The Equinox crew was a good demonstration of something Quark once said: "Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes."
"It's easy to cling to your principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that's not starving." Those words always hit hard. Was what he did wrong, yes but one of the most dangerous creatures in this world is a desperate man.
Tbh the Equnox is what Voyager should have been... its shouldn't have been easy for them to get home. Ransom was right, hunger and want can really bring into perspective ideals.
Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
To this day I think Voyager missed out by not having a 2 parter about a Klingon ship getting grabbed by the Caretaker and just conquering the shit out of everything.
And there was that episode where they ran into those two Ferengi from TNG's The Price, that were Ferengiing the Hell out of that Planet they were on. She was damned insistent that they be stopped and brought to justice. Those Ferengi got to the Delta Quadrent via a wormhole rather than the Caretaker. But it's the same principle isn't it?
The Care taker was far in advanced of both Federation and Klingon technology, the Klingons would've been like ants to the Care Taker. Also the Klingons that were shoen traveled as a generation ship to the Delta quadrant and was centuries old. As the ship itself was nit designed as a generation ship, just reaching the Delta quadrant with it's crew still believing in their mission is quite impressive but they were religious zealots.
Yeah but it is designed for long range science missions. The added armor, weapons, landing great and science stations allows a deeper dive into specific scientific missions in a solo setting. Enterprise finds a rip in time? Send in voyager.
i think it's entirely possible for the INTREPID CLASS to have been designed for BOTH deep space science and long range tactical missions Especially when one considers that the entire vessel class was designed AFTER WOLF-359 meaning it would almost assuredly have some design elements directed not just to defense but to tactical SUPERIORITY.
intrepid class is a stndard cruiser by late 24th century standards. it's big enough that it can go on essentially 5 year missions but no way does it have hte same level of endurance as a larger explorer. its fast enough it can act as fleet scouts this is the only thing where intrepid class shines. its got enough firepower that it can handle itself in escort roles/moderate combat but in heavy combat intrepid class would get wrecked. it's got enough scientific facilities on board that it can be used as a science vessel but it would just be cheaper to go with a miranda /nova class ship for this. it's got enough creature comforts aboard that it can provide the crew with bare minimum of luxury but definitely not fancy enough for diplomatic functions. so essentially the intrepid class is a mini galaxy class ship. whatever the galaxy class ship can do intrepid is 1/2 or 1/3 that.
One element I think is under appreciated when it comes to Janeway is that she's an inexperienced captain. Voyager is her first full command and she has come from a scientific background. It often helps to keep those two facts in mind when analysing her actions and decisions; she wants to be a Picard; the skilled and principled diplomat but has literally no experience and while in the Delta Quadrant; no-one to call on for advice on how to make decisions, and I think this all contributes to her PTSD/Mental breaks etc. The Season 5, Episode 1 "Night" is also a good example of this kind of thing, if less extreme.
Let's also not forget that Voyager lost crewmen because of what Ransom did. He protected his people and she hers. One of my favourite Trek episodes ever.
Man, Kate Mulgrew was definitely the right choice for Janeway. I would have loved to see more of this show and it's moral questions. Tuvix, Ransom just *chefs kiss*.
I see these episodes keep coming up, and I can't resolve the moral problems here. It's a real paradox. 1. Janeway is a Starfleet captain. She's not supposed to be precipitating and facilitating war. The species she's meeting, she's supposed to meet peacefully. 2. Ransom is also a Starfleet captain, and any Starfleet captain has a duty to the welfare of his crew. This is a very solid rock and a very hard place, and that, more than anything, I think, would contribute to a mental breakdown on Janeway's part. She has to know that Ransom did what he had to, but these creatures are an intelligent civilization. Justifiably aghast, indeed. Not handling it the best...no, she's not really, but taking a hard line isn't unreasonable here. Starfleet hierarchy doesn't actually exist here. They can pretend, but there's no admiralty to complain to. There's no starbase that Janeway can appeal to. She suddenly has to do a job she has no experience with; she has to be a fleet commander. Whether she likes it or not, Ransom is an equal that she can't actually control, and this situation, she has to be in control. And this is in isolation. She has four seasons of having to deal with an absolutely ridiculous and untenable situation that is being compounded with this. I think, it's not actually that unexpected for her to fuck up as badly as she did here in a real life scenario, and given the absurdly extreme nature of this situation, I don't even think it's unforgivable. The creatures agree to peace with Janeway if she gives them Ransom, it is absolutely wrong for her to just agree without a second thought, but the problem she faces is that it's her duty as a Starfleet captain to establish peaceable relations with these creatures, and violating a moral code and her duty at least to a fair due process for Captain Ransom is very tempting in the situation she's in. What's worse, she's at a severe disadvantage in this negotiation with the aliens...and just like Ransom, she has a duty to the welfare of her crew, also. It is absolutely reasonable to see even a skilled diplomat absolutely break and just not know what the hell else they're supposed to do. And it absolutely does not help that she feels personally affronted by Ransom at this time, and she probably doesn't even understand the mistakes she made with Ransom because before he "betrayed" her, she may have been taking a hard line, but she was doing it by the book. She was kind of facing a Kobayashi Maru scenario here wherein she was just going to be wrong no matter what she did, but maybe, if she had done things differently, she could have at least maintained her personal moral code. But I don't think that's really feasible when you're in a survival scenario, even one as unrealistically Pollyanna-ish as Star Trek: Voyager. I don't think it's fair for people to say this made her a bad person. I think it just makes her more human.
I dont think Captain Janeway or Captain Ransom were bad people. I think they were 2 groups of people who made hard choices that they thought would give their people the best outcome. I do disagree with Janeway's decision to not work with Ransom or his people. I believe that starfleet is a military organization and I believe that Janeway's duty to protect other starfleet officers and return 2 starfleet vessels to federation space outweighed any duty to protect, help or guarantee the safety of innocent beings. I also believe Janeway did not have the authority to court martial, judge or execute Ransom of his people in this senario.
@@shawnlake1491 Starfleet isn’t a military organization through it's scientific research, and a diplomatic body. Though she didn’t have the power to execute him she had no other choice as she was already in a loosing battle in the diplomatic talks with these alien species.
@@shawnlake1491 I like how Pike described it in the reboot Star Trek... Starfleet is a peacekeeping and humanitarian Armada... Peacekeeping is usually done by some sort of military or "defense force" which is the same thing but a different name
Janeway is the Admiralty in the Delta Quadrant. Star Fleet explores beyond their boundaries all the time, but the Fleet is bound by Star Fleet regulations regardless. As the last, highest executor of justice available, she had a duty to stop Ransom.
Janeway's intellectual commitment to her principles and her emotional commitment to the crew were greatly heightened by the experience of being so far from safety, and it clouded her judgement on more than one occasion. All in all it makes her character more interesting. In this episode she behaves in a similar way to Cisco when he went after Eddington. To find another Starfleet crew after so long would have seemed like a miracle, so it would be only natural to be biased when judging them, wanting them to be something they were not. This in turn would make the betrayal all the more bitter, because she is not just angry with them, she is also furious with herself for not seeing it sooner.
The Funny thing is, if Captain Ransom had gotten the Equinox home, he probably would have gotten a promotion. Starfleet only cares about rule breaking if you don't get results. Don't believe me? Let's set Kirk aside for a moment and focus on the 24th century. Sisko used a biological weapon on a planet, an action that gave a Klingon pause, and was lauded for his capture of Eddington. Janeway herself was promoted to Admiral after getting Voyager home, and look at everything she did. Hell, Lt. Barclay was in serious trouble for hijacking the Midas array, until it worked and they contacted Voyager. Picard himself was willing to go to Starfleet at Captain Maxwell's back if his illegal actions had actually gotten proof of Cardasian wrongdoing. Starfleet only second guesses their ship captains if something goes wrong. Otherwise they reward them for "creative solutions" or "Doing their best in a bad situation".
I think this overstates the case at least a little. The Sisko one is obviously the worst-case but his extreme actions probably saved a lot of lives by ending the use of bioweapons in the DMZ (and possibly beyond). Barclay's action wasn't so much an ethical dilemma just considered a waste of resources until suddenly it wasn't. And who knows what was in Picard's head at that moment. Was he lying to get Maxwell to back down? Was he being honest about delivering the evidence but still intended to see Maxwell answer for the crimes he committed to gain that intel? Hard to know.
This is a much more nuanced take on the Equinox two-parter than I'veen before, and I pretty much agree at every turn here. I think a last point of motivation with her zealous hunt for Ransom & Co. was, maybe just a little, motivated to make an example of him/them before the Voyager crew, making sure they wouldn't drop to the same level.
That doesnt make sense. If the voyager crew stooped to this level, one of 2 things would be true. Either Janeway gave the command to stoop that low, which she will hardly hunt you down and kill you for following orders... Or janeway isnt the captain anymore and cant hunt you down and kill you...
I can be pretty critical of voyager. But I actually like this episode, because it actually shows the mentality a person would have to adopt to survive stranded away from home. She is pushed to her limit, her morals are being tested, and when faced with what is right and the safety of her crew and protocol, and one of those was going to have to give.
I've often felt that while what Ransom did was wrong, He was also right when he said "It's easy to cling to principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact manned by a crew that's not starving", Ransom wanted to get his crew home, they didn't have the breaks that Voyager got, They didn't have the firepower to protect themselves or a Talaxian to guide them through their first couple of years in the Quadrant. I've often thought that if Voyager and Janeway from Year of Hell had survived and encountered Ransom and Equinox, They'd have joined forces.
It’s an interesting case study, I always thought Janeway crossed the line in that episode as it felt morally questionable. It’s a brilliant story as it supplies a real sinister depth to her character which I found interesting. As far as her actual decisions go IMO it comes down to what the Starfleet ethical & legal framework is in survival situations. I would of hoped by the 24th century they would have clear guidelines to what policies / rules a captain can bend at discretion and what can’t be broken in the pursuit of survival. I could imagine a ethics course at Starfleet academy being an interesting subject to take.
"clear guidelines to what policies / rules captain can bend at discretion"... I don't think you understand how either rules or personal initiative work. You can't have clear guidelines on when to let your own judgment override the rules.
@@Hiraghm How about you read the full paragraph and just accept what was written as a point of view without the need to respond to a specific sentence which you’ve taken out of context.
Frankly despite all the wrong decisions in this episode, it's a story of desperate human and another human, who got perhaps scared, or panicked of what she previously thought to be unthinkable. It's a human story, where nobody's right... there are only the ones left and it is what ST should always stand for regardless of what it has become as of late....
@@paulbabcock2428 I think if i made such comment, it was regardin some politicised stuff. Or maybe u can direct me to that comment cus i made whole bunch over the years and perhaps there was something else in mind....also i had some change of opinion in past few months. Previously I was for example literally seething over some things that happened in the Voyager series background, or did not like some things in old NG series like their approach to the certain episodes...perhaps it was related to that, but nobody can hold same grudge forever
I never could stand mulgrews smug smile and the way she said her own name. It always came through to me as I'm captain woman woman-woman a starfleet captain who's a woman.
I feel like Ransom should have had a look at Janeway's logs. I mean doing a deal with the Borg that condemned trillions to assimilation....yeah.. Then there is Tuvix. Bottomline, she has no room to talk.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 Ehm...Janeways actions with the Borg are directly responsible for killing several civilisations,one of them even mentioned...Let alone all the possible wars her actions later started...Vadvaur anyone? And yes,she MUST have known that giving the Borg a way to beat 8472 means dooming millions and more to assimilation...Just because she wanted to get passage through Borg Space and the first Meeting with 8472 went actually the way one can expect in that specific situation
@@NashmanNash you saw that episode where thy encountered a imitation federation ship with the big headed alien that can speak like 1000 languages. she said I quote " the species 8472 posed a greater threat to the galaxy than the borg did" hence justifying her actions.... i know. it's stupid i forgot mention in my last comment directly. directly killing. she indirectly killed and amassed the largest body count of any starfleet captain in starfleet history :D
Tuvix, yeesh. He creeped me out. Neelix and tuvok didn’t get a choice in the matter, and the fact is they COULD bring them back. They weren’t dead. Tuvix should of did the right thing exactly like that borg drone from sevens dna did.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 wrong. She doomed a species in The Omega Directive and bent the Prime Directive so often at that point that it was a mere sidenote. And then there is the Borg deal. Ransom did what he needed to do survive as did Janeway. Remember that The Voyager was desroyed and then conviniently that timeline never happened.
Exactly my thought. Less Star Trek and more BSG. A ship woefully under equipped for the situation that has to find home against near impossible odds in a quadrant of unknown danger. Instead Voyager stayed more or less perfectly pristine throughout the run. Wasted potential.
That show would be hated by the Star Trek fans. They hate everything that Rodenberry did not have his hands on. If they had more opened minds, maybe they would be more on board with like 4 or 5 new Trek shows out now.
@@Dancestar1981 Sorry I probably came across like I just wanted it to be BSG again. What I meant was it should have been more like BSG in terms of resources and damage to the ship. And ideologies out under pressure. Anyway, BSG isn't really my point. Basically, I just wanted it to have more long term consequences.
This is echoed in DS9 with Cisco's persuit of the Marquis and that guy who betrayed him. Cisco goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off the deep end and it becomes an obcession.
Actually he did nothing wrong. The Maquis denied a planet to the Cardassiens so he denied one of their words to the Maquis. He didn't bomb them to death. They'd only feel ill effects if they tried to stay. Meanwhile the Cardassiens were immune to the effect. He wasn't playing but he didn't really go off the deep end.
I always enjoyed wrathful Janeway as she was morally justified from her lofty perch. We didn’t suffer along with the Equinox crew to see them at their lowest, on the brink of destruction and starving. The moral landscape gets a lot less black and white when you’re desperate to survive. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve experienced desperation myself, I can see Ransom’s perspective a lot more. I can understand the small steps down the road to evil, the justifiable compromises. I don’t know, were I in Janeway’s spot, that I could condemn Ransom so stridently. I would stop his plan to continue to kill the aliens, but I’m not sure I could throw him in the brig.
There's no way he'd get dumped in the brig. She could have stripped him of rank like she did the others. Basically he'd be given probation and kept on a short leash until the unlikely event they returned to the Alpha quadrant -- and of course, his fate would be left up to the Federation. Ransom WAS a scientist, so I think he'd have been relieved to just go back to those duties.
It is not that morality becomes less black and white, its just that your willingness to be immoral increases. The act is still immoral, regardless of the feelings you have about it.
@@fnordwolfe1269 Why does the alien life hold more value than the lives of his crew? Also, this show doesnt make sense. Why wouldnt they want to join a safer ship that they could live on without murdering anything. Why would the captain protest to destroying the evidence of his crime and joining another starfleet crew on its way home?..
Also, everyone acting like they wouldn't do what that captain did, is A. Lying.. And B. Would make a shitty captain. Cant kill an unknown alien to protect the lives of the crew that you are responsible for.. And C. Your crew would have killed you pretty quickly..
