I'm not the first person to note this, but a decline that happens in the background of these stories is their creators going from "Writer who was a fighter pilot and jet-setting international traveler" to "Writer who went to school for writing and then wrote"
"This is something I see a lot of people still struggle with. They ... complain about the desecration of their myths, and then fail to realize that the desecration was the point."
This is the ONLY way to move on from the stories we used to love. It's too easy to get wrapped up in the culture war, to believe that if enough Maulers and Critical Drinkers and Nerdrotics complain, that capitalism will reassert itself and these entertainment monoliths will remember they like to make money again.
They won't. It's a cult. The desecration is the point. The funding is bottomless. They own everything. The desecration is the point. They fired the talented people and they're never coming back.
Something interesting about classic trek was how its sci-fi settings with different alien species gave it a safe space to talk about race. In trek, it's acknowledged that different species have different traits and tendencies, and for a lot of the non-human characters, their race informs not just their character itself, but also the identity issues they face as being the only one of their kind in their society; Spock, Worf, Bellana Torres come to mind. When you think about it, it's mind-boggling how a show that is *the* symbol of progressive utopianism emphatically rejected the blank-state by having characters like Worf struggle with his innately aggressive tendencies and sense of belonging among Klingons, despite being born and raised among humans. Trek seemed to have the perfect balance of sci-fi disembodiment that removed from the minefield of discussing race as is, and a seriousness in subject matter beyond something like Star Wars or Babylon 5 that allowed it to give an honest account of the value of heritage.
Understandably, there's none of that in nu-trek. A species is just like a costume, and with it you see it a lot of the intricacy of the world deteriorate into Star Wars-style zaniness.
I'm only half-Trekkie, on my father's side. But I still speak conversational Trekkie, and I'm in for however many posts you have in this series; you're articulating some things about Star Trek that I haven't heard before and I'm fascinated to hear the rest of.
> In order to understand what a thing is, I believe you must first understand how it dies. Endings are the most important part of a story because they are the culmination of everything that came before.
> If there is one thing I want to get across in this essay, it’s that what we’re witnessing is the real Star Trek as it springs from its stated values.
Funny aside: one of Hegel's major themes is this, that the a thing's end reveals it's true essense, what it really was from the beginning. The history of a thing is thus it's reaching (and revealing) its essense.
To me, what is more salient to the progression... erm digression... of the Starfleet captains, is that the story is always one of decay. We start our Star Trek story with Captain Roddenberry, a man capable of great heroism but lead a dumpster fire personal life. You nailed it on our second Captain, Kirk, being a wish-fulfillment character for Rodenberry.
What fascinates me most about Kirk, our second Starfleet captain, was more of how he represented the era in which he lived, the 1960s. He was the embodiment of the 50s and 60s era of muscular, confident liberalism. In the episode, "The Apple" (Rodenberry had no subtlety), Kirk blew up the AI that served as the planet's god and ended the culture of the planet because Rodenberry knew these "gods" were false and he was going to drag those backwoods fuddy-duddies into the present.
Fast forward to TNG, in the Episode "Justice" while this is not a main plot point. Picard pointedly does NOT destroy the planet's god, edo, something that Kirk in that exact same position did. Picard instead resorts to a morality lecture, gets his people off the planet and leaves.
It's almost as if post Vietnam, the left was starting to lose the Kirkian confidence and strength.
In the first season Picard is, ridiculously, hands off.
“We are not your judge.” And he leaves. Again and again.
This almost realizes the Prime Directive - we can’t come out here without breaking the Prime Directive, so maybe we will retire to a starbase or plant in frustration by the end of the season.
It does not get any better in later seasons. It is just not as obvious because the writing quality increased and they removed Roddenberry from creative influence in the series.
Unpopular opinion but I think Voyager is better than TNG. The characters are all mostly boring non-characters, but it's basically the TNG formula perfected as far as the stories go. The writers are trying to be creative and having fun, they aren't really that interested in lecturing you. It's almost like the creators realized the crew were just generic archetypes and focused on putting them in interesting scenarios. I understand why people don't like it (Janeway is annoying) but as a casual viewer I found the episodes more enjoyable than TNG for the most part.
