Burak Gazan wrote:When Vorick calls to report the electrical fault, he mentions Carey and Rodriguez are getting some sleep; her first response is she didnt order that -- she seems to think since she can go sleep-deprived and overcaffinated, everyone else should too; not smart when you trying to fix a busted warp engine and antimatter reactor I suspect
Great stuff, loving this
Right , Simon how'd you miss that? I was virtually WATCHING for it after the whole nodding off in front of Tuvok/ multiple cups of ccoffee situation in the last post.
Categorization error. I wasn't watching for it, you see, so I sort of skimmed past it.
The coffee does help explain some of the initial bad command decisions Janeway makes. However, I'd like to see her start to get on top of things eventually; in practice, her subordinates aren't going to put up with her being foolish indefinitely, especially in an environment where it can so easily get them all killed. It would do very strange things to the premise of the series if they started reacting logically to having a truly incompetent commander, as opposed to one who is initially overwhelmed by the pressure of events and later starts to settle into her new position.
And my impression was that RedImperator was trying to preserve the core premise while making the trappings more rational, rather than taking the whole thing off on a tangent.
RedImperator wrote:That's bullshit and you know it," said Janeway. "You used to be a Starfleet officer; you know the Prime Directive has shades of meaning. We can make contact with warp-capable civilizations. We still can't interfere with their development by giving them technology centuries more advanced than their own.
I can only assume that the Vulcans signed onto this idea some time after the 2060s...
I've wondered: what horrible historical experience (or long-lived ideological issue) could inspire the Federation to enforce such a broad and harsh directive on its captains?
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Its a shame they could never put THIS on television. I'm curious, though, as to why Tuvok didn't just drop one of them with Vulcan super-strength.
Wasn't sure who to drop? On the one hand, Paris is the one who can out him as a spy. On the other, he's also clearly losing the fight; ganging up on a man who's getting his head handed to him won't win him any points with Janeway.
Likewise: on the one hand, Chakotay is the real threat. On the other, until he gets outed as a spy, Tuvok is still hoping he won't have to burn his bridges with "his" captain, and nerve-pinching him to stop him from attacking a hated rival would pour an awful lot of gasoline on those bridges.
So while he's capable of dropping either of them, he suffers a breakdown of decisiveness, possibly because it takes him too long to figure out which one of them is "logically" the greater threat.
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:I don't see any idiots or lunatics in the story so far. This Lt. Commander Janeway is about as competent as you'd expect for someone whose previous tactical experience was entirely nonexistent and whose command experience was largely academic and hasn't ever had need to extend beyond the boundaries of a ship's science department. The situation she's in is forcing her to "wing it." Apart from her insistence on staying up to personally oversee it all (an understandable mistake,) I'd say she's doing remarkably well for a woman whose specialty is the weather on gas giant planets, and not too badly for a junior officer in a very dire situation.
Yes; the catch is (as I said above) that if she doesn't start growing into her job pretty soon, she's going to lose all control of the situation. Sooner or later, the best she could hope for is that Chakotay would get fed up with this and go it alone, leaving Voyager to rot in the middle of nowhere. And that would be a major divergence from the idea of rewriting something "like Voyager, only saner/more realistic."
Ghetto edit to explain:
What I'm getting at is this:
Having Janeway be a junior officer trying to fill the captain's shoes is a great way to explain the initial string of bad (or just questionable) decisions that strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. But there's a fine line between an officer who begins badly out of their depth and one who's merely useless. And in this case one of those is appropriate to the story and the other isn't.
It's difficult in fiction to create characters who are clearly fallible (they make serious mistakes and pay for them) without making them so stupid that the audience is banging their heads on the wall. I respect RedImperator for managing to walk that line so far with his version of Janeway, and I hope he keeps it up.
Without making excuses or explanations (remember, the point of the exercise is to let the story speak for itself), I will say that Simon_Jester is right: it's pretty tough to find the zone where a character is inexperienced without being just plain stupid. I mean, the character has to make a mistake, and I have to know she's making a mistake, but it can't be an obvious one. Now, I have the advantage of knowledge the character doesn't have, but not every bad decision is based on bad or missing information.
