Janeway's Convient Morals

[Guy Gardener]

I watched the Pam Anderson Celebrity Roast recently.

It got heated in the middle, when one of the "comedians" rattled off a list of Pam's lovers and husbands and then he said "My god woman, you're Fucking your way to the middle."

Janeway's sexual politics has had a huge impact on her crew. What's the difference between not breeding with Q for a fastpass home, and petitioning the entire crew to breed with the quicksilver lifeforms after she handed over her own DNA, and the entire technology of her ship and culture for mass reproduction for zero quid pro quo? And if that's "breeding" then considering how the Hiogen abused her "gift" to create a scentient slave race, that's as much breeding as agreeing to let the caretaker finish raping her crew when it was trying to make (shades of the original Charlie and the Chocolate factory by the way.) a child to oversee the Ocampan cattle, or offered themselves up like Norrin Radd to Galactus to be his herald and go get what he needs, which might have humoured the old coot enough to send them home in the hours before his death. hell, he asked her to be their caretaker, adopt his "children" and she said "No, a raging space battle and being misplaced for 70 years seems more idyllic."

Why not just lie to the thing who was a rapist and murderer of her crew?

Her morality flipflopped that this Captain gave out for free one week which demanded from her the next week in exchange for a ticket home she closeted close to her breast as too precious.

It's almost like she wanted to stay lost.

 

[Zameaze]

THe biggest no no Janway has done was her tirade against Ransom's ensign in Equinox. everything else I would have understood or approved of.....

Ah, back on topic. Does this mean that you approve of her making a pact with the Borg to enable them to engage in genocide against Species 8472? She gave the Borg information on how to assimilate Species 8472! How do we call her moral. If we call her moral, can't we call Hitler moral also?

Minus of course her meddling in the time line in Endgame but then Harry Kim, Chakotay, and Kirk have done that blatantly enough.

This is the way Janeway is always excused for her immorality--by talking about the bad things others do. But this does not make her any more moral. We're discussing Janeway here, not her crew or other captains.

 

[exodus]

Ah, back on topic. Does this mean that you approve of her making a pact with the Borg to enable them to engage in genocide against Species 8472? She gave the Borg information on how to assimilate Species 8472! How do we call her moral. If we call her moral, can't we call Hitler moral also?

No, Speices 8472 like Hitler were the aggressors, not Janeway. Species 8472 declaired: "The weak will perish." and threatened that every living creature in our space would be purged regardless of their association w/ the Borg or anybody else. They declaired war on us. In times of war, Janeways actions are justified and supported.

Sasquist: Ransom's ensign lost his rights & privilages when he and the Equinox crew jumped ship, purposely leaving Voyager's defences vunerable and commiting their fellow officers to what could have been certain death. At that point the Equniox crew became terrorist against their own people. That's treason and punishable by death.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lost their rights and privileges? Noah Lessing was a federation Citizen. Hunting the maquis because the federation REFUSED to accept their disenfranchisement kinda proves that there is no way out. Just like the mob. Starfleet is the police, not the judiciary? And even then what sort of power does Janeway have to create classifications of citizenship? The power of a captain to dispense law is one thing, to instill creative punishment on crew which is basically refined detention, but to create law is another even if Voyager was practically a foreign state divorced for the protection of it's homeland by 70 years to say that some of her crew are more like slaves than other is just gross.

Losing their rights and privileges as Starfleet officers is different from losing their rights and privileges as federation citizens. And honestly, if they resigned their commission, what power did janeway have over them in foreign space? She had no right to do squat to them unless they were on board Voyager which was a federation Embassy. However, if they were not Starfleet Officers, depending on salvage laws, the actual ship still belonged to starfleet and arguably janeway if Ransom could be classified as "Rogue".

Directive 101.

The right to avoid self incrimination. (Seen in Meld. Afforded to Suder after he murdered crew.)

Exodus, The Borg invaded Fluidic Space. 8472 stopped them and then chased them to their homefront and then pushed even harder. President Bush was saying he championed such policies right after 911, when finding the culpable parties seemed more important than an easy victory against an innocent patsy. Imagine the Polish cavalry stopped the Nazi armoured tank advance in 1939, and then marched torward the Riche to exterminate the bastards who thought they were easy pickings? By that metaphor, lets say that janeway was Degaul who felt obligated to feint off the genocide taking place almost next door to where they eat.

