It's one of the things the books grapple with. The last three A Time To... books, for example. And I wouldn't automatically say the entire Federation stands for nothing...
My own take on Janeway in Before Dishonor (spoilers)
- Thread starter Darth_Pazuzu
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It's one of the things the books grapple with. The last three A Time To... books, for example. And I wouldn't automatically say the entire Federation stands for nothing...
See, I like In the Pale Moonlight because it wasn't a safe, morally simplistic story. It was about having to make very hard choices, as opposed to Janeway, who somehow avoided ever making any actually challenging choices. It was always "take the high ground and everything magically turns out peachy" every single time.
DS9 had some balls to show actual hard moral problems. What Sisko does in ITPM saves billions of lives, but at the cost of his morals, and the cost of the part of the Romulan military. What I find amazing is that VGR never seemed to encounter any real problems of this kind. Their eps usually had some faux moral question that was instantly shot down by Janeway, then a technobabble solution later everything is sweet as cream.
Sisko had no technobabble solution. The Federation was close to destruction. The Klingons were close to destruction. After they fell, the Romulans would be next. He had to cut through the political nonsense in a kind of palpatine way to save them all. There was no real high road there, it was the life of the Romulan senator vs the lives of every Federation, klingon, and romulan life. A low moral road, but one he could live with.
DS9 had some balls to show actual hard moral problems. What Sisko does in ITPM saves billions of lives, but at the cost of his morals, and the cost of the part of the Romulan military. What I find amazing is that VGR never seemed to encounter any real problems of this kind. Their eps usually had some faux moral question that was instantly shot down by Janeway, then a technobabble solution later everything is sweet as cream.
Sisko had no technobabble solution. The Federation was close to destruction. The Klingons were close to destruction. After they fell, the Romulans would be next. He had to cut through the political nonsense in a kind of palpatine way to save them all. There was no real high road there, it was the life of the Romulan senator vs the lives of every Federation, klingon, and romulan life. A low moral road, but one he could live with.
Janeway didn't always take the moral high road...
I would point out Tuvix, but...
I would point out Tuvix, but...
Quite alright. Like I explained to Defcon, it's hard to tell if someone is holding Janeway to a different criteria or not so asking for concrete examples is my way of trying to make that determination. I never used the word but unfortunately that was how it was taken.
That prisoner was a Starfleet officer who had participated in genocide. She claimed he would would have caved but we don't know that. At any rate her "weak" first officer played the good cop to her bad cop and stopped her. Would she have gone through with it otherwise? Who can say?
Thank goodness the books don't count as canon because when flipping through "Before Dishonor" before deciding not to buy it Janeway's characterization was so off it was like listening to nails on a chalkboard. I've seen each episode at least several times so I like to think I know the characters.
Yeah, this one gets debated in the Voyager forum every now and then. Personally, I think Janeway made the right decision even if it was a difficult one and Mulgrew played it beautifully. The look on her face after she left sickbay spoke volumes.
Before Dishonor was off on many characterizations. I haven't been back to read it or Resistance since.
Actually, I believe that's still illegal in most states...
Spoilers for Before Dishonor ahead...
The discussion went on, and no one's touched on this. Throughout the discussion of the death of Janeway, ever since Vixen's first thread on the topic, I've been thinking about it. Everyone's been talking about Janeway's death as when she was assimilated at the beginning of the book. In my mind, her true 'exit' came at the end of the book, and as much as I can recall, there was a lot of pro-Janeway material there. Seven connecting to her strength, finding Janeway and her resilience within the cube and working together to defeat the Borg.
Trent, and others, have been consistently referring to Janeway's death as the pointless assimilation, rather than the destruction of the Borg ship, as I saw it.. How do you see the stuff at the end then?
The discussion went on, and no one's touched on this. Throughout the discussion of the death of Janeway, ever since Vixen's first thread on the topic, I've been thinking about it. Everyone's been talking about Janeway's death as when she was assimilated at the beginning of the book. In my mind, her true 'exit' came at the end of the book, and as much as I can recall, there was a lot of pro-Janeway material there. Seven connecting to her strength, finding Janeway and her resilience within the cube and working together to defeat the Borg.
Trent, and others, have been consistently referring to Janeway's death as the pointless assimilation, rather than the destruction of the Borg ship, as I saw it.. How do you see the stuff at the end then?
It was an open, ambiguous ending. To be honest, for me it was somewhat overshadowed by the rest of the book.
^^I don't think bennyrex is asking about the ending itself, but about Janeway's role in the climax of the story. Everyone talks about her initial assimilation and her final, err, disposition, but what bennyrex is saying is that her decisive action in the climax of the book tends to get overlooked.
Oh...
Unfortunately I don't remember much about it.
Unfortunately I don't remember much about it.
