By mid-season in "Fair Trade," Voyager crosses a literal and figurative threshold into the Nekrit Expanse—an area where even Neelix’s knowledge of the Delta Quadrant runs out.

The season opener, "Basics, Part II," concludes the Kazon arc, seeing the crew retake their ship and leave that region for good.

For the first two years, Voyager was entangled with the Kazon and Vidiians. Season 3 aggressively wipes that slate clean:

Season 3 leaned heavily into "archetypal" Trek stories—high-concept plots that could almost work in any era of the franchise: Star Trek: Voyager – Season 3 (Review) - the m0vie blog