 

[Zameaze]

Ah, back on topic. Does this mean that you approve of her making a pact with the Borg to enable them to engage in genocide against Species 8472? She gave the Borg information on how to assimilate Species 8472! How do we call her moral. If we call her moral, can't we call Hitler moral also?

In times of war, Janeways actions are justified and supported.

Does this excuse genocide in your mind? If so, does this mean that it would have been all right to wipe out all the German and Japanese people during World War 2? Women and children included?

 

[Anwar]

Considering that at the time the only other course was to sit back and let the 8472 destroy all life in the Universe, yes they were right to stop them and give the only ones capable of fighting them (the Borg) the means to do so. If the 8472 wanted to be seen as the victims, they shouldn't have declared their intentions of wiping out everyone else as well.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Mass genocide of all races in a sector because your space was invaded by a hostile entity from said sector is pretty extreme.

It's like intending to kill all birds in creation because a pigeon plopped one on your car. You should just go after the pigeons that did the deed. Sure, there are other birds that could have done it. Yup, there's no questions those other birds are capable, and you know they even fly in the same space. But, you saw the pigeon do it.

You go after the pigeon.

8472 stated they were going to go after everyone... not just the Borg.

No matter who started it, what matters is what the end result of doing nothing would be. In this case, the end result would have been complete annihilation of an entire quadrant because it was clear the Borg were not adjusting quickly enough to win the war they started.

At that point, you have to step back and take some serious inventory of who the worst of the two enemies in front of you are. At that point in time, you would be hard pressed to say it wasn't 8472 based on the evidence provided.

Chakotay wanted to go off and hope that 8472 didn't catch them and only focused on the Borg. Yup, 8472 probably would have destroyed the Borg, but it was very clearly stated that 8472 would not stop there, and something the Borg can't even stop is, frankly, scary as hell.

Had it not been for the Borg and Voyager's crew coming together, there's no way a weapon that could stop 8472 would have been created in time.

At the point Janeway made her decision, she was following her stated morality. That morality was to protect her crew and the Federation. There is no doubt 8472 would have reached the alpha quadrant and started destroying an already fragile Federation.

In this particular case, Janeway was not straying from her stated morality. She never said she wouldn't share technology or make deals with the enemy if it meant preventing mass destruction of the galaxy as she knew it.

I'm dumbfounded there is even a question as to whether or not she did the right thing.

8472 wasn't willing to talk. They weren't willing to negotiate. There was no way of knowing who started it. At that point, it didn’t matter. 8472 was out for blood.

At some point, every being in creation has one thought... survival and protection of their own kind.

That is Janeway's ultimate morality, and that is what she did.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Picard got chewed out in I, Borg for not exterminating the Borg. Nacheyev clearly stated that it was the duty of every starfleet officer to exterminate the Borg down to their last drone, and if Picard was going to punk out again, she would take his ship.

In The swarm, after Janeway rudely and criminally trespassed across the backyard of some space bastards who planned to turn her crew inside out... Chakotay spent the whole time playing and fiddling with the universal translator and the message asking them to stand down because they don't intend to no harm. After hours of trying to no avail as they kept on being attacked and attacked janeway tells him to give up and that there is no point in talking to these "things' who have made their objective so clear. Talking is for wimps. She ends up killing hundreds of ships with [perhaps thousands of crew. She's not a great communicator (Hmm? Wouldn't it have been odd if "The Fight" havd been her episode? it might have been viewed as... O? Her opponent might have been a woman? Foxy Boxing? How patronizing. But a show were a woman learns to communicate via HOW she is beaten by a man? However B'Elanna kicked Tom's ass till she orgasmed in Bloodfever, so maybe to be thought of as equal, there should be any qualms about men striking women within the agreed upon rules of a game if there are no qualms about women striking men, or men striking men.)

When it's hard to talk and easy to kill, Janeway makes the easy choice and kills.

PreCaretaker janeway wasn't too perplexed about forming an alliance with the Borg in Shattered? Shocked maybe, but no epiphany that she is criminally weak and a traitor. Although arguably Janeway trying to create a working relationship with the Borg is only as bad as Spock tying to reunify with Romulus. But if her younger self, pure and not worn with impossible decisions thought that her older self had to be stopped, it wouldn't have been impossible to turn the tables on her future X0's plan if (half as capable and competent) Seska thought she could do the same thing.

When Picard disagreed with his older selfs decisions in Time Squared. he phasered him dead.

Captain Janeway told Admiral janeway to stick it in her nose with a rubber hose.

Captain janeway blasted Braxton into the middle of the 20th century.

