If some rumors are true, Voyager would’ve looked very different.
Star Trek: Voyager came around at Star Trek’s peak in popularity. The original crew had just bowed out a few years earlier with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Next Generation crew had just replaced them in the movie theaters with Star Trek: Generations.
Deep Space Nine was entering its fourth season, it’s most pivotal for the series as it marked a change in direction for the show. Then of course there was Voyager, the third new show of the bunch, the first to land on a network and not in syndication and the first to be captained by a woman.
Action figure sales, video games, collectibles, they were all hitting at the right time. The franchise was seven years before Enterprise and the end of the run of Trek. Things were still going strong.
Voyager was about to debut on UPN, led by Kate Mulgrew and joined by an eclectic group of actors surrounding her. The show wasn’t meant to be a spinoff like Deep Space Nine was, but its own brand in the same shared timeline, just on the other side of the galaxy.
That’s why it’s a bit jarring to think about how the show would’ve looked if the franchise went with a few different characters instead. While some of this is verifiable, as we provide links and sources, some of it is speculative or flat-out rumors.
Nicholas Locarno
Believe it or not, but Tom Paris was never supposed to be in the series. Robert Duncan McNeill was always supposed to be, but it was never supposed to be as the initially aggressive and self-destructive Paris. Instead, McNeill was supposed to play Nicholas Locarno, a character created by Star Trek: The Next Generation as a character with possible spinoff potential. Not on his own, of course, but as part of Star Trek’s then-potential third show.
That’s why if you ever watch the TNG and Voyager, Locarno and Paris are basically character copies of one another. They’re both roguish, they’re both charmers, they’re both trouble makers and they’re both played by McNeill. Though that last one is kind of obvious.
Locarno debuted in the 19th episode of the fifth season, “the First Duty”, as a member of Nova Squadron; a group of Starfleet’s best cadets. After a crash in a shuttle kills a crewmate, Locarno tries to cover up how he died.
According to Voyager Producer Jeri Taylor, she was under the assumption from the beginning that Locarno was going to be one of the main protagonists of the show. As told in A Vision of the Future – Star Trek: Voyager it wasn’t until the series bible came out that anyone knew the character was changed. This may have been due to rights issues over the character, though that’s never been confirmed. The “official” story, however, was that the series creators thought Locarno was “irredeemable”.
TNG writers Ronald Moore and Naren Shankar didn’t believe that at all, saying as much in the TNG Season 5 Blu-ray audio commentary for the episode “The First Duty”.
The name change and subsequent denial of the character supposed to be one in the same may have been a legal maneuver by Paramount to get the character in without having to deal with the legality of it all. They even used a photo of McNeill as Locarno for a stand-in as a young Paris. The photo can be found onAdmiral Paris’ desk in Pathfinder.
Ro Laren
The character of Ro Laren is a peculiar one. Originally she was set to join up with then-Commander Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but the actress playing the Bajoran, Michelle Forbes, didn’t want to go from a recurring character to a series regular due to the amount of time needed to film.
That’s when the change was made to have her go from joining DS9 as Sisko’s number one to joining the Maquis with the idea of her joining Voyager. While we can’t find any other source at the moment to back this up, Trek Culture did in fact claim that one pre-production plan was to have the now-Maquis defector join up with Chakotay, B’Elanna Torres, and Tuvok on the same ship that was featured at the start of Voyager.
The change however would keep it as a recurring character rather than a series regular. Ideas were tossed around of her either dying in the opening episode or two, or write in a subplot that has the Federation turncoat transported away so that she could come back every so often.
This would be the same idea they’d ended up using for a Maquis-turned Cardassian spy in Seska. Seska was original with the Voyager crew but she would end up falling in with the Kazon.
Worf
This one is another TrekCulture claim, so do with it as you will. As TrekCulture claims, Michael Dorn was offered a spot on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Voyager, depending on which one interested him more. Apparently, the actor turned down Voyager and went to work at the station.
A subtle reference to this may exist in a line of dialogue for the Voyager episode “Death Wish”, where a member of the Q Continuum seeks asylum on Voyage. This of course brings John de Lancie’s Q to Voyager in pursuit of his Continuum brethren. According to Memory Alpha, in the first draft of the issue, de Lancie’s Q was to make mention of Worf being the first candidate to be promoted to command the Voyager, before going on to say;
"Oh that’s right, they sent him to try to fix that dreary space station, didn’t they…"
It remains to be seen if Worf was ever actually a candidate for Voyager, as the show was always going to be helmed by a woman, so it wouldn’t have made sense to have Worf be the commanding officer of the ship.
After all, one of the first names recommended for the show was Terminator franchise icon, Linda Hamilton. That fell apart and after another woman sat in the seat, the role of Kathryn Janeway went to Kate Mulgrew.
It would’ve been interesting though to see how Voyager would’ve been different with Worf, Ro Laren, and Nicholas Locarno; all being commanded by Hamilton’s Janeway.