Oddly, I am with you here. I hate Neelix and Kes with the burning of all the suns in the Delta quadrant, but who can deny the doctor is one of the best characters in all of Trekdom? It’s really a quite decent series to watch, and the doctor makes it a real masterpiece at times.
The thing I found hilarious about Janeway in a retrospective viewing of Voyager is how hypocritical and downright mean she is out of the blue. She'll flip from goodie two-shoes, throwing the future of her crew away (her actual first obligation) in order to save some random diverse aliens, to saying "time to take out the garbage" and blowing up an entire ship full of people over moral outrage. The writers barely even attempt to pave over these incongruities. They just have the crew act like it never happened.
My favorite example was when Harry gets a space STD (not star trek discovery) and Janeway demands he ends the relationship out of bitterness and spite, essentially saying, "I can't have my love so neither can you ensign!" I laughed a good bit at that one. No other Captain would ever voice that kind of sentiment, especially since there's not any actual rules forbidding fraternizing with an alien race. If there were, Kirk's career would have been very short.
They really missed out on the whole Maquis/ mutiny plotline, would have made for a very compelling drama. Instead they went for candy-ass-yet-randomly-spiteful Janeway.
I've always found Star Trek boring, and could not understand it, or its appeal. But you've explained things so well I can't but stare in amazement. Bravo, this is easily the greatest Star Trek essay I've ever read!
And “Galaxy Quest” was the best ST movie, as Spiner and Wil Wheaton attest.
And “The Orville” (seasons 2 and 3) is the best Star Trek. That’s why they had to kill it. It was no longer a comedy - it was Next Gen reborn and treated with respect.
"But something always struck me as profoundly wrong with the alternative, with gracefully bowing out and being placed in the cottage. Was that always going to be the end of the journey, a boring retirement? All that adventure, all those high stakes, all the fighting, all the philosophical musings, and that deep aspiration for something higher, does it really end in a lonely French cottage, being passed by and overlooked by history? After everything Picard has done, is this how it ends? Is this what Q saw when he leaned in to whisper into Picard’s ear? You’ve given your entire life in service, but the answer, the ultimate meaning behind it all, is for someone else a little younger?
Going off the Fandom page, Picard had a child with Beverly Crusher somewhere in the canon. One child. Apparently in an alternate reality he had more children, but for the canon timeline, he didn’t have any lasting relationships, and you can bet the Picard bloodline is probably going to die when Jack Crusher (Not Jack Picard for some reason?) finally bites the bullet."
Out of curiosity, how far does your instinctive revulsion at this sort of retirement go? If Picard had married Dr. Crusher and had seven children (having finally overcome his discomfort with children from throughout TNG), and our vision of his future in "All Good Things..." showed his grandsons and granddaughters transporting over to Chateau Picard in the evenings, playing around the vines or listening to the tale of Darmok and Jalad while the grown-ups enjoyed some wine from the cellar, would that feel right?
And if not, is there a satisfying ending for Picard within the basic premise and framework of the show? Obviously there are visions you and I would both love to see. For instance, Picard, an aristocrat and a man born to speak, converting to the faith and preaching with that tempered fire only old zealots have, quoting the Bible the way he once quoted Shakespeare and dying of overexertion in one final speech exhorting the Romulans to honesty and the Vulcans to love and the Klingons to crusade...that would be cool, but would just as obviously break the show's basic ideals in just about every way. Are there any endings that would both fit and not feel profoundly wrong?
I should note the farmer ending isn't egregious to me except in Star Trek's frame. The family ending is much better, but the only way the ending would be completely satisfying would be if Q answered Picard's question.
I think Picard becoming an eternal aristocrat would have worked.
Picard merges with the Borg as a controlling member or as an aristocratic spirit - the next series would have had the Borg and their warp hubs as allies instead of enemies like what happened to the Klingons.
