Yeah, but then you would've had to call the series Star Trek: Earth. It ain't Voyager if ain't nobody voyagin'.
Which has been done already, so why repeat it?
Will Before Dishonors Ending Affect Voyager books? Spoilers!
- Thread starter BryanSorensen
- Start date
Yeah, but then you would've had to call the series Star Trek: Earth. It ain't Voyager if ain't nobody voyagin'.
Which has been done already, so why repeat it?
Yes, and no one would ever complain about the reset button being pressed...
Wouldn't that be what the other plotlines are for? Chakotay, Paris, Torres, Kim, etc.
Because apparently there's a need. And in Trek, we can hardly complain about general storylines having been done before, given the number of, say, time-travel stories we've gotten, or 'medical crisis aboard ship', or any of the other themes on which Trek has done a number of variations.
Hey, I'm not the one refusing to evolve the characters. I'm fine with Janeway as an admiral.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
For that specific thing, with no other possibility existing? Give us credit for more creativity than that.
Besides, aren't you debating kind of a moot point? Janeway's already dead, and Kirsten's post makes it pretty darn clear that she has no intention of resurrecting her any time soon. So what's the point in even debating what could or couldn't have been done with her as a living admiral? That ship has sailed.
Not a valid comparison, since those are broad categories, not specific story points. And even if it were, just because repetition has occurred in the past, that doesn't mean it behooves Trek novelists to limit ourselves to perpetuating it rather than finding a different approach.
Then why are you so resistant to the idea of exploring how the other characters are affected by Janeway's death?
I'd like to. But right now, I'm looking at a corpse. (Figuratively speaking... I know there wasn't an actual body left)
Uh, are previously taken decisions not subject to discussion any longer? Guess we should tell all the silly people posting their reviews of books and such, for having the audacity to talk about what's already been put to print...
Because the premise, as I understand it--and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I would like to be--is that the long awaited answer to the question: 'Why the hell did they kill off Janeway?' is 'Because we couldn't think of anything interesting to do with her now that she was an admiral.' Which is, well, ludicrous. Even only being a background character is better than being dead. Sisko's doing fine as a B-stringer; it hasn't hurt his development or the Deep Space Nine series overall.
Centimetres and kilometres. I was just using Kirk to make an example; I'm sure a demotion could have come in numerous other ways.
Probably. And I'd be willing to wait for that to happen, but is there really a point to doing so at this juncture...?
I'm not talking about the other characters, for whom I'm sure many plot points could be developed without resorting to over-the-top gimmicks such as Before Dishonor yielded. I'm talking about Janeway, for whom the only growth now will be the number of maggots chewing away at her corpse. (Again... figuratively speaking.)
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
My goodness, that's a bold statement. And, yes, the littlest bit insulting.
If that is what my previous post suggested to you then perhaps I was not clear.
The issue is not are we going to evolve all of the characters, but how are they going to evolve.
We don't grow and change in a vacuum. We grow and change when we are faced with situations we have never confronted before and must learn to adapt to them. Is killing Kathryn Janeway the only way that could happen? Of course not.
It is, however, the hand I was dealt and therefore, the hand I have no choice but to play.
All I was attempting to suggest is that once a choice is made - promote Janeway, kill Janeway - there are limits to where you can go from there, like it or not. We've seen the scenarios you suggest play out already in other series. Personally, I'd rather not repeat them.
Every major life development for a characters presents problems for the person writing about them. I choose to see them as opportunities. As I said, I expect that most people who care about Voyager will have their own ideas about which opportunities present the most compelling story possibilities.
Promoting Janeway created story opportunities, many of which I found less interesting when considering the continuation of the series as a whole. That doesn't mean there aren't any. Just not any that were going to serve us very well long term. I'm not thinking about this story in terms of one or two books. I'm thinking about it in terms of an unlimited future.
Killing Janeway created others. Many of which I happen to find very interesting.
In both instances, there are as many directions one could go as there are people who care to imagine them.
But if I had any intention of refusing to evolve the characters, I really wouldn't bother writing about them.
