Season One
Episode Trivia

Note: This page is dedicated to trivia about the original Season One written in the years 2000 and 2001. There is a separate page for the reboot version that began in 2012.

Aggressions
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It didn't really pan out but the episode was meant to be primarily about Janeway's aggressive behaviour, due to her pregnancy and the issues surrounding it, causing problems for the crew. Scorpion was obviously the main one, but its initial inspiration would have the character involved making all sorts of reckless decisions at the heat of the moment, hence the plural version of the title. The reboot fixed this tiny little error.

Alternate Titles
Aggression

Inspiration
The basic idea for the episode alone originally came from a chapter with the same title of my abandoned novel. It then became another abandoned novel titled Tragedy. Elements from both were used for the episode, or that was the plan anyway.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Q and the Grey
Alter Ego
Coda
Unity
Scorpion

Brief Facts
1) The episode was rewritten mostly from scratch in 2010/11, with the exception of a few scenes, for the reboot.

2) Despite being the first episode, it was not the first completed episode of the series.

3) The episode was started in script format. When I decided to write a different episode I changed it to the format it is in now.

4) Part 1 proves only slightly that Fifth Voyager was meant to be mostly serious with the occasional joke. Its intention was to introduce new characters and situations to deviate from the original series.

5) Part 2 however went off the rails for no reason that I can remember, keeping the series as some ridiculous parody for far too many years.

6) Damien's introduction was written on a whim. He was already a pre-established character with no name yet thanks to the episode completed before this one. For the same reason as 5, the two characters were merged into S1 Damien.

7) Due to a poor English teacher dumping a sheet full of words to replace "said" with on my table, "exclaimed" overuse was born. It seemed better than shouted, which I also used too much I think. It's now a bit of a running gag in the series. (Stay tuned for Just overuse jokes).

8) The program I used to write Aggressions crashed midway through Part 2, inspiring the fourth wall dramatics. Web Express has a lot to answer for.

9) The only new MC meant to be introduced in Aggressions was Kiara. Craig was added a little while prior to the episode as a one note comic relief character.

10) Regular characters were tried out in the episode, which even back then I felt were soulless and flat etc... So they were cut out. The next episode to try this was Hunters.

11) The writers were a last minute addition as well. Part 2 really had a lot of problems.

12) Coda was only used in the episode as it's one of my favourites. It could have easily been any episode. It shows.

13) (Season Two Episode 13+ spoilers) Aggressions was released with a synopsis basically saying "Janeway's pregnant with Chakotay's baby and it's Q's fault". Yeah. This was a fact not revealed until Season Two. It also screams or rather exclaims FANFICTION TROPES EVERYWHERE! If I kept it, at least it's proof that the Kiara storyline was there from the beginning but still! Sigh.

Background Information
I created Fifth Voyager with one simple enough premise; one small event can completely change the path Voyager follows.

The series would follow original episodes at first. For example Kiara's birth would alter Scorpion. Scorpion's slight differences would slightly alter something in the next or after episode. That would alter the next, until you get to the part of the series where originally Voyager would get home, only instead it's so far off course it misses this and continues on into new adventures.

I also wanted to bring in and enhance the Kiara/Roxanne paradox from my abandoned novels, but that's another story for another episode.

Aggressions itself started out as a mere chapter in those novels. It was mainly about the heavily pregnant Captain character making more and more reckless command choices due to her temper. Since Kiara was the stepping stone for the series, and I wanted to start FV with Scorpion, it made sense to use Aggressions for the pilot.

However when I started I was an impatient and very immature 15 year old. Sure I had some great ideas, but pulling them off and writing them properly was a different matter. I had never finished anything longer than a few pages before, Tragedy was the longest story I wrote and finished. That only took up half of a A5 notebook. I had so many books planned to write and the most I had done was a few chapters.

In a nutshell, I had very little experience with writing actual stories. I had ideas which I never did anything with. I was also very silly (though that hasn't changed with age). I loved Voyager but I'd always tear it apart with not funny jokes whilst watching it. Before writing I liked to draw comics, so I feel I definitely had more experience doing slapstick than following a plot.

I understand now why Part 2 ended up such a huge mess. However it's been a mystery to me for a while, I couldn't figure it out.

I'd explain what Aggressions was supposed to be. However its reboot does a better job of it. Long story short, I forgot Aggressions point and got too caught up in the silliness to care to remember it. The only Scorpion scene in Aggressions alone is proof of that. If you ever need an example of plot whiplash, it's there.

Unfortunately it wasn't a one off. For some reason I can't figure out yet, I liked what I had done, so what came next followed the same routine.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
In the old version of this page I wrote the trivia for original and reboot while reading through the episode. Most of what's left to go in here is from that.

1) I dunno why I thought a brief bridge scene where nothing happens but a hint to the luau was a good place to start the series. There was no jokes, bad or not. As stated further up, it proves that I wanted a less parody style series than it turned into. It also proves my point that if I wasn't writing a bad joke or something, then the dialogue would be stale and pointless. It's your opinion whether or not I've improved there.

2) The Q and the Grey flashback is exactly the same, except he mentions Chakotay. This would be fine if it had actually been mentioned or hinted at, or anything for that matter before or afterwards! The scene is just there and until True Q in S2 there's no explanation for it. At least there's none that I can see, joy. Also I remember the original Aggressions synopsis just said it was Q that was behind it all. Such a rookie mistake.

3) Even though I had already wrote Timeline and World Domination, FV didn't turn into a full on parody until part 2 of Aggressions. Even the J/C drunken flirty argument and Tom's drunken yelling were just one off scenes. I'd still have "humour" in this original vision of FV. Picture the way the series is now, that was how it should've been.

Craig was the comic relief, I remember that much. Why include him with that sole function if the entire cast would go down this road?

Reading through part 1 I get the feeling I was taking it seriously, I was trying. It's a shame.

4) I love the fact that I have this whole English versus American spelling/pronunciations banter going on these days, mainly revolving around Janeway. It's something I wouldn't have been bothered about, besides bloody futile, if it wasn't for the program I use only having the American spell check. At one point in the episode I get "apologise" and "apologized" in the same scene. Maybe I added apologise to the program's spell check, but accidentally slipped on the ignore button for the other. Meh.

5) I was going to have the J/C almost kiss but are interrupted gag for most of the season, I'm glad I forgot about it. Especially as it was always associated with the random gibberish that was the writer(s) introduction. Gag indeed. I dunno why I wrote myself to be the prude of the group, I'm a shipper of a few pairings from different shows. If I haven't shipped anything in a TV show, I'm usually not that into it. I think Red Dwarf's the exception.

Also re-reading the original scene, I haven't a clue what's happening. If I don't, who the hell would?

6) It's worrying that I actually remember what was up with that random Borg line in the following scene. It was a word for word quote from a sound clip I found yonks ago. You're a genius 15 year old me, where did you come up with these fantastic ideas?

7) Hunters still gets a partly unfair rap. It's not the worst episode of Fifth Voyager. Aggressions ranks higher than it there. Sure both episodes forget their point and go off the rails into a solid wall, but at least Hunters manages to remain a tad coherent, and what it does is relatively tame in comparison.

The writers scenes, why?

Damien's introductory scenes, what?

South Park rip off joke. Facepalm.

B'Elanna either goes to or does stab Riley because she hits on Tom. I thought I didn't go full on homicidal until Season Two. What the fu...

Kes disappears off screen. Yeah it was meant to be mysterious but to do that, you've gotta have the character do something, have something else happen, show them leaving or talking about leaving etc... Don't have someone randomly say at the end "I miss this character". Um.

Instead of having the baby normally, or at least during the Scorpion crisis like planned, lets have her accidentally drug herself. Why... not?

You get the idea. The worst thing Hunters did in comparison was have James and Jessie's first scenes involve bobble throwing fights. Weird for two grown ups, including one man, to do... yep, but at least they weren't injecting drugs into themselves cos it was there or stabbing people (there's plenty of time for the second one later......... I know, I'm not funny).

8) I may as well mention this here. I don't think I ever typed the word supposed, just suppose. It had such a silent D the D disappeared. Interesting. I must have had some issue with the word as I kept misspelling supposedly too.

9) Wow I knew Scorpion was rushed but I couldn't even be bothered to do one line from it. I think it is safe to say from the Unity scenes, the whole episode was completely rewritten. I'm done with the original. I give up.

10) It looks like I did try to use the Kidz Trek Aggressions plot with the Janeway has psychological trauma bit, but it wasn't really during Scorpion. It happens afterwards. Yep, I'm officially done with Aggressions. I didn't even bother to use the original idea for it, at all. Season One may be kept but crimes against fanfiction like this and Hunters should be deleted.

11) I mentioned a poor English teacher, and you may think I'm projecting or being unfair to her. You could be right. The thing is, English was my favourite subject by miles, only challenged by Maths. My first teacher at Comprehensive school was amazing, he really made me love the subject even more than I did. I think if it wasn't for him, I'd have probably kept on with the comics, doomed to never do anything with it as I stunk at it.

When he left the teacher we got instead was the complete opposite. The previous one encouraged, helped you when you made mistakes and pointed you in the right direction, and was a bright and cheerful person I probably would've looked up to if he had been there longer. The woman who replaced him was the type of teacher that told you when you'd done something wrong, if you're lucky explain vaguely and leave you to it. She was also very intimidating and made me dread English over the years.

"You're writing said too much 'Marill'." I shyly ask what words can I use and when, I get a sheet of paper I probably still have with words no one would ever use. Exclaim for example. No explanation, no context, just a list. I was also told to avoid using said as often as possible. I've only learned in the last five or so years that the opposite is the majority opinion.

Sometimes people just "say" something. Nobody mutters, mumbles, shouts, whispers all the time right? Well maybe I do mutter/mumble, but that's cos I'm still a talkative idiot in a shy girl's body.

"You're not paragraph breaking enough. Fix it." Uh, how? The best advice I got was after someone finished talking. Fair enough. Over the years I'm still unsure, as you've likely noticed. Never was I taught about how to format someone talking a long time, actions in between spoken sentences, how to break up a non speech paragraph which is getting big but is still about the same thing. Etc...

I'm still unsure if I'm supposed to italicise or '' words that are quotes within speech, used sarcastically or to emphasise a point. I use italics as IMO it looks better, I have a feeling it's wrong though.

It doesn't matter though, as long as I know that my close together handwriting looked only to my teacher like I was swearing that one time. See a "because they" totally looks rude, am I right?

I tried to retake English at college, hoping I could learn more and improve my grade, but apparently a C is more than enough, so screw you Marill. Obviously not, I'm still fixing FV mistakes today, 15 years later.

What inspired me to write this? "Exclaimed". It's not my only overused word, sure. It is a word that should rarely be used, if ever. Instead I used it every other speech, sometimes two people would exclaim in a row. These characters sure made a lot of noise.

My only hope with this is that maybe someday a reviewer will cover FV, and do the old "exclaimed" word count for laughs.

12) If you're curious, the Kidz Trek version of Aggressions was basically the Captain being heavily pregnant with their version of Kiara and extremely moody. The entire chapter she was making reckless decisions because of it, also scaring the crew with her behaviour. She has the kid during one of the crisiss' she created and that's that. The end.

I figured Scorpion was Janeway's most reckless decision excluding Equinox and Endgame. To be fair I didn't think I knew about Endgame at the time (it may not have existed, it was 2000 so I doubt it), that wouldn't have worked anyway. Scorpion was also where I decided to watch Voyager every week, it made sense to me.

I was only 15 though and I didn't think that I could have left Q and the Grey, even the scenes from Coda until later as flashbacks. I didn't need to do everything. Luckily though after 11 years "experience", give or take a few years of writers block, I figured out how to present these scenes anyway without ruining the pacing, and thus ruining Scorpion in the process. If I'm wrong about that fair enough, Aggression still handles the Season Three stuff better than Aggressions did. I hope no one can really argue with that ^_^

Mental Illness
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It's pretty self explanatory.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
Probably one too many Cherry Coke cans.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) In the reboot "Mental Illness" was replaced by a new episode based around The Gift.

2) I don't completely understand why the episode existed or why it was episode 2. All I know is that it was meant to be one of the silly ones. Little did I know that all episodes would be the silly ones.

3) The only thing that's definite was that it was meant to be Craig's episode. He was the only new character that wasn't a newborn.

Background Information
As stated somewhere FV was meant to be a re-telling of Voyager, with fantasy elements and more character developments. There would be jokes and parodies in as well, it just wasn't planned to be the entire series.

Aggressions Part 2 turned it into that anyway. Mental Illness didn't help as it was meant to be one of the silly episodes of Season One. FV didn't stand a chance. If the second episode had been Year of Hell or, egads, Hunters then maybe the series would have recovered and got on point. No, the silly one followed it and encouraged me further.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Year of Hell
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
The original episode took place over nearly a year. Janeway called the first day as "week of hell". Also Before and After the event was referred to as such. The FV version didn't change the meaning.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
At first the original Year of Hell, then an episode of Pokémon took over the reigns.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Year of Hell

Brief Facts
1) Year of Hell's initial point was to show minor changes to the original because of Kiara's existence, increasing in scope to then basically changing the outcome of the episode in the end.

2) Instead the fourth wall jokes from Aggressions took over, bringing Pokémon into the mix. Yeah don't ask, I don't know either.

3) For its reboot I thought about trying to achieve point 1's idea, basically make it a gradually changing Year of Hell until the reset button no longer works. It's too bad I changed my mind, though I do like what I did instead.

Background Information
I wanted the Year of Hell from Voyager, with the two extra characters of Kiara and Craig around to make slight changes. It would start with something as insignificant as Craig bringing Kiara with him to a meeting, ending with the time issues being resolved completely differently.

That tells you I also wanted to fix the issues I had with the original episode, mainly the reset button ending. By the time I had made Aggressions a parody mess, and had the always silly Mental Illness out of the way, YOH didn't stand a chance. Goodbye any resemblance other than the Astrometrics scene, goodbye the altered asteroid barrage scene (reboot scene still didn't do it), goodbye idea that the destruction of the time ship resets back to when Voyager activated their shield (I had an explanation, I even had a different way to reset button it). Nice not knowing you.

Fourth wall episodes are better anyway. I guess sometimes I think they work, but YOH here did it very wrong. Most of S1 did.

The only... good thing, and that's stretching it, that I can think of is that I did start to build the Game Cube/Slayer angle here. It's all bad and whatnot, but at least I tried. Unlike everything else.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Hunters
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It was meant to be my own take on original episode Hunters. There's little point in explaining the reason for its title as I didn't do this. The title wasn't changed on release, so...

