Captain Katherine Janeway Analysis

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your big and tall clothing needs. Greetings,

my fellow Starfleet officers and all hands on

deck. You are listening to Future Imperfect,

and I am your, you know what, I'm gonna give

myself a promotion, Admiral Mike the Birdman,

but I'm joined by my intrepid copilot, or my

exo, probably the guy who runs Section 31. Steve

Megatron Phillips Although it's cool, though,

they did send me a certificate. I achieved a

really good grade in Borg culture and something

else. And they actually send you a little certificate.

If you complete classes, you actually get diplomas.

Nice. And it's cool for certain people to actually

give away a scholarship, like a legit scholarship

to apply towards a college or a university. So

that's cool. Yeah, they are tremendously cool

people. So go check them out at SFI org They're

awesome. So it's 2014. So that means we're gonna

kick things off Kind of big and important, actually.

Me and Steve have been talking over the last

couple of weeks as we get in the show ready to

roll again. And we decided we're going to do

a look at the captains a little bit more in depth.

We did cover this topic last year, but not as

in depth as I would have liked. So what we're

going to do is we're going to look at the reverse

order of the captaincy. going from Janeway and

finally finishing with Archer as he was technically

the first Starfleet captain and Janeway and Voyager

was the last Star Trek series that was on the

air. So with all that in mind we're going to

be talking about Captain Katherine Janeway of

the USS Voyager my favorite captain actually

and the first female captain to lead her own

television series though not the first female

captain we would see Throughout the series because

Star Trek gender equality and all that fun stuff

is yay So I guess before we kick things off Steve

what the hell have you been up to during the

last little while? Uh, well, I've been working

on, of course, stuff as always with Geek KS Radio.

We're gearing up for an awards thing that we're

going to launch this year, which that's tons

of work behind the scenes. Also, I picked up

a side webmaster job for a indie film magazine

that's starting up around me. Ooh, exciting stuff.

So cool stuff there good good good for myself

still doing this week in geek seven years as

Of this month, which is pretty impressed. I think

we're one of the longer running podcasts that

I've been around actually Man that really kind

of says something. Um, other than that still

doing these warriors are terrible Which starts

their new season in just a couple of weeks. It

looks like I'm running neon Genesis Evangelion

likely under the GERP system If not, there's

a modified D20 system. I think it's called Mecha

versus Kaiju. Or I'm going to be running Serenity

slash Firefly under the Margaret Weiss system

for that. So keep an eye out for that over on

thesewarsareterrible .com. Still doing the radio

gig, trying to get more stations this year because

I kind of looked at my career and I'm like, wow,

I've done CBC, MTV, and AMC. How the hell am

I gonna top that? So now I have to figure out

a way to get myself on BBC one and CNN Before

the end of the year. Those are my new goals for

this year Man, I need to lower that bar a little

bit. So I guess we'll have to wait and see what

happens with that So we are gonna have the replicator

going on this year But we're not gonna have it

this episode as we just came back from the holidays

I don't officially come back until this episode

is posted, so I didn't get a chance to watch

it over the holidays, but I'm going to be reviewing

Star Trek Enterprise Season 3 that'll be coming

up in about two weeks, so I'll be looking for

that. But before we go any further into our discussion

on Catherine Janeway, we have to welcome Steve

in the L -CARS computer, and here is a little

bit of info on Captain Catherine Janeway. This

computer terminal provides full access to the

L -CARS computer net. It can be operated both

by voice and keypad commands. Initiating update.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of L -CARS.

I'm your host in here, as always, Steve Megatron

Phillips, and tonight we're starting our spotlight

on, well, none other than Captain Catherine Janeway.

And as we do in all episodes of Future Imperfect,

we talk about the main subject of the episode.

