Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters, I've just created this AU.
REMEMBRANCE
There is something utterly soul-wrenching about the Voyager monument. People who go never forget. It's something that plants an ache in your soul that never goes away, and no matter how much it hurts you go back again and again. It is an addiction. You cannot ever forget that ship. If you forgot, you think you would just as soon die.
Now, with the hindsight of history, you can see how much fear controlled people. You can see how obviously wrong it was. Then, all that anyone knew was that they felt threatened, that the universe was spiraling out of control, and that there was only one way to stop it.
You learned the story in grade school. It was one of the lessons you were never supposed to forget, but it was so terrifying that most thirteen-year-olds pushed it to the back of their minds. The monument, though, is so powerful, and such an emotional experience, that it accomplishes what the teachers cannot.
A few pieces of metal are on top of the flat slab of marble. Against the black, white marble is set in to spell out the name of each member of the crew. Heavy glass protects the objects from being stolen. A bit of the hull is enthroned near the name Kathryn Janeway, and the letter O can just be made out. Between the names Samantha Wildman and Vorik, son of Sokar stands a rook from a 3-D chess set, the top smoothed by explosion but still obviously a rook. There is a tiny piece of battered metal next to the name Harry Kim. Some experts think that it was the hull of a shuttle and not the ship itself, but it hardly matters. Doctor is flanked by two metallic spheres, melted far beyond recognition. These are the remains of a ship that had survived seven years in the Delta Quadrant.
There is one name with a small piece of a toy next to it. If you stretch your imagination, you can picture it as part of a mobile that would hang over a baby's crib. The name is Miral Paris, sandwiched between Thomas Eugene Paris and B'Elanna Torres, daughter of Miral. You know that baby Miral was just a few days old when she, like the rest of the crew, perished. The whole story is tragic, but it is Miral who often moves the most stoic of hearts to tears.
It was all so senseless, and now with history to tell you the lessons of the past, you saw how noble they were. Even when given the chance, no member of the crew left Voyager when death was increasingly likely. They stood with their own, and died with their own. Only one individual left: Naomi Wildman, against her wishes, was transported off to be with her father. Samantha had seen that there was danger, and she was torn between her responsibility to fight for what was right and her responsibility to her daughter. A message on the padd Naomi took with her, however, indicated that she thought Starfleet would back down. "We are in the moral right, and I expect this to be over soon, but not after more danger than I wish to subject our daughter to," she'd written to her husband.
Admiral Paris had tried to get his granddaughter. "Tom, B'Elanna, don't do this. Don't let your stupidity take your daughter's life." He reportedly got the response "At least she won't be raised by people who let hate and fear take over their lives," with an echoed, "If she sheds so much as a drop of blood, it will be on the hands of you and all the other p'taks in Starfleet!"
"I thought that we were beyond this sort of fear and hatred. Have you learned nothing from the lessons of history?" These are the last recorded words of Kathryn Janeway. You read this, along with a summary of the declassified aspects of Voyager's journey, and wonder how many times more it will take a catastrophe before there will be no more needed to learn what fear and hate do to societies and people. You wonder how many more people will have to die to teach this lesson.
There is one name on the list that isn't really a name at all. Seven of Nine, it says, included at the top with the senior staff. There is an addition: formerly Annika Hansen. It was for her right to self-determination that the crew died. Really, you think, it is a testament that she used to be another Borg drone. A testament to the human spirit and to the devotion of the crew who never gave up on her.
Starfleet, you know, wanted to take Seven of Nine and treat her like an animal- no, worse than an animal. They wanted to question her and dissect her like she was a database. Icheb they were willing to let fade into obscurity on some border world, but they were firm that Seven must be turned over to them like a padd or a stolen shuttle. It's hard to imagine the compassionate Starfleet that exists today was born out of a Starfleet that lost it and destroyed a celebrated starship because they wanted one woman to be a database. The public was at first unsure of what they should think. Was Seven of Nine a threat? Was she the key to destroying the Borg? But then, was it worth her captivity, her life, to gain that knowledge? Was it worth violating principles held dear for a maybe? They looked at the people whose relatives had survived the impossible only to be killed defending their own. Defending her against a threat from the very institution whose legacy they carried through the Delta Quadrant. People thought of what the valiant crewmembers of Voyager had done, dying to defend the rights of one woman. They looked at the captured shots of the devastating explosion. They saw the torpedoes coming from one Starfleet ship and landing on another; a massive fireball burst where once a ship was. A ship that had fought so hard to get home, only to find that home was hostile to one of their own.
The official statement that showed the crew as renegades used as evidence Seven of Nine's idea to go as Starfleet wished. That plan backfired, you know. It only served to prove that Seven of Nine was more human than anyone thought possible. People began to take shuttles out and comb the area, looking for any debris that survived the explosion. The monument was begun, and Starfleet had a major public relations fiasco.
In time, Starfleet changed, and some people began to forget the tragedy and the travesty. Those who visit the memorial cannot forget, and you come yearly at least. Once you saw an old woman sobbing over Janeway's name, and you think the resemblance to the face of the heroic captain indicates the woman was her mother. You mourn a more general tragedy, but it is a tragedy that strikes at the heart of morality and all the values you hold dear.
Underneath all of the names is the line that sums up how you feel. They died to teach us what we should have already known.