Poll: Bring Janeway back?

well, i'd say the results speak for themselves. Janeway stay dead.

end of.

 

Actually its not that clear cut. You see, there are two choices of Janeway lives... add those together and what do you get? Pretty damn close if you ask me.

 

Yes, of course!

 

Yeah but even when you do that dead Janeway is still ahead.

 

So...a couple of things.

I'd like to remind everyone stating over and over in this and other threads that Full Circle and Unworthy no longer focus on the main Voyager characters that you haven't got the slightest idea what you are talking about. I don't care how many three-page snippets you've read, there is no way without having the actual books in your hands to have any sense at all of who the main focus is in any given section of the book or how it is balanced overall. There just isn't. So stop trying. And for the love of all that is holy, please stop spreading mis-information.

8 main characters made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. A few years later, one of them has made their way to Titan and one of them was killed by the Borg. That leaves 6 of the original 8. All 8 plus lots of other familiar faces are featured in Full Circle. Post Full Circle the ratio of canon to novel-only characters remains heavily weighted toward our canon series regulars.

And anyone who tells you differently is just making shit up. At this moment only two people on the planet have read Unworthy so unless you are hearing it from me or Margaret I'd request a grain of salt with that information.

Yes, I realize this is the internet and without half truths, half lies, wild speculations and other mind droppings it wouldn't be any fun at all but seriously...

I'd also like to second Bill's much earlier statement that if you'll just chill out for the next couple of weeks, all of the wild and random statements being spoiled on this board will actually make sense. That is, if you actually read Full Circle.

As for the spoilers...I'm not confirming or denying most of them but I am going to ask where in the hell anyone got the idea that Chakotay was dead or dying or on life support. All that has been reported by Pocket came from Margaret in December or January and she said only that he would not be continuing on as Voyager's captain after having his heart ripped out by Janeway's death, and she meant that figuratively, not literally. That's all. Full stop.

(Though now all kinds of fun Temple of Doom scenarios are running through my head.)

You want to know more about that? Or about Captain Afsarah Eden or Admiral Willem Batiste?

I know. It sucks. But there's not long to wait now....

Finally....as the question has now been raised about why...if an Admiral was going to be part of the ongoing story it could not have been Admiral Janeway....the truth is that the Admiral character was not conceived until after Before Dishonor was in print. Prior to that, the story, as it had been developed to that point, did not include an admiral, so there was never a chance for anyone to raise their hand and say...Hey, don't kill Janeway...we need an admiral here.

Sorry.

Now...as you were.

Best,
Kirsten Beyer

 

i realize what i am about to say will cause some of the "janeway stay dead" crowd to say this is a lame excuse, but after following this thread and seeing some of "passionate" arguments (re: OMG not another thread about janeway getting killed) against janeway fans, i wonder if some of the respondents answered that janeway should stay dead out of some sort of spite b/c of said fans equally "passionate" protests over janeway's death.

just wondering, it's what i do.

 

So basically what they did was shoot themselves in the foot - the editors/publisher that is. Maybe they should have rethought Janeway's death then. Must have seemed a bit shortsighted after the deed.

 

Uhh...I've wondered the same thing - many times in fact.

 

Do you know how frustrating it is to hear that. That there could have been a role for her after all and of course for Chakotay too, but for whatever reason someone brilliantly decided that there was no role for her post endgame so she should be killed off. And now, when there is an author with some imagination taken over the writing of the book, it was too late because Janeway is dead and Chak is mourning!

 

Hardly the same situation; Clooney and Margulies left the show to persue bigger and better things (with a fair amount of success, particularly Clooney), and the creative path of the series then had to take those outside decisions into account. A better comparison (for me, anyway) would be Carson Beckett on Stargate Atlantis. The character was killed off for much of the same reasons--because there was a sense the show had gotten stale and the producers wanted to restore a sense of danger--and while I don't think his fate was as much of a chump death as others do, or as Janeway's was, the ill motives behind the decision and the absence of a well-liked character prompted fans to protest the decision such that, ultimately, the producers actually listened (!) and a version of the character was returned.

Not particularly germane to anything, but I feel the opposite: the show was never about the ship, not to the extent that the Enterprise was a character in TNG or ENT, or the relevance of the setting of Deep Space Nine. To me, VOY was about the developing community aboardship, the eventual bonding and familial grouping of the characters. It's the future of those characters I'm interested in, not the ship; they could have scuttled it or put it into a museum for all I care. Voyager was the name of the ship, certainly... but it also described the people aboard her. It's those voyagers I want to know more about.

Wow. That's... unfortunate. After hearing so much about how the character's promotion precluded her active involvement in future stories (mostly from defenders of the decision to kill her off then editorial, it's true--which just goes to show that the gushers have no more insight into this than we bashers), to find that the storyline actually wanted a member of the admiralty and the one regular character who could fit the bill was whacked off presumably to provide storyline opportunities... well, it's all very vicious circle. At best, this is a wasted opportunity. At worst... well, in the interests of politeness I won't say, but I will say that I'm less then impressed with the way this death was planned and handled. I truly do hope that these new characters will be interesting people I'll want to care about... but to be honest, it'll be difficult not to see them as replacement characters, or at least to compare them with the characters who should have been in those positions.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

speaking personally, 99% no i didn't. 1% yes i did.

