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This answer enumerates all the actual jumps that Voyager achieved in their quest to get home from the Delta Quadrant.

I am interested in addition in the number of rumoured or failed acquisitions of technology, natural, or supernatural shortcuts. That is, what are the times that Voyager:

  • Achieved faster-than-warp travel
  • Thought they could access faster-than-warp travel (but failed to acquire or failed to work)
  • Achieved faster-than-subspace communication
  • Thought they could access faster-than-subsapce communication (but failed)
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    When you say “faster than warp”, do you mean faster than their regular warp engines could go? There was that one time they achieved the infinite speed of warp 10 and turned into weird amphibians.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Jun 13, 2022 at 15:48
  • @PaulD.Waite: Yeah, obviously I mean fast than "regular warp", whatever "regular warp" means. I'm sure that doesn't include warp 10 which involved "appearing everywhere at once" and becoming a lizard.
    – ThePopMachine
    Jun 13, 2022 at 15:52
  • I'm not sure "faster-than-warp" is an entirely obvious phrase, when the top of the warp scale is infinite speed.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Jun 13, 2022 at 15:56
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    @PaulD.Waite: OK, then "faster-than-warp" means faster than achievable with existing warp technology available to Voyager before it got transported to the Delta Quadrant.
    – ThePopMachine
    Jun 13, 2022 at 15:59

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Faster-than-Warp - Successes

  • VOY: The Gift - Kes' Powers
  • VOY: Night - Spatial Vortex
  • VOY: Timeless - Quantum Slipstream drive
  • VOY: The Voyager Conspiracy - Quantum Catapult
  • VOY: Dragon's Teeth - Subspace Corridors
  • VOY: Q2 - Q-Powers
  • VOY: Dark Frontier - Stolen Borg Transwarp coil
  • VOY: Endgame - Borg Transwarp corridor
  • VOY: Death Wish - Q-Powers (not sure where they went, but presumably to somewhere Christmas Trees are a thing)
  • VOY: Future's End Part I - Graviton distortion (okay so they turned up in the 1990's but they still made it to Earth)

Faster-than-Warp - Failures

  • VOY: Caretaker - The Caretaker's displacement wave technology (decided to destroy it instead)
  • VOY: Eye of the Needle - Wormhole (too small, oh and it went to the past)
  • VOY: Prime Factors - Sikarian Spatial Trajector (didn't integrate with Voyager's systems, and limited to use near Sikaris)
  • VOY: The '37s - Briori technology (the revolting human slaves had already destroyed it before Voyager got there)
  • VOY: Cold Fire - Nacene technology (they detected Suspiria's presence hoping she would send them home, she wasn't happy to see them)
  • VOY: Day of Honor - Attempt to upgrade Voyager's engines to use transwarp tech based on Seven's Borg knowledge (tachyons flood the warp core and they're forced to eject it)
  • VOY: Threshold - New "Warp 10" engines (it worked, sort of, minor side effects may include turning into lizards)
  • VOY: False Profits - Barzan wormhole (both ends of the wormhole get unpinned during the kerfuffle rendering it useless, didn't they warn them about Ferengi at the academy?)
  • VOY: Death Wish - Q-Powers (Q offeres to return them home if Janeway goes his way in the hearing, she declines)
  • VOY: The Q and the Grey - Q-Powers (Q offers Janeway an Indecent Proposal, she declines)
  • VOY: Inside Man - Geodesic fold (it would have gotten them back, minor side effects include certain death)
  • VOY: Equinox - Enhanced warp drive (Janeway declines to use it given it runs on killing sentient aliens)
  • VOY: Future's End Part II - 29th Century technology (Janeway asks Braxton to return them to the Alpha Quadrant, he declines under the Temporal Prime Directive)

Faster-than-Subspace - Successes

  • VOY: Message in a Bottle - Hirogen relay network (used to send the Doctor to the USS Prometheus)
  • VOY: Hunters - Hirogen relay network (used by Starfleet to send messages to Voyager)
  • VOY: Pathfinder - MIDAS array (used by the Pathfinder Project to communicate with Voyager)
  • VOY: Lifeline - MIDAS array (used by Voyager to send the Doctor on a housecall to Dr. Zimmerman)

NB: There are other instances of the Pathfinder project communications but they're minor "new letters from home" ones once regular communication has been established, I think this is all the major plot-driving ones.

Faster-than-Subspace - Failures

  • VOY: Eye of the Needle - sending messages the "long way" via giving them to the Romulan captain in the past and having him relay them in the "present" (unsure but the Romulan dies before Voyager is stranded so it's unlikely they were delivered)
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  • Thanks! It seems to me we can assume the messages weren't delivered by the Romulan or it would been been mentioned when Voyager eventually contacted Starfleet.
    – ThePopMachine
    Jun 14, 2022 at 16:13
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    @ThePopMachine that's what I've always assumed - Starfleet appears to believe Voyager has been destroyed prior to the Doctor telling them otherwise in Message in a Bottle
    – motosubatsu
    Jun 14, 2022 at 16:20
  • It seems like it would be simpler to list the episodes where there was no faster-than-warp.
    – Spencer
    Jun 15, 2022 at 14:34
  • @Spencer: Yes, I agree with the sarcastic sentiment. My impression during rewatch about how many times this occured is effectively the reason for the question. Full on over 1 in 7 episodes involves FTW or FTS. It is quite an unusual challenge set up for the writers to keep giving progress without it becoming tiresome. Not sure how successful they really were. I guess it is different when it is spread out over seven years of real time vs. having all the episodes on demand.
    – ThePopMachine
    Jun 16, 2022 at 16:06

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