#janeway at her most unhinged

[isagrimorie]

Star Trek Voyager 4E09 - Scientific Method

The Janeway Moment for Seven of Nine. (The First of Many).

Part 1, 2

[bumblingbabooshka]

[Tuvok & Janeway: Control, Distance, Duty & Connection.] Sources: St Voyager Transcripts / Mitski 'First Love Late Spring' / Disco Elysium

[honourablepranksinatra]

Everyone knows that part of the fun of Janeway and Chakotay is their subversive dynamic where she's the unhinged one as a Starfleet Captain and he's the calm one as a former terrorist leader but the most insane example of this is in Scorpion when she wants to break the prime directive harder than (arguably) any other starfleet captain ever by not only interfering in a war between the Borg and a new technologically advanced alien race (species 8472) when she doesn't even know who started it or why they are fighting, but by agreeing to help the Borg (the federation's biggest threat) destroy them and Chakotay is the only one who we see confront her about it and argue with her that she's gone too far and doesn't know when to stop... top tier dynamic fr

[worflesbian]

I think part of the reason janeway compels me so much is bc i really feel like on any other show she would've been a sympathetic villain at best. like in the last episode I watched she holds a baby while talking about killing it's siblings and it's genuinely only through the thoroughly established context of janeway having to make horrible choices in order to save her crew that we can read that scene as anything but unhinged. and it Does make sense in context bc she's talking about killing adolescent Borg drones to stop them from assimilating hostages, but in most other shows that kind of thing coming from a female character especially would not end up with her being the good guy at the end of the episode.

im thinking about how btvs which aired at a similar time had a whole arc about the pressures of leadership driving buffy to become way too harsh and the consequences of that are she gets kicked out of her own home. avasarala on the expanse does a lot of awful things but being uncompromising and not giving a fuck is like her most notable character trait, she tortures a guy in her first appearance. these narratives have little sympathy for women who do bad things in the name of something greater, either they're punished for it and rejected by those around them or they're characterised as cold and lacking compassion. but janeway for the most part has the full support of her crew and spends the majority of the time being kind and diplomatic, As Well as choosing to sacrifice lives or collaborate with mass murderers when she has to.

and it's conflicting bc although this is almost a one of a kind female character I think part of her existence is due to voyagers unwillingness to challenge the status quo of star trek despite having the perfect premise to do so. everyone wears uniform and adheres to rank despite half the crew being unenlisted terrorists, starfleet is largely unquestioned as an absolute moral good despite the origin of the maquis being designed to undermine and examine that, and the captain is always the hero at the end of the day.

[nebulouscoffee]

7, 23, 27, and 33 for the Star Trek ask meme?

Thank you for the ask!

7. Who would make up your crew dream team?

You know, this is something I've thought about before (shoutout to @fancy-a-dance-brigadier for always asking the real questions lol) - but I could never quite find an answer I was satisfied with! Because I don't think taking all my favourites and smushing them together works, they just aren't as interesting together as mixups between characters who have bigger ideological differences. Like, he might be my fav captain but I don't want to choose Sisko over Janeway and Picard, I want to see him interact with Janeway and Picard, you know? So here's a sort of half-cooked, this-would-change-every-time-you-asked-me answer:

Captain: Ben Sisko First Officer: Michael Burnham (I wanna see them interact!!) Chief of Operations: Data Chief Xenoanthropologist: Chakotay (I know this is not an actual position in Star Trek but it should be!! The dude who makes sure dealings with alien cultures are being handled with respect, basically) Chief of Security: La'an Singh (trying to mix and match here) Chief Science Officer: Jadzia Dax (ft. Harry Kim always giving her ideas) Counsellor: Deanna Troi (ft. trainee Ezri Tigan) Chief Medical Officer: Julian Bashir (ft. Kes starting graphic and unhinged conversations about autopsies with him) Chief Engineer: Geordi La Forge (ft. B'Elanna on staff. Drama!!!) Helmsman: Ro Laren Communications: Hoshi Sato Also There: Kira Nerys (recurring character who works with them when it's relevant), Guinan (bartender), Admiral Picard (recurring character that makes Sisko do the iconic "Kai Winn is boarding the station" facepalm), Jake Sisko (son), Garak (local menace), and Admiral Janeway (temporal menace)

23. Favorite tropes?

Character's past comes back to haunt them. Character is forced to confront their inner demons in a way that blurs the line between imagination and reality. Member of an alien society seeks asylum. A peek into the world from the "outsider" character's eyes. Two people from opposite sides are forced to spend time together (and the guest character SLAPS). Captain is out of commission and the unlikeliest people are forced to step up. Oh no the holodeck isn't shutting down and the only way we can save everyone's life is to LARP through this thing fully committing to the bit. Here is a spacial anomaly that makes everyone act weird one by one (either revealing important hidden truths about the characters, or just letting the actors have too much fun). ALL of us have to go back in time together for some stupid reason (and it's amazing)