And with talking about Janeway, you can't deny

that there is a great, capable leader and capable

ship captain here. From all of her different

encounters through Starfleet, mostly in the successfully

traversed Delta Quadrant, by her and her crew

for seven long years. She has been head -to -head

with Q, the Borg, species 8472, the Kazon, and

many other interesting new creatures. Getting

into a little bit of background information,

she is a 24th century Starfleet officer most

In addition to that, she has, as I stated before,

become the first Federation Captain to successfully

go through the Delta Quadrant, encountering dozens

of new planet civilizations over the course of

seven years. While there, she and her crew survived

numerous encounters with the Borg. And finally,

in 2379, she was placed as a Vice Admiral at

Starfleet Command, which you get to see her in

Star Trek Nemesis, which makes the only Star

Trek character... not in the original series

or TNG to make an appearance in the film franchise.

One of the interesting aspects of the persona

of Captain Catherine Janeway is her affinity

for coffee. What's this you ask? Well... There's

many references to it, much like Captain Picard

with his tea Earl Grey. She has a deep love of

coffee, which helped her with her late nights

through the academy, getting her through classes

and pulling all -nighters. She makes quite a

few references in this series about coffee, some

of them being coffee, black, just coffee. There's

coffee in that nebula! I'm just going to have

to give up coffee. Coffee, the finest organic

suspension ever devised. I beat the Borg with

it. That would be such a great slogan for any

of the coffee companies. I beat the Borg with

it. One more cup of coffee and I'll jump to warp.

You ought to try it one day. Keeps you sharp.

It's an acquired taste. Coffee black. Make it

yourself. So, suffice it to say, she has a deep

love of coffee. It's mentioned quite throughout

the series. Again, like Picard. If you were to

mix multiple Star Trek characters together to

create Captain Catherine Janeway, the two that

I could kind of put to mind, which will get mentioned

I'm sure later, is Captain Kirk and Captain Picard.

You have the diplomacy of Picard, but you have

the kind of trailblazing and... Guns Hot, Captain

Kirk. So between the two you have kind of a nice

balance with Janeway. Also, she doesn't have

the same love of... despite what she may say,

her actions speak louder than words when it comes

to the Prime Directive and things that she's

caused. So I think that about wraps it up here

on Elcar's, so catch us when we come back after

the break. Please confirm deactivation request.

The activation complete now disconnected from

this terminal Welcome back to this weekend geeks

future imperfect I'm one of your many hosts Mike

the bird man dot and thank you Steve for that

wonderful bit of information on my favorite captain

Captain Janeway, so I guess where do we start

with this? discussion Steve Well For one she's

got quite the running record of not only first

in this series, but of something totally different.

They're exploring all new things in her run of

Star Trek with the Voyager, and it's our first

show featuring a strong female captain. One of

the things I think Captain Janeway has above

over some of the other captains is she's one

of the more aggressive and I wouldn't necessarily

call it reckless because Kirk did some pretty

nice damage with the Klingons back in his day

and you could even argue with Sisko and the Cardassians

and the Bajorans. I almost said the Cardassians

there actually. I actually had to catch myself

when I was saying that. The fact that she's encountered

so many new species, in fact I would argue I

think she's encountered the most new species

of any Starfleet cat in because going through

Uncharted Space through the Delta Quadrant, we've

got the Kazon, the Viridians, the Herogen, the

Borg, in a more concentrated effort, species

8472, and while she was able to make a bunch

of new political alliances and really a lot of

peaceful first contact things, she did more than

enough to stir up a hornet's nest, almost at

times seemingly like she was disregarding the

Prime Directive, but I could count that up to

really bad writing at that time. One of the guys

that we work with on the show, Ryan, The Uneven

Flow is cited Voyager as one of the worst written

Star Trek shows, and at points I can't disagree

with that. Because the way Janeway would act

as a captain doesn't seem in line with what Picard

would have done, or even Sisko. Sisko was a hard

ass, Picard was a diplomat. But I also realized

Janeway's on was under a completely different

set of circumstances than any Starfleet captain

before her had really been kind of dumped in.

I mean, do you follow your main mission, uphold

the directives of the Federation or do you do

what you can to get the flip home? Oh, I know

that's she was kind of stuck in that odd predicament

and having to be strong despite having so many

Things in her way Yeah, and it's just it's it's

so bad because she lost half of her command crew

coming over from the Caretaker. She had to employ

people who were not Starfleet operatives, in

fact were enemies of the state with the Maquis,

and then eventually bringing on different alien

species as members of her crew like Neelix, Seven

of Nine, and even to a lesser extent later on

when they get the Borg Kids, when they start

getting involved into things. I don't know. I

don't disagree with some of the actions that

she'd done, but could she have gotten Voyager

home a lot sooner? Yeah. I think. But you kind

of wonder, when you look at what she's accomplished,

I kind of wonder how much damage she did at the

same time. Oh, I'm sure she caused a lot of damage.

