Janeway inconsistencies

[topcat]

Janeway had several inconsistencies when it came to getting home. And they have always bothered me.

Refuses to use the caretaker array to send the ship home. didn't want to kill the local balance of power, and those little ocampa are SOOOO cute.

One episode they find a planet where the populace has a transporter rig that can send someone 1000 light years away. She refuses to steal or borrow the technology. But when the crew mutinies and trades the aliens for the technology by giving them a copy of every book, movie, holodeck program ever written. Janeway then allows them to use it. Afterall SHE didn't have to barter for it.
Whole thing is a dude, incompatable technology that almost destroys voyager

When they go back in time due to Braxton, Braxton shows up in the second episode and takes them home. She tried to have him take them back to earth. He refuses, prime directive. ANd they says they get home anyway.

But when it gets to going home she takes the technology route the federation could use. The slingshot array, the slipstream, the borg transwarp coils. Kes.

She was opposed to turning voyager into a military ship. period. One episode voyager acquired a weapon from a guy in a ship that could blow a hole through 3 or 10 meters of duranium armor. The guy is accused of stealing nanites from 7, it proves unknown, the guy dies while fleeing the local police. and the episode ends with voyager loosing 150 isolinear chips, and the doctor wanting his databank reset to first activation because hes horrified at what he did.
But the weapon never makes an appearance after words. Something that was more powerful then phasers, not used at all. Although the technology of the over shoulder energy weapons used by worf in Insurrection to shoot down the drones was awful similar..

 

[Tosk]

But when the crew mutinies and trades the aliens for the technology by giving them a copy of every book, movie, holodeck program ever written. Janeway then allows them to use it.

Do you mean the ep Prime Factors? Janeway absolutely doesn't allow them to use it. They make the trade and use it without her knowledge.

 

[topcat]

I don't rmember the name. But I honestly remember janeway allowing it. Shes in contact the whole time via com badge with torres. And is awful disappointed when the technology malfunctions and torres phasered it. I even for some reason recall janeway making a comment to the line of "crap, I wish you could have saved it"

 

[Tosk]

Yeah, that's Prime Factors. Sounds like you should definitely watch it again to refresh your memory.

 

[Lynx]

When it came to not using the Caretaker's array to sending them home, janeway didn't violate the Prime Directive. On the contrary, she fulfilled the Caretaker's wish to destroy the array.

The array's self-destruction device was damaged when the Kazon ship collided with the array. Without the fighting going on between Voyager and the Kazon, the Caretaker would have destroyed the array anyway. Janeway just corrected everything by blowing up the array.

Her decision to prevent the Kazon from taking over the array and finding ways to enslave the Ocampa was a honorable decision.

(Most of the other inconsistencies mentioned in the original post are due to bad writing and bad writers.)

 

[Drone]

topcat, your choice in naming this thread was a bit awry. Nothing you stated initially really falls under that description, except the Prime Factors example, which as Tosk pointed out to you, the clear and absolute error you're making in describing it as you have. I don't think it matters too much as I don't seeing the thread having much legs, so to speak. However, I do commend you for actually trying to create something original, rather than revisiting long dormant threads, which you've been busily doing lately. As I'm sure you know, that runs counter to Trek BBS canon.

 

[topcat]

When some of the currently active threads were started in 2014 or earlier a time limit is most odd.

When voyager encountered the member of 8472 and janeway tried to keep it safe from the hirogen and 7 beamed it off to them anyway to save the ship.. Janeway was more saddened about the death of the alien that tried to destroy her universe, then she would have been about the destruction of her ship that would have otherwise happened.
And she seemed to be more upset over the death of her dog then she was by the loss of life resulting from say the caretaker run in, or the death of the original Harry Kim.
And oddly she never had a real issue with the temporal time directive stuff, she always accepted blindly because "it was the right thing to do". But when future janeway appeared..well she was all to happy to toss the temporal directive aside and go home. In a method that if it failed would have given the borg earths most powerful anti borg technology, and made earths conquest in endgame episode 2 a given?
Think what a borg cube with adaptive armor would be like.

 

[Drone]

Hmm, well first, if a thread is still active, than the rule is irrelevant, but it is a standard that I gather, was likely established by the moderators a long time ago. Make a case to one of them in a PM if you find such a restriction about just picking up on long dormant threads overly chaffing.

As for your examples, Janeway made a determination to assist a single Undine return to its home as it was determined that it had no malign intent and in fact would not survive much longer, in any case. The issue was not that corporately, the Undine were deadly enemies, but in this instance, there was value in retaining some human value than simply surrendering the creature to a pitiless death. She made that decision, perhaps before having the full realization of the tactical difficulties that Voyager would face against such a force of Hirogen vessels, undoubtedly of the mind that Voyager would find the capacity of evading a full engagement with the Hirogen or just improvise a means of escape. But such concerns didn't obviate her conviction that returning the Undine to fluidic space was the correct choice and in fact, perhaps unspoken (unless I've forgotten she articulated it), was a sense that in doing so, there might be some mollification of the Undine's relentlessly single minded hostility towards all life in the galaxy.

There's not much to say about your second point, as her dog never died. Lastly, just ask the latter day Braxton about Janeway's strict observation of the Temporal Prime Directive. She may have stated the concern you aver, at times, but her actions when faced with what she saw were unacceptable alternatives certainly could be at odds with that generally stated dictum. In effect, not really a great practical distinction from what her senior self in the alternate timeline chose to do with the same sort of self-decreed imperative in front of her. Finally, the Borg did find out and know about the adaptive armor through the Admiral's assimilation. I doubt that information was lost by virtue of the death of the Queen and the destruction of Unimatrix One.