Alternate Titles
Hunters Again

Inspiration
I dunno, a mental breakdown, um... I hit my head. Who knows?

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Hunters, but that's stretching it a tad.

Brief Facts
1) Sometime before Hunters was written, Asda accidentally swapped their Smartprice whiskey with the Smartprice Orange Juice. A moronic kid bought it and sat down at a computer to write a Voyager parody. This episode was the result.

Satire? Who knows.

2) Apart from "FV'ing" Hunters, the episode's point was to try again at creating some new regular guest stars, as well as introducing new MC Triah.

3) I of course mean stealing some new regular guest stars for a joke. Guybrush Threepwood from Monkey Island fame, Team Rocket from Pokémon. It's okay, it's just a one scene joke.

4) Oh hey, I must have liked having Team Rocket on Voyager. It makes sense. "Let's make them crazier."

5) Um, we're still talking about them? Okay. Yeah, why not have them help babysit the baby. What can go wrong?

6) Yeah I know these aren't "brief facts" but it's all I got for an episode I don't remember writing but will always remember reading through.

7) Wasn't there supposed to be letters from home? Hirogen wanting their network left alone? A shuttle mission/kidnap. Some action. Shippy scenes. The rumoured cut J/C kiss. Triah's introduction? No, Team Rocket again? All right, let's roll with it.

8) Um, they're throwing what at each other?

9) Stop shouting.

10) Oh there's Triah, okay.

11) Seriously stop shou... are you two?

12) I know Kiara sure isn't, why is she talking so soon?

13) Oh you weren't even trying to explain Triah's appearance, were you Possibly Drunk Marill.

14) An ending so bad it was deleted, from Hunters. Think about that for a moment! Marill exclaimed.

15) Seriously, nothing of Hunters was seen again. Shouldn't it have another name, nah!

16) You know what, I like Team Rocket in Voyager. I think I'll main cast them, what can go wrong?

17) Okay everytime I say that it's ironic, at least this time it did work out... eventually.

18) Oh finally a brief fact. Hunters should have been tossed aside completely for its reboot, but unfortunately I needed it fresh in my memory so I could parody it. The horror.

19) Hunters currently is and likely always will be the shortest episode of the series.

Background Information
You hopefully know the story by now. The episode was to introduce the new MC Triah and experiment with some guest stars. The guest stars became more appealing, don't ask me how cos they're atrocious here, and so they're MC'd in the next episode. Ironically the only regular to come off of it was Triah. The other Foster and Threepwood, you could count their appearances on your hands.

I picked all sorts of different episodes to redo in Season One. Episodes I loved so I could expand on them (Year of Hell, Muse), ones I hated so I could make fun and/or fix them (Unforgettable, Fair Haven sequel which isn't Spirit Folk). Episodes that were important (Dark Frontier, Timeless, Voyager Conspiracy; all Voyager gets home faster eps). To counter that, episodes that should be there to tell the others weren't considered (no The Raven, Demon and Course: Oblivion, Fair Haven "1"). I had 28 slots and I didn't want them all to be original episodes, still it's no excuse.

Hunters was an episode I loved (it's weird saying that now) and is important if you consider the Pathfinder episodes, Hirogen and whatnot. And as you can see it was clearly in need of the episodes required to tell it. Message In The Bottle, maybe Prey or Killing Game to follow it.

I should give myself a break, I was new to this and I was telling myself that anybody reading FV would know the original stories by now. The point of the series was to show the new things.

Even now I'm still doing it with the reboot. Sometimes I fill in the gaps, but sometimes I make fun of myself for not, all the while making references to my originals. Sigh. This episode's reboot is a good example of it. I guess Hunters was always doomed, and its reboot was as well as I would never have made it to the end without slating it.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) If I ever get the opportunity to go back in time or more realistically get a few sessions with a memory hypnotist, I'm going to ask to see me write this. I want to know what the hell happened. Yeah yeah, most of Season One is written this way, I know. It just seems to magnify the awfulness. It looked into the future of the season, picked everything wrong with it, included and doubled it. It feels like a parody of itself.

What's worse is that during my reboots, I discovered Aggressions was just as bad. At least Hunters didn't steal from a fanmade South Park joke, or contain the writers. I think. Also I can understand what's happening throughout. At one point in Aggressions I had to read twice, thrice, and I still had no clue.

Ironic really, that Hunters was likely one of the few without the fourth wall antics and yet, its reboot is anything but.

No, I haven't changed my mind. It's still bloody awful.

2) As expected, Hunters is the shortest episode of the season and the series. However early on its ending was a bit longer, so perhaps it wasn't always. I think Too Q held the title for a while. The ending itself was edited down during the first "reboot", I use that word loosely. I basically just went back into S1 with a rubber and erased a few things that bugged me. The ending was one of them.

Are you wondering what happened? Did the Hirogen appear and start a bobble fight? Did Triah run over and clean their ship, scaring them into retreat? Did B'Elanna find a note for Tom from his dad, saying "you suck son, lol". Did Janeway get dumped by Mark and she responded with "who's Mark? Is he the guy who ran across the bridge when I said brace for impact in Caretaker?"* Did Chakotay and Janeway finally have their deleted scenes kiss, but it was written "they kissed suddenly! Exclaimed." Did James suddenly sober up and say the infamous line "oh boy" from Quantum Leap?

*Of course not, I hadn't come up with that "genius" Janeway can't remember names running gag yet. Season One wishes it had it.

I'll stop, I know I'm the only one who finds my jokes funny. No, none of those things happened. Though I kinda wish I did do all that in the reboot. Oh well, there's always the next one. Ahem. The scene that is now the ending just endured a bit longer. I'll give you a summary as I THANKFULLY lost the original copy, if I had it at all, when my computer died... at least two have since.

Triah: My dad's dead Craig

Craig: Oh shucks

James: Ohno, what a buzzkill.

Jessie: Screw that, party time

Craig & Triah: Yay!

Kiara: *if didn't do this in current version* (speaks first word and it's not coffee or time's up)

*everyone gasps*

The End.

Horrifying. See, the episode's so bad, I can't remember if one part of it was deleted or not.

3) Kiara's first word, if it's there or not, comes far too early. I know I based Hunters later to compensate for it and because it was more than 3 episodes after Scorpion, or 1 after Year of Hell. Still, it's terrible. It's not the worst offender though. Bryan is. He's talking after two episodes. I know nothing about kids, moving on.

4) I really liked the reboot. It however has a fatal flaw. The point of the reboot was to replace the original. Hunters Again's story is basically the crew having to repeat Hunters over and over again, all the while being fully aware that the original sucked. It makes references, it takes the piss, it breaks the fourth wall so much there isn't a wall left. A newbie to the series starting with Aggression won't get a lot of the jokes. They may get curious and hunt down (pun not intended but kept anyway) the original Hunters, just to find out why the cast are so afraid of it.

My only other option with it though was to follow Voyager's version and/or mix it with Prey, focus on the extra cast getting letters as that was new (original looked like it was going to do it). Or because FV never references the Hirogen or contact with Starfleet ever again, replace it with another Original Season Four parody. Waking Moments would be a doozy, as Four Out Of Five proves.

Unforgettable
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
I assume (as this was named after an original episode) it's a cross between being an ironic title as the aliens are very forgettable, literally, and Chakotay & Kellin's so called love being able to exist despite their memories being erased... which Kellin proves at the end is wrong IMO.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
The original episode

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Unforgettable

Brief Facts
1) Before James and Jessie joined the show the episode was meant to be Chakotay's, with a J/C and AU twist.

2) This isn't the last time James and Jessie will take over a story intended to be J/C. Hello Interactions and Resistance.

3) Upon joining the series the pair were no longer Team Rocket parodies, this episode was chosen to change them around to something new.

4) I'm not sure if it's still there, I doubt it, but the episode did reveal James' childhood abuse almost right away. I think it's gone now, as I thought it was too soon to bring that up.

5) Unforgettable was rebooted a few years ago, becoming the first Season One episode to still have the majority of its original scenes left intact.

6) My original version of this also went down the path of "Kellin is fabricating the flashbacks". All the reboot did was clean it up a little.

Background Information
Hunters introduced them as comic relief and parodies of another show's characters, just to experiment with regular guest stars. "Now" they were to be mains, James and Jessie had to be changed.

Jessie's was simple, apart from "calming down" there wasn't much to change. Also Unforgettable had her intentionally OOC sometimes anyway. James though, I couldn't figure out.

Unforgettable's the biggest sufferer of me trying badly to get a character right. He changes a lot, it's quite frustrating. He starts out as a little timid and mild mannered (lol I know), but in here and other episodes shows glimpses of a temper and bravery. It's rare, sometimes subtle so it could be missed by a first time reader. These were the building blocks.

Unforgettable also took the opportunity to develop them in other ways. We know James can be a slob, his room is nicknamed the Mess at some point. He's also a little naive, the "bachelorhood" line is just so so bad, but I guess fits him. At least Jessie was in the Marquis. They've been friends since at least junior school, and he's not one to chase girls. FYI, I believe that was done to be the opposite of Craig.

I think none of these things are forced down your throat like usual character backstory exposition, like Hunters definitely did (cringe), it felt more natural. At least, it was better than Craig's Triah story.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Like explained in Hunters, just because there's a FV version of an original episode, doesn't mean I liked it. I hate Unforgettable. I've seen it twice, if it's lucky. Once when it was new and possibly when getting ready for FV. Maybe. Yeah one of my reasons I'll admit to is because I was/am a JC shipper. I don't like Unity, Fair Haven, half of Workforce etc... However a lot of the other love interest episodes usually annoy me in other ways.

Fair Haven is filled with Irish stereotypes, awful costumes, the "omg he has a wife, delete her and make him more bossy" or whatever the hell it was. Spirit Folk however I enjoyed, mainly for the cow joke. Anyway.

Unity I hated the whole premise. The so called heroine violates/mind rapes the people who didn't want to be in a collective, by forcing them into the collective because "it's for their own good, they just don't know it." Nope. I only liked the trip on the cube the first time. I had seen it after Scorpion, and couldn't help but smile at some of the foreshadowing for it.

First part to Workforce sends me to sleep. I did like that they used the underused cast, excluding the Doc, for the rescue team (Chakotay, Neelix and Harry) but that's it. A different writer takes over for Part 2 and it shows. The quality shoots up IMO. I actually like the opposing love interest, even if they do rush the relationship for the sake of "drama".

Counterpoint I was determined to hate, but I do like it on rewatches. Threshold, if it counts, was one of my first Voyager episodes and was before I was a shipper. I had vague memories for years that it was Chakotay, not Paris. Silly kid me. Yes it's silly, but I liked it then. I understand why it's hated though. I sometimes like silly things anyway. I tend to make fun of things I watch.

Don't even get me started on Endgame, Human Error or the Resolutions Take 2 without the monkey, but with more boobs.

In The Flesh. It's not canon. Species 8472 are still chilling in biospace, being the anti-Borg badasses they always were.

So yeah, Unforgettable. Kellin is boring, she has no chemistry at all with Chakotay, I don't buy her story, and I don't buy the "we make people forget about us" aliens. I watched it and I thought "that's it". I was waiting for the part in the story where she says, I lied, that first visit didn't happen that way, I was always the refugee." And/or that she was deceiving Chakotay to escape. I'd buy the "I'll love her even when I've forgotten her" plot if it meant something later, but we know it doesn't. Also, again boring.

On another note. The fact that his relationships are usually with blondes; Riley, Kellin, Seven *bluergh*, reminds me of Booth from Bones. He always picked the blonde as well, it never ended well. The one the fans are rooting for is a brunette or redhead. I swear, it's a writers trope, a one to intentionally annoy shippers. FYI Janeway's goes from uptight guy with attitude (Michael, um... Counterpoint guy, stupid hologram in Season 2) or guy who looks old enough to be her dad (Mark, um again... Workforce guy). I'm onto you writers, I don't care how late it is, I'm onto you.

Jesus, I've waffled on about non FV stuff here. Resizing/formatting the text and moving on. The point of point 1 was to discuss why I included Unforgettable. Sheesh.

Yeah the original idea was to ahem, J/C it or my old terms "FV it." Season One was to show the differences to episodes after Kiara was born. A love interest episode seemed like a good idea, and Unforgettable was the first try. Or it would have been. Other than throwing in the Kellin was really the bad guy theory, I had nothing.

Enter the two newbies on the scene; James and Jessie. And so begins their Seven like takeover. I'm being unfair and fair at the same time with that. Yes, they were guilty of being front and centre in a lot of episodes when they didn't need to be, and yes I've tried to fix that (I know recent S5 episodes may appear otherwise). However the other point to FV was that I practice developing my own storylines and characters, all while having the established world as a safety net. Admittedly I went too far sometimes (B4FV1, I'm looking at you) but that was usually when I was struggling to come up with new ideas for old episodes. Look no further than Phage to see what I mean. By that I mean don't look at Phage.

2) Say what you want about J/J taking over the series and how poor they were at the beginning, but it still amazes me today that their first real episode was a romance one. Even though it was erased and the second one was hinted at as being made up, I still had somebody blazingly telling James he was in love with Jessie with no real denial, and Jessie confessing hers for him.

It's amazing for me. It's so direct, unlike all the avoidy stuff that followed later. How many times I used to write characters kissing with an ! mark, like it was such a shock. Yeah I'm a shipper but in those days ask me to write it and I'd feel uncomfortable as hell.

Maybe even then I hated Hunters and wanted to make up for it. Unforgettable's a highlight of the season for me. Ironic. It's the only one of Season Four bunch I read.

3) Going back to something in the previous point that I've thought about briefly a few times over the years, primarily when I was writing B4FV Season Three. Jessie's confession that she's in love with James creates a bit of a plot hole in Season Two episode, Resistance. There she works it out, she doesn't know or isn't sure before then. I mentioned that the scene "may" have been Kellin's made up version.

I don't remember for sure, the scene could have easily been just poorly written and Jessie was a very new character. Still, it seems a bit odd that within their second episode I'd go straight out and say what their feelings are. One maybe could work if the other doesn't for a season, but both? I'm leaning more towards fake flashback than real but erased one. Erased one would suggest I forgot Jessie knew it while writing Resistance (unless Unforgettable's not shown events helped her figure it out). Could be either, I still lean towards the better one just because of how this episode is.

Resistance anyway caused more problems for B4FV Three than Unforgettable. That's another boring story though.