Off the cuff the plot could play off of of why commoners follow aristocrats at all and have him form that sort of relationship with the commoner Borgs. It would portray the Borg Queen as a sort of cancer or unintended outgrowth of the original Borg hive mind in a parallel to how democratic governments succumb to internal corruption when its bureaucracy only exists to expand the bureaucracy. The rightful King overthrows the bad Queen. It was an ending practically handed to the ending writers when they introduced Hugh and the idea that the hive was susceptible to local governance.
It would explain the jarring introduction of this un-Borg like Queen, give Picard the ultimate diplomatic win over the ultimate undiplomatic enemy proving to Q that humanity has matured, change the galactic dynamic back to expansion for the next series, bring the series trademark optimism through a benevolent noble among the galaxy despot Borg and lastly wrap up his Borg hating story by overcoming it with self-mastery/acceptance of anger as a new better Locutus instead of eternal hatred of Klingons like Kirk.
It would also answer Q's question, if this is the scene:
“Q: The Continuum didn't think you had it in you, Jean-Luc. But I knew you did...We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.
Picard: When I realized the paradox.
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.”
Picard: “Q, what is it you’re trying to tell me?”
Q: [Some reversal of the Nietzche quote like, "The monsters out there that hunt men should be careful lest they become the servants of men. And if the abyss gazes too long into the new humanity, it will tremble when the new humanity turns its gaze back upon them"]
Keeps the spirit of the atheist materialistic dream and man's ability to complete it alive.
If you wanted to make it maximally saccharine have the final shot be the new Picard or his fading remnant at a new Chateau Picard in the Borg Empire with the setting looking rustic but everything being made of technology on closer examination in some sort of organic futurism art style - the new has become the old.
The obviously machine Borg have combined with the no-machine vineyard into a perfect new synthesis as laid out by the Hegelian dialectic that the liberal atheist favors.
Come for the nerdy Trek stuff. Stay for the deep philosophy. Good stuff man. I can’t wait to read the next few parts.
Trek always struck me as trapped by its own premise/framing story. It looks like you have reached a similar conclusion, though you are far more knowledgable about the franchise.
Excellent article and analysis; I can’t wait for the next part. I grew up watching reruns of TOS and TNG came out when I was in college, which my friends & I usually watched as a group. Heated Kirk vs. Picard debates were common, as was general disdain for Wesley, the male Mary Sue.
When DS9 came out, I was hopeful but trepidatious since it was the first Star Trek without Roddenberry. It was engaging but rough for the first couple of seasons, but I’m glad I stuck with it because after changing showrunners it developed into the best-written series in the franchise. There were significant threats to the Federation but still an overall sense of optimism, and yes, general fun.
Then came Voyager. Since DS9 was so good, I was really hopeful about this new series. It had a unique premise, interesting characters, and a lot of potential conflict within the hybrid crew. My hopes were not realized.
The episodes were of very uneven quality, but I stuck with the show because I enjoyed some of them and I’d been a Trekkie since I was five. But the series didn’t get better, and Janeway was just as inconsistent as the show.
Even though they tried to write her as an exceptional Captain, she wasn’t up to par, and it had nothing to do with her being female; the writers just didn’t think things through. When you’re in uncharted territory, encountering many new worlds and species and the only ones you can make friends with are the Borg you’re doing something wrong.
The final straw was the episode titled “Tuvix”, where two of the crew were merged into a single being. This being, Tuvix, had all the memories and skills of both people but had its own distinct personality and was a new unique species. When the doctor came up with a way to split the new person back into the original crewmembers but Tuvix didn’t want to die, Captain Janeway overrode his wishes and did it, destroying this new being.
If the ship had been in danger or there had been equivalent stakes, it could have been excusable, but there weren’t. She simply wanted her original friends back; she made some speech about protecting the rights of the originals, but from a legal and moral sense, they had none… they were de facto dead. The new being, Tuvix, did have rights, and was in fact a new life form, the very thing Starfleet was supposed to be discovering.
