sticky ST VOY post

[moonflower77]

as much as i appreciate our unique identities, in the context of this show the word "individual" makes me feel like vomiting.

[from the ST VOY forum re: the opinion that seven should not be in a romantic relationship with anyone due to her lack of emotional maturity] emotional development can only occur through interaction with others and that concerns romantic affection or any other feelings. none of them develop in a vacuum. how do you suppose seven could grow emotionally if she isolated herself? <...> if you set aside the fact that she was assimilated when she was around 7 years old, and look at her actual conduct, she doesn't act like a child on any level - emotional or otherwise. consider her dominant qualities: diligence, hyper-responsibility, perfectionism, propensity for workaholism, ability to ignore or overcome her personal feelings or likes/dislikes if duty demands that she do so, capacity for self-sacrifice, even for strangers or those who do not necessarily treat her well - all of these are adult traits, possibly a young adult around icheb's age (which is why she and icheb are so alike) but most definitely not those of a child. they point at the excellent development of her higher emotions, even if she is out of touch with the more basic ones. i would say she is much closer to 17 than to 7. <...> i agree about torres. she and seven have a lot in common, much more so than they realize. the irony though is that torres is the one who is often EXCEPTIONALLY RUDE, to seven among others. seven, even when she is too direct or asks inappropriate questions (due to not knowing what is or isn't acceptable in this culture - and it's not like anyone had ever bothered to take her aside and explain this to her in detail or compile a list of topics that are taboo), is always formal and polite and never flings around insults or resorts to physical violence. the only time we see her acting on a violent impulse is with kovin, and we are never given an actual explanation as to why. perhaps she did have a reason after all. <...> it would be incredibly demeaning and patronizing to tell a legal adult with perfectly intact cognitive abilities, who is a specialist in astrometics of all professions, that they cannot have a partner because they are emotionally underdeveloped. to be honest, it'd be just as insulting if directed at someone with an intellectual disability but there are enough debates around this and i'm not going to contribute to them. emotional development is a very vague concept. it's not readily quantifiable and may be taken to mean many different things depending on who uses the term. quite a few mental health professionals will tell you that themselves. people may be out of touch with their emotions for a variety of reasons (trauma, depression, ptsd, autism spectrum disorders etc.) and to suggest that none of them can enter into a long-term relationship because of this is absurd. for many, a relationship is what makes the difference between misery and a life that is at least tolerable, and, sometimes, between life and death. i've been there and have the whole set of badges. a relationship is what may eventually help the emotions to return. besides, where do you draw the line between a romantic and non-romantic relationship? spouses or partners may abstain from sex for religious, personal or health-related reasons. does that make them any less of a couple? no. sexual attraction is a significant component of a couple's dynamic, but not an essential one, and again i know exactly what i am saying because i've been there. there are medical conditions that will rob you of your sex drive, including (again) depression and certain physical illnesses, and there are people out there who choose chastity even in marriage because this is their spiritual ideal. nothing changes. they are still A COUPLE. but from your perspective, the relationship would be fine if it is limited to the friendship/trust/mutual support, but suddenly becomes unsound as soon as sexuality factors in - how does that make any sense? this is twisted on too many levels.

i and a friend had another discussion the other night re: seven's rehumanization arc, after which i was left wondering - am i the only person here who would have paired seven with tuvok if it were up to them, or, since tuvok is married and we all know how steadfast most vulcans are with regard to their family values, with any other vulcan? (except perhaps vorik - he looks and acts like a semi-drowned rat, but even he sounds like a better choice than a non-vulcan) seven's so-called social difficulties could be permanently - and easily - resolved by giving her a vulcan mate and/or having her settle down in a locality populated mostly by vulcans, which makes me think they are one large problem ex machina and due more to culture shock than to any genuine lack of capacity to communicate. granted, it wouldn't have been half as interesting to watch, but that's another matter.