Once Upon A Time
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
In the original episode the holodeck program opens up with that line.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
The original episode. I just wanted Kiara forced into an original plot without changing it too much, ha.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Once Upon A Time

Brief Facts
1) This and the following two episodes were released a lot later in the season as I was stuck on them.

2) The episode has been rebooted, but only as half of an episode. Fellow Holodeck episode Worse Case Scenario 2 shared the spotlight.

3) The episode was meant to not only bring Kiara into the mix, but to show how different she was to Naomi Wildman.

4) It's a forgotten example, but the Flyer appears in the episode as if Extreme Risk still existed. Try to cram three seasons of episodes into one, and add a stupid first time writer into the mess, and you have a first season that's not newbie friendly.

Background Information
From here on out, Season One was a mess, even more so than it was. I had this stupid idea in my head that at least one episode must be released weekly. When I couldn't think of anything for Once Upon A Time, then Timeless, and then The Fight, Mirror Universes stepped up to save the day.

That wasn't the only time this happened. Dark Frontier, Upendi and Fugitives were released after the season finale.

Anyhow, by the time I got to Once Upon A Time I had a few more episodes on my belt, so hopefully it would be better. Right? Hmm.

I guess you could say it followed the story till the conclusion, which was rare. It barely touched on the story though, it was very bare bones. The majority of it was the games on the Bridge and the Enterprise side story being caught in a can't explode paradox, because of a Nemesis rumour that thankfully didn't come true.

At least the Battleships game had something to do with the plot, as James and Jessie were keeping Kiara distracted. The Enterprise plot, wtf. Worst foreshadowing ever. The joke here is I rewrote it for the reboot. Why? Cos I could.

It's not a bad episode, I mean it's okay, a bit random but what isn't at this point? It's clear I enjoyed writing it, and that's what counts, right?

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Why Once Upon A Time was picked, is a bit tricky as it wasn't a loved episode, or liked a lot one. Nor did I hate it. It was added as it focused on the only kid on the ship, and of course FV was all about showing the differences. Kiara being the second kid on the ship meant the episode would be different. Of course the series went with the parody route for a while so... yeah Once Upon A Time didn't do very much that was on topic.

Timeless
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Hmm, pass! It's a time episode, ta-dah I did it. I suppose Voyager Goes Ice Skating doesn't have the same ring to it.

Alternate Titles
A Timeless Fight (old reboot title)

Inspiration
The original episode, oh lord.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Timeless

Brief Facts
1) As mentioned already, Timeless wasn't the seventh episode released like it should've been. It and two others were skipped over as I couldn't write them.

2) That didn't change when I did get to it.

3) The only reason Timeless made it into FV at all was because I like it, a lot. The reason it was delayed was because I could not answer the question "how can I include it?"

4) As of April 2016, the episode has been rebooted to fix all of the problems I had with it.

5) Because of 1 and the fact that I wanted a few more episodes in "fourth season" territory, Timeless was changed to episode twelve in the reboot, making it the fourteenth released and the fifteenth finished. The last one tells me one thing, we're halfway through at long last ^_^

Background Information
I'll keep this as brief as I possibly can.

I loved Timeless and I wanted it in FV so badly, but I was too stupid and too young to really get that with FV's premise I couldn't have it. I do have to be careful with time episodes as the whole series revolves around dimensions and time travel. This was one I couldn't pull off. Making it into Kiara's dream was just my stubborn nature winning out. Wah I want Timeless, I get Timeless whatever the cost. The cost was a truly awful episode.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Spoilers
For Season Three+ and the prequels I guess
It also pre-dates the James and Janeway are related decision, so Kiara and James/Jessie's future son being together, even if it is a dream, EW. Oh and even bigger ew when you realise that the episode is based around the time that the readers are meant to think Kiara is Janeway's daughter, not granddaughter. I'm gonna stop before I make myself sick. Timeless should just be called Treading Thin Incest Ice. Yuck.

The Fight
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
There's a fight, it's not that clever.

Alternate Titles
The Seven of Nine Show (reboot title)

A Timeless Fight (old reboot title)

Inspiration
The original episode

Original Voyager Episodes Used
The Fight

Brief Facts
1) This episode was written and released much later that it should've been, this time because I was simply stuck with how to write it.

2) The episode has been partially rebooted as The Seven of Nine Show. There's not much left of it, let's leave it as that.

Background Information
The Fight's one of my favourites of Season Five, so FV-ising it seemed like a good idea. Only the biggest issue with episodes you love is what the hell do you do with them? Sometimes even if you love them they're not perfect. You can get a little joke at its expense in there, you can try to fix it. The Fight was perfect for what it was. I didn't want anything else from it. Big mistake to create a FV episode for it.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Spoilers
For Season Two episode 13 onwards
It started out as a way to change it by bringing in the new cast. Then it came to me. Chakotay was picked because of his faulty gene. I stupidly thought Kiara would have it too. Then I slapped myself and realised, she doesn't need it. The aliens in Chaotic space try to help people escape by altering DNA, so they can communicate, right? She was always related to Morgan/Lena, who would develop telepathy. I had already hinted that she's got an untapped ability of some kind. By the time I got to writing the Fight, I had most of Season One already done and had definitely fine tuned most if not all of the Morgan/Kiara details. They had telepathy to exploit, or at least some kind of precog ability, as well as her dad's passed down crazy gene (well it's possible anyway, right?).

Luckily the episode was lazily written and I didn't have to abuse the "could be the crazy gene" too, to hide the telepathy option.

Then there's James. He was already planned to be the other Slayer sometime in Season One. Since The Fight was so late in the season, it's obvious why I picked him to see things as well. What didn't make sense is the manner of it and the violence. Remember in Unforgettable when I said the back story exposition was well done for me, The Fight went back to Hunters way of hitting you over the head with it. Yeah James' dad was an abusive asshole, did you get that, he was abused, by his dad. Get it. You're not leaving the table till you do. Finish your vegetables.

Mirror Universes
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
The enemy of the episode is another Voyager from a different universe. Since they're evil, they're opposites=mirror image.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
This was a very long time ago but I believe I was inspired by a Star Trek Next Generation novel. That was probably based on those evil universes episodes that DS9 liked to do.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) Mirror Universes was the sixth episode released and eighth episode completed.

2) Because of the above the episode was moved forward to the seventh slot in the reboot. Oh and "Seventh" Voyager, episode seven. Come on.

3) Despite what the episode says, the whole Seventh Dimension stuff comes from my old abandoned Kidz Trek series. I had even forgotten that.

4) Again despite what the episode says, the "fanfiction plays out in other dimensions" story was never meant to be canon. I'll explain later but for now, it was a whimsical scene much like Aggressions Part 2.

5) Its reboot barely did a thing to it, however that doesn't mean the episode wasn't without faults. The fanfic dimensions aside, the biggest issue was the use of Kiara in it.

6) I realise there's a plot error within the episode besides that, and that was Triah disappearing in the final scenes. I honestly don't know what happened there.

Background Information
I thought right at the beginning that FV needed an enemy that original Voyager didn't. Not that their original enemies would be cut, god no. I still wanted the Borg Queen, Species 8472, and at the time the Hirogen (Hunters sigh). I wrote World Domination first with this in mind. My train of thought was originally somebody with a grudge against them, and in spirit of this paradox/dimension series, it would be because of something that they hadn't done yet or had done in another dimension.

Enter the original Damien, nameless at the time, to take the role of the villain for the episode. If he worked out, I'd fit him into older episodes. I then toyed around with what to do with the Borg, I thought about Kidz Trek villains like the Tolg and the Soft. The idea of having a mirror image of the Voyager crew came to mind, with some slight touches like Phoebe being in command instead of Janeway. I remembered KT again, with its story taking place mostly in the Fifth dimension, and their enemies being from the Seventh.

I eventually went back to "Damien" as the hidden leader of this evil Voyager, pulling the strings in the background. It wasn't a clever ah-ha moment or anything though. Aggressions Part 2 came around and somebody new showed up, completely different than World Domination Version 1's. It was a silly spur of the moment thing and I wasn't one for deleting stuff back then. What was written was written, unless Web Express crashed of course. Ahem. I didn't want two villain characters with a grudge, though it's debatable if Aggressions' version of Damien showed this at all, and while doing Mental Illness I decided on merging the leader character from WD with this newbie. This was the first change to World Domination. There'd have to be the reveal it was him all along, cue eye roll.

It's not all bad. It was NEVER written to be this shocking plot twist. It was meant to be obvious. Damien would play it as such, but really, the characters shouldn't be surprised (not sure if I made them so, I haven't read WD for over a decade and I'm not gonna start now!).

It also paved the way for the third incarnation of Damien, the one we've had since early Season Two and is still around today.

The eye roll was mainly that I'm not even at episode 10, and the changes that made World Domination stray from its earlier draft are already numerous. Yeah it worked out in the end, but WD's butchering is one of my biggest regrets of FV. Tone changes from slightly quirky but serious to full blown parody, the villain's complete change of personality, this episode's "omg fanfictions take place in dimension 5.6million, I'm so clever" joke. World Domination did not stand a chance and there's more to come.

Back to Mirror Universes for now though. I tried to kick the dimension wars into gear here, and the episode is exposition central because of it. It doesn't make sense even if the fanfiction part is excluded, it raises more questions. What is Seventh Dimension if the Fifth is fiction? How can one species only exist in one dimension? Why did I introduce this species, what motive did I have for that (I'd forgotten about it tbh, and was surprised when I went to reboot). Why do Seventh want Fifth characters so badly when they have their own (though I'm only putting that here as it's never canonically answered). The episode's a hot mess, though I'm giving myself credit for bothering to try.

It's too early though. Timeline should've done this. Mirror Universes had no business butting its nose into this. All it should've done was introduce the evil crew and foreshadow the dimension aspect of the series. I may have avoided the fanfic crap. No, I'm not letting that go anytime soon. In fact...

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) I promised myself that in the reboot, I'd avoid referencing stuff in the originals that were meant to be removed. I made this promise after Hunters Again, so no, I didn't already break it... at least that badly. However Mirror Universes, I couldn't help myself. It's not something that could be swept under the carpet. I cringe everytime I think of it.

To explain the problem, let's imagine the saner side of me that came up with FV in 2000, having a discussion with the obviously permanently drunk Marill from 2001.

"They're in dimension 5.12435y2lol1337etc, because it's a fanfiction series! The real Voyager will be something like 5.04747474areukidding47! God that's epically clever!!"

"What, there's already a reason for FV being based in an AU, the basic explanation has already been figured out. It's the entire premise of the damn series. Timeline will do this in a few episodes."

"So? This is far more funny and makes so much more sense! Besides, it explains the Fifth part of the name! Exclaimed."

"But... Fifth is just a nod to my Kidz Trek series, it doesn't need explaining. This goes against all I have planned for Kiara and Morgan."

"Hahaha let's have the baby pretend to be her evil self, and have it be Janeway's idea. This episode writes itself."

*facepalm*

I'd do present day me versus 15 year old me, but it would be "They're..." interrupted with continuos slaps from present me.

Ahem. We've already established I'm crazy, moving on.

So yeah. Remember the Aggressions trivia? I created FV on the premise that it was an AU version of Voyager, which branches off because of Kiara's mysterious birth. One trivia point mentioned the incredibly spoilertastic original synopsis for Aggressions, showing that there was more to it that should've been revealed later, not in a synopsis. Nowhere in my notes does it say that the dimension stuff is because it's a fanfiction. If I wanted to create a lie to throw off the readers until the true reveal, I could've gone down the Kidz Trek route. It would have helped keep World Domination the same. But nooo...

I hate the me that was writing at this time. I really think there was something in the Cherry Coke back then. If the recipe hasn't changed, I must have developed an immunity to it.

Worse Case Scenario 2
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
This episode was meant to be the sequel to Worst Case Scenario, which would've took place before the first episode Aggressions. With me so far?

I was a stupid kid misspelling supposedly, obsessed with exclaimed and exclamation marks sometimes at the same time, and well... I think you get the picture. The episode was named Worse instead of Worst by mistake.

I think you know what worst case scenario means and any Voyager fan knows why the Season Three episode was called this. The sequel is only about Tom's modifications to this program, which he did for fun, not for helping the Starfleet crew train for a possible mutiny.

Nowadays, it's a sequel to Worse Case Scenario 1 from the prequels (how's that for a headache). It seems only fair to stick to some mistakes. It isn't the wors(t) mistake in the world, the title's just in a different tense to the original. Right *slinks off*

Alternate Titles
Worse Case Scenario 2: The Lion King 2 Crossover (though I think it's still called this)

Inspiration
Obviously it was inspired by the original Voyager episode it's a sequel to. I thought it'd be a funny idea to have Tom's story clash with something ridiculous, enter the film I was obsessed with as a kid; Lion King 2. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Technically none.

Brief Facts
1) I still think even now the episode's only real fault, besides the title I guess but I'm talking about its contents, was that it was too short. By the time you get to the actual point it's a few sentences away from the ending. Almost as if each episode had a time or size limit *cough* An issue with a lot of Season One.

2) It's this episode that got me thinking about something that should be mentioned. I don't hate Tom, despite what FV will tell you. Don't worry, my hate for Seven is real.

3) One of the reasons it's up there as one of my Season One favourites is because it bothered to do some character development. More on that later.

4) The episode really dates itself. Really. Teletubbies. Wow. Still had to be kept for the reboot.

5) Speaking of the reboot, since I was quite fond of the episode, the main issue I addressed in it was by the time I got to the modified program, the episode ended.

Background Information
I'm not sure if there's anything to say on the background of this. I have more to say about the reboot to be honest.

I originally didn't like the episode this was a sequel to. It had more to do with my indifference to the Seska character and up until her twist is revealed, I was enjoying it for what it was. Not all episodes have to have an antagonist. I'd have liked Worst Case more if it instead showed more of Tuvok and Tom's bickering over creative control.

I've grown to like the entire episode over the years, which helped write the prequel version of it in the end, so it all worked out. I still would have preferred the Tom Versus Tuvok second half, don't get me wrong.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) I mentioned this earlier, but at the time, or more accurately since its release in (I think) 1998, I adored the sequel to the Lion King. Anyone who's seen it and remember enough about it will either already know, or have a sudden "oh, is that why Kiara is called that?" epiphany. It wasn't solely LK2, I loved a lot of Disney at the time. Ironically LK2 was the final film released I got into. Once they turned 3D I was put off, but never mind. You all know better, it wasn't because I grew up. Laughable, I still haven't.

Even so, I was 15 years old so that's a good reason for probably a lot of early FV issues. It didn't help that I was a very young 15 year old, if that makes sense. I was probably closer to 10 in maturity.

