I saw your post over at Trel Lit JB. Somehow the idea of Janeway's sister's speech at her memorial just makes it all far far worse, second to Chakotay finally getting erh then losing her this is the worst part for me, it makes me think of Mosaic where Janeway was looking forward to going home to her family, that was kind of the whole point of Voyager that they were getting back to their folks as fast as they could, now said family have coped with her dying twice in less than a decade, she's back then she's snatched away again. Yes its probably great and healing and all the rest of it reading about them coping and moving through it and making moving speeches, but I don't want to read about less than happy endings just now. I will probably read it one day but not yet, too raw.
I will not read "Full Circle" or "Destiny" for the same reasons that I refuse to watch "Fury" again, I refuse to accept the events in that episode and I also refuse to re-watch seasons 4-7 of Voyager. There are things I simply refuse to accept, such as the destruction of Kes and the "death" of Janeway. In my Star Trek universe, Janeway is still alive and Kes is on a planet in the Alpha Quadrant and that's the way it's gonna be. If they bring back Janeway in a way that I find acceptable, then I might read "Full Circle" and "Destiny" some time in a distant future but up to that I don't consider it as an option. In fact, just the mention of Janeway's sisters speech and Chakotay's grief makes me wanna puke. Besides that, I don't want to use my hard-earned money to support the current direction of Star trek books.
I felt bile rising at those things too .... glad its not just me who feels so strongly about these things! Though I will differ and say that if Janeway had to be dead, I'm glad someone wrote a nice book about it with speeches etc. I just choose not to read it for now. And if I do read it I'll be getting it second hand thats for sure!! And choosing to put it as just one possible scenario in my mind, alongside several different versions of happy ever after. It would be different if they resurrected her I agree. I'd rush out to get hold of FC to put things in context then read it. But it wouldn't make everything ok by a long way. I can't see Janeway living with herself after being used to kill and assimilate thousands, and her family have been put through her death twice now and her friends once.
I'm with you there. Actually, I think it would be interesting to see her deal with the guilt of what she had done while assimilated as well as deal with her family and friends who had lost her twice. Plus, there would be some interesting implications for her and Chakotay. Could they pick up where they left off? What would that entail? How would her time among the Q change her? Lots of storytelling potential here, imo.
No there isn't. After all, you're forgetting that if she came back, she'd still be a Star Trek Admiral, and thus doomed to stupidity, obliviousness, and evil intent due to Trek plot point 23A: Admirals: Well, What The Hell Else Can We Do With Them?
Can't remember exact time spans I didn't pay enough attention to fine details but Spoiler: What Janeway does as Borg Queen in BD It was long enough to zip back towards earth, attacking eveyone in her path, zoom around the solar system and eating Pluto (hence everyone's warning about her death in this book containing the double meaning phrase 'the solar system is about to get a bit smaller'), go into the sun to draw power, make a few new little borg ships, back towards earth and pretty much attacking and killing or assimilating a lot of the fleet that were near enough to try to defend earth. So probably a few hours or something, couple of days at most, but enough to do a whole load of damage, hence I reckon lots of guilt! Mainly just starfleet officers though she didn't manage to actually attack earth.
No, they haven't. They have a male admiral leading the fleet, residing on the flagship Voyager, which has a female captain.
I didn't like the way she was as an admiral I have to admit, though I was furious they killed her off. Seemed a bit contradictory, one day I'd read someone saying 'We decided to kill her as now she's an admiral she'd be too sidelined' and then the next there's an Admiral slap bang in the centre. Would she have wanted to go back to the delta quadrant though? A deep space mission again, away from earth for a long time, with the old problems that as the head of it she couldn't have a personal life. If Chakotay hadn't resigned, which I presume he wouldn't've if her death hadn't pushed him over the edge, she'd've been his direct commanding officer again, so J/Cers would have been disappointed again - and if she'd got herself another bloke back home she'd have to leave him for months and even years at a time. Voyager was supposed to go on a three week mission back in 2371 it wasn't designed as a deep space vessel unlike the Enterprise with its room for families, and Janeway as its Captain was planning to get married - we're talking about a woman wanting to settle down whilst still having the excitement of exploring, not a woman ready to leave everything behind for the thrill of the ride. I'd prefer for her to be resurrected and her death then remarkable recovery be used as an excuse to push her sideways a bit into some other sort of life. A book or two could focus on her huge guilt issues. Then yes I'd be very happy for the Voyager books to sideline her after that, in my head she'd be ok not dead. DS9 fans seem to tolerate Sisko as a house husband after all
Now that is one thing I find very annoying. I've often stated the opinion that the authors of the Voyager Relaunch should try to bring the crew from the series (including Kes and Neelix) back together on the ship and send them on a mission to the Delta Quadrant or the Andromeda Galaxy. A lot of people, including some people involved with PocketBooks have stated that such a story would be impossible and unrealistic. Now all of a sudden, Voyager with a bogus captain and without Janeway, Kes and Neelix are heading back to the dreaded Delta Quadrant! That is really p***ing me off. Frazzled wrote: I agree on that one too. Making her a desk clerk was one of the stupidities from the series which I did hope that the books could correct. She could have been demoted or been just like Kirk, an Admiral in charge of the ship. Janeway is an explorer. She belongs on a ship, not behind a desk. And they "solved the problem" by killing her off. What a waste! And what a lack of imagination, will and skill.
