There was a post about how Tom is the only crew member who isn't really affected by the Borg, and there's a theory that he has so much luck because he saw the past and the future when he crossed the transwarp threshold. He saw the past and the future, all of time and space. There's some subconscious part of him that remembers that experience. In fact, Tom refused to play a part in Chakotay indulging Annorax's temporal incursions, probably because a part of him knew nothing good could come of it.
If we extend that same theory to Janeway, some of her wild luck with time travel and other crack plans starts to make sense. She doesn't verbally hate time travel until after the events of Threshold, since it happens in Time and Again without complaint. Janeway has an uncanny knack for time travel, as evidenced every time she deals with it. She hates time travel, but it might be because part of her knows exactly how to manipulate the timeline. She manages to avoid the "inevitable" temporal explosion in Future's End, saving both Voyager and Braxton. She resets the entire timeline in Year of Hell, and no one else followed her reasoning. She pulled it off flawlessly. In Relativity, she senses the incidents are all related, despite it being just one reading that connects them. By the time she's involved, she has a temporal incursion factor of .0036 and a time travel protocol named after her, even if that may just be Braxton's personal grudge. Then there's Endgame, where she intentionally changes the timeline. Up until this point, she has been dragged into time travel, but for the first time, she jumps in on purpose. How does Admiral Janeway know how to get them home sooner in a way that completely avoids the Temporal Integrity Commission? It's because she has seen all of time, and part of her knows exactly what needs to happen so she can get Voyager home and do it in a way that becomes baked into the prime timeline. Maybe she doesn't consciously remember what happened during her transformation, but the experience lives in her mind somewhere, guiding her decisions.
Ok round two of the Star Trek: Voyager fanfic binding spree. I have so much fun making all of these! Once again I highly recommend all these works and these fantastic authors! @northernexposure @neverenough37 @august_stargazer and then all the authors of the Counterpoint Vignettes collection @mia-cooper @serenlyall @caladeniablue @Helen8462 @littleobsessions90 I love you all ❤️
The thing about "Worst Case Scenario" is that Seska rewriting a program to torture and ultimately murder Tuvok for his "betrayal" of the Maquis suggests that she was loyal to the Maquis, and not only because of her feelings for Chakotay. She would've had to booby trap the program before "State of Flux," because she's under intense scrutiny then and there's not really enough time anyway. Which suggests to me that she was fueled by real rage: if Tuvok had reopened the program, and been killed by it, how could she have possibly gotten away with it? She wasn't planning to leave at that point, and (!) she specifically depicts herself as Bajoran, not, in some big gotcha moment, as Cardassian:
When Seska returns in this episode [...] the holographic Seska also slightly differs, in appearance, from how the actual Seska ever looked. "We […] see Seska in an incarnation we had never really seen her in before," Martha Hackett commented. "They changed everything – her hair and costume – because it's her creation in the hologram." (Star Trek Monthly issue 34, p. 40)
(Emphasis mine)
This, coupled with her big speech in "State of Flux," makes me wonder whether she would've ever revealed herself as Cardassian, if she hadn't been caught. She seems still to believe in the superiority of Cardassia ("If this had been a Cardassian ship, we would be home now!"), yet follows up with,
"I did it for you. I did it for this crew. We are alone here, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens, because of the incomprehensible decision of a Federation captain. A Federation captain who destroyed our only chance to get home. Federation rules. Federation nobility. Federation compassion? Do you understand? [...] We must begin to forge alliances. To survive, we must have powerful friends."
We are alone. We must have powerful friends. I don't know how this has never occurred to me, but textually speaking, with the notable exception of Incomprehensible Federation Captain Janeway, Seska seems deeply invested in the community she is ultimately forced to leave. It's, actually, a kind of reverse Ro Laren situation. What a twist.
Janeway is already struggling with her mental state in Concerning Flight –
JANEWAY: You're giving up. Again. Your beautiful painting of the Adoration, the great bronze horse in Milan, the Battle of Anghiari. Unfinished, all of them. You were going to publish your notebooks. You never did. You have given up, abandoned your most important works. Why?
She probes Da Vinci intently, trying to figure out why he would abandon all that's important to him and the things he's tried to achieve. Why throw away everything that's gotten him up to this point?
The real question is why would she care so much? She is too invested in his answer, and she's really accusing him of the things she fears she'll do. She fears she'll give up because she's already descending into the depressive episode we see culminate in Night. "You've given up. Abandoned your most important works. Why?" She's not asking him that question; she's asking for herself.
Janeway is struggling to hold on and she's looking for strength anywhere she can find it, even if it is in the comfort of a Renaissance holodeck program. What's especially telling is she only does this when she's alone with Da Vinci because the second Voyager needs attention, she's back to being captain. Given some space, though, she's ruminating in isolation and blame
Commission for the lovely @genius2mania 😊🥰 Thank you so much again for commissioning me! 🖤
The drawing is based on her fanfiction 'home is a moment in time' (it's a very good read, go check it out! 👀)
He's actually so difficult to draw accurately. Not to sound like I'm roasting the man, but his face is quite asymmetrical (not a bad thing), 2 different eyes shapes, crooked nose etc.. like the nose part alone makes it to where every different angle it takes on a completely new shape lol. It's also difficult because I'm not a trained artist and just wing every drawing lol. But I've been trying to draw him more accurately since my artistic abilities have improved ever so slightly