Anyway, going off track once more. Originally I only planned to LK-ify Upendi, but apart from chucking Teletubbies into Tom's program (for many reasons. One, Kiara's a kid, two, the idea of Tom wetting himself in fear over a Teletubby villain still makes me laugh today), my ideas were pretty lacking. I had to think of something to mix into the program that a small child would like. You'd think with my maturity level it would be a cinch. Lion King was chosen, mainly because I thought it did actually blend well with the program's mutiny story. If you think about it, it does. Two sides hate each other because they're different, they realise they're better together/they're the same. Done deal.

The problem is Upendi had a similar thing going on. Worse Case was always a bit of fun, while Upendi was meant to hammer this point in a little bit seriously even in FV's parody days. So really, it's only a minor gripe. The big issue is Mirror Universes parodied a song from this film just an episode ago, and I've mentioned Kiara's name already. It isn't as in your face as my Pokémon obsession at the time of writing, but it's certainly noticeable enough for me to whine about.

2) Another thing I mentioned was I quite liked the episode for its character development. It's a short episode so I bet you're wondering, when did it have time for that? They're only little things that you could miss, but as I'm looking at it with a complete series now, 15 years later and being the idiot who wrote it, I notice these things too often.

One, a major issue I have with One (yes there's a lot) is with James' character. When I put both him and Jessie into the main cast, they needed to be separate from their namesakes. Jessie didn't need much doing, what I did for her fit, with only a couple of minor things removed from her personality later. James however just would not work. He was all over the place. I read Season One and in one episode I can see "oh, here's current James' building blocks" and then a scene later he'll regress to Team Rocket James. Basically at the time nothing personality wise I did for him was consistent.

At least I bothered to create a backstory for him and stuck with it. First the reveal about his abusive father in The Fight and originally Unforgettable. Worse Case gave him the talent with computers/hacking. Up till now he and Jess were a pair of idiots who shouldn't be on a starship, let alone on the bridge. Poor Jessie's reasons for being a Marquis and now Bridge officer weren't developed, but at least James got something. The reason for his joining the Marquis, or at least the reason he was accepted into it, was finally there. At least, that's what he thinks.

Though this clearly wasn't established properly or forgotten when I did Mirror Universes. Jessie does the hacking type work in that, while James does very little. Minor plot error.

Second, Seska and Jessie's rivalry began here. It was a nice surprise to find it. I thought it was some silly last minute "drama!" addition to B4FV1. But no, it's there because of Worse Case 2. I spotted two things from the episode that clued me in, one's direct and the other not so much I suppose. The direct one is Seska's attempt to kill Jessie.

Reminder: Kiara was the boss of this, James was the programmer. I think Jessie gave herself the job of "keeping James right", in other words stopping him from going too over the top (reboot comment, sarcastic "great going Jess". Though to be fair she doesn't say this in the reboot so...).

Was it Kiara's idea, maybe but surely since it was from the movie she was crossover-ing, wouldn't she pick her mother instead? The villain attacks the leader of the other side. The daughter, who basically turned one of her own against the villain, dives in the way. Why Jessie? She doesn't fit either criteria.

So not Kiara, was it James' idea? If so, he's an equally terrible writer as me. Ouch. I suppose what you saw of the program wasn't a literary masterpiece, most of it was LK2 word for word, the rest was jokes at Tom's expense. I know James isn't the overprotective of Jessie hothead of Season Two+ (or even 2 episodes later), but it's a bit fishy he'd do this whole Seska Versus Jessie finale and not make it a joke.

No I'm not putting too much thought into this. Ha. I remember deciding that it was Jessie's idea, she wanted it in. It makes sense she'd dislike Seska, I imagine all of the Marquis do. But her jumping after Jessie, growling something about revenge and a "finally I get to kill her" style comment, I obviously had it being more personal long before the prequels.

Collective Instinct
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
I had a completely different idea for this episode back when I first planned it. I imagine the title was fitting for that.

It's still a Borg episode, so that remains the only real meaning. If I changed episodes during writing, I never changed the titles. I mean look at Hunters.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
I couldn't tell you what it was originally inspired by as I've lost all my notes, and memory of the first idea. And I can't tell you what the current storyline was inspired by either. It's probably my first original episode idea. Though I imagine someone will say that the crashed Borg ship disconnecting a drone came from the Hugh episode of TNG. You could be right but that's a very loose inspiration, still...

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) Season One had almost a full episode listing before I started to write it. James and Jessie were not even thought of at the beginning. Collective Instinct is about them. You see where I'm going with this?

2) You're half right, probably. The pair didn't steal the plot from another character, or two. The plot changed completely. James was picked for the story for a good reason. Jessie's inclusion, well...

3) It's such a long time ago, I don't remember what I wanted to do with the original pre-James/Jessie version.

4) Collective Instinct was picked to foreshadow later episodes and developments. It was meant to be open-ended, unlike the rest of S1 which did it cos of laziness.

5) The reboot filled in a few gaps I spotted in the story, the story remained almost all intact.

6) The reboot was brought forward to before Worse Case (and Timeless), so there was more time between Borg episodes. Unfortunately that left two Holodeck episodes side by side.

Background Information
As mentioned, what Collective Instinct was before has been lost, and so has any background information I'd have from that time.

I can tell you that the current version (not the reboot) was written with the series premise and its paradox in mind, but also was one of the first to really shake up one of the characters involved. Basically if it wasn't for Collective, I imagine a lot of James' future development would've been quite different.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Spoilers
For Season Three episode 2 and beyond+
Morgan's story had to differ from her inspiration, Roxanne's. Not only to avoid fully spoiling my novels, but to also fit with the concept of the series. KT itself was based in AU, but for already established reasons that weren't related to Roxanne. Morgan however was Fifth Voyager, she still is, so it was already different to KT. I needed more though.

One of the little details I needed to work on was why she was disconnected from the Borg. I already had her as a Game Cube fighter, that was set in stone. Working with that, I came up with the idea. I have a feeling that working on that I remembered Collective Instinct, OR at the very least I came up with the basic plot for it. I'm betting on the latter to be honest.

"I need an episode that has a Borg ship disconnected suddenly, for no reason. Only I know the reason, it's what happened to Morgan's too. Make sure the crew never figure out the cause, leave it a mystery."

I imagine that's all Collective Instinct was until James and Jessie joined the ranks. I'm so confident in that feeling I'll continue on from here as if it were fact.

When the pair did join, as mentioned already, I needed to develop them so they weren't the parodies they were in Hunters. I may not have done very well in changing their actual characters until much later, but I can safely say I did a wonderful job figuring out their backstory. In James' case, his futurestory was developed too. I didn't want both characters to just be there, you know? I wanted at least one of them to have a purpose in the series other than bad comic relief.

James was picked as Morgan's equal, a teammate. I just had the fun task of keeping it a secret until Season Two with mere foreshadowing on the side.

I don't know exactly when this happened, but this episode is the latest time it could've been thought of. If it wasn't, then the episode should be renamed Collective Coincidences. There's too much in it to ignore.

The cube/sphere was meant to foreshadow Morgan's arrival. Its disconnection was meant to have the same cause. I already decided the cause. Unless I had James assimilated at the exact same time this happened elsewhere, then not only did I fail at writing (again), I lucked out in the end.

It's too clean cut to be a coincidence, or even something I developed after the episode was released. I remember Instinct's point was a pre-Timeline. James was picked for a reason. Jessie too, but hers was more for the silly no hair jokes and rabbit attack. Oh well, at least one of the characters was working their way out of comic relief zone.

Holo Q
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
A Q on the Holodeck. I wish all of them were this simple.

Alternate Titles
Home Sweet Holodeck

Inspiration
Lol Power Rangers the Movie, that's obvious as well.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) The reboot started out as a simple edit job like Collective, Mirror Universes etc... but since Holo Q was basically stealing every line from its "inspiration", it had to be rewritten.

2) Holo Q's intent was to discreetly begin a long running storyline that didn't end until the final episode. More in Spoilers.

Background Information
I probably shouldn't mention it here at all. Holo Q is the start of a bigger storyline, it just never said so. It works better that it didn't. My regret is I didn't make the effort to really complete it. If you know what I'm talking about you may remember that the storyline is just mentioned in Season Four, brushed aside as some sort of background event. It was a simple case of me being quite ashamed of the way I presented it, so I gradually phased it out during Season Three so well that I had forgotten it existed, until something reminded me during a Season Four episode. I'd have to edit S4 if I decide to actually do an episode actually showing the end of this story (or do a better job of The Slayers in Season Two so it takes care of it... like it hinted at), there's plenty of time yet.

Getting back to Holo Q as a single entity, if it didn't copy word for word quotes it'd actually be a highlight of the season. One of the better ones. Probes with Holodecks aside it had an interesting premise, it did what it was supposed to (foreshadow and introduce future things), developed James for once, used original characters as well as new, and it was Q episode.

As I've mentioned in Misc below, I still think I had more ideas for Holo Q which didn't get used or at least explained properly, only leaving small hints behind. I dunno if Power Rangers the Movie was the inspiration or not, as the episode idea would've worked easily without it, and definitely would've improved it. Too bad with even the reboot version, I'll never know.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) This is the earliest point I could have decided James' role in the series. Yes this may include slight spoilers for later seasons. I'll still try to be vague about it, you wouldn't be reading this unless you have read Holo Q, right? Back in my 15 year old/Season One crazy days, I didn't like to change things even if I knew they were wrong. Typo's sure, I'll do that but that was it. I didn't like James, not really. Beyond his references to his past abuse, the guy had nothing going for him. He was just Jessie's lesser half, the second part of the "comedy" duo.

Somewhere in S1 I had an idea, but I have no way of really knowing or remembering when. Holo Q was a chance to test it out. Instead of being cowardly, he was more or less getting into the fight, putting himself in trouble to help out Jessie. The problem was, I was too used to him as the silly coward. After Holo Q I kept up the joke, but tried to break out of it by leaving subtle hints about what I had in mind. In the end though Season Two came around and I figured it was time. This will probably be mentioned in the trivia for Interactions, Disconnected and/or Resistance (definitely Resistance!), but I changed his character so abruptly, I had to explain it. I didn't, I just left more "subtle" hints that things weren't how they seemed.

Holo Q is where it started to change, even if it did seem to be undone by Timeline's antics (speaking of that, I'm not even sure if the scene I'm thinking of is even still there, meh).

2) Both parts are guilty of this, but by the time I reached Part 2 while doing the reboot, I had to stop chucking in old scenes into the new episode file to edit, rewrite and/or add new things into them. The Power Rangers lines and actions were so damn identical. I haven't seen the movie in at least 14 years (I must have seen it recently enough when Holo Q was written) and while I read the episode the movie played in my head like I had just seen it yesterday. I'll go into this further later but for now, it's one of the bad surprises. I knew I had ripped off the film, not to this extreme though...

3) Here's where I get a tad vague. I had a thought, maybe it was more of a hope that I had an ulterior motive for this episode. An idea for it and that Power Rangers movie was a way of telling it as I was barely 9 episodes into FV, and I sucked so... That there was more going on it than the episode said. The good surprise I got was that maybe I was right. That I originally did plan Holo Q and write some of it with an idea in mind. There's hints that look like random lines, strange plot errors that even I wouldn't have done at 15 years old (I can't say what yet) that had to be intentional (no I'm not counting a successor Voyager probe with a Holodeck, there is no excuse for that). This is good.

The bad is that as usual I didn't develop it further than that. If I had this interesting/unique ish idea, hidden behind a Power Ranger and Pokémon crossover, then I didn't care enough about it to say it was there, let alone explain it. The reboot did halt for a time so I could think about how to present the new version of this story (I hope) I was trying to tell 14 years ago, without compromising the old one too much. The fact that it is just Tom and co posing as the Power Rangers, with Q the ooze guy, and a very strange cameo from my home life (yeah don't ask), I'm not too fussed about compromising it anymore. I've got a story to tell, and for most of the second half of Holo Q/Home Sweet the original episode isn't going to hold me back from doing so.

Spoilers
For early Season Two, episode 5 onwards:
It isn't all the way through but the episode does show signs of me developing James' character, role and later arc in S2+, some subtle, some really not so. The biggest one was the stupid scene with the animal spirits. Or rather Pokémon spirits haha. Darcia describes the characters by at least two personality traits while they're assigned. James is described as deceptively strong. I knew James was picked in the Slayer role quite early, I thought it might be this early but wasn't 100% sure on it. The episode gave me a few hints and then slapped me in the face with a one I couldn't ignore. I could ignore it if his character was like he is in the reboot, just a smart ass. Or if the description hinted the strong was not literal. The "doesn't look it" line before ruins that, and the character until this is just a coward with very little personality beyond hyper idiot. If she had said "does not seem it/or hides inner strength" blah blah, I'd not count it. She doesn't. It's right there.

Yes, I'm very happy about this. This was James' sixth episode technically as Holo Q was written earlier. I had a feeling his development started early, yet I couldn't remember any examples apart from very light memories of this episode. So finding out that I wasn't imagining things to make me seem more prepared, or making things up to look better ^_^ was a happy surprise.

Other hints include random lines, and subtle ish actions he does. A one that did make me go "omg" outloud in my office (lucky I was alone) was him displaying a vicious side much earlier than I thought (although Test of Time was quite early too); "I'd kill him for that". That's early Season Two's OTT with the violence James, but it's still closer to the real him than original Season One. It was quite a shock.

Demon²
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It doesn't usually come across as such, but the title is meant to be Demon Squared. Why?

The episode was meant to be a sequel to Demon and a prequel to Course: Oblivion. Ignore the fact that neither were in FV, it isn't the first time S1 did this and it won't be the last. Demon 2 didn't work, Course was technically Demon 2, at least in Voyager's perspective. Demon 1½ would be more fitting, but I didn't know how to use the half symbol in web pages.

Of course Squared makes even less sense and I only recently figured out the squared symbol. It's Demon multiple times over. Hunters² in the reboot would've made more sense.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
Demon and Course: Oblivion originally. Another episode ruined by stealing a Pokémon plot during writing.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
None I guess.

Brief Facts
1) Demon² will be no longer canon when the reboot of Season One is complete. The episode has gone the way of Mental Illness.

Background Information
No I didn't like Demon. Although I liked the idea of Voyager running so low on fuel, it was a rare reminder that they're alone in the Delta Quadrant.