@@fnordwolfe1269 Its absolutely that the morality changes. Killing something for the sake of survival and for the survival of others is absolutely more moral than just killing... context matters..
I agree with Janeway that Voyager was the better ship and they'd do better on it, though I would get everything useful from the Equinox, I mean, backup warp core is invaluable in their situation.
@@QaiannaThe Warp core ( according to schematics, it spans several decks tall. But. They could attempt to store the Dylitheum? That could be hazardous but doable.
An interesting take on Janeway's actions and motivations. One thing that strikes me about this episode, is that Ransom's plan was doomed to failure. Setting aside the ethics, which were an important topic. The alternate fuel source (harvested dead aliens) antagonized an alien species with a tactical advantage. (Popping in an out via wormhole things) The Equinox would have been destroyed if Janeway hadn't interfered, and Ransom's desperate plan only bought them a few months of pain and terror.
If he had done nothing, they would have ran out of power and starved to death. It makes perfect sense to take the new power source (even knowing you're antagonizing a species with a tactical advantage) and try to use your newly extended clock to try and find a solution. Do nothing and die, or take the risk and hope you can figure out a solution in time. Assuming giving up and dying isn't an option, (and asking his new alien friends (the ones who introduced him to the wormhole aliens) for refuge, supplies, and repairs wasn't an option) Ransom had no other option.
Janeway has a problem, a huge one! She has to stop the stranded crew of a war ship, from taking over the war ship. Murdering her and the few starfleet officers she stil has, and turning pirate in the Delta quadrant. Half her officers are criminals. How hard would it be to convince the crew to follow them? Star fleet? Sarfleeet is half a galaxy away and unable to reach them. She has no one to rely on, no one to help her resolve this, but herself. She is but one person, what can she do ? What she did! She offers herself to the crew. Screw starfleet, we only got each other out here. You take my orders , i will do my utmost to get you home alive! Home! To your lives, your loved ones your families , your fiends , your pets. Total dedication to the crew, and starfleet can court martial her when she gets them back. The important thing is to keep in command, to prevent Voyager from turning pirate. Cause if she does.. we 're talking billions of victims . That's a war ship. it has enough fire power to take a star system hostage and strip it of everything of value, leaving the natives to starve. That's why she does what she does. Why she's willing to hunt a fellow captain to hell and beyond. What chicote an tuvak fail to understand. The crew is hurt. The lost friends , loved ones, colleagues ,people they knew. The need pay back. The Captain better give it to them or they 'll take it. Officers are not important, she can replace each and every one of them if she has to. Its the crew that matters . They run the ship not the officers. They make sure things happen , machinery keeps working, replicators don't run out of shit to replicate. They collectively and individually decide life or death every moment. Her life or death, the officers life or death, everyone's life or death. All it takes is a badly maintained conduit, a faulty junction, a loose screw, and they all die! There are no star bases to run to out here. She needs every NOC every crewman to go above and beyond to keep voyager operational, so they can somehow get home! Home where there are star bases she can dock voyager to. Home where there is strafleet and chain of command and other ships. Home where her crew is not in danger of taking the ship and turning pirate. Home where civilisation will reinforce their conditioning. Home where she can lay her burden down and rest.
Excellent look at Janeways leadership shortcomings during this series of events. But of course it’s always easier for us to armchair her just as she did to Ransom.
We all saw what Voyager could become in Equinox. The episode was an alternative time line story by another route. Top draw Voyager even if Captain Janeway is more Captain Ahab at times.
Janway stranded her entire crew, to save one species that was probably dying out anyways. Don’t even try to compete the two. She never sacrifice a species, to save her crew. Literally the entire premise of the show…
Had a big argument with a co worker this week on this very subject. The Interpid Class ship was built for battle. Not a Star Destroyer kind of ship, but one that was built to take a beating and keep fighting. That's why it was sent to track down the bad guys. His argument was it was a science ship that just happened to be well armed and tough as nails.
Regarding assuming command and ordering scuttling the Equinox, I thought opposite of you. I think she should've made it clean cut and ordered it done, supervised by her crew, with minimal fanfare. It would've been like ripping off the band-aid so to speak. She could take the hit for being harsh but in the end they would've avoided most of the drama and subterfuge when Voyager would become the Equinox's crew's only option. When they've had a taste of warm food, a fast ship, and not having to murder their way home, they would've accepted it quickly. The soft touch just made things hard and gave them time to screw her over. In the end it would've saved more lives on both crews. As for her treatment of Ransom ala "their mistake," I agree a softer touch was needed. This is where she should've been able to see how bad their situation was and at least acknowledged the desperation. It was a mistake cornering Ransom like she did but again it could've been avoided if she had just been firm and fast on the initial takeover. Hunting down Ransom was definitely personal at that point but I don't think it really matters. The personal motivations certainly speak to her character but ultimately what would've been different in action? He was going to keep killing and took the device. They had a full blown interspecies/faction crisis and she would've had to stop him anyway and he wasn't going to surrender quietly. I didn't have a big problem with her motivations either. You fight for the people next to you. That's a common axium in service. That being top of mind for Janeway isn't problematic at all for me. When you're trying to make the strongest possible argument you always start with your strongest emotional narrative. You don't say murder is bad because it's against the law, you say it's because it rips a person away from loved ones and causes pain to them. The elements of the crime were well established, but they needed to understand how personally they hurt the people they have to live with now.
I always loved the look of the Nova class. It’s sharp angular lines look more aggressive than the Intrepid or Defiant to me. It looks like an escort or short range patrol ship.
Nobody seems to comment on how killing these creatures to get home only succeeded in Ransom's crew being in continuous mortal danger and it seems evident in the episode that many of his crew had died because of the decision to use the creatures in an horrific way. Surely this would have created some sort of mutiny among his crew to stop the killing of creatures in order to get them home sooner. It's also hard to believe that know one on his crew had some sort of moral compass to question or stop the actions unless another unthinkable crime happened and they dispensed with a crew mate. mention must be made of Chakotey's strong character decision of stopping his Captain and going back into the room to save the guy who Janeway was trying to get information from. He is brave and unyielding in what was right to do. As far as I see Janeway acted out of character in the episode regardless of whether it made a good case study or not. In Doctor who Tom Baker used to question the decisions of writers or directors saying that he knew his character better than them. Many times has an actor questioned in order to preserve the integrity of their character. In all, Janeway is Human and not perfect, what would we have done if faced with the same circumstances, she had an enormous weight on her shoulders and she realised her mistake whilst on the bridge at the end, her face said it all. In that moment you can only feel for her and forgive her which clearly Chakotey did when they put the plaque back up restoring her honour so to speak. She made errors of judgement but it teaches us that so do we. She is a stronger character forged from a time of weakness which makes her a great Captain, absolutely not the worst. What about their EMH; they cancelled his ethical pathway's, my goodness that crew had turned evil and they all tried to hide their evil from Janeway.
Janeway wanted to help her fellow humans. That's part of why she rescued Seven. What was the best way to help the crew of the Equinox? By bringing them onboard. This echoes back to what she did with the Maquis. While Ransom wasn't one of her personal heroes, she was a bit disgusted when she learned who he had become. Janeway wanted to get her crew home but if worse came to worse, she would find an M-class world and settle, not become a killer. That's not a Starfleet value, that's human decency. We don't even know what all Ransom did to get where he was or what he would do next. I think Janeway may have even been terrified to find out. He turned his back on his fellow man when he sold out the Voyager crew. I think eventually, he would have let the people under him die in his bloody mindedness to get home. Starfleet aside it was her moral obligation to stop him. In a way though, she was becoming more like him and I think that is the comparison and contract the viewer needed to see. There's a reason we still talk about these episodes to this day; they spark discussion.
If voyager had contact with starfleet command like they do in later seasons, Janeway would have been ordered to disable the equinox and arrest it's captain and crew. And later been authorized to stop equinox by what ever means. Starfleet would not like it but would allow her to destroy the ship
Starfleet, a reluctant military organization at best, has a regulation that states that , essentially, the captain with the better phasers is in command. Not commission date of the captains, not familiarity with the situation or tactical expertise… but whose ship is the right combination of advanced technology and least damage. To put this another way, the Red Squad cadets that had the Reliant could theoretically command Sisko and the Defiant IF The Defiant was more badly damaged. Additionally, this would infer that actual flagships of starfleet such as the enterprise technically HAVE to hang back and command the battle from the rear rather than engage… meaning all those quantum torpedos are for show/ when the situation goes FUBAR and the fleet crumbles. It also means that all those admirals flying those old Excelsior‘s would be deliberately commanding antiques to avoid being in command of tactical situations, it also means that Starfleet gives freshly minted captains the most advanced ships, and ergo priority command in tactical situations… Even if those most advanced ships are science vessels…
[EDIT: Intro removed due to my failure in reading/listening comprehension] This regulation is not one that scales well, and is also open to interpretation due to the fact that there could be significant disagreement over which ship is "tactically superior." You might have a newer, more advanced vessel with an untried crew and rookie captain and an older ship with an experienced captain and crew who really know how to fight their ship, and thus can achieve superior combat performance than the "tactically superior" ship. Performance on paper might not translate to real-world performance, especially since starship crews are forever tweaking their ships to perform above specs. Of particular note are the Enterprise-D's Dilithium Articulation Frame in its Warp Core, which was a more advanced custom job that rivaled next-generation designs, improving reactor performance, and the Ablative Armor on the Defiant. Neither of these improvements were reported to Starfleet Command even though they significantly improved the capabilities of the ships. This openly invites a scenario where, if the more experienced captain does not trust the judgement of the less experienced captain, he or she might feel obligated to *prove* that their ship is "tactically superior." Unlikely under most circumstances, but in a situation like that found in ST:Voyager it greatly increases the odds that Starfleet ships are going to end up shooting at each other. I would suspect that the regulation is supposed to have a context in which a stronger ship takes the lead in a scuffle, with the lesser ship(s) supporting it. It almost certainly wasn't designed for an extended siege situation, since most ship battles tended to last a matter of minutes. It speaks of a peacetime regulation that doesn't take into account major wartime scenarios. Unfortunately, we are not given that context, and Ransom didn't call B.S. on Janeway's assertion, so not only do we have no evidence that further mitigating regulations exist, Ransom's reaction seems to indicate that either Janeway is *correct* in her application of the regulation, or it was in *that* moment, not the later confrontation, that Ransom made the decision to run for it and he was not going to tip his hand to Janeway by continuing to argue.
@@dajonaneisnoah8714 I always enjoy well thought out responses. 👍 As Lore points out, a running Theory of his is Janeway has increasing degrees of PTSD, given Ransons situation and it’s almost guaranteed that he has CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as well as most of the remaining Equinox crew (certainly his second in command does as he goes off the rails by the end) so your likely right that Ransom only got in line long enough to avoid suspicion. (as a sidenote, this is a perfect example as to why ship counselors are not only a good idea, but probably essential to put out the brushfires before it reaches PTSD. Keeping in mind that this is of course a fictional universe, it’s a bit of an oversight that the EMH didn’t have a clinical psychology subroutine/there wasn’t a ESC). Janeway’s line about checking the regulation that morning is interesting, if I recall earlier on that episode there was a bit of a build up of Ransons reputation between her and 7, I point this out as I think this, combined with her own traumas and overriding desire to “get her family home” may have blinded her to who Ranson had become and she did the one thing she shouldn’t have, used the rules to take his ship from him.
To be fair, we don't know what the entire regulation says, just Article 14 of it. It's possible that the regulation is on how to determine who is in charge of a group of Starfleet ships that form a task force. Earlier articles might list that the Admiralty designated officer is in charge, or in a more ad-hoc TF the highest ranking officer is in charge, and so forth, and it took her down to Article 14 to find a relevant section that solved the issue the two ships were faced with. I mean, when it comes to two or more ships, with ship captains all the same rank, with no pre-made task force determining things, in a tactical situation, then going with the best on-paper combat ship isn't a bad call. In a medical situation, the ship with better medical facilities might take the lead. In a science ship, the most science relevant ship for the situation might be in charge. If everything is equal, the last article of the regulation might have them just flip a coin or play rock, paper, scissors to determine who's in command. (Or maybe a duel on the holodeck. Phasers set to stun, walk 10 paces, then on command, turn and fire.) ;) Arguably, we saw this regulation and article in action in First Contact. Admiral's ship was lost, and Picard - on the tactically superior ship - took command. Also, the Red Squad cadets were on the Valiant, not the Reliant. I don't think we've seen a Reliant since Khan blew one up. :)
@@dajonaneisnoah8714 there have been many debates on Daystrom about how “tactically superior” is actually worked out, basically going over what you said here
Janeway is a masterclass in doing the right thing the wrong way. But we have to remember also, she's primarily a /science officer/ that changed to command. Kirk was a command officer from the word go, and all his training and experience went that way. Picard was a command officer *and* veteran of the diplomatic corps. One of starfleet's finest diplomats, in fact. Sisko was a command officer from the word go. So Janeway basically had probably a decade less diplomatic training and experience, and it shows. She's more likely to think of immediate outcomes than of chains of consequence driven by culture and psychology. Frankly, if it had been her at Farpoint, there would be no humanity because her style of negotiation would have simply made Q go 'See? I'm right.' and snap. But she would have been a major asset at DS9 during the dominion war, and perhaps her behavior and views are colored by that.
I think Janeways actions make sense for how she’s been characterized to this point. Her PTSD and fierce protection of her crew led her to doing some …. interesting actions. She does not play when it comes to protecting her crew. Ultimately, that is the most consistent strand in Voyagers run. Anything can be justified to Janeway if it means protecting her crew and getting them home.
"Anything can be justified to Janeway if it means protecting her crew and getting them home." Except when someone else does the same thing for their crew.
Good video. I would argue that the question is not to kill to survive but to kill to get home. Not necessarily the same thing, but depending on the perspective of their experience, they could see it as survival.
The 'desperate times require desperate actions' thing has limits. The crew of the Equinox always had the choice of trying to find a safe haven to settle down and trade what they have to make a new home. Ok, that would violate some of Starfleet rules as well, but it's more acceptable than murder. You don't have an right to do anything to survive, sometimes death is the only morally right course of action.
Could be expected then 2 ships woulda been made legendary for a miraculous an ALL it woulda needed was a refuel and maybe means to fill ranks. Hell Voyager did it even with DELTA QUADRANT VOLUNTEERS more then once. Ransom can try but he TOTALLY failed as a Captain an him an his all totally failed as SF officers.
it's true, I mean, those people they met on the planet that gave them the technology seemed like a friendly bunch. They could have just stayed there and survived.
True. However, convincing people that it's a good day to die is kind'a difficult. The race that gave us that phrase has had individuals doing dishonourable things to avoid death. Then again, 'find a quiet corner of a planet and live out the rest of your life keeping out of the way' is an option. One that's been explicitly ordered for a crew in a bad situation.
