Janeway Died? In Which Book?

[rfmcdpei]

Not to mention the rehash of Star Trek III that would be needed to bring Janeway back.

One of the great things about the new crop of Trek novels is that the plots are consequential, are serious. Doing a rewrite to bring back a Janeway who clearly was killed in the self-destruction of the Borg cube without any visible possibility for a resuscitation--McCoy wasn't available for a last-minute katra transfer--would undermine the seriousness of the novels' storylines. IMHO, of course.

 

[Plecostomus]

I have no problem with her coming back, in fact maybe her "return" prompts her to go back in time and inject herself with "Borg-X" or whatever that stuff was and blow up the uni-complex in an attempt to prevent the whole Destiny thing from occurring... resulting in exactly what she wanted to prevent.

I could accept that over say... Janeway becoming a Q or some kind of evolved uber-being or some shlock like that.

 

[Paris]

Yes, she's not just merely dead, she is most sincerely dead.

And Picard was dead when Q brought him back in Tapestry. The post-death chat with Lady Q leads me to believe we will see Janeway alive again. Although, her dying at the hands of the , her greatest enemy, would be poetic. It just wasn't final enough.

 

[sniksder]

So if another author comes along and wants to write a new Trek story (9not a flashback one, or a alternate universe one, or a Voyager in the other quadrant one) than they cannot use Janeway??

Whats the fasination with killing off established charactors??

Like this one

Spoiler: spoilery thing

The killing of Tom Paris's dad in Destiny

I understand what he was trying to do, but I don't get it, is it a ego thing that they can now brag, "yeah I wrote that charactors death"...

This is what annoyed me with Braga and Moore with the TV series, that they cont. complained that they couldnt have Starfleet Officers and crew fighting with each other becuase that is how Roddenberry set up his universe.

Moore got around that by re-inventing Battlestar Galactica, and Abrahms got around it with the new Trek movie by setting it in "another universe".

I will buy the book and read the story, but it's going to be hard for me to justify the death.

Sorry for the rant, but it does get annoying.

Thanks

 

[captcalhoun]

i've never known a writer to brag about killing off a canon character.

and as for Janeway, she got assimilated and then blown up. she is like the proverbial parrot. dead. no more. ceased to be. no longer on this mortal coil.

oh, and i LIKE Before Dishonor.

 

[Elemental]

Doing a rewrite to bring back a Janeway who clearly was killed in the self-destruction of the Borg cube without any visible possibility for a resuscitation--McCoy wasn't available for a last-minute katra transfer--would undermine the seriousness of the novels' storylines. IMHO, of course.

I find this statement a bit humorous given the conversations in another thread about very bizzare moments in Trek lit. They certainly don't need to resort to bringing characters back from the dead (something done quite regularly in the Trek series and movies btw), in order to "undermine the seriousness" of some storylines. They left things very open-ended so I don't see how it would be disbelievable at all. What would be bothersome is if she just showed up again in some future novel with no explanation given (but I can't imagine that happening).

 

[Elemental]

i've never known a writer to brag about killing off a canon character.

and as for Janeway, she got assimilated and then blown up. she is like the proverbial parrot. dead. no more. ceased to be. no longer on this mortal coil.

oh, and i LIKE Before Dishonor.

Lady Q may have pulled her away at the last moment (that's what it seemed to me like anyway). What would be so hard to believe about that? Seriously, I think it's only the Janeway-haters who fail to see the easy (and likely) possibility of her return.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Janeway, in that final scene, also appears to be fully coherent, so whatever the Lady Q did, she also by the same token repaired the mental damage the Borg had inflicted during the book, stripping away Janeway's personality until only base instincts remained repressed beneath the will of the Collective.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

i've never known a writer to brag about killing off a canon character.

and as for Janeway, she got assimilated and then blown up. she is like the proverbial parrot. dead. no more. ceased to be. no longer on this mortal coil.

oh, and i LIKE Before Dishonor.

Lady Q may have pulled her away at the last moment (that's what it seemed to me like anyway). What would be so hard to believe about that? Seriously, I think it's only the Janeway-haters who fail to see the easy (and likely) possibility of her return.

It's easy - and therefore, that makes it something that SHOULDN'T happen. It would undermine the actual consequence of her death, which Full Circle is supposed to be covering amongst the Voyager characters.

Furthermore, if her death gets hand-waved away like that, I expect the explosion here to rival that of the one from her death happening in the first place.

 

[Elemental]

i've never known a writer to brag about killing off a canon character.

and as for Janeway, she got assimilated and then blown up. she is like the proverbial parrot. dead. no more. ceased to be. no longer on this mortal coil.

oh, and i LIKE Before Dishonor.

Lady Q may have pulled her away at the last moment (that's what it seemed to me like anyway). What would be so hard to believe about that? Seriously, I think it's only the Janeway-haters who fail to see the easy (and likely) possibility of her return.

It's easy - and therefore, that makes it something that SHOULDN'T happen. It would undermine the actual consequence of her death, which Full Circle is supposed to be covering amongst the Voyager characters.

Furthermore, if her death gets hand-waved away like that, I expect the explosion here to rival that of the one from her death happening in the first place.

Did Spock's return make his death any less poignant?