I did however love Course Oblivion. One of the reasons was that it was a shippers paradise, I'll admit, but I liked it for what it was. I think a lot of people hated it for being a sequel to Demon. Yes it's stupid, they both are, it's a guilty pleasure for me ^_^

I imagine I chose to do an inbetweener episode because I couldn't think of any changes to either episode. It was also an opportunity to introduce the Erona and its crew, borrowed from my ex-novel series Kidz Trek Excelsior, before Fugitives. Of course since Excelsior is a real Star Trek ship I changed the name, which I didn't have to do, it could have been an Excelsior B, C or S since it was from the future. I guess it was probably the same reason the Lillyia was introduced as the Dellia. Shudder.

Originally the Erona/Excelsior crew were tasked with finding the KT version of Voyager, (Spoiler for Season Two) using the Game Cubes to get to them quicker. Instead having them travel from far in the future to the past to find them, for different reasons, seemed like a good idea at the time. They weren't exactly the most competent crew, and in typical FV style that trait was amplified by ten. It seemed natural they'd get mixed up and find the demon crew.

I wonder if anyone is curious about how I'm going to pull off the Erona introduction when I've cancelled Demon² in the reboot. Hmm. That's all I have to say for the moment.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) The episode's been cancelled for multiple very good reasons. It's definitely up there as one of my least favourite episodes, only narrowly beaten by the Terrible Trio; Aggressions, Hunters and World Domination. Maybe The Atamit too if I'm feeling generous.

I don't even give it a reread chance. Why?

First thing is that it highlights a major problem with Season One, which kept happening in Two and Three. If I had a reasonably okish or even a good original storyline, I'd get cold feet writing it and/or not have much faith in it. Instead it'd get taken over by a rip off of something else. In One's case it was almost always Pokémon.

Demon wasn't the first, not by a long shot. Year of Hell did it first, in the exact same manner. Holo Q did this with Power Rangers the Movie. The Slayers later did it with the third Pokémon movie. Disconnected morphed from being likely the best episode for a fair few years, to a Frighteners knock off so bad it had a ghost trapped in a box.

I guess Demon wasn't as bad as these examples. The Pokémon plot was in the sidelines, away from the main storyline. At least that's how I remember it. It was something for the writer(s) to do, because god forbid I have an episode without fourth wall rubbish. It's got far more sins than this though.

I don't need to remind you, I've mentioned it often enough. I wanted James and Jessie to be original characters, not their inspired namesakes. Demon seemingly forgot this. The running gag for Demon was Jessie screaming about not having any make up and flipping out because of it. I imagine Pokémon Jessie would've become a fiery dragon if she were stuck on a planet without any beauty products and high humidity. FV Jessie may have/should have gotten away with one "I miss my other clothes" type joke. Anything more than that is very annoying and NOT FUNNY. Way to ruin a new character me.

Other issues, slightly less major. The Erona crew can't be this stupid. Sure Voyager crew don't notice Fake-Harry, but they're weirded out enough to see him walking around without a suit. I can't remember how long it takes this supposedly far more advanced crew to spot this, but a few lines is long enough.

Also, the crew building their own Voyager and keeping it badly a secret. How can you miss that too? Or, and I know this may be an issue with Course Oblivion itself, how they were able to build it at all. Or why if they loved Demon Class so much. Meh.

In the long run, Demon² is not important and can be skipped. It's not like I had my own Demon or Course. It's not like I can't introduce the Erona in another episode since they clearly do not interact with the real Voyager crew here anyway.

Timeline
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Simply, this is the episode that truly sets FV in motion and FV itself is in another timeline/dimension to original Voyager.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
My old Kidz Trek: The Voyage Home

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) Timeline was the second episode written and finished. It followed World Domination's first draft. Aggressions followed it a few months later.

2) Unlike World Domination, Timeline's draft was used and most of it made it into the finished episode.

3) The only new scenes involved James and Jessie since they didn't exist during its first draft.

4) Timeline's story was originally a book long storyline. Morgan/Roxanne arrived first in book 1. Kiara would be born in book 2, which would've ended with most of Timeline's plot. With a different ending all together, naturally.

5) No I don't understand the ending either.

6) I'm not joking, but I am laughing.

7) Season One's pacing was all over the place. I didn't factor this in when planning the James/Jessie falling out plotline. I doubt anyone noticed how many months its been since Holo Q.

8) The reboot will likely improve the scenes already there, add a couple new ones and fix the ending.

Background Information
Oh boy, I'll try to keep this brief as I don't want to repeat myself too often.

Kidz Trek: The Voyage Home, the second "spin off" to the book series I also didn't write barring one or two chapters, was my pride and joy back in those days. It was the FV of the 90's basically. I was a stupid kid, proud of a series that ripped off Voyager so much the chapters still had original episode titles. In between seasons I'd steal from other things like Reboot or Red Dwarf. No joke. I was about 12/13 years old but hey.

However the reason I was proud of it wasn't because of my love for Voyager and my tendency to steal. It was two characters called Kiara Morgan and Roxanne. I liked the idea of Seven (though I always hated the idea to stick her in a skin tight outfit), I actually quite liked her in Season Four. Shocking I know. I don't need to go into why that changed again for this section, so I'll skip ahead.

Basically, I wanted to do something different for once. Roxanne was still the ex drone (Tolg instead of Borg), but like Seven I guess she had no memories of her childhood or her assimilation. The change was that years later, Kiara would be born to the two commanders. The two girls would spend some time together what with Roxanne being like an adopted daughter to the captain. Roxanne's memories would gradually come back the longer she spent with the child.

Then along came the twist at the end of the second book. Roxanne was Kiara. Kiara would be assimilated by the Tolg in a matter of days. That ship would be dragged back into the past at some point and encounter "Voyager" before she was born.

I won't go into anymore of it at risk of spoiling later FV eps and confusing anyone, but I will say that the pair regard each other as sisters after this reveal.

When I decided to practice writing with fanfiction, I wanted to use one of the few original ideas I ever had that wasn't terrible. The first attempt was something called Tragedy, where I kept it simple and only brought in one of them without the paradox. In its place, Q would give J/C a gift for her help in Q and the Grey. Not the best of storylines, I know.

My issue with Tragedy and the resulting series it would do, was that it didn't really do anything but be a Star Trek Voyager re-telling with a kid hanging around. Everything stayed the same, except for an occasional The Mummy storyline.

Another series idea dabbled with alternate scenario's and the aftermath. One episode would've been what if the Borg in Scorpion decided to use Janeway as their messenger instead of Seven. Episodes following it would've changed because of her experience, and so on. It wasn't the pilot but it was the first one partially written.

I badly wanted to bring in the pair to Voyager, and I finally figured out how. I could bring in Roxanne and Kiara in similar circumstances, still use the alternate scenario's series idea, and use elements of the Tragedy series. It could work, as long as I don't make it exactly the same as KT to avoid spoiling it.

Ok, that did end up being long. Timeline and FV's origins are though, no avoiding it I guess. Kiara's birth replaced Janeway's assimilation as the path changer. Kiara's origin was made a mystery, at least for "now". It is a shame that I swapped their appearances around, as I prefer the way KT handled it. The Timeline finale part of its story made little sense but at least it made more than FV's. Oh god.

Anyway it's all worked out in the end. Up until Timeline, it's a bit of a mess honestly.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) The less said about James' inclusion in the main storyline the better. I don't know what's still there in that first scene, but I do remember the original vividly. If it's gone I'll tell you that like Demon did with Jessie, Timeline (or that one scene for some reason) turned him back into a one note joke character. Demon Jessie's only trait was OMG MAKEUP, while Timeline James's was LOL he's an overgrown toddler, so funneh... for one scene. He was back to his Season One normal self later.

I imagine a lot of it has remained because of stupid Season Three stupidly mentioning this stupid scene. Stupid. Sigh. Once more I'm tempted to skip Extreme Night, Timeless, the Seven episode, so I can finally erase original Timeline from canon.

2) The ending. I recently had a look at it while preparing for the series' last two episodes. Even though I know full damn well what the paradox was and all of its details, I wanted to make sure Timeline still fit.

Instead I was left scratching my head, mouthing WTF, wondering what on earth just happened. I could not make any of it out. I know that it was the point, sort of. Timeline was meant to leave a few threads hanging. It still should make some sense though. I shouldn't be left wondering which Borg/Tolg ship is which, or having lines that could be changed to "plot twist" and the story wouldn't be altered in the slightest.

So no, it's not just you. I haven't a clue and I wrote the damn thing. It was so long ago, I know, I still should have a clue.

I mean, I do know some of it. Why one of the ships vanished in a white light, what Tani's brother was doing, and why there were two Borg ships, why the Tolg were there. Etc...

The story doesn't tell you that though

Spirits
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
The episode is mainly about ghosts possessing people.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
You know, I'm not sure. It'll be something, no doubt about it.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) I remember Spirits being one of two episodes in this season where I wrote the first scene or two, got to the point and drew a blank. Apparently it was released the same day as Timeline so I assume the blank wasn't that long. Unlike the second of two episode Fugitives.

2) The opening scene should be used in future English Lit classes as an example of how not to write exposition. Yes, it's a fact. I doubt any "opinion" would differ. There's no worse example.

3) It is very rare for an intended storyline to not only remain the focus, but also reach a conclusion. Still Spirits didn't have all the planned possession it was meant to, so it's still a S1 ep in spirit. Pun not intended, kept anyway.

4) At least Spirits earns another quickie point in its favour for the introducing Morgan's fear of the dead which isn't forgotten or wrote off as a one off. Continuity points are nice.

5) Spirits has a lot of stolen material in it than I remembered. I still have the fanfic(s) infact. The stuff about the Doc hooked up to a clapper, the strange medical device that shoots something and the patient flipping out and overloading the censors, the "are we there yet"/"I need to pee" exchange. Oh and "pretty buttons". Spirits itself on its own is probably fine for the reboot to use, but once all of this is removed there's not going to be much left.

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1)

B'Elanna, Seven, Morgan, Tani, Triah, Kiara & Naomi dematerialised in what used to be a town centre. The was decaying buildings everywhere. All of the buildings were in 21st century England style.

"Okay guys, spread out, scan for any signs of dilithium or deuterium deposits," B'Elanna said. B'Elanna and Seven went off together towards the walls of the city. Triah took Kiara and Naomi near the city centre. Morgan, Craig and Tani headed towards a tall building.

Um, what?

Let's uh, get the red pen and mark this shall we? I'll probably miss something, by accident or possibly on purpose to avoid marking everything in red.

B'Elanna, Seven, Morgan, Tani, Triah, Kiara & Naomi dematerialised in what used to be a town centre. The was decaying buildings everywhere. All of the buildings were in 21st century England style.

Okay, do I really need to say anything here? Really?

B'Elanna, Seven, Morgan, Tani, Triah, Kiara & Naomi dematerialised in what used to be a town centre. The was decaying buildings everywhere. All of the buildings were in 21st century England style.

Lol. Typo, or another case of the missing word? I'm gonna go with typo. I love the typo's that are still words so they don't show up during spell checks. They still should show up during proof reads, but hey, the episode's only fifteen years old. Next!

B'Elanna, Seven, Morgan, Tani, Triah, Kiara & Naomi dematerialised in what used to be a town centre. The was decaying buildings everywhere. All of the buildings were in 21st century England style.

England style. Um, maybe there's nothing wrong with this and I'm being picky about it. I dunno. If I don't know what this means, it's wrong IMO. Did I mean modern houses, or did I mean something far less generic like modern commercial or business buildings? I know I'm not a descriptive writer even now, but I can't visualise this place whatsoever. Heh.

I'll get onto the second paragraph eventually.

B'Elanna, Seven, Morgan, Tani, Triah, Kiara & Naomi dematerialised in what used to be a town centre. The was decaying buildings everywhere. All of the buildings were in 21st century England style.

"Okay guys, spread out, scan for any signs of dilithium or deuterium deposits," B'Elanna said. B'Elanna and Seven went off together towards the walls of the city. Triah took Kiara and Naomi near the city centre. Morgan, Craig and Tani headed towards a tall building.

Craig, you sneaky little devil you. Where did you come from?

Did you get sucked into some strange timewarp in Mirror Universes and only now pop up in a random other awaymission. You little scamp.

In all seriousness, I'm usually very confident in my ability to remember where characters are and what they are doing, if they're standing, sitting, walking etc... 99% I can keep track of it easily even after going back to a scene later after a long while. Here's the 1% where I just... wasn't... trying. It was only a few words ago. How could I miss this?

Okay I think I'm done for now. The Craig and typo mistakes have been fixed now, sigh. Back to the reboot.

Test of Time
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
James and Jessie's friendship endures the test of time.

Though to be fair I think I just saw a title of a game and thought "that'll do" if I'm completely honest.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
I think it was inspired by the canon Voyager book Pathways. Note, I think. I'm not entirely sure.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) It's debatable if this counts as a fact of any kind, but it should be said that Test of Time couldn't exist in the already planned out Season One episode list in the beginning. James and Jessie were not created then.

2) I believe, not remember or know, that the special was a last minute addition and called a special to avoid re-numbering the already established list. And likely to avoid deleting another episode in its place.

3) This isn't going well. Another belief, not a fact, that Test of Time was written a certain way as the pair were telling it themselves. The way the kids talk, the Red Dwarf joke, important parts missed out that would explain what happens (I'll go into this later).

4) At least with ToT I tried again to slowly change James from crybaby manchild into what he is now with a couple of present day scenes. So far Jessie's usually been the one to resort to violence, with James tagging along.

5) Test of Time originally inspired future specials that never got off the ground, that would tell bigger life stories of my other characters. ToT itself would get a longer version to go with it.

6) I don't remember why it was cancelled. I imagine it'll be one of the following; lack of time, lack of incentive, couldn't be bothered, lack of talent - though that never stopped me. Take your pick.

Background Information
I can't even tell you whether or not it existed before James/Jessie but somebody else, or if the special was only a special for convenience. Sooo background information is gonna be hard to remember, unless I find some notes for it. Doubtful.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) I feel that I should talk about Brief Fact 3. I only have a feeling it's true, doubt and evidence that I had little care for the series back then clouds the issue. But anyhow, just in case it is, I'll explain what I mean.

Test of Time could've easily been written purely in flashback form. It also could've been still a present day and flashback episode, with the characters in a situation slightly related to the flashbacks. I chose the story teller path. I guess this is proof that Pathways was inspiration for at least the style of the episode.

The story teller path has far more creative freedom. I've used this for later episodes where a character has told his version of events that is so obviously not true it's laughable to the people hearing it. James and Jessie telling it together gives them the opportunity to avoid certain parts of their story they don't want to share. In my opinion the parts they omit leave glaring plot issues.