*Sigh* It wasn't my intention to be insulting, and if that was the case then I apologize. Particularly, I don't mean to place any blame on you for any decision you didn't make (so feel free to disregard any criticism of said decision as not being directed at yourself). Perhaps I simply shouldn't come into these threads, since my passion can get a jump on my judgment. But I liked Janeway, despite (and perhaps sometimes because of) all the flak she received, and I just feel that she's been treated abominably of late in the fiction. Worse yet, I can't understand why, since it seems like there were so many possibilities to pursue. Yes, death can also create possiblities, but death has the downside of being final (or at least it should be), whereas pursuing those other scenarios can branch out any number of ways, and there's always the option of killing her off later if that doesn't work out. It seems like it's jumping the gun.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Thank you. No worries.
On the contrary...I'd hate to see you go. And please understand, for the reasons you state and a million others, I loved Janeway. Loved her. For all that Kate Mulgrew did, and a lot of what the series writers did.
But in many ways I honestly felt Janeway was treated abominably long before the books got a hold of her and I do feel your pain.
As to that, unfortunately I can't give you the answer you are seeking. And there were times when I thought (because I did know long before you did) hell, if they're going to kill her, maybe we should just wrap the series up. After all, what is Voyager without Janeway?
But the more I thought about it, the more I could see that there was still great potential there and I got really excited about the idea of exploring it.
DS9 and what was done between Sisko's disappearance and his return was actually a huge inspiration for me. I'm also a huge Sisko fan, but I wouldn't trade a moment of the DS9 relaunch arc when no one knew if he'd ever return and everybody was moving on with their lives on the assumption that he wasn't. If Sisko's still around, do we get to spend as much time getting to know Vaughn? I keep having to remind myself when I read about him that he's created just for the books and wasn't actually part of the TV show.
As time goes on and we unveil the new stories, I hope that you'll be pleasantly surprised by the possibilities that are still on the table.
Kristin Beyer said:
I tend to agree, which is what makes the books thus far so disappointing. One would hope that the trend would be reversed, not continued.
And yet, on it goes...
Assuming, of course, that the continuing trend doesn't put people off the new stories altogether. I'm not saying this to get at you personally, because I don't hold you responsible, but to me it beggars belief that people stick with something they find disappointing in the hope that one day it will get better. Lingering loyalty to Trek and a kind of morbid curiousity means that I'm not entirely gone from fandom yet, but it's safe to say that the Voyager relaunch thus far has cured me from ever reading any more of it.
As I said: not your fault. But I'm still annoyed. (Not your fault either.)
Last edited:
You'll be back. They always come crawling back...Every time I think I've successfully cut Trek out of my life, I fall off the wagon.Time to get back on...
Perhaps, but I stuck with it because I was bound and determined to one day be in a position to actually make it better.
You guys will have to decide for yourselves whether or not I succeeded, but I, for one, am terribly grateful to have had the opportunity to make the attempt.
Such as one's political party? Or a lousy hometown sports franchise? Or a once-enjoyable job soured by a new idiot boss?
Seems like standard human behavior to me.
I'm glad to say I've never felt that way.
However, running a large ST club for many years through the 80s and early 90s, I'm quite used to members, who were known to attend every meeting, just vanishing without explanation. And the others who felt the need, in their last few minutes of club membership, to stand at the doorway and holler, "And you're all idiots for liking that dumb show in the first place!"
Non sequitur. You were talking about a "need" to resurrect the cliche of demoting an admiral back to a captain. That has nothing to do with the question of what to do about her demise.
O...kay... that's a far greater non sequitur. I'm not imposing some kind of edict, I'm just wondering why you think there's any point in focusing on a hypothetical that no longer applies.God, are you ever wrong about that. As Kirsten's explanations should've made clear by now, she had no hand in the decision to kill Janeway -- she was merely discussing her perspective on that decision, how she felt about it after it was made. As far as I know, it was Margaret Clark who made the decision, so you'd have to ask her why it was done.
It wasn't that long ago people here were saying that Michael Jan Friedman wimped out by not killing off Bev Crusher in "Death in Winter", as pre-publicity seemed to suggest might happen.
And when she returned as CMO they complained it was a reset button.
People demanded to know why Pocket was too cowardly to kill off a regular.
And when she returned as CMO they complained it was a reset button.
People demanded to know why Pocket was too cowardly to kill off a regular.