How many times did Janeway screw up established structures,restarted old wars etc. to get home faster? I think i just throw Species 8472 into the mix...First Meeting went bad,why don´t we give the Borg a Weapon that can kill them?And in exchange we can travel through their space and get home faster...Which leads to another question...IF the Borg have their own space..should´nt the Transwarp Hub from "Endgame" be placed inside it? So either Voyager travelled back a reaaaaly large distance to get to that hub,or the Borg Space was formed in a way that Voyager flew roughly parallel to it for a few years,after crossing it during the 8472 debacle...so it would have something of an L shape
Janeway was a hard captain. She was logical and showed empathy. But too many times of desperation and constant threat definitely gave her ptsd. We see it in the army. Humans exposed to constant threat and stress for long periods of time require the brain. But I think what broke her is the fact was that the captain had done his job and protected his crew. They got to an M class planet and that means his crew could have established a colony. We see this as an option in other series. He had the choice of saving lives or taking lives just to keep his ship and crew. His hubris is what infuriated Janeway. There were several times the equinox crew made several choices that were against starfleet. They could have landed and salvaged their ship to make a colony. That’s the breaking point it was never one choice. It was numerous and once janeway put it all together it was too much for any captain of starfleet to consider and then to even betray her and her crew. Really it would make anyone question the morals and ethics of star fleet and what exactly were they trying so hard to get home too? Also my opinion would have been they should have modified the outer hulls to Jerry rig a hard point and merge the ships. Think bubbas version of the Prometheus. Once repaired and stocked on fuel they would quite possible have increased power, shields, and weapons.
Take into account Janeway had probably at times thought along this line but refused to walk it, seeing Ransom and his crew acting this way must of been horrific to her as she sees what she could of become if she stooped to his level.
She made her position completely clear when she destroyed the caretaker array. you are 100% right. She saw the line, and while she occasionally got close, or even reached over the line in some cases, she never stepped over and always made sure her crew did the same. Tom Paris did the right thing, morally, but it crossed Janeway's line and she pulled him back by demoting him, but she also made sure tom knew that as a person Tom was right, but as a Starfleet Officer, she had to do what she did. and she promoted him right back when he was proven again.
Janeway's biggest flaw was that she was a terrible diplomat. She was a fighter in charge of a science vessel. She used power to push her will. She didn't negotiate. Get strength was being a fighter. It kept things stable and consistent for her crew. They knew what to expect with her. She always went down fighting. I've seen leadership in the military basically use rank and rules to get their way. This episode is a great example of this and what happens as a result. It's easy to pass judgment when you're comfortable and holding all the power. The Equinox captain should have joined Voyager and scuttled guys ship the very moment he could and admit his crimes to Janeway later. Janeway should of handled it better and demoted him as a start.
I'd say the breakdown comes much earlier than that, in the second season episode Tuvix. Should Janeway commit murder on an innocent lifeform to get back her two crewmates? Because that is what she did, no ifs, buts and whens, the show even acknowledge this. Tuvix started to exist as a separate entity through no fault of his own, and when the cure was found, he was discarded. One of the lows of Janeway, to be sure.
I rewatched the scene where Janeway gives the regulation just in case. Memory Alpha adds that an actual flag officer would render the whole thing moot, but it's possible she figured it wasn't really vital to mention ('Is that an admiral in Cargo Bay 2 or are you just happy to see me?'). Still, Ransom does try to pull protocol and is the one who asks what happens. I wonder if he was hoping Da Rules would be on his side and thought of that as a subtle way of pressuring her.
I think it’s part of Janeway’s backstory that her past has left her struggling. While technically this one book I read (of course, can’t remember the name now) isn’t technically canon, because it’s a book not an ep or a movie, enough of what’s in that book has been either stated outright in an ep or hinted at in dialogue in Voyager eps, she loses her father & fiancé in a crash that almost kills her. She doesn’t cope well. And even though Year of Hell never happened because of the reset, she still made a terrible decision in insisting on going through that region rather than replot a course around it. (And that she made a different decision after the reset, as well as other characters acting differently, seems to suggest that subconsciously, your brain remembers a bad decision & doesn’t do it again. I’m not sure if that’s what Trek was getting at but, it’s the only explanation I can come up with.) Ransom makes that same mistake and it’s absurd that he does. He’s confronted almost immediately by a hostile species that says don’t travel in our space, but he says f-- that & does so anyway, even though his ship isn’t really outfitted for battle and half his crew died as a result. There was never a WTF question for Ransom about a stupid decision that, if he’d have respected the boundaries of that other species, killing those creatures may never had seemed like a necessary option. Janeway for the most part keeps her struggles with her mental health in check but it does come out from time to time. A reckless decision from her past that Tuvok mentions during the ep where they are all trapped in “The Void.” Her locking herself away during that same episode. And there’s that poetic device that hints that at the time of Voyager & the Equinox meet, Ransom has lost his way as a Starfleet Captain. The Equinox’s name plate on the Bridge fell from the wall. At the end of the episode, Chakotay & Janeway find Voyager’s nameplate, and she remarks that in all the battles they’d been though, that plate had never fallen down. She’s by this point, realized how out of control she was, and tells Chakotay that he’d have had a good reason to engage in mutiny.
One of the original founding writer for Voyager wrote that story. Voyager was created by Michael Piller, Rick Berman and female writer Jeri Taylor. Jeri wrote the book. She retired a few seasons into Voyager. Many would consider her book as part of cannon.
Honestly I think it's a good thing they went this route and showed her essentially making the wrong choices. It shows she wasn't perfect. And an imperfect protagonist is a relatable protagonist.
You seem to forget that voyager lost so much crew that they needed marque crew to function. That seriously decreases food, life support, needed & as such increase it's ability to go longer without supplies. Also Nelix did create an effective kitchen.
It would take us (the audience) another five years to figure out that one of the Equinox crew who survived to serve on Voyager was secretly a Cylon. I think that he was behind the whole conflict.
Let's be honest, Janeway was basically vetted to be a hitman and or a getaway driver with that ship she was given. She is a tactician not a diplomat. I think her character was more consistent than people think because of lacking the understanding of the profile her higher-ups seen in her.
4:48. I always thought the use of that protocol was incorrect. Not because of the reasons in this video, they are all valid points. No, I think the protocol was incorrect because they weren't in battle. Sure, conflict was impending, but they weren't in combat in that moment. Compared to the first act of First Contact when the Enterprise-E warped into the battle with the Borg Cube. Immediately after he learns the admiral's ship had been destroyed, Picard realized the Enterprise was the tactically superior ship among those still battle and he rightfully took command of the fleet. In this conference with Ransom and his first officer, they weren't in battle and therefore the protocol did not apply. Janeway didn't have the authority to command Ransom to scuttle the Equinox.
An episode along the same lines as TNG's "Lower Decks" would have been perfect to follow up on the Equinox's former crew, as well as other minor Voyager crew members. I'm disappointed as well that we never got an episode like that.
I mean the same issue is raised in TNG with Picard and that other Captain thats attacking and killing Cardassians. Picard would have blasted him and his crew to hell and back to make sure the peace treaty with the Cardassians stayed intact. That being said that other Captain was smart enough to surrender in the end.
I assume you've never been in the military? "Pulling rank" is a civilian concept and a negative. In the military I never heard anyone ever say someone was "pulling rank".Someone was in charge and that was that. It's there job. So Janeway rightfully taking charge would be normal. The concept that Janeway would trying to be gentle with Ransom in order to stop him getting butt hurt is not how the military works. That's how civilians have to be treated because their self-esteem is so low.
I saw a lot of people in the military that pulled rank. Usually it was when they didn't have a good reason for the order they just gave. When just had to do it because they outranked us, not because it was a good idea.
''Nobody ever said sitting in the big chair was easy. You'll be asked to make a thousand serious decisions a day, and each and every one of them will have consequences that you'll have to learn to live with. Starfleet Academy trains us to look at all sides of the argument, all sides of the problem, and to work it with the resources that we have at our disposal. No Captain gets up in the morning and by four in the afternoon is requesting the computer initiate the self-destruct, but that's part of the job too. Your job, as Captain, is to have everyone's best interests in mind and to keep your ship operating beneath your feet. Day by day, sometimes even hour by hour in those tense situations, but ultimately as Captain (unless an Admiral says otherwise) every decision that you make about your ship and your crew is your decision and nobody else's. You don't have the luxury of blaming your first officer, or your second; because even if they issue advice that you take that ultimately leads to a breaking down of the situation or a mistake that costs you dear, it was up to you to weigh their advice and to consider the pros and cons of it before putting it in to orders.'' From my own comportment on how to survive as a Starfleet Officer
So letting them go is somehow preferable? Hell no - she needed to stop their rampage as a starfleet officer - or she'd be complicit. That said I liked the ship and thought it was incredibly short sighted to consider scuttling it in the first place.
equinox would hav needed to many resources to repair and to crew properly and would have slowed voyager down to keep togher best to take what you could and move on
@@cosmeticscameo8277 Not to sound argumentative, but if they had the resources to make a delta flyer go warp 10... they could probably have rigged up a tow hitch or souped that little thing up and had it flying recon missions - anything but what they did... 2 ships is the start of a tiny fleet - and imagine how the show could have diverged into chaos as the borg captured it etc
I think the "I was just following orders" argument was roundly defeated in the 20th century. Hell, when I was in the Army, we were explicitly told that filtering an order you know to be unlawful made you as guilty as whoever gave the order. I don't expect it should be any different in four hundred years
Especially since Starfleet INSISTS they aren't a military -- just a bunch of folks chilling in a giant, heavily-armed starship while coincidentally dressing alike and calling each other by ranks. "Oh, that wasn't an ORDER. It was more of a strong recommendation, since, you know, we totally are not soldiers."
Voyager was a well built combat vessel with a decent size crew bolstered by battle hardened Marquis crew who thrived in thinking out of the box so were well suited to their predicament. Equinox was basically the Oberth replacement crewed by science nerds who got pounded for several years with virtually no crew left. No wonder Ransom did what he did. Not saying he was right but switch Janeway and Ransom around and I reckon she’d be the same.
I loved these episodes... Because it takes these federation ships we see with full crews who are stoic hardened people, and makes them ironically HUMAN. they were alone, far from the federation being picked off by various species and essentially becoming so desperate they ignored their federation and human morals to sacrifice the creatures to get home faster. That hit Janeway like a torpedo because she would never expect federation personnel to kill the creatures for their own benefit. The fact they did that pissed her off, because Starfleet are trained to be better than that... seeing that being ignored over personal benefit basically took everything she was taught and trained and threw it out the airlock. It's why I love Voyager, it has these episodes that throw everything normal into question for the betterment of the crew.
federation morals and human morals are two different things entirely. Try reading Heinlein's, "The Pragmatics of Patriotism" sometime. Starfleet are trained to place the welfare of aliens from another quadrant above the welfare of their own people. What a sick, twisted set of values.
The Equinox, like many episodes of VOY, missed the chance to truly explore what it meant to be a single ship in unknown space. Janeway goes proper bonkers and inconsistent in this episode. I assume you talk of Year of Hell when talking of similar instances (another missed opportunity) And yeah, we never truly see a desperate captain. There's always a convenient escape, a dues ex machina or some other reset. Just as the Marquis dynamic was ignored in the large, so was the Equinox possibility. It's a shame this could have been so much more
As the authority on the ship, janeway's decisions as to Starfleet values and which rules to follow in the moment is the mechanism to create tension in many episodes. I have heard that she is a bad captain due to choices that episode writers needed to create the situation in those episodes. Other star trek series had Admirals showing up often to be the "bad" guy and let the captain shine.
It's because she had multiple writers where none of them could agree on who Janeway is. This episode she was a Starfleet officer who didn't really understand Starfleet.
The whole situation was sort of contrived, What Captain Ransom did was the real failure of leadership. It was to have gotten his ship safe, repaired and back under way. Then it was to procure resources and provide facilities to endure the trek before them - which was **not** what the ship was designed for, so your FIRST responsibility isn't to be as sanguine as Captain Janeway, it's to have been FAR more cautious given the most limited resource on his ship was his people, and he failed them early, and often evidently. He should have relied upon more properly assessing the local political/military situation, and if in fact necessary, trade in some technologies (lower level of course), with those cultures, and civilizations that could help them get across their space. But he didn't do that. A flaw with both series was also that , you're not in the Alpha Quadrant, so treaties around cloaking do not apply and particularly the Treaty of Algernon so cloaking their ships , while power intensive might have been a good deal.
We are all Ransom, if we are under enough pressure. My view, watching Tuvok, day in day out, was enough pressure of guilt to make Jayneway her own version of Ransom. Seven, of course, was shoe horned in there like a Cinderella's sister's feet.
It's not practical. What happened to the Equinox is what happened when you aren't the main characters and your ship is not the title of the show. For Voyager, next week, all the damages will be repair, bulkheads back to normal, even the fucking carpets cleaned. Everyone in clean uniforms sipping coffee. Voyager has an endless supply of shuttles and enough materials to build TWO Delta Flyers and more torpedoes than God.
@@Excalibur01 Not in our world. But this is Star Trek. They have replicators, and warp cores, and transporters. Lots of power to replicate anything they want, and transporters to move large materials into place (such as bulkheads). Totally practical in 24th century star trek. Provided they continue to replenish their fuel source, and don't lose their replicators to critical damage, they should be able to repair pretty much anything. Or build just about anything.
@@LtFoodstamp Even a starship needs to be resupplied and go in for extensive repairs. We've seen that in canon. The amount of battle damage that Voyager has suffered over the years builds.
Janeway had an easy out here. Take on the other crew and make no moral judgment as to their previous actions. If they ever make it back to Federation territory, she can turn them over to the proper authorities. In the meantime, they can try and mitigate what they had done with good service; and Voyager gets much needed reinforcements.
Aye, give them a demotion and keep an eye on them but if they perform well and don't commit any more... Murders? War crimes? Accept them like she did the Marquis.
if there's one line I remember from letters from iwo jima it was general kuribayashi's line when he saw a captain physicallly beat 2 soldiers for talking smack. general: "captain, do you have such a abundance of men that you could afford to put 2 out of commission" captain: no sir general: well then stop beating them and deny them their food rations. smart captain has to use his brain not just his whip. so in context of janeway she is so undercrewed that she needs every able bodied man and woman she can get her hands on.
And we are just going to ignore all the maquis terrorists serving on board... In some ways I think it would have made sense for the crew to mutiny on Voyager several times over. Equinox could have been how Voyager should have been written. Maybe depressing, but after DS9 it would have been a better fit. If then Voyager meets the Equinox and neither ship are in ideal conditions, this episode would have made more sense. Janeway does agree to chase down the Equinox crew for execution not justice. I think this is an overlooked little tidbit.