It's terrible, but the fact that I think this

is an argument I've had with another friend of

the show, my friend Justin, we were talking about

Archer and Janeway, how both have made catastrophic

mistakes that may have changed civilizations

for better or for worse, but Janeway seems to

get away with it without looking stupid, and

that's pretty hard to do, all things considered.

I mean... When I look at her career I kind of

wonder how many I wouldn't say unnecessarily

died But were unnecessarily risked and I know

science and everything comes with a certain degree

of risk That's what makes it exciting. That's

what makes any discoveries worth it in the long

run But I don't know I mean the fact that they're

trapped 70 ,000 light years from home and that's

the number that they give repeatedly during the

series It'll take them I think something like

70 years to get home traveling at maximum warp.

Although if you really want me to nitpick this

here Technically the math doesn't add up when

you look at how fast warp 9 really is. Oh, I

know it's it's so ridiculous I'm just thinking

in theory they should be home in like a couple

of weeks But you know, whatever I digress it

makes a stronger story math doesn't All things

considered One of the things I really did like

about Janeway though is she seemed to bond with

her crew in a way that Maybe some of the others

didn't I always felt I wouldn't call it necessarily

actually no wait. Maybe I would I would call

it a very Maternal instinct she very much felt

like the mom to Voyager and Voyager was her child

Although everybody around her had a place in

the family. Although I don't know whether she

technically had a husband role too. You could

argue Chakotay or Tuvok in that role, but it

was something more intimate than that type of

relationship. I mean, it's like that best, it's

sort of like, kind of like how I would actually

draw from another sci -fi property here, kind

of like Mal and Zoe from Firefly. They're really

close. They could go that way if they wanted

to, but they don't because it's a mutual respect.

And that's kind of what I see between Tuvok and

Chikote in relation to Janeway, the fact that

they are that close, but there's that line you

just don't cross. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely

see that. Um, so with that bearing in mind looking

at all the people she has under her and how she

looks after them I like how each person undergoes

a transformation because of it and I think I'm

not quite sure what Janeway learn I think she

learns the value of family more so than anything

else because for the most part in the series

Everybody gets somebody's Chakotay gets seven

of nine Tom Paris gets Balana Harry has his hand.

I'm sorry. He gets screwed more than anybody

else in the series Although he has the holodeck

and he's a smart engineer so he can bang the

world Neelix finds that Tlaxian family Kess screws

off the doctor He's a hologram. It doesn't count

Is there anybody that I'm missing from from the

command crew? I don't think so I don't think

so either. Yeah, so Janeway hooks up maybe twice

during the series that I can remember, and both

of them were with a - once was with a person,

once was with a hologram, and I think Q tried

to screw her to have a child once. Oh, Q wanted

to screw her hardcore. And you see, I almost

wonder if she should have. And I'm not saying

that, you know, to give up her body, but it would

have been a way to get everybody home. And it

would have been a new understanding. I think

the Q wanted it to help. I think it was to help

settle the Q civil war to show them something

new or something. Yeah, it was to basically they

hadn't had a new since the death of the one Q,

they needed somebody to kind of balance the force

as it were. Yeah, and I'm thinking, I don't know

whether I would call that a bad thing if she

were to do that, because it's not exactly a first

contact thing, because they've obviously had

contact with the Q before, even as far back as

the original series. So... I don't know the fact

that if she'd done that, it wouldn't necessarily

be violating anything, I guess, other than her

personal boundaries. But, I don't know, I mean,

that's a tough question, and I'm waiting for

the hate mail on this one, so feedback at thisweekengeek

.net. I don't know, Steve, what would you do?

