Kirsten Beyer invitation in VOY forum

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

i'd like to know how many of these militant Janeway fans have actually lost a close member of their family to be able to make an accurate comparison between the pain of such a loss and the alledged pain of losing Janeway.

You do know that only ONE person has said this right?

But I suppose it was so deliciously outrageous its a wonderfully colorful stick.

What do the other militant Janeway fans think then, Teacake?
It does seem so be quite a touchy subject and we all know what the Voyager forum is like.

The Voyager forum is a lovely place, the same as the ENT forum. They just don't take kindly to people who post only to trash the series. Both those forums have seen the trolling kind of "this series was crap" post and they are quick to tell those posters to piss off.

As to what do the militant Janeway fans think.. that they would like to see her return in the novels. How, when, why, what happens next.. well everyone has their preferences and I think the majority of people don't see their preferences as any more than that. I know I've posted many times I would like to see her return and I certainly don't expect my preferences for what happens next to automatically follow.

And no, we don't think killing her off was like killing one of our family members. Whether the original poster of that line was employing hyperbole or not I have no idea but I've certainly never read that sentiment elsewhere. I realize on a nerd topic board people will always love to point the nerd bone at fellow posters as being TOO extreme, presumably because it makes them feel superior?

I think I tend to agree with Gov Kodos on this issue. Just loosen the canon. Instead of coming up with some lame Janeway resurrection just ignore the book in which she dies and write new stories as if nothing ever happened.

I know, I know... some people think canon is holy.

I just posted on this in the VOY forum so rather than repeat..

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5082313&postcount=14

To sum up, I don't think the canon is the problem so much as the choice of what kind of stories are told. I think canon is quite doable (though personally I can take it or leave it in books).

 

[Christopher]

See, it never occurred to me that Sisko WAS dead.

Nobody ever claimed he was!

SISKO: The Prophets saved me, Kasidy. I'm their Emissary and they still have a great deal for me to do. But first, there is much to learn. Things only the Prophets can teach me.
KASIDY: When will you be back?
SISKO: It's hard to say. Maybe a year, maybe yesterday. But I will be back.
KASIDY: And I will be waiting.

Sisko was quite unambiguously alive at the end of DS9. He stated emphatically that he would be back. There was absolutely nothing in the story to indicate that he died. So anyone who thought he was dead was simply not paying attention.

I think I tend to agree with Gov Kodos on this issue. Just loosen the canon. Instead of coming up with some lame Janeway resurrection just ignore the book in which she dies and write new stories as if nothing ever happened.

I know, I know... some people think canon is holy.

The word "canon" has nothing whatsoever to do with the novels. The canon, by definition, is the core body of work, the television series and films. The novels are tie-ins, apocryphal works that supplement the canon. If canon is history, than tie-ins are historical fiction. They're stories that could've happened, but there's no guarantee that they did.

And as such, the tie-ins are not required to have a single continuity. There is an overall continuity that has tied the majority of the novels together for the past decade, but there have always been those that didn't fit with the rest -- the Shatnerverse, the Crucible trilogy, the concluding Rihannsu novels, increasingly New Frontier (so I gather), standalones like The Children of Kings, the Star Trek Online novel, the Abramsverse young-adult books, etc. As I've already pointed out, at least two of those other novel continuities (Shatnerverse and Online) already portray Kathryn Janeway living on beyond the date of her death in the main novel continuity.

 

[{ Emilia }]

And as such, the tie-ins are not required to have a single continuity. There is an overall continuity that has tied the majority of the novels together for the past decade, but there have always been those that didn't fit with the rest -- the Shatnerverse, the Crucible trilogy, the concluding Rihannsu novels, increasingly New Frontier (so I gather), standalones like The Children of Kings, the Star Trek Online novel, the Abramsverse young-adult books, etc.

So you're saying there's already different continuities and the books don't require one single continuity. Where have I heard that before?

Oh, right. I wrote that.
I appreciate your effort in re-wording what I said earlier while also showing an admirable tendency to lecture people.