Captain Janeway committed murder and arguably genocide. She definitely violated Starfleet principles; as I said, the writers didn’t get it. I gave up on the show after that.
This is a is a pretty good litmus test. Do you see this as a black bill? ("All of your beloved franchises are gone and they're never coming back.") Or can you see the white pill here? ("Nothing lasts forever, nor should it. Cherish your memories of these things, mourn them and move on, and rejoice that the principles that made them great can still flourish somewhere else.")
It reminds me of about a year ago, when that app that showed people themselves but 20 years younger briefly consumed the Zeitgeist, and everyone was posting reaction videos as they confronted their own mortality (some, seemingly, for the first time). The people who were comfortable with death, who knew death, and saw it as a part of life, took it in stride, could even laugh. The people who had believed the promises given to them about an eternal youth, an eternal now, an eternal present, absolutely fell to pieces.
I think you let the Voyager writers off too easily in suggesting that they had am impossible task in writing a strong female captain.
Catherine the Great of Russia wasn’t exactly weak and it seems unlikely that no man ever thought about trying to usurp her position and she had a profoundly militaristic role.
The task was possible. The writing just wasn’t good enough.
You always have historical exceptions to the rule. And you have people who seem to be able to break every convention and get away with it. But I think to write that principle--to understand it--you have to embody that mode in some fashion. Is there a theoretical universe out there with a strong and dynamic Janeway? Sure. But I think that mode is very different than the liberal girlboss that Voyager's writers were keen to create.
I very much agree. A “Katherine” the great commanding the Voyager would have made compelling viewing. But that would be a different character that no one bothered writing.
Imagine her in conflict with chakotay. Fascinating.
I'm not the first person to note this, but a decline that happens in the background of these stories is their creators going from "Writer who was a fighter pilot and jet-setting international traveler" to "Writer who went to school for writing and then wrote"
My favorite quote from piece:
"This is something I see a lot of people still struggle with. They ... complain about the desecration of their myths, and then fail to realize that the desecration was the point."
This is the ONLY way to move on from the stories we used to love. It's too easy to get wrapped up in the culture war, to believe that if enough Maulers and Critical Drinkers and Nerdrotics complain, that capitalism will reassert itself and these entertainment monoliths will remember they like to make money again.
They won't. It's a cult. The desecration is the point. The funding is bottomless. They own everything. The desecration is the point. They fired the talented people and they're never coming back.
The desecration is the point.
Correct. 💯
Something interesting about classic trek was how its sci-fi settings with different alien species gave it a safe space to talk about race. In trek, it's acknowledged that different species have different traits and tendencies, and for a lot of the non-human characters, their race informs not just their character itself, but also the identity issues they face as being the only one of their kind in their society; Spock, Worf, Bellana Torres come to mind. When you think about it, it's mind-boggling how a show that is *the* symbol of progressive utopianism emphatically rejected the blank-state by having characters like Worf struggle with his innately aggressive tendencies and sense of belonging among Klingons, despite being born and raised among humans. Trek seemed to have the perfect balance of sci-fi disembodiment that removed from the minefield of discussing race as is, and a seriousness in subject matter beyond something like Star Wars or Babylon 5 that allowed it to give an honest account of the value of heritage.
Understandably, there's none of that in nu-trek. A species is just like a costume, and with it you see it a lot of the intricacy of the world deteriorate into Star Wars-style zaniness.
I'm only half-Trekkie, on my father's side. But I still speak conversational Trekkie, and I'm in for however many posts you have in this series; you're articulating some things about Star Trek that I haven't heard before and I'm fascinated to hear the rest of.
> In order to understand what a thing is, I believe you must first understand how it dies. Endings are the most important part of a story because they are the culmination of everything that came before.
> If there is one thing I want to get across in this essay, it’s that what we’re witnessing is the real Star Trek as it springs from its stated values.