All you have to do is make love to this alien

and it could be a culture thing. But in return,

you get your family home safe and sound, and

at the same time, you expand the knowledge of

Starfleet and the principles of science and anthropology

at the same time. But your personal morals are

compromised. What do you do? You can do it! See,

that's the thing. I probably would do it too,

and it's not because... I don't know. I mean,

I see the body as something... I mean, it would

help the... I mean, you gotta think about your

crew too. You're helping put them out of their

suffering too. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of the

needs of the many outnumber the needs of the

few. And I guess when you bring sex into the

equation, it brings up all these equality things

and everything. But I think Janeway is smart

enough that she would recognize the fact that

this could really help people. And who knows?

I mean... Q may be kind of a bastard, but I don't

think he'd be a douchebag dad. And I think we

saw that during the enterprise or during what

was it? TNG, where there's the adolescent Q.

He's not a complete dickhole. Oh, no. So maybe

it wouldn't have been so bad. And maybe by doing

this, it might have increased the understanding

of the Q, maybe brought the Federation and the

Q continuum closer together. I mean, It's no

different than, I guess, the Trill, because the

symbiote combining with somebody else, it's a

culture thing, and it's the way to continue the

species. Who's to say that bringing new blood

into the Q continuum with Janeway would have

been such a terrible thing? Yeah, it's a risk,

it's a calculated risk, but think of the lives

and the understanding that would have been gained

by this. So, that's something to percolate there.

Not calling Janeway a slut for not getting people

home or whatever. I would just call it one of

her many questionable command decisions and that's

something that I kind of liked about Voyager

as a whole is Janeway was fallible, completely

fallible and I think the main reason because

the only people she had as that moral compass

was Tuvok, her own moral standards and a federation

that exists 70 ,000 light years away, which means

if she wanted to look the other way, she could,

and they did on more than one occasion. But they

didn't go to the extremes of say the USS Equinox

and Captain Ransom, where they were basically,

screw this, we're getting home, we don't care

how. And they don't care who they hurt along

the way. Whereas Voyager was very respectful

of almost every civilization they came across,

whether they were hostile or not. So... To go

back to my original point about her relationship

with the crew, one of the relationships that

I always liked the most was between her and Harry

Kim. And Harry Kim I see as sort of the lovelorn

teenager of the Voyager crew, because like I

said, this guy never got lucky in love. In fact,

the amount of times he got screwed over because,

you know, romance or something got in the way.

It's almost a trope of Voyager. I mean, is it

a hologram? Yes. Is Harry Kim in love with it?

Yes. There's your Voyager episode for the week.

