Janeway. The Borg. Voyager. The Borg. There was a yo-yo effect in this show where you felt like these folks were meant to tango forever, with how many times their paths crossed. It's like when Megatron asks Optimus Prime, "Who would you be without me?" Then Optimus/Janeway finally does answer, and the end product is pretty messy on the floor.
What VOY added to our knowledge of the Borg is debatable in its usefulness, contradictory at times, and doesn't quite feel like the same menacing Borg that almost took over the Alpha Quadrant with a single cube. But what gets me about Janeway's approach is her own yo-yo way of treating them like a scourge one moment, then people, then a scourge again.
The 1st time that they enter Borg-controlled space, Janeway sides with the Borg only because she views the Borg promise of assimilation to be better than their enemy's promise of extermination. It's a purely calculated move based only on that and their ability to bargain, using the nanites. But every time she sees a cube gets blown to bits, she sheds no tears over it.
However, it's been said elsewhere: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him." Through her very personal interactions with certain Borg in episodes like "Unimatrix Zero" along with her daily interactions with Seven, one could argue that her position "evolved" with time, thus leading to a bizarre situation where the Borg queen is the one blowing up Borg ships, and Janeway is the one wanting it to stop.
Yo-yo back to Janeway blowing up every Borg ship in her path in order to get her future self an audience with the Queen, thus leading to the presumed downfall of the entire Borg collective. Too much.
Part of why it's so confusing is because it's not clear what actions lead to what outcome - even after the fact. Back when Picard was debating using the invasive program with Hugh, it was said that it would lead to the collapse of the entire collective in a way that would amount to genocide. He declines. But when Janeway injects a neurolytic pathogen, it's all good, right?
The yo-yo between the high road and the low road is so extreme here that it's hard to make sense out of Janeway's actions or even the intentions behind the actions. She goes from humanitarian to genocidal war criminal in the blink of an eye. It makes for a story arc that's a mess, frankly.
Here's the rest of that quote mentioned above.
What VOY added to our knowledge of the Borg is debatable in its usefulness, contradictory at times, and doesn't quite feel like the same menacing Borg that almost took over the Alpha Quadrant with a single cube. But what gets me about Janeway's approach is her own yo-yo way of treating them like a scourge one moment, then people, then a scourge again.
The 1st time that they enter Borg-controlled space, Janeway sides with the Borg only because she views the Borg promise of assimilation to be better than their enemy's promise of extermination. It's a purely calculated move based only on that and their ability to bargain, using the nanites. But every time she sees a cube gets blown to bits, she sheds no tears over it.
However, it's been said elsewhere: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him." Through her very personal interactions with certain Borg in episodes like "Unimatrix Zero" along with her daily interactions with Seven, one could argue that her position "evolved" with time, thus leading to a bizarre situation where the Borg queen is the one blowing up Borg ships, and Janeway is the one wanting it to stop.
Yo-yo back to Janeway blowing up every Borg ship in her path in order to get her future self an audience with the Queen, thus leading to the presumed downfall of the entire Borg collective. Too much.
Part of why it's so confusing is because it's not clear what actions lead to what outcome - even after the fact. Back when Picard was debating using the invasive program with Hugh, it was said that it would lead to the collapse of the entire collective in a way that would amount to genocide. He declines. But when Janeway injects a neurolytic pathogen, it's all good, right?
The yo-yo between the high road and the low road is so extreme here that it's hard to make sense out of Janeway's actions or even the intentions behind the actions. She goes from humanitarian to genocidal war criminal in the blink of an eye. It makes for a story arc that's a mess, frankly.
Here's the rest of that quote mentioned above.
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