@@terryfuldsgaming7995 Do you think in the Writers room there was a note on the wall, " Remember she is a sociopath." I mean it is possible they just kept it a secret and left it for us to slowly figure it out. It would have been better for the show to reveal it and let us work out how does she stay Captain with such a mental disorder. ( like the tv series Dexter)
@@terryfuldsgaming7995 not to mention how she treated Riker before he took command of the Titan. Making it known that it would be his last offer to the Captains chair. I read that and was like Bitch do you know how many times he has saved Earth!!! Starfleet should have a permanent seat of Captain reserve for him for the rest of his life.
Going back to TNG's The Pegasus, Picard says "Mutiny, on a Federation starship, that's shocking. It's unthinkable." So when the Equinox crew, who are under her command, conspire against her it might be the second ever mutiny in Starfleet history. Revolt probably never even crossed her mind so I can understand why she believed they could be confined to quarters and trust that their sense of duty would be enough to keep them there, they screwed up killing those creatures but she likely figured being on Voyager would remind them they're Starfleet officers.
I'd like to see a comparison of this episode and DS9 05x13 For The Uniform. Sisko poisons the atmosphere of an entire planet just to satisfy a vendetta against someone who betrayed his Starfleet oath and brought shame to the uniform.
Never really watched Voyager. See Twitter references to Captain Ransom but never bothered to pay attention. Thank you for not only explaining the situation but giving a detailed breakdown of how things are.
This is something that comes up from time to time. You will have a commanding officer get pushed over the edge and it's up to our heros to fix the mess. This does happen a few times in TOS at least once in TNG and a few times in DS9. Is this situation handled perfectly, no, it is similar to the attack by the Gorn. In which a new Federation outpost was attacked in an unprovoked manner. Kirk would chase the Gorn ship into unexploded space to seek justice. Stating it was a matter of policy, "out here we are the policemen around. And a crime has been committed. Do I make myself clear." It was only after the two sides talked that we discover Starfleet was in the wrong putting a Federation base in another races territory. Janeway's reaction in many cases of this episode aren't the right ones but necessary because once the aliens realized who their real enemies were they stopped attacking Voyager and went after the Equinox. I think in the end Janeway thought that since the members another renegade group were willing to join Voyager she thought that maybe the Equinox would do so as well, not realizing how far they had fallen.
That gorn episode was a bad ripoff of "Arena". In Arena, a super-powerful alien being saw a human fleet about to engage an alien fleet, and foresaw one species wiped out and the other so crippled that it reverted to primitive state and never recovered. So it plucked one representative from each fleet, and stuck them in an arena equally unpleasant for each of them. The loser's species it would destroy utterly, allowing the winner to flourish. The alien was a round ball with clawed tentacles it could extend. When the human and it rushed to engage one another, they bounced off an invisible barrier. The only other beings there were little six legged lizards. At one point, drained and made irrational by the heat, the human said, "hello" to it... it said "hello" back. It was stifling hot for the human, so he had a limited time to fight the alien. He watched, at one point, as the alien captured a small, six legged lizard.. then one-by-one pulled its legs off until it died. Then it threw the carcass at him... and it passed through the barrier. Some hours later, the alien had constructed a catapult capable of reaching the back of the human side of the arena; the human constructed a sling and managed to throw a ball of burning kindling, which hit the catapult and set it afire. Later, the little lizard is back, and keeps repeating, "Come. Help. Kill." until he follows it. he finds the other, now-legless lizard screaming in agony, writhing on the ground. He uses the stone knife he'd made to put it out of its misery, and realized it was alive when it crossed the barrier. He then constructs a harpoon. So he built a platform by the barrier, stood on it, and hit himself with a rock... passing out and through the barrier. When he wakes, he lies still until the alien is close enough, then throws the harpoon, and pulls the alien to him, stabs it to death, wakes up aboard his one-man ship, thirsty as hell with healed scars on his chest from the alien's claws. The alien fleet was utterly destroyed. Much better story than the Gorn story. And much, much better ending.
I always thought only if the tension between voyager and the marque was anywhere close to the tension between the equinox. The first 2 seasons would have been a little more interesting.
Yeah, iirc: that was the original plan for the show in a more serialised format, however they were worried it would be hard to follow so stuck to the episodic nature instead
@@Cheesusful I am actually a big fan of most of voyager and it might be dumb. But my mom didn't like ds9 so I watched voyager. I am a rare person that liked the first seasons, but there's always a what if.
@@DuckAvenger I also enjoy voyager... I mean.. Its not as good as ds9 :p but its still pretty fun. Though I agree it would have been nice if they'd done more with the maquis storyline, it does still get like... 3 or 4 episodes over the course of the entire show but it could have done with more in the first season
@@DuckAvenger the first seasons are some of the best, because Piller was still around to remind everyone else not just to keep the focus on the human element, but he also kept track of character motivations etc. When he left, there was an immediate drop-off in those aspects of the show, with characters just filling holes to emptily react in scripts populated entirely with higher-concept ideas. (Those episodes can still be fun but they don’t have the same heart.) I am neither a Voyager hater nor a lover, but when Jeri Taylor just kills all of Piller’s characters she disliked it’s always very 😐 to me on rewatches. Like.. just throwing away all of the stories Piller seeded for her, and the resultant floundering to plant new stories is so evident. She was also one of the most vocal voices against being more continuity-heavy, as Piller, Braga, and more wanted to go that way as DS9 was doing.
Something which has always bothered me is that Janeway almost equalled Kirk in being cavalier with time/being caught up with temporal events. In fact the finale of the series rests on a future Janeway from a timeline where Voyager did take years to get back, deliberately violated the protocols by going back in time - like Harry Kim - to change the past. So much for her vaunted quoting of regulations and wanting to always live by the Star Fleet manual whatever the cost. She did say early on (Series 1) when they encountered a friendly species with space folding tech who refused to share that tech with a ‘less advanced species’ that it hurt to be on the other side of the Prime Directive. When the younger Janeway got back - having changed Federation History - did Star Fleet promote her for her actions - especially in destroying the Borg corridors, or lock her up because they were all living in a different reality?
a lot of kirk's time travelling is accidental. the only time they deliberately went back in time was assignment earth where starfleet ordered them to investigate earth 1968
@@cosmeticscameo8277 I was going by a throw-away line from the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations” where the agents sent to investigate the crew’s recent experience with the Orb of Time (and why didn’t they confiscate this ?) commented that Kirk had the biggest file of incidents of any other Star Trek personnel. It certainly seemed that in their eyes he was (or had been or would be???) a major offender.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 I was going by the remark made by Dulmur and Lucsly two investigators from the Department of Temporal Investigations, in the DS9 episode: "Trials and Tribble-ations") that as of 2373, James T. Kirk had the biggest file on record in the Department, with seventeen recorded temporal violations. Since the Department was supposed to also control access to Time Travel, I wondered why they did not confiscate the Orb of Time - but then I suppose Bajor was not a member of the Federation then, and considering the behaviour of the Cardassians in also thieving the orbs, such action would not have been possible or diplomatic!
@@cosmeticscameo8277 If we take the timeline from Enterprise, the time travel was considered - at least by the Vulcans - to be impossible and Archer had a hard time convincing people of his own time that it was. Can we assume that because of his experiences with the Temporal Cold War, Star Fleet might accept the possibility, even if they couldn’t conceive of a way of accomplishing it. They might at least have started some small experimental section to work out how they would handle it. Then in ST original series Kirk experienced a whole civilisation that went back into their own past to escape a Supernova, the Guardian of Forever, and of course met Gary Seven when building on previous experience of the Enterprise accidentally travelling back in time, the ship and crew were sent back on an official mission. All of which - especially experience with the Guardian, would have sent officials into a frenzy to try to establish protocols like the Temporal Prime Directive referred to in Next Generation Voyager and DS9. In a way the DTI might owe its origin to Kirk - but also to the temporal tampering of Daniels in his efforts to counter the Temporal Cold War: the DTI may have created itself through paradox.
@@katakisLives I would have tried to broker a trade. "I'll give you Ransom and his crew, if you give me enough of your magic juice to get Voyager home. Surely you have animals or criminals or something that I can kill and use."
They betrayed THEM ALL. Then left them for dead. VERY UNBECOMING. Starfleet woulda Crucified and tried Ransom for war crimes for that alone AND how he conducted himself towards alien life on top of it... Theyd imprisoned him for life or executed him for that. An his crew survivors woulda been lucky if Dishonorable Discharge an public disgrace after was all they got for aiding, abetting AND betrayal at same time
meh. Janeway was completely justified in pulling rank. In situations like that, the rules need to be clear and who is in charge needs to be clear or else there will be a mutiny. She was being the strong leader she needed to be at the time.
Honestly this episode always bothered me, I really think suggesting scuttling the second ship was the worst decision. If it was to be done it had to be suggested by ransom, perhaps with logical prodding from Janeway. Ideally, 2 ships are still more survivable on the journey home, and though it would create slowdowns we see that Voyager is actually not always travelling at warp nine. They cruise between 6 and 9 depending on the astromatic data. The second ship is easily warp 7 or 8 capable, especially if they made an effort to trade with a rare friendly species for repair help whereupon they meet. I think it would be an interesting dynamic to explore over a season. Battlestar Galactica did this well. Edit: just checked specs for the equinox. Its cruising speed is warp 7 just like voyagers, and can do warp 8 for 8 hours. On the vast majority of the trip they can totally keep up. It also has 11 phaser banks, pretty useful things to have at this point in the series.
Not to mention the difference between traveling at warp 9 and traveling at warp 7 hardly matters when the timeline for both is the same: impractical. The only way they could get back to Federation space in a reasonable amount of time was by banking on discovering new technology or some other method through which they could "skip" part of the journey(which they eventually did). "Setting a course for home" was a symbolic act and everyone on board Voyager knew that.
Voyager is more like a moderately armed interceptor class Ship. It's quick and can pack a punch but it's Is not as well armed as some of the bigger starfleet ships and it's not meant to be that to be.
The entire point of Equinox was to show Janeway's dark side, what happens when an icon, a person she idolizes, betrays not only everything starfleet stands for and what made that person her idol, but takes advantage of her. Ramson betrayed Starfleet, her trust, her crew and his station in which she did see an equal (or perhaps even herself) despite her defaulting to Starfleet regulations, and these are crimes she cannot forgive.
Janeway has no moral justification about Ransom killing sentient beings, when starfleet puts sentient beings on Oberth class ships, that is the true crime against humanity.
we kill sentient beings all the time. It's how McDonald's stays in business. We draw the line at killing, cooking and eating _sapient_ beings. Sentient is self-aware. Sapient is capable of abstract thought.
People tend to forget that Voyager was Janeway's FIRST COMMAND. In their seven year journey she has had to deal with issues, without any outside help, that most Federation Captains don't encounter in a lifetime of command. At least she seems to always learn from her mistakes... The only mistake I can really fault her for is not promoting Harry Kim -- after everything they've been through! I mean he starts out as a very green ensign - though a member of the senior staff(?) -- and ends up a VERY EXPERIENCED, capable officer who's seen more action than most Federation officers with decades of space exploration... and STILL he arrives at the end of their journey as a LOWLY ENSIGN! Just imagine his homecoming, where he is reunited with classmates -- all of whom outrank him! Imagine the first time he sees his mom, whose first words upon seeing him are "You're still an Ensign?!" (As the son of an Asian mom, I have no doubt of that, lol).
January was not mentally destroyed she was as channeling her inner Benjamin Sisko Look up for the uniform season 5 episode 13 Deep space nine She just got the job done much quicker.
I think I exaggerate, personally I think it was understandable by accident that they killed the spirit but using it as a source of energy and actively killing them is very different
The Equinox crew was a good demonstration of something Quark once said:
"Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes."
Doesn’t matter JANEWAY IS RIGHT! Captain Archer is infallible because JANEWAY IS RIGHT! /Lorerunner
What sentient creature wouldn't if you subject them to such tortuous conditions.
"Don't push the pink skins to the thin ice"
@@chiptastic2000 They'll pull you down with them.
I mean....they kinda proved it with Miles O'Brien.
As Sisko once said, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise."
And don't miss how this cliffhanger was supposed to "compete" with the DS9 series finale to keep attention for Star Trek going.
Brilliant quote. Always adored sisko.
Yes but she condemned the equinox's captain for the same thing as she does.
@@tonebonebgky2 No-one said Janeway's going to paradise.
Very true
"It's easy to cling to your principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that's not starving."
Those words always hit hard. Was what he did wrong, yes but one of the most dangerous creatures in this world is a desperate man.
Tbh the Equnox is what Voyager should have been... its shouldn't have been easy for them to get home. Ransom was right, hunger and want can really bring into perspective ideals.
@@Jdne199311 Very true
The Philosopher Quark can give you his treatise on humanity, for 5 slips of latinum
Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.
But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
@@Locutus Well said Locutus
To this day I think Voyager missed out by not having a 2 parter about a Klingon ship getting grabbed by the Caretaker and just conquering the shit out of everything.
There is that episode in the last season when they meet deep space Klingon colonist. One of the more interesting episodes.
"Prophecy". One of my favorite episodes.
And there was that episode where they ran into those two Ferengi from TNG's The Price, that were Ferengiing the Hell out of that Planet they were on. She was damned insistent that they be stopped and brought to justice.
Those Ferengi got to the Delta Quadrent via a wormhole rather than the Caretaker. But it's the same principle isn't it?
The Care taker was far in advanced of both Federation and Klingon technology, the Klingons would've been like ants to the Care Taker. Also the Klingons that were shoen traveled as a generation ship to the Delta quadrant and was centuries old. As the ship itself was nit designed as a generation ship, just reaching the Delta quadrant with it's crew still believing in their mission is quite impressive but they were religious zealots.
@@Vandelberger they didn’t conquer anything though. They just travelled in the direction Voyager was coming from because of the prophecy
Janeway did hint that voyager is designed for long range tactical missions when she talks about the equinox
Yeah but it is designed for long range science missions. The added armor, weapons, landing great and science stations allows a deeper dive into specific scientific missions in a solo setting. Enterprise finds a rip in time? Send in voyager.
i think it's entirely possible for the INTREPID CLASS to have been designed for BOTH deep space science and long range tactical missions Especially when one considers that the entire vessel class was designed AFTER WOLF-359 meaning it would almost assuredly have some design elements directed not just to defense but to tactical SUPERIORITY.
@@mattdickson2 completely agree. Secret double use.
Don't forget about the neural gel packs! Vastly increases automated response times and target acquisition.
intrepid class is a stndard cruiser by late 24th century standards.
it's big enough that it can go on essentially 5 year missions but no way does it have hte same level of endurance as a larger explorer.
its fast enough it can act as fleet scouts this is the only thing where intrepid class shines.
its got enough firepower that it can handle itself in escort roles/moderate combat but in heavy combat intrepid class would get wrecked.
it's got enough scientific facilities on board that it can be used as a science vessel but it would just be cheaper to go with a miranda /nova class ship for this.
it's got enough creature comforts aboard that it can provide the crew with bare minimum of luxury but definitely not fancy enough for diplomatic functions.
so essentially the intrepid class is a mini galaxy class ship. whatever the galaxy class ship can do intrepid is 1/2 or 1/3 that.