I've actually posted about this in other threads in which kimc has posted so I can't decide if he/she just doesn't read all the posts in any thread he/she participates in or is being willfuly disingenuous here. Either way, this is what you need to bear in mind about the creation of Admiral Batiste and its relationship to Admiral Janeway and her death. The choice to allow Kathryn Janeway to die at the hands of the Borg was made over three years ago. The outlines for Full Circle and Unworthy were being finalized one year ago. Admiral Batiste didn't exist until a year ago and his joining the fleet did not become a story requirement until months after that as the story was being developed. So at the time Before Dishonor was created, Full Circle hadn't even been imagined. Also, Batiste is nothing like Janeway. He's his own character with his own issues and not simply interchangeable with anyone, least of all Janeway, simply because they share the same rank. Janeway could never have served the story in same capacity he does. Nor is he slap bang in the center of anything. It's not like we thought...hey...we need an admiral, let's kill Janeway and use someone else. The two decisions had nothing to do with one another. They are separated in space and time by two full years. There's nothing ironic about it. So, no, Janeway could not have been the admiral leading the fleet. For her to do that, we'd have to be telling a different story. I know you think you'd rather have that story but there's nothing to be done about that now. But please stop making assumptions in the absence of information. Neither of your have read the book. Kimc has stated repeatedly that he/she is never going to read the book. That's totally fine. Until you start making statements which are untrue and ironically, could easily be cleared up if you did actually, you know, read the book. What all of this implies is that little care was taken in the creation of these stories. Because clearly, if we had been careful or actually, you know, knew what the hell we were doing, none of this would have happened. But you couldn't be more wrong about that. Because you disagree with the direction that was chosen you conclude that we're either stupid or weren't thinking clearly or far enough ahead or whatever when we chose this direction. But you cannot imagine the amount of time and energy that went into crafting every single thread of this story for every single character. Please don't minimize that futher by suggesting suddenly that characters are simply interchangeable pieces. If I told you any woman could be captian of Voyager you'd demand my head on a platter and you know it. Because not all women are Kathryn Janeway. Nor are all Admirals Willem Batiste. Kirsten Beyer
Having read the book: Spoiler: For those who may be about to... Janeway was determined that Voyager would not return to the DQ. She turned it into her private little mission. Lobbying SFC repeatedly to stop Voyager from being sent back there. Now SFC is hardly going to point to her as the best woman for the job, are they? I can see where Janeway is coming from. In the seven seasons of Voyager (Well three if you don't count the ones after Kes left...) she was determinedly charting a course for Earth (unless there was some weird technobabble about, but I digress...) Now this woman would not want to go back to the DQ if you asked her. Plus if she hadn't have died, then Chakotay would have still (probably) been Captain of Voyager. It would have been a repeat of their DQ exile. Unable to commit, because they were in a command structure in the DQ. In addition Janeway's death is the reason that Voyager was able to return (the voice of dissent had been silenced) So it wouldn't have worked like that, because she had to die before SF was able to run the mission. As Mrs Beyer has said, Janeway died before she even began to write FC, so she had to take her ideas from their (and did so spectacularly I might add.) Finally. Admiral Paris did not run UFP's defence against the dominion. Admiral Leyton was never commandant of SFA, Admiral Ross did not head up Project Pathfinder. Admiral Shelby was not chosen to lead the Voyager Armada back to the DQ. Being an Admiral is not a carte blanche, you can do anything. Each admiral will have his own technical skills (McCoy for instance, I'm a doctor not a fleet commander) and speciality, so you can't just plonk any random Admiral in and say job's a good un. Janeway was new to the Admiralty. There were many admirals (her vice-admiral rank, not-with-stading) senior to her. So she might not even be the one picked to go back. Pretty sure she's real, the Changeling thing's been done to death. (See above) Meh, no nurse and no cook, big whoop :P clearly Who wants to read about another Kirk? One's enough... Anyway I've rambled on too long, but it seems to me that the people who have not read the book and have stated they have no intention to, cannot really comment on it. You couldn't comment on a film based on what some bloke said you need to get your own perspective. Don't want to contribute to the Pocket Books coffers? Go to the Library. I implore you, read it. Then we can have a real debate, rather than a shallow argument based on points that you have only heard are in the book. Thankyou and goodnight.
