As some of you may know Ron Moore was once hired as the producer of Star Trek Voyager but left after only two episodes.  When asked about it he said that the show was not true because the ship looked to clean every week and basically things were to easy for them and that led people to not caring, but it appears some of the ideas stuck with Ron Moore and became a little show called Battlestar Galactica.

So let us examine a few of the ways that Battlestar Galactica and Voyager are similar and differnt and how a few small changes to a show and some good writing can make a premise that didn't work on one show work perfectly on another.

The story

Voyager: A ship is stranded across the galaxy and attempting a seemingly hopeless trip to reach Earth.

Battlestar: A fleet are the only survivors of humanity making a seemingly hopeless trip to reach Earth.

There is certainly a happier ending built into the story of Voyager but this doesn't really change the trip all  that much.

The Crew

Voyager : A female leader, an first mate with tattoos around his eyes, a hotshot pilot, an angry engineer, a Vulcan security officer, an annoying alien, a holographic doctor, a boring ensign, and a enemy cyborg attempting to be human.

Battlestar Galactica: Male Captain: Female leader, first mate with one eye, a hotshot pilot, an angry engineer, a self serving scientist, a boring son of the captain, an enemy robot attempting to be human.

Battlestar Galactica has more characters than Star Trek voyager did, but when you look at some of the interesting connections it becomes clearer.  The most striking connection to me is that between 7 of 9 and 6, but Tom Paris and Kara Thrace and even Janeway and Rosyln all have strong connections.

Reconciliation theme

Voyager - The crew is made up of two groups who were fighting but have to work together if they are going to survive.

Battlestar Galactica - Crew is made up of two groups who were fighting but have to work together if they are going to survive.

The marque have more in common with the crew of voyager than the cylons do with those of battlestar galactica but the connections are really pretty clear to me.

Survival

Voyager: Have replicator rations

Battlestar Galactica - Running short of everything, struggling to mine asteroids to get fuel while being attacked by cylons. Decided that things are so bad living on an alge planet might not be so bad.

This is where the Star Trek technology begins to get in the way. It's hard to really think of someone struggeling to survive when they can play games on the holodeck and then replicate themselves cheeseburger for lunch and complaining about the meals that your cook makes for you doesn't make you seem like you are barely surviving it makes you seem whinny.

Specific Storylines

Voyager: Find a crew of Starfleet personell who have been in the delta quadrent longer than them and have began to do bad things to survive.

Battlestar Galactica: Find a Battlestar who have been fighting the cylons and have began to do bad things to win.

Voyager: A disease threatens to wipe out the borg.

Battlestar Galactica: A disease threatens to wipe out the cylons

Voyager:  A macovirus attacks the crew but Janeway kills them all by lureing them into the holodeck and throwing in an antigen bomb.



Battlestar Galactica: Stopped before the show had to start coming up with stupid idea.

There are likely other episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Voyager which are similar, but these(not including the third) are both major story lines which were in both shows.

Thinking about all of this makes me sad because I realize that if the creators of Star Trek Voyager had really been willing to explore the ideas that were built into the show, such as how good people react to difficult circumstances and what people will do to survive we could have had a really interesting show, and while there were occasional good episodes of Voyager they never really explored it the way they could have.

On the other hand, Battlestar Galactica, as good as it was, didn't have the history and legend of Star Trek behind it. Even with a few flashbacks we really didn't know what the world these people had came from was like so sometimes it was difficult to express just how much these people had changed. This wouldn't have been nearly as much of a problem on voyager.