In Defense of Janeway as a Captain

[zar]

For the third time: the vast majority of episodes didn't rely on any of this.

Federation matters and being on a mission for the Federation is what drove ALL those plots and episodes, and without that underlying force there's nothing driving VOY beyond "going home". Nothing significant.

Enterprise did what it did because it was on a mission for the Federation, yes - an exploration mission. Voyager continued that mission.

It did, the premise was that they were going home, nothing about a destiny to affect the fate of the Delta Quadrant.

Look, when you came up with that concept, it did NOT require you to negate and rewrite the base scenario -- that is, the premise.

In your own words, it could have "turned out" that way.

Which means we could have reached that situation, through a series of causes and effects or new revelations, with the original premise as the starting point.

Therefore the the original premise allowed for it. It had the potential for your idea, or a number of other ideas, to grow out of it.

But Sisko was still a prophesied Holy Icon to the Bajorans and the Prophets (whom the Bajorans already knew about), Kira was still a Bajoran National, Odo was still an unknown, etc. Even without the wormhole the crew already had important people in it compared to other Fed crews.

Okay, you're sort of veering off the original train of thought.

I'm still trying to make sense of the conversation that started here:

Since they are just one tiny insignificant ship with an insignificant crew (no one famous, no "chosen ones", no God-Humans, no Flagship personnel) nothing they do can be of any real importance on the Galaxy or the Delta Quadrant's well-being because doing anything would make them too important for one tiny insignificant ship.

It played out like this:

- You said Voyager's crew is incapable of doing anything awesome like the flagship crews could, because they're not "elite".

- Why? Because Starfleet only assigns the "elite" to important ships like flagships.

- I ask why then does the DS9 crew get to be awesome?

- You say, because DS9 was important, being next to the wormhole.

- But Starfleet didn't know about the wormhole at the time they staffed the station.

Thus the 'fleeters on DS9 would have at least the same non-"elite" status as the ones on Voyager. So why are the "nobodies" on DS9 allowed to be part of something important? How come Sisko gets to guard the wormhole once it was discovered, or have the Defiant and play an important role in the war? If Sisko can do those things then why couldn't Janeway have been promoted to "galactic importance" as well? I fail to see why the crew needs to contain a flagship officer, a spiritual leader, or someone who is otherwise famous -- from the outset -- for this to be possible.

 

[Cyke101]

Thus the 'fleeters on DS9 would have at least the same non-"elite" status as the ones on Voyager. So why are the "nobodies" on DS9 allowed to be part of something important? How come Sisko gets to guard the wormhole once it was discovered, or have the Defiant and play an important role in the war? If Sisko can do those things then why couldn't Janeway have been promoted to "galactic importance" as well? I fail to see why the crew needs to contain a flagship officer, a spiritual leader, or someone who is otherwise famous -- from the outset -- for this to be possible.

Aye, one of the things I find endearing about Voyager is that the crew went from a bunch of rag-tag unexceptionals to being pretty important themselves -- that is, we got to see them build up their own importance, rather than being told from episode 1 that they were the best of the best a la TNG and ENT.


For a ship that didn't seem to be that important, they sure had a great deal of focus from recurring enemies. The show's original DQ conflict -- Voyager vs. the Kazon -- banked on our heroes becoming important to that area of space.

 

[Saquist]

None of the other captains ever locked themselves in their quarters to sulk for an extended period while the crew was having the worst problems they had faced. And no, I don't care that technically the "Year of Hell" never happened, because it still proved that she is the sort of person who would do that.

I really only clicked on this thread in the hopes that the title meant that her courtmartial trial was going on in here.

None of the other captains were lost in the Delta Quadrant.
I agree that Janeway was likely Trek's Best Captain but I really feel that most of the people...besides Awful Archer were extremely good Captains and I think that's thanks to Star Fleet training...

Janeway was definitely the most MORAL and Ethical of the Captain. She tried to stick to her principles and there were alot of principle defying event's in those seven years. She never gave up on her crew...

Where Picard would and Kirk would lose men by the dozens Janeway was outraged with every lost. I remember Basics when she took the ensign's loss so personally. More than any other Captain, Janway didn't look at losing a man as part of the job and she didn't just get over it. She remembered it and learned from it. She made a connection with her crew that NO OTHER CAPTAIN came close to.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Geordie was lost in the Delta Quadrant for 5 minutes.

She created a slaverace to be hunted and tortured by the Hirogen.

How is that more moral than Kirk handing out muskets to pastoral pacifists before they're slaughtered and enslaved by their Klingon backed thug neighbours, or Sisko assassinating a Romulan Senator to force their entry into the Dominion War or how Picard gave that monkey Riker a job.

They all did horrible things, but Janeway didn't notice herself slaughtering thousands and thousands Swarmies was psychopathic, and later how she executed hundreds of thousands of "innocent" Borg who might have been saved if the civil war went well, was almost as unconscionable as when she buckled, selling out the Unimatrix Zero Resistance when the Queen might have executed millions more loyal Drones to whack a handful of Rogue Drones.

Everytime Janeway does somethign horrible, she puts thos memories into a little box and hides in the backside of her mind.

 

[Saquist]

Geordie was lost in the Delta Quadrant for 5 minutes.

I don't see a problem.

She created a slaverace to be hunted and tortured by the Hirogen.

Holograms aren't real.

How is that more moral than Kirk handing out muskets to pastoral pacifists before they're slaughtered and enslaved by their Klingon backed thug neighbours, or Sisko assassinating a Romulan Senator to force their entry into the Dominion War or how Picard gave that monkey Riker a job.

Violation of the Prime Directive is a given moral problem as it's Kirk's accepted standard.

They all did horrible things, but Janeway didn't notice herself slaughtering thousands and thousands Swarmies was psychopathic, and later how she executed hundreds of thousands of "innocent" Borg who might have been saved if the civil war went well, was almost as unconscionable as when she buckled, selling out the Unimatrix Zero Resistance when the Queen might have executed millions more loyal Drones to whack a handful of Rogue Drones.

Couldn't follow most of that but it sounds like guilt by association, while I can only hold her responsible for her literal actions such as making a deal with the Borg...which might be considered interference a PD violation. That's really as bad as she got.

Sisko poisoned entire worlds. Ruthlessly killed a ship full of running Maquis: His methods killed the crew of a romulan transport and dignitary and didn't come clean about it either.

Holding Janeway responsible for Unimatrix zero is about as rationale as blaming someone for shooting down a hijacked plane. It's a difficult decision either way...portraying it as irreconcilable evil doesn't describe the situation at all.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Sometimes when I hear these arguments... I wish I could mind meld with the board, like Spock did to Kirk in that Methusela episode... and just say, "Forget."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAannJ4dGuQ (Don't ask me why he dubbed everything)







[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAannJ4dGuQ[/yt]

 

[Anwar]

Enterprise did what it did because it was on a mission for the Federation, yes - an exploration mission. Voyager continued that mission.

And without the Federation's immediate presence and wellbeing being tied to their mission, their exploration amounts to nothing. Nothing to tie them to local affairs, nothing to tie them to their new enemies (whoever they are), they're just one ship of people going from one place to the next with no real purpose other than going home.

Look, when you came up with that concept, it did NOT require you to negate and rewrite the base scenario -- that is, the premise.

Yes it did, it brings up something that ties them better to the Delta Quadrant and local affairs/politics whereas the original premise pretty much forbids them from being tied down because that premise was about NOT staying anywhere.

- I ask why then does the DS9 crew get to be awesome?

Because even if the Fleeters weren't unique, elite folk, the non-Fleeters on the Station still were.

