Was Kathy going to villify the legend of Henry Starling?

[Guy Gardener]

By villify I do mean take a dump on the mans grave and celebrity by rewriting every history book replacing (Great shades of Tesla and Marconi, no?) the word "pioneer" with "asshole", transforming the genius science hero from the founder of modern(?) computers (Poor Alan Turing gets no respect.) to some dirt wad who corpserape plagiarized future technology for his benefit and then tried to destroy the entire solar system for a fist full of dollars? yes that is exactly what I mean, in accordance she could make some additions to the legend of Amelia Airheart too, but I'm not in a light and fluffy mood at the moment about building up heroes when we have the chance to talk about pulling one of them down?

A question of security? Does most of the common filth even know that time travel is possible? You wouldn't want every little culture that thinks they're hard done by sending back future tech hoping to increase their standing in the galactic theatre? I mean, if "Earth" did it, then why can't they?

A question of metaphysics? Would such an admission injustify everybeings existence as the known for a fact that reality has superimposed itself over the top of an older truth that used to think of itself as the entire universe, which in turn means that nothing and no one is as completely real as it should be.

A question of integrity? The guy lied. Stole even. I mean how often do you here about Steve Jobs bitching and crying like a little girl about how that Gates bloke stole his thunder? You have to call a shovel a shovel, and in turn that would mean that all the silver medals and first runners up behind Henry Starling would have been bumped up from no cigar to visionaries because their work is their own, even though all federation technology and momentum is still predicated on henry's salvage and reverse engineering... Seven of Nine Logic from 11.59: "His life captured your imagination. Historical details are irrelevant."

A question of sleeping dogs? The dudes dead and it was 3 centuries earlier, surly most history is just composed of lies people fell for, who does it really benefit to re-imagine the nature of human history with a new stain? You can court-martial the dead right? ransom no matter his last minute return to sanity needs to have his paintings at the Academy burnt, and any thought of giving him "starfleet" rites during his funeral shouldn't even be an inkling, and what ever passes for a pension for his family/wife because of his position as a Starship Captain in a free society without money should be suspended and seized? But if they let him off the hook, they they're letting the Equinox 5 off the hook too and vice versus that they may have to let ransom off the hook BECAUSE the Equinox five bought penance and redemption through hard work and perseverance.

A question of vengeance? Kathy believes in the philosophy of "two eyes for an eye". She can get real dark if you wrong her, not that she actually followed through on her threat to exterminate the entire Vidiian species but it's the thought that counts. Good god, returning to Rudy's misadventures: did you see the lengths she went to to hog tie Ransom just because he used the Starfleet Charter as a diaper? Starling in comparison cheated humanity of it's own selfworth and pride of self accomplishment by stealing and lying it's way out of the dark ages. In reverse imagine they went back in time only to discover that Ivan the terrible wasn't so terrible after all but in fact quite charming. What a dull rewrite on the progress of human history. Ivan the charming.

A question of timing? Sure she sent her logs off to Starfleet in season four and they would have ummed and ahrred over the entire experience wonder if this was public domain or top secret? But imagine the millions of interviews kathryn janeway would have experienced in the decades following her triumphant return to her hometown (Sorry. Not decades. Decade. Singular. Ding Dong the gal is dead.) but is rejiggering something she would volunteer on a whim or in like the opening scenes form the Indiana Jones Chronicles where OOOOOld Indy in the 1980s would tell people stories about his childhood Garndpa-Simpsonly when ever he incidently thought anything right in front of him seemed relevant to some stored babble... I imagine Janeway wouldn't handle at all well finding a museum exhibition dedicated to the GENIUS and magnificence of Henry Starling that she would have no choice but to smash it if only verbally, but would she go out of her way, actually raise a sweat to figuratively bloody this twirp's nose?.

A question of backlash? there has to loyalists an fanclubs after a fashion that would stick up for starling even in the face of unassailable truth of who and what he was, that as their worlds crumble they might look into the more dubious decision made by kathryn over the years and get her defrocked and vllainized too.

So much to consider?