Funny aside: one of Hegel's major themes is this, that the a thing's end reveals it's true essense, what it really was from the beginning. The history of a thing is thus it's reaching (and revealing) its essense.
To me, what is more salient to the progression... erm digression... of the Starfleet captains, is that the story is always one of decay. We start our Star Trek story with Captain Roddenberry, a man capable of great heroism but lead a dumpster fire personal life. You nailed it on our second Captain, Kirk, being a wish-fulfillment character for Rodenberry.
What fascinates me most about Kirk, our second Starfleet captain, was more of how he represented the era in which he lived, the 1960s. He was the embodiment of the 50s and 60s era of muscular, confident liberalism. In the episode, "The Apple" (Rodenberry had no subtlety), Kirk blew up the AI that served as the planet's god and ended the culture of the planet because Rodenberry knew these "gods" were false and he was going to drag those backwoods fuddy-duddies into the present.
Fast forward to TNG, in the Episode "Justice" while this is not a main plot point. Picard pointedly does NOT destroy the planet's god, edo, something that Kirk in that exact same position did. Picard instead resorts to a morality lecture, gets his people off the planet and leaves.
It's almost as if post Vietnam, the left was starting to lose the Kirkian confidence and strength.
In the first season Picard is, ridiculously, hands off.
“We are not your judge.” And he leaves. Again and again.
This almost realizes the Prime Directive - we can’t come out here without breaking the Prime Directive, so maybe we will retire to a starbase or plant in frustration by the end of the season.
It does not get any better in later seasons. It is just not as obvious because the writing quality increased and they removed Roddenberry from creative influence in the series.
Unpopular opinion but I think Voyager is better than TNG. The characters are all mostly boring non-characters, but it's basically the TNG formula perfected as far as the stories go. The writers are trying to be creative and having fun, they aren't really that interested in lecturing you. It's almost like the creators realized the crew were just generic archetypes and focused on putting them in interesting scenarios. I understand why people don't like it (Janeway is annoying) but as a casual viewer I found the episodes more enjoyable than TNG for the most part.
Oddly, I am with you here. I hate Neelix and Kes with the burning of all the suns in the Delta quadrant, but who can deny the doctor is one of the best characters in all of Trekdom? It’s really a quite decent series to watch, and the doctor makes it a real masterpiece at times.
Also 7 of 9. Hear me out on this lol....
Very complex, nuanced character. Shakespearean, even.
The thing I found hilarious about Janeway in a retrospective viewing of Voyager is how hypocritical and downright mean she is out of the blue. She'll flip from goodie two-shoes, throwing the future of her crew away (her actual first obligation) in order to save some random diverse aliens, to saying "time to take out the garbage" and blowing up an entire ship full of people over moral outrage. The writers barely even attempt to pave over these incongruities. They just have the crew act like it never happened.
My favorite example was when Harry gets a space STD (not star trek discovery) and Janeway demands he ends the relationship out of bitterness and spite, essentially saying, "I can't have my love so neither can you ensign!" I laughed a good bit at that one. No other Captain would ever voice that kind of sentiment, especially since there's not any actual rules forbidding fraternizing with an alien race. If there were, Kirk's career would have been very short.
They really missed out on the whole Maquis/ mutiny plotline, would have made for a very compelling drama. Instead they went for candy-ass-yet-randomly-spiteful Janeway.
I've always found Star Trek boring, and could not understand it, or its appeal. But you've explained things so well I can't but stare in amazement. Bravo, this is easily the greatest Star Trek essay I've ever read!
And “Galaxy Quest” was the best ST movie, as Spiner and Wil Wheaton attest.
And “The Orville” (seasons 2 and 3) is the best Star Trek. That’s why they had to kill it. It was no longer a comedy - it was Next Gen reborn and treated with respect.