I'm enjoying the challenge, and I'm glad to see people are enjoying the story.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
At the same time, I can see hints of some of those original flaws of Janeway's, like her inability to delegate responsibilities and need to micromanage. At this point, though, it's hard to tell whether it's just because she's way in over her head and knows everybody else is even deeper in, it really is a character flaw of hers that's come out because of the circumstances, or she just hasn't had time to realize it/have it pointed out/do something about it. Or a combination of the above. Heck, a need to micromanage would exasperate the inability to delegate, because she would feel that she has to do everything and nobody else can do everything, and the longer she went at it the tireder she would get, and the tireder she got the less rationally she would be able to think about it.
But everybody else is in a similar station, and time is also a luxury they don't have, so they just have to push through it as best they can and see about making sure there is a later so they can worry about cleaning stuff up later. It's a mess and gloriously so (for the people who don't have to be there, of course).
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
Kazon-Ogla Staging Area
3.4 Light Years from Ocampa
Predator limped into his dock like a dying old man, which was exactly what he was. Maje Jal Jabin's personal belongings had been evaporated by gamma ray flux, so when he stepped through the gangway, the only possesions he had left were his uniform and his gun. He didn't know how long until they took the former and shot him with the latter.
Maybe not long at all. A man was waiting for him at the end of the gangway, wearing the uniform of the First Maje's office. "Maje Jabin," he said. "Follow me."
Jabin may have been a dead man walking, but as a Maje he still had rights. "Who demands it?" he said.
The man from the First Maje's office drew up straight. He was half a head shorter than Jabin and, judging by his skull ridges, of an inferior caste, not even important enough to be allowed to serve on a starship. But he wore the herald of the First Maje on his breast, and that gave him the right to ignore all proper social conventions--outside the Maje's office. If Jabin laid a hand on him, Jabin would lose it, and the officious peasant knew it. "The First Maje demands it, oh great Maje Jabin. He wishes to inquire into the condition of his ship."
Jabin briefly considered shooting the peasant and then himself, just for the satisfaction of taking somebody with him while he avoided a drawn-out execution.
"If the First Maje wants me, then I am at his service," said Jabin.
He was led through a maze of cramped pasageways towards the center of the station. The design of the place was ad hoc, with hundreds of additions over the years and no logical sense to the layout. Along the way, they passed a window looking down into an internal hangar, where the wrecks of some of Jabin's earlier prizes floated. I made a lot of money for the Ogla sect, thought Jabin. Maybe that will buy me another chance. It was the best hope he had.
They walked deeper into the station, finally found a horivator bank (Jabin suppressed a snarl as the peasant got into the officer caste car with him). It took them to the station's multi-level central promenade. Like the promenade of every Kazon station, it was crowded with civilians, the camp followers of the warrior caste who ruled Kazon society. The decks reserved for warriors werre less crowded (and cleaner and better maintained), but there were still many, many Kazons. The First Maje brought his personal fleet, thought Jabin. Word of the disaster that had befallen Predator had spread fast.
The First Maje's offices were at the very top deck, above even the station's control room and Jabin's own station quarters (rarely used). He had an office at every station in Kazon territory, attended usually by mid-ranking functionaries, ensuring the First Maje got his cut of every crown that passed through every Ogla's hand. Now they were full with the First Maje's entourage. The peasant passed him off to a warrior-adjutant. "Come with me," he said.
The First Maje's personal office was a throne room. First Maje Jal Razik himself, old, bald, and immensely fat, clothed in fine fabrics of deep maroon and orange-gold, sat on a throne of ornate hand-made ironwork covered in gold leaf. The walls and ceiling were marble trimmed with gold. Coutiers and courtesans lounged around the room, eating and drinking, pointing a Jabin and quietly snickering. Every last one of of them appeared to be addled on drugs. Jabin approached the throne and prostrated himself before it.
With a grunt, the First Maje managed to lever himself out of his throne. He wheezed his way off the dias and plodded down the carpeted aisle to Jabin. Jabin dared not move.
"Rise, Maje Jabin," said Razik. Jabin did, taking care to avert his eyes from looking directly at Razik's face.