And what exactly are the consequences of her death that you speak of? Nothing! It was more of a sham death than Tasha Yar or Jadzia Dax. Not that they weren't effective, but I think a main character like Janeway deserves better. I'm not saying it didn't make for a good plot event but for her to be gone just like that, in a TNG novel... just doesn't seem to do the character the justice she deserves (I'm sure others would say differently). It would have been like if they just killed off Picard while he was Locutus. And I am looking forward to learning of some of the fallout of her loss in Full Circle.

 

[Snaploud]

Did Spock's return make his death any less poignant?

Yes

 

[rfmcdpei]

storylines. IMHO, of course.

I find this statement a bit humorous given the conversations in another thread about very bizzare moments in Trek lit. They certainly don't need to resort to bringing characters back from the dead (something done quite regularly in the Trek series and movies btw), in order to "undermine the seriousness" of some storylines.[/QUOTE]

That's a fallacy: There may be other flaws with Trek lit, but the fact that one flaw might exist doesn't justify the existence of another. In this particular case, arbitrarily bringing Janeway back to life, after she's been established as dead and after the literature has already established the reaction to her death, would cheapen the whole.

They left things very open-ended so I don't see how it would be disbelievable at all.

Not really. Lady Q first said that Janeway was dead, then said that while Janeway existed she did so in a different way, and finally said that there wasn't any going back. There's no reason to think that she was lying to Janeway, or that Q didn't know what was going on.

Janeway did raise the example of Spock, but that person is the only person in Trek-full-stop who has been resurrected. Even Jadzia Dax survives only as a shadow personality preserved by the symbiont, while Enterprise-C Tasha Yar's only legacy is Sela. Bringing Janeway back--at least in any recognizable form--would just run too blatantly against the Trek grain even if we're only talking about TV and the movies. Trek lit does feature any number of characters of note who have died and have died permanently, even completely. Why would Janeway be any different?

Maybe, maybe, you might see a post-Janeway entity make an appearance--Wesley still features, if in the background. That's as far as I'd be wiling to go.

 

[Therin of Andor]

And what exactly are the consequences of her death that you speak of? Nothing!

"Full Circle".

And I am looking forward to learning of some of the fallout of her loss in Full Circle.

Exactly.

 

[Ktrek]

I guess I would want to know if bringing her back from the dead would serve any significant purpose other than to do so because they could? She has not been of any real consequence in stories that would justify trying to find a way to bring her back. I don't like the idea any more than I like the idea of bringing Data back. Now if a story was written that involved Janeway set during the show then fine. Same with Data but otherwise keep her dead. We should learn to mourn characters we love and move on.

Kevin

 

[LutherSloan]

Do we have a full list of all the characters who have been 'killed', but then returned? I can't think of many.

-Spock
-Picard
-Sisko
-Ben Finney (faked death)
-Lyndsay Ballard (from Voyager)

 

[Snaploud]

^Are we counting the TNG episode "Cause and Effect?" If so, you're going to have a very long list.

 

[USS Triumphant]

so all may not be lost in terms of fixing the steaming pile that was Before Dishonour.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you, there - any book written by Peter David (one of my favorite authors at any time, but bucking for No. 1 with Before Dishonor) that involves killing off Janeway in as senseless and disrespectful a manner possible? That's good reading, right there.

 

[TGTheodore]

Do we have a full list of all the characters who have been 'killed', but then returned? I can't think of many.

-Spock
-Picard
-Sisko
-Ben Finney (faked death)
-Lyndsay Ballard (from Voyager)

Scotty "The Ultimate Computer"
Chekov "Spectre of the Gun"
McCoy "Shore Leave"

I'm sure there are others.

--Ted

 

[Christopher]

Do we have a full list of all the characters who have been 'killed', but then returned? I can't think of many.

-Spock
-Picard
-Sisko
-Ben Finney (faked death)
-Lyndsay Ballard (from Voyager)

Uhh, when did Picard die? Do you mean "Tapestry?" I'm not sure that counts. Q claimed that Picard was dead, but Q is a well-known liar.

As for Sisko, he didn't die, he was taken into the wormhole to be with the Prophets.

McCoy was killed and resurrected in "Shore Leave" and Scotty was in "The Changeling," though those were both cases of Sufficiently Advanced (medical) Technology reviving them shortly after clinical death.

 

[Trent Roman]

Not really. Lady Q first said that Janeway was dead, then said that while Janeway existed she did so in a different way, and finally said that there wasn't any going back. There's no reason to think that she was lying to Janeway, or that Q didn't know what was going on.

That's the Q for you: honest and straightforward.

If and when Janeway makes a return, it assuredly should not be a simple 'hand-wave', as someone said: it should be hard, momentous and disruptive, and land not only Janeway but a fair number of others into changed circumstances. But then, I've always been of the (crazy, no doubt) opinion that the living have more dramatic potential than the dead. One could even use it to explore ground that should have been covered in the series but was largely bypassed, other than KRAD's short story in Distant Shores: how do you react to a sudden resurgence of someone presumed dead when you've already grieved and moved on with your life? How do people feel, confronted with this ghost from the past made flesh once more, perhaps expecting a place you can no longer provide, disruptive all the relationships forged in their absence? And how alone does that person feel, returned to a changed world, undoubtedly changed herself for the experience, discovering that she has been replaced, made redundant, adrift in the once familiar? Good story potential there, I think.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman