How would Janeway have handled first contact/explained time to the Prophets? Kirk? Archer? Picard?

Janeway would have been able to explain it in scientific terms.

 

<Janeway gives scientific explanation of time, loaded with terms like 'science', 'physics', 'entropy' and 'second law of thermodynamics'>

Prophets: What is this "science" you speak of ?
Janeway: 'We formulate theories on the basis of what we see around us, observations, and then we do experiments to verify or falsify these theories. These results may lead to improvements in theory, or to new observations, and new experiments and the entire process repeats itself'.
Prophets: 'So you need linear time for science, because it depends upon experiments and observation - cause and effect'
Janeway: erm....Yes.
Prophets: So you need science to describe time, and time to describe science?
Janeway : …..

 

An alternate scenario:

Janeway: Time travel gives me a headache. Next question.

 

Kirk would have gotten in a fistfight with them, and emerged victorious but with his shirt torn.

 

Kirk brings back a megatherium from prehistoric earth, puts it in a revealing robe, and has it merge with the Prophets.

And he tears his shirt.

 

Somehow the Prophets would beat Archer up.

 

"Porthos? I left you at the ship! How come you are here and can talk?"

 

Kirk would romance the female prophet leader, wearing 60's style mini-skirt of course showing them how linear time works via sex. which allows him to convince them to give up on being God's. The Bajorans need to stand by themselves.

Picard: He would mediate a peace deal between the Prophets and Paigh Wraiths ending the need for a Emisarry.

Janeway: She would use a a tachon particle inducer to enhance the phasers so they could shoot a tachon beam at the wormhole neutralizing their abilities and thus she would force them to never interact with the Bajoran people again.

Archer would be captured by them when he lets Portho's pee on a Orb, forcing Trip and T'Pol and the crew to rescue him.

Jason

 

If I can throw a wrench in the works, Sisko wasn't in control of his interaction with the Prophets, and neither would have any other person put in his place. The Prophets dragged Sisko from moment to moment in his memories, challenging him to prove not that he was a good person, but that he had the neuropsychological makeup to be moral in a way the Prophets accepted. Kirk might have succeeded had he been brought back to Tarsus IV, but poorly if he could not explain his non-involvement with David Marcus' upbringing. Perhaps more problematic is that the Prophets were intent on exploring the most painful parts of Sisko's life, not something that Picard was suited to do. Picard had his own experiences with the Borg, but his general approach to painful experiences was to repress them, burying them far deeper than Sisko, and reacting negatively when brought to light.

 

The Prophets made it clear that he, not they, kept steering their travel through his memory to the moment his wife died.
And they point out to him that, rather than continue his linear existence, he has become kind of internally stuck in that moment and unable to move past it.
Picard is kind of the opposite, in that he pointedly does move on with his life, but moves on while pretending that his traumatic experience didn't change him.

I could easily see another character communicating the idea that, because we experience time linearly, we make choices without knowing the consequences of our actions, and thus when they had entered the wormhole they didn't know it would cause the Prophets pain/discomfort. Which is what they seemed to be angry about. Sisko used baseball but that isn't important to the message.

So I guess the question is what life-changing message would those people have received.
For Picard, I could see this being an important follow-up to the lesson Q started in Tapestry: that the person you are today is a result of the choices you have made and the experiences you have had.
I don't yhink it should get him all the way there, but it should firmly point him on the path to admitting that being raped by the Borg had changed him.

Janeway? Her problem is very similar to Sisko's. I mean, the slow pace (or complete lack) of character development was imposed by the producers on orders from the netwrk, but in- universe there appears to be something wrong eith Janway that makes her resistant to change.

Archer? I barely watched any Enterprise so I'm not qualified to say.

Kirk? Well, I can think of one that fits, but it would break the series: admit that you should never have accepted promotion/retirement. Kirk keeps trying to live the life others expect him to, so he takes the promotion to Admiral and a desk job when it's offered, and he retires when that was supposed to happen, and in the Nexus he has a cabin and a horse and a wife who might not even have a face because that's not anything that he ever actually wanted.
But if the Prophets help Kirk admit that the only thing he's ever wanted was to command a Starship and to do so forever ... well, what comes next is he gets a Starship and leaves.