"Look at me," said Razik. He reached forward with one fat hand and turned Jabin's head until the two men were looking eye-to-eye. Razik and Jabin stared at each other.
"Rejoice!" said Razik. "Our brother Jal Jabin lives!" And then he grabbed Jabin and embraced him in a crushing bear hug. The courtiers--looking confused and disappointed, but knowing what was good for them--stood and dutifully applauded. Jabin felt his legs go limp with relief. The First Maje had chosen to spare him.
"Walk with me, brother," said Razik.
"I obey," said Jabin. They walked together--Razik made a show of leaning on Jabin for support--to Razik's private office off the throne room. Like the throne room, it was all cold marble and gold leaf, with a massive desk made of the wood of a tree from a planet the Kazon-Ogla had bombarded with asteroids until the crust melted. Razik and Jabin walked through this room, through a short passageway, to a smaller, more comfortable office, decorated with traditional Ogla art and photographs of the First Maje's grandchildren. The First Maje offered Jabin a seat in a comfortable chair, then collapsed into his own chair--one which had much more padding than the iron throne.
"Do you remember, my friend, when we were both boys?" said Razik. "And our grandfathers led the Kazon-Ogla to glory without needing all this decadent nonsense?"
"I do, First Maje."
"I worry that we've lost our way," said Razik. He shook his head, sending his chins wobbling in three different directions. "But that is not why I am here. I am truly glad you're alive, my friend."
"I'm not," said Jabin. "I lost nine hundred warriors. I should be with them in Paradise, shining their armor and serving their meals for ten thousand years in pennance for my incompetence."
"I have seen the video and read the report, Maje Jabin. It was not your fault. I have forgiven you; so have your fallen warriors, and so should you."
"Forgive me, my lord," said Jabin. "I am not sure I'm ready."
"This is why I have always liked you," said Razik. "You take responsibility, even when you shouldn't. Too many so-called Majes seek only glory; never blame." He leaned back in his seat. "So," he said. "If you will not forgive yourself, what is your plan for redemption?"
"It's time we destroyed the Caretaker," said Jabin.
First Mal Razik leaned forward, resting his fat face in his upturned hands. "You've gained more than any of us from the Caretaker," lied Razik. Between his share of the loot, the money he was charging Jabin to lease a fleet and a starbase, and all the taxes he was collecting on the supplies needed to run the operation, Razik was making more from the Caretaker than anyone. But if the Caretaker were destroyed, Razik had his fingers in many other pies, when Jabin would be out of a job.
"I know," said Jabin. "But Predator has twice been nearly destroyed by aliens twice now. What if it brings us more of these 'Federations' and their teleporting bombs? What if it brings us more of those lunatic 'Jem'Hadar'? What if it brings us something worse?"
"We are powerful, Jal Jabin," said Razik. "What we lack in technology, we make up in numbers. The Vidiians are far more advanced than us, and we've held them at bay for decades. Talaxians, Hakkonians, the bloody Trabe; we have triumped over and over against superior technology and desparate odds. The Caretaker pulls in ships one at a time. What could one ship do?"
"It's not one ship," said Jabin. "Val Jean arrived ten days ago. It slipped away from me."
"I know," said Razik. "It's happened before."
"Yes, but most of the time, they run away as fast as they can. Val Jean stayed, and now it's working with Voyager. Don't you see? This could be the beginning of an invasion."
"Or they could be allies of desperation," said Razik. "Jal Jabin, are you certain your concern is genuine, or do you just want revenge on the Caretaker for what happened to your crew?"
Jabin honestly didn't know. "Maybe both," he admitted.
"First things first," said Razik. "Our priority now is those 'Federations'. If this is the beginning of an invasion, we need to smash it now."
"I have dispatched scouts to Ocampa," said Jabin.
Razik shook his head. "Skulking in the Oort Cloud with passive sensors won't do," he said. "We need better intelligence. Would you agree that it's likely Voyager and Val Jean have subspace sensors on board?"
"Given how Val Jean was able to drop exactly on top of us only a few minutes after we arrived at Ocampa, that seems certain," said Jabin, who'd been thinking over and over about the battle.
