Star Trek Viewing Guide
Chapter 14 · The Far Future
  1. 1The Road to the Federation2063–2161
  2. 2Toward the Five-Year Mission2230s–2261
  3. 3The Expanding Federation2265–2268
  4. 4The Long Road to Khitomer2268–2293
  5. 5A New Generation2324–2367
  6. 6Continuing Voyages2367–2369
  7. 7New Frontiers and Foundations2369–2370
  8. 8Exploring New Quadrants2371–2372
  9. 9Storms on the Horizon2372–2373
  10. 10The Dominion War2373–2375
  11. 11Trying to Get Home2375–2379
  12. 12Life on the Lower Decks2380–2382
  13. 13Echoes and Legacies2383–2401
  14. 14The Far Future3074–42nd century

Voyager · S4 · E23

Living Witness

First aired April 29, 1998

An alien species claims that the "Warship Voyager" was responsible for war crimes committed against them.

Commentary

As you watch this you’ll see why the exact placement can be debatable, but approximately 3074 seemed best. With this episode, we complete Star Trek: Voyager. Keep in mind that this episode takes place entirely in the Delta quadrant, far away from most of the events of the franchise before and after.

Why is this here?

The placement of "Living Witness" is an interesting topic for discussion.  Chronologically, it’s telling a story ABOUT events in 2374, but is actually set “700 years later”, placing it around approximately 3074. In addition, at the end we pull back to another framing device taking place some unknown amount of time (50 yrs? 1000 yrs?) after THAT. Since the episode is self-contained in the Delta quadrant, it does not have any storyline continuity repercussions, making it pretty easily moved around in the viewing order.

Initially, I placed "Living Witness" in its airdate order in 2374 for those reasons, but with  Disco S3 taking place even further in the future, I decided to move it to circa 3074 as it works well as a nice re-visit to our friends on Voyager after watching Picard and before watching Disco S3. (I also felt that its themes laid nice groundwork for the themes of Discovery S3.)

Sidenote: overthinking this specific episode is what prompted me to create this methodology page in the first place.

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