Kathryn Janeway

From Free net encyclopedia

Janeway redirects here. For other uses, see Janeway (disambiguation).

Kathryn Janeway (Born: May 20, 2336 in Bloomington, Indiana), a fictional character of the Star Trek universe played by Kate Mulgrew, was the commanding officer (with the rank of Captain) of the USS Voyager NCC-74656 (2371-2378) in the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. She was later promoted to Vice Admiral in the film Star Trek: Nemesis.

A complex and deeply emotional personality, Janeway ultimately held herself responsible for Voyager's stranding in the Delta Quadrant, and was committed to returning the ship to Federation space. At times capable of altruism, empathy, and compassion, she (inconsistently) took the Federation's utopian ideals seriously, albeit refracting them through the lens of her own conservatism. She believed in helping people, although it was at times implied that she also had a desire to remake certain crewmembers (particularly Seven of Nine) in her own image.

Her first major task was integrating the Maquis crew into hers after the rebels' ship was destroyed following their transport to the Delta Quadrant. Commander Chakotay, captain of the Maquis ship, became second-in-command of the newly integrated crew.

During the time Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant, they re-established communications with Starfleet in 2374, through an alien relay station. Other important interactions Captain Janeway had with the crew:

Helped Seven of Nine, an ex-Borg drone, claim back her individuality and adjust into human culture.
Took Tom Paris (the son of her friend and former commanding officer, Admiral Owen Paris) under her wing, granting him a field commission of Lieutenant and making him her helmsman when her existing one (Ensign Stadi) was killed in the first episode.
Helped the Doctor through many rough times, and advocated his status as a sentient, living being.

In the film Star Trek: Nemesis, Janeway is shown as a Vice Admiral circa stardate 56844.9. However, in the Star Trek Encyclopedia it was said that Janeway was a Rear Admiral. Also in Star Trek: Nemesis, she had three pips in her collar, which is probably one of those infamous Star Trek pip errors. The reasons for Janeway's rapid ascendance to the admiralty have never been fully explained. Some books have stated that, thanks to her extensive first-hand knowledge of the Borg, she was promoted to Rear Admiral to gain the proper security clearances to be able to access all available information on the Borg; however, these books are not considered canon. Others suggest it was her actions during the series finale episode 'Endgame' (destroying the Borg transwarp hub) coupled with Voyager's successful return to Earth — with most of the ship's crew intact and having collected an enormous amount of data from the Delta Quadrant — which made possible her fast climb through the ranks.

[edit]

Controversy

Janeway was a highly controversial character among fans throughout much of the Voyager series' run, and has been considered the most morally ambiguous of Star Trek's captains. (Indeed, the pilot episode, Caretaker, involves her making a decision which was not universally agreed with.)

Although she was seen by some as simply being a strong-willed individual, others have cited specific incidents (the episodes Equinox, Year of Hell, Night, and Endgame, among others) as examples of abuse of authority, and evidence supporting the idea that before the events of Voyager, she was essentially a civilian science officer who in being inadvertently sent to the Delta Quadrant, was in a situation which her character and level of command maturity were not always able to match. Despite her generally having fundamentally positive intentions, her actions did not always leave those intentions entirely clear.

[edit]