In the Star Trek fandom, people really love their captains. They are the heroes and leaders that characters and fans look up to in their darkest moments. They lead the ethical code of every ship and set the tone for their entire series. They are, in most cases, the most important characters in their story.
However, captains are hardly perfect. Captain Janeway herself, the badass lady who braved the Delta Quadrant, made a lot of her own mistakes during her adventures, and those mistakes had harsh ramifications for her crew and the quadrant as a whole. Here are the 10 worst things Janeway did.
Kidnapped Seven of Nine
Even though everyone loves Seven of Nine and she easily became one of the best parts of Voyager, the way she joined the crew was less than pleasant. After teaming up with the Borg to fight an invasive species with organic tech—that the Borg attacked in the first place—they still had a drone on their ship to send back.
But, instead of sending Seven of Nine back, Janeway took it upon herself to kidnap the Borg, even though she showed no interest in humans. This was very different than other Borg who left like Collective, like Hugh. He grew to appreciate and care for humans. Janeways stole Seven with no real prompting, endangering her crew and choosing Seven's future without her permission.
Almost Sacrificed Kes
In a rare spiritual-based episode, Janeway grappled with a culture based on faith alone. When Kes accidentally disrespects a holy site, she becomes comatose and to save her Janeway has to go through a purification ritual. However, the entire way, Janeway resists and struggled with finding the science behind the whole process. The locals persist it's not science at all, but that doesn't cut it for Janeway, prolonging the process and almost making Kes lose her life.
A captain with principles is a captain fans like, but Janeway really needed to put her ideals aside and just save Kes, and she was almost too late.
Dooming The Ocampa
When Voyager was thrust into the Delta Quadrant, they met the Caretaker and the species he made dependent on him: the Ocampa. He wanted to help them, but, in turn, that made them reliant on his resources, tech, and powers. As he started passing away, their entire way of life was in danger. Perhaps, if Janeway left his tech, they could have learned how to adapt it to save themselves.
However, Janeway destroyed all the remnants of the Caretaker to try to make sure that the same tech couldn't fall into villainous hands. Ergo, absolutely dooming the Ocampa below since their lives are so short and Janeway took away their main resources.
Promoting Everyone Except Harry Kim
Janeway did her best to make everyone on the crew feel appreciated, and she also tried to make the Maquis integration as smooth as possible. B'Elanna became Chief Engineer, Chakotay became second in command. But the real kicker was Tom Paris getting promoted, demoted, and promoted again.
Even though Harry Kim spends most of the seven-year journey as a completely upstanding officer, Janeway ignores his efforts and he stays an ensign the entire time. Sure, it can be hard to promote people when there isn't a staff rotation, just the same people on the same ship for years. But Harry deserved some sort of acknowledgment.
Underestimating Fair Haven
Everyone going stir crazy on Voyager, Captain Janeway greenlit Tom Paris' project to make a highly interactive, 24/7 holodeck program called Fair Haven. Emulating a small little Irish town back in time, it was an enjoyable place for officers to unwind. After all, even Janeway found romance in the program.
Unfortunately, though, Janeway and everyone else underestimated Fair Haven. Leaving it open so much encouraged program intelligence, made the holograms confused at times, and caused them to take hostages and try to burn people as witches. Yikes.
Forging The Borg Alliance
While Janeway felt that she was making the right decision when joining up with the Borg to fight off Species 8472, in hindsight, it was one of her greatest mistakes.
Sure, fans got Seven of Nine from this. However, they almost helped wipe out a species that felt like they were trying to defend themselves. Moreover, this got the Borg Queen's attention and made her obsessed with Voyager—and the drone they stole—for years to come. In the end, the deal only caused trouble and hurt her crew.
Abandoning Her Crew In The Void
One of the hardest times for Voyager was the void, a large swath of space with no stars, planets, nothing. It was just pure blackness for months. During this time, the Voyager crew really needed their captain to rally and inspire them.
Instead, Janeway holed up in her room and completely abandoned her crew to their own devices. While struggling makes complete sense and she deserved some time to herself to cope, completely disregarding her people and avoiding them is a terrible way to abandon her people when they needed her the most.
Choosing Ferengi Justice Over Going Home
There was a point where Voyager found some Ferengi exploiting a less-evolved planet for profit. Pretty standard Ferengi fare. Understandably, as Starfleet officers, Voyager wasn't too jazzed about them running their little gambit.
Despite Starfleet self-righteousness, though, the Ferengi weren't inherently hurting the people, and the wormhole they came through was stable enough for one trip back. Voyager deserved to take that ride home, but Janeway chose to dispense inconsequential justice to the Ferengi, instead.
Giving Hirogens Holodeck Technology
Though Janeway did everything in her power to not give Delta Quadrant species possibly dangerous Federation tech, she really slipped up with the Hirogen. To get them to stop hunting Voyager, she gave them holodeck technology. Knowing the abilities of their own Doctor, she knew the dangers.
However, she still passed it along. Unsurprisingly, the Hirogen completely messed things up by creating sentient, aggressive holograms too powerful for them to beat alone. It almost got an entire ship of Hirogen destroyed, and Voyager itself, too.
Stranding Voyager In The Delta Quadrant
After they were in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway did make a competent assessment that the Caretaker's tech was very dangerous, and letting the Kazon have it was a bad idea. However, destroying the Caretaker's remnants was also a very cruel thing to do to her crew. She made a unilateral decision to strand them in the Delta Quadrant just on the chance the Kazon managed to use the tech.
They aren't exactly a tech-savvy people. There's a chance they never could've figured out the device, but Janeway only thought of the theoretical consequences without enough proof to back them up. Her crew deserved to be put first, but she didn't.