Exactly. I wasn't a huge fan of the book as a whole, but I really enjoyed the climactic sequence within the Borg ship, with Seven of Nine interacting with Janeway at a non-physical level, I believe within the fabric of the collective itself. I thought it was quite well done, and Vixen, if you don't remember it clearly, it might be worth flipping through just that section.
^I liked that scene as well. And Seven's farewell to Janeway, words to the effect of "Thanks for saving me, I'm sorry I couldn't save you", was heart-breaking.
as far as Sisko in ITPM is concerned, i don't think he's a nutter Captain-gone-bad like Ron Tracy or Garth or 'Airlock' Archer.
he did what was necessary for the greater good during a war. like Garak says, he got the Romulans to join the war on the Alliance's side and it only cost him a criminal's life, some morals and the life of a Romulan senator, who, frankly, the galaxy seemed better off without. it's a small price to pay compared to the billions, if not trillions, of lives of UFP and KE cittizens who would've perished otherwise.
as far as Janeway's concerned, she's a victim of inconsistent writing who i've never really liked and i tend to view her 'death' as being the cesation of life-functions at the novel's climax, not her assimilation.
he did what was necessary for the greater good during a war. like Garak says, he got the Romulans to join the war on the Alliance's side and it only cost him a criminal's life, some morals and the life of a Romulan senator, who, frankly, the galaxy seemed better off without. it's a small price to pay compared to the billions, if not trillions, of lives of UFP and KE cittizens who would've perished otherwise.
as far as Janeway's concerned, she's a victim of inconsistent writing who i've never really liked and i tend to view her 'death' as being the cesation of life-functions at the novel's climax, not her assimilation.
Actually, the episode indicates that Starfleet Command knew all about it, and this is confirmed in Hollow Men.
Actually, "In the Pale Moonlight" makes it very clear that the Romulan Senate was almost evenly divided between those in favor of war against the Dominion and those in favor of continued neutrality.
No. Let's get very exact here. He did not frame an entire government in order to relieve his government from the effects of war. He framed a foreign government to save his entire society from destruction. The stakes that motivated him were much higher than you're making it sound here.
Really? Saving billions upon billions of lives from death or enslavement -- and doing so within the framework of accountability to a liberal democratic government -- doesn't constitute justification?
This I agree with. Benjamin Sisko would not seek to evade responsibility for his actions, and that's a very important mitigating factor. Benjamin Sisko -- unlike, say, John Yoo or Donald Rumsfeld or David Addington or George W. Bush and their desire to evade responsibility for their crimes -- would take responsibility for his actions within the framework of liberal democracy, and would only seek to avoid such responsibility if not doing so were to be a provocation to war.
Well, the Romulans aren't really in a position to be demanding much of anything as of 2380...
Really? Are you really going to indict an entire society on the basis of the criminal actions of a small number of its military service members? Are you really going to say that the Federation -- by all means a successful multinational state dedicated to universal liberty, sentient rights, equality, diplomacy, exploration, scientific development, trade, and peace; a society that's created peace and political unity from a collection of over one hundred fifty separate societies, many of whom were almost constantly at war with one-another before the UFP came along; a society that's consistently avoided war whenever possible, that did not start the Dominion War, and which constantly sought to preserve the rights of foreign states with whom it was not at peace.... Are you really going to claim that the Federation stands for nothing just because some admirals at Starfleet didn't report Sisko and Garak?
That's not to say that your argument that that choice is immoral and illegal is invalid. It's not to say that the argument that those admirals were being hypocrites and not living up to the principles of the Federation is invalid. But to claim that an entire state is rendered invalid because of the criminal actions of a few of its service members is just irrational and ridiculously two-dimensional thinking. You might as well argue that the Federal Republic of Germany doesn't have a right to exist because a few German soldiers in Afghanistan recently took commemorative photos in front of a collection of skulls, or that the United States doesn't stand for anything because of the criminal actions of its current president.
Quite right, I really can’t understand what all the fuss is about, Janeway went out fighting hard to help stop the Borg (her arch-nemesis) taking Earth (the place she spent seven years desperately trying to return to), even when she was one of them. That's a pretty heroic and fitting death if you ask me.
Before Dishonor really showed the brutality of assimilation, in an instant Janeway was seemingly lost and turned against herself. That's the Borg. Janeway's assimilation was as powerful as Picard to Locutus, a horrific abuse of the characters’ love for the Federation turned on them to try and destroy it.
But what both Janeway and Picard were able to do was turn that around on the Borg allowing their friends to defeat them.
Janeway didn't seem too fussed at the end of DH...