Shamelessly quoting myself:

But do the books really have to be canon in their own little world? Like Kestrel pointed out there are already different continuities. I don't see a problem if some author just decides to ignore the book in which Janeway dies.
It's a big franchise so one author killing off a character has a big effect on other authors who might or might not agree with that decision.

I apologize for my casual use of the word canon that deviates from the christopher-definition.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

See, it never occurred to me that Sisko WAS dead.

Nobody ever claimed he was!

Umm, Christopher, if you read my earlier post in this very thread, you'll see that 1) I thought Sisko was dead, immolated in the Fire Caves, and 2) I was disappointed that Unity brought Sisko back. Indeed, I stopped reading DS9 fiction with Unity because of Sisko's return. I wasn't just disappointed that Sisko wasn't left dead, as an atheist I was outright offended by his return.

SISKO: The Prophets saved me, Kasidy. I'm their Emissary and they still have a great deal for me to do. But first, there is much to learn. Things only the Prophets can teach me.
KASIDY: When will you be back?
SISKO: It's hard to say. Maybe a year, maybe yesterday. But I will be back.
KASIDY: And I will be waiting.

And as I said in that previous post, which I'm getting the distinct impression you didn't read, I believe that vision of Sisko was clearly wish-fulfillment on Kasidy's part.

Sisko was quite unambiguously alive at the end of DS9. He stated emphatically that he would be back. There was absolutely nothing in the story to indicate that he died. So anyone who thought he was dead was simply not paying attention.

Umm, he fell into fire. There's no unambiguous evidence that Sisko survived. As I said, I believe that Kasidy's vision can be viewed as wish-fulfillment on her part. I wrote this on Psi Phi back in December 2002:

"Maybe I'm just being dense or argumentative for argument's sake (and neither would be the first time), but why assume that Sisko can come back? What's to say that Sisko didn't die in the plunge into the Fire Caves? What's to say that Kasidy's vision was nothing more than wish-fulfillment on her part? And even supposing that Sisko's soul/spirit/katra/pagh/whathaveyou exists with the Prophets in anything more than a metaphorical sense, why assume that Sisko could manifest his presence as anything more than a disembodied spirit? Why assume that the Prophets can recreate a body that was destroyed in the Fire Caves?"

My opinion on this hasn't changed in nine years. I'm still not convinced that Sisko didn't die in "What You Leave Behind." People die. It happens. People imagine conversations with deceased loved ones. It happens, too. And yes, Christopher, I did pay attention to the episode, no matter what you may think.

 

[Christopher]

I apologize for my casual use of the word canon that deviates from the christopher-definition.

Oh, for Pete's sake, don't make this personal. It's the dictionary definition, not mine.

 

[Thestral]

{Emilia}, I basically agree with you, but I just don't really see how it's all that restrictive keeping the general events in the main Litverse following a general history. There's always alternative stories and alternative histories, and outside of Destiny there's not been all that much that requires great knowledge of the events in another book series.

I don't really see a problem either with a book ignoring that Janeway died, but you can't then have it be part of the ongoing book series that Kirsten Beyer's writing or expect it's events to be referenced therein.

What's to say that Kasidy's vision was nothing more than wish-fulfillment on her part? Why assume that the Prophets can recreate a body that was destroyed in the Fire Caves?

I don't see how it would really be a big deal for the Prophets, who've shown an ability to "remove" matter before (the Jem'Hadar fleet) and who exist outside of linear time, to snatch him from the Fire Caves as he fell and then deposit him elsewhere some time later. I mean, for the Q it would be quite trivial and while the Prophets don't appear to be omnipotent, their demonstrated abilities make this clearly possible. Also, we the viewers see Sisko in Prophetland without Kas.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And as I said in that previous post, which I'm getting the distinct impression you didn't read, I believe that vision of Sisko was clearly wish-fulfillment on Kasidy's part.

You have created that out of nothing. There is no indication that it is wish fulfilment, a theory I've never seen anyone mention before.