i’m not glad that seven has the doctor for a mentor at all. i feel for her. the emh is one of the most immature members of the crew, on par with harry kim and tom paris – i think he is actually less mature than those two, which says a lot. he has an extremely poor idea of what does or doesn’t work while socializing because, as a hologram, he could not have had the same experience with the various styles and forms of human interaction as the other members of the crew. he equates communication with small talk and forgets about genuine deeper bonding, when the latter is far more crucial than the former, for seven even more so than for the rest of us; he is unaware of the numerous ways of interacting with a romantic partner other than a conventional old-fashioned date, many of which may have been less awkward and painful for seven; and so on. his attitude toward mentoring seven is inexcusably slapdash and irresponsible. in “stwom”, i think he cares more about his wager with tom than about seven, which is why he rushes her through the training, pressures her into the date long before she is ready and doesn’t take the time to find out about lt. chapman’s personality and warn her than he is painfully shy and about the last man she would want to ask out. in “one”, it’s as if he can’t be bothered or hasn’t noticed yet that unspecific instructions are bound to confuse seven and that she cannot actually read his mind to find out what he wants from her; later, he is more preoccupied with his personal pet annoyances with seven than with her benefit and uses the lesson as a punitive/coercive measure, abusing the authority he had been given over seven (“it’s not a request, it’s an order”). i don’t know how much worse one could get.

[about janeway showing tough love toward seven and teaching her about the command structure by disciplining her for beaming the 8472 creature and the hirogen hunter off the ship] seven wasn't just making the most logical choice, she was trying to save the whole crew. the chances that voyager would have been ripped apart by the hirogen fleet were something like 99 to 1. wasn't the first time janeway's lunacy put the lot of them at risk, either. [about seven's rehumanization] being re-acquainted with your origins (ethnic, cultural or otherwise) is fine and nice but no-one ought to be forced to do so against their will, or before they are ready. and it's not an obligation, just a possible course of action to consider. this is a multi-cultural universe we are talking about, one that is even more globalized and tolerant than our 21st century. the alpha quadrant is full of different species which mingle freely and live in mixed settlements. in such a world, everyone is presumably free to choose a cultural environment they are most comfortable with, and so should seven. yes, most of the alpha-quadrant cultures conflict with seven's background but there is at least one that does not and i see no reason not to make use of this. besides, there is the option of acclimating around vulcans for several years, learning some (or many) of their ascetic exercises as a means of self-discovery and emotional control, and then moving on to live with humans, provided she does want to - why does no-one ever mention that? if it's really about seven and not whatever janeway wants to mold her into asap before they reach earth, so as to have something to brag about, seven's emotional comfort and well-being should come first. oh, and while we are talking about origins - why doesn't anyone suggest that she be taken to tendara first rather than earth when they arrive in the alpha quadrant, because it's, like, her actual place of origin and visiting might trigger buried early childhood memories?

"tsunkatse" is a telling episode as far as seven's character is concerned. she is worried about tuvok and willing to risk her own life to save/help him by fighting instead of him on the ring, despite her distaste for violence. if you watch her expressions more closely, her extreme concern for him is obvious (i know, it wouldn't have been so clear-cut without jeri ryan's excellent acting). she is highly reluctant to kill the old hirogen, although a) his species are close to a quadrant-wide threat and are notorious for their sadistic and merciless behavior, b) this particular hirogen has threatened to kill her if she doesn't oblige and c) she has every reason to suspect him of scheming and betrayal. he has to provoke and taunt her until instinct takes over and she starts to return his blows using her full force. she is a gracious, honorable opponent in battle and naturally (some might say, surprisingly for a former borg drone) compassionate. i have a feeling that, had it been b'elanna in her situation, the reaction would have been "what? it's a fucking hirogen and he was going to kill me!" now contrast this to "prey", where she single-mindedly insists on eliminating the species 8471 creature, has a heated argument with the captain and disobeys her explicit orders to do so. janeway makes her out to be like a child, a sort of moral four-year-old who hasn't learned what compassion is yet and cannot see past her personal hatred and bias against the species owing to the borg/8471 wars. except we can see from "tsunkatse" that she is the exact opposite of that, in every conceivable sense. the sole reason behind her severe - and extremely different - response to the 8471 was the fact that it was the creature vs. the entire voyager crew. the lives of the whole crew were at stake (with something like 99 percent odds of the ship being instantly torn apart by the hirogen fleet) and seven couldn't allow them to die just to rescue that one unfamiliar creature. in that context janeway's "maybe not" doesn't fly and her treatment of seven is appalling.

