Are there ethical problems with Janeway's time travel in 'Endgame'?
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In the case of Endgame, it doesn't matter. The reality is that we were shown a timeline where everything was fine, and Janeway decided on her own to use time travel to change it. There is no way that injecting 100 people in that perfectly fine timeline won't affect millions of lives by the time history catches up to when Janeway started. And millions more in the years after. That's the problem. That's why she is the biggest monster in Star Trek history.
She destroyed the Borg.
Admiral Janeway lived in a Timeline where innovation was pushed forward struggling on against the Borg, and Captain Janeway created a timeline where the Borg did not assimilate hundreds of nearby dangerous asshole species that are going to cause trouble with just about everyone.
Admiral Janeway lived in a Timeline where innovation was pushed forward struggling on against the Borg, and Captain Janeway created a timeline where the Borg did not assimilate hundreds of nearby dangerous asshole species that are going to cause trouble with just about everyone.
That's saying the ends justify the means. By that logic, why not go back further in time and prevent the Borg from ever existing? Why not ask Q, who owed her a favor, to destroy the Borg from the beginning of time? Why not go back in time and prevent other disasters? The bottom line is that humanity was not under the thumb of the Borg. This was a good, valid timeline. She had no right to play God.
Reread what I said again.
Killing the borg is bad, because a few thousand societies as advanced or more advanced than the Federation do not get eaten up by the Borg between 2378 and 2404.
Even if these species are not warlike assholes, they may still be competing for limited resources, and claim to be the most advanced of the younger races, so a savage child race like the Federation should stick to the play pen where it is safe.
Everything is very different.
The same is true for any action I take in the present, the only difference being that I haven't seen the future yet. Why does having seen that future make such an interfering action worse?
The question whether killing Hitler would result in a better or worse future would be equally unanswerable for any contemporary of Hitler successful in killing him. But in that case, even if a worse future resulted because of it, people of later time periods would probably say that "he did what he thought was right, he couldn't have foreseen that after Hitler's death things would get even worse". So why judge the time traveler who equally wouldn't know what alternative he was creating?
OK, here we have a reason I can understand. The potential for meddling by a time traveler would be much greater than for a regular guy. For the guy you mention above, for example by introducing future technology to the Axis, or providing crucial military information (declassified in the time traveler's time). In a way, this feels like cheating, "trying to control the game", in the words of the Prophets, by using information that 'shouldn't' be available. Still, it's hard for me to make an exact argument out of this. It seems more like a matter of degree (don't we all try to control the game?) than an absolute.
Many people already act that way today, without time travel. What makes it worse in the case of time travel perhaps could be the exceptionally greater influence a time traveler could wield-again a matter of degree.
Well, and that no history, no timeline would ever be definitive. But for a non-timetraveling person in such a universe, that wouldn't matter since he wouldn't be conscious of it. As I said in my previous post, we might already be living in such a place and not know about it .
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^This. In Eye of the Needle they outright reject the idea of preventing Voyager from getting stranded because they'd already had a significant impact on that sector of space. In Shattered Chakotay talks past Janeway out of trying to prevent Voyager from being stranded, explaining all the good they've done and all of new crewmen who've made a home on Voyager. Now we're expected to assume nothing important happened in those 16 years in the Delta Quadrant because we don't get to see them.
Let's be honest, the series finale sucked and felt like a total cop out. The writers had to wrap it up and..."hey, let's do some more time travel garbage..." Braga and his get out of trouble with time traveling can solve everything really made the series feel pointless.
It would have been better had the choice to travel in time set events in place that made things much worse. Or had the present Janeway rejected or even killed her future self.
It would have been better had the choice to travel in time set events in place that made things much worse. Or had the present Janeway rejected or even killed her future self.
I see where you're going with this, how about the time travel be something Janeway should've avoided which had nothing to do with the Borg Queen from First Contact? What if Janeway did such harm in not keeping the crew's morale and instigated a mutiny? The time travel should have been a personal endeavor for her to heel the crew and change something that went wrong. A series finale should be about the crew; the characters we love and followed for a lot of seasons, but that series finale was such an F U to Voyager fans, I mean, this crappy story actually used the anti-time future costumes from All Good Things... this finale episode had no soul and no heart... a by the numbers episode.
Think City on the Edge. A good woman dies in a tragic accident. McCoy travels back in time and saves her, leading to a chain of events where the Nazis win WWII. You could have the best intentions in the world and seemingly get a good result, but that leads to bigger disaster.
So yes, it changes history and the natural order of things.
Because you are playing God. Hitler is the most evil and vile human being who ever lived. But changing history at that level would snuff out far more lives of innocent people. It may even snuff out the life of the time traveler, creating a paradox. Hitler killed millions of people because he didn't like them. Who is a time traveler to decide who lives and who dies? Who has that wisdom?
You could almost make the episode exactly the same, except establish that the Borg time traveled first, and PREVENTED Voyager from getting home, and older Janeway figured it out 16 years later, and made the attempt to RESTORE the timeline. The episode could almost play out the exact same except older Janeway's motivations would have been good.