"Then we need our own real-time FTL intelligence. We will move a Spyglass into Ocampa's Kuiper belt, along with a fleet to protect it."
"They'll see us," said Jabin.
"They have two ships. They are powerful, but they're not gods."
"Those teleporting bombs..." said Jabin.
Razik grinned. "My engineers have analyzed your data," he said. "It was a trick, Maje Jabin. Just a simple trick. And simple to defeat. The next time we fight, it will be on our terms."
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
It is always refreshing to read a well written piece in the antagonists' point of view.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
"This is supposed to be a happy occasion... Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
-- The King of Swamp Castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
"Nothing of consequence happened today. " -- Diary of King George III, July 4, 1776
"This is not bad; this is a conspiracy to remove happiness from existence. It seeks to wrap its hedgehog hand around the still beating heart of the personification of good and squeeze until it is stilled."
-- Chuck Sonnenburg on Voyager's "Elogium"
One wonders how Voyager will survive up against an entire fleet of competent Kazon.
Run like hell. Run until they can't run anymore, and then run some more. And hope that they're not leaping out of the frying pan as they do it. Though it makes me think of that quote from Q:
"It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid."
...I was being a naughty person while reading this section and imagining being the set designer for the Kazon Staging Area and going, "Oh no, a throne room AND an opulent office? That's going to drive us way over budget! You can get one or the other unless you go mug some other production and take their shinies, and you had better reuse it a lot!"
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
...I was being a naughty person while reading this section and imagining being the set designer for the Kazon Staging Area and going, "Oh no, a throne room AND an opulent office? That's going to drive us way over budget! You can get one or the other unless you go mug some other production and take their shinies, and you had better reuse it a lot!"
Mmmm, caste-based society banter, delicious. I like that you're going with the more realistic view on things rather than the rigid historical perspective.
In a dog-eat-dog world the best thing to do is become a cat.
---
"Think of it as accounting, but with life and death."
Tacitus, on Healing
---
They say that Pride goeth before the fall.
Clearly they know nothing of Pride.
---
1.74×10^172
10 kyu
...I was being a naughty person while reading this section and imagining being the set designer for the Kazon Staging Area and going, "Oh no, a throne room AND an opulent office? That's going to drive us way over budget! You can get one or the other unless you go mug some other production and take their shinies, and you had better reuse it a lot
There are certain advantages to the written word.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Janeway stormed down the passageway on her way to the auxilliary bridge. Tuvok followed behind her.
"That was unwise, Commander Janeway," said Tuvok.
Janeway stopped, spun, and got in Tuvok's face. "I wouldn't have had to do anything if you hadn't been just standing there! And on my ship, you will address me as Captain Janeway."
"As you wish, Captain," said Tuvok. His calm voice was only angering her further. In her entire Starfleet career, she had never fired a phaser at anyone. Adrenaline sloshed through her veins, winding her up, fraying her already disintegrating nerves. "Captain, I admit, I should have acted faster. However--"
"You've been Chakotay's butt-boy for so long that you couldn't bring yourself to nerve pinch him even when he was beating a civilian to death," snarled Janeway. "Like some kind of Vulcan Stockholm Syndrome." She kicked a nearby wall; the panel fell off. "Piece of shit fucking ship!" she said. She pointed at Tuvok. "Chakotay's waking up out of stun in twenty minutes. As soon as he does, place him under arrest."
"On what charges?"
"Attempted murder!" said Janeway. "Piracy, conspiracy, terrorism, whatever else you saw him do while you were over there shining his shoes and doing his laundry. That was the whole point of this entire fucking exercise, wasn't it?"
"His crew will not react well to that, captain," said Tuvok.
"No shit," said Janeway. "Too bad we already burned that Goddamn bridge. Are you going to do it, or do I have to send one of my own men?"
"I will, Captain," said Tuvok.
"Good," said Janeway. She stomped away. Halfway to the bridge, she had to stop and lean against a door jamb until she stopped shaking. What the hell is wrong with me? she thought. She knew the answer: she was scared and exhausted and strung out and lost on the other side of the galaxy. But she had to stay awake, had to stay in command. She'd sleep when they got home.
