That was the original pitch for Voyager. The characters introduced in the ST:TNG episode “Lower Decks” were supposed to be the primary cast of wht became Voyager. Berman or Braga, I forget which one said it, but it was at the ONE Star Trek Con I ever attended.
…I thought we were doing Bored of the Rings here…
Never watched Star Trek: The Animated Series , I take it.
Non-canon, unfortunately. The Slaver Weapon was a direct rewrite of a Niven Known Space story with Star Trek characters plugged in.
“Morn!” 
To a certain extent, Small Universe Syndrome is unavoidable in a TV show. You can only cast so many people. Still, I don’t think my concept suffers unduly from this problem. Only Riker and O’Brien will be major characters. Both of them are experienced officers with command-level ranks, and both of them have connections to the previous Enterprises, so I don’t think it strains credulity that they’d be chosen as Captain and Chief Engineer of the latest incarnation of the Enterprise.
Chakotay, Torres, and Paris will be recurring characters, not main characters. They were members of the Maquis, so they’re already established as being anti-authoritarian types. Now that I think about it, I’ll probably have them work together as a terrorist “cell,” along with many other cells made up of characters that are new for the series. The ultimate leader of the insurgency will be a running mystery of the series. I’m imagining these guys as being fairly tragic characters; they have good reason to hate the Federation, both because of what happened to the Maquis and because of what’s happening now, and given some of the questionable decisions the Federation leadership makes, they’ll be a lot of moral ambiguity going around.
I’ll admit that making Janeway the new leader of the Federation is a bit gratuitous, but I can really see her in a position of high leadership. She’s the type of person who’ll make an unpopular decision, and if you don’t like it she’ll tell you to go screw yourself. Possibly in those exact words. Also, she’s not a well-liked character, so I can turn her into an evil little bitch without pissing off too many fans
As for the rest of the established characters, they’re mostly dead. Some of the surviving characters will appear in an episode or two somewhere along the line, but for the most part they’ll just be peripheral.
I loved that episode!
I know all this. I was just suggesting if Clam wanted to see SF-Kzinti action, Clam should check it out. Canon doesn’t enter into it.
Sounds interesting. Where would I find it?
I’m not sure - I saw it on vid taped off telly, many years ago. Not sure if it’s out on DVD, but there are ahem other sources.