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And so it is time to leave them all, happily embarking on their alpha quadrant lives.
It is tempting to see and capture the successes of Kathryn and Chakotay, working together as ambassadors with Ferengi and Romulans, finally drawing them into the federation. There were some further narrow escapes and moments of inspired command genius from both of them, always better working as a team. Maybe instead reviewing what they did so well, enthusing, inspiring and leading new cadets, ensigns and lieutenants in starfleet, a call to excellence, letting them see the future as starfleet. They made the difference that blazed the ongoing renaissance of the federation. The research that the Admiral kick-started with both Voyagers, and later other inspired scientists and her son Icheb, particularly that that led to the understanding of temporal physics, and eventually the construction of the temporal division of starfleet. All of this and more leading to this being the timeline Braxton so anxiously protected.
Or perhaps their personal lives, the twins Edward - Teddy to all -and Cole conceived on this first year anniversary of Voyagers return, heady with laughter and surrounded by love. They had tumbled back into their room and into their bed and the pregnancy was one of many from that night that seemed to truly encapsulate what they had achieved and their true place in the alpha quadrant. An easy and delightful pregnancy in an easy and delightful period of their lives. A temporary bucolic idyll alternating earth and dorvan surrounded by family and dogs laughter and friendship. Free, finally, from the plaguing memories of the traumatic past, able to enjoy the present and not fear the future. We can see the younger three children adored by their older brother Icheb, and surrounded by cousins both of their alpha quadrant families and Voyager families. It was all that Chakotay had ever dreamed of. Both Kathryn and Chakotay placed limits on their work to prioritise family,and though this still involved space travel, they did it all together.
it would be difficult to not mention their surprise final child, conceived after they thought their childbearing years finished and born very prematurely after the Admiral, having only newly returned to more active duty with more off planet assignments, fortuitously saved a Breen planet from a cataclysmic event at the expense of her own well-being. Her heroism and quick thinking was undimmed from Voyager days as she ensured the safety of not just the planet but the rest of her crew, heedless of the cost to herself and being unaware of her pregnancy. The needs of the many always more important. A hero thereafter to the Breen, uncommunicative and hostile until that point. It began a slow start communication between the species which has led to trade partner and neutral status, even if membership of the Federation seems unlikely.
So badly injured was she, hovering for weeks in that liminal space between life and death, that Chakotay was thrown into deep despair of ever seeing Kathryn's recovery, temporarily losing the power of hope and his peace. He was only barely comforted by his family and the devotion and needs of their living children and the slender presence of the unexpected child drove him to continue living when despair may have claimed him. Kezia, as she was quickly called in reference to Kes for her small elfin appearance. Named in the desire to ensure her permanence whilst her mother's survival remained in doubt, she was stabilised following quick thinking initial stasis from an EMH Mark 5 after the fetal transport required to save her mother's life. Then by the combined skills of her brother and aunt, modifying a starfleet incubator with Borg processes to help an unexpected 16 week gestation fetus mature into the much loved and talented youngest sibling of a blessed family.
The very long rehabilitation and recovery process and the intolerable affect it had had on her family finally led to Admiral Janeway calling a halt to her off world official activities, even if she still visited the stars in her yacht on a regular basis travelling mostly between Earth, DS9 and Dorvan in a well practiced pattern. It was something that she did gracefully, only admitting to the very few how hard it was to move on from something that felt so rewarding. Instead she concentrated on science, and became known for her ability to draw correct inferences from the sketchiest of information patterns and help safely navigate both starfleet and the federation into safer waters.
It is tempting to return and bask in the love that they shared for the rest of their lives, despite the ups and downs caused by his contrary nature, her obstinate and reckless self, yet his devotion and her passion balancing this out with much well deserved laughter in between the occasional turbulence. A truly joyful and fulfilled pair. Perhaps, after all, the waiting in their present on Voyager had ensured that their tomorrows had come.
Seven doesn't settle down with a single partner, feeling limiting herself to a single gender or species or particular charcteristic set is inefficient and deleterious to her overall wellbeing. instead she primarily devotes herself to research and knowledge acquisition, most prominantly in the pursuit of the omega particle and its stabilisation, and is distracted periodically by the more practical updating quantum drive theory and application and still, irritatingly for B'Elanna, adjusting the schematics for new vessels to increase their efficiency.