The statement was mostly hyperbole to make a point. However, Yes, I do stand by it. The Federation is allegedly this Utopian, ideal, always-takes-the-high-road type government, and no I am not condemning them for the actions of their soldiers or even their citizens, I am however condemning them for the actions of several high ranking officials in that government that decided to take no action for what is a very clear violation of the rules of war. (Which I hear repeatedly in political conversations and especially on Trek forums that there is an idea of 'Rules of Warfare'). Yes, his actions appear to have been for the greater good, yes his actions seem to have been what turned the tides of the war. But, playing devils advocate here, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY he or anybody could have known or can know even now that his actions were the ONLY ones that would have resulted in the outcome we got, or even a similar outcome that was just as good or possibly even better. The very foundation of the federation is that the good/peaceful solution is usually the best solution but he blatantly ignored that by actively committing crimes. The outcome of those crimes (however good) don't justify them. It seems now those officials who did nothing in Hollow Men firmly believe that the ends justify the means. This does not sound like any Federation ideals I'm aware of.
You see, I would condemn the Federation not even just for a few peoples actions, but for the fact that this sort of thing is allowed to happen in (essentially) the open and the lack of action signifies a sort of approval of those illegal actions. Why not just make it Federation policy then?
As for the current US and Bush. Yes, I'd use the same hyperbole here too. Not because of Bush's actions, but because it's been allowed to go on, and then we (the people) put the same man back in office for a 2nd term! Do we all blanketly agree? Of course not (this is where the hyperbole comes in) but apparently at some point the majority (however slim) did. And in a democratic nation isn't it the majority that rules and sets the standards? But wait, the US isn't a democracy, it's a Republic. I'm sure we could go on and on for a while on this but it's even further off topic than we already are.
Sorta back on topic: I would also site the various admirals who turn a blind eye to some of Section 31's activities when they fit their needs.
I mean really it is exactly these sorts of situations that made DS9 such a great show. How does a utopian society deal with impending doom? Are they truly perfect and will they resort to 'playing dirty' in order to survive? When they do play dirty, have they done it truly as a last resort? This is the stuff of good story telling.
The funny thing with all of this is that I personally don't disagree at all with what Sisko did, but I (unlike Sisko and those admirals) don't claim to adhere to this idea that there are rules to war and this alleged higher standard. My whole thing here is that if you are going to talk the talk then you need to walk the walk. And the Federation government and their leadership don't, yet the citizens allow them to remain in power. (A lot like the US at the moment.).
"Interesting, isn't it? The Federation claims to abhor Section 31's tactics, but when they need the dirty work done, they look the other way. It's a tidy little arrangement, wouldn't you say?" - Odo (DS9: "The Dogs of War")
-From Memory Alpha
-From Memory Alpha
But you're forgetting something very important:
There is no indication that the majority of people in the Federation ever became aware of Sisko's actions, or those of Section 31. In point of fact, Hollow Men and "In the Pale Moonlight" only establish that the information went up to some admirals in Starfleet; at best, we might presume that it came to the attention and got the approval of the Federation President, then Min Zife of Bolarus.
And guess what happened to him in A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal by David Mack?
Similarly, when you look at most polling data, it would appear that most Americans weren't aware of how severe the various war crimes and lies and tortures undertaken in the name of the United States were in November of 2004. It's something that's only really started to become common knowledge in the last two to three years -- especially since Katrina, actually. It would seem that up until then, most people feel for Bush Administration propaganda.
You can't condemn a democracy if its citizenry is uninformed and this incapable of making an informed decision as an electorate.
There is no indication that the majority of people in the Federation ever became aware of Sisko's actions, or those of Section 31. In point of fact, Hollow Men and "In the Pale Moonlight" only establish that the information went up to some admirals in Starfleet; at best, we might presume that it came to the attention and got the approval of the Federation President, then Min Zife of Bolarus.
And guess what happened to him in A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal by David Mack?
Similarly, when you look at most polling data, it would appear that most Americans weren't aware of how severe the various war crimes and lies and tortures undertaken in the name of the United States were in November of 2004. It's something that's only really started to become common knowledge in the last two to three years -- especially since Katrina, actually. It would seem that up until then, most people feel for Bush Administration propaganda.
You can't condemn a democracy if its citizenry is uninformed and this incapable of making an informed decision as an electorate.
I have never considered the Federation or Starfleet to be an utopian society. People who self-congratulate themselves too often and proclaim that they have the “perfect” society (like Riker`s speech in “The Last Outpost” where the supposedly so advanced humans showed the “primitive” aliens the error of their ways) only show that they are not perfect and that they themselves have a lot to learn – like becoming less arrogant and more tolerant of others. Yes, of course there is nothing wrong with it with being proud of achievements but there is always room for improvement. Nobody is perfect.
Starfleet/the Federation does a lot of good. But it always had flaws, I never saw anything utopian about it. There is not only Section 31 people just talked about, there is the controversy about the Prime Directive and the way students are taught at the Academy. I find it disturbing that bullying others is not only tolerated but even encouraged, there are elite students who think they are better than the others and that you have to follow orders no matter what.