So why are the "nobodies" on DS9 allowed to be part of something important? How come Sisko gets to guard the wormhole once it was discovered

He was a Holy Icon whether he knew it or not and was tied to Bajor's future and the Prophets.

If Sisko can do those things then why couldn't Janeway have been promoted to "galactic importance" as well? I fail to see why the crew needs to contain a flagship officer, a spiritual leader, or someone who is otherwise famous -- from the outset -- for this to be possible.

Because VOY's premise is about them NOT caring or doing anything for the DQ, it's just about them always running away to go back to Earth. Get rid of that, tie them more to the area, and then there's room for growth.

 

[BillJ]

Violation of the Prime Directive is a given moral problem as it's Kirk's accepted standard.

Sometimes I wonder if people have actually watched Star Trek: The Original Series when they comment on Kirk and the Prime Directive.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Couldn't follow most of that but it sounds like guilt by association, while I can only hold her responsible for her literal actions such as making a deal with the Borg...which might be considered interference a PD violation. That's really as bad as she got.

i'll try again.

Janeway was a flipflopper.

Janeway was the Queens prisoner.

Janeway was told that that the Queen would begin to skuttle Borg vessel after vessel, some containing tens of thousands of drones, until Kathryn's human empathy and sympathy broke her will and she told the Queen how to get into Unimiatrix Zero.

Janeway had two ways to be a hero.

The first was to shut the fuck up, not betray Unimatrix Zero and allow the Queen to blow up her own damn fleet. How many hundred Cubes would the Queen have destroyed before she figured out that Janeway wasn't going to budge?

The second was to tell the Queen exactly what she wanted because she could not conscience the wholesale murder of that many Drones, since they're all just "raped hostages" who can be recovered and "rehumanized" (realienated?) as easily as Seven of Nine was.

One or the other.

Pick!

Instead Janeway watched the termination of over half a dozen vessels, almost a hundred thousand drones, and THEN she decided to tell the Queen what she could have said after first few thousand had been killed or even buckled before the Queen whacked her Drone.

Flipflopping.

That word lost John Carey the election.

Oh.

You know Holograms like the Doctor are not real.

I know holograms like the Doctor are not real.

But the hippys on Voyager think Holograms like the Doctor are real.

Stupid hippys.

 

[zar]

So why are the "nobodies" on DS9 allowed to be part of something important? How come Sisko gets to guard the wormhole once it was discovered

He was a Holy Icon whether he knew it or not and was tied to Bajor's future and the Prophets.

But Starfleet didn't give a hoot about that. They wanted him to drop the act. I don't think you're seeing my point: Sisko was an unremarkable Starfleeter, not even a captain, when that happened. So why couldn't it happen to Janeway too? Why not "reveal her destiny"?

Because VOY's premise is about them NOT caring or doing anything for the DQ, it's just about them always running away to go back to Earth.

Nonsense. That wasn't built-in to the premise. The premise was simply that they're in a completely unexplored zone and cut off from Starfleet. Naturally the characters want to go home, but that hardly means the writers were locked into giving them a single-minded selfish desire for 7 years.

More than any other Captain, Janway didn't look at losing a man as part of the job and she didn't just get over it.

WESLEY: All those people dead. I don't know how you and Commander Riker and Geordi, how you handle it so easily.
PICARD: Easily? Oh no, not easily. We handle it because we're trained to. But if the time ever comes when the death of a single individual fails to move us ...

... and then a potted plant pops out of the replicator and Picard, understandably, loses his train of thought.

But you get the idea.

 

[Anwar]

But Starfleet didn't give a hoot about that. They wanted him to drop the act. I don't think you're seeing my point: Sisko was an unremarkable Starfleeter, not even a captain, when that happened. So why couldn't it happen to Janeway too? Why not "reveal her destiny"?

Hell, I don't know otherwise they may have tried something like that. They were content keeping her a nobody instead of having the Caretaker tell her in the premiere she was destined to purge the Delta Quadrant of evil or something.