She is, however, very happy and fulfilled in her serial plural relationships, some of which wend in and out of her long life, such as Harren, who surprises Gretchen the most when Seven presents her with a grandchild. conceived to maximise their genetic potential, although incubated entirely ex utero, latterly in the gestational device created to save her cousin, as residual Borg systems are not designed with pregnancy in mind. Having gained emotional maturity herself, she is an unsurprisingly excellent mother. Named Joseph after her first mentor, his unconventional upbringing amongst a plurality of parents - his collective as he laughingly call it - gives him maximal exposure to many of the federations most impressive scientists, thinkers and mathematicians and... well, somethings are better left to be discovered in the future.
Axum was never found and reunited, despite the variety of Borg detection devices, both in communication arrays and on ships that Seven repeatedly improved in the hopes of making good their promise. The decimation of the Borg had been fairly decisive, and when the delta quadrant was re-explored, it was found that many of the freed Borg from the unimatrix had returned to aid the lost and splintered Borg drones and deliver them into individuality wherever possible, or stasis where not. The doctor and Seven's programme to aid this was readily seized upon, and the previous Borg homeworlds became home to a new type of Borg collective, those that couldn't, or chose not to return to their previous lives, but instead make a new cooperative modelled on Federation values of their lauded prime originators - none other than the Voyagers, particularly Seven and Janeway. It kept its matriarchal disposition and eventually reached out to the lost tribe headed once by Riley Frazer. A surprising unifying force for peace in the quadrant.
Gretchen is also lucky enough to see her first great grandchild provided by Icheb some way ahead of the others that follow. A joke started by his mother and aided and abetted by his close friend ends up sticking, so Quintus makes his appearance one Prixin, to the great joy of the ex-Voyager crew who where gathered in various places to toast Voyager, linked by a Pathfinder improvement with an exuberant Neelix no less. A name in homage of his great aunt Seven and his godfather Quaestor. In fact the Janeway clan and Chakotay's tribe are linked again with this birth and so both the Admiral Janeway and Commandant Chakotay felt doubly blessed. He will resist the call of science and starfleet, so closely woven in his family, and instead become a deep spiritual thinker as well as a passionate agrarian becoming a leader in Dorvan and taking the tattoo of his grandfather, which is efficiently Borg recreated in his father - well, at least to an extent that is lovingly noted by family.
icheb does stay in starfleet, but cleaves to science blue not command red, freed from the need to command voyager in the delta quadrant one day. He never really is such a 'people person' as his mother and prefers a life of intellectual rigour, much like his first foster mother. His skillset is much more required on the field of temporal mechanics, transwarp theory and seven's omega project. Numerous sidelines are linked to his name but it is the unified practical application of temporal quantum based mechanics that he is most remembered for. Time travel. He, luckilly, can do the thinking anywhere, and Dorvan reminds him of his Brunali home planet, and once he meets his future wife there, it is hard to ever leave.
This, of course, means that Naomi does beat him to the captain's chair, becoming captain of voyager Mark 3. After all b'elanna makes and named the ships. It is predominantly a research ship, so starfleet allow a relaxation of protocols and parameters. This is handy as Naomi met her engineer wife whilst they were cadets together. The surprise she felt was more at knowing with her whole self that this was her life partner, she had got over her childhood crush on Icheb years ago, certainly well before his marriage. Maybe one or other of them may someday carry their discussed child, who has a provisional name of Phillipa or Pippa. Currently they are loving life exploring the stars together with a crew she is turning into family. She always says she was trained by the best.
As mentioned, the Janeway twins are not the only conception that Voyager reunion, notable others are the Kim/Delaney and the Ayala/Delaney offspring - or the 'not delaney twins' as they spend much of their childhood together on initially the Titan and then Enterprise F, where Harry is first officer and Ayala chief of security. They always joke that there are four parents and two children in their family, or that they are an upside down family, and make sure that they are always posted together and somewhat hesitantly request large quarters to accommodate them all. When Harry gets his own command, Admiral Janeway jokes that it really should be called a family ship, when four of the bridge crew are married.
