Kathryn Janeway: The Autobiography

[hbquikcomjamesl]

This is what I find so irritating about the people who argue that DS9 "ripped off" B5 -- the sheer laziness and dishonesty of their arguments, their obvious failure to consider both sides of the question. You can always pretend that two things are the same if you cherrypick the superficial similarities and ignore the differences, or if you ignore that they're generic ideas that show up all over the place. In this case, one would have to ignore a huge amount of difference between the Shadows and the Dominion. They have little in common besides being arc-driving baddies.

Actually, I completely agree with you there. I never said that DS9 ripped off B5. I never believed that DS9 ripped off B5. My assertion is more to the effect that the producers of DS9 had the extraordinarily bad luck that far too much of what they did in an effort to distance DS9 from B5 managed to backfire, playing right into the hands of those who didn't look beyond the surface similarities, and were saying that DS9 ripped off B5.

And that the Dominion War was part of that. War, especially when prolonged, bores me. The one television series set in a war (and dragging that war out far longer than it was in real life) was M*A*S*H. (And I always felt that it improved as it evolved away from the book/movie/stage play on which it was based.)

I did like VOY (and the first, second, and fourth seasons of ENT) better than most of DS9, even if VOY's premise seemed a bit too close to Lost in Space (which I've intentionally avoided seeing) or Space:1999 (which I have seen, and of which I've always preferred the second season). If the crew of the USS Voyager were quite literally lost in space, at least they were still Starfleet officers, and Citizens of the Federation, and chose to behave as such.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, I completely agree with you there. I never said that DS9 ripped off B5. I never believed that DS9 ripped off B5.

Which is why I said "the people" instead of "you."

My assertion is more to the effect that the producers of DS9 had the extraordinarily bad luck that far too much of what they did in an effort to distance DS9 from B5 managed to backfire, playing right into the hands of those who didn't look beyond the surface similarities, and were saying that DS9 ripped off B5.

But my point is that most of those cited "similarities" are just common tropes that could reasonably be expected to show up in any two unrelated space-station shows. If your sci-fi show in a universe full of aliens is in a fixed location, you need it to be at a crossroads that lots of aliens pass through, and there's a good chance you'll want your FTL travel method to be fixed like the station itself. And there are bound to be recurring baddies and powerful aliens, and in the '90s or later there are bound to be overall story arcs. Granted, B5 pioneered a lot of the modern approach to arc-based storytelling, mainly with regard to having unified seasonal arcs, but greater serialization was just generally in the air. So it's mistaking parallel evolution for duplication. The problem is that these people don't put things in context -- they just compare those two shows and fail to consider all the other shows that use these tropes too.

And that the Dominion War was part of that. War, especially when prolonged, bores me. The one television series set in a war (and dragging that war out far longer than it was in real life) was M*A*S*H. (And I always felt that it improved as it evolved away from the book/movie/stage play on which it was based.)

I guess you mean M*A*S*H was the one wartime series you liked? I suppose that's because it wasn't about the fighting. And yes, the show was much better than the movie, and less problematical than what I've heard about the books.

even if VOY's premise seemed a bit too close to Lost in Space (which I've intentionally avoided seeing)

Lost in Space season 1, especially the early run of episodes, is fairly worthwhile, much better than the campy mess it became in seasons 2-3. And the current Netflix remake is excellent. It was my favorite space show of 2018.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I guess you mean M*A*S*H was the one wartime series you liked? I suppose that's because it wasn't about the fighting.

Precisely. It was about the inevitable results of the fighting, and about a group of medical personnel doing their best to cope with the horrors of war, using humor, especially gallows humor, to keep their sanity. And the series was better because the characters evolved into much deeper characters than they were originally (e.g, Maj. Margaret Houlihan evolving beyond "Hot Lips", Cpl Max Klinger evolving beyond a guy in drag, bucking for a Section 8), and because every time a character was written out, that character was replaced with a much deeper one, or at least one with more potential to become deeper (e.g., Lt. Col. Henry Blake replaced with Col. Sherman T. Potter, and most especially Maj. Frank Burns replaced with Maj. Charles Winchester).

 

[Christopher]

^Yup, I grew up watching M*A*S*H, so I saw most of that evolution happen in real time, or at least in reruns of the first 2-3 seasons.

 

[The Wormhole]

so a Captain Sisko autobiography might be much harder to find consensus re Sisko's future that will appeal to readers without clashing too much? Would it only go up to his disappearance?

I suspect a Sisko autobiography would only go up to his disappearance, and explain the autobiography as something he was working on before he disappeared. Just like the Kirk autobiography was something he was working on before the Enterprise B's launch, and the Spock autobiography is supposed to be something he worked on before Hobus happened. Only the Picard autobiography looked into his life after his last canon appearance, and that was just extrapolating stuff from AGT and Trek XI's Countdown comic, and that will be contradicted by the Picard series anyway.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

So the forced conceit is now that famous Starfleet officers are expected to write autobiographies, which is something we’ve never seen in the canon.

 

[trampledamage]

Stick to discussing the Janeway autobio please - this forum could fill reams discussing the relative value of the different TV series, but not here

 

[Jinn]

I'm looking forward to this! I haven't read the other autobiographies, but I may try some of them, if I like this one.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

It’s relevant in examining the underlying idea that famous Starfleet officers are suddenly expected to write autobiographies.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I would say that the mere fact that the Janeway "autobiography" is being written by somebody who has been writing ST novels is a virtual guarantee that it even if it never references the Novelverse, it will at least be relatively free of contradictions with it.

