Fifteen years later, I still don't fully understand the final few minutes of Voyager.

[Amasov]

Recently, I was watching Voyager's final episode and I have to admit, I still don't understand the last few minutes. To me, it's not very clear how they arrived home.

Series of events:

• Voyager enters the transwarp hub
• A sphere peruses them
• An aperture opens less than a light year from Earth
• The sphere continually fires on Voyager
• Janeway asks where the nearest exit is and is told it is less than 30 seconds ahead, but it will lead back to the Delta Quadrant
• Janeway tells Paris to prepare to adjust his heading
• The fleet of Federation ships moves into position to attack the sphere when it exits
• Suddenly, Voyager is no longer being fired upon
• Janeway asks Paris what their position is, and he says, "Right where we expected to be (Which is where?)
• Tuvok fires, the sphere is destroyed and Voyager arrives home

I feel stupid even asking this, but what actually happened? Did Voyager fly into the sphere? And if so, why were they not still being fired upon?

The part that confuses me is when Paris says, "Right where we expected to be." I don't know what that means. This came AFTER Janeway told him to prepare to adjust his heading - suggesting from previously that they will be returning to the Delta quadrant based off what Seven told Janeway.

Am I overthinking this? am I missing something?

Please help.

 

[hux]

When Janeway says prepare to change our heading, she's talking about voluntarily going into the sphere. Of course, in reality she would never have used the words "change our heading" to make that happen but they wanted to make the audience think they'd been destroyed by the sphere once it appears in the Alpha quadrant.

So when Paris says "right where we expect it to be," he's referring to being in the sphere.

Essentially, it was just an excuse to have a cool... Voyager exploding out of the sphere... moment.

No that it mattered because temporal integrity officers dragged her ass back to the Delta quadrant five minutes later anyway.

 

[MacLeod]

There is also the line before when they were considering changing course to a different conduict which would take them back to the DQ. So it was mislead the audiance as to where they might be. Back in the DQ or home.

 

[Amasov]

Adding to my confusion was when Janeway says, "We'll celebrate later."

Obviously, it's because they know they are about to arrive home. I know that now, but before...

 

[Guy Gardener]

The sphere was faster.

Voyager's batarmour was still unassimilatable.

I guess Janeway was just lucky that Sphere's can't take U Turns inside transwarp conduits.

 

[Lynx]

Honestly, I don't understand anything of this episode.

I had expected a nice homecoming for our heroes (at least those who weren't dumped by those in charge of the Universe).

Instead we got that confusing mess which was "Endgame".

After haven't watched a single minute of Voyager since a certain horrible episode in season 6 , I decided to watch "Endgame" 50 seconds before the episode started on TV, just to see our heroes finally coming home.

After the episode, I was very angry that I broke my promise not to watch Voyager again.

I was very dissapointed with "Endgame" and I'm still very dissapointed with it.

Definitely one of Voyager's five worst episodes.

 

[borgboy]

My reactions to Endgame are mixed. I love Admiral Janeway, and loathed the Seven/Chakotay romance, so it's a very mixed reaction. I wasn't overly bothered that we didn't see the crew on Earth, since the alternate future from the beginning sort of gave us a look at that. We knew they were home. There were lots of unresolved issues, but there was just so much they could do.
The novels continued the story, so it wasn't really over for me.

 

[Relayer1]

Definitely one of Voyager's five worst episodes.

Oh, I don't know. There's so much competition...

 

[Amasov]

Unlike TNG and DS9 before it, Voyager's finale did not bookend the series. Both "All Good Things," and "What You Leave Behind," had a tie-in with the pilot episode. With Voyager, I think it would've been interesting if they were somehow able to bring it back to the Caretaker. I know we see him die in the first episode, but it would've been cool to somehow revisit how the crews were originally stranded.

On the rare occasion I watch "Endgame," I can't help but get the feeling that the producers/writers just wanted to hurry up and get through it so they could end the show move on to Enterprise (debating THAT series aside).

If you watch both "Caretaker" and "Endgame" back to back, it's like night and day.

 

[Drone]

No that it mattered because temporal integrity officers dragged her ass back to the Delta quadrant five minutes later anyway.

I believe that Guy maintains that since the temporal shenanigans were essential to their existing, the 29th century guys were much more likely to give it all a wink and a nod!!!!

Adding to my confusion was when Janeway says, "We'll celebrate later."

Obviously, it's because they know they are about to arrive home. I know that now, but before...

She's referring to Seven's comment about the destruction of the transwarp hub, which surprisingly for her was more than a bit of hyberbole.

The sphere was faster.

Voyager's batarmour was still unassimilatable.

I guess Janeway was just lucky that Sphere's can't take U Turns inside transwarp conduits.

If I'm not mistaken, the knowledge about the armour was already in the hands of the Collective, the destruction of Unimatrix 1 and the current queen's death notwithstanding. Why do you maintain that it was unassimilatable?