 

[Lynx]

As for the legend of Henry Starling, there's a website which deals with that.

http://www.henrystarling.9f.com

 

[Gil T.Azell]

But if the time line was corrected wouldn't Henry Starling be doing something else?
If Captain Braxton's ship never crashes then Starling has nothing to work with?
(Just a though from a brain suffering from a bad head cold)

 

[Guy Gardener]

The timeline was not reset.

The second Braxton at the end of Futures end had a superior technology that was able to scan parallel timelines, of which this was one we had been watching was just one of many that he "policed/observed". The "Orginal" Braxton claimed that there was only one timeline which was predestined and that it's redletter events were almost unavoidably (temporal momentum?) stuck without applying extreme force to the issue (destroying voyager before it destroyed the Solar System).

Two Braxtons from two VERY different 29th centurys.

Chalk and cheese.

More so, second Braxton knew more about Voyager's history, that it had a future, so with that Braxton being the dominant authority, leaving Time as it was which would manifest his own home future, it would have been criminal and suicide to reset the timeline and stop Starling from finding the Aeon or his younger alternate parallel self from attacking Voyager whichever one is to think is the prime moving instant for this entire conflict.

Later we found that they were both Braxton were integrated into a single being and still later it drove the combined one of them quite mad, which underlined the fact further that everything that had happened, had in fact "happened".

Of course then you have to ask about Shannon O'Donnell (11.59) who the Janeway in Future's end had absolutely no recollection of whatsoever during her chat with Chuckles on Venice beach about the locals of their respective ancestors. So even if Time wasn't fixed right then right after all this took place, then someone else at some point along the way did kick time in the sack about the back and forth by these "voyagers" trekking through this misbegotten era that everyones lives and histories might have become "different".

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Why would you assume that Janeway would "villify" anyone?

As far as Earth's past, the legend of Starling was probably something like Steven Forbes, he took off in his plane and (in Starling's case) was never heard from again. Janeway certainly was debriefed by Starfleet upon her return, and its up to Starfleet to determine what if anything to release to the general public.

I suspect Starfleet would have seen no point in "solving" the mystery of Starling's disappearence, although they might have decided it was okay to solve the mystery of Earhart's.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was his quarter century leading the technology race deciding the fate and shape of the present and future which was his legacy, not the man's "dissapearance".

Imagine you accidentally end up in a clan rally, and everyone is going on about how cool Hitler is.

Do you speak up about your alternate point of view?

Think of Milli Vanilli?

Imagine the first people to figure out that secret?

Why wouldn't they expose those frauds?

Poor Nixon.

Look at every thing Bush got away with, and this guy quit over a few wiretaps.

Oh, and to answer you first question JR!, why would Janeway villfy anyone? Well, Starling was a Villain. Accidentally painted as a hero, celebrated and worshipped for his stolen accomplishment's, it is unjust to leave such a monster in a falsly framed laudable and benevolent state from the general perspective. She would have been just shining a light on the reality of the matter.

O, and he tried to kill her.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Starling was a robberbaron, as were/are so many corporate billionaires. His true villiany was set in motion by the first Captain Braxton who allowed 29th cent tech fall into the wrong hands, and stopped by Janeway with her 24th century tech and a significant amount of elbow grease applied to a switch in photon torpedo control.

To compare Starling to Hitler would seem to be out of order. Hitler killed on a massive scale on purpose.

Starling didn't believe Janeway when she said he would trigger a cataclysm in the 29th century. He was arrogant, and his hubris showed no bounds, but he didn't set out to become the architect of mass murder.

As for Janeway villifying anyone because they tried to kill her... well, I don't believe that for one second. She's a "big girl" and knows that bumps and bruises are just part of the job of being a Starship Captain. ;-)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well if you want to take what I said like that, then I also said that Millie Vanilli is as bad as Hitler.

It's just a question of misrepresentation.

Starling as an excellent businessman who took point well after opportunity and happen stance put him ahead of the game... But he was also passing himself off as "inventor", which is what strikes me for pause. It was exactly the same plan Berlinghoff Rassmussen had back on TNG: After the fact would Berlinhoff still be regarded as a science hero for inventing the phaser and the tricorder during the dark ages of the 22nd century if Picard had fell flatfootted for his ploy but his temporal treachery did become public knowledge years later ?