She hurried to the bridge. Along the way, she tapped her commbadge, intending to talk to Vorick; it error-chirped and went dead. "Damn it," she said. When she reached the bridge, the first thing she did was corral a security rating. "Go down to engineering and tell Ensign Vorick we need comms back right away."
"Yes ma'am," she said, and hurried off.
"What's going on, Captain?" said Gombe. He was on his second eight hour shift in the last day. Beside him was a petty officer from the maintenece department, who'd been drafted as a backup tactical officer trainee.
"I just arrested Chakotay," said Janeway, taking her seat. "As soon as the Maquis find out, there's going to be trouble."
"I'll say," said Gombe.
"Vorick to bridge. I have restored the internal communications system."
"Thank you,Ensign," said Janeway.
"Tuvok to Janeway.
That was fast, she thought. "Janeway here. Report.[/i]
"Chakotay is already awake. I have placed him under arrest for assault. He is cooperating.
"The brig is unfit for human habitation," said Janeway. "Find an empty room somewhere and lock him in."
"Yes, ma'am.
Janeway took a deep breath. "Mr. Gombe, hail Val Jean. Yellow alert, shields up. Somebody wake Carey and Rodriguez."
#
Val Jean
"She did what?" said Torres.
"She arrested him," said Seska for the second time. "For assault on some civilian."
"That's bullshit!" said Torres. "They're arresting him for being one of us."
"Calm down," said Seska.
"Tuvok's over there," said Mohommad. "Can he rescue Chakotay?"
"I haven't been able to raise Tuvok at all," said Seska. "They might be holding him too."
B'Elana snarled and slapped her hand on a console. "Then we have to spring them both. Find them on sensors and beam them both out."
"Don't you think I already tried that?" said Seska. "Their shields are up."
Torres sprung to the tactical console. "They're only at fifty percent. The idiots still don't have a working warp drive. We can punch a hole through, then get Chakotay and Tuvok," said Torres.
"Are you crazy?" said Seska. "Even with half-shields and half-phasers, they can smash us flat. Photon torpedoes alone--"
"We'll fly in close," said Mohommad. "Get in under their guns. Photorps don't have the turning radius to hit us inside a kilometer if we're moving fast enough, and even if they did, they'd do as much damage to themselves as us."
"No!" said Seska. "Have you forgotten that the only way we're getting home is with Voyager's help?"
"They probably know how to get back already!" said Torres. "They got what they came for, and now Janeway's going to take him back to the Federation and leave us stranded here!"
Seska said nothing. Torres pressed her advantage. "Think about it. Not even Starfleet is stupid enough to sit here in hostile space with a dead warp core. The only explanation is that they must know how to get back already. Look, Janeway is a blueshirt. A science officer. She might not know shit about commanding a starship, but you know those Starfleet eggheads love figuring out how ancient alien bullshit works."
"Maybe it wasn't even an accident that Voyager followed us out here. Maybe they already knew about the Caretaker," said Mohommad. "This whole thing might have been a trap."
"Okay, enough conspiracy crap," said Seska. "There's no activity from Voyager or the Caretaker."
"How do we know what activity from the Caretaker looks like?" said Torres. "We've never seen it send anyone back."
"It does something!" snapped Seska. "Or did you skip the class at the Academy where they explained you can't move a hundred thousand tons of starship clear across the galaxy without expending energy?"
"We're getting them back!" said Torres. "Who's with me?"
Hands, claws, and tentacles went up around the bridge. Seska looked around, realized she was outvoted, and gave the order.
"Shields up, phasers online. Mohommad, get us close."
#
"They've raised shields," said Gombe. "Locking weapons."
Okay, stay calm. Remember the bridge officer's exam: a bad decision is better than no decision. "Red alert. Engineering, do we have impulse back online yet?"
"Yes ma'am, but only at thirty percent."
"They're closing in on us," said Gombe.
"Evasive maneuvers. Don't let them get too close," said Janeway.
For the first time in more than a day, Voyager's massive sublight engines rumbled to life. Janeway felt the vibrations through her seat.
"They're still closing," said Gombe. "They are faster and more maneuverable than we are."