B'elanna, who was heavily pregnant at that first reunion, gives birth to their son Owen, and she and Tom have a clutch of 3 children in the end, with Tom predominantly in charge of family whilst test flighting B'elanna's new ships and writing the holoprogrammes that make them a small fortune. In fact they are wealthy enough to own their own condor class starship requiring a minimal crew of 8, but holding comfortably up to 24. Admiral Paris-Torres has the first one - suitably high end accessorized- off the mark at utopia planetia- which she heads- as her admirals yacht. There are significant jokes behind her back that a part klingon Admiral is naming all the new superfast ships after birds of prey... She doesn't care. She loves her work, and loves that she, Tom and friends get to swoop amongst the stars in the best ship in the universe. It is named, with some laughing with Kathryn over a bottle of antarian cider, La vita nuova. Not everyone really gets the whole joke. Nobody got Tom's reference when he suggested Firefly. He got to name the training shuttle for the kids Firefly instead. A training shuttle with full weapons capability, the latest iteration of ablative armour and sneaky cloak... The kids all love Daddy/Uncle Tom.
Who else? well the doctor, with support from some leading forwards thinking admirals and Lewis Zimmermans final work got the holographic rights movement success, with the sentience bill for AI and non-organic lifeforms. Data and his positronic family were clearly also beneficiaries of this. With this, all the EMH mark 1 were reassessed, and most had sentience, unsurprisingly, and were released from the variety of menial programmes they had been subjected too. The doctor arranged a series of starfleet courses and training for them, and most were rehabilitated to become full time medics mostly working in far flung starbases as well as on the hospital ships dispatched for emergency aid. An additional module of psychological support and counselling was specifically co-written with the best starfleet has to offer should any other ships find themselves flung elsewhere for seven years.
The mark 4 were also all retrained for permanent use for all active starships, most being able to now accommodate 2 medical holograms, an engineering hologram and a command hologram - predominantly pilot and ops, but with emergency powers should the command team be inoperable. All ships were therefore given holoemitters in all vital areas until knowledge and technology caught up with the mobile emitter. Drone working holograms and robotics were given only the minimal programming required for the work. Run time and programming limits were placed particularly on recreational holograms such that they were unable to come close to sentience, but with programming in all holosuites and decks to identify if this was breached and effect a rescue of any sentient.
Was this a trouble free and smooth transition? clearly not, with a wave of antiphotonic feeling when a variety of religious rabblerousers preached that the soulless were taking over starfleet and the federation. Also a number of holosuite purveyors of particularly disreputable emporiums and black market areas were concerned at the loss of their almost certainly sentient holoemployees and provided much corporate lobbying to the process. Eventually this tempered out, on the whole, aided by the significant acts of valour from starfleet holopersonnel particularly to worlds with natural or other disasters that made holograms the only safe aid givers.
Oh and the holonovel that the doctor created with tom? it really was a runaway success. Starfleet permitted it, it shew their personnel both as human [or vulcan] and as heroes. It was such a feel good experience, even if or maybe especially viewed as more of a non-interactive film that it went viral. Cult performances were common, with audience dressing as a variety of crew. Built into the programme were options to count cups of coffee, touches between the command team , Janeway eyerolls and 'tuvok eyebrows etc, or on the more risque side ranking 'best behinds'. The catchy 20th century songs remained a popular addition, sung by all school children thereafter. The Doc and Tom had made every effort to populate it with all the catch phrases possible, and many 'janewayisms' made it into the popular vernacular, as did tuvok dry humour and Seven's borg aphorisms.
Since all the voyager crew had a percentage they had more latinum than a ferengi would dream of. The senior crew and the doctor were embarrassed by the wealth and kept only the same percentage as the whole crew rather than the original planned, and the difference was then ploughed into the Voyager Charitable Cooperative - unofficially called Section 42. All voyager members could nominate uses for the money, with senior crew as executives. It has sponsored cadets, musical bursaries, arts programmes, cultural exchanges, anthropological and archaeological research, ethical groups, planetary rehabilitation, medical advances, deep space research and ultimately co-funded the development of the first stable transwarp coil. The proceeds of this left the VCC effectively funded in perpetuity to promote the values that mattered to the Voyagers.
So as we can see, really it was a joyful return to the alpha quadrant, with the crew settling to new and worthwhile lives. It made a difference to starfleet, the federation and most definitely the future. Admiral Janeway from the erased timeline may have been acting with selfish intentions, but she helped create something that changed the course of the universe for the better leaving her younger and less cynical self to seize the day. I will leave it here, happy at this stopping point unless the Q continuum pushes an intervention.
They wouldn't, would they?