 

The fact that the Prophets say that Sisko is the one who "brings them here" does not mean that Sisko is in control of the process. It is the Prophets' game; he must abide by their rules. They are examining his thought processes, and his reaction to the death of his wife weighs heavily on him.

Tapestry and First Contact suggest otherwise.

 

Chakotey "Prophets? My people have a legend about the prophets. My father once told me.."

Prophets: "It is the boring"

Prophets: "Send him back, he kills ratings."

 

Actually, First Contact kinda proves the point.
Picard hasn't dealt with the trauma from being assimilated, but has instead pretended that he's fine.
He even thinks Starfleet is wrong when they want him to sit out the fight because of his past trauma.
And while his help proves instrumental, his behavior also shows that he was deeply traumatized.
Just one contrast: Picard doesn't act as though killing crew members who have been assimilated is an unfortunate necessity because there just isn't the time or manpower to un-assimilate them. Instead he acts as though killing them is an act of mercy.
He remembers all of the effort his crew went through to rescue him from the Borg, and he believes that anyone would rather die than be rescued like that. He believes that once you've been assimilated, death is the best option.

Which is why I feel the lesson of Tapestry may have been partially lost. Picard got the message that the person he is was the result of choices he made, even (perhaps especially) ones he regrets. But I think Q may have been nudging him towards a realization that being assimilated by the Borg or interrogated until you start to hallucinate are going to change you, and acting like they didn't isn't healthy.

 

And why, exactly, is he accused of being obsessed like Ahab? It's an unresolved issue.

 

If I remember correctly, un-assimilation was possible in BOBW only after the Cube had been destroyed (read: the local collective, all other Borg drones in the vicinity). In FC, however, the collective is on the ship. So this might pose a chicken-and-egg problem. In order to deassimilate someone, you'd have to, eurm, deactivate all others first, including those other crewmen that already have been assimilated. And that really can't be done until you have dealt with the Collective threat on your ship. Guarding them until that can be done is an unacceptable drain on manpower and incurring extra risks, since they are fighting for their lives. Could borg drones be sedated? So that is perhaps why Picard saw killling as the only viable option.
Of course VOY throws this to the wind again. But perhaps de-assimilation of 7 was possible only because there was no Collective nearby at that moment.

I would expect them more to react like that to Picard

Picard: Before I explain the concept of linear time, it is imperative you understand first why you shouldn't interfere in the timeline of other species' natural development. This is, in fact, our prime directive. <blah blah blah>
Prophets: We find this attitude stuffy.
Prophet 2: Conceited. We cannot comprehend how any species could lead such a boring existence.
Prophet 3: We examined your species' history, the totality of your existence. We discovered that you have not always been as you are now.
Prophet 1: There was a time when your peoples' tendency to lecture others was not so pronounced.
Prophet 4: We should restore this one to an earlier, more Kirk-like state of existence.

 

I specifically said that Picard doesn't act like likking them is a regrettable necessity. I mentioned the lack of time and manpower, and I don't fault the choice he made: I don't thing rescue was a viable option.
But Picard doesn't act like their deaths were a regrettable necessity. He acts like it was rescuing them.

Well, I haven't accused him of obsession.
The Ahab metaphor is really a poor fit for Picard: Ahab, like Khan, wanted to seek out the beast that wronged him and avenge himself upon it. And like Khan he would admit his thirst for vengeance while denying it had compromised his judgment.
Picard .... it seems like his plan for how to deal with what happened to him is to pretend it didn't happen and have everything get back to normal.

 

True. But perhaps this was his inner rationalisation, shielding himself (and his crew) from the uncomfortable realisation that sometimes, ethics are just a luxury when your survival is at stake. A truth that Picard categorically seems to deny, and that Sisko learned eventually.

 

I like Picard's way of dealing with bad things.

 

Archer: "I saw a gazelle giving birth."