27. What do you wish they had handled differently?

SO many potential answers- but since it's always on my mind, I wish they'd followed through on the thread of Jem'Hadar dissent. In 'The Abandoned' we find out they're genetically engineered to (rapidly) grow very strong, be dependant on drugs, and loyal to the Founders while demanding no individual rights, which frames them as tragic victims. Then we get a Jem'Hadar character who not only broke free of the Dominion's hold on him, not only expresses but also acts on the dream of freeing his fellow soldiers- and a lead character (Julian) risks his career for him! Sisko tries to get through to them in 'Rocks and Shoals'. They're so clearly complex beings with unique thoughts & personalities & feelings & needs, and are constantly fighting this inhumanely imposed programming that tells them they're just killing machines who live to serve their masters. Even in lighthearted episodes like 'One Little Ship' we see conflict between the Gamma and Alpha Quadrant soldiers, for example. We could've had this be relevant to the Dominion War's resolution! We could've had a defector Jem'Hadar as a recurring character! We could've had Julian finally make that breakthrough & help start a Jem'Hadar revolt!! It could've been so much more interesting (and so much less racist)

33. Whose twitter feed would you most want to follow?

My first instinct was Dax, but I'm leaning more towards Jake Sisko- I feel like because he's the son of a Starfleet officer (but not in the service himself) he'd have absolutely zero fear of authority & he'd just post the most savage things about prominent Starfleet officers and blow up incredibly unflattering pics of all the admirals lol

[stra-tek]

What happened to the Next Gen crew in the novels?

After Star Trek: Nemesis flopped and future Next Gen movies were shelved, the novels were free to do what they wanted with the TNG crew. Star Trek: Picard has invalidated most of it but let's see what happened...

Picard: Remained in command of the Enterprise 1701-E with a mostly new crew except for Worf and Geordi and went on adventures. Married Beverly and they had a son, Rene. Figuring danger always finds him anyway, kept his son on board the ship and carried on exploring space. Helped Q save the galaxy from annihilation again. Dealt with several Borg invasions in increasingly barmy ways, including voluntarily becoming Locutus again and acting so unhinged when battling a Borg cube led by recently-assimilated Queen Janeway (which was so big it ate Pluto and flew right through the sun like it was nothing), his new senior staff members mutinied. After dealing with that (turns out he was right and they should have just let him reactivate a Doomsday Machine), he got another new senior staff. Was key in stopping the final Borg invasion a few months later, which saw the collective finally freed and ascended to a higher plane of existence, but at the cost of a third of Starfleet, dozens of worlds and 60 billion Federation lives. Commanded the Enterprise-E for longer than he did the 1701-D from TNG.

Riker: Was captain of the USS Titan and went on adventures with his wife Troi (who was his diplomatic officer), security chief Tuvok (transferred from Voyager) and a bunch of weird nonhumanoid aliens in the Gum Nebula. Later promoted to Admiral and kept the Titan as his flagship. As Admiral, pretty much let Jean-Luc do whatever he wanted.

Troi: Became a commando during the Dominion War and helped free Betazed from the Dominion. Joined the USS Titan as Diplomatic Officer. Following several miscarriages, was de-aged by the Caeliar to her 30's and had a child (Tasha) with her husband and Captain, Will. No, Will Riker wasn't de-aged.

Data: Came back from the dead with a new, human-looking and better body which his father Noonien's conciousness had been living in. Inherited his father's fortune and gambling empire on Orion. Data 2.0 learned the secret of positronic brains and resurrected is daughter Lal. He has a new life outside of Starfleet, and declined to return when Picard offered.

Geordi: Left for awhile to captain the USS Challenger until it blew up. Took a voluntary demotion to come back and be engineer of the Enterprise-E again, having seemingly lost any ambition to progress back up through the ranks. Novels written by authors who didn't co-ordinate enough meant he was dating 2 women at once, which is a pretty good turnaround from his TNG days.

Worf: After Data's death and Riker's promotion in Nemesis, became Picard's first officer on the Enterprise. Occasionally leaves the ship to go on Klingon adventures. Once had to deal with most of Picard's new crew committing mutiny. Started sleeping with the new security chief but she died.