I like the fact that she... I never felt like

she ever talked down to him. And she wanted him

to grow as a person and then again also the same

way with with her and Tom Paris They were like

the kids of Voyager right there is the overachiever

and the underachiever Harry wanting to do the

best that he could to impress people and Tom

He you know what he's the fawns in space the

the Delta flyer is his motorcycle And I don't

know there's just something about that relationship

I always really really really enjoyed in the

show and another one that I enjoyed because it

was such the odd couple but you could see they

very clearly cared for each other was her and

Neelix. The fact that he converted her private

dining room into the new galley and somehow she

didn't notice this. This was done over like this

must have been done over the course of like a

few hours. And that's what I love about construction

and space. You want something done, just wait

10 minutes. Don't wait for the homes on homes

guys to show up. So I really liked that. And

the fact that they had this, this really odd

kind of friendship there. And that's something

you never really saw in some of the other Star

Trek series. I think in some ways Voyager was

more interpersonal than some of them. Cause I

think you got better character relationships

at times, while not necessarily the best written,

I felt in some ways they felt the most human

in some ways. And I know once again I'm gonna

get some hate mail for that, but it's just something

that I felt, and maybe... I liked Janeway and

Voyager more so because it was the outsiders

making their own way. They weren't stifled by

civil war or the intrigues of star fleets or

the threat of basically an all -out war with

another species like be it the Klingons or the

Romulans or even the Breen and the founders and

the dominion that's it looming over their heads

Voyager carved their own path through space and

I think there's something about the way Janeway

would handle diplomacy as well it was she kind

of she was a mix of Kirk and and Picard extend

the hand of friendship but you better believe

there's a phaser at her hip at the same time

oh I know that's such the perfect Description

of her if you're comparing her to older captains

She definitely has like the the the vibe of Kirk

the the kind of you know little bit of you know,

the snarky and a little bit of the You know no

-nonsense action, but she'll at least be willing

to sit down and talk it over at like Picard But

she doesn't wait as long as Picard to actually

take action Yeah, exactly and One of the things

I think she even did better than Picard is She

dealt with some species that I kind of wonder

how the crew of the Enterprise D would have dealt

with it like For example, not just the Borg but

the herogen basically space predators for lack

of a better phrase really aggressive species

where their entire culture is built around hunting

killing and honor and Yet she gives them hologram

technology to supposedly save lives, but we see

what happens with that when giving that technology

gives rise to an entirely sentient version of

these holograms because they get smarter and

smarter and smarter. So with Picard, he wouldn't

have done that. He would have kept them talking

and talking for hours. I guarantee you that would

have been a whole diplomatic envoy that likely

would have ended in phaser fire. just because

I don't think they would have bent, but Janeway

knew how to apply the right pressure at the right

time. Another one might be with the limited resources

they had, even the Viridians, the guys that had

that disease called the phage or whatever. Janeway

telling them straight out the first time, if

you come near me and my crew again, I'll kill

you. And yet... Later on in the series, when

Janeway and Jacote get stuck somewhere, I think

they go to the Vedians for help. And it's probably

a good thing Janeway wasn't there, because they

probably would have said, wow, fuck that. And

yet, you know. And that's something about, too,

Janeway gained a reputation in the Delta Quadrant.

I mean, just this highly advanced starship with

these strange creatures called humans. don't

screw with them sort of thing. In fact, I almost

wonder if you could compare the reputation of

Voyager to Doctor Who. And what I mean by that

is the Daleks refer to the Doctor as the oncoming

storm. Wherever he goes, death is sure to follow.

In almost the same way, Voyager does the same

things. If things don't go that way, bad shit

tends to happen. I mean, When Janeway negotiated

with the Borg to give them the nanotechnology

to kill species 8472, that could have radically

changed the shift of power in the Delta Quadrant.

Just the amount of civilizations that were touched

by them. I mean, one species I can think of where

they were directly responsible for them was the

planet that existed out of time. And it was the

plant that spun really fast. So if you were on

the planet for two minutes, it might be like

20 years or something. Something really weird

time travel thing. It wasn't even time travel.

It was just spatial displacement sort of thing.

And the entire civilization was built up around

the sky ship and then they find out its name

is Voyager and how it's like a ship of the dead

and everything because they exist out of space

time with the with outside of the rest of the

universe because their planet's so sped up for

whatever reason um and I kind of forgot where

I was going with this oh right um but yeah it's

just the fact that they influence an entire species

and I guess that's not not necessarily a fault

of Janeway but you know I the fact that she kept

stopping along the way to smell the roses trying

to get home at the same time, I kind of wonder

if that unnecessarily changed things in the Delta

Quadrant. Yeah. I know entirely too much about

this, don't I? Yes. Well, there's also a lot

to be said for Not only her present character

and how she interacts with her crew, there's

almost a vibe of some of the different shows

being involved, as we've mentioned before, that

she's similar to Kirk and Picard, kind of meshed

together. Tuvok is basically her commander, Spock.

The two of them are very similar. I know Tuvok

did something similar to where Spock did to Kirk

of... at least in the new continuity. Not so

much starting out as friends but ending up friends

through various other things that happened at

the Academy kind of thing in front of admirals.