In the Myriad Universes that would be an oxymoron
Given the number of false deaths and resurrections we've seen in Star Trek over the decades, I'm not really sure what hand you were dealt. When we last saw Janeway, she was having a conversation with a Q. If the intent was that Janeway should be understood to be completely and irreversibly deader than the proverbial parrot pining for the fjords, with no reset button of any kind ever, not only should that scene not have appeared in Before Dishonor, Q should have been completely absent from the book. It's like having Anton Chekhov walk on screen, put a gun on a mantelpiece, say "Don't worry, nobody's going to use this," and wink at the camera.
It's not a non sequitur: it was presented as an alternative to the 'need' to do away with Janeway as admiral by killing her off. (And is something really a cliché if it's only been done once before?)
Because I'm trying to untangle the reasoning behind it, and I find hypotheticals a useful rhetorical tool. And I happen to think there's plenty of fun and/or worth to be found in what-if scenarios generally.
That's because the scenario of Crusher's death was hyped up (although, I think, more by the audience than Pocket itself), only to have the story itself be perfectly pedestrian. I don't think it was a case of any need, perceived or real, to kill of a regular character that was then ignored, so much as it was a perceived failure to live up to (perhaps inaccurate) expectations of a major shake-up. I mean, if Destiny returns matters to the status quo ante at the end of book three, won't we feel cheated? (Not that Death in Winter ever had the profile Destiny has.)
Although, this ties in with something I was thinking about after logging off last night: to what extent are my character biases influencing my reaction to all this? If Crusher had been bumped off in DiW, I don't think I'd be as annoyed (of course, I don't think Michael Jan Friedman would have killed Crusher off in such an abhorrent fashion, either, but that's neither here nor there), because she was never more than a supporting character and not one I've ever considered particularly interesting. Janeway, on the other hand, was the series lead, a character I liked, and a woman whose psychology one could spend hours deconstructing. A brighter light has been snuffed.
I know I wouldn't be reacting this way if it had been Chakotay who had bit the dust. Hell, even Kim - I'd be sad, but not particularly upset. But Chakotay, as a 'character' with all the personality and potential for growth of a pebble, seems like just the guy to kill off if you want to explore the characters' responses to death and grief without sacrificing a useful character in the process. Chakotay is Voyager's Chewbacca, when you get right down to it--Chabacca, Chewkotay, whatever. Hmm... 'Voyager' Star Wars...
________________________
The ship rocked unexpectedly, a rumbling vibration sounding through the bulkheads, as the crew felt themselves pulled forward before the inertial dampners could adapt.
"What happened?" Janeway snapped.
Paris' hands flew across his consoles. "Looks like we've come out of warp in the middle of a meteor shower! Some kind of asteroid collision--it's not on any of the charts."
Chakotay growled in his rapidly-forgotten growling-Maquis-captain persona from early on in the series.
"Hey, it's not my fault!" Paris protested. "Our position is correct, but... no Aldebaran!"
"I'm not seeing it on sensors," Kim added, looking over Paris' shoulder.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid," Paris said with a scowl. "It ain't there. It's been totally blown away."
"What? How?" Janeway demanded, rising from her chair.
"Destroyed..." Tuvok said, "...one would logically surmise."
"Hey, what's that?" Kim shouted, pointing at a flashing light of Paris' console.
"Proximity alarm," Paris said, slapping Kim's hand away. "Look, kid, why don't you take your console at the back of the bridge."
The bridge shook again with the low thrum of a large object striking the shields.
"Asteroids!" Janeway said, slapping Paris on the shoulder and pointing at the viewscreen.
"Right..." Paris input a string of commands into the console. "I'm going in closer to one of the big ones."
"Closer?" Janeway echoed.
"Closer?" Kim gulped.
Chakotay barked out something that Paris roughly figured meant 'Closer?', only louder.
"Sorry, Captain--but I don't have time to discuss this with a conference room!"
"I am not a conference room," Janeway replied, grabbing on to the back of the chair to avoid being sent sprawling to the deck by a sudden turn.
"This is suicide," came the clipped, mechanical tones of the EMH from Paris's combadge. "Mr. Paris, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one."
"Never tell me the odds!" Paris exclaimed, cutting off the channel.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Last edited:
Similar threads
