You state at one point in your posting that the characters are only as smart as the writers allow them to be. This is certainly true as far as it goes. However, I think that the same rules by which we judge the technology and phenomena of these series must also apply to any examination of the characters, their actions and decisions; namely that we are looking in on an extant world unfolding in its space and time. Discussions of the writing or defects thereof I would hold as seperate issues. But I think we both basically agree on that score.
Hmm... that's my fault for muddling the point I was trying to make. What I was attempting to say was that the sort of pragmatic judgement which came naturally to James Kirk was utterly absent in Katheryn Janeway's basic thinking.Lord Poe wrote:She (Janeway) decided that she wanted to make sure the Ocampa were safe, so she chose from her sense of morality rather than thinking of her crew. Maybe she didn't want to risk the Kazon disabling the timed explosives? But would Picard do the same as Janeway did? Would Sisko? The answer is YES. Why? Because that was how the story was written. You can't possibly tell me that if Picard was the Captain of Voyager that he wouldn't have made the EXACT same choice. Because THAT was the McGuffin(sp?) that allowed Voyager to be stranded so far from home. Just because you or I would use the Caretaker to go home and say FUCK the Ocampa, doesn't really count.
As for the destruction of the Array serving as the McGuffin for the series, I reserve an examination of the crafting of this particular plot device for below. In terms of the situation at hand: it is all well and good to choose from a sense of morality a course of action, but that and the well-being of her crew were not mutually exclusive conditions. And as for the risk that the Kazons would disrupt the timer on the explosive device I suggest, I would point out that the Kazons would first have to board the Array, which they cannot accomplish so conveniently without transporters, and a number of alternatives offer themselves, such as the rough decision to leave behind a volunteer with a dead-man switch to ensure that nobody disarms the bomb before the timer runs to zero. If one imperative is to prevent the Array from falling into Kazon hands, then either rigging the bomb with boobytraps to prevent tampering or picking one of your crew to die in order to save 300 accomplishes that object while also leaving the Array funcitonal long enough to slip back to the Alpha Quadrant.
Neither situation is quite comparable. Remember that Kirk had no choice about destroying the warning buoy in "The Corbomite Manoeuver" since it was accelerating toward the ship and pumping out hard radiation. Further, since his mission was to make contact with alien civilisation, he was more or less compelled to proceed further into First Federation space.Need I remind you of "The Corbomite Maneuver" where Kirk ignores an explicit warning buoy NOT to proceed further and simply blows it up and keeps going? How about "Catspaw"?
And as for "Catspaw", Kirk could not leave his landing party behind on Pyris VII.
Unfortunately, yes. A starship is not a democracy. It can't be. The captain has the authority over the lives of the crew and each member of that crew is vital to the running of the ship. To allow any percentage of the crew to simply desert destroys the captain's authority, and deprives the ship of numerous key personnel or at the least reserves —since the ship will take casualties during the voyage home. For sound military and survival reasons, command cannot be subject to a vote. That is why the captain's word is law aboard her own ship, at least within the regulations. Her commission gives her the responsibility for the lives of 300 people.So she should be a dictator and force those that don't WANT to be serving onboard a ship another 75 years to stay onboard?Patrick Degan wrote:Or one who offers to allow as many of the crew to settle on an Earthlike planet as choose to do so (and thus potentially depriving her ship of a minimum critical number of key operating personnel if they choose to leave).
That is not a comparable situation. In Generations, Picard could not know the range or limits of the Nexus timeshift, even given what the Guinan-projection told him (of course, the movie's entire conception of the Nexus is a horrible muddle, but that is another issue entirely). But in "False Prophets", the situation was far more clear-cut. Janeway had Arador and his assistant in her custody, then stupidly allowed herself be talked into releasing them, then wasted time trying to recover two prisoners she never should have released, then wasted the critical time to get the ship through the Barzan wormhole.Ok, let's see. How about "Generations", where Picard had access to the Nexus, and could go back to any time he chose? Why didn't he go back to the first meeting with Soran and arrest his ass? No, instead, he grabs a 60 year old man to help him defeat Soran five minutes before he destroys the sun?Patrick Degan wrote:Examine for a second the one incident which really should have sparked a mutiny; when she allows two fool Ferengi to actually talk her into releasing them from her custody after capturing them, then fools with trying to recapture their shuttlecraft and wasting valuable time better spent in actually sending her ship through the Barzan Wormhole, which then connected the Delta and Alpha Quadrants once again. That is not the mark of a captain with either balls or brains. Because how believable is it that any captain would have been dumb enough to waste so much time and ultimately an opportunity for quick passage home trying to recapture two fugitives she never should have been dumb enough to be talked into releasing in the first place?