It's Season One, so it's very likely it was done like this by accident, due to rushing through it as I always did. It was one of the largest S1 eps, with only Upendi, Dark Frontier and Holo Q beating it, all of which despite their awfulness at times kept to their story and ended them properly. Basically, I clearly made some effort with Test of Time and yet it still had this rushed feel to it.

To be honest, I'm 50/50 on it. It probably was rushed, I couldn't end it wherever I felt like it, it had to end where it did and so I skipped stuff. Or it could've been intentionally skipping stuff so certain parts of the character's past could remain hidden for now.

I had James and Jessie's back history mostly all planned out to the bare bones. I didn't make this much effort with poor Craig or some of the other previously main characters like Triah or Tani. Morgan and Kiara I did, but that's obvious. Some of the stuff I'm sure were decided already were missing completely, or were different.

I suppose to make a tad more sense, I need examples.

First one that comes to mind is the abusive dad reveal. I decided on that from the moment James was added to the main cast in Unforgettable. I planned that he'd been physically and mentally abused for at least a year by his father, obviously too terrified to tell anyone at the time, and is still not super eager about chatting about it now.

What's the problem then, that was in Test of Time wasn't it? Yes, it's the inclusion of the older girl in this whole thing. It was a part of the back story too, that's not the problem. The basic idea I had was James would be far more likely to spend time with girls than with the boys in his class, thanks to his father's abuse. However one girl would get annoyed with him as he was "just a kid" to her, and give him a hard time. To be honest, this part of his story was inspired by something that did happen to me. That's how I remember this little part. The encounter with her would explain why that even though he had a confident, cocky aura about him, he'd turn to cowering jelly when a girl showed any interest in him.

I don't think I planned for the two encounters to clash, and likely only did it to help push the story forward quicker. It kinda worked for me as young James badly didn't want anyone to know about his dad, or the girl, but would rather the girl's mistreatment of him to come out than his dad's, so claimed it was all her to hide that. Nevertheless, it's written sloppily, he still explains it too quickly and because of the fact it was meant to just be the father reveal, the girl's abuse of him is overlooked for it.

It also, I think, doesn't explain what she actually did. I'm not even sure if I followed through with mentioning that ever again. I have a vague memory of it, so perhaps. It's a flaw if you see it as "the episode was rushed", but if you see it as James telling his story, you'll realise it works perfectly anyway regardless if it was done on purpose or not. Would you share those details with people, some of which you've only recently met. Nope.

What did happen with James and the girl that made him so fearful of flirty women, but not women full stop. Is it related to the reveal in Season Four's Dark Page and Tough Love? Same girl? I might go into that later, for now, next example which I think is a better one.

The episode establishes Jessie was adopted by a woman who frequently adopts girls. I dunno if the episode says "only girls" but makes the exception for James, but that's not important. James is later taken by his mother to a new city, the episode then skips a year or so. Fair enough. Jessie's bullying seems to be merely the Jesse James joke according to the episode/Jess' side of the story. The school headmaster expels her for attacking the bullies, she mentions James and immediately he gives the clearly underage girl a lift to this city on the girl's word that her foster mum will kick her out anyway. Um. Surely even 15 year old me would know what crap this was, so why write it.

I vaguely recall one character calling foul on this, and I think Jessie responded with "he felt sorry for me" or some crap. There's rushing, there's also Fifth Voyager rushing, but then there's holo emitters in the shuttle bay ridiculous. This falls right into that camp. Like Holo Q I think there was more to this because I couldn't have been that stupid, and that's saying a lot cos I clearly was/is stupid.

I couldn't have thought there would be holo emitters in the cargo or shuttle bay, and it wasn't done for rushing convenience cos if it were, I'd have beamed that team into the Holodeck or Sickbay for the final encounter. I'm sure the stupid Pokémon battle could have brought them into the shuttle bay later to use the Flyer, it wasn't an issue.

I certainly could not have thought that a 15/16 year old girl would be expelled from school, ask the headteacher for a lift half way down the country so she could live with her best friend. Him to say "oh yeah sure, pack your bags", actually do it, allow her to run into said friend while he lugs her cases out of the shuttle like some background joke. All without ever telling her foster mother because she'd kick her out anyway. The fact that James' mother and step father took her in with that explanation as well is also pure crap.

If I wrote this with the intention of it being Jessie's true story, word for word, then I'm more convinced that I did have multiple personalities or an imposter taking over to write episodes like this and Hunters back then. Test of Time's writer knew enough about their back story to do it, which is impressive. I'm gonna go with multiple personalities. Yes I was a dumb kid, but I knew that there'd never be holo emitters in the shuttle bay (why!?!), and I must've known that headmasters don't ferry expelled kids to their preferred destination as a side job. Sigh.

Ok, I've whined enough about this. My point here is that I really think and/or hope that Jessie told this story to avoid sharing certain details she'd have to, to tell the true version. Season Four tries to paint a better picture of this as I originally planned it. Like James' one above, I'll go into it sometime. I imagine the rebooted Test of Time may leave some hints as it still can't directly show it, but it can't do the exact same thing it did here.

Oh and Red Dwarf joke. Oh yes, Jessie got kicked out of the house because she and James, two I think 17/18 year olds, came home drunk one day and fancied kebabs. Okay. It's not as stupid as her headmaster helped her run away from home story, yeah, it's still a cracker though.

Having James and maybe Jessie later admit their stories were slightly altered three seasons later isn't good enough. You can tell a character shares their a few choice details removed backstory episode, without going this far.

And no the fork/knife joke isn't an example. I remember releasing it with the mistake, somebody telling me about it, and then I did what I do even today. I didn't fix it, I made a joke calling attention to it. The "is it fork or a knife" mixup was a regular joke for a short while.

The Voyager Conspiracy
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Seven imagines there's a conspiracy involving Voyager.

Alternate Titles
Piece of Conspiracy

Inspiration
The original episode

Original Voyager Episodes Used
The Voyager Conspiracy

Brief Facts
1) This is my favourite episode of the season.

2) My original plan for this at the beginning was to rip the original one apart, even though it's one of my favourite episodes. Even when FV wasn't a parody, this one was always gonna be silly.

3) The reboot was completed in early 2015, it can't be released until the series catches up.

4) The reboot's only mission was to fix Morgan's drunk jokes and to give the rivalry between her and Seven a bit of weight.

5) The piece of s*** joke became a irregular running gag in the series. Occasionally someone references the catapult as a piece of s***. Now the reboot title is in on it.

6) The episode's the beginning of Seven's downfall. It seemed only fitting for it to be here.

Background Information
When I first saw The Voyager Conspiracy, I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. It felt like I was watching a fanfiction play out on screen, or I was having one of my bizarre Voyager related dreams. I dunno what it is about it but it's got a strange feel to it. It doesn't feel like a real episode. Don't get me wrong, I loved every ridiculous minute. Well except for the scene that made me think it was J/7 fic in the TV-flesh.

What's so surreal about it? As I said, I'm not sure. It could be because some of the things Seven brought up did make me think there was a conspiracy, even after the ending. The J/C dates, I mean gawd. I thought Timeless was a one off. I definitely pinched my J/C arm during this one. I didn't wake up and saw my worlds collide when Seven and Neelix brought up the long forgotten Kes. Not to mention Janeway's really giddy reaction to the bugs buzzing around.

What bugged me was that it was a variation of "it was all a dream". Seven was only getting confused because data filled her head to bursting point. What about the Cardassian ship, what about the obviously photoshopped light next to the array, how did the alien get the tetrion reactor? Why did the piece of sh... catapult send Voyager a much shorter distance than it did him. Who cares, oh that wacky Seven, here's a J/C scene to distract you.

I thought that not including this episode in FV's first season would be a missed opportunity. What would happen if Seven had these conspiracy theories with J/C together, with two kids? What if Janeway's reaction to the bugs was caused by drinking one too many coffee's during their breakfast date? What if Seven's conspiracy nut phase had permanent effects? The list goes on.

To be fair the first one guaranteed the episode's inclusion, the what if there was a conspiracy idea never made it in. It couldn't be a parody and a serious unreset-button episode at the same time.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) For a time I really thought there was something going on behind the scenes, which Janeway and Chakotay didn't even know about and/or weren't even involved in. The tractor beam, the tri cobalt weaponry, etc... I've seen enough Star Trek to know that the Federation/Se decided that it likely wasn't a conspiracy but if anything did happen, Voyager and the Marquis' ship's only unintentional involvement was the array destruction. Aliens could have taken the reactor while the battle was going on and everyone was distracted. Later the alien in Conspiracy admitted to stealing it. He could hatarfleet have/had certain characters in high positions, as well as secret organisations and well secrets like the Omega Directive. However in recent times I'vve done it and lied about how far he was lost, maybe the catapult wasn't his first. Or maybe he did just steal it from the original thieves. Meh.

Still, the point is I don't like how the episode is glossed over as only in Seven's head. I had the same gripe about Retrospect. I don't like her sure, but doing this once was bad enough. Twice? No. If I was her fan, I'd be insulted.

2) I know my Janeway acting drunk on coffee is an old re-occurring gag, but in this episode it was a joke about the original episode. At the beginning on the bridge, her mood seems giddy. Then the part where they see the insects buzzing around, her reaction is comical. It's like "omg hahaha look at those buzzzy things. Clever Seven", all expressed in a smirk that turns into a wide open mouth. It looked odd. The whole thing was slightly ridiculous and she was probably just amused by it all, but to me she just had one cup too many.

3) The fight between Seven and Morgan that was badly built up in the episode was pitiful. It started out fine with Morgan defending Kiara, but it ended with Seven slagging off Morgan in a fourth wall "your actress sucks" way, and Morgan for some reason only taking offense because she doesn't like Aqua. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't forgotten about that in Season Two when the band is formed, ahem. It'd still be bad though. I hated Seven for being in every episode but still being very Borg despite this (in fact more Borg. Hello "I don't dream but I did in Season Four" and "I can't love anyone without being programmed, except for when I loved Axum". Why does no one ever mention this? It's all just "great character development". Where!?!!?! She goes backwards for god's sake), Morgan's character was made an ex-Borg as well to "show em how it's done". The fight should have been about that. Ah well.

Fugitives
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It has no meaning. It used to.

Originally Chakotay was going to be forced to flee, meanwhile James and Morgan would be off trying to find a way to clear him. Despite actually following the plot and doing quite well for 90% of the episode, I ended up getting all Season One lazy and rushed to the finish line. The title makes about as much sense as Hunters does.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
Another one I cannot remember.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) The episode started out well enough, but for some reason I lost the spark about half way, so I stopped writing it. Since I had to release something *sigh* the episode was delayed.

2) As already stated, the episode had a much fuller plot than what you got. The reboot will see to that. The title will make sense for once.

3) Looking at it with an "adult" perspective now, the running gag of James being a girl magnet and his reaction to this in S1 especially, isn't funny. If the genders were reversed it would raise a few eyebrows. Bad Marill. It'll be why I changed him to only be ignorant and/or naive when this happens later.

4) When you think about it, this episode's version of the "joke" is kinda gross. He's like a few centuries older than you. He was dead for centuries when you were born. You know this. Eeew. Yes this is a fact.

5) I would've liked the Jessie/James shipping hints if they were not stolen from their namesakes, or at least the series/films they were in. Stop it past me.

6) Though now that I think about it, the so called love triangle in this episode was only there because I stole the love triangle scenes from Pokémon 2. Sigh. At least the future crap was me... oh god.

7) I think the love triangle was what killed Fugitives to be honest. If I had spent less time stealing lines, I may have had "time" to follow the main plot.

8) This episode contains the first very subtle clue to a plot twist in Season Three. If you've seen me mentioning Fugitives a few times in other pages, you know which twist I mean.

Background Information
Coming Soon. Maybe.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) The episode includes a "vague" spoiler for Season Five, and I mean it's only vague if you haven't read it. If you have then it'll be obviously spoilerish. Hmm, maybe I don't need much of a warning. However this episode foretells a certain Season Five plot point without even trying to. It wasn't on purpose and I really wish it was.

2) As Brief Facts tells you, the love triangle crap between James, Jessie and the Erona crewmember I can't remember the name of, was stolen from a film. I imagine the only bits that were original was her being from the future, ick, and his reaction to her advances. I originally thought the J/J hints were from their namesakes, but considering the love triangle element, it actually came from the two "good guys" of the film. I'm hesitant to say heroes, cos I say Pokémon JJ in that film were heroes too, so :P

Nevertheless, my opinion of Fugitives drops a tad.

Dark Frontier
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Um, actually I don't know. I only have a theory; frontier is used in the Star Trek tagline "space, the final frontier" and the Borg could be considered dark, especially in its TNG days. I wonder if anyone has figured the real meaning out.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
Original episode

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Dark Frontier

Brief Facts
1) Since Fugitives was delayed due to probably writer's block, I decided to skip this and the next episode as I didn't want them ruined. What episode's were released in their place proves that was (partially) a good idea.

2) Fugitives, Dark Frontier and Upendi weren't released until after the series finale.

3) Dark Frontier truly begins the Seven bashing. At least I don't remember any examples before this. This was probably due to seeing or hearing about Chakotay/Seven. Human Error aired in March 2001 apparently, so the timeline fits.

4) The twirling the commbadge scene has been parodied a couple of times in other episodes. I don't think DF itself does anything with it.

Background Information
Original Dark Frontier has so many problems, at least in my eyes. At the same time I regard it as a highlight of Season Five, which IMO was hit and miss. Most of my love for that season came from it being the first season I eagerly awaited, going as far as to buy or borrow the Night & Drone VHS before it aired on Sky. Yeah, I had to wait for Season Four as well, but at the time I only wanted to see Scorpion Part 2. The wait and then seeing Night for the first time, I can't describe the surreal and almost giddy feeling I had. No series since then has come close.

But anyway, back to DF itself. It's a fun ride. I always loved the Borg and I liked the storyline, character development. I didn't care that it was a Seven episode, it was a one that had to be, so it wouldn't be fair to whine about it. When I was younger I still managed to see the problems with it. One problem in particular an episode of Enterprise seemingly tried to fix, or use as an excuse to have the Borg in a prequel, all while using my favourite ST film to do so.