As RDM would say,
“It’s the characters, stupid.”
But it was written more like a feature film than a TV show ending.
I don’t mind that.
They could have written end stories for each character that started as stand-alone threads, then would tie them back together at the end in a nice square knot.
But would it work? Hmmm, someone will write it, I’m sure.
“It’s the characters, stupid.”
But it was written more like a feature film than a TV show ending.
I don’t mind that.
They could have written end stories for each character that started as stand-alone threads, then would tie them back together at the end in a nice square knot.
But would it work? Hmmm, someone will write it, I’m sure.
Maybe the better phrase would be "it's the writers, stupid." Granted the writers create the characters and the conditions upon which they live.
I think there's a basic rule of thumb is that the past has no duty to protect the future, but the future has a duty to protect the past. If Edith Keeler found out her fate, she would have every right to try to live.
Voyager was so flawed from the beginning because in my opinion, Janeway was an awful captain. I blame that on the writers.
There could have been lots of finales that would have worked. And lots of finales that involved a similar story. Braga just wrote his trademark episode--one that stunk.
I think there's a basic rule of thumb is that the past has no duty to protect the future, but the future has a duty to protect the past. If Edith Keeler found out her fate, she would have every right to try to live.
Voyager was so flawed from the beginning because in my opinion, Janeway was an awful captain. I blame that on the writers.
There could have been lots of finales that would have worked. And lots of finales that involved a similar story. Braga just wrote his trademark episode--one that stunk.
Kenneth Biller and Robert Doherty wrote the teleplay, while Berman, Braga, and Kenneth Biller did the story.
Obviously, that was the credits for the episode, and I'm sure more were involved or at least might be reversed a bit. But at the time, Berman and Braga were almost certainly more focused on creating ENTERPRISE, which is why Braga stepped down from being Executive Producer that season.
Braga can get some of the blame, but not all of it. And believe me, I am the farthest thing from being a Braga apologist... quite the contrary, I think the man is too obsessed with time travel. But I can't honestly lay the whole blame on him.
Obviously, that was the credits for the episode, and I'm sure more were involved or at least might be reversed a bit. But at the time, Berman and Braga were almost certainly more focused on creating ENTERPRISE, which is why Braga stepped down from being Executive Producer that season.
Braga can get some of the blame, but not all of it. And believe me, I am the farthest thing from being a Braga apologist... quite the contrary, I think the man is too obsessed with time travel. But I can't honestly lay the whole blame on him.
Ultimately, Berman and Braga, even if they stepped away for most of the 7th season, took care of the finale, not unlike what they did on Enterprise in THAT show's last season. If you want to share the blame with Berman, I will concede that with no argument. Throw some blame on Biller too.
I agree that Biller should get more blame than he does, especially for the general unsteadiness of season 7. He was the only staff writer other than Braga who was there since season 1. He doesn't really have an excuse not to get things more on track... and I really like his episodes.
"FACES", "LIFESIGNS", "THE CHUTE", "UNITY", "BEFORE AND AFTER", "WORST CASE SCENARIO", "NEMESIS", "RANDOM THOUGHTS", and "EXTREME RISK" were all done by him.
"FACES", "LIFESIGNS", "THE CHUTE", "UNITY", "BEFORE AND AFTER", "WORST CASE SCENARIO", "NEMESIS", "RANDOM THOUGHTS", and "EXTREME RISK" were all done by him.
Yes we all might try and control the game as you put. We often make decisions that we hope will give us the best outcome. But we make those decisions without the knowledge of how they will play out, we just have to use our experiences to hopefully arrive at the most beneficial decisions. What Janeway was basically doing was saying I didn't like how events played out because of my choices so I'm going to cheat and travel back and get my past self to make a different choice. Well guess what life isn't always fair.
She seemingly had the ability to travel back in time to any point
Why not travel back and prevent Voyager being pulled in the DQ?
If that wasn't possible why not travel back to the caretaker array and use those advanced weapons to defeat the Kazon so they could use the array to get home?
Why not travel back in time a few weeks and potentially save Carey?
etc...
It was all about Seven, whom Janeway likely thought of as a daughter. And sure I can fully understand her desire to prevent Seven's death but that doesn't exonerate her from meddling in the timeline. As a Starfleet officer she had a duty to minimise interference in the timeline due to time travel.
FWIW, I can state with a high degree of certainty that killing Hitler would probably, and a bit ironically, snuff me out of existence. My paternal grandparents emigrated from Austria fleeing the Nazis, so no Nazis means in all likelihood my parents never meet.
Of course, if Hitler's victorious then my life probably takes a turn for the worse as well.
Of course, if Hitler's victorious then my life probably takes a turn for the worse as well.
There is also the fact that a lot of technological development came due to WWII. If that war never happened, we may not be as far along as we currently are.
And in the same way, if the Dark Ages never happened, with science being scorned and hated and held us back those centuries, we'd almost certainly already be colonizing other planets by now.
And in the same way, if the Dark Ages never happened, with science being scorned and hated and held us back those centuries, we'd almost certainly already be colonizing other planets by now.
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