Unlike TNG and DS9 before it, Voyager's finale did not bookend the series. Both "All Good Things," and "What You Leave Behind," had a tie-in with the pilot episode. With Voyager, I think it would've been interesting if they were somehow able to bring it back to the Caretaker. I know we see him die in the first episode, but it would've been cool to somehow revisit how the crews were originally stranded.

On the rare occasion I watch "Endgame," I can't help but get the feeling that the producers/writers just wanted to hurry up and get through it so they could end the show move on to Enterprise (debating THAT series aside).
If you watch both "Caretaker" and "Endgame" back to back, it's like night and day.

Hence, the appropriateness of Suspiria's, and possibly Kes', being the instrument (s) of saving Voyager's bacon from the Borg and returning them home. Kes only a possible, because she had already done them a large once, and given what we saw of her at the end of Fury, it didn't seem too encouraging that she would have been up for taking on that role.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's been years since I watched this turkey. If the batarmour only gave them 20 minutes of protection, and that was the best they could muster with another 26 years of R&D, it was a shitty toy to bring back into the past to help out on the big day.

Even if Janeway's criminal actions diverted the galaxy from certain doom and saved every one from certain assimilation... She broke the law, and deserves the appropriate punishment for her crimes.

In the books, they 29th/31st century time cops wouldn't let the 24th century time cops throw Janeway in jail for timecrimes, because she had to be free, to do more beneficial chores necessary to the creation of a good future the 31st century calls home.

However, once History is finished needing Kathryn, big men with sticks and ropes are going to come for Janeway while she is sleeping, and sort her out.

 

[stardream]

Unlike TNG and DS9 before it, Voyager's finale did not bookend the series. Both "All Good Things," and "What You Leave Behind," had a tie-in with the pilot episode. With Voyager, I think it would've been interesting if they were somehow able to bring it back to the Caretaker. I know we see him die in the first episode, but it would've been cool to somehow revisit how the crews were originally stranded.

On the rare occasion I watch "Endgame," I can't help but get the feeling that the producers/writers just wanted to hurry up and get through it so they could end the show move on to Enterprise (debating THAT series aside).

If you watch both "Caretaker" and "Endgame" back to back, it's like night and day.

Someone here (one of the authors perhaps?) went to the producers with a script about the Caretaker. He was dismissed with a 'We're not interested in stories about the Caretaker.' This was probably after Season 3 after the change in production staff. A lot of things that happened in the first two seasons were ignored (number of photon torpedoes, the crew were aware Reg Barkley because he showed up in Projections, they got out of Kazon space etc etc). The only way dedicated fans would see the Caretaker again would be in the String Theory Books. The Caretaker was out, the Borg became the focus.

I did hear a rumor that there was something on file about the female Caretaker just in case the show was cancelled suddenly without warning but I have not been able to verify that.

 

[Vandervecken]

I liked the 7/Chakotay romance actually. It felt right to me. She'd been sought by emotionally immature men who needed her. It made sense to me that she would appreciate a man who wanted her, not needed her.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

[QUOTE="Guy Gardener, post: 11503520, member: 201" Even if Janeway's criminal actions diverted the galaxy from certain doom and saved every one from certain assimilation... She broke the law, and deserves the appropriate punishment for her crimes.[/QUOTE]

Honestly, Janeway really was the most incorrigible being ... in any timeline.
Did she broke the law? Yes. Did she get a great part of responsability for the situation of Voyager (being stuck - with a crew of 150 people - in an unknow universe and for an undetermined time? Again, Yes.
BUT for her defence:

1) she was willing to make something good and sometimes, like in "The Caretaker", it turns around against her and the crew.

2) Voyager was the only representant of Starfleet Federation in Quadrant Delta and maybe before returning on Earth - her main was to maintain her crew safe and sound at all costs, while trying to respect the directives of Starfleet.
To reach these goals, she made imprudent decisions and formulate judgment calls that are flawed in their inherent content but who didn't do mistakes?
-> if she had been a man, would we have held against him in the same way? I am not sure there.
Furthermore, one can't say that the crew was a big help for her, all these years!

3) Admiral Janeway realized that it is her stubbornness, as she was still Captain, to want absolutely to respect the principles of Starfleet which made that their stay went on beyond the reasonable. That is why she felt responsible and ressentful for the death of members of her crew, especially Seven and Chakotay.
Her actions in Endgame gave her the occasion to correct her mistakes. As a kind of redemption.
She knew anyway that either she died during the mission or if she was lucky enough to come back to Earth in present time, her career as Admiral would be ended and her reputation ( like that of her family - as seeing as it appears that she comes from a long lineage of officers of Starfleet - tarnished).

For my part, I find that it's brave - and completly crazy - to want to risk everything (life and reputation) to save people who used to form your crew and I am not sure that Tom, B'Elena, the Doctor or Harry would have been ready for these sacrifices.
It would have been interesting to see the Admiral Janeway involving more of the friends, in explaining her will to return in the past to save Voyager, and seeing their degree of implication.
Well, working as a team like they used to do.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Janeway sets a bad example.

