Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of USS Voyager You Need To Know

One Voyager's most distinctive traits were the ship's articulated warp nacelle pylons. These pylons would fold into the "up" position, creating a dramatic pause right before Voyager would jump to warp, as seen in every episode during the show's opening titles.

While it was never described on screen, this unique feature links back to the seventh season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Forces of Nature". In that episode, it was discovered that 24th century warp drives were destroying the fabric of space and threatening an alien race known as the Hekarans. To mitigate these deleterious effects, Starfleet imposed a warp speed limit which was mentioned in two subsequent episodes... and then never talked about again.

These "variable geometry pylons" were intended to be Starfleet's answer to the warp speed limit, improving engine efficiency and making Voyager's warp drive environmentally friendly while also freeing the writers from the corner they had painted themselves into.