 

[Christopher]

I would say that the mere fact that the Janeway "autobiography" is being written by somebody who has been writing ST novels is a virtual guarantee that it even if it never references the Novelverse, it will at least be relatively free of contradictions with it.

Not necessarily. Writers who work in different incarnations of the same franchise often contradict themselves. For instance, the Reeves-Stevenses contradicted their Trek novels when they wrote for Enterprise. When you work on different projects for different bosses, you do each job according to its own requirements and instructions.

So far, in my work on Star Trek Adventures, I've been given freedom to borrow elements from my novels, and I know other novel concepts have been drawn on up to a point within the game's universe. But if a game premise I came up with required contradicting my novels, or if I worked on something collaborative that already conflicted with them, then that would be fine, because at that point I'm working on the game's version of the universe, not the books', so consistency isn't a priority. Even if they overlap in some ways, they aren't supposed to be the same thing.

 

[David cgc]

So the forced conceit is now that famous Starfleet officers are expected to write autobiographies, which is something we’ve never seen in the canon.

It's probably most appropriate for Janeway, since (Diane Carey's low opinion of the line notwithstanding) "Endgame" says she wrote a (nay, the) book about the Borg.

And in the novelverse-adjacent space, PAD mentioned James Kirk having written an autobiography in a few novels, even quoting a page or two from it in Once Burned, though he suggested something more philosophical and meditative than the more, well, biographical biography we got (not that there weren't elements of that in Goodman's book, most notably the way he had Kirk musing that helping Gillian Taylor find a new life in the future was a way to atone for not being able to save Edith Keeler and show her the better world she dreamed of).

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why isn’t this called An Autobiography, since a hypothetical canon version is likely to be different? What if VGR is remastered and the Okudas replace a formerly illegible screen with newly-conjectured text that has nothing to do with this? What if Janeway appears on PIC and says something contradictory?

That's the risk of tie-in literature. If future contradictions retroactively ruin the experience for you, I suggest you're reading it wrong.

 

[Christopher]

That's the risk of tie-in literature. If future contradictions retroactively ruin the experience for you, I suggest you're reading it wrong.

Heck, that's the risk of all science fiction, from new discoveries rendering its predictions obsolete or just from the calendar catching up.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's probably most appropriate for Janeway, since (Diane Carey's low opinion of the line notwithstanding) "Endgame" says she wrote a (nay, the) book about the Borg.

Saying someone "wrote the book" on something is well known hyperbole for calling that person an expert in the field. And before anyone starts about the line being that she "literally" wrote the book on the Borg, the dictionary does include a definition of literally that means figuratively. Which leads to my favourite old chestnut, that literally literally means figuratively. But anyway, I see no reason to conclude from that line that Janeway really did write a book.

Although, yeah, the way Diane Carey went off about that line in the novelization was a bit much.

 

[Christopher]

Saying someone "wrote the book" on something is well known hyperbole for calling that person an expert in the field. And before anyone starts about the line being that she "literally" wrote the book on the Borg, the dictionary does include a definition of literally that means figuratively. Which leads to my favourite old chestnut, that literally literally means figuratively. But anyway, I see no reason to conclude from that line that Janeway really did write a book.

I disagree. Yes, in many contexts, "literally" is just a reinforcer. If it modifies an idiom that's obviously absurd, like "Her head literally exploded when she heard," then there's no chance that it would be taken literally so it's straightforwardly just for emphasis. But if it modifies an idiom that describes something realistically doable, like "wrote the book," then it stands to reason that the "literally" is there to clarify that it actually did happen.

Besides, Barclay said it when introducing Janeway as a guest lecturer for an Academy class, specifically to talk about the Borg. So in that specific context, it seems likely that he was citing her qualifications as an expert on the subject.

And why wouldn't she have written a book? She's a scientist and explorer. Scientists publish monographs on their areas of research, and explorers publish accounts of their explorations. That's the whole reason science and exploration are done, to document and report knowledge. There'd be no point if that knowledge weren't published at the end. And Janeway's got more first-hand experience with the Borg than any other living scientist in the Federation.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not necessarily. Writers who work in different incarnations of the same franchise often contradict themselves. For instance, the Reeves-Stevenses contradicted their Trek novels when they wrote for Enterprise. When you work on different projects for different bosses, you do each job according to its own requirements and instructions..

Oh, yeah, I've probably written in three or four different continuities just for Batman or Superman alone. Not to mention Planet of the Apes and Underworld . . . .

 

[David cgc]

And in the novelverse-adjacent space...

I forgot Una herself had Picard writing a book on leadership and exploration in The Missing. I should’ve remembered, given that I kept giggling imagining him dictating it while talking to Rene playing with blocks or something since he was solo-parenting while Beverly was covering for Bashir.

 

[JD]

Oh, yeah, I've probably written in three or four different continuities for Batman or Superman alone. Not to mention Planet of the Apes and Underworld . . . .

Didn't you even write the novelization for the Underworld movie that told a different version of the backstory that you already wrote a tie-in about?

 

[Nyotarules]

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