Idiots, fools and incompetents trying to be her, try to be her.

So suddenly there's a thousand Star Fleet captains travelling back in time every month to right some personal wrong, at the expense of the ecology of time, which is probably way more fragile than we think.

If Janeway isn't punished, she's going to be a role model for people who are not as lucky as she is, and then they're all ####ed.

Meanwhile, how many Star Fleet Captains are going to want to have their hands cut off, which could be the suitable punishment for unlegislated time travel, to unwind years or decades of possibly good history, to save one person or amend a romantic relationship?

(Yes, I am also talking about Kirk. Give him his ship back, you assholes. Fricking hipppies. CUT HIS HANDS OFF!!!)

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

I liked the 7/Chakotay romance actually. It felt right to me. She'd been sought by emotionally immature men who needed her. It made sense to me that she would appreciate a man who wanted her, not needed her.

I have a different opinion:
Maybe the question should be rather, why was Chakotay so willing to indulge himself with someone 1) that he didn't even consider as a human being in S4 (willing to kill her then to abandon in the middle of nowhere) and later, only used her for her technology knowledge in S5 & 6
2) was basically still in the formation stages of her development.
I mean, Seven based all her actions regarding her romantic pursuit of Chakotay on 'research' done in the holodeck ... rather as a teenager would do.
Of course, she has to start somewhere (but the choice was limited with Tuvok and Tom already married and fathers, Harry being Harry, Neelix gone and the Doctor, well, still a Hologram) and he would have treat her better than most men would have done but come on, look at the big age gap*, she could have been his daughter and though this issue, he wasted no time taking advantage of that (besides, why Chakotay/Seven would be more acceptable than Janeway/Paris?!).

For me, they used one of the other one to reach different purposes:
- Chakotay** used her to feel young and attractive again as it's often the case between 2 people with big age difference (I shall also add the money in other cases). Furthermore, if I remember well, she cannot have any child by herself. There is even no this excuse there.
- Seven used him to learn what she needed to become more Human.

(*) Kes and Neelix worked individually but their relationaship disturbed me a lot.
(**) after that Seska chose to go over to the enemy then eventually died during an attack and Janeway pushed away his advances.

 

[Guy Gardener]

He was impressed with how almost like a person she had become in such a short time.

She dug herself out of a hole, and he dug that.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Janeway sets a bad example.

Idiots, fools and incompetents trying to be her, try to be her.

If Janeway isn't punished, she's going to be a role model for people who are not as lucky as she is, and then they're all ####ed.

Meanwhile, how many Star Fleet Captains are going to want to have their hands cut off, which could be the suitable punishment for unlegislated time travel, to unwind years or decades of possibly good history, to save one person or amend a romantic relationship?

Firstly, saying that I can understand her actions, doesn't mean that I approve them.
In the series, Admiral Janeway dies in the explosion of the Borg Cube after to have been assimilated In the books, she is sent to prison (even if she is always eventually released).

Secondly, Capitain Janeway was considered as a model role for a lot of girls in the time.She was an important fictional role model for women in leadership.
(for my part, I'm an adult who discovered STV the last year and the character of Katherine Janeway was immediately appealing to me maybe because usually, science fiction is man's affair (and the fact that this character is interpreted by Kate Mulgrew was the icing on the cake).

I remember to have read this article about a female physicist who talked about her perception of Janeway. and the fact that she was an important fictional role model for her.
(http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.fr/2015/05/leadership-role-models-and-captain.html)

Thirdly, I don't know "how many are going to want to have their hands cut off, to unwind years or decades of possibly good history, to save one person" but parents - especially a mother (or in the case of Janeway, a foster mother) - would do everything possible to save their child of a scheduled death, whatever the consequences for them or the History (= it is called love)
I guess that it is the same thing for a true friend* as seems to have been Chakotay for her (=l it is called loyalty)

As for the fact of "amend a romantic relationship", I didn't know that Janeway wanted to interfere in the relation Chakotay / Seven in its purposes.

In fact, by modifying the future, she prevented the death of Seven and some others members of her crew who where killed during the journey of return AND later Chakotay as seeing as he was so devastated after Seven's death that he let himself die

(*) Quite surprised because I thought that Tuvok, who knew her for a very long time; was her best friend.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We learnt in Relativity, that Future Justice deems all temporal doppelgangers are all equally complicit and guilty of any other temporal Doppelgangers crimes, before and after all present dopplegangers are Tuvixed into a composite being with possibly clashing world views depending how estranged their home timelines are form one another.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

He was impressed with how almost like a person she had become in such a short time.

She dug herself out of a hole, and he dug that.

That Chakotay admires Seven's intelligence and courage is a thing, that he answers favorably to her advances even though he knows her emotional state is an other one.

I would have understand your position if instead of Seven, it had been B' Elena (because of her age - she is older than Seven - and much more experienced at the emotional level -> she knew who she was and what she wanted).