of the Voyager:
I remember saying at one point that maybe there’s an election. Maybe there should be an election aboard Voyager. Cause is Katherine Janeway really gonna be the captain of this thing for the next 75 years or whatever it was? And they all looked at me like I was insane! Like, ‘We’re not gonna have an election on the Voyager.’ And you know, it was a Starfleet vessel. So it’s a slightly different thing. But even then, I was thinking towards ideas of a lone ship out on its own for an extended period of time, and what would the realities of that be? How would you form a social structure? What are the aspects of your civilization that you would take with you?
Keep in mind that Ronald D. Moore joined the Star Trek: Voyager staff following the end of Deep Space Nine. The series was preparing for Season 6 at the time, and Moore was suggesting it introduce a storyline in which Janeway potentially got voted out of captaincy. It was a bold proposition, especially for a series that had not embraced serialization in the same ways that DS9 had.
As we stated previously, Ronald D. Moore’s stint on Star Trek: Voyager didn’t last long. He departed without his above pitches being used, and was granted writing credits in the episodes “Survival Instinct” and “Barge Of The Dead.” Then he went on to make the much-acclaimed remake of Battlestar Galactica.
Moore has not returned to work on Star Trek since his departure, but he is a fixture at conventions, and with upcoming Trek shows on the way, the opportunity is always there for him to return. I know there are a number of fans who would love to see him work on another series, but with all his current projects he’s already involved in, I’m not sure what his willingness would be to dive back into the franchise.
Those looking to enjoy Ronald D. Moore’s past Star Trek contributions need only use a Paramount+ subscription to enjoy his many episodes. Who knows? Maybe there will be more contributions to add in the future, but for now, readers have a good body of work to stream.