WHY DOESN'T VOYAGER JUST HEAD FOR THE WORMHOLE IN THE GAMMA QUADRANT, INSTEAD OF GOING STRAIGHT TO THE ALPHA QUADRANT?
The Canon Answer:
Not addressed. See "Likely Reason #5" below.
The Company Line:
"The map that we're working with at the studio places Voyager and the Idran end of the Bajoran wormhole almost as far away as the frontier of the Federation back in the Beta Quadrant. So, at the risk of repeating something we dealt with months ago, it would not have been helpful to go for Idran." - Rick Sternbach, Star Trek technical consultant, in a Usenet post. (link here).
More recently, the DS9 Technical Manual trade paperback was released, containing the closest thing we have right now to an "official" Trek galactic map. Of course, it does reflect what Sternbach said.
The Fan Answers/ The Lowdown:
REASONS WHY VOYAGER ISN'T HEADING FOR THE GAMMA QUADRANT END OF THE BAJORAN WORMHOLE (hereafter referred to as the Idran wormhole, after the name of the nearest system in the Gamma Quadrant)
Likely Reason #1: The "Your Eyes are Deceiving You" Argument.
Chances are, if you're one of the people who posted this question on USENET, you saw this map:
The Idran Wormhole is NOT really closer to Voyager's position than the Alpha Quadrant. Aside from the quadrant system, the writers behind Star Trek do not depend on (though they may use) any specific "mapping" of locations in space to write their stories, so really, there are no canon "maps," because all the writers really need to know is:
-The galaxy is divided, pie-like, into four quadrants, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.
-Earth lies on the boundary between Alpha and Beta (and even the writers often overlook this fact and just lump Earth in with the Alpha Quadrant); the Klingons and Romulans have much of their territories in the Beta Quadrant; the Feds, Klingons, Rommies, and Cardies all border each other; the Borg are from the Delta Quadrant; and the Dominion is from part of the Gamma, 70,000 ly away.
Any maps you've seen are 1) not fully canon or not canon at all (regardless of whether they're "official" or not) and 2) are two-dimensional, and although the Milky Way is relatively flat, it does have some thickness, and while in one view the GQW may appear to be closer, it may not actually be so. See "the company line" above.
Here's my revision of the map above:
Likely Reason #2: The "Disappearing Wormhole" Argument.
It would not be practical for Voyager to head for the Idran Wormhole, because of the good possibility that the Wormhole might not even be there when they get there; although recent events on DS9 ("By Inferno's Light") have made the Wormhole supposedly incollapsible, Voyager doesn't know that (besides, "Tears of the Prophets" proved that it wasn't all that "incollapsible"). Janeway wouldn't take the chance of heading the wrong way for decades, only to find out that they can't get home that way, and have to turn around and begin an even longer journey home. Corollary: "Well, the Wormhole has been there for thousands of years...why shouldn't Janeway expect it to still be there?" I'd like to point out that for all but six of those thousands of years, the wormhole has remained virtually unknown except for a couple of wayward Bajorans...and it had therefore never been under the threat of collapse. At the time of Janeway's mission, the Wormhole was well-known, and known to be collapsible.
Likely Reason #3: The "Scared of the Dominion" Argument.
It would not be practical for Voyager to head for the Idran Wormhole, since Janeway is aware of thethreat the Dominion poses. Voyager left for its ill-fated mission not long after the events of DS9's "The Jem'Hadar" and "The Search," which means Janeway probably knows about the existence of the Dominion, their attitudes, their motivations, and their capabilities
The "Message In A Bottle/Hunters" Corollary: there is some slight evidence to the contrary in "Message In A Bottle" and "Hunters," when the Doctor seemed to be unaware of what the Dominion was, and when Chakotay merely alluded to "the Cardassians' new ally" rather than mention the Dominion by name," but perhaps this can be chalked up to 1) The Doctor, having only been programmed with what was essential to his program prior to the launch of Voyager, had not encountered--nor had he needed to encounter--any information about the Dominion, and 2) The Dominion were not too widely known to the Maquis prior to the disappearance of Chakotay's ship--which, if I recall correctly, was a couple of weeks before Voyager followed them into the Badlands; it's plausible that the Maquis ship disappeared prior to the events of "The Jem'Hadar" or "The Search," and Voyager sought them afterwards).
The "Then why head for Borg Space?" Corollary: Voyager's crew (even Neelix and Kes) until "Blood Fever" was not fully aware of where Borg Space in the Delta Quadrant was; as far as they knew, Borg territory could have been located (or extended into) in the space between them and the Gamma Quadrant...it was a gamble either way.
Likely Reason #4: The "Galactic Arms" Argument.
The Milky Way is a Spiral Galaxy. (see the graphics above). It's made up of several arms (where star population is dense) radiating out of a star-dense core. Between the arms, therefore, are areas which are only sparsely populated with stars. Voyager knows that it will have to resupply itself many times on its journey back, with the supplies coming from planets and cultures they encounter. Its best bet, therefore, is to travel down the galactic "arm" that they are in (the Denkiri Arm, as identified in TNG's "The Price" and VOY's "False Profits") towards the Galactic Core (which is, as explained above, the closest point between the AQ and the DQ anyway), because with a denser population of stars, their chances of finding planets and cultures to resupply from are substantially increased. To head for the Idran Wormhole, Voyager will probably have to skip over from arm to arm...which may mean years spent in the sparsely-star-populated spaces between the arms...and a much, much poorer chance to resupply.
Addendum: The new course that Seven of Nine and Harry Kim plotted in the beginning of "The Year of Hell, Part I" would seem to support this theory...it appears that they plan to proceed down the Denkiri Arm, then skirt the edge of the Galactic Core.
Likely Reason #5: The "Are They That Stupid?" Argument.
Come on. If heading for the Gamma Quadrant Wormhole were the more reasonable choice, don't you think SOMEONE on Voyager would have brought it up?
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