Star Trek: 10 Times Captain Janeway Was Right And Everyone Else Was Wrong
6. Stopping The Equinox Whatever The Cost
This one is going to prove extremely controversial, and Captain Janeway didn’t entirely agree with herself by the end of the whole saga.
When Voyager encountered the USS Equinox, it was under attack by a race of interdimensional aliens. At first, the two crews play happy reunions. It is soon discovered that Captain Ransom and his cronies have been capturing and killing the nucleogenic lifeforms to power their ship and improve their warp factor. Janeway is rightfully appalled and locks them up. They escape back to their ship, leaving Voyager defenceless against the aliens in the process.
When Janeway decides to go after the Equinox rather than focussing on Voyager, Chakotay accuses her of pursuing a 'vendetta' – a sexist trope that a woman must be seeking revenge and not justice. Was Chakotay’s method as 'moral arbiter' somehow more noble? Eventually, Janeway relieves him of duty and later threatens to do the same to Tuvok.
It is true that Janeway takes some arguably reckless risks and plays fast-and-loose with a few moral boundaries despite her crew’s protestations. BUT, she is right to go after Ransom, and hang the consequences! Ransom is a Starfleet officer and he has been committing mass murder to get his crew home. If Janeway hadn't stopped him in his tracks, there would have been no other relevant authority to do so within thousands of lightyears. Like it or not, Captain Janeway’s decisions stopped the killings and saw Voyager through the day.