"But something always struck me as profoundly wrong with the alternative, with gracefully bowing out and being placed in the cottage. Was that always going to be the end of the journey, a boring retirement? All that adventure, all those high stakes, all the fighting, all the philosophical musings, and that deep aspiration for something higher, does it really end in a lonely French cottage, being passed by and overlooked by history? After everything Picard has done, is this how it ends? Is this what Q saw when he leaned in to whisper into Picard’s ear? You’ve given your entire life in service, but the answer, the ultimate meaning behind it all, is for someone else a little younger?
Going off the Fandom page, Picard had a child with Beverly Crusher somewhere in the canon. One child. Apparently in an alternate reality he had more children, but for the canon timeline, he didn’t have any lasting relationships, and you can bet the Picard bloodline is probably going to die when Jack Crusher (Not Jack Picard for some reason?) finally bites the bullet."
Out of curiosity, how far does your instinctive revulsion at this sort of retirement go? If Picard had married Dr. Crusher and had seven children (having finally overcome his discomfort with children from throughout TNG), and our vision of his future in "All Good Things..." showed his grandsons and granddaughters transporting over to Chateau Picard in the evenings, playing around the vines or listening to the tale of Darmok and Jalad while the grown-ups enjoyed some wine from the cellar, would that feel right?
And if not, is there a satisfying ending for Picard within the basic premise and framework of the show? Obviously there are visions you and I would both love to see. For instance, Picard, an aristocrat and a man born to speak, converting to the faith and preaching with that tempered fire only old zealots have, quoting the Bible the way he once quoted Shakespeare and dying of overexertion in one final speech exhorting the Romulans to honesty and the Vulcans to love and the Klingons to crusade...that would be cool, but would just as obviously break the show's basic ideals in just about every way. Are there any endings that would both fit and not feel profoundly wrong?
I should note the farmer ending isn't egregious to me except in Star Trek's frame. The family ending is much better, but the only way the ending would be completely satisfying would be if Q answered Picard's question.
I think Picard becoming an eternal aristocrat would have worked.
Picard merges with the Borg as a controlling member or as an aristocratic spirit - the next series would have had the Borg and their warp hubs as allies instead of enemies like what happened to the Klingons.
Off the cuff the plot could play off of of why commoners follow aristocrats at all and have him form that sort of relationship with the commoner Borgs. It would portray the Borg Queen as a sort of cancer or unintended outgrowth of the original Borg hive mind in a parallel to how democratic governments succumb to internal corruption when its bureaucracy only exists to expand the bureaucracy. The rightful King overthrows the bad Queen. It was an ending practically handed to the ending writers when they introduced Hugh and the idea that the hive was susceptible to local governance.
It would explain the jarring introduction of this un-Borg like Queen, give Picard the ultimate diplomatic win over the ultimate undiplomatic enemy proving to Q that humanity has matured, change the galactic dynamic back to expansion for the next series, bring the series trademark optimism through a benevolent noble among the galaxy despot Borg and lastly wrap up his Borg hating story by overcoming it with self-mastery/acceptance of anger as a new better Locutus instead of eternal hatred of Klingons like Kirk.
It would also answer Q's question, if this is the scene:
“Q: The Continuum didn't think you had it in you, Jean-Luc. But I knew you did...We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.
Picard: When I realized the paradox.
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.”
Picard: “Q, what is it you’re trying to tell me?”
Q: [Some reversal of the Nietzche quote like, "The monsters out there that hunt men should be careful lest they become the servants of men. And if the abyss gazes too long into the new humanity, it will tremble when the new humanity turns its gaze back upon them"]
Keeps the spirit of the atheist materialistic dream and man's ability to complete it alive.
I like this. I like this more the more I think about it. That would actually have fit with the original vision of the show and the series.
If you wanted to make it maximally saccharine have the final shot be the new Picard or his fading remnant at a new Chateau Picard in the Borg Empire with the setting looking rustic but everything being made of technology on closer examination in some sort of organic futurism art style - the new has become the old.
The obviously machine Borg have combined with the no-machine vineyard into a perfect new synthesis as laid out by the Hegelian dialectic that the liberal atheist favors.
