Online Petition Bring Back Kathryn Janeway!

[DonIago]

Frankly I think saying the loss of a single character from a series devalues any fiction that's a part of that series actually unfairly devalues the other characters from that series more than anything else.

In other words - if you feel that a Trek story requires the captain from the series that story is tied to, IMO you're doing the other characters from that series a disservice.

 

[Lynx]

^Read Before Dishonor and judge for yourself.

It's not my intention to be rude or insult anyone.
But honestly, I rather slit my throat or be burned on a bonfire than read that book.

Or to explain it further: Why should I waste time and money on something which will only make me sad,annoyed and angry? I did get my fair share of insults and anger when I watched episodes like "The Gift" (favorite character kicked out) and "Fury" (favorite character totally destroyed) to have to go through it again with the destruction of another favorite.

And I don't have any interest at all to read about how the few remaining main characters handle the death of the captain or how Captain Batisse (or whatever the name of the new bogus captain is) goes back to the Delta Quadrant with the ship. If I want to read about characters who weren't in the series, then I can buy a New Frontier book instead.

 

[Defcon]

Could you imagine a TOS book without Kirk?

Sure. TOS is more than Kirk, and can work without him in my opinion.

It wouldn't be the same, would it?

It would be different, but do we really want to see the same stuff repeated over and over?

The main characters, especially the leading main character is an essential part of the whole story, the whole Voyager saga.

Sure, the lead character is important, but to say it's not Voyager without her is, as DonIago said, devaluing the other characters from that series.

Voyager without Janeway and the other main characters is not Voyager anymore, it's a different series where the name of the ship is the only common with the real Voyager series, our favorite series.

The only other main character missing beside Janeway (Kes and Neelix were "written out" in the TV show) is Tuvok, who quite frankly was put to better use in the six Titan novels than in seven years of Voyager in my opinion.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

No Janeway = Not a Voyager book

Aren't comments like that devaluing the Voyager series coming from a Voyager fan?

If a series is so dependent on one character that it looses its identity when that character isn't featured in it anymore, that kind of implies that the series hadn't much going for it in the first place, isn't it?

Could you imagine a TOS book without Kirk?

Um the last Mere Anarchy e-book was post Kirk's "death" and so was The Captain's Daughter those are considered TOS stories.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Frankly I think saying the loss of a single character from a series devalues any fiction that's a part of that series actually unfairly devalues the other characters from that series more than anything else.

In other words - if you feel that a Trek story requires the captain from the series that story is tied to, IMO you're doing the other characters from that series a disservice.

Any storyline is nothing more than the summation of the main character's trials with the supporting characters adding flare for dramatic effect.

Star Trek's main characters have always been the Captain of the ship with two other characters that were high up on screen time followed by an assembled cast of supporting characters.

Hack it any way you'd like, the truth is that the Captains of Trek are the main characters.

That doesn't devalue anything.

The Farseer Trilogy wouldn't be that if Fitz wasn't in it. That story ends and another begins if Fitz is removed. It's a new story set in a familiar world setting.

Gone with the Wind isn't GWTW if Scarlett isn't in the storyline. It's a new story with some familiar faces.

It's not that the books are not Trek stories, it's that they are no longer really Voyager stories because the main character is gone.

There's a reason why the Trek show in the 80's was called Star Trek: The Next Generation and not Star Trek. It had some familiar faces, but it wasn't the same show. To say otherwise would have been disingenuous.

This is not true of how all genres work, but it is, IMHO, how Trek as a genre works. It's still the same universe, but it's not the same series once the Captain is gone.

In DS9, Sisko was pulled out of the universe on screen with a great deal of storyline to back it all up. It was bittersweet, but the fans of that series saw it coming (some did anyway). I see this is an apple to oranges comparison at best.

You are welcome to, of course, continue to come in here and say that those of us who are irritated that the captain of our favorites series has been killed off aren't being very true to the series, but Voyager was fairly unique in that Janeway's push to get home and her character(personality) that pulled her crew into a family was a hard driving force in our series.

