If you’re open to slightly less canon sources, there was a Voyager novel “Homecoming”, which pretty much covers this scenario. It’s generally positively received. Might help “scratch that itch” a bit?
I just finished my rewatch of Voyager and re-read both Homecoming and The Farther Shore, so I can weigh in here.
Respectfully, both books were traaaash. The author, Christie Golden, got almost all of the characterizations wrong - none of the characters sounded or behaved like the people I’d spent 7 seasons watching. The plot is beyond stupid, the main villain is laughably one-dimensional, her motivation was super thin and the motivations of her cronies were totally absent, our heroes are pretty dumb (like, really dumb), B’Elanna is off on some totally unrelated (and pretty pointless) quest, and the novels were full of typos, inconsistencies, and just generally careless writing. It very much read like a teenager’s underdeveloped fanfic. And it’s one story told over two books - the first ends in a pretty predictable cliffhanger, meaning that you have to buy both books if you actually want to read a complete story.
Seriously, if you want a laugh, go check out the one-star reviews on Amazon or GoodReads.
Not positively received. Actually quite the opposite.
I bought it in hardcover, then bailed on the entire Christie Golden Voyager series on the sequel.
A horrible return with heartbreaking situations for just about every beloved character.
I don’t truly blame tie-in writer Golden, or even Peter David who got tagged with responsibility for the most egregious plot and character point in the Relaunch universe version of the Voyager follow-up.
Paramount itself clearly had but dire restrictions on positives for the returning crew that only came off when Kirsten Beyer was allowed to undo the damage in her Voyager Full Circle series when she took the helm from Golden.
my gut reaction was: absolutely not, the show was about the journey, not some schlocky wrap-up where everyone hugs their family and dogs and whatnot.
edited to add: the part i liked was that they were their family - and my gut says that it would cheapen the ship relationships by bringing everyone right back to where they were 5 years ago. end edit
but you’re right, i think, that the ending really was kinda abrupt - “so nice to see everyone,” borg go boom, end of 7 seasons.
in retrospect, i’ve seen trek do some good homecoming episodes, so maybe a final close out ala picard’s season finale wouldn’t have been so bad - a nice group goodbye after 150+ episodes.
Honestly, it’d be kind of awesome if there were a few episodes where the crew struggled to re-acclimate. Something as simple as hating the replicated food, to “We’ll take your service aboard Voyager off your decades long prison sentences, Maquis terrorists.”
It was most definitely rushed. They should have started the finale in the episode where we say goodbye to Neelix–it would have given them more time to do it justice.
I agree–we’d like to see Janeway giving a report to a board of Admirals. We’d like to see Harry Kim give his mother a hug and she notices that he’s changed. etc.
Even if they didn’t add more episodes, I will complain that it was an incredible waste of time that Endgame spent so much focus on Future Janeway’s shenanigans. They could’ve done a cold open establishing her motivations and then taken the time used by the future scenes to unpack the weight of the crew we actually care about getting home.
Good to know that this is here, where oddball topics might have better focus. Coulda used a heads up a week ago via c/tenforward, but hey, I’ll take it.
Reposting what I posted in Ten Forward since it was an attempt at a serious answer anyway:
Since only the Romulus system was destroyed, presumably there were plenty of other planets in the empire inhabited with Romulans and with plenty of ships to defend themselves with. So the next big player could be… the Romulans.
I’ve been thinking about this- despite Ni’var being re-unified, there might still be a Romulan empire of some sort made up of the remaining planets the Romulans controlled.
Also, I assume the Romulans didn’t bother evacuating the Remans, so they’re probably mostly extinct.
When the Western Roman Empire fell, what remained was the EASTERN Roman Empire, which lasted for another 1000 years. What was left in the east paid lips-service to the Roman empire (sometimes even calling themselves Roman, like the Holy Roman Empire). Rolmulans replacing the Romulan Empire is very realistic. Much the of the population/planets/etc remained. They lost none of their technology.
And I think that opens itself up to a post-Discovery timeline where there is a struggle between the unified Vulans and Romulans on Ni’Var and the Romulans that are the remains of the old empire. Especially since The Burn had probably kept them mostly separated for a long time.
That makes great sense as well. To keep beating the Roman analogy to death, the Eastern Roman Empire did clash with the remains of the Western empire, trying to take it back under the Roman umbrella (Justinian/Belisarius/etc). They sent armies all over Italy/Spain/Africa/etc trying to re-unify the old Empire. It didn’t work, since the new kingdoms that emerged didn’t want to be under the control of the far-off emperors. Once they split, there was no going back to unification.
I don’t think there should have been post-home episodes. I do, however, think they should have shown Voyager landing (remember, it can do that) on Earth and watching people walk out into the Terran sunshine, followed by an empty bridge except for Janeway who says goodbye to the old girl after seven long years.
Maybe all the salamanders want to go to a planet ASAP, and then no one would be piloting the ship to home, no captain doctor yet. They tried it a few times and it ended the same
OR: they realized the bio-neural gel packs on the flyer were also turning into salamanders/ something else? They were only used for the uh, door controls on the flyer, no major systems? They noticed right before they were going to go to warp 10, and saved the crew.
Truly, if Neelix didn’t cook those fancy mushrooms from that random off-screen world, they might have gotten home faster.
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