The point would be that nobody has the right to decide which timeline is better.
True. But since Future!Janeway died, there's not really anything anyone can do to punish her.
But there should be the obligation to restore the natural flow of time.
Whose "natural" flow of time? If I'm Captain Janeway and I encounter some alternate future version of me, who are you to say that that future version of me isn't a part of
my natural flow of time even if she's not part of
her natural flow of time?
If
her history is changing, that's her problem. It's not my history, and I have no obligation to preserve it. The only obligation of a Starfleet officer under the Temporal Prime Directive is to preserve their own subjective history.
If they are able to. And, yes, I'm sure that if they were able to detect Future!Janeway's temporal incursion in time, then Future!D.T.I. probably tried to stop it. But Our!D.T.I. has no obligation to preserve the timeline of Future!D.T.I.
Because the Federation wants to preserve its own technological and military hegemony.
Yes, and I'm saying that you're wrong, and that the issue of temporal incursions is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Janeway is responsible for the Borg Invasion, because the Borg Invasion was a reaction to a combination of Federation actions, not just one.
And besides, why aren't you drawing a distinction between Future!Janeway and 2377!Janeway? They're entirely separate political actors.
And yet the
actual text of the novel disagrees with you.
Right there, she makes it very clear: It's not any one thing, it's the entire history of Federation defeats of the Collective.
And, no, killing the Borg Queen
four times is not something that "barely counts as a skirmish."
Actually,
Greater Than the Sum seems to indicate that many cubes were affected by Hugh's individuality in "I, Borg" (
not "I, Hugh"); the Liberated have far too many members to be just from one cube.
And let's not forget that by destroying the Borg cube in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II," the Federation killed its first Borg Queen. Kind of a big deal, that.
No, "Unimatrix Zero" makes it clear that thousands, if not millions, of drones have been liberated, and that, further, they've managed to capture ships of their own. That's a big deal.
Then there's the destruction of the Queen's ship in "Dark Frontier, Part Two," meaning that
Voyager scored the Federation's third kill against a Borg Queen.
And "Endgame" makes it clear that the Queen's decision to spare
Voyager has more to do with leftover affection for Seven of Nine than anything else.
No, her destruction of the transwarp hub causes every
other transwarp hub to collapse throughout the galaxy, which the later TNG relaunch novels establish has disabled Borg transwarp capability throughout the entire Milky Way. On top of that, Future!Janeway's virus also killed the Federation's
fourth Borg Queen.
Two direct assimilation attempts thwarted, one indirect assimilation attempt thwarted ("Dark Frontier" 's bit about a nanoprobe virus), numerous cubes full of drones liberated by Hugh's individuality, numerous cubes full of drones liberated by Unimatrix Zero, the complete destruction of the transwarp network and disabling of transwarp capacity, and the death of
four consecutive Borg Queens?
That's a big deal. That's not "barely more than a skirmish." It's clear that the Federation stood no chance in a direct military confrontation, but, like numerous guerilla movements throughout history, it was able to score major precision-strike victories, and it was technologically progressing rapidly. The Borg recognized that the Federation posed a long-term existential threat to the Federation.
No, the Borg Collective's decision directly caused the Invasion. And since, as you noted, it's a very different behavior for them, I don't think it's reasonable to say that she could have anticipated it.
There's a huge difference between moral ambiguity and the idea that a sentient individual is not responsible for his or her own choices.
The Borg Collective/Queen is responsible for the Borg Invasion, and no one else. Just like the German Reich was responsible for its decision to invade Europe, not the Allies (even
if the Allies unfairly victimized the German Empire after World War I).
Actually, the Queen's inner monologue during the destruction of Deneva makes it clear that it's the sheer number of defeats the Collective has suffered at the Federation's hand. Janeway's attack was just the final straw.
Even if everyone else has hacked away at the tree trunk until all it took was you flicking a coin at it to make the tree fall over, doesn't mean you didn't knock the tree over...
just saying!
Trees can't make the choice to fall or stand. The Borg Collective/Queen is sentient. It could have chosen a different course of action.
Or are you going to blame the Allies of World War I for Hitler's decision to try to conquer Europe, now?