Completely pulling away a binding force such as that does make the story less to many of us.

 

[Galekarens]

[/QUOTE] Any storyline is nothing more than the summation of the main character's trials with the supporting characters adding flare for dramatic effect.

Star Trek's main characters have always been the Captain of the ship with two other characters that were high up on screen time followed by an assembled cast of supporting characters.

Hack it any way you'd like, the truth is that the Captains of Trek are the main characters.

That doesn't devalue anything.

The Farseer Trilogy wouldn't be that if Fitz wasn't in it. That story ends and another begins if Fitz is removed. It's a new story set in a familiar world setting.

Gone with the Wind isn't GWTW if Scarlett isn't in the storyline. It's a new story with some familiar faces.

It's not that the books are not Trek stories, it's that they are no longer really Voyager stories because the main character is gone.

There's a reason why the Trek show in the 80's was called Star Trek: The Next Generation and not Star Trek. It had some familiar faces, but it wasn't the same show. To say otherwise would have been disingenuous.

This is not true of how all genres work, but it is, IMHO, how Trek as a genre works. It's still the same universe, but it's not the same series once the Captain is gone.

In DS9, Sisko was pulled out of the universe on screen with a great deal of storyline to back it all up. It was bittersweet, but the fans of that series saw it coming (some did anyway). I see this is an apple to oranges comparison at best.

You are welcome to, of course, continue to come in here and say that those of us who are irritated that the captain of our favorites series has been killed off aren't being very true to the series, but Voyager was fairly unique in that Janeway's push to get home and her character(personality) that pulled her crew into a family was a hard driving force in our series.

Completely pulling away a binding force such as that does make the story less to many of us.[/QUOTE]

Hear, hear, that's what I think (well always have, lol), Janeway IS Voyager, and nothing anyone can say will change my opinion, and it's as good as any one's. Bring her back, thanks, GS.

 

[Sovereign_One]

Scratching my head here...

Is the prevailing wisdom that you can separate Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Archer from their respective crews and they won't lose their cohesiveness and uniqueness (and whatever makes you want to see them in action), but everything falls apart without Janeway?

 

[Galekarens]

You can separate the crews, and the people, in the story, of course (they already were), but the universe of "Voy" books are not Voyager without Janeway, it's not the same without her. She was the heart & soul of the series, and the books have lost that now, IHMO. They are missing the glue that made it all whole, that makes them truly Voyager, right now just an imitation. GS

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Scratching my head here...

Is the prevailing wisdom that you can separate Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Archer from their respective crews and they won't lose their cohesiveness and uniqueness (and whatever makes you want to see them in action), but everything falls apart without Janeway?

No. That's not what I said.

I said it makes it no longer Voyager.

That says nothing of the crew or their abilities, but the storyline is no longer Voyager.

 

[Sovereign_One]

Would it still be Voyager if Janeway was brought back with an all-new crew?

 

[Brit]

Would it still be Voyager if Janeway was brought back with an all-new crew?

No not for me. I want the Voyager people, all of them.

And FYI, NG books wouldn't be NG with out Picard and his crew, DS9 books are not that without their characters etc. Trek Lit has pretty much made a mess of things IMHO

Brit

 

[Sovereign_One]

Okay...

Janeway comes back. The whole crew comes back. We've spent seven years watching them trying to get home. What stories are left to tell? Expand an episode? "Missing" scenes? Alternate timelines? Dig into people's backstories? Fix fics?

 

[Brit]

Okay...

Janeway comes back. The whole crew comes back. We've spent seven years watching them trying to get home. What stories are left to tell? Expand an episode? "Missing" scenes? Alternate timelines? Dig into people's backstories? Fix fics?

Any and all of that, you all don't seem to understand the problem with Trek literature isn't so much a story problem but a writing and editing problem. Good writers can make good stories, you just have to put the right writer with the right characters.

