[Don’t understand why Janeway was made Admiral. She made sooooo many questionable decisions. If she deserves a promotion, so does Harry Kim.]
I remember when Nemesis came out, a lot of Trek fans were upset that Janeway promoted to admiral while Picard was not.
Others pointed out, judging from the admirals we’ve seen, it helps to be insane or incompetent. 😉
I thought that SF had tried to promote Picard a couple of times but he kept turning them down in order to stay in space. I may be mistaken though.
Jesus fucking christ.
ONE, Who the hell knows why Picard isn’t an Admiral in Nemesis? Maybe he took the advice he got from Kirk in Generations and didn’t let them promote him. Believe it or not… Not everyone wants a promotion.
TWO, Step the fuck off with the Janeway hate. She’s not insane – traumatised definitely, mentally ill probably, but are we calling everyone suffering depression/PTSD insane now? Nice – and she most definitely is NOT incompetent. Seriously, what the fuck? I’m so tired of Janeway being held to some arbitrary perfectionist standard that exists only in some fake geek boy’s imagination and STILL being found wanting… because she has the “wrong” genitals. “Ooh, if Picard or Kirk was commanding Voyager, they never would’ve got lost in the delta quadrant because (insert mouthbreathing comment about breaking the prime directive / not knowing how to read a map / whatever bullshit fucking excuse makes me wonder if any of these dickwads have ever watched any episode of any Star Trek series ever).. well basically because women should never be allowed to be in charge of anything hurt hurr go back to the kitchen oh that’s right she can’t cook haaa haa”
Suck on your own balls. Janeway got promoted because she deserved it. What have you done lately aside from scratch your hairy arse and bitch about shit?
Go back and watch Voyager. Watch all the Star Trek. Watch them again. Pull your head out of your anus. Then try telling me Janeway didn’t deserve that fucking promotion.
Also, in Endgame, Harry was a captain. So, you know.. Yet another reason you’re wrong.
Oh, hell yes. All of that.
Not to mention, there is absolutely no reason to promote Picard out of ship captaincy. None. He demonstrates none of the skills the admiralty is designed to harness. He is not a wild tactical genius. He is not skilled at fleet engagements. He is not a bureaucrat—and that is in fact a special and necessary skill. He isn’t especially good with intelligence, or as an analyst. He has risen to his exact level of competence in Starfleet, because he is supremely good at one thing: commanding the largest multi-role crewed vessels Starfleet has to offer. Picard is a jack of all trades and a capable diplomat, which is why he has the exact command he has. They just updated it, from Galaxy to Sovereign, so that the fact that he’s constantly in and out of zany combat engagements wouldn’t be as much of a liability.
The mistake of TNG and its movies is in imagining that his crew wouldn’t repeatedly get promoted out from under him—which is precisely what Picard should be being used for. The Enterprise should be a revolving door of new command officers for the fleet. It is, in spite of its “hero ship” oddities, a normal command. It’s just a normal command to which weird things happen episodically.
Archer, they made an admiral. And rightly so. As the first captain of a ship of its kind, as the first human to do a ridiculous number of things, as long as he didn’t screw up horribly, he was going to wind up teaching. They were going to get all the use they could out of him as a captain, and then bounce him upstairs so they could distill his experience into something of benefit to the fleet. Obviously that was going to happen less often the more high-warp starships and captains there were, but as the first one it was basically a lock.
And Archer wasn’t half the captain Janeway was—but they have something very much in common, besides being given command of experimental new ship prototypes. Compare the Delphic Expanse mission arc with the Voyager series arc. Compare the decisions they each had to make in contexts in which they were for all intents and purposes on their own. And consider that both Archer and Janeway, for all that they made a number of “questionable decisions” in those contexts, had worse examples ready to hand. They were conscientious and acted in pursuit of laudable goals, while refusing to engage in systematically awful behaviors as though the ends justified just any means. They beat absurd odds, pushed their crews and ships beyond all reasonable expectations, welded their crews together into families through circumstances that should have destroyed them, and did it all while suffering from some of the most hamstrung writing available. And that’s demonstration of an independence of leadership that can be a right pain in the ass—but can also be harnessed effectively, especially when combined with the need to distill and pass along a wealth of knowledge gained from unique experience. So of course they made Janeway an admiral!
Kirk is a funny case. There was no reason to promote him to admiral. There was no reason to take his command from him and give it to his XO, except perhaps scarcity (and maybe he also pissed somebody off). He’s not valuable that way. Kirk, they benched on purpose. And in response he stole his ship back. Kirk was more trouble than he was worth, but too much trouble to just leave lying about. And if Kirk is the supposed exemplar for some idea of “captains just naturally become admirals,” then of course people wonder why Picard isn’t an admiral. But those people misunderstand what happened with Kirk. It’s like wondering why your pastor isn’t a bishop yet.
[I just love Kathryn Janeway so much. She’s a real person with flaws and strengths and pain and pride. She’s just doing her best with what she’s been given and I hate that she ends the series sitting alone in her chair without Chakotay by her side.]
bekjaneway 