Was Janeway right to put the crew in stasis in episode "One"?

[Romulan_spy]

I recently rewatched the episode "One" (S4E25). In the episode, Voyager encounters a large nebula that is emitting lethal radiation. The Doctor and Seven appear to be the only ones who are immune to the radiation. The Doctor says that there is no way to block the radiation or inoculate the crew so the only two options are to either put the crew in stasis and go through the nebula which will take a month or to avoid the nebula but that will add another year to their trip. Janeway decides to put the crew in stasis and trust the Doctor and Seven to get them through the nebula. Naturally, things go wrong. the nebula starts affecting the tech on the ship. Eventually, the Doctor goes offline and Seven has to get the ship through the nebula completely alone. She starts to suffer severe hallucinations. She is forced to take power from life support to keep the crew in stasis alive. In the end, the ship gets through the nebula just as Seven passes out, the crew awakens and wakes her up and all is well.

My question: Was Janeway right to put the crew in stasis?

Putting the entire ship in the hands of just 2 people for a month seems very risky. Now I realize that starfleet ships are highly automated but lots of unforeseen problems could arise. The Doctor and Seven have to monitor ~150 stasis pods as well as all the systems on Voyager, any one of them could threaten the ship. That is a lot for just 2 people to do. If something happens to either one of them, it would leave the other alone to fix the problem. In the episode, something does happen to the Doctor and Seven is completely alone to get the ship safely through the nebula. She barely succeeds. If Seven had been incapacitated first then the Doctor would have been all alone to save the ship and he has limitations as a hologram. The nebula was affecting the computer and his program would have shut down or he would have been confined to sickbay unable to address problems on the ship. Voyager is screwed. If both had been incapacitated, that's game over, the crew dies. There is also the possibility that if anything had happened to the life support to the stasis pods, some of the crew could have died even if they did get through the nebula.

I get the crew did not want to waste another year when they could cross the nebula in just a month, but would a year detour really be all that bad considering the risks of putting the crew in stasis? Was it worth it to save a few months on the journey? I would argue that the smarter choice would have been to avoid the nebula and take the 1 year detour. It certainly would have been the safer choice.

 

[Gaith]

Yeah, it's a completely indefensible decision that should have produced a mutiny.

But then, if one thinks about it, especially once the female Caretaker search fizzled out, they should just have found the nearest Planet Hawaii and settled down ASAP. Given the amount of scrapes they get into, their odds of surviving the journey home, no matter how long it took, was pathetically slim.

 

[Uncle Sock]

I’d imagine that by the time the crew found out what happened to Tuvix, they’d learned not to question Janeway’s orders — or else...

 

[Guy Gardener]

Momentarily, I thought the title was...

"They should have gone into stasis in the first episode".

 

[Romulan_spy]

But then, if one thinks about it, especially once the female Caretaker search fizzled out, they should just have found the nearest Planet Hawaii and settled down ASAP. Given the amount of scrapes they get into, their odds of surviving the journey home, no matter how long it took, was pathetically slim.

There is a little bit of a difference imo. Going into stasis to get around a local nebula is a tactical decision. Deciding to travel the entire Delta Quadrant to get home is a strategic one. I agree with you that realistically the odds of Voyager getting back to the Alpha Quadrant was very slim so maybe the better strategic decision would have been to settle down on a nice planet. But one might make the case that the need to get home justified the risk strategically, especially since Voyager could potentially make smart tactical choices to increase their odds of survival. For one, Voyager probably should not have investigated every dangerous anomaly or getting involved in the affairs of unknown aliens. But then we would not have gotten the adventures of the week.

 

[Uncle Sock]

For one, Voyager probably should not have investigated every dangerous anomaly or getting involved in the affairs of unknown aliens. But then we would not have gotten the adventures of the week.

But that would’ve also meant a pretty boring 70-year journey for the ship and crew. The “anomaly of the week” and random alien encounters might seem unnecessary at first, but when you think about it, they actually make sense—every anomaly and every encounter could turn out to be an unexpected shortcut home.

 

[Gaith]

There is a little bit of a difference imo. Going into stasis to get around a local nebula is a tactical decision. Deciding to travel the entire Delta Quadrant to get home is a strategic one.

Can't agree with that difference in terminology. Given there's no urgent need to get out of that part of space, the stasis plan is just as much a strategic decision as the one to keep voyaging for home - just a much worse one.

 

[Frightscape One]

I suppose one could argue the reason Janeway decided to go through was to give the death of that crewman on the bridge in the beginning some meaning. If she decided to go around, then that death was for nothing.

But overall, yes... it was not a very sound decision, leaving only two people to take care of the ship for a month. (In "THE 37's", Chakotay sates the ship couldn't function with less than 75 people.)

 

[Gaith]

I suppose one could argue the reason Janeway decided to go through was to give the death of that crewman on the bridge in the beginning some meaning. If she decided to go around, then that death was for nothing.

LOL, there's a literal term, the sunk cost fallacy, named for that kind of emotional, illogical thinking. How "meaningful" would the crewman's death have been if Janeway's plan had gotten everyone killed?

 

[Frightscape One]

LOL, there's a literal term, the sunk cost fallacy, named for that kind of emotional, illogical thinking. How "meaningful" would the crewman's death have been if Janeway's plan had gotten everyone killed?

Emotional and illogical thinking is something she has done multiple times, considering some of Janeway's other decisions. So it's not unheard of.