And you don't use one series' characters at background characters or characters that have to die to tell other series' stories.

Death isn't edgy or innovative, it's lazy writing.

Brit

 

[Sovereign_One]

Death for the sake of edginess or innovation is lazy writing. Just like any other trope, its success or failure depends on the reasoning behind it and its execution.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Death can be brilliant.

All the many, many, many deaths on Buffy the Vampire Slayer were near perfect.

The characters in Voyager were good, but it was the journey home, I wouldn't have minded seeing an alternate history episode like Year of Hell were we see many captains and brridge crew fall one after the other and children and lower decks and strays they pick up on the way rising up to fill the ranks.

 

[Sovereign_One]

But you still got the "dead Janeway" problem.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Death for the sake of edginess or innovation is lazy writing. Just like any other trope, its success or failure depends on the reasoning behind it and its execution.

It was lazy writing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'll take the dead Janeway problem over the dead Janeway solution any day.

Besides Janeway is alive in canon as Kirk is still dead.

I still can't believe how many of those Return novels of Shatners I read.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Let's not forget that the big hearted and large souled Janeway once thought a reasonable interrogation was locking someone in a room about to be filled with hostile aliens, and on a separate occasion when her CMO tried to relieve her of duty for valid reasons she told him to screw off.

I'm not saying she -couldn't- be among the most nurturing of captains, but it bothers me to see her less nurturing moments whitewashed.

This incident is commonly mentioned to help justify an "out of control" Janeway. What is always forgotten in the process is that Lessing and the Equinox crew had just stolen a piece of technology that the Voyager crew had developed to help protect all of them from the alien attacks. They left Voyager to the wolves in order to put themselves first (they wanted to continue to kill and use the aliens to get home quickly). Baiscally, Lessing and the Equinox crew were guilty of treason and accessory to murder.

A captain defends her crew, and Lessing was an enemy, no matter what uniform he was wearing. Her motivation was to save her ship and crew from the continuing attacks--and possible destruction.

All of the captains have, at one time or another, lost their tempers and gone too far. In this case, because of Chakotay's interference, we don't know if she would have let Lessing be killed--that is pure speculation. She did, at least, later realize how close she'd come to becoming the same kind of monster Ransom was--and that is crucial because it shows that she learned from her mistakes.

I assume that the other incident you are discussing is in "Year of Hell" when she goes into a burning deflector control in order to save the ship. If that is reason for relieving a person, then every hero who puts his life on the line should be considered insane. What she did wasn't that much different from Kirk's actions in "Generations" where he was killed (and taken into the Nexus) saving the Enterprise.

However, this one decision in Season six and her heroic willingness to put her life on the line are hardly enough to justify the strange character that appears in most of the PB novels.

Death for the sake of edginess or innovation is lazy writing. Just like any other trope, its success or failure depends on the reasoning behind it and its execution.

It was lazy writing.

It was the mission statement. TPTB said "Pete, we would like you to kill Janeway for us. You have the choice. kill her or we will cancel Christmas."

He really didn't have a choice.

Seriously, it's why the book was comissioned.

Meanwhile Aunt kate, need I remind you abour directive 101 (Voy:Meld.) that maintains federation citizens the right to avoid self-incrmiination? It wasn't legal to force a condfession out of Suder and it still wasn't legal to force a confession out of Lessing. Directive 101 takes the abiguity out of the legality of torture in so that you can already become a dread criminal well before you put the first bamboo shoot under the first finger nail.

 

[DonIago]

You know...I tend to think I'm pretty good at keeping an open-mind, but some of the things I've heard from the fervent admirers of Janeway make me think that they kind of deserve the reputation they feel they have.

I'm really not sure people are listening to the things they're saying and considering how they might sound to someone outside their own frame of reference.

I'm not just talking about this thread either. One thread would be an aberration...multiple threads are a pattern.