I think while some aspects of Star Trek Voyager were cool - ship lost in another part of the galaxy, struggling to survive, endless battles of survival - I felt there were moments where Voyager didn't fulfil its general potential. Seven of Nine is a big example since she learnt one thing in one episode and yet forgot it all. What about Chakotay or Harry, people who never really moved on past their roles.
But the Omega directive was one of those moments where something interesting came along, but nothing more than that was grown from it. No new revelations came, and it wasn't drawn back up again later on.
The Omega Directive.
When she became a Captain, the last thing Kathryn had thought would happen would be discovering something like Omega. Oh, she knew thanks to her father's teachings that Starfleet captains were briefed on things that were a threat, but the discovery of Omega was something that horrified her.
The idea of a molecule that not only had the power of a warp core, but was theorised by Federation scientists that the Omega molecule existed for a brief time, and even powered the Big Bang!
Indeed, listening to Seven's talk about how Omega had been spread in the mythology of several primitive races which had been assimilated by the Borg in the past until they found a civilisation that possessed the scientific knowledge and comprehension needed to create their own Omega experiments, all of which ended in a failure had fascinated Janeway and she had included that in the reports. True, they would be classified until they returned to the Alpha Quadrant, but they wouldn't change Starfleet's stance on Omega. The directive would still be put in full effect, Starfleet captains would lie awake in fear of their ship's computer detecting the molecule forcing them to send the message that Starfleet Command dreaded the most, although many went through their captaincies without ever once getting that dreaded message or they only just managed to forget that the threat existed until they actually got it.
Janeway wondered how Starfleet would respond when they discovered that he'd told her command team about the molecule. It was likely they wouldn't bat an eyelid about it since the crisis had been successfully averted and the explosion they feared would result in interstellar travel becoming impossible had never happened.
But now the crisis was over and the crew and herself could get over what they'd seen, Janeway was hopeful that she never had to see that symbol again.
But as she wrote the reports, Janeway's eyes went to the part detailing Seven's experiences with the Harmonic Resonance Chamber. Janeway had never seen her Borg protege look so star struck before. Ever. A part of Janeway, the part of her that was the explorer, the Starfleet officer, the young girl who had joined in the family's footsteps as a fleet brat after growing up on stories of the 5-year missions of Captain James T. Kirk, Captain Christopher Pike, the story of Rachel Garrett's final stand at Narendra 3, the part of her who wished she had been on the Enterprise and the Grissom when the Genesis Device had been detonated prematurely in the Mutara Sector wished she had been standing close to Seven peering into that viewport to see the Omega molecules connecting to each other.
Tuvok was right. It was a pity they could never study the phenomenon, and it was a pity when she had given the order to decompress the cargo bay to eject the chamber into space and then destroy it with the torpedo. But Kathryn had to admit to herself, protocol aside, she would have enjoyed learning more about the molecule. Sadly the directive took precedence.
And it always would.
