Small Universe Syndrome
- Thread starter William Leisner
- Start date
No, it's the opinion of a few non-pro writers who have posted in this thread.
I never got the sense that Voyager was supposed to be Janeway's first command.
Yeah, I didn't weigh in earlier either. I always got the vibe of a seasoned, veteran commander from Janeway as well. I didn't even think she was particularly new to Voyager - I thought Caretaker gave the impression she'd already commanded that ship for a few years.
For the record, I was not a pro writer in 1995 when I watched "Caretaker" and formed my impression, nor do I believe had Christopher make his first pro sale at that point.
Not that I have the first clue why it would be assumed that being a pro writer (not on the Voyager staff) would color our opinions to begin with.
Because there does seem to be an almost-magical belief that the fact you've been paid at some point for doing writing - possibly within the Star Trek universe, whether fiction or non-fiction - means you know everything about every decision that has ever been made in said universe. Since Gene Roddenberry's parents decided to have an early night back in the mists of time in the early 20th Century...
Now, there are those who post here who may come across as that, but unless someone pipes up now in this thread, *none of us was there*. so all we can do is extrapolate from the evidence that we're presented. You can give weight to people's expressed thoughts in writers' bibles etc but has anyone dug out an interview with Kate Mulgrew to see what she was told when she started playing the role? (I haven't - it may be in one of the early interviews on the recent STM CD-ROM if anyone's got a copy of that to hand)
The Janeway thread is interesting because I've just commissioned an overview of her career from one of the occasional contributors to this board, whose instructions are to work from the canonical on screen material primarily. This is someone, I know, who knows this show inside out and probably backwards - it'll be very interesting to see what comes out from that.
Paul
Paul, the results of that will be really interesting to see.
What happened to getting back on course?
What happened to getting back on course?
It's not necessarily unheard of to read "a little too tough and aggressive" to overcompensate for out-of-universe expectations as in-universe overcompensation for in-universe weakness.
Isn't something only a retcon if it changes something that was explicitly established about the past, not if it just establishes something new?
That sounds more like trying to find justifications after the fact for a preconceived notion that she lacked experience. It still doesn't explain what would've led someone to have that preconception in the first place. Sisko was tough and aggressive but I don't recall anyone ever assuming he was inexperienced because of it (even though he was below captain's rank to start with).
Technically, yes. However, fandom (of all stripes, not just Trekdom) has increasingly used "retcon" to mean a revision of what is widely believed to be true in the absence of anything that establishes otherwise. For example, Doctor Who fandom would largely consider the revelation that the Doctor didn't regenerate immediately prior to "Rose" a retcon, even though the series has never establishing the circumstances of the regeneration; it's just widely accepted, as recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine attests, that the regeneration happened shortly before "Rose."
The intent of the creators doesn't really matter. What makes it onto the screen is what matters. If it was the intent of the creators to portray her as experienced and a decent chunk of the audience interpreted the on-screen evidence to indicate that she was a novice, then there may have been a problem with either the writing or the performance. Knowledge on the part of the creators of that general impression may have even motivated that line in a later episode that explicitly established her pre-Voyager command bona fides.
Yeah, but the impressions of a few people in an Internet thread don't tell us what "a decent chunk" of the audience actually thought.
We're talking about an impression of a TV show we first watched like fifteen years ago. This is all after-the-fact. I don't really remember having any impression about Janeway's level of experience when I first watched Voyager, though, so I'm not really attached to either perspective.
I'm thinking it was explicitly established that Deep Space Nine was Sisko's first command, wasn't it?
Pretty much. He served with Leyton on the Okinawa (the impression I had was as Leyton's first officer, but I'll admit I could be mistaken), as first officer of the Saratoga, and then at Utopia Planitia on the team that designed the Defiant. The station would have been his first command.
If that's directed to me, I don't understand the question...
It was directed at all posters who are rehashing the Janeway argument. This is supposed to be about small universe syndrome, like Riker showing up in Voyager for no reason whatsoever.
I never had that impression.^Wasn't Sisko in command of Utopia Planitia? I can't remember if it was mentioned on screen, but I got that impression.
And it doesn't make much sense, as moving from Utopia Planitia to DS9 would be a pretty big drop in prestige, and it would be tantamount to a demotion. Commander of Starfleet's top shipyard to Starfleet's newest backwater station? Unless Sisko had gotten himself embroiled in a scandal, and his options were to take this piss-ant post or resign... (I should note that, when Sisko took the position, no one had any idea what was there or that DS9 would be, in any way, important.) But as Sisko really doesn't want to be there, why wouldn't he have resigned under those circumstances?
I never had that impression.^Wasn't Sisko in command of Utopia Planitia? I can't remember if it was mentioned on screen, but I got that impression
And it doesn't make much sense, as moving from Utopia Planitia to DS9 would be a pretty big drop in prestige, and it would be tantamount to a demotion. Commander of Starfleet's top shipyard to Starfleet's newest backwater station? Unless Sisko had gotten himself embroiled in a scandal, and his options were to take this piss-ant post or resign... (I should note that, when Sisko took the position, no one had any idea what was there or that DS9 would be, in any way, important.) But as Sisko really doesn't want to be there, why wouldn't he have resigned under those circumstances?
Sisko was not in command of Utopia Planitia, he was working there on the prototype of the Defiant (his original intention was to become engineer anyway, and now he was about to design a new weapon to fight the Borg). But when development slowed down and the flaws became clear, he left the project, thinking about leaving Starfleet and constructing orbital habitats. At that point he wasn't even a Commander.
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