#starfleet has lost all contact and sisko has blocked communications

[precurianswag]

i strike again

[thesummerstorms]

So I've been watching too much Trek, by my own admission, and reading and playing etc etc. So now even though I know I'm not a dedicated enough fan to ever actually WRITE Trek fic, I've been brainstorming a Janeway & Seven centric fic that's technically canon compliant to the end of Picard while giving reason for Seven's isolation without doing a disservice to Janeway/Voyager.

I openly admit to stealing liberally from the plots of the Beyer Voyager relaunch novel "Eternal Tide" and the Voyager episode "Shattered", but doesn't fanfic always involve synthesis?

Anyway, the idea is to explain why Seven no longer has any ties with the Voyager crew (other than the Picard showrunner not liking Janeway) so it would probably open with a prologue.

Seven, who has kept some back channel communication with Janeway despite being a Fenris Ranger and some tensions between that and Janeway's role as an officer reaches out to Janeway when Icheb turns up missing. Seven is desperate and turns to Janeway for help. Janeway can't say much from her official channel but asks Seven for three hours and promises that at the end of that time her plan will be "obvious". Seven argues that they don't have that kind of time, but Janeway reprimands her then asks for her trust. Reluctantly, Seven agrees to give it because this is Janeway.

Except that Janeway's deadline comes and goes with no sign. Seven can't even get her on comms again, and eventually, feeling betrayed and having lost a lot of time, Seven takes off to find Icheb herself. Of course, we all know how that turns out. Seven is bitter and grieving and furious and avoids the Federation for some time afterward... So it takes her a lot longer than it should have to realize that the Federation is trying to hide the fact that Admiral Kathryn Janeway has disappeared without a trace.

She doesn't know what happened. She just has a sinking feeling that she was too late a second time.

Most of Voyager's crew are still Starfleet, and after what happened with Janeway, Seven stops contacting the ones who haven't already cut ties with her for being a "vigilante".

Flash forward to the end of Picard Season 1. Soji now has access to at least a partial Borg Trans Warp Conduit, and La Sirena is well away from Federation Space, deliberating their next steps when Rios picks up a framented, badly damaged distress beacon from none other than Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Picard immediately demands they go after the signal because she's a) a missing Starfleet admiral and b) a friendly colleague who he respects a great deal and c) Seven's old Captain.

Raffi has ALL the bad feelings about this, but the mystery of it is too great to resist. Agnes is a little starstruck.

Soji has no strong opinions and Elnor is mostly keying into Picard's, but Rios is apprehensive- how the hell do they know that whatever disappeared the great Admiral Janeway, who survived the Delta quadrant for 7 years, won't take them out as well.

Everyone expects Seven to argue for going after Janeway, but she hesitates. Unbeknownst to them she's still angry (at herself or Janeway she never decided) and is afraid of finding the dying or dead body of another old friend. But ultimately she gives faint assent and they go after the signal.

The next part is still incredibly blurry in my head, but basically they find a multipart Temporal anomaly, kind of like happened in Shattered, except the anomalies are centered on Janeway herself rather than Voyager. They include fragments from episodes in the series (including of course the Year of Hell & Deadlock & Endgame) but also slivers of Janeway's past (probably involving an incident on the Al-Bhatani or her capture and torture at the hands of the Cardassian from the novels) and of alternate potential futures or timelines.

Ideally each "sliver" would have to do somehow with an alternate timeline/space time anomaly of its own that Janeway experienced.

Haven't worked it out fully, but they have to somehow fix the fractures from within and end up separated. They all end up in the places they personally feel least prepared to help. Someone ends up in the Year of Hell. Rios is in Deadlock watching another suicidal Captain. I almost want to say Elnor ends up somehow in The Killing Game, because that would be hilariously confusing for him, but I don't know how to make that relate to Temporal flux. Same for Soji or Agnes and the Cardassian skirmish, but same problem.

Picard is possibly traveling with Seven, uncertain, but Seven DEFINITELY ends up having to work through her complicated feelings about "Endgame" (the beginning of a negative part of her relationship with Janeway and her mistaken past with Chakotay) and then in a new, alternate timeline where Janeway is functioning about as well as YoH Janeway.

I do t know how that problem develops or is ultimately resolved, but when they do finally save Janeway, it's revealed to be partially the fault of Q Jr, who was trying to protect Janeway from some separate Temporal power but got met with so much pushback that the time around Janeway fractured. (Time traveling Section31? Idk I have a goal not an antagonist.) He stepped in to "save Aunt Kathy" and his father shows up incredibly late to the scene.

(Neither Janeway nor Picard is thrilled about that last event but he explains he'll be needing both of them and will see them soon.)

Seven and Janeway reunite and Seven has to face her emotional block re: the Voyager crew. She's still conflicted because of some of the problems she and Janeway had before but mostly because Q Jr and Icheb had been friends... And Q didn't lift a finger for Icheb. Still, she gets some encouragement from Raffi after a pep talk from Picard falls incredibly flat and she admits to having missed Janeway who is after all her "family". The two start to make amends.

Ideally, somehow it would go from there I to a sequel fic where Janeway works with Sisko for some sort of time anomaly plot while Seven handles a related thread of the disaster with Picard and Raffi, and also Elnor meets Harry Kim. but let's be real, I'm not that great at writing plots.