What were the pressures that created Voyager?

I think that there was a concern, when Voyager was created that the franchise had been exploited for a long time. You know, Gene used to say, before he passed on, that they would milk it to death. I hope that's not the case. I believe that when Voyager came out, Rick and I were hoping that they would allow Deep Space 9 to be the sole series for a while and let the franchise breathe a little bit. But it was just not on the cards.

What I think everybody felt about Voyager was that it needed to be a ship show, it needed to be a lighter show, because people felt that Deep Space 9's downfall was that it was a little bit too dark. And I'm not sure I agree with that but I'm quoting, basically, my memory of the creative pressures at the time.

The impact on Voyager from that philosophy was that we had a natural conflict between the Maquis crew and the Star Fleet crew, but because people were worried that there was too much conflict on Deep Space 9, I think there was pressure to ease that and get this crew homogenised very quickly. I think we lost a creative opportunity by doing that.