Barclay: Joined the Full Circle fleet, which was a mission led by Voyager (now equipped with a Quantum Slipstream drive making it a journey of weeks not 70 years) back to the Delta Quadrant. Used the MIDAS array to beam all the way across the galaxy one time to join Geordi and Scotty on the USS Challenger, which has to be some kind of beaming record.

Wesley: Used his traveler powers to erase the Maquis from history and that somehow made the Dominion War much worse, but DTI agents talked him into undoing it. Later, warned the Enterprise about a gigantic machine entity that was eating the galaxy, and along with Picard and Data 2.0, talked it out of annihilating everything.

Ro: Came back to Starfleet, pretty much no-questions-asked and moved to Deep Space Nine to become security chief after Odo rejoined the Great Link. Had an affair with Quark(!). Became captain and commanded DS9 when Kira left to become a Vedek. After the sinister Typhon Pact attacked and blew up DS9, Starfleet built a bigger, shinier, silver replacement and Ro commanded that too.

[isagrimorie]

The Enterprise-G crew finds out that their beloved Captain Seven has really weird tastes and hobbies and 98% the Voyager crew is to be blamed for it.

Holodeck novels? Captain Seven seldom joins in. The crew thinks Cmdr. Raffi has the most off the wall costumes until Captain Seven strides in with her own unhinged costume. Her philosophy learned from Tom Paris and Kathryn Janeway: Go big or go home.

A game of velocity?

The Senior Staff quickly learn that the Captain is competitive and a Smug winner.

Captain Seven almost takes Dr Ohk’s head off in a game of Velocity. And then someone uncovers that Admiral Janeway was her Velocity partner for years. They have refrained from asking Captain Seven from joining since.

Spelunking and rock climbing? Becomes a competitive extreme sport. They learned Captain Seven used to rock climb with legendary Chief Engineer B’Elanna. Sidney is even more invigorated with this news. Raffi has to make them promise they won’t do any more extreme climbing.

Captain Seven is an excellent gourmet cook. She even cooked her senior bridge staff a celebratory dinner. Everybody loved it and won't stop talking about it.

But Seven's own personal comfort food? Garbage taste. Raffi makes the mistake eating Seven’s comfort soup and nearly spittakes. It’s a variation of Leola root stew.

Someone suggests meditation to her. Seven returns with Regeneration is the Best Meditation and helpfully recommends cortical implants.

The person never suggests meditation again. To this day they can’t tell if Captain Seven was joking.

[isagrimorie]

Janeway for the character ask game?

For the character ask game:

Kathryn Janeway

How I feel about this character

Kathryn Janeway is My Captain. I love her so much. She can be so unhinged when provoked. She never gives up, not even death stops her. Time literally resets to make her live again.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Janeway/Seven, Chakotay/Seven. And in a well-written, all-in-character, willing to really get deep with how it can work that lives in my head: Chakotay/Janeway/Seven.

But also: Janeway/Happiness!

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Tuvok! Her non-romantic soul mate! Her best friend forever.

My unpopular opinion about this character

My unpopular opinion is that she's not inconsistent. Her decisions make sense in the context of the situations she's in. She's also changed from the earlier seasons because I really think the Kazon takeover and then going face to face with the Borg was Janeway's crossing the Rubicon moment.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wanted to know more of Janeway's Cardassian War record, dammit!

I wish season 7 was more interested in Janeway's depression because that's when the mask really slipped and she needed a damned vacation away from being Captain. Janeway loves being Captain but she also needs to be away from being one for like, a solid 6 months.

And when I mean vacation, I mean vacation as herself without brainwashing or some weird alien thing.

Prodigy really did well too showing how long travel time takes and how boredom takes over and I wish that we got more of that, we got some.

(It's honestly one of the things I have issues with, with the Spore drive because the travel time through warp is where most character interactions and dynamics happen. They all have to hurry up and wait and get bored, and so people are forced to interact with each other.)

[isagrimorie]

I've decided Seven of Nine thinks of Jack Crusher as her little brother.

Sidney La Forge is her new Naomi Wildman. Elnor is Icheb, with whom she shares custody with Raffi.

Now Seven just needs to find her new Mezoti aka her bloodthirsty baby girl.

Raffi and Seven will uphold the Voyager tradition of having the most heavily romantic UST-laden command team dinners that Janeway and Chakotay were (in)famous for. Except they have actually had sex.

Also, this Enterprise G command team must be the most unhinged and is the most "killed for less" team Starfleet has ever had.

And this is their Flagship crew.

Their diplomatic face for their Rebuild Starfleet Image program.

I'm more sure than ever that Admiral Janeway suggested this whole thing and since everyone was still recovering, agreed to Janeway's plan by the time they realized what's happened the ink is dry and they can't take it back.

Nor would they dare to.