about seven in general. i'm not at all fond of the word "normal" but since its vague conventional meaning is appropriate, here it is: seven is normal. she is normal even in comparison with myself, and i'm by far not the oddest individual out there, plenty can attest to that. she has a few quirks that could be attributed to the equivalent of the broader autistic phenotype and maybe, maybe it can be stretched into the outer margin of ASD/asperger's - just barely. i personally find that less than credible. he world is full of people like her, no-one tries to label them anything (other than the occasional mundane slur like cold bitch/married to her career/etc) and they lead regular lives. for the record, either t'pol or b'elanna are much more disruptive and difficult from the social and the personal standpoint. i suspect the reason why such a great issue was made out of seven's supposed "oddness" is that her fairly regular personality happened not to sit well with these particular people: b'elanna, neelix, janeway, paris, kim (tuvok, for all his flaws, is not one of them). the other reason is that she is ex-borg, which opens a whole new can of worms. b'elanna can get away with acting like a schoolyard bully without her rude behavior being remarked on, but seven cannot be civil yet truthful and direct without being called "rude" because of her background. seven's "oddness" is an easy excuse for these people not to make an effort to hear out/understand a person who isn't even all that different. communication can never be a one-way alley but they like to pretend that it is - that all the hard work and self-improvement must be done by seven, not them.

it took me several months before i could formulate this in fewer words, but here it is. the so-called "social lessons" the emh inflicts on seven are characterized by most of the red flags that point at an abusive behavioral therapy to be avoided, so basic in nature they are mentioned in the wiki lists pinned online for clueless or desperate parents. being coerced or forced into socializing against one's will. emphasis on small talk and other formal and culturally-determined elements over genuine communication and emotional bonding. being made to smile and act happy when one feels anything but, or to smile instead of expressing one's happiness by other means. being discouraged or diverted from subjects one is passionate about and pressured into not discussing them. having to participate in unpleasant or anxiety-inducing situations (such as parties for a socially anxious person like seven) while one hasn't learned to rein in the negative emotions, also against one's will. being forced to do things one dislikes or finds disturbing when they are not necessary for one's own health/well-being/safety or that of others. all of these suggest that the therapy hasn't been created with the patient's best interest in mind and aims not at ensuring that they are happy and fulfilled persons and pose no threat to anyone, but to mold them into a certain arbitrary shape to make them less of an inconvenience. which is exactly what they do to seven throughout the four seasons she is in. the fact that all this is subtle in ST to the point of being hard to notice, for some, doesn't make it any better - for all i know, this makes it worse because it can be harder to recognize those signs for what they really are.

ST VOY and the social lessons again - what makes me wonder is, where was lt. comm. tuvok throughout all this? from his therapy sessions with kes (for whom it was too little too late) and b'elanna (who walked out on him), i had the impression that he occupied the position of ship counsellor due to his age and experience with therapeutic practices, and would be the first person to go to in a situation like seven's. besides, there are additional factors: he is possibly the only member of the crew (apart from naomi) with whom seven never had any difficulty communicating and established a rapport almost at once; vulcan culture is the next closest to seven's background in the federation; their personalities are remarkably similar. in the few episodes where they are shown together, their interaction is invariably smooth, without any of the issues seven has with the rest of the crew. they are comfortable around each other and share the same nonverbal signals and mode of communication, and, to a large extent, the same values, priorities and attitude (duty and self-discipline above anything else, emphasis on reason as opposed to emotion). he could easily teach her most of what was or wasn't appropriate in federation culture, at least describe the protocol she is expected to follow and share his own experience of adjusting to it as a vulcan. vulcan exercises could be an invaluable instrument for seven to rediscover, explore and control her emotions and if not express them externally, then at least learn to identify and label them, which would make them easier to discuss. but no. when tuvok is needed he is not there. that show really does drive me insane.

brooke's response: "I. think it's really sloppy writing, they threw the character in to make waves but had no real plans to rescue her. We were only supposed to watch her drown and laugh."