But there's also when she goes into these new

situations such as Having to meet doubles of

her ship or meet Q meet Like Ryker meeting even

though it was part of that Being blended into

the Excelsior crew temporarily and meeting Heikara

Sulu through Tuvok So, I mean she's had quite

a diverse touch on all the different continuities

But I think the most interesting part of it was

when she had to or when the future Janeway went

back to save current Janeway. OK. What happened

in that in that episode again? That's the one

where she destroys the Borg. Oh, right. Oh, that

was the series finale, right? Yes. Yeah, that

um I I do like the fact that she did change the

timeline there and like you mentioned like however

having to go back I took them what 25 years to

get home Yeah, yeah, and they lost I think 47

more it was some numbers like 47 more people

on the way to get home But it was within their

lifetimes And Chewbac got sick because he was

not able to do the pun fire Oh, yeah, because

there was no other Vulcans on board or no was

but they were guys or something. Yeah. Oh, yeah,

that's right. Yeah, because there's only that

engineering Vulcan guy who turned out to be kind

of a douchebag anyway. I remember that now. Now,

one of what do you think was her greatest accomplishment

and her greatest failure? I would say her greatest

accomplishment. would be having the ability to

actually work with the Borg. Not just have constant

battles and destroying each other, but she actually

had to work with the Borg at points. Which was,

if that were in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants,

it would just not happen. It would just be a

firefight. And I think the reason they were able

to accomplish that is the fact that they didn't

have pressure from the outside, because like

you were just saying, it would have ended in

a firefight had this happened in the Alpha or

the Beta Quadrant, because there were so many

different sides. The fact that Janeway could

literally have a conversation of one, so to speak,

without a committee behind her, this was able

to be accomplished, other than the fact that

uniting against a huge common threat. Now, what

do you think her greatest failure was? Would

say it's kind of a double -edged sword just because

She kind of allowed it to happen but The there

were many opportunities where they could have

gone home sooner and Whatever may have happened

through the various attempts or or whatnot either

Some action was missed directed, mis -made, or

she just wasn't willing to go a certain mile

to do so, which is why the future Janeway had

to alter the timeline to help them get home sooner

to prevent all of it from happening, therefore

creating not only an almost genocide of the Borg,

but Also creating a time paradox and altering

the timeline which all of those are big no -no's

in Starfleet Yeah, because we don't know what

the consequences would have been and in theory

because there's that temporal police agency They

introduce during the series You kind of wonder

what they have gone back and fix things Because

who knows what voyage you're destroyed And the

same thing when Harry Kim came back to change

the timeline when they did the whole Voyager

slipstream thing that put Voyager in ice for

20 years. I think Janeway's greatest accomplishment

is the advancement of a new brand of life. And

I'm specifically talking about the Doctor, actually,

and even with the Herogen. Like I said, giving

the Herogen the hologram technology, could be

argued as a mistake or grand gesture, I think

it's one of her greatest accomplishments because

it literally gave rise to a life form that hadn't

really existed previously or hadn't gained full

sentience. Now, you could argue for TNG's holodeck

episodes with Cyrus Redblock and when Professor

Moriarty and the Enterprise computer became alive,

technically, but... they weren't the same as

the doctor who had real thoughts real feelings

and they become a more advanced life form and

when they started arguing for photonic rights

i think if they became more than a series of

uh force fields holograms and isolinear chips

um and i think jane way was a lot was really

responsible for that because she allowed the

doctor to evolve and encouraged him. So nurturing

a new life forming by exposing it to all these

different experiences, be they threatening or

not, I think that really kind of says something.

And that's something that she can bring back

to serve and say, Hey, look at what we've done.

Look who this person is, then helping them become

an individual. Same with seven of nine kind of

bridging that board human relations. because

709 wasn't the only drone freed. There were multiple

ones over the course of the series and even those

Borg that went off to go die because they were

forced into a collective by 709. I think that

says something too. I think Janeway's greatest

accomplishment was anthropological and sociological

because she expanded the knowledge of all these

cultures and all their customs, basically great

wealths of knowledge. Scientific for sure. What's

her greatest failure? is... that's a hard one.

I think in some ways she let her crew down, because

sticking to the rules got people killed over

the course. Like you said, if she hadn't gone

back and fixed the timeline, sure she saved lives,

but how many people have died as a result? It's

something that can never really be answered,

but maybe not taking the opportunities to get

people home when they should've. but if you look

at that thing too how far would have technology

come blah blah blah right so it's kind of hard

to measure truly without any hard quantitative

data saying hey this is what would have happened

if but using data from the series i think almost

getting involved too much at points uh kind of

did damage things i mean i don't think they could

have ever settled the whole caisson thing peacefully

because that race was belligerent as hell. They

weren't willing to take no for an answer. But

there are other species that I kind of wonder

if things might have turned out a little bit

differently. And like I said, then there's that

whole culture that got built up around Voyager

sort of thing, right? Sort of, like I said, it's

cause and effect. Basically, Janeway is the butterfly

effect. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if she changes one

thing, it Changed everything and then I can bring

in chaos theory and all that stupid shit and

Jeff Goldblum isms But I don't know I still really

like her because I Think she's a really I You

know what? I like her cuz she's a strong woman.