Yeah, one of my issues is the Hansens seeking out the Borg before their first episode in TNG. Long before. One small change would have saved this entire storyline IMO. That was get rid of the whole thing about the Hansens going on their journey to study the Borg. Instead, have them stumble across them while doing something else, and only then they make the Borg their focus. Starfleet is still in the dark about them until Q sends the Enterprise to them this way. Yeah, you've still got the ickle issue of the Borg being aware of Humans before the Enterprise encounter, but I'd fix this by assuming that the Borg wouldn't have any interest in Humans from the Raven ship. It was a tiny, probably old science ship. Unworthy. Once they saw the relatively new flagship Enterprise D, interest piqued.

I still liked Seven's backstory in this, don't get me wrong. I just think it could've been done without ruining the Borg's history with Starfleet.

Other issues for the episode were silly little things. I had a giggle at the commbadge twirling gag, but it obviously had been made up on the spot. "You're about to call for crunch time. I know cos you always scratch your ass before you do." Naomi's rescue plan. I'm not sure if they were going for a "daaaw so cute" or "daaaw so smart" response, but I did like Janeway's interaction with her, that was cute enough.

The other big issue was the Borg Queen's interest in Seven. From here onwards she and others act like Seven was the only Human or person to leave the collective, and like she did it on her own. Did the Borg Queen forget about Locutus? I assume the Krige queen was a different one all together, or her fall into the coolant gave her amnesia of her time with both Enterprises. Don't give me her stupid "oh you're the only one who was truly Borg and now you're Human" routine. She could've gotten anyone else on Voyager and they'd have a better point of view about Humanity and their anti-assimilation resistance than Seven of Nine. Oh and are Humans the only aliens that don't want to be assimilated, the only ones who avoided it? What about Arturis' people? They resisted, you sent swarms of cubes after them. Checkmate. Don't send one cube to Earth every few years, go back to a primitive 21st century Earth, get defeated and then assume the only reason was cos Humans are special. Sigh.

I think you can see, my opinion of her and the Borg dropped like a stone. No longer were the Borg a sinister threat swarming around the quadrant like an overflowing river in a floodplain. They were just another schmuck villain with a mwahahaha idiot in charge. That was something else, why is the Queen talking aloud when giving orders? Why is she giving orders like "assimilate them?", surely the collective know to do so from the thought alone.

This inspired the Borg jokes in Season One. The Borg Queen would talk to herself, the drones would mutiny long before Unimatrix Zero. They'd be so little of a threat that the Voyager crew would yawn at the thought. Timeline only saw some threat as it was the oldest Borg episode written, and it involved a Borg ship from the future.

Dark Frontier would have to follow in the footsteps. It would still need the "omg, stop the collective, I want one drone back" Queen, but at least make the obsession a tad more realistic. Why pick the ex drone still napping in an alcove, hooking herself to computers so she doesn't have to learn stuff the Human way and can't cry unless a body part is broken. Instead you can pick the impressionable teenager that has had Borg experience but is very much Human in her personality. You know, the one you failed to assimilate, caused a temporal paradox in the process, the one that if you could control you could use as a battle drone that nothing could resist.

Yeah it's an excuse for Morgan to steal Seven's part too. It wasn't a whim, it was always intended from the beginning. Morgan would eventually replace Seven, effectively becoming the Roxanne of FV. Kidz Trek Voyage didn't have 2 ex drones, they only had one.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Of course it didn't all go entirely as I imagined. Morgan followed Seven's role too much, nothing was really changed. Two completely different characters and they do the same thing, the crew do the same-ish thing. Janeway already ventures into Borg territory in a shuttle to go after the kidnappee, how much more insane can you make her cos this time it was her daughter? She was already way over the line.

It's lazy writing. That's all. There's no excuse. My Dark Frontier has some good points, but this isn't it.

2) Dark Frontier is one of the post-finale episodes, as I mentioned above. Delayed to avoid being rushed and ruined. Despite my complaint in 1, it's obvious this was a good decision. DF is the strongest out of the 3. Its original scenes/lines are still funny to me years later, the plot didn't go off the rails, the ending was followed through. The series was slowly starting to find its feet at this time. The quality was going up, in my opinion of course.

3) A previous incarnation of the reboot went back to DF to alter some of Morgan's lines, to make her sound less like Seven. It's still pretty bad so it's not that difficult to imagine what it was like before.

4) Brief facts mentioned it, this is where my hatred of Seven began to shine through. I had a feeling it started when I found out about the C/7 pairing. Checking the dates of the US airdates backs this up, what with Endgame airing in May, and episodes like Thrown Key, this and Upendi releasing around the same time.

The Borg arm joke, inspired by what was in the original, still makes me laugh. The random using her as a torpedo joke. Still fresh today, at least it is for me. Before this episode though there wasn't much anti-Seven going on, outside of Morgan stealing the spotlight and Voyager Conspiracy's breakdown was pretty much the same as before. It probably looks so abrupt in series order, instead of release order.

The real interesting part about DF and this gag was the fact that she'd reappear, as if nothing happened, everytime something happened. It started off quite a long running joke in the series that kept going right until the end.

5) One thing I'm glad I scrapped right away was the jokes revolving around James and Jessie being so alike, they're referred to as twins. In hindsight, yuck. It was a naive way of showing that they're sooooo compatible, you know for future season(s), but it just comes off as gross and weird now. Their chemistry shot up once I stopped doing this.

Upendi
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Apparently the word means love, but I'm not sure if it even is a real word (a quick google search tells me upendo means love, close). The real meaning for the episode's title is that the episode was nicking the Lion King 2 story, which also steals from Romeo & Juliet, and cos of that I named it after one of the songs. The song in particular I couldn't stop playing over and over again.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
Lion King 2
The opening was "inspired" aka stolen from Red Dwarf

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) The good alien's character was one of the bad guys until the last scenes in the film, but was changed in Upendi because her voice actress also played Kes. Originally the youngest son was the character who turns good first.

2) Upendi was the final episode written for Season One, releasing a month after the finale.

3) I think Upendi was the first episode to be split into a two parter, so what was written already could be rushed out "on time". It started a terrible habit that I'm glad to say I don't do anymore. No Back To Normal doesn't count... I swear.

4) The opening needed the quartet, or was it quintet can't remember, to get into trouble so they could be chucked onto night shift for the plot. Of course stealing from a sci-fi sitcom was the only solution.

5) At least no Red Dwarf character chases another with a chain-saw. See, it's not all stolen material. I had to have something to replace the viagra in half time juice gag.

6) I'm not sure, but I feel like this was the first episode to show any kind of tension between Jessie and Morgan. Foreshadowing for Season Two. I like stuff that wasn't chucked in on a whim and has a point.

7) As mentioned, Upendi is named after the song from the film. The song is um, well I think I'm the only person in the world that likes it. Everywhere I go everyone thinks it's awful or mad. It is mad, but that's part of its appeal to me. Shocking.

Background Information
Apart from the Lion King 2 being my favourite Disney film, I don't know what else to say here. Upendi's overall point was racism is bad, judge on people's actions, not their bloody looks. Oh and make Seven take another step towards losing her mind and being replaced by Morgan.

And start the tension between Jessie and Morgan. The season was over, excluding this, it couldn't be anywhere else.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Apart from the tiny and rip off Part 1, my only real gripe with Upendi is the look of the aliens. I wanted to make it LK2 with humanoids. The other pride of lions were of darker colours, which even then I thought was a bit iffy. They were of the same pride long ago, and as soon as they rebelled against Simba their fur turned darker and their features turned less cute? Or did they rebel cos they looked like that and Simba's Pride are bullying asses? Meh. 16 year old me thought that I'd remove the awful "evil=ugly" gimmick the other pride have, cos no no no, but kept the different colour skin. I could've used red or green, but no, I went with literal black.

I wasn't trying to be racist. The lesson of the film was we're all the same. The lions realise they're the same species. Despite their differences they're stronger together. Upendi was meant to do the same. It's something I still strongly believe in despite the awfulness of the last decade or so. We're all human, so it baffles me to this day that people still hurt and kill each other because they look different. I remember I picked the literal black skin to make a point of this. It's a stupid reason to hate someone, and I naively thought this was the best way to prove it.

The poor species were pre-judged by others just for this. The aliens put up with it for so long, they'd assume everyone would think of them this way, but typically Voyager wouldn't. One person bullied for no reason can snap when it gets too much, I wanted to make these aliens or technically their leader, be in that stage. One of the first the crew meet is peaceful and only wants it to stop.

I dunno, I imagine a few people would raise many red flags with Upendi because of this, even if my intentions were naively pure. Would it be better if I changed the skin colour to something else, or would that make the issue worse/same? Do I keep it the same and hope a rewritten version gets the point across better? I have a lot to think about when I reboot it.

2) My idea for the reboot does go a little further than fixing Part 1 and maybe not making people think I'm a closet racist. I suppose my ideas are related to fixing Part 1.

The story's fine, Part 2 does quite well for its age. It's daft but still tells the story I wanted. The problem is the set up, and no I'm not talking about Red Dwarf's basketball game. Well, not just talking about it.

The episode is called Upendi, it's named after a song from the film. A song that doesn't really relate to the episode's main story, whereas its got a lot to do with the LK2 story. The basic story is a few lionesses rebel against the pride because they liked the previous king. The previous king murdered his dad, so yeah the current one doesn't take kindly to it and banishes them. He has a daughter, the lead lioness has a son. The lioness trains the son to be a cold killer, but to also trick the daughter into liking him, so he can get close to the king. They end up falling for each other in a space of a day, Disney style... not him and the dad, the daughter lol. Misunderstandings and fights later, daughter says "wtf dad, these girls are lions like us." Lioness mum dies cos she can't let it go *cue music*. The prides are reunited. The end.

The love stuff isn't necessary to tell a similar story. Though if I'm going to name the Lion King 2 rip off after one of its songs, and not do the romance angle, then I shouldn't name it after 1 of 2 of the love songs. I picked it cos it was my favourite, and I wanted to do the stupid Upendi ride on the Holodeck thing, bleh. I guess with My Lullaby already used in Mirror Universes, all I was left was He Lives In You, One of Us, and We Are One. Oh. Yeah, I couldn't get a more appropriate title out of any of them[/sarcasm].

I suppose during writing I thought it should have something, so Seven and the elder son hooking up came to mind. No regrets there, what I remember of it is still funny to me. But I don't think it helps steer the plot to the conclusion I wrote above it. The Kes lookalike has a hand in it, I think Morgan does. I also remember something with Morgan and Jessie. I know that's not love related at first glance, but it was foreshadowing to the Morgan and James rumour and fake-hints of a love triangle (or square if you count Craig) I was planning for Season Two.

So yeah, long blab later, I have a better idea how to tie the story with its name. Yes I remember the Upendi ride and the stuff at the end, that could've happened in any episode.

Muse
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
B'Elanna was the playwright's muse. This episode was loosely inspired by that episode.

Alternate Titles
Muse In Fear Haven

Inspiration
The original, though you wouldn't know it when you read it.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Muse. I guess.

Brief Facts
1) Muse is up there with Aggressions, Hunters, World Domination, Atamit, Return of 3rd, and Put The Knife In as my utterly skippable, wish I could delete them, list of horrors known as Worst Episodes Ever. I'd sooner rewatch Human Error without forwarding any of it, maybe even rewind and watch certain scenes again, with a bingefest of Endgame and Fair Haven on repeat afterward, than read Muse again.

Okay, that was meant to be brief, but my hatred is strong.

2) I think my only incentive, other than omg the not-JC kiss, was to have at least one of my characters influencing the Muse plot.

3) I doubt it was to turn it into a fourth wall, writers take over the show episode. But that's how it turned out.

4) The reboot will combine this with two other S1 episodes.

5) The reboot's job will be to give the episode back to B'Elanna, but it'll still be different to the original Voyager episode since it is in an AU series. Enough said for now.

Background Information
Haha, apart from repeating the whiskey in the orange juice joke or the comments about possible multiple personalities, there's nothing to say here.

Other than that Muse was picked for the series because it was a favourite in Season Six, that I felt I could change for the better. Wrong, wrong.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) When Fugitives, Dark Frontier and Upendi were delayed, I worked on the episodes that were skipped previously, while at the same time wrote everything after Upendi.

The reason the trio were skipped was because I was stuck, I didn't think I could write them. The best solution would've been to not skip them, merely delay and fill in the Once Upon A Time, Timeless, Fight shaped gaps in S1. Then do the trio. Season One was already a mess, I didn't have to make it worse by continuing on with two gaps.

What's worse is that clearly I was in a rut at this point in time. Once Upon A Time came off sort of ok, but everything else written in those few weeks was utter trash. Muse is the perfect example.

Fair Haven 2
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
The episode was meant to be a sequel to the episode Fair Haven, which in pure FV style happens behind the scenes because it's not "different enough". Only Fair Haven clearly was different since the sequel is like this. Shrug.

Mini rant aside, the episode is named after the program. 2 is just to show it isn't a FV version of the particular episode, but based afterwards.

Soooo, it's not Fair Haven, it's not Spirit Folks. Neither are in FV, but it's a sequel to the former anyway. Think of Demon², same deal.

Alternate Titles
Fair Haven 2: The Matchmaker... I think!

Muse In Fear Haven

Inspiration
Fair Haven definitely, Spirit Folks is debatable.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
I'm gonna go with N/A

Brief Facts
1) I'm still to this day not exactly sure what happens in the episode, what its point is, etc... I only remember the Janeway rejecting Michael scene.

2) I'll probably only read through it once more for its reboot.

3) The reboot will be combined with two other episodes.

4) What will happen in the reboot is still a WIP because of fact 1. The very basic idea for it mixes well with the two it'll share a slot with.

Background Information
I hate Fair Haven with a fiery passion, almost as much as Endgame, Human Error, In The Flesh, Fury and oh god Virtuoso. Kill them with fire.

I tended to avoid the ones I hated, usually because IMO they were so bad they weren't redeemable. Most of them were there to destroy good characters and ideas, were crimes against shipping and weak stomachs, or were just Endgame. Fair Haven for me did the first one on a small scale, it also has Human Error in common (I may explain, meh), but there was potential for parody.

So yeah, even in the less parody days of FV's pre-planning, Fair Haven 2 was meant to take the piss. The only thing partly serious about it was the what if element that every episode of Season One that covered an original episode was meant to do. Though it wasn't entirely clever.

First, the Michael part of the plot wouldn't take off at all since Janeway wouldn't be so desperately lonely enough to "delete the wife". I instead thought Michael would still flirt, notice Morgan and go for her instead. I forgot that Michael was reprogrammed to be a romantic interest. In my defence though, I mostly erased FH from my brain after first watch. All I remember even today is that line, the actors very scar-like face that immature 15 year old me made fun of, the space sickness scene (though that could've been Spirit Folks), and the fact that I struggle to distinguish between it and its sequel. With the exception of the cow scene and obviously the crap about spirit folks.