She has a history of disagreeing with timetravelers, maybe the only reason she was going along with Chakotay is that right up till the end when he said that it wasn't so, that she assumed they were into one another and that this was a temporal bootycall? If she trusts the man with her delicate flower, then of course she trusts him with the timespace continuum.

 

[Zameaze]

Well argued, Adm_Hawthorne.

8472 stated they were going to go after everyone... not just the Borg.

And the Soviet Union stated that they would annihilate us. If it had been in our power, would it then have been moral to eradicate them--every man, woman, and child?

In this case, the end result would have been complete annihilation of an entire quadrant because it was clear the Borg were not adjusting quickly enough to win the war they started.

We cannot know this. To avoid putting words in your mouth, I have to ask--do you consider genocide to be a moral act at times?

BTW, was Janeway's narcissistic personality disorder so great that she felt she had a right to make such a decision? What happened to The Prime Directive?

 

[Anwar]

Well argued, Adm_Hawthorne.

8472 stated they were going to go after everyone... not just the Borg.

And the Soviet Union stated that they would annihilate us. If it had been in our power, would it then have been moral to eradicate them--every man, woman, and child?

No, but it would have been moral to arm ourselves and others to defend themselves from said unprovoked genocidal maniacs. And if the ONLY way to fight back was to kill them all? Well, them's the breaks for being such un-negotiable douchebags willing to fight to the death in the first place.

In this case, the end result would have been complete annihilation of an entire quadrant because it was clear the Borg were not adjusting quickly enough to win the war they started.

We cannot know this. To avoid putting words in your mouth, I have to ask--do you consider genocide to be a moral act at times?

BTW, was Janeway's narcissistic personality disorder so great that she felt she had a right to make such a decision? What happened to The Prime Directive?[/QUOTE]

We CAN know this, we DO know this. The 8472 made it plain clear to everyone. They were going to kill ALL LIFE. It's TOTALLY justifiable to fight back against the 8472 in that situation.

Janeway DID have a right to defend the Federation and other sentient life from what is basically "Anti-Life".

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think it's pretty clear how Starfleet felt about Borg rights.

From decent part 1.

NECHAYEV: As I understand, it you found a single Borg at a crash site, brought it aboard the Enterprise, studied it, analysed it, and eventually found a way to send it back to the Borg with a programme that would have destroyed the entire collective once and for all. But instead, you nursed the Borg back to health, treated it like a guest, gave it a name, and then sent it home. Why?
PICARD: When Hugh was separated from the Borg collective he began to grow and to evolve into something other than an automaton. He became a person. When that happened, I felt I had no choice but to respect his rights as an individual.
NECHAYEV: Of course you had a choice. You could've taken the opportunity to rid the Federation of a mortal enemy, one that has killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and which may kill even more.
PICARD: No one is more aware of the danger than I am. But I am also bound by my oath and my conscience to uphold certain principles. And I will not sacrifice them in order to
NECHAYEV: Your priority is to safeguard the lives of Federation citizens, not to wrestle with your conscience. Now I want to make it clear that if you have a similar opportunity in the future, an opportunity to destroy the Borg, you are under orders to take advantage of it. Is that understood?
PICARD: Yes, sir.

yes the Russians, i just loved that line from Sting from his song where he asks if the Russians love their children too? Point of order is that there are no Borg children nor even Borg Civilians, and every single one of them is equally culpable of every decision made by the collective because the trillions and trillions of them are a single individual. They barely qualify as humanoid rather than macrovirus and we know what Janeways opinions on macrovirus rights are.

Not that macroviruses can't be people too.

But if some one wants to kill the Borg, it's practically a rule that Starfleet officers are supposed to open the door for which ever smart bugger figured out how to kill them.

Though the Borg had been wandering around for over 700 years, and it's obvious that they had established an equilibrium and a place in thegalactic ecosystem, which can't be said the same for 8472.

Considering how cuddly 8472 turned out, in retrospect they were just employing something a little more elegant than the Corbinite manoeuvre to make sure that wen they finished exercising the Borg and her (her? Really? that's how I think?) allies they might have just gone home, since when they came back, their only plan of action was to skip over the thousands of inhabitated worlds and march straight onto earth since them is the buggers who gave them a bloody nose, not the rest of the Galaxy.

By the way, what did Auxum mean by patrolling the Boarder of Fluidic Space?

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Well argued, Adm_Hawthorne.

Thanks, I'm a veteran defender of Voyager...

And the Soviet Union stated that they would annihilate us. If it had been in our power, would it then have been moral to eradicate them--every man, woman, and child?