friend on ST VOY: "they should have given seven an official position and a starfleet uniform after all. she works as a science officer and has all the responsibilities associated with the post but none of the rights." i agreed and added that having her wear the skintight bodysuit was irresponsible and demeaning, even callous - much like having her walk around in the nude or wearing nothing but bandages, casts and other medical aides. the fact that she doesn't care what she is wearing and has a vague physical self-image doesn't mean that others shouldn't look out for her and help her choose clothes that are more appropriate for the cultural environment if she cannot do so on her own. 24th century or not, bodysuits like hers or kes' are still viewed as highly sexualized and as long as she is wearing one, the rest of the crew are bound to treat her as a sex object, to a greater or lesser extent (and we can see from the hints and the innuendo floating around that they do). "she can't be bothered" or "she doesn't notice most of the looks they give her" isn't half a decent excuse for allowing this to happen. not to mention that the bodysuit was originally designed by the emh for the apparent purpose of being able to ogle her, under the weak pretext of facilitating the healing process, as if she couldn't just wear a proper set of coveralls on top. besides, half the crew are ex-maquis in starfleet uniforms and janeway wouldn't be deviating from the rules all that much.

every time i watch "ashes to ashes" i see the parallel with seven of nine. i know it's underrated episode because it's a standalone and we are never going to see jetleya/lindsay again, except on the casualties list, but when one watches it in the context of the entire series the similarity is striking. lindsay and seven were both abducted by a species who proliferate at the expense of other species (the borg assimilate other races, the kobali retrieve the deceased of other races and turn them into their own) and thus may be said to have a weaker claim to authenticity; both had no choice in the matter (annika hansen was forcibly assimilated, lindsay was dead at the time and couldn't consent by default); both were altered to a point where neither can return to her original state and were given new names and identities as part of the process. there are other, subtler shout-outs throughout the episode. as with seven, jetleya is bald in her new form and one of the first steps the emh takes toward giving her a more human appearance is restoring her hair. like seven, she is blunt and somewhat oblivious, and tends to blurt out uncomfortable or odd things before she thinks. "what have you done to her?", which is followed by kim's counter-accusation "you mutilated her!", reminds one of seven's "what have you done to me?" and her horror at her implants being removed in "the gift", although in this case the outrage jetleya's kobali appearance being gone was voiced by q'ret, rather than by jetleya herself. one may also think about "tell her that her sister is dead" and later, "the girl you loved died four years ago" as opposed to seven's "this body was assimilated eighteen years ago, it ceased to be human at that time". the steel we see bursting through the skin on seven's cheek in "imperfection" and the cortical node that replaces a sizeable portion of her brain may well be the equivalent of the traces of residual human dna in jetleya's new body. even visually, jetleya's shiny, stark white skin with the purple streaks and blooms mirrors seven's mottled grayish-white complexion, shiny with what looks like sweat, in "scorpion"; both are appropriately zombie-like. likewise, the plain brown coveralls are something of a call-back to pre-voyager seven's brown leather armor suit. harry kim, with his penchant for falling for the wrong women, was attracted to both at different times. what differs in these two situations is janeway's response when each of them voices a desire to leave voyager and join her new species. a co-worker/friend suggested that janeway's decision to let jetleya go could be her (half-conscious and lukewarm) response to the shoddy choice she had made when faced with a similar situation in the past, with seven, and there might be a grain of truth to that. but the issue is never mentioned, much less elaborated on. interestingly, we never see seven and jetleya interact in "ashes to ashes", even though one would think they may like/want to talk, having that much in common. instead, we have the side-plot with seven acting like a control freak with the borg children, which is there mostly for comic relief and has no bearing on the main plot. one more example of the show asking a serious question and then doing its best to avoid having to answer.

