While the Star Trek franchise has always been about Starfleet's adventures in the uncharted regions of the galaxy, the 1995 television series Star Trek: Voyager turned this mission statement into an edict for its characters to return home. Stranded on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the Federation starship Voyager were initially cut off from any contact with Starfleet, forcing them to work with the splinter faction the Maquis and in a region of the Delta Quadrant full of unknown, hostile civilizations. By the series finale, seven seasons later, the crew returned home to the Alpha Quadrant, irrevocably shaped by their ordeal but stronger and closer for it. Here's how the Voyager completed its voyage home.

A powerful entity from deep within the Delta Quadrant known as the Caretaker drew the Voyager across the cosmos while also damaging the ship and killing many of its crew members and the Maquis they were confronting at the time. After the Caretaker's space station is destroyed by a hostile race known as the Kazon, the Voyager crew and Maquis set aside their differences and agreed to work together. The Voyager embarks on its journey home, which is calculated to take approximately 75 years, while trying to stay alive and documenting the undiscovered places they find themselves stranded in.

Along the way, the crew learn about several shortcuts and boosts in the form of subspace vortices and slipstream corridors, derelict alien technology and the strange abilities of alien races that shorten their travel time. After discovering that the Borg's home is within the Delta Quadrant, Voyager  retrofit the ship to accelerate its pace. And even Q himself got in on the action and helped the crew by transporting them closer home -- but not all the way as he wanted to set a good example for his son by not cheating humanity entirely out of the hard work it had before it.

While Voyager originally returned to the Alpha Quadrant after a 23-year expedition, an older Admiral Kathryn Janeway decided to take matters into her own hands and change the ship's history in the series finale "Endgame." Stealing a Klingon device, the elder Janeway travels back in time and confronts her younger self as the starship continues through the Delta Quadrant. Providing the ship with new technologies, the elder Janeway reveals what her prolonged version of the trip cost her and her crew.

Newly upgraded, Voyager is able to devastate the Borg Collective -- at the expense of the older Janeway's life -- and use a transwarp corridor to return to the Alpha Quadrant in 7 years instead of 23, saving the lives of several crew members and getting Tuvok the medical treatment he needs in time to properly treat his advancing neurological disorder.

The Cast of Star Trek: Voyager

Over the course of its seven-year ordeal, Voyager's crew forged friendships and romances, was rocked by epic betrayal and heroic sacrifices as it battled the Kazon and Borg through uncharted space. Taking advantage of its unfamiliar surroundings, the starship trimmed down a lengthy voyage to less than a tenth of that duration, obliterating the Borg Collective as its coup de grace.

Now, with Janeway set to make a return for Star Trek: Prodigy, it will be interesting to see how the Starfleet officer's experiences in the Delta Quadrant have shaped her.

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