Apples to oranges. The Soviet Union and the States (I'm assuming that's the 'us' you mean here) were both throwing verbal threats at each other... hence Cold War. Neither one was willing to go out and destroy the world as we know it. If 8472 had destroyed our universe, there is no evidence it would have really affected them at all. If the USSR or the States had sent nukes out on the mass scale that was threatened, it would have affected both parties adversely for centuries because it would have affected the very planet in which the 'aggressor' lived, not to mention the political repercussions. I don't see any evidence that, if 8472 destroyed all living creatures in this universe, they would do be affected. Thus, I don't believe this is a good comparison.

Additionally, 8472 and the Borg were already engaged in hostile acts causing mass destruction on both sides when Voyager arrived. The destruction had already been set in motion. There was no stopping that.

We cannot know this. To avoid putting words in your mouth, I have to ask--do you consider genocide to be a moral act at times?

Yes because I'm Hitler. No, of course I don't believe genocide is ever an approved method of dealing with a situation. Hence my whole argument of stopping 8472. (Note, stopping them does not mean complete destrcution of them.)

We also cannot know if Chakotay's tactic would have fared any better.

What we did know was 8472 had declared all beings in this realm were to be destroyed. They have proved that by attacking Voyager, refusing to communicate, and threatening the Federation ship before even knowing if they were in cahoots with the Borg.

Seems pretty hostile to me, and it seems to me like they were making good on their word.

BTW, was Janeway's narcissistic personality disorder so great that she felt she had a right to make such a decision? What happened to The Prime Directive?

Quote me a passage in the Prime Directive... the Prime Directive - not an Admiral's angry outburst or something that may or may not have come from Starfleet command at some point ...and we'll go there.

If you're talking non-interference, that only applies to worlds less developed than the Federation. I don't believe 8472 or the Borg count.

If you want me to go into a conversation about whether Janeway was narcissistic, you're going to the wrong girl. I believe all Captains are somewhat narcissistic as I believe all people in positions of power are somewhat self-adsorbed. It comes with a position of leadership (says a former moderator).

Janeway felt she didn't have a choice but to make some kind of decision, which is the point of this whole thread, in my opinion.

If Kathryn's decisions were wishy-washy (which they were form time-to-time) it was because, at that time, she weighed the greatest of two evils versus what was best for her crew. What she came up with that satisfied the least harmful conditions is generally what she went with.

You can argue that she had questionable morality just as you can argue the same for DS9's captain, or Kirk on many of his escapades. The only captain that doesn't fall into that trap often is Picard. Not sure how that happened, but there you go.

When it comes to the concept of morality, you're arguing for something that happens in the heat of the moment based on previous experience and personal attitudes. I believe Kathryn Janeway remained as true to herself and her convictions as she could while still protecting her crew.

At the point the array was destroyed, that became her first duty. Her second was to get them home.

 

[SpyOne]

Ah, back on topic. Does this mean that you approve of her making a pact with the Borg to enable them to engage in genocide against Species 8472? She gave the Borg information on how to assimilate Species 8472! How do we call her moral. If we call her moral, can't we call Hitler moral also?

No, Speices 8472 like Hitler were the aggressors, not Janeway. Species 8472 declaired: "The weak will perish." and threatened that every living creature in our space would be purged regardless of their association w/ the Borg or anybody else. They declaired war on us. In times of war, Janeways actions are justified and supported.

Exactly. It was much more like backing Stalin against Hitler: yes, we expect they'll be a threat to us later, but right now they are a stong ally against our strongest opponent.

The enemy of my enemy is not always a nice guy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Klingons count according to the noninterference policy in redemption part two which is just viewed as an alternate name for the Prime Directive.

B"Elanna broke the Prime Directive by helping robots who were mostly using a more advanced technology than Voyager. helped them make babies, not realizing that she was helping them make soldiers. Silly girl.

I wrote and lost fanfiction years ago that sprung forth from a line in a novel which had Riker claiming that if they were of a good enough character not to frack with less advanced cultures, then he sure as hell didn't want more advanced cultres frakking with his... That if the federation broke the transwarp barrier, they would have climbed up a wrung on the socialtechnical development ladder to the point that thye would have to hide and cut off ties with all species who had not as yet developed transwarp because thopse are all now definitively less advanced races than the federation now.

Oh, hawethorne, it's not the complete document, but it is the geneis of the complete notion...

KIRK: The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.
SPOCK: Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?
KIRK: No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet.
MCCOY: No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations.