But then if the original Braxton was criminal for polluting the time line handing out tech to a savage child race that really wasn't prepared to deal with it without dooming themselves utterly, then what was janeway for holding onto the Mobile Emitter? A savage child or a criminal? If you want to think of the mobile emitter as benign then you're fooling yourself since the Borg were able to reverse engineer most the entirety of 29th century advances by reflex from after just examining/digesting the mobile emitter for seconds, and they were fools not to continue to advance on that prize every second of every hour for the next 500 years until they got cold metal hands on that emitter.

Dinosaurs tried to kill her too.

Can you see her lobbing kerosene grenades into into natural museums of history about the homeworld as a weekend enthusiasm?

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Hmm. I think we are talking at cross purposes.

I took your term "villiany" to mean the deaths Starling instigated when his time ship reached the 29th cent, not the fact that he ripped off a time traveler and jumpstarted the computer revolution on Earth.

As for telling Starfleet what she's learned from her years in the Delta Quadrant, that's between her and her debriefers. Again, its up to Starfleet to decide what if anything to release to the "masses" and I doubt they would release anything that has to do with time travel.

So, if you mean she should NOT tell Starfleet the truth so as to protect the sacred memory of Henry Starling in the minds and hearts of her debriefers, then I must disagree with you.

In the TNG section of this website is a thread asking for Picard's finest moments. You've just succeeded in reminding me of one of them.

"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened you don't deserve to wear that uniform."

Thankyou.

As for Janeway keeping that 29th cent mobile emitter... I suspect she was "allowed" to keep it. A century that can scan time, not only find Voyager circling a 20th cent Earth but a ragged older Captain Braxton who'd lived there for 30 years and then integrate him with the current Braxton surely would have noticed the emitter on board her ship.

They also would have noted, in their century, how Janeway eventually met up with and defeated the BORG with the help of the EMH and his handy dandy mobile emitter, and figured it was better to let Janeway keep it.

I, for one, applaud their decision.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Cross purposes are so amusing.

Janeway didn't defeat the Borg.

She fed them advanced technology piecemeal which allowed them to create a defence if the tech was ever used again to attack them cogently enforce.

She saved the Borg to get home.

(Not the first time she saved the Borg.)

But, yes the (unknown) end of Starlings story shouldn't weigh heavier in the public eye than the (misrepresented) beginning of his story, just like talk of Howard Hughes generally gravitates towards his bubble, jars of urine and walking everywhere on toilet paper before he 180ed into a drifter eating out of garbage bins hitch-hiking across the heartland... But what if Howard never made and flew the planes, never bedded the Starlets and attacked congress? There's a balance to Howard's story which delineates a fall from grace. If Hughes was never in a state of grace to fall from, then he'd always have been living in the gutter he died in.

Starling never had grace.

Sure people thought he had grace.

Lied to fool dupe people.

That can't make these "fools" feel good?

Hells, Starling Cyberdyned Grampy Braxton. I suppose it's nice that the billionaire industrialist didn't disappear the timewreckecked chrononaut, like how Old Biff Tannon was told to dispense with any kids or crazy wild eyed scientists asking too may questions about his almanac... locked him up in a bedlam and then tagged him before release, there is no way that Starling couldn't monitor subspace radio transmissions... So why hadn't he sold it? O. That would have given man access to aliens and ruined his monopoly on advanced tech.

Starling was a bad man.

Accepting the mobile emitter from Braxton, believing that he "forgot" to confiscate it, was bending over for destiny like fates bitch (Wonderfalls anyone?), but the problem with believing in Braxton as their saviour was that that lad only believed in keeping a rolling instant 500 years from Janeways homefront safe, and if that meant that her crew was supposed to die horribly at some point hours or weeks later, then Braxton was going to force the grisly issue as adamantly as necessary. How was she to know that he was who he said he was and that even his truths were in her best interest? Dealt with a used cars sales man lately?

Braxton was a bad man.

I may call Archer an idiot constantly , but at least he had the right forethough in his attitude to kick any temporal gifthorse (Poor Daniels.) in the mouth when ever it tried to trade magic beans with him for his place in history.