Come for the nerdy Trek stuff. Stay for the deep philosophy. Good stuff man. I can’t wait to read the next few parts.
Trek always struck me as trapped by its own premise/framing story. It looks like you have reached a similar conclusion, though you are far more knowledgable about the franchise.
Dude you missed a chance to call this series Star Trek: The Final Review.
And it felt like that too. I won't be able to unsee the image of premodern archetypes shaved and stuffed into end-of-history uniforms.
Excellent article and analysis; I can’t wait for the next part. I grew up watching reruns of TOS and TNG came out when I was in college, which my friends & I usually watched as a group. Heated Kirk vs. Picard debates were common, as was general disdain for Wesley, the male Mary Sue.
When DS9 came out, I was hopeful but trepidatious since it was the first Star Trek without Roddenberry. It was engaging but rough for the first couple of seasons, but I’m glad I stuck with it because after changing showrunners it developed into the best-written series in the franchise. There were significant threats to the Federation but still an overall sense of optimism, and yes, general fun.
Then came Voyager. Since DS9 was so good, I was really hopeful about this new series. It had a unique premise, interesting characters, and a lot of potential conflict within the hybrid crew. My hopes were not realized.
The episodes were of very uneven quality, but I stuck with the show because I enjoyed some of them and I’d been a Trekkie since I was five. But the series didn’t get better, and Janeway was just as inconsistent as the show.
Even though they tried to write her as an exceptional Captain, she wasn’t up to par, and it had nothing to do with her being female; the writers just didn’t think things through. When you’re in uncharted territory, encountering many new worlds and species and the only ones you can make friends with are the Borg you’re doing something wrong.
The final straw was the episode titled “Tuvix”, where two of the crew were merged into a single being. This being, Tuvix, had all the memories and skills of both people but had its own distinct personality and was a new unique species. When the doctor came up with a way to split the new person back into the original crewmembers but Tuvix didn’t want to die, Captain Janeway overrode his wishes and did it, destroying this new being.
If the ship had been in danger or there had been equivalent stakes, it could have been excusable, but there weren’t. She simply wanted her original friends back; she made some speech about protecting the rights of the originals, but from a legal and moral sense, they had none… they were de facto dead. The new being, Tuvix, did have rights, and was in fact a new life form, the very thing Starfleet was supposed to be discovering.
Captain Janeway committed murder and arguably genocide. She definitely violated Starfleet principles; as I said, the writers didn’t get it. I gave up on the show after that.
This is a is a pretty good litmus test. Do you see this as a black bill? ("All of your beloved franchises are gone and they're never coming back.") Or can you see the white pill here? ("Nothing lasts forever, nor should it. Cherish your memories of these things, mourn them and move on, and rejoice that the principles that made them great can still flourish somewhere else.")
It reminds me of about a year ago, when that app that showed people themselves but 20 years younger briefly consumed the Zeitgeist, and everyone was posting reaction videos as they confronted their own mortality (some, seemingly, for the first time). The people who were comfortable with death, who knew death, and saw it as a part of life, took it in stride, could even laugh. The people who had believed the promises given to them about an eternal youth, an eternal now, an eternal present, absolutely fell to pieces.
I think you let the Voyager writers off too easily in suggesting that they had am impossible task in writing a strong female captain.
Catherine the Great of Russia wasn’t exactly weak and it seems unlikely that no man ever thought about trying to usurp her position and she had a profoundly militaristic role.
The task was possible. The writing just wasn’t good enough.
You always have historical exceptions to the rule. And you have people who seem to be able to break every convention and get away with it. But I think to write that principle--to understand it--you have to embody that mode in some fashion. Is there a theoretical universe out there with a strong and dynamic Janeway? Sure. But I think that mode is very different than the liberal girlboss that Voyager's writers were keen to create.
I very much agree. A “Katherine” the great commanding the Voyager would have made compelling viewing. But that would be a different character that no one bothered writing.
Imagine her in conflict with chakotay. Fascinating.