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I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunch

Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I'm a huge Janeway fan. It does seem to me that sexism is at work in killing off her character. That doesnt mean that I dont respect the views of several posters here who claim otherwise and/or that good things have come from her character's untimely demise.

I know how, on the outside, it may look like sexism is at play here. But I think if you read more TrekLit, you'll realize that in the books, Star Trek is much MORE gender-equal than was ever demonstrated on screen.

For instance, the recent Destiny trilogy (the capstone of modern TrekLit) had, across four starships, two female captains and two male captains, as well as two female first officers and two male first officers. The central focus character for the whole thing was female. The President of the Federation was female. The Enterprise-E crew, in its most recent iteration, contained more female "regulars" than males. Can you say ANY of that about onscreen trek?

I mean, of course, sexism is far more than just a numbers game, but I think you'll find if you read on further that the same balance I describe in numbers is also true in character arcs, perspectives, and stereotypes (or rather lack thereof).
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think the Aventine is also mostly female.
I'm gonna check the numbers:
Captain: Ezri Dax (female Human)
XO: Sam Bowers (male Human)
Science Officer/ Second Officer: Grugn Helkara (male Zakdorn)
Chief Engineer: Mikaela Leishman (female Human)
Conn: Tharp (male Bolian)
CMO: Simon Tarses (male Human/Romulan hybrid)
Ops: Oliana Mirren (female Human)
Tactical/Security: Lonnoc Kedair (femal Takaran)
So that's 4 female, 4 male so I guess it's actually 50/50, but hey that's still better than any of the TV shows.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

^ And really, of the characters that got actual character arcs (Dax, Bowers, Kedair, Leishman), it's even better.

I was surprised in a very real way by the number of female characters in Destiny. I was struck, reading the Mere Mortals section about the four Columbia women, with how I'd never read anything like that in Trek before. The girls weren't there to offer a female perspective or Be Diverse; they were ALL girls, and so it stopped being about gender and just became about them as people. It's weird, how often Star Trek has made a point of pointing out its diversity without actually quite living up to it. In Destiny, once the diversity was actually there, the point was made without even trying.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think the Aventine is also mostly female.
I'm gonna check the numbers:
Captain: Ezri Dax (female Human)
XO: Sam Bowers (male Human)
Science Officer/ Second Officer: Grugn Helkara (male Zakdorn)
Chief Engineer: Mikaela Leishman (female Human)
Conn: Tharp (male Bolian)
CMO: Simon Tarses (male Human/Romulan hybrid)
Ops: Oliana Mirren (female Human)
Tactical/Security: Lonnoc Kedair (femal Takaran)
So that's 4 female, 4 male so I guess it's actually 50/50, but hey that's still better than any of the TV shows.
when did Dax became human? ;)
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think the Aventine is also mostly female.
I'm gonna check the numbers:
Captain: Ezri Dax (female Human)
XO: Sam Bowers (male Human)
Science Officer/ Second Officer: Grugn Helkara (male Zakdorn)
Chief Engineer: Mikaela Leishman (female Human)
Conn: Tharp (male Bolian)
CMO: Simon Tarses (male Human/Romulan hybrid)
Ops: Oliana Mirren (female Human)
Tactical/Security: Lonnoc Kedair (femal Takaran)
So that's 4 female, 4 male so I guess it's actually 50/50, but hey that's still better than any of the TV shows.
when did Dax became human? ;)

damn good point. last time i check she was as trill as you can get.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I'm a huge Janeway fan. It does seem to me that sexism is at work in killing off her character.
Based upon your NOT having read the books since Homecoming? :lol: What are you basing that opinion off of, other than she's female and now dead? This is where reading the material makes it easier to discuss said material. She was killed by the decision of a female editor. Not because she was a woman, but because in the books you've been skipping, no one knew what to do with her since she got home. She got promoted out of command (thanks in part to Nemesis), and was kinda just floating around doing nothing. But taking valuable screen time doing so, because authors felt they had to include her. Management decided that they could get more mileage out of the whole VOY group by killing her off and letting the other characters react/move on, so they did. Not about sexism, about advancing the plot. If Janeway was the mother-figure of the group, at some point the kids had to leave home and see if they could stand on their own...

That doesnt mean that I dont respect the views of several posters here who claim otherwise
Actually, to me at least, that's pretty much exactly what that means. A bunch of people give you info on something you haven't read, and somehow without more information of your own, you decide the opposite is true. Seeing as how you haven't read the source material, not sure how deciding those people must be wrong is anything other than a lack of respect for those peoples' views...
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I don't know but I think the women in the books are treated very fairly. I would even say they are treated a lot better then they were in the tv series. You see them in a more active role and in higher positions then you really saw in the various tv shows. Though you did see female ambassadors and admirals in the shows.