 

[Zameaze]

Here is another example of Janeway's immorality. I copied this from This Site. What do you think?

Tuvix (Star Trek Voyager)
Tuvix was one of the most troubling Star Trek episodes ever featuring a transporter accident that blended Tuvok and Neelix into a single entity, Tuvix, a man with both their qualities and yet his own personality and mind. The resulting creation is an individual and a loyal crewmember eagerly serving as a friend and fellow officer until a way is discovered to reverse the transformation and restore Tuvok and Neelix by destroying Tuvix.

Tuvix protests his own destruction and yet finds no allies among a stepford Voyager crew but the Doctor who refuses to carry out an act that will murder a sentient and intelligent creature. So it is Janeway herself who pulls the metaphorical switch, murdering Tuvix to restore Tuvok and Neelix.

The troubling issues of Tuvix and Janeway's role in the murder of a defenseless person raised questions within fandom for some time after. Tuvix had been a unique creation with his own personality. He had come about through no fault of his own and had not set out to destroy Tuvok or Neelix. His murder might be comparable to keeping Tuvok and Neelix alive by killing a third party and harvesting their organs. Yet ironically when Neelix's own organs were harvested, Janeway let it go. That kind of confused morality was an unfortunate hallmark of Star Trek Voyager as well as Captain Janeway's continued inability to distinguish between crew and family.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Tuvix is an argument for "murder is good". He had to be murdered and only Janeway could have done it, so he was murdered and Janeway is evil for doing the right thing.

later we found out that neelix thought it was a good idea in riddles when he told "Nuvok" to get brain surgery to murder the new personality which had grown between his pointy ears to return the origianl to dominance.

Cop out.

"Nuvok" didn't defy the countdown to his surgery so janeway wasn't forced to wield the scalple her self if he continued to refuse his mandated brain surgery.

Did Tuvok ever council Neelix about some "change" close to a repetition of the Tuvix incident?

 

[Anwar]

The Tuvix thing has been done to death. My opinion is that she did the right thing, and Tuvix should NOT have been spared at the expense of the still-living Neelix and Tuvok (and yes, they WERE alive).

Plus, a lot of the distaste comes from double standard in that the critics of that episode simply didn't like Neelix and Tuvok and thus didn't care if they died. If it had been Spock and McCoy who were fused together nobody would have wanted them to stay that way because they LIKED both characters.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Who hates Tuvok?

He's either incredibly awesome or quiet int he background while Kim is being a dick or Neelix is being a dandy.

 

[blackzoid]

Speaking of Equinox, I always found the scene with Janeway lowering the shields so that the Equinox crewmember would be persuaded to give information on his ship to be quite uncomfortable.

I'm gonna go with an above comment and agree that the percived lack of oversight for Janeway's actions is what is causing some of the problems people have with her moral decisions. Every other captain was in constant contact with their superiors, not her. As a result some of us are finding it a lot harder to justify her decisions. There's the Captain Nemo scenario to consider of someone being without contact with higher authority for a long time and so making up their own moral decisions.

However, I would not count the Species 8472 situation against her. When the pact with the Borg was brokered, it was not known that the Borg had started the war. Also from what was known of them, Species 8472 was intent on wiping out all life in the Milky Way. Janeway was developing a defensive weapon for the Borg only, she didn't know that the Borg had the technology to travel to the alien's realm.

(Of course I would fault her utter stupidity in not asking for a transwarp coil from the Borg in that pact. All they got was the promise of not being assimilated. But no actual transwarp technology? In exchange for saving the Borg? Stupidity. But its not a moral problem anyway.)


"Plus, a lot of the distaste comes from double standard in that the critics of that episode simply didn't like Neelix and Tuvok and thus didn't care if they died. If it had been Spock and McCoy who were fused together nobody would have wanted them to stay that way because they LIKED both characters."

I would like Spock and McCoy to be two seperate characters as well and so would want Mpock/ScCoy to be killed. That doen't make what I want moral however. Not at all. I'm still commiting murder to do it.

 

[kimc]

The Tuvix thing has been done to death. My opinion is that she did the right thing, and Tuvix should NOT have been spared at the expense of the still-living Neelix and Tuvok (and yes, they WERE alive).

Plus, a lot of the distaste comes from double standard in that the critics of that episode simply didn't like Neelix and Tuvok and thus didn't care if they died. If it had been Spock and McCoy who were fused together nobody would have wanted them to stay that way because they LIKED both characters.

Exactly.