Regardless of what duty Janeway may owe to Seven's wishes, she's also responsible for the safety of her crew. Handing Seven back to the Borg - who, let's not forget, had just turned on and tried to assimilate Voyager, in violation of the alliance they had agreed - would place every other member of her crew in immediate danger. The only other alternative would have been leaving Seven somewhere where the Borg could pick her up, and the Doctor might have had a few choice words to say about that, considering that it was strongly indicated that she would die if her implants weren't removed post-haste.
Sure there is Annika... and there was also Lansor, Marika, and P'Chan as we saw in "Survival Instinct". Annika was just so young when assimilated that she didn't have the past experiences as human to fall back on once de-assimilated.
Seven told Harry the Borg delete unnecessary memories from people put in the Omega Directive. Not much necessary in a child's mind. There's just Seven, now. But, why should that pesky Prime Directive apply when the species is unliked? But the the Borg aren't a species? Cherry picking application everywhere, just like Janeway.
I disagree. said who? Once Seven begins to gradually regain her humanity what human is she reverting to?
Annika was turned into a God. Remember Barclay in the Nth Degree? The slither of her personality pared off from the whole, dawdling around her basic wetware like local people looking for a local shop is hardly indicative of the entire collective, which is who everyone in the entire collective is.
Don't care. No reason she should,. Trek's deification of the rightness of humanity is just the Borg in a prettier package but who cares about that prime directive. Janeway sure doesn't.
Neither Kirk, Picard or Sisko had ever given much thought to the Prime Directive than Janeway. I do get tired of Trek fans constantly blaming her and only her for violating it.
Janeway claimed more than once that she'd never violated the Prime Directive, when there were occasions where she clearly had (I think even Kate Mulgrew herself complained about that), so I don't think the complaints are so much about her PD violations in and of themselves, more the fact that she ends up looking like a hypocrite on the occasions when she does claim that it's absolute and cannot be questioned under any circumstances. Admittedly, I actually do think Picard has the same issue to some extent (Kirk was operating under a different version of the PD, and I think Sisko gets more leeway since he was a wartime commander for about half of his show's run), but he at least was willing to admit that he'd broken it from time to time. Mind you, I think the actual issue is that fans tend to enshrine the PD and treat it as some kind of principle of ultimate enlightenment, when in reality it's just a regulation like any other. The fact that Picard wasn't drummed out of service after the first of his nine PD violations indicates that.
Yep. Anyway I personally agree with you. Janeway found in Seven a human who had been assimilated. It was a given she was going to relate being human herself. Now as for the the other question that Scorpion may have left open. Borg or Species 8472 and how the Prime Directive should apply. I'm on the other side here! Yeah it's weird. I can't help but think she was in a lose/lose situation there but I think Species 8472 were actually originally attacked first.... "Voyager" revisited a consequence of the choice she made with the episode Hope and Fear and Arturis.
The Borg aren’t a species, they are an intelligent infection. If they are a species, there is one member of the species and it’s the collective as a whole. Borg drones aren’t members of the Borg species, they’re slaves.
Of course not. What she should have said was that if Seven chose to stay, she'd be welcome but if she chose to leave, she'd be given a nice shuttle. Notice that when Seven accuses her of not being better than the Borg, Janeway doesn't reply (I believe, it's been a bit since I saw season 4)
... but suppose that in Endgame, 7 would have declared her intention to rejoin the Borg. What then? I think most would agree her individuality has been restored sufficiently at that point to give her the freedom of choice, but would she be allowed to leave freely? I mean in a certain way she would become "the enemy" and a danger to the Voyager crew at that point. The Borg would know everything she knows about Voyager the moment she rejoins ...
Seven has free will. If she wishes to leave the ship or to rejoin the Borg, she should be allowed to, it is her choice. Or does that argument only work if she wishes to stay on the ship? Besides, the Borg would learn everything about Voyager had they captured and assimilated any of them, why is she or anyone else willing to join the Borg so much different? By that logic they should have stopped Lyndsay Ballard from leaving the ship too. She knows a good deal about Voyager and what if she gets captured? I believe Neelix also leaves in season 7, should they stop him too?
^I'm not sure. Suppose that in WW2, june 1940, say, an high-ranking Englishman (who knows some important secrets of how England is run) would openly declare his intention to leave the country, join the Nazi party and tell them everything he knows (and giving every appearance of being serious about it). Do you think he would have been allowed to go? I think he would be imprisoned on the grounds that the moment he declared that, he effectively became an active hostile combatant (or considered a traitor at the very least) on British soil. Neelix and Ballard leaving would be more akin to British leaving for neutral countries. That wouldn't be forbidden, even though there would still be the risk of them falling into German hands somehow.
You mean like Seven was? Within the show's parameters had Seven wished to leave at any time, she should have been allowed to go. Otherwise, she's not a crew member or a civilian working at the ship, she's a prisoner working a sentence. Much like the high-ranking Englishman in your example, Janeway effectively imprisoned Seven in season 4 when she didn't allow her to leave. Yes, later on Seven was happy she stayed and I believe she said so as well at some point, but not at that moment.
^I agree that as the show presents it she probably would have been allowed to leave, yes. Janeway would have been true to her word, (probably making sure she would arrive only after they had gotten home safely though). I don't think it is very realistic, though, given that they are in a state of war with the Borg and that 'going back to live with the Borg' is 100% equivalent to 'telling them every last (military) secret you know'. Janeway might well have faced a court martial when returning home for it. If there was ever any possibility of 7 returning to the Borg (voluntarily), she never should have gotten any more than very restricted access to information while on board.
It's not realistic to practically abduct a drone, force them to return to their former species, and then give them all the secrets of the ship and the Federation either... For all they knew Seven would leave at the first opportunity, go back to the Borg and sell them out. She simply wouldn't announce it, first or ask to borrow a shuttle... Considering the circumstances under which Seven came on board, she never should have been allowed to be such a big part of the crew or have so much responsibility in the ship, in the first place. Not until she earned their trust. That we agree on. But refusing to allow someone to leave, whether it's on the first day they come on board or years later, is imprisonment. When Seven first demanded to leave in season 4, she should have been allowed to.
I agree on that. However, even if we absolve 7 herself because "she is Borg, after all", Janeway allowing 7 to leave if she has any sensitive information at all (which is highly probable), would still make Janeway extremely culpable. As a (pseudo-) military officer, she's consciously and voluntarily allowing information that compromises the security of at least Voyager, but possibly the entire Federation to leak to the Borg. Even though I'll admit that the possible information gain would only be information that wasn't known to Picard at the time he was assimilated or lower ranking officers at the time of First Contact - and possibly a lot of info on the DQ. There's an expression for that. High treason. As far as I know, that has always been a very severe offense, in any day and age. It still is in the Federation (we know so since Future Kim is charged with it in Timeless). So Janeway is in an impossible bind here. Keeping 7 against her will is imprisonment, as you say- a severe offense against 7. Letting her rejoin the Borg voluntarily after she learned a lot of stuff on board is a severe offense against the Federation. She must have considered these ramifications before granting 7 any access privileges.