I've created Trip being Not.Dead in TATV based on the look Phlox and Archer exchange as they slide him into the medical chamber. This is my fantasy answer, makes me very satisfied, but I'm certainly not going to argue it's what actually happened on screen!

 

[KQuita]

I must have missed a title, and will have to go back and double check, but I was of the understanding that Admiral Janeway was dead. I went through the bereavement with Chakotay over her death and there lost opportunity for love, The loss of his command, through Tom's losses (temporarily with B'Ellana and Miral and in reality with his Father).
I am in favor of Chakotay regaining his captaincy and Janeway being return to the Admirality assisting in the rebuilding of the ships of the fleet.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

And as I said in that previous post, which I'm getting the distinct impression you didn't read, I believe that vision of Sisko was clearly wish-fulfillment on Kasidy's part.

You have created that out of nothing. There is no indication that it is wish fulfilment, a theory I've never seen anyone mention before.

For what it's worth, it doesn't bother me that virtually no one shares my view on the ending of "What You Leave Behind," and I do know of some others who share it (but who probably didn't abandon the DS9 novels as I did because of Unity). But I didn't pull it "out of nothing." The intention of Ira Steven Behr was that Sisko was dead; the scene in the clouds was written to mollify Avery Brooks, who was concerned about the optics of a black man dying and abandoning his child.

 

[flemm]

^ I do know some fans who prefer to think that Sisko died at the end of WYLB. Generally they refer, as you just did, to the writers' original intent, which was for him to die.

I don't personally think that the original intent really matters since the ending was in fact changed.

I don't really agree, however, with the notion expressed above that there is no room for ambiguity in the ending as actually written. Sisko is with the Prophets, and clearly he is speaking of time in a non-linear fashion, as the Prophets often do. Maybe in a year, maybe yesterday, maybe tomorrow... whatever the actual words are. If it could be "yesterday," then it is possible that he will never return in the literal sense.

Incidentally, I don't spontaneously grasp how Sisko returning would be offensive to your convictions as an atheist. It just means Sisko never died: his corporeal form was removed from linear time in the fire caves and returned to linear time via the orb. Something of that nature. As with everything the Prophets do, what happens with Sisko can just as easily be seen as the work of the "wormhole aliens."

 

[Thestral]

I think, since television's not the work of one person's vision but many, that since Brooks was given such room to change things with his character, the writer's intent doesn't work there.

 

[neogothboy74]

Incidentally, I don't spontaneously grasp how Sisko returning would be offensive to your convictions as an atheist. It just means Sisko never died: his corporeal form was removed from linear time in the fire caves and returned to linear time via the orb. Something of that nature. As with everything the Prophets do, what happens with Sisko can just as easily be seen as the work of the "wormhole aliens."

I'm curious about that too. I'm an atheist myself and I love the Prophets storyline on DS9 because the Prophets are just the wormhole aliens to me and their actions and storylines make sense to me. I can see why people might worship them, and how they may be viewed as Gods (the show does a really good job of presenting both views) and the Bajorans (and Cardassions) are my favorite Trek aliens. I've often had to explain to others how the most overtly religious of the Trek programs is also my personal favorite of the bunch. Yet I don't understand how the actions of the Prophets as seen in DS9 would be offensive to an athiest - they're just aliens in the Trek-verse. It would be like me saying that as an athiest the Q or any other god like entity they've encounterd in Trek offends me. I can't imagine why they would. Especially since they're clearly fictional.

I never interpreted Sisko as dead...but I viewed him as gone and wasn't sure he would ever return. I treasured the stories where he was away...I missed him, but it brought such wonderful stories from Kira and Kassidy and Jake and Ro and I just rode the wave...I was very happy (I'm pretty sure I cried) when he returned, but it was how he returned and the culmination of events that hit me - not just that he was back, and I've been very happy with him not returning to command DS9 itself.