Of course they are, she thought. 30% impulse, we're turning like a pig compared to them. She realized she was trying to postpone the inevitable. She was going to have to shoot their only allies.
"Lock phasers," said Janeway. "Target their weapons systems."
"Captain, that is a difficult shot," said Gombe. "If we targeted their engines--"
"I wasn't asking for advice!" snapped Janeway. "Target their weapons!"
"Yes ma'am."
On the viewscreen, Val Jean closed in on them.
"They're firing weapons!" said Gombe.
Val Jean blasted Voyager's ventral shields. The whole ship shook.
"Ventral shields down to 25%," said Gombe. "Bleedthrough damage to deck 15. Main deflector is offline. Captain, I can't lock their phaser power distributor."
An image formed in Janeway's head of Val Jean. She didn't know how her power grid was arranged, but it had to be something simple and robust. There was no way to take it down without destroying the entire ship. And the phasers looked to be about the same way.
"Mr. Gombe! Can you knock out their sensors?"
Beat. "Yes, ma'am."
"Do it!"
#
"Voyager is firing!"
Val Jean shook with the impact. "Their phasers are at half power," said Torres, who'd taken the tactical station. "Still raping our shields."
"Mohommad, come about and take us over their dorsal side," said Seska. "We need to hit their impulse reactors if we want to have any chance."
"Yes ma'am," said Mohommad. Val Jean cut her engines, pivoted around, and leapt to full power.
"Target their impulse engines!" said Seska. "Fire at will!"
Val Jean blasted Voyager's shields, directly at the weak spot where hot propellant from the engines passed through the shields. They got one clean hit directly on the starboard impulse engine, which flared spectacularly and died. All the lights went off on Voyager.
"Got them!" said Torres. "Their shields are--"
The lights came back on on Voyager. Val Jean took a phaser burst right in the face. The crew was thrown out of their seats.
"Report!" shouted Seska.
"They punched right through our forward shields!" said Torres. "Fuck me, they knocked out the main and the backup sensor array! I'm totally blind! I can't even get the external cameras to respond!"
"Mohommad, get us out of here!" said Seska.
"I'm blind too!"
"For the love of the Prophets, we're in space! Pick a direction, go to warp, and try not to crash into the sun! Now!"
#
"They're warping off," said Gombe. "It looks like they picked a random direction off the plane of the ecliptic."
Janeway let her breath out with a shudder. For an instant, she'd experienced something like pure, raw joy. Victory! Ancient primate instincts sweeping a lifetime of civilization aside in one burst.
But that passed, and she was left with the knowledge that her ship was now more broken than it had been before.
"Casualty report," said Janeway.
"None," said Gombe. "But engineering is reporting the starboard impulse reactor is completely destroyed and the backup badly damaged and forced into shutdown mode. We've lost half our remaining power generation and propulsion."
"How long until they can get the backup online?" said Janeway.
"Mr. Carey is reporting six weeks," said Gombe.
Janeway hung her head. I hope sparing the fucking Maquis was worth it, she thought. Now we're even deeper in it.
And then it got worse.
"Captain, I have new contacts on subspace sensors," said Gombe. "Sixteen Kazon vessels have left warp in the system Kuiper belt."
Oh, shit, thought Janeway.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Voyager has... a truely insane number of field repairs to carry out today. And a chief engineer who really doesn't seem to like doing field repairs. Man I hate that guy more than is logical.
Good job on that!
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
You can just picture the look on Carey and the engineering departments' collective faces -- I take a fraking nap,and when I wake up I have a WORSE smoking pile of crap to try and rebuild?? What is that nimrod doing up there??
"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."
To be fair to Janeway, she really didn't have a choice in her course of action, other than of course blowing up the entire Marquis ship. Janeway's a science officer who as she reflects in the last chapter, has never shot someone with a phaser before- she doesn't seem like the type to kill when she doesn't have to, more even than most Starfleet officers.
Voyager's situation is definitely following the 'Highway to Hell' method of plot development. I want to say the situation can't possibly get worse, but current evidence suggests that's impossible.
I'm halfway tempted to go watch the Voyager pilot just to spot differences. The other half suspects it would be too depressing to see the lost potential.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
What is that nimrod doing up there??