One element I think is under appreciated when it comes to Janeway is that she's an inexperienced captain. Voyager is her first full command and she has come from a scientific background. It often helps to keep those two facts in mind when analysing her actions and decisions; she wants to be a Picard; the skilled and principled diplomat but has literally no experience and while in the Delta Quadrant; no-one to call on for advice on how to make decisions, and I think this all contributes to her PTSD/Mental breaks etc.
The Season 5, Episode 1 "Night" is also a good example of this kind of thing, if less extreme.
Equinox was a superb story arc taking us away from Federation norms. One of the best in Voyager.
Let's also not forget that Voyager lost crewmen because of what Ransom did.
He protected his people and she hers.
One of my favourite Trek episodes ever.
Man, Kate Mulgrew was definitely the right choice for Janeway. I would have loved to see more of this show and it's moral questions. Tuvix, Ransom just *chefs kiss*.
I see these episodes keep coming up, and I can't resolve the moral problems here. It's a real paradox.
1. Janeway is a Starfleet captain. She's not supposed to be precipitating and facilitating war. The species she's meeting, she's supposed to meet peacefully.
2. Ransom is also a Starfleet captain, and any Starfleet captain has a duty to the welfare of his crew.
This is a very solid rock and a very hard place, and that, more than anything, I think, would contribute to a mental breakdown on Janeway's part. She has to know that Ransom did what he had to, but these creatures are an intelligent civilization. Justifiably aghast, indeed. Not handling it the best...no, she's not really, but taking a hard line isn't unreasonable here. Starfleet hierarchy doesn't actually exist here. They can pretend, but there's no admiralty to complain to. There's no starbase that Janeway can appeal to. She suddenly has to do a job she has no experience with; she has to be a fleet commander. Whether she likes it or not, Ransom is an equal that she can't actually control, and this situation, she has to be in control. And this is in isolation. She has four seasons of having to deal with an absolutely ridiculous and untenable situation that is being compounded with this.
I think, it's not actually that unexpected for her to fuck up as badly as she did here in a real life scenario, and given the absurdly extreme nature of this situation, I don't even think it's unforgivable. The creatures agree to peace with Janeway if she gives them Ransom, it is absolutely wrong for her to just agree without a second thought, but the problem she faces is that it's her duty as a Starfleet captain to establish peaceable relations with these creatures, and violating a moral code and her duty at least to a fair due process for Captain Ransom is very tempting in the situation she's in. What's worse, she's at a severe disadvantage in this negotiation with the aliens...and just like Ransom, she has a duty to the welfare of her crew, also. It is absolutely reasonable to see even a skilled diplomat absolutely break and just not know what the hell else they're supposed to do. And it absolutely does not help that she feels personally affronted by Ransom at this time, and she probably doesn't even understand the mistakes she made with Ransom because before he "betrayed" her, she may have been taking a hard line, but she was doing it by the book.
She was kind of facing a Kobayashi Maru scenario here wherein she was just going to be wrong no matter what she did, but maybe, if she had done things differently, she could have at least maintained her personal moral code. But I don't think that's really feasible when you're in a survival scenario, even one as unrealistically Pollyanna-ish as Star Trek: Voyager. I don't think it's fair for people to say this made her a bad person. I think it just makes her more human.
I dont think Captain Janeway or Captain Ransom were bad people. I think they were 2 groups of people who made hard choices that they thought would give their people the best outcome. I do disagree with Janeway's decision to not work with Ransom or his people. I believe that starfleet is a military organization and I believe that Janeway's duty to protect other starfleet officers and return 2 starfleet vessels to federation space outweighed any duty to protect, help or guarantee the safety of innocent beings. I also believe Janeway did not have the authority to court martial, judge or execute Ransom of his people in this senario.
@@shawnlake1491 Starfleet isn’t a military organization through it's scientific research, and a diplomatic body. Though she didn’t have the power to execute him she had no other choice as she was already in a loosing battle in the diplomatic talks with these alien species.
@@geovonnigreen8529 starfleet is a military organization in everything but name.
@@shawnlake1491 I like how Pike described it in the reboot Star Trek... Starfleet is a peacekeeping and humanitarian Armada... Peacekeeping is usually done by some sort of military or "defense force" which is the same thing but a different name
Janeway is the Admiralty in the Delta Quadrant. Star Fleet explores beyond their boundaries all the time, but the Fleet is bound by Star Fleet regulations regardless. As the last, highest executor of justice available, she had a duty to stop Ransom.
Janeway's intellectual commitment to her principles and her emotional commitment to the crew were greatly heightened by the experience of being so far from safety, and it clouded her judgement on more than one occasion. All in all it makes her character more interesting. In this episode she behaves in a similar way to Cisco when he went after Eddington. To find another Starfleet crew after so long would have seemed like a miracle, so it would be only natural to be biased when judging them, wanting them to be something they were not. This in turn would make the betrayal all the more bitter, because she is not just angry with them, she is also furious with herself for not seeing it sooner.
The Funny thing is, if Captain Ransom had gotten the Equinox home, he probably would have gotten a promotion.
Starfleet only cares about rule breaking if you don't get results.
Don't believe me? Let's set Kirk aside for a moment and focus on the 24th century.
Sisko used a biological weapon on a planet, an action that gave a Klingon pause, and was lauded for his capture of Eddington.
Janeway herself was promoted to Admiral after getting Voyager home, and look at everything she did.
Hell, Lt. Barclay was in serious trouble for hijacking the Midas array, until it worked and they contacted Voyager.
Picard himself was willing to go to Starfleet at Captain Maxwell's back if his illegal actions had actually gotten proof of Cardasian wrongdoing.
Starfleet only second guesses their ship captains if something goes wrong. Otherwise they reward them for "creative solutions" or "Doing their best in a bad situation".
Though, poor ole Data never got a promotion in seven years.
I think this overstates the case at least a little. The Sisko one is obviously the worst-case but his extreme actions probably saved a lot of lives by ending the use of bioweapons in the DMZ (and possibly beyond). Barclay's action wasn't so much an ethical dilemma just considered a waste of resources until suddenly it wasn't. And who knows what was in Picard's head at that moment. Was he lying to get Maxwell to back down? Was he being honest about delivering the evidence but still intended to see Maxwell answer for the crimes he committed to gain that intel? Hard to know.
This is a much more nuanced take on the Equinox two-parter than I'veen before, and I pretty much agree at every turn here. I think a last point of motivation with her zealous hunt for Ransom & Co. was, maybe just a little, motivated to make an example of him/them before the Voyager crew, making sure they wouldn't drop to the same level.
That doesnt make sense.
If the voyager crew stooped to this level, one of 2 things would be true.
Either Janeway gave the command to stoop that low, which she will hardly hunt you down and kill you for following orders...
Or janeway isnt the captain anymore and cant hunt you down and kill you...
@@falseprophet1024 you sure about that last one, that bitch gots a mean right hook and has a commando crate with vintage gear of death.
you mean rise to the same standard.
God, I LOVE your breakdown of Trek. You clearly love it and yet can stay objective. Good on ya, man.
I can be pretty critical of voyager. But I actually like this episode, because it actually shows the mentality a person would have to adopt to survive stranded away from home. She is pushed to her limit, her morals are being tested, and when faced with what is right and the safety of her crew and protocol, and one of those was going to have to give.
I've often felt that while what Ransom did was wrong, He was also right when he said "It's easy to cling to principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact manned by a crew that's not starving", Ransom wanted to get his crew home, they didn't have the breaks that Voyager got, They didn't have the firepower to protect themselves or a Talaxian to guide them through their first couple of years in the Quadrant. I've often thought that if Voyager and Janeway from Year of Hell had survived and encountered Ransom and Equinox, They'd have joined forces.
It’s an interesting case study, I always thought Janeway crossed the line in that episode as it felt morally questionable. It’s a brilliant story as it supplies a real sinister depth to her character which I found interesting. As far as her actual decisions go IMO it comes down to what the Starfleet ethical & legal framework is in survival situations. I would of hoped by the 24th century they would have clear guidelines to what policies / rules a captain can bend at discretion and what can’t be broken in the pursuit of survival. I could imagine a ethics course at Starfleet academy being an interesting subject to take.
"clear guidelines to what policies / rules captain can bend at discretion"...
I don't think you understand how either rules or personal initiative work.
You can't have clear guidelines on when to let your own judgment override the rules.
@@Hiraghm How about you read the full paragraph and just accept what was written as a point of view without the need to respond to a specific sentence which you’ve taken out of context.
Frankly despite all the wrong decisions in this episode, it's a story of desperate human and another human, who got perhaps scared, or panicked of what she previously thought to be unthinkable. It's a human story, where nobody's right... there are only the ones left and it is what ST should always stand for regardless of what it has become as of late....
What? I swear I read your post as saying ST should be stories
@@paulbabcock2428 I think if i made such comment, it was regardin some politicised stuff. Or maybe u can direct me to that comment cus i made whole bunch over the years and perhaps there was something else in mind....also i had some change of opinion in past few months. Previously I was for example literally seething over some things that happened in the Voyager series background, or did not like some things in old NG series like their approach to the certain episodes...perhaps it was related to that, but nobody can hold same grudge forever
That was probably one of the best episodes of writing for Janeway, really let Kate Mulgrew show how amazing she is.
I never could stand mulgrews smug smile and the way she said her own name. It always came through to me as I'm captain woman woman-woman a starfleet captain who's a woman.
@@nunyabidness8726 your free to make that conclusion, but I can’t help but think your looking way into that
I feel like Ransom should have had a look at Janeway's logs. I mean doing a deal with the Borg that condemned trillions to assimilation....yeah..
Then there is Tuvix.
Bottomline, she has no room to talk.
whatever she did pales in comparison to ransom. it's kind of like oh i killed one person... you killed 30 no contest.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 Ehm...Janeways actions with the Borg are directly responsible for killing several civilisations,one of them even mentioned...Let alone all the possible wars her actions later started...Vadvaur anyone?
And yes,she MUST have known that giving the Borg a way to beat 8472 means dooming millions and more to assimilation...Just because she wanted to get passage through Borg Space and the first Meeting with 8472 went actually the way one can expect in that specific situation
@@NashmanNash you saw that episode where thy encountered a imitation federation ship with the big headed alien that can speak like 1000 languages.
she said I quote " the species 8472 posed a greater threat to the galaxy than the borg did" hence justifying her actions....
i know. it's stupid
i forgot mention in my last comment directly. directly killing. she indirectly killed and amassed the largest body count of any starfleet captain in starfleet history :D
Tuvix, yeesh. He creeped me out. Neelix and tuvok didn’t get a choice in the matter, and the fact is they COULD bring them back. They weren’t dead. Tuvix should of did the right thing exactly like that borg drone from sevens dna did.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 wrong. She doomed a species in The Omega Directive and bent the Prime Directive so often at that point that it was a mere sidenote.
And then there is the Borg deal. Ransom did what he needed to do survive as did Janeway.
Remember that The Voyager was desroyed and then conviniently that timeline never happened.
Star Trek: Equinox would have been the voyager TV show I wanted to see. A crew pushed to their limits on a ship that is not up for the job.
Exactly my thought. Less Star Trek and more BSG. A ship woefully under equipped for the situation that has to find home against near impossible odds in a quadrant of unknown danger.
Instead Voyager stayed more or less perfectly pristine throughout the run. Wasted potential.
@@niallreid7664 With an unlimited amount of torpedoes.
That show would be hated by the Star Trek fans. They hate everything that Rodenberry did not have his hands on. If they had more opened minds, maybe they would be more on board with like 4 or 5 new Trek shows out now.
@@niallreid7664 actually no go watch BSG for that
@@Dancestar1981 Sorry I probably came across like I just wanted it to be BSG again. What I meant was it should have been more like BSG in terms of resources and damage to the ship. And ideologies out under pressure.
Anyway, BSG isn't really my point. Basically, I just wanted it to have more long term consequences.
This is echoed in DS9 with Cisco's persuit of the Marquis and that guy who betrayed him. Cisco goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off the deep end and it becomes an obcession.
Cisco had a System that he lived by.
Benjamin Lafayette Sisko
Actually he did nothing wrong. The Maquis denied a planet to the Cardassiens so he denied one of their words to the Maquis. He didn't bomb them to death. They'd only feel ill effects if they tried to stay. Meanwhile the Cardassiens were immune to the effect. He wasn't playing but he didn't really go off the deep end.
@@Its__Good The core of his system was built upon strong networking abilities :D
@@darklordofyocommunitah4781 You don't get to call Space Jesus by his given name you filthy peasant! Go clean the nacelles with a toothbrush!
I always enjoyed wrathful Janeway as she was morally justified from her lofty perch. We didn’t suffer along with the Equinox crew to see them at their lowest, on the brink of destruction and starving. The moral landscape gets a lot less black and white when you’re desperate to survive. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve experienced desperation myself, I can see Ransom’s perspective a lot more. I can understand the small steps down the road to evil, the justifiable compromises. I don’t know, were I in Janeway’s spot, that I could condemn Ransom so stridently. I would stop his plan to continue to kill the aliens, but I’m not sure I could throw him in the brig.
There's no way he'd get dumped in the brig. She could have stripped him of rank like she did the others. Basically he'd be given probation and kept on a short leash until the unlikely event they returned to the Alpha quadrant -- and of course, his fate would be left up to the Federation. Ransom WAS a scientist, so I think he'd have been relieved to just go back to those duties.
It is not that morality becomes less black and white, its just that your willingness to be immoral increases. The act is still immoral, regardless of the feelings you have about it.
@@fnordwolfe1269
Why does the alien life hold more value than the lives of his crew?
Also, this show doesnt make sense. Why wouldnt they want to join a safer ship that they could live on without murdering anything. Why would the captain protest to destroying the evidence of his crime and joining another starfleet crew on its way home?..
Also, everyone acting like they wouldn't do what that captain did, is
A. Lying..
And
B. Would make a shitty captain. Cant kill an unknown alien to protect the lives of the crew that you are responsible for..
And
C. Your crew would have killed you pretty quickly..
@@fnordwolfe1269
Its absolutely that the morality changes.
Killing something for the sake of survival and for the survival of others is absolutely more moral than just killing... context matters..
I agree with Janeway that Voyager was the better ship and they'd do better on it, though I would get everything useful from the Equinox, I mean, backup warp core is invaluable in their situation.
Likely. I'm sure they'd take anything easily removable before scuttling. Although I don't think warp cores are that portable (or compatible).
@@QaiannaThe Warp core ( according to schematics, it spans several decks tall. But. They could attempt to store the Dylitheum? That could be hazardous but doable.
@@cocharles563 Pretty sure that Voyager had stores dylitium before. But that's irrelevant, since the Equinox had none left...
