Star Trek: 10 Behind The Scenes Secrets From Caretaker
7. It Was Inspired In Part By Q
The entire premise of Caretaker was inspired, in part, by the Next Generation's episode Q Who? Here, Starfleet is introduced to the Borg after Q flings the Enterprise across the galaxy. In that case of course, the ship is returned home, with Q inadvertently giving the Federation an extra year of preparation time.
Caretaker sprung from the question - well, what if Q hadn't reversed his actions? What if the Enterprise had remained stranded out in the middle of nowhere? In that case, the ship was a couple of years away from Federation space. Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, and Michael Piller stranded Voyager much further away - 70,000 light-years, in fact.
This was to effectively cut them off from any Federation help. In those early years, it also introduced the added stress of not knowing anything that was happening in the Alpha Quadrant. It would be the fourth season before Voyager made contact with Starfleet and the sixth before they could send regular messages. But it was Q's actions that gave the showrunners the idea of stranding the ship, with the Caretaker even taking some of the characteristics of Q on board. He may not have shared nearly the same amount of power as Q, but his technology fiercely overpowered Voyager.