What is Captain Janeway's biggest mistake?

[Formless One]

Her biggest mistake? That's easy: the decision that stranded them in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. Not putting a damn timer on the bomb that blew up the array. She even admits that this was a mistake. She doesn't specify what she would have done in hindsight, but she recognizes that it was not the best course of action to strand them there like a dumbass. If she had not done that, every other questionable decision she made in the rest of the series would never have happened. Her ship wasn't meant to fly a seven year voyage, and unlike both Picard and Sisko she clearly wasn't ready to take up a command in deep space without the safety net of Starfleet command's orders and approval. She was in over her head, she later realized and admitted as much AND that she only has herself to blame, and this explains so much about her command style.

[robomagon]

I actually come down on Janeway's side in the Tuvix thing. Yes, she executed an innocent man. And in doing so, she saved the lives of two innocent men.

2>1

Thing is though, that that's an issue which is wide open to personal opinion, with a case to be made for either option. So whether I agree with her ultimate decision or not, I'd not really consider either choice a mistake.

How do you feel about Archer's actions in Similitude then? He makes a clone of Trip and is perfectly willing to murder him to save his friends life. Technically he comes out even, so it's OK, right? 1:1.

[StrangeDevice]

Her biggest mistake? That's easy: the decision that stranded them in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. Not putting a damn timer on the bomb that blew up the array. She even admits that this was a mistake. She doesn't specify what she would have done in hindsight, but she recognizes that it was not the best course of action to strand them there like a dumbass. If she had not done that, every other questionable decision she made in the rest of the series would never have happened. Her ship wasn't meant to fly a seven year voyage, and unlike both Picard and Sisko she clearly wasn't ready to take up a command in deep space without the safety net of Starfleet command's orders and approval. She was in over her head, she later realized and admitted as much AND that she only has herself to blame, and this explains so much about her command style.

Actually, this brings up a really interesting point. After seven years alone in hostile and uncharted space without making any long-term allies whatsoever, Janeway still managed to bring home both Voyager and her crew largely intact. The journey itself was problematic, but she did achieve her initial goal to return back to the Alpha Quadrant and with her original command staff, plus a largely incorporated Maquis crew.

Let's be honest, there are issues with the way that she's been written (the Equinox incident being the most telling), but I don't think within the context of the series canon she's a poor captain. After all, let's look at another captain in the series who is largely regarded as far better written...

Kirk takes a prominent political figure on Stratos and forces him to scrabble in the dirt at gunpoint, smacks around a foreign dignitary for being petulant, calls the ruling council of a pacifist race cowards for refusing to take part in his war and loses command to a group of spacefaring hippies. These are all things that did happen during the original Enterprise's run, yet they get swept aside in favour of the more virtuous aspects of his character. Janeway I think was capable, but didn't get the same overtly positive PR beyond "Alliances".

Both Kirk and later Sisko had their doubts and both made a lot of mistakes, but we got to see how they held their respective crews together. Voyager? Outside of maybe a handful of really nice conversations between Janeway and Tuvok towards the beginning, not so much.

[Formless One]

but I don't think within the context of the series canon she's a poor captain.

This argument only holds insofar as the show had a problem with dramatic tension. It was a forgone conclusion from the third episode onward that the Maquis would integrate; it was a forgone conclusion from the first season that they would get home at some point in the show, barring the possibility that the writers would deliberately troll the audience. And frankly, when you take a closer look, you realize that actually no, in the context of the show Janeway is a case study in that old saying "better to be lucky than good." There are multiple instances of the writers contriving for the ship to stumble upon technological shortcuts, including in the last episode of the run because they realized that they had put the ship so far out into deep space that there was no other way to plausibly hold up to their implicit promise to the audience of getting Voyager home. They wrote themselves into a corner from day one, so it is inevitable that any post-hoc reasoning about Janeway's success on that front will make her look better at her job than a detailed analysis of the show's typical episode

Its like... okay, let me put it this way. In Aristotelian ethics, there is this idea that a virtuous person cannot only be judged by their behavior being virtuous. This is because it leads to the paradox of trying to figure out how people learn what is virtuous to begin with. Acting virtuous is necessary, of course, but equally important is the psychological point of knowing what you are doing is virtuous, doing it because it is virtuous (and I'll certainly give Janeway credit for having moral conviction), and most importantly acting this way consistently and on this motivation alone. Janeway will condemn something in one episode, then do something functionally equivalent several episodes later. In "The Omega Directive" she rescinded the Prime Directive because under the circumstances she had a formally accepted reason to do so (a super-secret directive of higher priority), but later in "Equinox" she wouldn't even admit to it to a fellow Captain when directly asked, let alone all those times she violated it without a valid excuse! Instead, she makes the coy remark that she had "bent" the Directive on occasion, which anyone who understands double-speak could tell you is a sign she is in denial about her past decisions being wrong. If she [/i]knows[/i] she is doing the wrong thing, and she does not do the right thing on a consistent basis, and at times seems to violate her own principles because of motives that are not strictly moral (such as in the case of Tuvix, where she murdered a man just to get her dead friends back), then she is not a virtuous Starfleet captain. Not in the moral sense. And in the other sense, we can again simply point out that she got home by sheer luck, not command skill or planning.

