Star Trek: 10 Times Captain Janeway Was Right And Everyone Else Was Wrong
With no Starfleet, no backup, and sometimes no coffee, Janeway managed to make the right calls.
When you and your crew are stranded further away than any other ship, and Starfleet (the fungicidal maniacs) still won’t declassify the spore drive, you’d better have the constitution to make some strong decisions and stick by them: popular or not.
With no means of two-way communication with her superiors in the Alpha Quadrant until the sixth year of the trip back home, the buck always stopped with Captain Janeway. No one else could make the final call. Sure, she relied – as any good captain would – on her senior staff, but this is a Starship, not a democracy!
Janeway encountered a fair bit of contestation during the first couple of years in the Delta Quadrant, in particular from members of the Maquis who were frequently not too happy with her vision for survival. Later, faced with Chakotay’s sting-in-the-tail opposition, with Seven’s more direct 'Captain-you-are-in-error' moments, or Tuvok’s well-intentioned, but very Vulcan scepticism, Janeway stood her ground.
The following command decisions may not have all been moral victories, the Captain would be the first to admit, but they were the correct course of action in the moment, especially with a bunch of doubters in the background who she had to prove wrong.
10. Rejecting Villainy In The Void
When Voyager is pulled in to an area of subspace in the titular episode, the crew realise that the place is quite literally a void. There are no stars, no planets, and especially no deuterium. The only matter of any kind is the other ships that are unwittingly trapped there, and the competition for resources is, hence, ferocious and deadly. Even worse, being in the Void is draining the warp core, and Voyager is immediately attacked.
When it becomes clear that ship’s resources aren’t going to last long in these circumstances, Chakotay and Tuvok, wondering if they should be more 'opportunistic' whilst in the Void, gang up on Captain Janeway. When they ask if the crew should be willing to die for their principles, Janeway delivers one of the best, most just ripostes of any captain:
If the alternative means becoming thieves and killers ourselves, yes. […] We may lose a little weight, gentlemen, but we won’t lose who we are.
She proposes forming a sort of 'mini-Federation' ('the Alliance') to share food, supplies, and relevant technology with anyone willing to play by the rules: no stealing, no killing, and no giving up! Chakotay and Tuvok (again!) are immediately sceptical, and later Seven expresses her frustration before making a rapid about-turn with Fantome.
In the end, Janeway is right and her detractors are wrong. Despite the odd speedbump, the Alliance is such a success that all the ships within it escape the Void with Voyager.