Hell, if anything the premise was that she was an incompetent because she had to resort of dealing with terrorists as part of her crew and not being able to settle things with them (the tensions were supposed to last all 7 years, and not get resolved).

And like I said, they DID try to make other crewmembers important and every attempt failed.

Even before DS9 Sisko had already made remarkable friends like Admiral Leyton and worked on important projects like the Defiant.

Naturally the characters want to go home, but that hardly means the writers were locked into giving them a single-minded selfish desire for 7 years.

Then why were there complaints anytime they ran into an alien race more than once? Why were there complaints that they stayed in one place too long or took too long to move past it?

I'll tell you why: Because the premise was that they would ALWAYS be moving, and never stay in one area (no matter the reasoning) for more than one episode.

Single-minded drive to run home rather than do anything for anyone other than themselves.

 

[zar]

Because that wasn't part of the show's premise, otherwise they may have tried something like that.

... Nor was this part of DS9's premise:

Even before DS9 Sisko had already made remarkable friends like Admiral Leyton and worked on important projects like the Defiant.

You seem to have made up your mind that anything interesting that happened in the other shows were directly predestined by their premises, and the fact that "they didn't try X" in VOY is definitive proof that VOY's premise had no potential for X to come out of it.

I don't know how to drill reason through that kind of stubbornness, so I give up.

 

[Anwar]

I'm saying that there were no complaints when they tried anything interesting in DS9, but when they tried anything with VOY beyond the base premise the reaction was always negative.

Now why would that be, answer me.

 

[Jetfire]

Who complained? I didn't...people I know who watched VOY didn't.

 

[Anwar]

They can get the Kazon leaders to conference together? They're too important and someone else should have tried that in the past.

They can cure the Vidiian Phage? They're too important.

They stopped the Krenim Timeship from messing up the Universe anymore? They're too important.

They can fight the 8472? They've ruined the Borg by showing there's someone who can fight them AND they're too important in the struggle.

And so on.

 

[zar]

I'm saying that there were no complaints when they tried anything interesting in DS9, but when they tried anything with VOY beyond the base premise the reaction was always negative.

No, no, that isn't what you were saying. You were saying that VOY's premise itself limited it from doing anything interesting. Now you're changing the subject, falling back on your tired old routine of making up imaginary complaints and arguing with voices in your head.

 

[Anwar]

VOY's premise DID constrain them too much. Then when they figured "Okay, let's try something interesting even if it means breaking the premise" and DID that the reaction was always negative.

You're not reading between the lines.

So it was either stick to their constrained premise and not do anything interesting, which makes the show look bad compared to TOS/TNG/DS9 or they could try something interesting by breaking the premise and still get negative reactions both for what they did AND for violating the premise.

 

[Jetfire]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Og-fzKmvs&feature=related[/yt]

Janeway's Speech

This is VOY's premise.

[edit] I don't see where they were limited.

 

[zar]

VOY's premise DID constrain them too much. Then when they figured "Okay, let's try something interesting even if it means breaking the premise" and DID that the reaction was always negative.

Again:

The premise was simply that they're in a completely unexplored zone and cut off from Starfleet.

There's nothing in there about not being allowed to do anything interesting or important. I have no idea where you get this idea, aside from the fact that Janeway didn't have a pre-built backstory about being a famous captain or a Holy Icon.

 

[Saquist]

WESLEY: All those people dead. I don't know how you and Commander Riker and Geordi, how you handle it so easily.
PICARD: Easily? Oh no, not easily. We handle it because we're trained to. But if the time ever comes when the death of a single individual fails to move us ...

... and then a potted plant pops out of the replicator and Picard, understandably, loses his train of thought.

But you get the idea.

That's the great thing about women...you can tell they are affected. Men are too good at compartmentalizing their feelings to the point where you can't see them or worse where those feelings are completely in accessible.