When Janeway Fought Galactus

Over the years I’ve mentioned a story I plotted in the mid-1990s but never wrote (for obvious reasons) — Captain Janeway (of Star Trek: Voyager) vs. Galactus (of Marvel Comics).

Star Trek? Galactus? What madness is this?

Return with me to the halcyon days of late 1995/early 1996 when Marvel Comics announced that they had acquired the Star Trek comics license.

Marvel announced that they would kick off their Star Trek comics with an utterly unexpected crossover — Star Trek/X-Men. (It ended up not kicking off Marvel’s Star Trek line when its ship date slipped, but that’s how the 90s were.)

And I remember distinctly my local comic shop owner telling me that we could see Marvel Comics concepts in Star Trek. Imagine that, Dark Phoenix on Star Trek: Voyager! The Guardians of the Galaxy on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine! The mind boggled.

And somehow it struck me that Galactus, the Eater of Worlds, was the natural fit for the Star Trek universe. (I don’t think that Darkseid Vs. Galactus had come out yet, but I think I knew that it was coming.) Galactus would show up at a planet, the Star Trek crew would have to stop Galactus from eating the planet and destroying the civilization, someone would have a personal dilemma relating to the Galactus threat. Basically, Galactus fit the Star Trek format pretty well.

I think I entertained the idea that Galactus would try to eat Cardassia, Dukat would appeal for help, Kira would say “Let those motherfuckers die,” and Sisko would have to use the Defiant to stop Galactus. If I didn’t, I should have, because that’s actually a pretty good idea for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine circa season five. 🙂

What I ended up plotting out was Star Trek: Voyager vs. Galactus. I don’t think it ever had a title, and I’ve long since lost the outline (that was five moves and several computers ago). But I remember roughly how it went: Without further ado…

Star Trek: Voyager Vs. Galactus

In the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant the Voyager detects the faint distress signal of a distant Talaxian colony, under attack by Borg forces. Janeway wants to investigate, even though the message came by radio, and Tuvok places the signal’s origin at a world light-years away, meaning that Voyager would arrive years too late to do anything, yet Janeway persists in her decision to investigate.

When Voyager arrives, they unsurprisingly find a world Borgified. Neelix thinks that his people can be saved, Janeway knows it is now too late, and she prepares to leave, hopefully undetected.

Then the 24th-century Herald of Galactus arrives and announces that this Borg world is to be Galactus’ next meal. (For the purposes of this story, the Star Trek and Marvel universes are one and the same.)

Janeway knows that whatever life remains on the planet, even if assimilated, will be consumed by Galactus. But Janeway also knows that the Borg, given any sort of chance, will try to assimilate Galactus, and an assimilated Galactus could easily make the Borg unstoppable.

Then a fleet of Borg cubes arrives to battle Galactus.

Unfortunately for Galactus, it appears that assimilation reduces the “energy” in the life that Galactus consumes. (See John Byrne’s Darkseid Vs. Galactus for the same idea.) Essentially, the planet is decaying, and consuming the planet is making Galactus weak. A Galactus weakened is also a Galactus threatened, and a threatened Galactus is very dangerous indeed because he will go to any length to sate his unholy hungers.

And so Janeway conceives of a plan to ally herself with the Borg against Galactus (shades of “Scorpion”), when in reality she intends to double-cross the Borg to give Galactus an opportunity to escape from the Collective.

The plan? Remodulate the Voyager‘s deflector dish to inject Galactus with a single charged blast of the ship’s warp energies, giving the cosmic being enough energy to flee. As Janeway and the Borg fleet make their attack run on Galactus, Janeway attacks the Borg instead and the deflector dish fires.

Success!

In the end, Galactus escapes, the Borg are dealt a blow, and Galactus’ 24th-century herald flings Voyager a few thousand light-years closer to home in thanks.

The End

For obvious reasons, I never did anything with this. I didn’t know anyone at Marvel Comics at the time, and even if I did I doubt they would have ever been interested in this tale. And weirdly, I have no interest in writing comics. Even in my younger days, I didn’t.

Still, this would have been a cool story. 🙂