But do we readers and viewers really want a completely “perfect” human and otherwise society in Star Trek? I don`t. Not only would it be unrealistic, it would be boring – like the so-called perfect character without any flaws.
That ideals are thrown out of the window or twisted when it suits Starfleet or the Federation is nothing new. Especially when the top leadership has to deal with extremely grey areas and there is a lot at stake, of course they want to keep these things quiet. They also have to consider the question about the consequences if such knowledge becomes public. “A Time to…” dealt with that topic very well. I also think the attempted genocide of the Founders would cause quite a storm in public opinion.
“In the Pale Moonlight” is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. I don`t have much to add to what Sci and others said, I couldn`t do it any better. Especially this episode shows the dilemma very well of how to deal with the aftermath, what the public should and shouldn`t know. I wish I had a better memory – I faintly recall having read somewhere that there will be a second Romulan War and the reason was indeed because of what Sisko did and the fact that the Federation kept quiet about it.
Coming to the real life side here – I am a German living in England and a lot of what is going on in US society is difficult to understand for me. We are living in a time with growing globalization. During and after WWII people often said, we didn`t know. I understand to a degree. There was no Internet, not the abundance of news we have access to in the West nowadays and the freedom of movement. On top of that I would have thought that also the people in general in the USA don`t forget the lessons from that dark time and stay vigilant.
I find it worrying when I read reports that only a minority of US school children can point out on the map where Europe is, where Iraq is, where Afghanistan is. I also find it incredible that there are lots of people in the USA who never read a book or hardly ever. We watch the news every day. We talk about it. Even my 5-year-old daughter has a rough idea about the conflicts in the world.
If a German or British government would try to install a Guantanamo Bay, the outcry would be enormous. It definitely wouldn`t happen in Germany and in spite of the involvement of Britain, I very much doubt it would happen here either. But the US people in general voted for Bush again. People in the USA today don`t have the excuse people in Germany and – not to forget – neighbouring countries had more than 50 years ago. Reporters move freely, there are reports available from all kinds of countries and perspectives. If people want to know they can. Not everything, of course, but enough to at least get a flavour of what is happening in the world and what the government is doing or not doing.
If the US citizenship is, as Sci said, uninformed and incapable of making an informed decision as an electorate, that is very worrying indeed.
Starfleet/the Federation does a lot of good. But it always had flaws, I never saw anything utopian about it. There is not only Section 31 people just talked about, there is the controversy about the Prime Directive and the way students are taught at the Academy. I find it disturbing that bullying others is not only tolerated but even encouraged, there are elite students who think they are better than the others and that you have to follow orders no matter what.
But do we readers and viewers really want a completely “perfect” human and otherwise society in Star Trek? I don`t. Not only would it be unrealistic, it would be boring – like the so-called perfect character without any flaws.
That ideals are thrown out of the window or twisted when it suits Starfleet or the Federation is nothing new. Especially when the top leadership has to deal with extremely grey areas and there is a lot at stake, of course they want to keep these things quiet. They also have to consider the question about the consequences if such knowledge becomes public. “A Time to…” dealt with that topic very well. I also think the attempted genocide of the Founders would cause quite a storm in public opinion.
“In the Pale Moonlight” is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. I don`t have much to add to what Sci and others said, I couldn`t do it any better. Especially this episode shows the dilemma very well of how to deal with the aftermath, what the public should and shouldn`t know. I wish I had a better memory – I faintly recall having read somewhere that there will be a second Romulan War and the reason was indeed because of what Sisko did and the fact that the Federation kept quiet about it.
Coming to the real life side here – I am a German living in England and a lot of what is going on in US society is difficult to understand for me. We are living in a time with growing globalization. During and after WWII people often said, we didn`t know. I understand to a degree. There was no Internet, not the abundance of news we have access to in the West nowadays and the freedom of movement. On top of that I would have thought that also the people in general in the USA don`t forget the lessons from that dark time and stay vigilant.
I find it worrying when I read reports that only a minority of US school children can point out on the map where Europe is, where Iraq is, where Afghanistan is. I also find it incredible that there are lots of people in the USA who never read a book or hardly ever. We watch the news every day. We talk about it. Even my 5-year-old daughter has a rough idea about the conflicts in the world.
If a German or British government would try to install a Guantanamo Bay, the outcry would be enormous. It definitely wouldn`t happen in Germany and in spite of the involvement of Britain, I very much doubt it would happen here either. But the US people in general voted for Bush again. People in the USA today don`t have the excuse people in Germany and – not to forget – neighbouring countries had more than 50 years ago. Reporters move freely, there are reports available from all kinds of countries and perspectives. If people want to know they can. Not everything, of course, but enough to at least get a flavour of what is happening in the world and what the government is doing or not doing.
If the US citizenship is, as Sci said, uninformed and incapable of making an informed decision as an electorate, that is very worrying indeed.
