Date: 10 Nov 2009 00:54 Title: Strange New Worlds
I have to say, considering what a pile of dreck Before Dishonor was (and how much I despise most of Peter David's work), you have done an extraordinary job in taking that and making it into something I can actually care about!
I wonder, if Janeway is now dead, and is living in the Continuum, if her nature will begin to change--if she'll become more like Amanda in some ways, or end up more like one of the other Q, or neither? Oh, and do we get to see Janeway talk with Amanda at any point? Something tells me she could be very helpful for Janeway, perhaps even help things to make a bit more sense.
On a personal note, Janeway's attitude towards her imprisonment very much surprises me, though--I know that if I were in her situation, while I'd try to make the best of it I would have a hard time with the idea of being held captive in a place that while a fair simulacrum at times, is rather short of Heaven and the beings running it VERY short of true deity. I probably would've sounded a lot like Quinn, in that I would want to be released to fully die. Of course, in my case it would be in the hopes of something better and somewhere I was MEANT to be, not Quinn's wish for it all to simply end.
Author's Response: Thanks for the comments. Some of what you asked about is in "Your Possible Pasts", which I've added recently. If I recall correctly, you're a religious person. I think it's important to remember that Janeway isn't -- she's an open-minded agnostic, but she managed to avoid being suckered by an alien entity impersonating her father who was trying to get her to "go toward the light" largely because she didn't believe in that sort of afterlife. I don't think Janeway thinks the choices here are Heaven or the Continuum, I think she thinks the choices are the Continuum, oblivion, or getting the Q to restore her to life. She doesn't want to escape to truly die, she wants to escape to truly live, and she's somewhat angry at the Q because she knows they have the power to do that for her, but they won't. But thanks for the insight, because Chakotay *is* a person of faith and if he finds out that Janeway is being held in a semi-dead, semi-alive state in the Continuum, he might have exactly the reaction you did -- that he thinks she should be released to go on to the spirit world (his religion's Heaven), not kept between life and death.
[Report This]Date: 30 Jul 2009 19:44 Title: Strange New Worlds
Interesting tale. Did you write about Janeway's death or is that from the novel?
Fascinating the way you juggle all of those Q!
Author's Response: Janeway died in the book, and Lady Q (I usually refer to her as Suzy-Q, actually, but the accepted name for the character in the bookverse is Lady Q) took her somewhere after her death. It was never made clear exactly where, but fans have been speculating that it was the Q Continuum. This series is essentially about Janeway in the Continuum, and what it's like for a dead mortal human to live in the land of gods.