"drone". one of the reasons why the episode leaves such a bitter aftertaste is the blatant parallel with an adopted child, or a child born from a mixed-race relationship, whose parent (parents) have been lying about his origin because they see it as a disgrace or shame - or, in the worst-case scenario, believe that his familiarity with his heritage would undermine his moral and emotional development (due to "savagery", "lack of constructive values", "questionable morality" or whatever). the comparison is too obvious and the creators of the show haven't bothered to try and make it more subtle. one of the things that disturbed me the most was seven's uncertainty and reluctance to respond to her son's questions about the borg, and i'm not at all sure that the reason was her own resentment of their shared origin or desire to prevent him from learning about the (evil) collective and, possibly, from siding with them in the future. i'm more inclined to think that she didn't know how to phrase this in front of the captain, and was afraid that she might slip - give the wrong answer, not the one janeway expected to hear or would approve of, which would then have negative repercussions for her son. and he does have the right to know where he comes from, and, for that matter, to join them if he wishes and to experience their collective consciousness for himself, just as the crew of voyager, for their part, have the right ti not want to be assimilated and to take every available measure to avoid that fate. in fact, he has more of that right than anyone else, because, unlike seven or about any other drone (with the possible exception of those who were assimilated in infancy and/or were born in the collective and grown in maturation chambers from day zero), he was not assimilated from another species, but born into the state of being borg. if authentic borg exist, he is one of them. what are the answers he hears from the crew? there is nothing to learn. you don't need to know this. they are evil. the result is as predictable as it is tragic - yes, we have his heroic self-sacrifice for the crew, but we also have what amounts to a suicidal frame of mind, as evidenced by the forcefield he erected around himself as he died to prevent the emh from attempting to save his life because he was convinced that "he was an accident" and should not exist. now, all you need to do is substitute "borg" with "klingon", "romulan" or "cardassian" and the situation will no longer be as clear-cut, even within the confines of the star trek universe itself.

"body and soul". this is one of the several episodes, along with StWoM and "one", that made me think the doctor's treatment of seven is nauseating and toxic. there appears to be a widespread opinion that the emh was a vast positive influence on seven's personal growth, possibly more than any other member of the crew including janeway (one viewer even wrote that the emh, in effect, subjected seven to extensive psychotherapy and helped her overcome the consequences of the long-term emotional trauma), but i just don't see it. what the emh did to seven here amounts to gross disrespect of her as a person and to a massive infringement on her interests and rights. he used her body as an instrument, a vehicle for satisfying his sensory cravings and turning his personal fantasy about human sensation into reality. i'd have less of a problem if it were played out as a temptation he struggled with and eventually succumbed to, only it wasn't - he had no reservations about this from the start. that his actions were certain to be against seven's wishes never seemed to cross his mind so much as once. but it doesn't stop there. he didn't just indulge, he abused seven's body to hell and back by getting drunk and gorging on rich foods, and he wasn't oblivious as to the effects; in fact, he had to be perfectly aware that seven wouldn't have approved and that he risked doing harm to seven't health because she never ate foods like those, her tolerance for alcohol was low and her metabolism differed from that of other humans. none of that stopped him - he just didn't have the slightest care or concern as to how his overindulgence might affect seven.

"year of hell". we watched the second part together the day before yesterday as we ate supper. seeing seven care for the blinded tuvok was moving and heartwarming, and i couldn't help noticing (again) how smooth and natural their interaction was. there were none of difficulties seven seems to have with the rest of the crew. this goes to demonstrate that seven's communication problems are cultural - were she living among vulcans, none of them would have been there in the first place (and, as vaidas has noted, she could/should indeed have settled to live with vulcans). a vulcan community wouldn't have noticed anything "wrong" with her because, from their perspective, nothing would be. while the federation crew purport to be tolerant of other cultures, and do accommodate someone like tuvok (not without certain moments that border on ugly, but this is another story altogether, and he is, after all, janeway's close friend and advisor), seven to them is damaged and must be fixed just because she happens to be borg - although, when you take a closer look at her mode of communication or approach to life, they are much the same as tuvok's.