According to some of the series' schematics, Voyager actually carried a spare warp core...
An interesting take on Janeway's actions and motivations.
One thing that strikes me about this episode, is that Ransom's plan was doomed to failure. Setting aside the ethics, which were an important topic. The alternate fuel source (harvested dead aliens) antagonized an alien species with a tactical advantage. (Popping in an out via wormhole things) The Equinox would have been destroyed if Janeway hadn't interfered, and Ransom's desperate plan only bought them a few months of pain and terror.
If he had done nothing, they would have ran out of power and starved to death.
It makes perfect sense to take the new power source (even knowing you're antagonizing a species with a tactical advantage) and try to use your newly extended clock to try and find a solution.
Do nothing and die, or take the risk and hope you can figure out a solution in time. Assuming giving up and dying isn't an option, (and asking his new alien friends (the ones who introduced him to the wormhole aliens) for refuge, supplies, and repairs wasn't an option) Ransom had no other option.
Janeway has a problem, a huge one! She has to stop the stranded crew of a war ship, from taking over the war ship. Murdering her and the few starfleet officers she stil has, and turning pirate in the Delta quadrant.
Half her officers are criminals. How hard would it be to convince the crew to follow them? Star fleet? Sarfleeet is half a galaxy away and unable to reach them. She has no one to rely on, no one to help her resolve this, but herself.
She is but one person, what can she do ? What she did! She offers herself to the crew.
Screw starfleet, we only got each other out here. You take my orders , i will do my utmost to get you home alive! Home! To your lives, your loved ones your families , your fiends , your pets.
Total dedication to the crew, and starfleet can court martial her when she gets them back. The important thing is to keep in command, to prevent Voyager from turning pirate. Cause if she does.. we 're talking billions of victims . That's a war ship. it has enough fire power to take a star system hostage and strip it of everything of value, leaving the natives to starve.
That's why she does what she does. Why she's willing to hunt a fellow captain to hell and beyond. What chicote an tuvak fail to understand.
The crew is hurt. The lost friends , loved ones, colleagues ,people they knew. The need pay back. The Captain better give it to them or they 'll take it.
Officers are not important, she can replace each and every one of them if she has to. Its the crew that matters . They run the ship not the officers. They make sure things happen , machinery keeps working, replicators don't run out of shit to replicate.
They collectively and individually decide life or death every moment. Her life or death, the officers life or death, everyone's life or death.
All it takes is a badly maintained conduit, a faulty junction, a loose screw, and they all die! There are no star bases to run to out here.
She needs every NOC every crewman to go above and beyond to keep voyager operational, so they can somehow get home!
Home where there are star bases she can dock voyager to. Home where there is strafleet and chain of command and other ships. Home where her crew is not in danger of taking the ship and turning pirate. Home where civilisation will reinforce their conditioning.
Home where she can lay her burden down and rest.
Excellent look at Janeways leadership shortcomings during this series of events. But of course it’s always easier for us to armchair her just as she did to Ransom.
Voyager is great, easy to rewatch over and over like TNG.
We all saw what Voyager could become in Equinox. The episode was an alternative time line story by another route. Top draw Voyager even if Captain Janeway is more Captain Ahab at times.
There's no way Voyager could become an Equinox. Janeway wouldn't be willing to do what had to be done to survive.
Janway stranded her entire crew, to save one species that was probably dying out anyways. Don’t even try to compete the two. She never sacrifice a species, to save her crew. Literally the entire premise of the show…
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Have been with your channel myself for some 5 years now.
I maintain that the Intrepid Class is really meant to be a reconnaissance craft pretending to be a science vessel
I think the reality was that ALL post Wolf 359 ships ARE military ships pretending to be science exploration missions
Had a big argument with a co worker this week on this very subject. The Interpid Class ship was built for battle. Not a Star Destroyer kind of ship, but one that was built to take a beating and keep fighting. That's why it was sent to track down the bad guys.
His argument was it was a science ship that just happened to be well armed and tough as nails.
@@Excalibur01 indeed.
Plus Section 31 used the class to run their own operations. (The one where Bashir is in a holodeck all day; plus arguably “Inter Arma…”)
it's a cruiser.
in ds9 intrepid class ships excel at being fleet scouts as she can pretty much outrun almost anything
Regarding assuming command and ordering scuttling the Equinox, I thought opposite of you. I think she should've made it clean cut and ordered it done, supervised by her crew, with minimal fanfare. It would've been like ripping off the band-aid so to speak. She could take the hit for being harsh but in the end they would've avoided most of the drama and subterfuge when Voyager would become the Equinox's crew's only option. When they've had a taste of warm food, a fast ship, and not having to murder their way home, they would've accepted it quickly. The soft touch just made things hard and gave them time to screw her over. In the end it would've saved more lives on both crews.
As for her treatment of Ransom ala "their mistake," I agree a softer touch was needed. This is where she should've been able to see how bad their situation was and at least acknowledged the desperation. It was a mistake cornering Ransom like she did but again it could've been avoided if she had just been firm and fast on the initial takeover.
Hunting down Ransom was definitely personal at that point but I don't think it really matters. The personal motivations certainly speak to her character but ultimately what would've been different in action? He was going to keep killing and took the device. They had a full blown interspecies/faction crisis and she would've had to stop him anyway and he wasn't going to surrender quietly.
I didn't have a big problem with her motivations either. You fight for the people next to you. That's a common axium in service. That being top of mind for Janeway isn't problematic at all for me. When you're trying to make the strongest possible argument you always start with your strongest emotional narrative. You don't say murder is bad because it's against the law, you say it's because it rips a person away from loved ones and causes pain to them. The elements of the crime were well established, but they needed to understand how personally they hurt the people they have to live with now.
I always loved the look of the Nova class. It’s sharp angular lines look more aggressive than the Intrepid or Defiant to me. It looks like an escort or short range patrol ship.
Nobody seems to comment on how killing these creatures to get home only succeeded in Ransom's crew being in continuous mortal danger and it seems evident in the episode that many of his crew had died because of the decision to use the creatures in an horrific way. Surely this would have created some sort of mutiny among his crew to stop the killing of creatures in order to get them home sooner. It's also hard to believe that know one on his crew had some sort of moral compass to question or stop the actions unless another unthinkable crime happened and they dispensed with a crew mate. mention must be made of Chakotey's strong character decision of stopping his Captain and going back into the room to save the guy who Janeway was trying to get information from. He is brave and unyielding in what was right to do. As far as I see Janeway acted out of character in the episode regardless of whether it made a good case study or not. In Doctor who Tom Baker used to question the decisions of writers or directors saying that he knew his character better than them. Many times has an actor questioned in order to preserve the integrity of their character. In all, Janeway is Human and not perfect, what would we have done if faced with the same circumstances, she had an enormous weight on her shoulders and she realised her mistake whilst on the bridge at the end, her face said it all. In that moment you can only feel for her and forgive her which clearly Chakotey did when they put the plaque back up restoring her honour so to speak. She made errors of judgement but it teaches us that so do we. She is a stronger character forged from a time of weakness which makes her a great Captain, absolutely not the worst. What about their EMH; they cancelled his ethical pathway's, my goodness that crew had turned evil and they all tried to hide their evil from Janeway.
Janeway wanted to help her fellow humans. That's part of why she rescued Seven. What was the best way to help the crew of the Equinox? By bringing them onboard. This echoes back to what she did with the Maquis. While Ransom wasn't one of her personal heroes, she was a bit disgusted when she learned who he had become. Janeway wanted to get her crew home but if worse came to worse, she would find an M-class world and settle, not become a killer. That's not a Starfleet value, that's human decency. We don't even know what all Ransom did to get where he was or what he would do next. I think Janeway may have even been terrified to find out. He turned his back on his fellow man when he sold out the Voyager crew. I think eventually, he would have let the people under him die in his bloody mindedness to get home. Starfleet aside it was her moral obligation to stop him. In a way though, she was becoming more like him and I think that is the comparison and contract the viewer needed to see. There's a reason we still talk about these episodes to this day; they spark discussion.
If voyager had contact with starfleet command like they do in later seasons, Janeway would have been ordered to disable the equinox and arrest it's captain and crew. And later been authorized to stop equinox by what ever means. Starfleet would not like it but would allow her to destroy the ship
Starfleet, a reluctant military organization at best, has a regulation that states that , essentially, the captain with the better phasers is in command.
Not commission date of the captains, not familiarity with the situation or tactical expertise… but whose ship is the right combination of advanced technology and least damage.
To put this another way, the Red Squad cadets that had the Reliant could theoretically command Sisko and the Defiant IF The Defiant was more badly damaged.
Additionally, this would infer that actual flagships of starfleet such as the enterprise technically HAVE to hang back and command the battle from the rear rather than engage… meaning all those quantum torpedos are for show/ when the situation goes FUBAR and the fleet crumbles.
It also means that all those admirals flying those old Excelsior‘s would be deliberately commanding antiques to avoid being in command of tactical situations, it also means that Starfleet gives freshly minted captains the most advanced ships, and ergo priority command in tactical situations… Even if those most advanced ships are science vessels…
hey excelsior classes are awesome ships. :D
you saw what the lakota did to the defiant.
[EDIT: Intro removed due to my failure in reading/listening comprehension]
This regulation is not one that scales well, and is also open to interpretation due to the fact that there could be significant disagreement over which ship is "tactically superior." You might have a newer, more advanced vessel with an untried crew and rookie captain and an older ship with an experienced captain and crew who really know how to fight their ship, and thus can achieve superior combat performance than the "tactically superior" ship. Performance on paper might not translate to real-world performance, especially since starship crews are forever tweaking their ships to perform above specs. Of particular note are the Enterprise-D's Dilithium Articulation Frame in its Warp Core, which was a more advanced custom job that rivaled next-generation designs, improving reactor performance, and the Ablative Armor on the Defiant. Neither of these improvements were reported to Starfleet Command even though they significantly improved the capabilities of the ships.
This openly invites a scenario where, if the more experienced captain does not trust the judgement of the less experienced captain, he or she might feel obligated to *prove* that their ship is "tactically superior." Unlikely under most circumstances, but in a situation like that found in ST:Voyager it greatly increases the odds that Starfleet ships are going to end up shooting at each other.
I would suspect that the regulation is supposed to have a context in which a stronger ship takes the lead in a scuffle, with the lesser ship(s) supporting it. It almost certainly wasn't designed for an extended siege situation, since most ship battles tended to last a matter of minutes. It speaks of a peacetime regulation that doesn't take into account major wartime scenarios. Unfortunately, we are not given that context, and Ransom didn't call B.S. on Janeway's assertion, so not only do we have no evidence that further mitigating regulations exist, Ransom's reaction seems to indicate that either Janeway is *correct* in her application of the regulation, or it was in *that* moment, not the later confrontation, that Ransom made the decision to run for it and he was not going to tip his hand to Janeway by continuing to argue.
@@dajonaneisnoah8714 I always enjoy well thought out responses. 👍
As Lore points out, a running Theory of his is Janeway has increasing degrees of PTSD, given Ransons situation and it’s almost guaranteed that he has CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as well as most of the remaining Equinox crew (certainly his second in command does as he goes off the rails by the end) so your likely right that Ransom only got in line long enough to avoid suspicion. (as a sidenote, this is a perfect example as to why ship counselors are not only a good idea, but probably essential to put out the brushfires before it reaches PTSD. Keeping in mind that this is of course a fictional universe, it’s a bit of an oversight that the EMH didn’t have a clinical psychology subroutine/there wasn’t a ESC).
Janeway’s line about checking the regulation that morning is interesting, if I recall earlier on that episode there was a bit of a build up of Ransons reputation between her and 7, I point this out as I think this, combined with her own traumas and overriding desire to “get her family home” may have blinded her to who Ranson had become and she did the one thing she shouldn’t have, used the rules to take his ship from him.
To be fair, we don't know what the entire regulation says, just Article 14 of it. It's possible that the regulation is on how to determine who is in charge of a group of Starfleet ships that form a task force. Earlier articles might list that the Admiralty designated officer is in charge, or in a more ad-hoc TF the highest ranking officer is in charge, and so forth, and it took her down to Article 14 to find a relevant section that solved the issue the two ships were faced with.
I mean, when it comes to two or more ships, with ship captains all the same rank, with no pre-made task force determining things, in a tactical situation, then going with the best on-paper combat ship isn't a bad call. In a medical situation, the ship with better medical facilities might take the lead. In a science ship, the most science relevant ship for the situation might be in charge. If everything is equal, the last article of the regulation might have them just flip a coin or play rock, paper, scissors to determine who's in command. (Or maybe a duel on the holodeck. Phasers set to stun, walk 10 paces, then on command, turn and fire.) ;)
Arguably, we saw this regulation and article in action in First Contact. Admiral's ship was lost, and Picard - on the tactically superior ship - took command.
Also, the Red Squad cadets were on the Valiant, not the Reliant. I don't think we've seen a Reliant since Khan blew one up. :)
@@dajonaneisnoah8714 there have been many debates on Daystrom about how “tactically superior” is actually worked out, basically going over what you said here
Janeway is a masterclass in doing the right thing the wrong way.
But we have to remember also, she's primarily a /science officer/ that changed to command.
Kirk was a command officer from the word go, and all his training and experience went that way.
Picard was a command officer *and* veteran of the diplomatic corps. One of starfleet's finest diplomats, in fact.
Sisko was a command officer from the word go.
So Janeway basically had probably a decade less diplomatic training and experience, and it shows. She's more likely to think of immediate outcomes than of chains of consequence driven by culture and psychology.
Frankly, if it had been her at Farpoint, there would be no humanity because her style of negotiation would have simply made Q go 'See? I'm right.' and snap.
But she would have been a major asset at DS9 during the dominion war, and perhaps her behavior and views are colored by that.
I think Janeways actions make sense for how she’s been characterized to this point. Her PTSD and fierce protection of her crew led her to doing some …. interesting actions. She does not play when it comes to protecting her crew. Ultimately, that is the most consistent strand in Voyagers run. Anything can be justified to Janeway if it means protecting her crew and getting them home.
"Anything can be justified to Janeway if it means protecting her crew and getting them home."
Except when someone else does the same thing for their crew.
Good video. I would argue that the question is not to kill to survive but to kill to get home. Not necessarily the same thing, but depending on the perspective of their experience, they could see it as survival.
The 'desperate times require desperate actions' thing has limits. The crew of the Equinox always had the choice of trying to find a safe haven to settle down and trade what they have to make a new home. Ok, that would violate some of Starfleet rules as well, but it's more acceptable than murder. You don't have an right to do anything to survive, sometimes death is the only morally right course of action.
Could be expected then 2 ships woulda been made legendary for a miraculous an ALL it woulda needed was a refuel and maybe means to fill ranks. Hell Voyager did it even with DELTA QUADRANT VOLUNTEERS more then once. Ransom can try but he TOTALLY failed as a Captain an him an his all totally failed as SF officers.