Don't forget the variety of women on Titan and Enterprise.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I haven't read the Spirit Walk duology and therefore can't speak as to Janeway's involvement in those novels, but, in terms of Homecoming, The Farther Shore, and Full Circle, I thought her involvement in those novels - for the most part - made sense in terms of the character and the status quo of the galaxy at large and for the Voyager crew in particular, especially as it concerns the first two books. I don't know if Janeway's presence was absolutely needed in the early portion of Full Circle, although her involvement was consistent with her character and did make the events of the second half of the novel - and her absence - resonate more.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with the idea that the editors and writers needed to kill off Janeway in order to solve the problem of trying to involve her because I don't necessarily think that they absolutely had to involve her in the narrative at all once there was no longer a storyline imperative to do so; IOW, I would have been perfectly fine with her character being dropped from the ongoing Voyager narrative following the events of The Farther Shore. That being said, I respect what the editors and writers decided to do, and am glad with the way that the decision ultimately affected the direction of the the Voyager narrative, since returning to the DQ is definitely something that would not have been possible if Janeway was still alive, and, IMO, was ultimately needed in order to give the novels some 'oomph' that they wouldn't have been able to get by keeping the ship and her crew in the AQ, since there weren't a whole lot of stories that could ultimately be told using the ship and her crew that couldn't also be told using the crew of another ship.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

personally, i wouldn't even do a VGR relaunch series. I'd've done one final novel, wrapping up their homecoming and stuck Voyager in the Fleet Museum, gave the Maquis pardons and allowed some to remain in Starfleet - like Chakotay and Torres - and retired the otehrs who were never interested in being in the fleet in the first place. promoted the Starfleet characters and then given them all new assignments to turn up as/when authors want in TNG/DS9/SCE/NF/Whatever novels.

and Janeway would be stuck behind a desk where she could never cause trouble again.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

That would have been preferable to the Homecoming and Spirit Walk series.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying the new direction they've taken. Really needed to be done, to set Voyager apart from the rest of the series, and give them a reason to continue to exist. Seems to pretty much be the same direction all the fan-fic 'extra' seasons have come up with as well: Voyager as a series needs to be out there doing something, and can't be a part of the generic AQ fleet...

Personally, I'd have left Voyager on Earth, as the engineers would need years to take her apart, study things, and work them into future designs. I'd have had them commission a Voyager-A as the first of a new design, basically an improved Intrepid Class ship with some of Voyager's modifications actually designed into it naturally.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think the first post-Voyager novel should have been The Trial of Kathryn Janeway. Her no-questions-asked promotion to admiral in Homecoming was a huge missed oppertunity, imo.

Who was it who described Janeway as "an unrepentant war criminal" last time we did this? :lol:
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think the Aventine is also mostly female.
I'm gonna check the numbers:
Captain: Ezri Dax (female Human)
XO: Sam Bowers (male Human)
Science Officer/ Second Officer: Grugn Helkara (male Zakdorn)
Chief Engineer: Mikaela Leishman (female Human)
Conn: Tharp (male Bolian)
CMO: Simon Tarses (male Human/Romulan hybrid)
Ops: Oliana Mirren (female Human)
Tactical/Security: Lonnoc Kedair (femal Takaran)
So that's 4 female, 4 male so I guess it's actually 50/50, but hey that's still better than any of the TV shows.
when did Dax became human? ;)

I think the Aventine is also mostly female.
I'm gonna check the numbers:
Captain: Ezri Dax (female Human)
XO: Sam Bowers (male Human)
Science Officer/ Second Officer: Grugn Helkara (male Zakdorn)
Chief Engineer: Mikaela Leishman (female Human)
Conn: Tharp (male Bolian)
CMO: Simon Tarses (male Human/Romulan hybrid)
Ops: Oliana Mirren (female Human)
Tactical/Security: Lonnoc Kedair (femal Takaran)
So that's 4 female, 4 male so I guess it's actually 50/50, but hey that's still better than any of the TV shows.
when did Dax became human? ;)

damn good point. last time i check she was as trill as you can get.

when did Dax became human? ;)

damn good point. last time i check she was as trill as you can get.
200% Trill, in fact ;)
Crap, CRAP!!!:eek::barf::thumbdown::ack::ouch: I can't belive I did that, Dax (Jazia, Ezri, and Curzon) is one of my favorite characters and I do know she (she, and he) is (are) Trill. I guess that's what I get for posting late at night after a full shift at work.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

Thanks for all of the feedback, everyone...
Just to get more of a sense, do folks here feel that BEFORE DISHONOR is worth reading? I definitely get the sense that many like the newest batch of VOY books written by Beyer, as well as David Mack's "Destiny" series.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

You'll probably get a 50/50 split. I enjoyed it, but then I enjoy all of Peter David's books. Others detested it. It also acts as a sequel to his old, original and very popular Borg book, "Vendetta".
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

^ Yeah, I think you'd get opinions pretty evenly balanced along the whole spectrum from adore to detest.

The other really great stuff going on these days is Vanguard, set during TOS.
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

Yeah, Vanguard is a-freakin-mazing. It and Titan are my two of my favorite Trek series (even over the ENT, TOS, and VOY TV series).
 
Re: I cannot believe what they have done to Janeway in the VOY relaunc

I think you'd get opinions pretty evenly balanced along the whole spectrum from adore to detest.

As Marco used to say, he'd much prefer a ST novel polarised opinions of the fans to one where everyone agreed it was merely "okay".
 
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