USS Voyager's Mission

Captain Kathryn Janeway is given command of the Federation Starship USS Voyager and prepares for a mission in the Badlands. Her mission is to find a Maquis starship commanded by a Maquis Captain called Chakotay and Janeway's tactical officer Tuvok that had infiltrated the ship and vanished without a trace.

When they arrive to the place in the badlands where the Maquis ship disappeared, they are pulled far into the Delta quadrant. When they investigate they find an array of unknown origin nearby. Soon the crewmembers are being pulled into the array where they learn that a member of the species Nacene (a.k.a Caretaker) has pulled them to him in search for someone to take over his duties as a Caretaker for the peaceful Ocampa.

When the caretaker dies of natural causes, Captain Janeway has to choose between getting the crew home through the Caretaker's array or to stay and try to help the Ocampa from being taken over by the hostile Kazon by destroying it. She makes the difficult decision to destroy the array, stranding the crew in unexplored territory. They have to find a way to interact and cooperate with the crew of the enemy Maquis ship, also pulled in by the Caretaker, in order to get home.

The crew of Voyager now faces a 70-year long journey to reach the Alpha quadrant where planet earth is situated. Go here to learn more about Voyager's path towards Federation space.

All Starfleet officers are taught to follow the cardinal rule called The Prime Directive. There are a number of other directives but this is the most important one. The Prime Directive dictates that members of the Federation must not give away technology or interfere with the natural development of less advanced or pre-warp civilizations. The directive also states that Federation members must not interfere in the internal affairs of other species. Federation members must make any sacrifice to protect less advanced cultures from contamination, even if it means sacrificing their own lives. This directive was created to protect a culture's right to develop on its own.

Temporal Prime Directive
This is a Starfleet principle that forbids any Starfleet personnel from directly interfering with historical events. They also have to keep technology, items or knowledge that do not belong in the era they are visiting from being found. This is important to maintain the timeline and prevent history from being altered.

The Omega directive
This directive allows Starfleet Captains and higher ranking officers to overlook the prime directive due to Omegas significant threat to warp civilisations.