Star Trek: 10 Disastrous USS Voyager First Contacts

Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant because of a first contact — or two first contacts, to be more precise. You can blame Captain Janeway all you want — she certainly blamed herself enough at times — but that's all for naught without the Nacene and the Kazon.

It was the Caretaker's galactic Tinder search that brought Voyager on a date over 70,000 light years from home. Part of the highly advanced, non-humanoid species the Nacene, 'Banjo man' needed to find a "compatible biomolecular pattern" to produce a successor to take care of the Ocampa before he died. (Might want to phrase that differently on 'his' profile!) If the Kazon hadn't come knocking, Voyager might not have had to destroy the Caretaker's array, or, at least, the crew would have had a moment to gather their thoughts first.

As the reference book Star Trek: Voyager: A Vision of the Future describes it, Rick Berman left another sporocystian lifeform (the Caretaker's former companion) "out there" as a "CYA — Cover Your Ass" entity just in case the audience got bored with the Delta Quadrant thing. Voyager did meet Suspiria, but Janeway ended up hoisted to the ceiling, not home in Indiana.