Star Trek: Voyager Wanted To Replace Its Captain
Among sci-fi fans, it’s pretty well-known that Ronald D. Moore was disappointed by his brief tenure on Star Trek: Voyager, and after he stopped writing for Captain Janeway and her crew, he later used some of his best ideas for the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
However, the talented showrunner hasn’t revealed that many details over the years about which of his Star Trek plot ideas were shot down by the powers that be. In a recent interview, he revealed his boldest idea: he wanted the ship to have an election because the crew was sick of having Janeway in charge.
The Maquis Deserved A Say
While briefly writing for Star Trek: Voyager, why did Moore want to replace the show’s popular captain? According to him, it wasn’t very realistic that the crew (which, it should be noted, was full of former Maquis terrorists who once hated Starfleet) would be cool having Janeway as “captain of this thing for the next 75 years or whatever it was.” Basically, half the crew never really had any say in who their commanding officer would be, and Moore felt it would have been logical for them to demand an election.
The Idea Didn’t Get Very Far
If you’re wondering how this wild Star Trek: Voyager idea went down, Moore claims that everyone thought his idea of potentially replacing Janeway as captain was crazy from the start. In his words, “they all looked at me like I was insane” and reminded him that this was a Starfleet vessel, complete with that organization’s many rules and regulations.
In short, the producers felt like this new idea flew in the face of everything we knew about Star Trek; Moore, meanwhile, felt that the unique circumstances of Star Trek: Voyager would warrant doing things a bit differently than, say, Captain Picard did.
Moore Was Overthinking Star Trek
Moore claims, “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?” Janeway and her crew were dealing with something that nobody else in Starfleet had ever dealt with before (not even the trailblazing Captain Kirk), and Moore wanted to answer crunchy questions like “How would you form a social structure,” and “What are the aspects of your civilization that you would take with you?”
Battlestar Galactica Held Elections
Now, Moore didn’t come to Star Trek: Voyager until the show’s sixth season, and it would have been admittedly very weird to potentially replace Janeway as Captain the season before the title ship came home. Fortunately for both the writer and his fans, Moore got the chance to answer all those questions about how humanity would adapt to complete isolation in his award-winning Battlestar Galactica reboot.
Notably, that show also featured a major election in which the kindhearted President Roslin was replaced by Gaius Baltar, an amoral scientist (who looked weirdly like Dr. Bashir, incidentally) who always looked out for himself above all else.
Moore Wanted To Take Risks
Would Ronald D. Moore’s ideas for Star Trek: Voyager have made for a better last couple of seasons, or would replacing Janeway as the captain end up tearing the fandom apart? Looking back, it’s impossible to tell, but we have to commend the talented writer for his willingness to shake things up the long-running sci-fi show.
Plus, considering how well-received Moore’s Galactica was, it’s more than fair to say he had his fingers on the pulse of what science fiction fans were really craving from their favorite TV shows.
Source: Cinemablend