Kirk and Picard may have done a few bad things as well, sure, but the one problem they did not have was being inconsistent with their very reasoning, place of values, or ability to identify whether they were doing the right thing or the wrong thing. If you pointed out to Kirk that he was doing something monumentally stupid or wrong, he might argue with you... but what he would absolutely not do is question your loyalty in lieu of justifying himself. Janeway is known to do that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Regarding the Prime Directive Defence for Janeway's actions in "Caretaker", in (very) brief:

Essentially, it is my understanding that the Federation requires Starfleet officers to repair an unintended breach of the Prime Directive. Since the Array would have self-destructed if not for the damage it suffered during Voyager's battle with the Kazon, Janeway was likely obligated to correct an unintended breach.

As to the Occampa being fucked either way: well, Janeway's actions may have bought them some time, though they may also have doomed them to death when their energy ran out. You can decide for yourselves weather that's preferable to slavery under the Kazon, though personally I think not.

Her actions also likely helped a lot of others by keeping the Array out of the wrong hands, however.

That said, all that is neither here nor there as far as the Prime Directive is concerned.

[StrangeDevice]

This argument only holds insofar as the show had a problem with dramatic tension. It was a forgone conclusion from the third episode onward that the Maquis would integrate; it was a forgone conclusion from the first season that they would get home at some point in the show, barring the possibility that the writers would deliberately troll the audience. And frankly, when you take a closer look, you realize that actually no, in the context of the show Janeway is a case study in that old saying "better to be lucky than good."

[...]

Kirk and Picard may have done a few bad things as well, sure, but the one problem they did not have was being inconsistent with their very reasoning, place of values, or ability to identify whether they were doing the right thing or the wrong thing. If you pointed out to Kirk that he was doing something monumentally stupid or wrong, he might argue with you... but what he would absolutely not do is question your loyalty in lieu of justifying himself. Janeway is known to do that.

True and it's certainly unpleasant behaviour, but it did get the job done. In hindsight, I think it was an expression of insecurity. Let's not forget that none of those three were forced to remain in non-stop command of their vessel, alone in hostile territory without friends or protection to speak of. She never had the opportunity to take a sabbatical to visit family in San Francisco or be bundled off to Risa by her crew. There was no safety net of any description for her to fall back on (barring the one that producers repeatedly inflicted on us ).

On top of that, Voyager was her first tour of duty in the role of captain and I think what shows more than anything else is her requisite lack of experience. She didn't have the destruction of the Stargazer, nor the loss of the Saratoga to prepare her for what would happen. She hadn't faced death or loss like that yet. The victim of shortsighted planning by an alien intelligence seeking to fulfil its own ends. Her seven (or eight if you count the negged Year of Hell timeline) years were essentially just one long and thoroughly macabre endurance test.

[CareerKnight]

Regarding the Prime Directive Defence for Janeway's actions in "Caretaker", in (very) brief:

Essentially, it is my understanding that the Federation requires Starfleet officers to repair an unintended breach of the Prime Directive. Since the Array would have self-destructed if not for the damage it suffered during Voyager's battle with the Kazon, Janeway was likely obligated to correct an unintended breach.

That isn't a defense against it being a stupid decision though. As has been pointed out many times there are things called fuses and time delays so there is no reason in this situation they couldn't have used it to get home and blown it up too. Chuck even pointed out that even if being able to put an explosive on a timer was somehow impossible then having someone stay behind to do it would have been the right move rather than risk the ship and entire crew being stranded out here.

It gets my vote because in addition to every other bad decision steaming from this one it also was a warning that the writing wasn't going to be up to the standards of what had come before. This was suppose to be one if not the most character defining moment for Janeway where she chooses to make a moral decision that would end up stranding them, but they didn't think it through.... at all and so the only defenses that people can come up for that decision shifts it to a "no choice had to do it" situation rather than what they wanted it to be.

[robomagon]

Who needs Risa when you have a holodeck that conveniently runs on a different power source than the rest of the ship so it doesn't have to be rationed.

[drewder]

I don't see the prime directive argument for destroying the caretaker array. The prime directive says that they shouldn't interfere in the affairs of other species. Protecting the Ocampa and preventing the array from being captured are both interfering. The caretaker wasn't part of the federation so you can't say they were just righting Starfleet's wrongs.

[StrangeDevice]

Who needs Risa when you have a holodeck that conveniently runs on a different power source than the rest of the ship so it doesn't have to be rationed.

True, but that doesn't get rid of that weight lurking in the back of your mind. It's like being the parent of a young child or coordinator of a large project, those concerns are still there, causing you stress as you go through the motions wherever you are.

Actually, speaking of holodecks running on a separate grid, does anyone have any thoughts as to why logically this'd be the case? Can you use the holodeck as a means of emergency communication or something?