Having said that, I can see how someone could view the finale and see in those events that Sisko had died and to interpret it that way. A lot of things are open to interpretation. I myself view "The Visitor" episode as an experience given to Sisko by the Prophets - he's in the same kind of white space throughout it - yet there's nothing in the episode that says that it's related to the Prophets (accept that it's tied to the wormhole of course). I also view 'Dukat's delusions' in "Waltz" as visitations from the Pah Wraiths...though there's nothing in episode that says that. It's just something that makes sense to me...and I can understand not caring if nobody agrees with you because I feel the same way. If something later contradicted my theory (though I don't see why it would) it might give me pause, but I doubt I'd give up the line based on that. Though given the abrubt halt to the DS9 story shortly following "Unity" you might have gotten out just in time.

 

[Kirsten Beyer]

Hi folks,

I have just started a new thread in the Voyager Forum for anyone who has questions they want to ask for the upcoming Shoreleave panel. All of the relevant information is contained in the thread entitled "Questions for Bring Back Janeway Panel."

So if there is anything you'd like to ask, please post it there.

I look forward to answering your questions.

Best,
Kirsten Beyer

 

[Christopher]

And as I said in that previous post, which I'm getting the distinct impression you didn't read, I believe that vision of Sisko was clearly wish-fulfillment on Kasidy's part.

You have created that out of nothing. There is no indication that it is wish fulfilment, a theory I've never seen anyone mention before.

Of course audiences can read what they want into a text, but my point is that there's nothing in the text of "What You Leave Behind" itself that indicates that Sisko has died. The word "dead" is never used to describe him. Nobody in the story even believes him to be dead. He's missing and being searched for, and then Kasidy receives the visitation in which he says he's with the Prophets and will return. The text itself gives no indication that he's dead, so any such interpretation is extratextual.

I've created Trip being Not.Dead in TATV based on the look Phlox and Archer exchange as they slide him into the medical chamber. This is my fantasy answer, makes me very satisfied, but I'm certainly not going to argue it's what actually happened on screen!

Actually I'm quite certain that ambiguity was intentional. In TV and movie series writing, it's always a good idea to hedge your bets. Even if your show is almost certain to get cancelled, as long as the sets are still standing there's some slim chance that the decision could be reversed. Another network could offer to pick up the show, or some new show on your own network could fall through and leave the network desperate for something to fill an hour, or maybe the studio could be convinced to make direct-to-DVD movies. So you hedge your bets. You leave the door open a crack. If you end your series by killing off a main character, you leave in just a tiny bit of wiggle room so you can retcon the character back to life if, by some faint chance, the show itself gets brought back to life.

So I think it was quite intentional that they never actually showed the moment of Trip's death and had that ambiguous look pass between Phlox and Archer (even aside from the fact that it was all just a holodeck program to begin with). Not because they specifically intended that Trip was alive, but because they wanted to leave themselves the option to retcon him back to life if circumstances allowed it. (Same as with Spock's torpedo tube on Genesis or B-4 singing "Blue Skies." Not an indication that the creators intended a resurrection all along, but just enough ambiguity to create a glimmer of hope, just in case.)

I think, since television's not the work of one person's vision but many, that since Brooks was given such room to change things with his character, the writer's intent doesn't work there.

The divide isn't that absolute. TV is a highly collaborative industry. The leads in a series work closely with the writer-producers. They can be considered joint creators. It's not as if Brooks unilaterally changed the script without the showrunner's knowledge. Rather, Brooks asked the writer-producers to make the change and they agreed. So yes, the creators' intent does "work" here. The writers had one intent initially, but in consultation with their co-creator Avery Brooks, they modified that intent.

 

[Thestral]

^ Umm... with your first and third response-pieces there, I think you're saying what we're saying.

 

[Christopher]

^Err, no, I was specifically disagreeing with you about the writers' (or rather, creators', since it's a collaboration) intent. But I was agreeing that the creators' intent, in the final episode as produced and aired, is that Sisko was not at all dead.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't spontaneously grasp how Sisko returning would be offensive to your convictions as an atheist.

On the religious/spiritual side of things, people get one shot at life.

On the Star Trek side of things, I think that Marco and S.D. Perry fundamentally violated the atheistic ethos of the Star Trek universe in bringing Sisko back. Humanity had outgrown religion and the need for the divine in the Star Trek universe.

