I'm almost done watching the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I'm starting to look at what to watch next. After reading a little bit about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, it's clear to me that Voyager would be fit my current mood.
Would watching Voyager before Deep Space Nine spoil any event of importance?
There are two ways to approach this question; from the aspect of watching Voyager and from the aspect of watching DS9.
In the first aspect, you should be able to jump right into Voyager.
Voyager debuted only a season after TNG ended, and the first couple of seasons of DS9 didn't introduce any major story-lines or continuity that would affect the Voyager universe. However, while you should already be aware of the Maquis from watching TNG, the Maquis were actually introduced on DS9 before TNG concluded.
Additionally, with the exception of the first episode and some passing mentions in later seasons, Voyager has no connection to the rest of the Universe by design. You're supposed to take Voyager by itself.
With all that said, Voyager is still part of canon and takes place roughly at the same time the events of DS9 take place. Especially later on in Voyager, some allusions and references might make more sense with some knowledge of what's occurred in DS9, but it's not necessary at all to understand what's going on in Voyager.
If anything, you might want to watch Star Trek: First Contact at some point in the first few seasons of Voyager. You might also want to watch Star Trek Generations so you're not lost on some background info in Star Trek: First Contact, but it's not that great a film.
With regards to the second aspect—watching DS9 unspoiled—those same passing mentions might spoil some of the plot lines of DS9 (and the Star Trek movies Generations-onward, for that matter).
Ideally, you should follow the intended chronology to avoid any chance of spoiling either series. If you wanted to follow chronology, the timeline is roughly:
The conclusion of the Maquis story is in DS9 with acknowledgement of the outcome by the Maquis crewmen of Voyager eventually (once Voyager is able to communicate, however infrequently, with the Alpha quandrant). So you'll know the eventual outcome of the Maquis faction, but IMHO, it doesn't spoil the DS9 episodes about the Maquis in any significant way.
There are only a couple of potentially significant events in Federation history during DS9, but Voyager is so far out and out of touch, they are largely unaware until long after the fact and those events get largely superficial attention on Voyager (if at all).
To sum up: no, I don't think watching ST:VOY will spoil watching ST:DS9.
I skipped DS9 and went to Voyager. So far the only overlap I've seen is the Maquis, but really they aren't important in Voyager - it's more or less a subplot, something to give the maquis characters an edge. So you don't really need back-story on them to enjoy either series.
I had watched Star Trek: Voyager before DS9, and by the time I got to the parts in DS9 which can relate to Voyager, I hadn't really thought of them. Anyway, as you'll see, the Maquis aren't the headline story of the series! Voyager used to be my favorite Star Trek series by far, but now it's neck and neck with DS9. I think you'll appreciate both of them very much! The 90's had the best of Star Trek in my opinion!
Nope. Deep Space Nine basically stands out that the events, the characters and the story-arc are all totally (Not related) to either TNG nor VOY, though there are some few episodes in DS9 where there are references to TNG, some guest appearances besides there are two TNG crew that became an important part of DS9, Miles O'Brien and Worf but other than that, DS9 is not connected to TNG and esp not Voyager. Have your fun and pick the series you'd like to watch.
You could always watch Star Trek in the order that it aired.
DS9 began in TNG's sixth season, so you could watch a combination of TNG and DS9 episodes. Once you've finished watching TNG and the first two series of DS9, it would make sense to watch watch Generations, followed by the first series of Voyager and DS9 series 3 (at the same time).
