What is Captain Janeway's biggest mistake?

[Darth Wedgius]

Not making Leonardo da VInci her first officer. If he'd been traipsing all over the bridge, ordering that the catapults be loaded and Greek fire be brought to bear, I would never have missed an episode.

[Thebestoftherest]

Parody Janeway biggest mistakes was not using the Borg technology to conquer the universe.

[Kendrakirai]

Well, we know even if the Cardassians had initially invaded, that the Bajorans were aware of other races, and they also initially welcomed the invasion. At least according to what might be revisionist historians. Possibly. I mean, in our own world, some slave owners thought they were doing a good thing, giving a job to the "heathens." Or that to invade another country is helping them, because we have better technology to give to you! Or, like in the case two decades ago, that because being crushed under Saddam's boot heel is bad, we will invade and remove him. In this case, the Ocampa knew about other species thanks to the Caretaker. And there was no signs that the Ocampa would welcome the invasion of the Kazon.

The difference with the Bajorans and Ocampa is that the Federation didn't want/couldn’t afford a war with the Cardassians, which is what helping the Bajorans would have caused, Janeway was fine starting one with the Kazon...Ogla? Whatever sect that was. Either way, the Prime Directive didn’t apply, it was straight up politics with another warp capable species, with a third, ‘primitive’ one caught in the middle.

Again, there’s absolutely examples later, but Caretaker wasn’t one. And I’m not even saying it was *necessarily* the right decision she made. (Though giving a race of warmongering barbarians the ability to become a post-scarcity society and move around via matter transmission isn’t a very good plan, ESPECIALLY coming from the people complaining about Janeway helping the Borg to survive Species 8472 by citing the many species that were assimilated. How is that all that different from helping the Kazon become an actual existential threat to everyone in and around *their* space? Resources and technology was what was keeping the Kazon from being much, much worse than they already were.)

[Yukaphile]

I never got that impression. They could have helped. Just did not want to. Especially since they were in a series of border skirmishes, unofficial wars with the Cardassians.

[Kendrakirai]

I never got that impression. They could have helped. Just did not want to. Especially since they were in a series of border skirmishes, unofficial wars with the Cardassians.

A border skirmish is different from liberating a *star system*.

[Yukaphile]

Setlik III Massacre?

[Kendrakirai]

Setlik III Massacre?

That’s not liberation, that’s landing and killing everyone and buggering off.

[Yukaphile]

What you call liberation others call conquest. That's my feeling towards a lot of things. People would call it "liberation." I call it "conquest." Their attitudes give them away.

[Kendrakirai]

which, if anything, just makes it LESS politically appealing for the Federation to have gotten involved with Bajor until the Cardassians pulled out on their own. Either way, it’s not a Prime Directive matter, it was just politics between two warp capable governments with a third stuck in the middle.

[SpacePaladin]

I really hate the lack of consistency in the writing because the writers seemed to forget that the Array was non-tenable. It needed hours to boot up, it killed half the crew when a centuries experienced person was running the thing, the Kazon had reinforcements on the way, and the thing took massive starship to the face, which was what knocked out the self destruct in the first place. Even if it could be booted up, they'd be lucky if it scattered their component molecules to the Alpha Quadrant. A time bomb would not have worked unless it allowed them to go through time. But the writers forgot that and had everyone, including Janeway, act like there was some dilemna.

I'd say not using the wormhole in the Ferengi episode. Even if she insisted on meddling, she could have just sent the crew through via escape pods and kept a skeleton crew on board to deal with the Ferengi.