 

[CatAteMyTribble]

It's been a while since I watched Caretaker, but didn't the Kazon attack Voyager because they were angry that Voyager wouldn't share Federation technology? That situation came about because the Caretaker abducted a technologically advanced ship and dangled it in front of a bunch of space pirates like a string in front of a cat. The outcome - a space battle close enough to the Array to damage it - was an obviously predictable consequence, and not something Voyager "caused," by any sane definition of the word. "We're already involved" was quite a stretch there, IMHO.

 

[Drone]

No, they attacked Voyager for opposing their intention of taking over the Array.That it was damaged in the battle really wasn't of any consequence. As Lynx notes above, all it meant was that the Caretaker couldn't complete destroying the Array himself. Given Janeway's determination that Voyager was obligated to protect a prewarp civilization from the depredations and likely eventual destruction by the Kazon, she clearly believed that they were integrally involved in the situation and her means of expressing that discernment was by irrevocably ending the threat to the Ocampans, by following through on what the Caretaker started.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Just fell on this article and found it very interesting (warning: it talks not about about Janeway's inconsistencies but Chakotay's and others...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/StarTrekVoyager

 

[MacLeod]

When it came to not using the Caretaker's array to sending them home, janeway didn't violate the Prime Directive. On the contrary, she fulfilled the Caretaker's wish to destroy the array.

The array's self-destruction device was damaged when the Kazon ship collided with the array. Without the fighting going on between Voyager and the Kazon, the Caretaker would have destroyed the array anyway. Janeway just corrected everything by blowing up the array.

Her decision to prevent the Kazon from taking over the array and finding ways to enslave the Ocampa was a honorable decision.

(Most of the other inconsistencies mentioned in the original post are due to bad writing and bad writers.)

Sure but what Janeway could have done is something along the lines of use deception

We'll let you have the array just allow us to use it to return us home or I'll destroy it.. She could then have left behind some torpedeos on a time delay fuse to detonate a few seconds after they activated the array. Both problems solved.

 

[Drone]

Oh, that would have been nasty!!!!!

 

[fireproof78]

Sure but what Janeway could have done is something along the lines of use deception

We'll let you have the array just allow us to use it to return us home or I'll destroy it.. She could then have left behind some torpedeos on a time delay fuse to detonate a few seconds after they activated the array. Both problems solved.

I would call that pulling a Kirk.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

According to several sites dedicated to STV, Janeway's inconsistencies would be mainly due to the writers,who disagreed on the interpretation of her character. Some wanted to cast her as a compassionate & motherly (Kes, Seven, B'Elena and Harry). Some other wanted to depict her as aconsummate professional. And still others wanted her to be a though-as-nails bitch.
As they each took their turns trying to morph her into these archetypes, they often wentoverboard, perhaps in an effort to "make their point" or to "solidify" the character trait which they favored.
Result: The character of Katherine Janeway was a total mess; erratic, inconsistent, and seemingly irrational as she behaved in the extreme ways dictated by her position as proxy for the bickering writers.

Sometimes, I can understand the frustration of some actors/actresses ...
I know that they aren't owner of their characters but generally, after 1 ou 2 years, they are able to "feel" their characters.

 

[stardream]

Mulgrew just gave up and decided the character was experiencing a break down and decided to play it that way.

Looking back it must have been quite a challenge to write a female character who was not a 'love interest', side kick or the 'motivating factor' in a male character's journey (nothing wrong with any of those things). They were breaking new ground and it's too bad they couldn't do with her what they did with Sisko. He was Commander of Deep Space Nine who happened to be black. She was the Captain of Voyager who happened to be a woman. They should have written her as the Captain first and foremost.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Mulgrew just gave up and decided the character was experiencing a break down and decided to play it that way.

Looking back it must have been quite a challenge to write a female character who was not a 'love interest', side kick or the 'motivating factor' in a male character's journey (nothing wrong with any of those things). They were breaking new ground and it's too bad they couldn't do with her what they did with Sisko. He was Commander of Deep Space Nine who happened to be black. She was the Captain of Voyager who happened to be a woman. They should have written her as the Captain first and foremost.

ABSOLUTELY byt well, producers and writers have behaved like cowards. there. They would have sticked on a characterisation of Janeway and be held by it from the beginning to the end. Viewers would have liked - or not - the character but for good reasons.

 

[tomalak301]

The one I didn't like was punishing Paris for 30 Days for doing something she kinda did in Counterpoint. She was trying to protect telepathic refugees, he was trying to protect an entire water planet. Both broke Voyagers concept of the Prime Directive.

 

[MacLeod]

ABSOLUTELY byt well, producers and writers have behaved like cowards. there. They would have sticked on a characterisation of Janeway and be held by it from the beginning to the end. Viewers would have liked - or not - the character but for good reasons.

Well they don't have to stick with one particualr charcterisation, her character could have changed over time, but we didn't get an evolution of character but rather chopping and changing depending on the writer.

Had they been mor consistant withher characterisation as you rightly point out the viewers would have liked it or not. How is that any different from the way she was written people either liked it or not.

But some of the issues stems from the more episodic format that who ever it was decided they wanted no doubt in part to the success of TNG. That being said VOY premise leaned morewards a serialised approach and at the time VOY was comeing out there was a slight shift towards more serialsed storytelling.

 

[stardream]

The one I didn't like was punishing Paris for 30 Days for doing something she kinda did in Counterpoint. She was trying to protect telepathic refugees, he was trying to protect an entire water planet. Both broke Voyagers concept of the Prime Directive.

She should have demoted herself...and then thrown herself in the brig.