I've always felt that starfleets rules and regulations get in the way of getting a certain job done easier and quicker
it's true, I mean, those people they met on the planet that gave them the technology seemed like a friendly bunch. They could have just stayed there and survived.
True. However, convincing people that it's a good day to die is kind'a difficult. The race that gave us that phrase has had individuals doing dishonourable things to avoid death.
Then again, 'find a quiet corner of a planet and live out the rest of your life keeping out of the way' is an option. One that's been explicitly ordered for a crew in a bad situation.
How many times did Janeway screw up established structures,restarted old wars etc. to get home faster?
I think i just throw Species 8472 into the mix...First Meeting went bad,why don´t we give the Borg a Weapon that can kill them?And in exchange we can travel through their space and get home faster...Which leads to another question...IF the Borg have their own space..should´nt the Transwarp Hub from "Endgame" be placed inside it?
So either Voyager travelled back a reaaaaly large distance to get to that hub,or the Borg Space was formed in a way that Voyager flew roughly parallel to it for a few years,after crossing it during the 8472 debacle...so it would have something of an L shape
Janeway was a hard captain. She was logical and showed empathy. But too many times of desperation and constant threat definitely gave her ptsd. We see it in the army. Humans exposed to constant threat and stress for long periods of time require the brain.
But I think what broke her is the fact was that the captain had done his job and protected his crew. They got to an M class planet and that means his crew could have established a colony. We see this as an option in other series. He had the choice of saving lives or taking lives just to keep his ship and crew. His hubris is what infuriated Janeway. There were several times the equinox crew made several choices that were against starfleet. They could have landed and salvaged their ship to make a colony. That’s the breaking point it was never one choice. It was numerous and once janeway put it all together it was too much for any captain of starfleet to consider and then to even betray her and her crew. Really it would make anyone question the morals and ethics of star fleet and what exactly were they trying so hard to get home too?
Also my opinion would have been they should have modified the outer hulls to Jerry rig a hard point and merge the ships. Think bubbas version of the Prometheus. Once repaired and stocked on fuel they would quite possible have increased power, shields, and weapons.
Take into account Janeway had probably at times thought along this line but refused to walk it, seeing Ransom and his crew acting this way must of been horrific to her as she sees what she could of become if she stooped to his level.
She made her position completely clear when she destroyed the caretaker array. you are 100% right. She saw the line, and while she occasionally got close, or even reached over the line in some cases, she never stepped over and always made sure her crew did the same.
Tom Paris did the right thing, morally, but it crossed Janeway's line and she pulled him back by demoting him, but she also made sure tom knew that as a person Tom was right, but as a Starfleet Officer, she had to do what she did. and she promoted him right back when he was proven again.
Janeway's biggest flaw was that she was a terrible diplomat. She was a fighter in charge of a science vessel. She used power to push her will. She didn't negotiate.
Get strength was being a fighter. It kept things stable and consistent for her crew. They knew what to expect with her. She always went down fighting.
I've seen leadership in the military basically use rank and rules to get their way. This episode is a great example of this and what happens as a result.
It's easy to pass judgment when you're comfortable and holding all the power.
The Equinox captain should have joined Voyager and scuttled guys ship the very moment he could and admit his crimes to Janeway later. Janeway should of handled it better and demoted him as a start.
She should have went with the classic line to excuse war crimes "YOU BETRAYED YOUR UNIFORM."
"You're not upset that I betrayed Starfleet. You're upset that I betrayed you."
Where have I heard this before...
I'd say the breakdown comes much earlier than that, in the second season episode Tuvix. Should Janeway commit murder on an innocent lifeform to get back her two crewmates? Because that is what she did, no ifs, buts and whens, the show even acknowledge this. Tuvix started to exist as a separate entity through no fault of his own, and when the cure was found, he was discarded. One of the lows of Janeway, to be sure.
And then she climbed on the high horse to berate Ransom
Happy to be a patron. Least I can do. Your work is brilliant.
I rewatched the scene where Janeway gives the regulation just in case. Memory Alpha adds that an actual flag officer would render the whole thing moot, but it's possible she figured it wasn't really vital to mention ('Is that an admiral in Cargo Bay 2 or are you just happy to see me?'). Still, Ransom does try to pull protocol and is the one who asks what happens. I wonder if he was hoping Da Rules would be on his side and thought of that as a subtle way of pressuring her.
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I think it’s part of Janeway’s backstory that her past has left her struggling. While technically this one book I read (of course, can’t remember the name now) isn’t technically canon, because it’s a book not an ep or a movie, enough of what’s in that book has been either stated outright in an ep or hinted at in dialogue in Voyager eps, she loses her father & fiancé in a crash that almost kills her. She doesn’t cope well. And even though Year of Hell never happened because of the reset, she still made a terrible decision in insisting on going through that region rather than replot a course around it. (And that she made a different decision after the reset, as well as other characters acting differently, seems to suggest that subconsciously, your brain remembers a bad decision & doesn’t do it again. I’m not sure if that’s what Trek was getting at but, it’s the only explanation I can come up with.)
Ransom makes that same mistake and it’s absurd that he does. He’s confronted almost immediately by a hostile species that says don’t travel in our space, but he says f-- that & does so anyway, even though his ship isn’t really outfitted for battle and half his crew died as a result. There was never a WTF question for Ransom about a stupid decision that, if he’d have respected the boundaries of that other species, killing those creatures may never had seemed like a necessary option.
Janeway for the most part keeps her struggles with her mental health in check but it does come out from time to time. A reckless decision from her past that Tuvok mentions during the ep where they are all trapped in “The Void.” Her locking herself away during that same episode.
And there’s that poetic device that hints that at the time of Voyager & the Equinox meet, Ransom has lost his way as a Starfleet Captain. The Equinox’s name plate on the Bridge fell from the wall. At the end of the episode, Chakotay & Janeway find Voyager’s nameplate, and she remarks that in all the battles they’d been though, that plate had never fallen down. She’s by this point, realized how out of control she was, and tells Chakotay that he’d have had a good reason to engage in mutiny.
One of the original founding writer for Voyager wrote that story. Voyager was created by Michael Piller, Rick Berman and female writer Jeri Taylor. Jeri wrote the book. She retired a few seasons into Voyager. Many would consider her book as part of cannon.
I think that Janeway not handling it the best way is a reflection of her prior inexperience as a captain prior to her assignment to voyager.
Honestly I think it's a good thing they went this route and showed her essentially making the wrong choices. It shows she wasn't perfect.
And an imperfect protagonist is a relatable protagonist.
You seem to forget that voyager lost so much crew that they needed marque crew to function. That seriously decreases food, life support, needed & as such increase it's ability to go longer without supplies. Also Nelix did create an effective kitchen.
Tuvix did both jobs better .. so if they were so desperate he was the better choice. That’s Jane way saying that.. not me
It would take us (the audience) another five years to figure out that one of the Equinox crew who survived to serve on Voyager was secretly a Cylon. I think that he was behind the whole conflict.
Damn Toasters.
@@ThePandoraGuy They are everywhere. Another one used to work together with Archer.
@@HappyBeezerStudios The Enterprise Comms Officer, a Cylon??? Noway.
Let's be honest, Janeway was basically vetted to be a hitman and or a getaway driver with that ship she was given. She is a tactician not a diplomat. I think her character was more consistent than people think because of lacking the understanding of the profile her higher-ups seen in her.
4:48. I always thought the use of that protocol was incorrect. Not because of the reasons in this video, they are all valid points. No, I think the protocol was incorrect because they weren't in battle. Sure, conflict was impending, but they weren't in combat in that moment.
Compared to the first act of First Contact when the Enterprise-E warped into the battle with the Borg Cube. Immediately after he learns the admiral's ship had been destroyed, Picard realized the Enterprise was the tactically superior ship among those still battle and he rightfully took command of the fleet.
In this conference with Ransom and his first officer, they weren't in battle and therefore the protocol did not apply. Janeway didn't have the authority to command Ransom to scuttle the Equinox.
Great video. I’ll be watching more. Keep up the good work.
True Trekkies can't count how many times they watched star trek :)
Great video I love the way you really delve into this.
I was always disappointed that the new crewmen were never brought up again. It would have been nice to see them
An episode along the same lines as TNG's "Lower Decks" would have been perfect to follow up on the Equinox's former crew, as well as other minor Voyager crew members. I'm disappointed as well that we never got an episode like that.
I mean the same issue is raised in TNG with Picard and that other Captain thats attacking and killing Cardassians. Picard would have blasted him and his crew to hell and back to make sure the peace treaty with the Cardassians stayed intact. That being said that other Captain was smart enough to surrender in the end.
I assume you've never been in the military? "Pulling rank" is a civilian concept and a negative. In the military I never heard anyone ever say someone was "pulling rank".Someone was in charge and that was that. It's there job. So Janeway rightfully taking charge would be normal. The concept that Janeway would trying to be gentle with Ransom in order to stop him getting butt hurt is not how the military works. That's how civilians have to be treated because their self-esteem is so low.
Never thought of it like that lol. But true.
I have, I used to be security forces. I guess it depends on your job field if you hear it used often or not.
I saw a lot of people in the military that pulled rank. Usually it was when they didn't have a good reason for the order they just gave. When just had to do it because they outranked us, not because it was a good idea.
''Nobody ever said sitting in the big chair was easy. You'll be asked to make a thousand serious decisions a day, and each and every one of them will have consequences that you'll have to learn to live with. Starfleet Academy trains us to look at all sides of the argument, all sides of the problem, and to work it with the resources that we have at our disposal. No Captain gets up in the morning and by four in the afternoon is requesting the computer initiate the self-destruct, but that's part of the job too. Your job, as Captain, is to have everyone's best interests in mind and to keep your ship operating beneath your feet. Day by day, sometimes even hour by hour in those tense situations, but ultimately as Captain (unless an Admiral says otherwise) every decision that you make about your ship and your crew is your decision and nobody else's. You don't have the luxury of blaming your first officer, or your second; because even if they issue advice that you take that ultimately leads to a breaking down of the situation or a mistake that costs you dear, it was up to you to weigh their advice and to consider the pros and cons of it before putting it in to orders.''
From my own comportment on how to survive as a Starfleet Officer
So letting them go is somehow preferable? Hell no - she needed to stop their rampage as a starfleet officer - or she'd be complicit. That said I liked the ship and thought it was incredibly short sighted to consider scuttling it in the first place.
equinox was too damaged.
best to salvage her and move on.
equinox would hav needed to many resources to repair and to crew properly and would have slowed voyager down to keep togher best to take what you could and move on
@@cosmeticscameo8277 Not to sound argumentative, but if they had the resources to make a delta flyer go warp 10... they could probably have rigged up a tow hitch or souped that little thing up and had it flying recon missions - anything but what they did... 2 ships is the start of a tiny fleet - and imagine how the show could have diverged into chaos as the borg captured it etc
I think the "I was just following orders" argument was roundly defeated in the 20th century. Hell, when I was in the Army, we were explicitly told that filtering an order you know to be unlawful made you as guilty as whoever gave the order. I don't expect it should be any different in four hundred years
Especially since Starfleet INSISTS they aren't a military -- just a bunch of folks chilling in a giant, heavily-armed starship while coincidentally dressing alike and calling each other by ranks.
"Oh, that wasn't an ORDER. It was more of a strong recommendation, since, you know, we totally are not soldiers."
Voyager was a well built combat vessel with a decent size crew bolstered by battle hardened Marquis crew who thrived in thinking out of the box so were well suited to their predicament.
Equinox was basically the Oberth replacement crewed by science nerds who got pounded for several years with virtually no crew left.
No wonder Ransom did what he did.
Not saying he was right but switch Janeway and Ransom around and I reckon she’d be the same.
Neelix made all the difference for Voyager. Most certainly them being in Borg space would have forced the issue.
The Punisher to Daredevil: You are just one bad day from being me
I thought that was the Joker to batman;)
I loved these episodes... Because it takes these federation ships we see with full crews who are stoic hardened people, and makes them ironically HUMAN.
they were alone, far from the federation being picked off by various species and essentially becoming so desperate they ignored their federation and human morals to sacrifice the creatures to get home faster.
That hit Janeway like a torpedo because she would never expect federation personnel to kill the creatures for their own benefit.
The fact they did that pissed her off, because Starfleet are trained to be better than that... seeing that being ignored over personal benefit basically took everything she was taught and trained and threw it out the airlock.
It's why I love Voyager, it has these episodes that throw everything normal into question for the betterment of the crew.
federation morals and human morals are two different things entirely.
Try reading Heinlein's, "The Pragmatics of Patriotism" sometime.
Starfleet are trained to place the welfare of aliens from another quadrant above the welfare of their own people. What a sick, twisted set of values.
The Equinox, like many episodes of VOY, missed the chance to truly explore what it meant to be a single ship in unknown space.
Janeway goes proper bonkers and inconsistent in this episode. I assume you talk of Year of Hell when talking of similar instances (another missed opportunity) And yeah, we never truly see a desperate captain. There's always a convenient escape, a dues ex machina or some other reset.
Just as the Marquis dynamic was ignored in the large, so was the Equinox possibility.
It's a shame this could have been so much more
ransom is her eddington.
As the authority on the ship, janeway's decisions as to Starfleet values and which rules to follow in the moment is the mechanism to create tension in many episodes. I have heard that she is a bad captain due to choices that episode writers needed to create the situation in those episodes. Other star trek series had Admirals showing up often to be the "bad" guy and let the captain shine.
I love Janeway as a character. However, watching her behaviour in this ep made me feel disgusted.
It's because she had multiple writers where none of them could agree on who Janeway is. This episode she was a Starfleet officer who didn't really understand Starfleet.
@@blacktoothlongwalker1037 so... a typical starfleet officer.
The whole situation was sort of contrived, What Captain Ransom did was the real failure of leadership. It was to have gotten his ship safe, repaired and back under way. Then it was to procure resources and provide facilities to endure the trek before them - which was **not** what the ship was designed for, so your FIRST responsibility isn't to be as sanguine as Captain Janeway, it's to have been FAR more cautious given the most limited resource on his ship was his people, and he failed them early, and often evidently.
He should have relied upon more properly assessing the local political/military situation, and if in fact necessary, trade in some technologies (lower level of course), with those cultures, and civilizations that could help them get across their space.
But he didn't do that.
A flaw with both series was also that , you're not in the Alpha Quadrant, so treaties around cloaking do not apply and particularly the Treaty of Algernon so cloaking their ships , while power intensive might have been a good deal.
We are all Ransom, if we are under enough pressure. My view, watching Tuvok, day in day out, was enough pressure of guilt to make Jayneway her own version of Ransom.
Seven, of course, was shoe horned in there like a Cinderella's sister's feet.
By upholding Starfleet regulations and standards, she is preventing her crew from even becoming like the crew of the Equinox.