Kirsten, if you'd quoted more of my previous posting I went on to describe exactly how I didn't see that Janeway would fit in the role of leading the new fleet. So no, I don't see the characters as interchangeable at all. I was referring to a post I'd read a few weeks ago that tried to explain the decision to kill off Janeway as being a result of her promotion to Admiral, and how we fans wouldn't like that as she would have to be sidelined in stories. Personally I agree with Lynx and didn't really think her promotion fit, and I certainly didn't think it would've happened as described in 'Homecoming' where she was just presented with it, no discussion, I like to think Starfleet would've at least given her a little bit of say in the matter! Golden describes it as a 'Demotion to the Soul'. Picard seems to ahve managed to keep his ship for years and years and years without being promoted! Would Janeway really be forced up the ranks? Hmmmm I guess thats a whole separate issue. So for me, the Voyager relaunch was never going to feel right from the beginning. I have never said I won't read Full Circle, I have repeatedly stated that one day I probably will, when I have been given time to get used to the idea of Janeway dead. Like some other people on here, I tend to feel things very strongly when they go wrong in the fiction I enjoy! I've only had a few weeks since I googled something about Voyager and discovered the whole new direction, and the first thing I did was buy Before Dishonour, as you keep implying would be a good idea with FC I wanted to know what had actually been written rather than rely on hearsay, and it was a huge mistake. I felt terrible for ages after, and it inflicted upon my real life my mood was so foul. Yes I'm probably fanatical, but hey at least I'm aware of it!!! I'm not ready to put myself through that again. But as I keep saying also, I'm really glad by all reports you've given Janeway a decent send off if she had to be dead! So probably one day I will read it. When I've moved and I'm not still raw. I'm never going to agree with the decision to kill her though. That's nothing to do with thinking anyone's stupid or hasn't thought anything through, I'm sure as you say endless amounts of time and hard work has gone into plotting it and creating these stories. For whatever reason they killed my favourite character in my favourite fiction - I'm never going to like it! I will learn to live with it, while always hoping, probably futlilely I suspect, that one day someone will sue the Q loop hole and have her resurrected. If and when I read FC it will be to see her sent off properly and respectfully, which according to people on here you have done, and to see the others brought to life again which the Amazon reviews say you ahve also done well. I will respect your writing talents, and be grateful that it wasn't just left with her killed off in a TNG book with no follow up. but I'll never read it without crying and agree with the decision that was made.
Starfleet is a military organisation first and foremost. It's not a holiday club. People do what they are told to do. I would think that starfleet would imagine that a person who was pushed 3 steps up in rank (past RA lower/upper half) would be bloody grateful... But if they had said something to her, then they would have ruined the suprise, the Admiralty was supposed to be a gift for her hard work and dedication.
I've read your comments in the spoiler and I can assure you that comments like those will only make me even more determined not to read the book and not to accept what's going on in the "official" Star Trek universe. As I wrote before, in my Star trek universe, Janeway is still alive and Kes is on her own adventures in the Alpha and Beta Quadrant and nothing's gonna change that. However, I do think I have the right to criticize aspects of the book without reading it. The information I've got so far is enough for me to know that I won't like the book, never mind if I read it or not.
Sorry, but Mary Whitehouse made this mistake with Monty Python's Life of Brian... "I haven't read it, but he said she said that..." There isn't really, but not having read the book, who are you to say?