Star Trek: Every Captain Ranked Worst To Best (2023)

4. Kathryn Janeway

Star Trek Captains Ranked 2023 Liam Shaw Todd Stashwick
CBS Media Ventures / Paramount Pictures

Captain Janeway's adventures in the Delta Quadrant were absolutely legendary. She commanded Starfleet's first ventures into this new region of space, and it's been said that she made first contact with more species than any captain since James Kirk.

She made the questionable decision to destroy the Caretaker Array, which stranded her crew on the wrong side of the galaxy, but also prevented the Kazon from using the array to invade the Ocampans. She catches a lot of flack for this choice, but it was an undeniably selfless act, one which kept her from her friends and family for seven years.

As a captain, Janeway started a cultural revolution in the Q Continuum, stole advanced technology from the future, and dealt several crippling blows to the Borg Collective. Her decisions sometimes backfired, like when she made an enemy of Species 8472 by teaming up with the Borg, but her mistakes are massively outweighed by her accomplishments. She beat all of the odds and kept most of her crew alive through one of the most hazardous and lonely missions in Starfleet history.

Contributor

Marcia Fry is a writer for WhatCulture and an amateur filmmaker.