I really do And I'd never saw her take any shit

You very rarely see her back down from a fight

that she knows she could win and if she ever

does back down It's for a good reason. It's to

preserve lives. I've never seen her recklessly

recklessly go, you know, let's go screw those

guys up It was never aggressive. It was always

reactive so to speak Yeah, but I'm trying to

think if there's any reason why I would dislike

her Maybe following the rules at the wrong times

might be the way I would argue, because like

I said, people did get hurt as a result of her

thing, as a result of her command decisions,

and that ultimately kind of did some bad stuff

for Voyager, but without those experiences they

wouldn't be who they are today. I guess. So I

guess Steve, we're probably getting ready to

close this thing out. Is there any closing thoughts

on Captain Janeway and the crew of Voyager? Not

really. I mean, she, for the most part, I would

say had the most difficult job out of any of

the captains. Yeah, Archer was the one blazing

the way. Yeah, Kirk was the one kind of just

exploring around. Picard had to deal with some

new things, but he was still pretty much negotiating

and exploring. Cisco was constantly fighting

battles and her she not only had to do all of

the above But it's all this uncharted territory

and all these meshing of cultures which kind

of in a sense relates to Real life just she's

having to more or less Get everybody to put all

their differences behind them and just kind of

work together as it as a One one society instead

of having to You know tear each other down and

not survive until you know, they can save themselves

essentially Yeah, I mean Janeway did it without

help or as everybody else had They could limp

back to earth if they had to Yeah, and she didn't

have that luxury. She was just kind of stuck

there Yeah, she did the best with what with what

she could What now? All right. Here's a final

question Would you want her to be your captain?

That's kind of hard to say because, like you

mentioned before, she did manage to get a whole

bunch of people killed that was kind of unnecessary

or people killed and then somehow brought back.

I think she would be a fair captain and good

at kind of handling things, but I'd still almost

have to go with another captain, but I would

probably put her close to the top. I think for

myself under this, it would vastly depend on

circumstances. I would love for her to be my

captain during peacetime. No way in hell would

I want her to be with her under circumstances

of war. I think the captain I want to be with

under a worse circumstance might be Sisko. Only

because I think he's a better tactician and Janeway

might get a little wishy -washy with you. And

I know that's not necessarily a bad thing, but

sometimes the needs of the many outnumber the

needs of the few. right? Janeway may think about

the crew too much at some point, which may lead

to getting people unnecessarily killed, or at

least if you're going to be sacrificed, it better

be for something. Cisco understood that. A little

bit better than I think most captains have. So

I'm pretty sure I've said something contradictory

during all this, because you know what? You know

what? I think that actually kind of sums up Janeway.

The captain of contradictions. Sometimes good,

sometimes bad, sometimes very just, sometimes

a complete hypocrite, but she's human and that's

a strength and a weakness depending on where

you want to be in the Star Trek universe. So

I guess that's pretty much going to do it for

our look at Captain Catherine Janeway, sort of

our opinion, basically very much our freeform

discussion of Janeway. Janeway, as always, we

welcome your thoughts, so send us them at feedback

at thisweekengeek .net, subject line Janeway,

and we will discuss what you guys think on the

next show, which our next show, we're going to

be looking at, who are we looking at? We looking

at Cisco next time? Yes, we are. Alright, then

we're gonna be looking at the commander of Deep

Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko, the hero

of the Dominion War, and the emissary of Bajor.

So until next time, my good friends, please be

sure to check out our sponsor, SFI .org. Starfleet,

the world's largest Star Trek online fan club.

And for Future Imperfect, we have been... Steve

Megatron Phillips. I've been Mike the Birdman

Dodd, saying, live long. and prosper.