10 Reasons To Greenlight Star Trek: Janeway NOW
4. Life After Starfleet
Janeway has faced the Borg, Species 8472 and even Neelix's so-called coffee. But there's one challenge we've never seen her face: life without a uniform.
We don't really know what mandatory retirement looks like in the Star Trek: Picard era. We know that Starfleet once had a compulsory retirement age, but this attitude may well have softened, given Commodore April's successful appeal and Picard's most recent escapades. But exploring what it would be like for a career woman like Janeway to face retirement would be fascinating.
If a new series were to pick up where Star Trek: Picard left off (more or less), time would just about line up to place Janeway on that cusp. 2404 would be an interesting pick; just a couple of years after Picard, but the same year that the Voyager finale introduced us to the alternate Admiral Janeway that never came to be.
Perhaps by the 25th century, retirement is no longer mandatory, but implicitly expected when a superior officer gives the nod and says, 'it's time'. In which case, Project Janeway could be centred on her final mission, where she finds herself torn between making every moment count and facing the cliff edge.
Or perhaps Starfleet quietly moves their older officers into more sedate desk work, a prospect that Janeway struggles to accept (she won't). Or maybe she's already made a clean break of it, and we catch a glimpse into Janeway's new life after Starfleet (before she's inevitably drawn into some kind of caper).
Either way, this would be the perfect opportunity to explore what mandatory retirement means in a time when, according to Picard in Star Trek: First Contact:
The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves...and the rest of humanity.
We just ask that it be done with a sense of curiosity and optimism, the same way that Janeway has faced everything else in her life.
Of course, whatever happens, we wouldn't expect our Janeway to stay out of trouble for long. We're sure she could find some kind of adventure to get stuck into, retired or not.