For satire to be funny, it must ring true. Is this really what you saw? It couldn't have been as that isn't what happened, in either episode.
Did the swarm warn them? No.
There's a fence around swarm space. It's hard to see from a distance, but when you cross it your ship cocks up, and two nasty bastards board your ship, tell you to fuck off, and stun you. Leaving the stunned crew the opportunity to wake up and fly away home is a warning. Considering how little they think of foreigners that's pretty fricking benevolent for the situation.
Then Neelix says...
NEELIX: If these people are who I think they are, I can tell you this is very bad news. I've never actually encountered them but from what I've heard I'm glad I didn't. Most ships that enter their space are never heard from again. Some have returned with everyone on board dead. They're a complete mystery. No one knows their name, how many of them there are, what the culture is like. Just that they really don't want people violating their territory.
So Tom and B'Lanna are attacked at the border, and Neelix explains the Swarm attacks everyone that crosses the Swarmie border. Cause and effect. No wiggle room. You cross it, you get attacked. Read the room Janeway!
TUVOK: Would it affect your decision if I pointed out that encroaching on the territory of an alien species is prohibited by starfleet regulations?
JANEWAY: No, it wouldn't.
TUVOK: Captain, you have managed to surprise me.
LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!
Seriously.
Lock her up.
Did their "cloak" fail? No. They got spotted for being good samaritans. If they had left that ship adrift, they would have been fine.
It was a trick, not a cloak, I know that. The trick failed because they did something suicidally stupid. Voyager alerted its presence to murderers who wanted to murderer them, just to save idiots who should have known better, that they were baiting murderers and deserved death for being galactically stupid. Upon being caught, Janeway pretends that she is a friendly person that deserves mercy for being the nicest person in the universe, but since the Swarm didn't fall for that lie, she started murdering Swarmies by the gross. How fricking peaceful.
Well now I am em embarrassed. They say that they are starting a chain reaction that is going to destroy all the swarmies, which is the genocide I clearly remember.... That didn't actually happen.
JANEWAY: All right, here's what we're going to do. Turn those pulses right back on them. Tuvok, lock phasers on their nearest ship. If we can destroy one of them, there's every chance the interferometric pulse that links them together will cause a chain reaction.
The Swarm should be dead. Janeway tried to exterminate the entire swarm, but failed. She's not guilty of a small genocide only because fortuitously the woman is incompetent. Unless her back ground as a science officer didn't teach her the difference between a chain reaction and a controlled detonation?
The Swarm aliens didn't die, they ran away. A couple that were latched to the ship died, but that's not Genocide. It's simple self defense.
I remember the entire swarm blowing up. It's been a while. That didn't happen, but I just finished watching the episode seconds ago, and there was at least 30 ships docked to Voyager which exploded, so that's a hundred swarmies, maybe more, who were incinerated, before Tuvok says that the Bulk of the Swarm ran away from the peace loving Kathryn Janeway.
Janeway trying to sneak through unfriendly territory is absolutely in character for her. She does it many times.
Which she should be extradited for a dozen times over, to go back and face local justice in all the local courts where she pissed on the local laws, far, far away.
Her mission is to get home, and keep everyone alive. That involves traveling through a whole lot of foreign territory.
Her mission is to rescue Tuvok, and firebomb the Maquis from space with tricolbalt devices.
Janeway undermining oppressive aliens is also in character for her. She does it many times.
Exactly. She's an asshole.
So she didn't "genocide" the swarm aliens. ......and also didn't offer Icheb and Q Jr. to be executed. Maybe you're amalgamating various Q episodes? This simply doesn't happen. She tells Q2 that he has to go back to the aliens he pissed off and find out how to fix Icheb, so Icheb doesn't die. He does the right thing, then the alien(who is really Q) says the parent is always held responsible, and that Janeway will pay for his crime. Qjr pleads, offers himself, and the charade ends.
ALIEN [on viewscreen]: In our culture adults are accountable for the actions of their children.
JUNIOR: I attacked your ship. I should be punished for it, not her.
ALIEN [on viewscreen]: You don't even know what the punishment is. It might be torture, or even execution.
JUNIOR: I don't care, if it means saving my friend.
Yes it was a trick, but Janeway and the Qling did not know that, and the nasty alien may have cut one of Q's hands off for all the luck these people have. They submitted to Alien law, because it's what Janeway taught them to do, even if she has trouble following through on her own lessons.
From now on you should quote the transcript, along with your satirical version, so we can feel safe that we aren't being misled.
You could have quoted Tuvok saying that the swarm had escaped without being destroyed.
You didn't.
I had to wade into this shit again, which has not improved my mood.
You're welcome.