It's not practical. What happened to the Equinox is what happened when you aren't the main characters and your ship is not the title of the show. For Voyager, next week, all the damages will be repair, bulkheads back to normal, even the fucking carpets cleaned. Everyone in clean uniforms sipping coffee. Voyager has an endless supply of shuttles and enough materials to build TWO Delta Flyers and more torpedoes than God.
@@Excalibur01 Not in our world. But this is Star Trek.
They have replicators, and warp cores, and transporters. Lots of power to replicate anything they want, and transporters to move large materials into place (such as bulkheads). Totally practical in 24th century star trek. Provided they continue to replenish their fuel source, and don't lose their replicators to critical damage, they should be able to repair pretty much anything. Or build just about anything.
@@LtFoodstamp Even a starship needs to be resupplied and go in for extensive repairs. We've seen that in canon. The amount of battle damage that Voyager has suffered over the years builds.
Janeway had an easy out here. Take on the other crew and make no moral judgment as to their previous actions. If they ever make it back to Federation territory, she can turn them over to the proper authorities. In the meantime, they can try and mitigate what they had done with good service; and Voyager gets much needed reinforcements.
Aye, give them a demotion and keep an eye on them but if they perform well and don't commit any more... Murders? War crimes? Accept them like she did the Marquis.
if there's one line I remember from letters from iwo jima it was general kuribayashi's line when he saw a captain physicallly beat 2 soldiers for talking smack.
general: "captain, do you have such a abundance of men that you could afford to put 2 out of commission"
captain: no sir
general: well then stop beating them and deny them their food rations. smart captain has to use his brain not just his whip.
so in context of janeway she is so undercrewed that she needs every able bodied man and woman she can get her hands on.
And we are just going to ignore all the maquis terrorists serving on board...
In some ways I think it would have made sense for the crew to mutiny on Voyager several times over. Equinox could have been how Voyager should have been written. Maybe depressing, but after DS9 it would have been a better fit. If then Voyager meets the Equinox and neither ship are in ideal conditions, this episode would have made more sense. Janeway does agree to chase down the Equinox crew for execution not justice. I think this is an overlooked little tidbit.
@@terryfuldsgaming7995 Do you think in the Writers room there was a note on the wall, " Remember she is a sociopath." I mean it is possible they just kept it a secret and left it for us to slowly figure it out. It would have been better for the show to reveal it and let us work out how does she stay Captain with such a mental disorder. ( like the tv series Dexter)
@@terryfuldsgaming7995 not to mention how she treated Riker before he took command of the Titan. Making it known that it would be his last offer to the Captains chair. I read that and was like Bitch do you know how many times he has saved Earth!!! Starfleet should have a permanent seat of Captain reserve for him for the rest of his life.
Survival is a basic instinct, however, as humans, we have the ability to be more than simply creatures of survival.
Last time I was this early, Voyager was parked at Deep Space Nine.
Going back to TNG's The Pegasus, Picard says "Mutiny, on a Federation starship, that's shocking. It's unthinkable." So when the Equinox crew, who are under her command, conspire against her it might be the second ever mutiny in Starfleet history. Revolt probably never even crossed her mind so I can understand why she believed they could be confined to quarters and trust that their sense of duty would be enough to keep them there, they screwed up killing those creatures but she likely figured being on Voyager would remind them they're Starfleet officers.
then again we never really see what happenes to starfleet ships when the crew is pushed to hte brink.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 that would require drama and tension and gini roddenberry would have known of that
I'd like to see a comparison of this episode and DS9 05x13 For The Uniform. Sisko poisons the atmosphere of an entire planet just to satisfy a vendetta against someone who betrayed his Starfleet oath and brought shame to the uniform.
Never really watched Voyager. See Twitter references to Captain Ransom but never bothered to pay attention. Thank you for not only explaining the situation but giving a detailed breakdown of how things are.
This is something that comes up from time to time. You will have a commanding officer get pushed over the edge and it's up to our heros to fix the mess. This does happen a few times in TOS at least once in TNG and a few times in DS9. Is this situation handled perfectly, no, it is similar to the attack by the Gorn. In which a new Federation outpost was attacked in an unprovoked manner. Kirk would chase the Gorn ship into unexploded space to seek justice. Stating it was a matter of policy, "out here we are the policemen around. And a crime has been committed. Do I make myself clear." It was only after the two sides talked that we discover Starfleet was in the wrong putting a Federation base in another races territory. Janeway's reaction in many cases of this episode aren't the right ones but necessary because once the aliens realized who their real enemies were they stopped attacking Voyager and went after the Equinox. I think in the end Janeway thought that since the members another renegade group were willing to join Voyager she thought that maybe the Equinox would do so as well, not realizing how far they had fallen.
Never chase someone into unexploded space.
star trek omega glory comes to mind.
That gorn episode was a bad ripoff of "Arena". In Arena, a super-powerful alien being saw a human fleet about to engage an alien fleet, and foresaw one species wiped out and the other so crippled that it reverted to primitive state and never recovered.
So it plucked one representative from each fleet, and stuck them in an arena equally unpleasant for each of them. The loser's species it would destroy utterly, allowing the winner to flourish.
The alien was a round ball with clawed tentacles it could extend. When the human and it rushed to engage one another, they bounced off an invisible barrier. The only other beings there were little six legged lizards. At one point, drained and made irrational by the heat, the human said, "hello" to it... it said "hello" back.
It was stifling hot for the human, so he had a limited time to fight the alien. He watched, at one point, as the alien captured a small, six legged lizard.. then one-by-one pulled its legs off until it died. Then it threw the carcass at him... and it passed through the barrier.
Some hours later, the alien had constructed a catapult capable of reaching the back of the human side of the arena; the human constructed a sling and managed to throw a ball of burning kindling, which hit the catapult and set it afire.
Later, the little lizard is back, and keeps repeating, "Come. Help. Kill." until he follows it. he finds the other, now-legless lizard screaming in agony, writhing on the ground. He uses the stone knife he'd made to put it out of its misery, and realized it was alive when it crossed the barrier. He then constructs a harpoon.
So he built a platform by the barrier, stood on it, and hit himself with a rock... passing out and through the barrier. When he wakes, he lies still until the alien is close enough, then throws the harpoon, and pulls the alien to him, stabs it to death, wakes up aboard his one-man ship, thirsty as hell with healed scars on his chest from the alien's claws. The alien fleet was utterly destroyed.
Much better story than the Gorn story. And much, much better ending.
I could listen to you (or anyone) talk about star trek for hours...
I always thought only if the tension between voyager and the marque was anywhere close to the tension between the equinox. The first 2 seasons would have been a little more interesting.
Yeah, iirc: that was the original plan for the show in a more serialised format, however they were worried it would be hard to follow so stuck to the episodic nature instead
@@Cheesusful I am actually a big fan of most of voyager and it might be dumb. But my mom didn't like ds9 so I watched voyager. I am a rare person that liked the first seasons, but there's always a what if.
@@DuckAvenger I also enjoy voyager... I mean.. Its not as good as ds9 :p but its still pretty fun. Though I agree it would have been nice if they'd done more with the maquis storyline, it does still get like... 3 or 4 episodes over the course of the entire show but it could have done with more in the first season
I need to watch ds9 I only got into it at the worf seasons but yeah all I saw is basically better then most episodes of voyager
@@DuckAvenger the first seasons are some of the best, because Piller was still around to remind everyone else not just to keep the focus on the human element, but he also kept track of character motivations etc. When he left, there was an immediate drop-off in those aspects of the show, with characters just filling holes to emptily react in scripts populated entirely with higher-concept ideas. (Those episodes can still be fun but they don’t have the same heart.)
I am neither a Voyager hater nor a lover, but when Jeri Taylor just kills all of Piller’s characters she disliked it’s always very 😐 to me on rewatches. Like.. just throwing away all of the stories Piller seeded for her, and the resultant floundering to plant new stories is so evident. She was also one of the most vocal voices against being more continuity-heavy, as Piller, Braga, and more wanted to go that way as DS9 was doing.
"A Starfleet officer would rather die than hurt someone."
Archer: "Hold my beer."
Something which has always bothered me is that Janeway almost equalled Kirk in being cavalier with time/being caught up with temporal events. In fact the finale of the series rests on a future Janeway from a timeline where Voyager did take years to get back, deliberately violated the protocols by going back in time - like Harry Kim - to change the past. So much for her vaunted quoting of regulations and wanting to always live by the Star Fleet manual whatever the cost. She did say early on (Series 1) when they encountered a friendly species with space folding tech who refused to share that tech with a ‘less advanced species’ that it hurt to be on the other side of the Prime Directive.
When the younger Janeway got back - having changed Federation History - did Star Fleet promote her for her actions - especially in destroying the Borg corridors, or lock her up because they were all living in a different reality?
a lot of kirk's time travelling is accidental.
the only time they deliberately went back in time was assignment earth where starfleet ordered them to investigate earth 1968
@@cosmeticscameo8277 I was going by a throw-away line from the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations” where the agents sent to investigate the crew’s recent experience with the Orb of Time (and why didn’t they confiscate this ?) commented that Kirk had the biggest file of incidents of any other Star Trek personnel. It certainly seemed that in their eyes he was (or had been or would be???) a major offender.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 I was going by the remark made by Dulmur and Lucsly two investigators from the Department of Temporal Investigations, in the DS9 episode: "Trials and Tribble-ations") that as of 2373, James T. Kirk had the biggest file on record in the Department, with seventeen recorded temporal violations.
Since the Department was supposed to also control access to Time Travel, I wondered why they did not confiscate the Orb of Time - but then I suppose Bajor was not a member of the Federation then, and considering the behaviour of the Cardassians in also thieving the orbs, such action would not have been possible or diplomatic!
@@martinbennett8752 i read that it was because of kirks time travel exploits that they even created the department of temporal investigations.
@@cosmeticscameo8277 If we take the timeline from Enterprise, the time travel was considered - at least by the Vulcans - to be impossible and Archer had a hard time convincing people of his own time that it was. Can we assume that because of his experiences with the Temporal Cold War, Star Fleet might accept the possibility, even if they couldn’t conceive of a way of accomplishing it. They might at least have started some small experimental section to work out how they would handle it. Then in ST original series Kirk experienced a whole civilisation that went back into their own past to escape a Supernova, the Guardian of Forever, and of course met Gary Seven when building on previous experience of the Enterprise accidentally travelling back in time, the ship and crew were sent back on an official mission. All of which - especially experience with the Guardian, would have sent officials into a frenzy to try to establish protocols like the Temporal Prime Directive referred to in Next Generation Voyager and DS9. In a way the DTI might owe its origin to Kirk - but also to the temporal tampering of Daniels in his efforts to counter the Temporal Cold War: the DTI may have created itself through paradox.
You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs
For me i felt as janeway was leading her actions through her heart, rather than logic
For me it felt cold hearted
@@elliotyourarobot honestly I would have sided with the equinox crew and not some random floaty slug aliens
@@katakisLives same
@@katakisLives I would have tried to broker a trade. "I'll give you Ransom and his crew, if you give me enough of your magic juice to get Voyager home. Surely you have animals or criminals or something that I can kill and use."
@@stevenscott2136 interesting! i never thought of that
Hey Im OCD too! Hell yea you didnt even cut it out man. Good on you!
It's not that they betrayed Voyager, they betrayed her.
Same thing?
They betrayed THEM ALL. Then left them for dead. VERY UNBECOMING. Starfleet woulda Crucified and tried Ransom for war crimes for that alone AND how he conducted himself towards alien life on top of it... Theyd imprisoned him for life or executed him for that. An his crew survivors woulda been lucky if Dishonorable Discharge an public disgrace after was all they got for aiding, abetting AND betrayal at same time
meh. Janeway was completely justified in pulling rank. In situations like that, the rules need to be clear and who is in charge needs to be clear or else there will be a mutiny. She was being the strong leader she needed to be at the time.
Honestly this episode always bothered me, I really think suggesting scuttling the second ship was the worst decision. If it was to be done it had to be suggested by ransom, perhaps with logical prodding from Janeway.
Ideally, 2 ships are still more survivable on the journey home, and though it would create slowdowns we see that Voyager is actually not always travelling at warp nine. They cruise between 6 and 9 depending on the astromatic data. The second ship is easily warp 7 or 8 capable, especially if they made an effort to trade with a rare friendly species for repair help whereupon they meet.
I think it would be an interesting dynamic to explore over a season. Battlestar Galactica did this well.
Edit: just checked specs for the equinox. Its cruising speed is warp 7 just like voyagers, and can do warp 8 for 8 hours.
On the vast majority of the trip they can totally keep up. It also has 11 phaser banks, pretty useful things to have at this point in the series.
Not to mention the difference between traveling at warp 9 and traveling at warp 7 hardly matters when the timeline for both is the same: impractical. The only way they could get back to Federation space in a reasonable amount of time was by banking on discovering new technology or some other method through which they could "skip" part of the journey(which they eventually did). "Setting a course for home" was a symbolic act and everyone on board Voyager knew that.
Voyager is more like a moderately armed interceptor class Ship. It's quick and can pack a punch but it's Is not as well armed as some of the bigger starfleet ships and it's not meant to be that to be.
Sisko's like: you don't betray the uniform, boy! 😉
That was before, In the Pale Moonlight 😉
The entire point of Equinox was to show Janeway's dark side, what happens when an icon, a person she idolizes, betrays not only everything starfleet stands for and what made that person her idol, but takes advantage of her. Ramson betrayed Starfleet, her trust, her crew and his station in which she did see an equal (or perhaps even herself) despite her defaulting to Starfleet regulations, and these are crimes she cannot forgive.
Janeway has no moral justification about Ransom killing sentient beings, when starfleet puts sentient beings on Oberth class ships, that is the true crime against humanity.
we kill sentient beings all the time. It's how McDonald's stays in business. We draw the line at killing, cooking and eating _sapient_ beings. Sentient is self-aware. Sapient is capable of abstract thought.
@@Hiraghm ok vegan.
People tend to forget that Voyager was Janeway's FIRST COMMAND. In their seven year journey she has had to deal with issues, without any outside help, that most Federation Captains don't encounter in a lifetime of command. At least she seems to always learn from her mistakes... The only mistake I can really fault her for is not promoting Harry Kim -- after everything they've been through! I mean he starts out as a very green ensign - though a member of the senior staff(?) -- and ends up a VERY EXPERIENCED, capable officer who's seen more action than most Federation officers with decades of space exploration... and STILL he arrives at the end of their journey as a LOWLY ENSIGN! Just imagine his homecoming, where he is reunited with classmates -- all of whom outrank him! Imagine the first time he sees his mom, whose first words upon seeing him are "You're still an Ensign?!" (As the son of an Asian mom, I have no doubt of that, lol).
January was not mentally destroyed she was as channeling her inner Benjamin Sisko Look up for the uniform season 5 episode 13 Deep space nine She just got the job done much quicker.
I think I exaggerate, personally I think it was understandable by accident that they killed the spirit but using it as a source of energy and actively killing them is very different