To be certain, Picard should have lost his rank for leaving his ship adrift and intact. As for Riker, yes, he could have had Data take down the Stargazer's shields, but this assumes his having access to the prefix codes. "Unnatural Selection" suggests that only ship captains have the security clearance for that sort of information (though this seems to be contradicted by "The Wounded"). But in the case of Janeway, she blew a clear chance to get her crew home when it was right in front of her.Or how about "The Battle?" Shouldn't Picard have destroyed the Stargazer instead of letting it fall into enemy hands? What about that idiot Riker? The entire "Quick! Find a counter to the Picard Maneuver!" idiocy could have been avoided if he (or Data) would have remembered they could take the Stargazer's shields down and beam Picard out of there?
Public opinion back in the Alpha Quadrant really has no bearing on what Janeway's duty was. The survival and return of the crew is the paramount object, not their legacy. And as I said, only exploration and investigation which advanced the aim of achieving the crew's return within their lifetimes had any validity. Even with that limited aim, they would still be making contact with warp-capable civilisations. Bringing back a piece of technology or a formula which would cut travel time across galaxtic space would provide legacy enough, assuming they found either.Your opinion, but I think you are absolutely wrong. I guarantee if Janeway simply hauled ass home with ZERO exploration, there would have been an even BIGGER outcry from the public. She probablyy realized early on that a 75 year trip home is unrealistic anyway, so they might as well make their legacy mean something by collecting data for future Starefleet use.Patrick Degan wrote:That rationale simply does not obtain. If the series had actually stuck to its premise, a ship with limited resources and a divided crew, facing a seventy-year journey back to home space, could devote no more time or energy to conducting any sort of survey beyond what could be managed in passing. You have a totally isolated ship seperated from all hope of repair and resupply at friendly bases in unknown, possibly hostile territory. Survival imperatives dictate that said ship and crew make as quick a passage as possible while making as minimal a presence of themselves to the natives as possible. Stopping to explore or intervene in any civilisation's problems violates these imperatives in toto, and wastes resources the ship doesn't have to spare. Under those conditions, the only valid mission is to return to homespace. Only exploration and investigation which advances that aim has any validity.
As an aside, the "crew is stuck there, so they should make the most of it" idea was essentially Jeri Taylor's rationale for the third season and when the series premise was truly tossed out the airlock.
Remember though that Kirk and Spock were prosecuting a war. Under the circumstances, trapped behind enemy lines, their mission was to destroy military supplies and disrupt the Klingon occupation as much as possible. While they were trying to demonstrate to the Organians that fighting for their freedom against the foreign occupiers was worth dying for (as a means to build an underground), their primary aim was to act against the Klingons.While he and Spock were willing to sacrifice themselves for the Organians who wouldn't lift a finger to help.Patrick Degan wrote:As for Kirk "offering his ship to defend alien civilisations from the Klingons or whomever", I'm afraid that never happened. Kirk never intervened willy-nilly in any war or invasion but in every case was driven by pragmatism. At Organia, for example, Kirk did not "offer up ship and crew" to defend Organia from a Klingon invasion force; he instead ordered Sulu to take the Enterprise out of the system and bring back reinforcements.
Where the fuck is she going to get reinforcements from??Patrick Degan wrote:That sort of rational judgement, by contrast, always seemed utterly alien to the thought processes of Katneryn Janeway.
Now, in regards to the McGuffin of the series, the destruction of the Array, the writers could have done a better job in setting up the situation than they managed. The series pilot essentially has Janeway blowing up the only gateway back to home without even attempting to use it to return to the AQ. No matter how you cut it, in dramaturgical terms, it makes the Janeway character weak for acting in a wholly arbitrary manner.
The better course of action would have been if Janeway had devised the plan to leave behind a timed explosive to destroy the Array while attempting to open the dimensional rift to allow their escape, then have the Array destroyed in a pitched battle with the Kazons attempting to seize it for themselves, thus making the crew's plight the result of cruel fate. It holds out hope for the escape until the last moment when that hope is destroyed before their very eyes. That way, you have a crew rallying to defy their fate instead of one which had essentially sentenced themselves to their exile, or rather were sentenced to it by their own captain making the wrong decision. It would have made Janeway a stronger character by her having found herself and her people in their plight despite their effort to that last minute to escape. It also would have created a far bigger impact for the viewer if the Array had been destroyed just on the verge of Janeway and crew making their exit back home —provided the punch to the pilot and set a more dynamic tone for the series overall. That would have made the payoff of the pilot more satisfying. As it was, it falls about as flat as Sheridan's very uncharacteristically defeatist attitude as seen in the Crusade pilot movie A Call To Arms.
These are the kind of things that can be solved so easily by just five more minutes at the keyboard, but that effort is beyond the creative ability of BragaTrek™, and Voyager's entire run is marred by that sort of storytelling carelessness.