Actually while we're on the subject, which episode is the one which has the crew actually panicking at the thought of destroying their crappy holodeck program so they don't die? Human Error? Ooops, jumped into that one didn't I?

While we're on the topic of fad Holodeck programs that are genuinely awful and in real life would only appeal to a few, all while pissing off the people who want to use the permanently used Holodeck 1/2 for something more fun but can't because Seven's running Chakotay porn in the other. Seriously Seven, if you like the idea of having your own quarters and real clothes, bloody stop fantasising and do it. Typically the only one you'll listen to me about is ruining multiple 'ships. I'd better stop, I'm ruining the reboot. Ahem, I'm kidding, or am I? Hmmm....

Seriously what's the appeal? I get the missing Earth and other Humans angle, but that's about it. The silly resort in Season Three made far more sense, and that isn't an insult to the resort either. IMO it's the only good idea for a public shared program that you'd keep on if you were stuck on a spaceship for 70 years. I know if I had a choice between a relaxing holiday resort next to the beach and a stereotype fictional Irish village set hundreds of years ago where I'd have to wear a stupid frilly dress, and the only half decent thing to do is hang around in a bar, I know what I'd pick without the time for my eyes to blink. For good measure I'd burn the other one and stamp on its data chips until it was dust. F*** Fair Haven. F*** the sheep who thought it was the utopia of holodeck programs. F*** the people who hesitated over ruining their program so they could live. I get it, you're sad you're stuck on Voyager, create another program that isn't so dull, realistically 90% of the crew would choose life cos they'd never set foot in that place. F*** everyone who wasn't B'Elanna for that matter, she for the most part was me watching this bloody thing. I skip and pretend it doesn't exist.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Um, I think my background section covered the majority of my thoughts for Fair Haven. But at least it had parody potential, which is what I was saying before I went into full blown rant mode. I'm keeping it, cos where else can I air it? Ahem, anyway...

I think the paragraphs above paint a picture of what the reboot may do, without as many swear words, maybe. However for the life of me the original FV version eludes me. I remember Michael getting told to sod off by Janeway, then he spots Morgan the 15 or 16 year old daughter and decides to move on. Tom spots a way to improve the program. That's it, it's all I remember. I'm remembering a chatshow, but that happened in other episodes too, so I could be thinking of them.

There's not going to be many other thoughts about FH2 if I can't remember the damn episode.

Too Q
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
It meant a few things. Too many Q's, a Q version of "too true". The reboot uses the second one to make a better title, I think so anyway.

Alternate Titles
Too Good To Be Q

Inspiration
Probably Q2, though I'm not sure. Was that even out at the time? I may have only heard about it. Not sure.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) Until Hunters had its ending removed, I'm 90% sure Too Q was the smallest episode of the series.

2) I did consider merging it with the other small episodes Muse, Fear, Fair Haven 2 for the reboots. However it does have the potential to grow from the tiny seed it is, so was given a slot to itself.

3) The episode begins and foreshadows a certain story arc in Season Two. I imagine it was the sole point of the episode.

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Fear
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
I'm only going off assumptions here, but the fear the episode is named after is the fear of losing control, ie losing the ship and/or its crew to the aliens. Don't worry, you're not missing anything subtle, I didn't end up writing it like this.

Alternate Titles
Muse In Fear Haven

Inspiration
One of the original fanfictions I ever read was a mini series/trilogy. One of them was called The Greatest Fear. The bit I was inspired by was the aliens taking over the ship and kidnapping the crew. Looks like the only original idea was the stupid screensaver password joke, ah well.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
Coming Soon

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Hey, forget the tiny attempts to change the two Team Rocket rip offs into something new, make them identical cowards once more and that's why they're dragged into the solution for the plot. How funneh.

At least the screensaver password gag is sort of funny, at least I remember it being so.

World Domination
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Damien wanted to take over the planet featured in the episode. There's not much more to it than that.

Alternate Titles
World Damienation

Inspiration
Pass. If you want to be technical, it was loosely inspired by its original draft.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) The only thing brief about World Domination is the story itself. It's not brief enough. Oh, okay I'm being deliberately obtuse. Here goes.

2) World Domination was the first episode completed.

3) The draft paper copy WAS NOT used in anyway to write the official online version.

4) I don't know for sure, but I believe the changes to the storyline were because I not only changed the tone of the series from sometimes serious with occasional silly humour to full blown ridiculous parody, but because of the new inclusion of the writers and the original Damien.

5) I suppose the only good that came out of this was Damien. Eventually.

6) It's not just you, the episode makes zero sense.

7) Even without its reboot, I consider the episode not canon. Imagine your own reason for Lilly and Emma's appearance and you're fine. Damien's death gets erased, so the episode is useless.

Background Information
Back in 2000 I'd planned the entirety of Season One, the episode list was complete. All that was different from then to now was Prepare For Trouble was Survival Instinct (I'm not entirely sure about Test of Time either), but anyhow... I figured Timeline was the biggie and that it should be the first I write. However World Domination was at the time a big part of the season's storyarc, so I decided to write that first. WD was the first FV episode ever finished, but for some reason I decided not to use the original draft. At all.

You know what, I know the reason. Somewhere between Aggressions Part 1 and 2 I had given up trying to write a serious with daft jokes series, and changed FV to a full on not funny parody. WD pre-dates this, so did Timeline. Timeline managed just fine, but WD I must have assumed it wouldn't fit. I believe the reason was Damien himself and the inclusion of the "writers". Neither were in FV originally, not really.

Damien was an entirely different character in this. He wasn't the same smart ass with a rabbit obsession. No. He was just a generic boring villain who had control of another Voyager. At the end of the original draft we would see someone travel back to the past to tell "Damien Version 1" about Voyager, provoking him into not only triggering World Domination and the episodes he was involved in prior to it, but his rebirth and death in the following episode. Aggressions Part 2 later gave him a name and a personality that didn't match WD's first draft. I imagine that's when I started to change it, the writers inclusion in the episodes gave me an awful way of doing it.

Version 2 established in Aggressions was later renamed once more as Damien in Season Two (though Version 1 had no name established, at least that I remember. I have to find that draft) and changed a second time to be the character that's still around today. That's all I'm willing to say on that subject.

I thought the changes to WD would be better, but they weren't. It destroyed it.

One day I'd like to hunt it down and type it out. Heck I may have to cos the reboot version may need it. All I know is that it did debut Lilly and Emma, maybe just Lilly a lot better. If I remember right it wasn't the writer's/our Earth and dimension, it was the dimension the Ligers were from. It was before Lilly became a Captain of her own self titled fleet. She was however trapped amongst humans and had no clue how to get out. At least that's what I remember, I could be wrong, it's been a while. I don't remember if Voyager being there was an accident or something the Damien Version 1 out of 3 planned. It mostly ended the same way as the current version. As stated about it then cut to show him at the beginning, hinting that the whole episode forces him to start his vendetta against Voyager in the first place. First FV episode I finished and it is a paradox loop that I love so much, typical ^_^

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) I think I've mostly said everything I needed to on the subject. I will say the reboot version should ignore the online version. Even with the Hunters reboot I had the original onhand, just in case. This doesn't deserve that.

Prepare For Trouble
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
As I had used it to death, the episode was a quote from the Team Rocket motto. Why not, sheesh.

Alternate Titles
N/A

Inspiration
No inspiration other than the mess of WD meant that the Seventh Voyager plot wasn't "resolved" like it should have been, so I had to bodge something else up here.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
I believe something from Survival Instinct made it in. The pre-hensile plant evolved into the Pokémon Victreebell that liked to eat people.

Brief Facts
1) Survival Instinct was originally planned to be in this slot. I cannot remember when it was replaced.

2) The reason SI didn't make it was because I couldn't think of anything to do to it. I only added it in the first place because of the pre-hensile plant scene.

3) Since that's all I remember planning for my SI that never was, it made sense that it made it into its replacement.

4) This was meant to be Damien's final episode.

5) Once the reboot gets to this slot, the episode will no longer be canon, replaced by an episode titled Memories of Fury.

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

VTV Live
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Voyager TV Live.

Alternate Titles
Original title was something like Morgan, Tani, other characters's Voyager Show.

It was then acronym-ed to something like MTBTV Show, before finally mercy killed and replaced with VTV Live.

Voyager Live is its reboot title.

Inspiration
Neelix's own idea for a current events and cooking show mixed in with an old UK Saturday morning show called SMTV Live.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) When I had "vote if you like this episode" buttons on the bottom of episodes, VTV Live was the episode with the most liked votes until Body Swap was spammed.

2) Apparently VTV Live was also skipped in favour of Voyager's Drinking Game. I don't remember so I couldn't tell you why.

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) It's mostly a harmless episode. I do remember a few things I fancy changing before adding stuff into its reboot. One being the rip off of a parody of Friends. The other being the band's original name before they became Virus in Season Two.

2) Speaking of the band. That was introduced because in Kidz Trek there was a band storyline, in at least one of the spin offs. Either Roxanne or Kiara was a member (both? not sure), so I picked Morgan. KT-Tani and Steve joined, so James and Jessie did. Lilly I believe inspired her KT version to join in the books. Craig filled a different male character's role, not sure who.

At one point in KT the band lost Lilly, as she was busy as fleet commander, becoming a four piece. They gain far too many replacements later, temporarily anyway, as I remember them being a band of three at the end (KT Tani, Steve, Roxanne/Kiara). My memory's very fuzzy on this cos I changed it a lot, and I know later stuff was inspired by FV instead of the other way around.

It's not good, even FV's version was better. You're not missing anything. It was just a bit of fun for me in all honesty.

Season Two Bittersweet parodies the ridiculous speed of the singles and albums the Kidz Trek group, also called Pokeball, churned out. Without me saying this or Kidz Trek around at all, the joke falls flat and it looks like FV is doing it seriously.

Voyager's Drinking Game
> skip to next episode >

Title Meaning
Really?

Alternate Titles
Voyager Live

Inspiration
Quite simply the drinking games I had read about. I thought it would be funny. Originally though FV wasn't a parody, so this episode would have been a one off. Right now it's just another silly episode.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
N/A

Brief Facts
1) This was apparently released before VTV Live.

Background Information
Coming Soon

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
Coming Soon

Thrown Key (Part One)

Title Meaning
Morgan decides that to get J/C to talk out their issues, she has to lock them up. As no one lets them out, she may as well have thrown away the "key"

Alternate Titles
Throw Away The Key (original title)

Resistance Is Futile (Reboot only)

Inspiration
Unimatrix Zero for one, as for the key part I'm not sure.

Original Voyager Episodes Used
Unimatrix Zero

Brief Facts
1) Despite being the season finale, there were still three episodes not yet written when it was released.

2) Thrown Key and Unimatrix Zero was meant to finalise the Voyager series influence. Season Two onwards would concentrate on its own storylines, now that S1 had pushed Voyager so far in another direction.

3) This was meant to be Seven's final episode.

4) My plans for the reboot version include another episode I'm not keen on naming.

Background Information
I believe the original idea was just to have J/C locked up the whole episode, while any kind of danger threatened the ship. Unimatrix Zero was picked later. Unfortunately this meant that by Season Two's half, they had to be let out so Janeway could be more involved in the plot. It also meant who was assimilated had to change and the plan would be different. Though in the end the plan wasn't that different, I can't even remember why the Borg attack. Meh.

Miscellaneous (Other Trivia and My Thoughts)
1) Season One was a mess. Written out of order, plots disappearing into the ether to be replaced by Pokémon battles, writers arguing with Damien, Team Rocket mottos or Pokémon battles. The intended tone of the series wasn't there, the overall point of the series was ruined by a premature "fanfictions have their own dimension" wtf joke... which wasn't a joke.

Let's just say, it could've gone better.

To be fair, it could've gone a lot worse.

If I hadn't gone full on parody, there's a chance the series wouldn't have made it to Season Two, let alone be finished with eight of them. No matter how badly I think of it now, something was there that kept me going. It's something I must remember when scrutinising all of this. I'm looking at it twice the age I was then, and though I'm not very mature even now, it's not fair to be so harsh. Believe it or not, I have toned my feelings down.

It doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. No I'm not just going around in circles. There is a lot of things in this season, which I've mentioned already, that I still can't believe 15 year old me came up with.

a) Probes with a crew. Seriously, it's a ship Marill.

b) Holodecks in said probe. Yes Marill, don't pretend you haven't seen the TNG episode where it was discussed as new technology, or any original ST.

c) Holo emitters in the shuttle bay. A huge sin as a devout Voyager fan (okay okay, I'm laying off Holo Q). I'm still convinced that was a clue that things weren't how they seemed.

d) Morgan was supposed to replace Seven, not be her. That was the first inspiration for FV, a new Borg crewmember who isn't in a character development rut. The whole Dark Frontier line for line quotes make no sense with this in mind.

e) I loved World Domination, so let's rewrite it from scratch with it based in the writer's dimension. What, Lilly and Emma were supposed to be in this episode? Oh, I'll write some "clever" twist that they're related to the writers in some way. Best episode ever... gag.

f) Muse

g) Hunters

h) Headteachers main job description is to not only let expelled underage teenagers run away from home, but also help them do it.

i) I think I can make this episode give the characters Pokémon, but in hologram form, and make it some super special thing they need to defeat their enemy. What, Craig already had one of these? Year of Hell? That's a time travel episode where the ship gets the stuffing kicked out of it, why would Pokémon be in that? The writers have them. So? They don't appear in this, that's a cheap way of skipping out on using Power Rangers the movie.

(So much for laying off Holo Q).

Yeah. Stuff I should've known better about including. Scenes that couldn't have made sense in my mind even when I was 8, let alone 15. Nothing about Muse that I loved made it into that. Same with Hunters. What part of my psyche thought that those two were appropriate to be released in that state? I honestly couldn't tell you.

It was obvious though that I was in a hurry to get to later seasons. My proof is the skipping of what, 6 episodes I couldn't write, for later ones. Releasing the series finale before Fugitives, Dark Frontier and Upendi. Also 10 episodes were released in April. Two were just fine, one I've forgotten, the rest were garbage. The majority of the worst episodes were written that month, all for the sake of rushing.

With Thrown Key finally reached, I seemed to settle down as the trio written afterwards were relatively good for their age. I think most if not all of Season One's problems stems from being in a hurry. It's almost like I was trying to finish it before I left comprehensive school. What was I in a hurry for?