For that matter, I thought that SCE did much the same with Rabbi Gold. Especially in these times when the Republican Party is growing increasingly hostile toward non-Christians, I think it's important for non-theists to see a positive atheistic universe like Star Trek; showing that human religions have survived into the 24th-century is not only offensive to Roddenberry's ideas, but it undercuts the idea that atheism finally won the historical argument. Roddenberry left human religion on the dustbin of history. It should have stayed there.

 

[BillJ]

For that matter, I thought that SCE did much the same with Rabbi Gold. Especially in these times when the Republican Party is growing increasingly hostile toward non-Christians, I think it's important for non-theists to see a positive atheistic universe like Star Trek; showing that human religions have survived into the 24th-century is not only offensive to Roddenberry's ideas, but it undercuts the idea that atheism finally won the historical argument. Roddenberry left human religion on the dustbin of history. It should have stayed there.

I thought the idea was that there's room for everyone in the 23rd/24th century and that we respected each other? Regardless of differences or beliefs.

 

[Christopher]

Roddenberry wasn't an atheist. He certainly seemed to believe that there might be some higher guiding force in the universe. He was just skeptical, to use Picard's words from Howard Weinstein's novel Power Hungry, "that any structure or philosophy devised by man could ever hope to represent or replicate divinity." He rejected organized religion, but understood that organized religion is not the only form of faith or spirituality.

Still, I learned a long time ago that religious faith isn't just about making assertions as to the origins of the universe or whether human beings evolved. It's a set of principles and values that help individuals relate to the universe and to one another. It's a symbolic structure that encodes morality and philosophy. Whether you see it as an objective truth or simply a metaphor, it can be of great value in giving people hope and inspiring them to kindness and decency. The judgmental types, the fundamentalists and extremists, the people who define their piety on the basis of what they denounce in others, are not the whole story. I've met plenty of people whose faith was about making themselves better people, rather than just making themselves feel like better people by denouncing those who disagreed with them. People who had deeply felt convictions of their own but would never think of imposing them on others or condemning those who disagreed with them. And that kind of spiritual belief is entirely compatible with Star Trek's values of diversity, respect, and personal improvement. I've had devoutly Christian friends who unhesitatingly accepted me as a secular humanist, and I realized I'd be a right hypocrite if I didn't reciprocate the acceptance.

 

[j3067]

I don't spontaneously grasp how Sisko returning would be offensive to your convictions as an atheist.

On the religious/spiritual side of things, people get one shot at life.

On the Star Trek side of things, I think that Marco and S.D. Perry fundamentally violated the atheistic ethos of the Star Trek universe in bringing Sisko back. Humanity had outgrown religion and the need for the divine in the Star Trek universe.

For that matter, I thought that SCE did much the same with Rabbi Gold. Especially in these times when the Republican Party is growing increasingly hostile toward non-Christians, I think it's important for non-theists to see a positive atheistic universe like Star Trek; showing that human religions have survived into the 24th-century is not only offensive to Roddenberry's ideas, but it undercuts the idea that atheism finally won the historical argument. Roddenberry left human religion on the dustbin of history. It should have stayed there.

[FONT=Arial]"Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God" (TOS: "The Ultimate Computer").

[/FONT][FONT=Arial]"Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God." (TOS: "Bread and Circuses").[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]"Man has no need for gods. We find the one quite sufficient.". -Kirk (TOS: "Who Mourns for Adonais").[/FONT]

"Oh, yes. In fact, while I was there I made it a point to study a number of them. I spent two weeks at a Tibetan monastery where I learned to sing chords with the high lamas. I attended Mass at Saint Peter's Square. I was even allowed to observe the Tal-Shanar at the Vulcan consulate." - Phlox (ENT: "Cold Front')

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith." - Joseph Sisko (non-flashback) (DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars")

Amazing Grace played at Spock's funeral in WoK

Yet Marco and S.D. Perry are the offenders for allowing aliens to to change a Sisko's corporeal nature? A similar thing happened to Picard in the "The Lonely Among Us"