99% no, i said let her stay dead because I've been through enough storylines of "OMFG CHARACTER X IS DEAD!" and then x amount of time, no, thy're not. just once I'd like them to stay dead.

Optimus Prime died THREE TIMES in the UK Transformers comics and in each instance, he came back.

Likewise Megatron died and came back. Twice.

Galvatron died in the UK comics and came back.

Beast died in Ultimate X-Men, stayed dead nearly two years and then came back.

Magneto died in Ultimate X-Men and then came back less than a year later.

Storm Shadow died in GI Joe and came back less than a year later (in UK reprints time)

Spock came back.

McCoy and Scotty also got resurrected. IN THE SAME EPISODE.

Mackenzie Calhoun died. and came back 2 books later.

and that's only a few of the multiple examples i know of, because those are the ones where i read the stories.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McHyLKw5mHc

That is the reaction I'd image from everyone in the AQ and DQ, uniting Borg, UFP, Kazon, etc. in peace.

 

Do bear in mind that no characters regardless of rank, are simply interchangeable. Perhaps my previous post implied that we could have used Janeway just as easily as Admiral Batiste since they are both admirals, and once Batiste became part of the story I actually did ask myself that question.

The reality is, however, that Batiste is not part of the story just because we needed an admiral. He's part of the story because of who he is and what he wants and needs. He is not a replacement for Kathryn Janeway. Janeway could never have played his part in upcoming events, either in Full Circle or beyond. He is there because he is integral to the story, and would be whether Janeway were still alive or not.

I apologize if my earlier comment led anyone to believe otherwise.

It simply occured to me that once people learned that there was a new character who was an admiral that soon enough - and before they'd read Full Circle - they would immediately use this development as further evidence that the choice to kill Janeway was stupid and pointless and that my editor and I are idiots. Whew....glad I had nothing to worry about on that front.

In other words...no, Gorf, we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot. No, MilitantJaneway, there was not a role for Janeway after all unless we were telling a completely different story which we're not. Janeway and Batiste are not the same people. And your concerns for Chakotay are way premature. And no, Trent, just because the storyline wanted a member of the admiralty, that doesn't mean automatically that Janeway was the right admiral to put in that position. That this was a wasted opportunity may end up being a valid opinion but again, until you've read the book, you can't know that. To say that any character "should" have had those positions is not something you can credibly speculate about right now.

Kirsten Beyer

 

Batiste is the

Spoiler: full circle

ex-husband of eden

 

Wow.

Just poor planning, or indicative of the level of respect and attention afforded to Janeway/Voyager by PB?

How incredibly frustrating and disappointing.

 

I never said you were an idiot, Kirsten. In fact I specifically wrote publisher and editor - not writer. BUT I still think it was a case of extremely bad planning. The scenario that has been described only adds insult to injury for me. I'm sure the editors could have found a spot for Janeway if they really wanted, but they apparently prefered her dead.

Your explanation just makes it worse in my eyes. Admirals are usable - just not Janeway.

Oh well...

 

Well it threw me into a tizzy That was always my dream scenario for the Voyager relaunch-that Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay take Voyager back to the DQ using slip stream or some such technology. I thought the possibilities for stories in that setting were boundless. So I hear what you are saying but I am disappointed that the two main characters will not be there. (And Chak without a live KJ is just not the same to me-although a Q KJ and Chakotay does open up some very interesting possibilities )

 

You're right. In that post, you didn't. Apologies. Clearly, the numerous variations on that theme that have come from so many over the last several weeks are all just running together in my head now.

Of course Admirals are usable. I don't think anyone ever said they weren't. Janeway as an admiral was the issue. The first time I ever said that I tried to make the point that everyone, whether they like the choice or not, is going to immediately tell me that there are a thousand "Janeway as an admiral" stories to tell. Believe it or not, I actually know that. Of course there are. There are as many possible Voyager stories as there are people to imagine them. But we had to pick one. One that would serve not only Janeway but the other characters and the story as a whole. I know you can't see how that's possible. I'm sorry that the one we picked does not appeal to you. I'm sorry you're never going to read it. I'm sorry every bit of light I try to shed on this subject is a source of further pain to you. Honest to God, I'm trying to help. Clearly, not succeeding for you, but know that my heart is in the right place.

Kirsten Beyer

 

You've completely missed Kirsten's point. Batiste is in the story because of qualities that are unique to him. Janeway doesn't mirror those qualities, she's her own person. So even if she were still alive she could not have filled Batiste's role in the events to come. The happenstance that both of them shared the same rank has nothing to do with it.

Kirsten, to you I apologize for my part in this flurry of spoilers. I should have minded my own business. Guess I just got caught up in the excitement of anticipating the book's release.

 

wait... this book isn't out yet?