"drone". i had the distinct impression that at first, when seven was talking about dispatching the neonatal drone while he hadn't matured and referring to him as "it", she was attempting to distance herself from him and to prevent herself from growing attached, because she was afraid she might lose him - and, in the end, her fear proved to be correct. one could tell from her eyes and facial expression that he mattered despite anything she may have said when she approached the maturation chamber and stood in front of it to be recognized as a fellow drone. of course, when one was dying, her feelings for him were obvious; her tears alone speak volumes. those who will say that seven was incapable of love as far as the seventh season - this is right in your face. her son, for his part, appears to have inherited her self-sacrificing nature and died protecting the people who didn't particularly care for him, although he had every reason to regard the borg as his kind and to side with them instead. janeway's insistence on keeping him alive strikes me more as a matter of general principle, not compassion toward a specific creature. you know, we are the federation, we have progressive values and respect any intelligent forms of life, except for all the times we don't, when it's not convenient to ourselves. one also appears to have inherited seven's terrible self-esteem. the moment when he is about to die and repeats what he had said before, that he was an accident and should have never come into existence in the first place, is heartbreaking.

"imperfection", pt. two. seven's conversation with b'elanna in engineering. i can relate to seven being heartbroken over the collective not having her memories of the four years since she was separated; it does feel much more than mechanical "storage" and more a form of cultural immortality and a transcendence of sorts, with such an intimate connection maintained between the deceased member and the still-living ones that his or her experience is, in effect, the same as their own. i understand the sense of irreparable loss. but what matters here is the way seven is convinced that the crew will never remember her after she dies because there is nothing in there to remember, to hold dear, to appreciate - she sincerely believes herself to be empty, a hollow shell. she thinks she has had no lasting effect on the others' lives and will be leave no trace behind "as if she had never existed". the fact that it is b'elanna, of all people, who consoles her and tells her otherwise, demonstrates just how mistaken she is. there is half a short step from here to the fucking suicidal ward, and all this time these people have stood around and watched and done nothing. other than that - janeway's determination to save seven is admirable, but the emh was right, she did cross the line there. janeway keeps bringing up choice, but would seven have approved of her killing a drone to take a cortical node, given her adamance about not accepting icheb's as long as the slightest risk to his life was involved, let alone the possibility that he might not survive? for all i know, had janeway succeeded, she would be forcing seven to submit to a treatment procured by unethical means. and who is janeway trying to save, her close friend and daughter-figure or the pet project she can't afford to fail?

"imperfection", pt. one. we watched it together three days ago, then my friend did so again on the following day, in the afternoon while i was still out. what struck me was that (here we go again) seven's self-esteem is abysmal, lower than the lowest layer of the floor lining. in effect, she accepted that she was janeway's experimental project, that it was right and proper and she didn't see anything wrong with the picture (the irony of everyone going on and on about individuality when what matters to janeway is to shape seven into a copy of her own ideal self), and blamed herself for disappointing janeway and not living up to her expectations. seven had every reason to believe she was going to die in a matter of hours or days and this is what she felt was of the greatest importance - what was going through her mind throughout that time. to her credit, janeway said what she should have; along with "the voyager conspiracy", this is one of the few episodes where she gave the right response and did so sincerely, without traces of manipulation and hidden strings.

"prey", the episode we watched last night. the conversation between seven and janeway where seven declines to open a singularity into fluidic space due to the threat from the converging hirogen ships strikes me as beside the point on both sides - what we would call "one asks if there is an elderberry shrub in the garden, the other replies that there is an uncle in kiev". it's less like a dialogue and more like two monologues. i'm not sure janeway heard seven or wanted to hear her, and, when it comes to that, i'm not even sure that she wanted to teach seven a lesson in ethics - i think she just wanted to teach her a lesson, period, and acted like that out of contradiction, to demonstrate to seven that no decisions of hers that don't sit well with the captain would be tolerated/accommodated. she had chosen that time (of all times) and those circumstances (of all circumstances) to make that point. considering that she almost had the whole crew killed, it's all the more disturbing. seven, on the other hand, was right. janeway had an obligation to protect and fight for her crew and, well, to get them home safe and sound (and not dead), and while i really feel for the species 8472 creature, her crew had to be her first priority - and what she was doing was collective suicide. her story about saving the wounded cardassian fell flat because it was incomparable to their present situation; she wasn't making a unilateral decision to sacrifice her crew for his sake and there was none of the imminent and virtually inescapable threat. and then i have doubts that this was her actual motive, whether she was aware of that or not. (friend's response when we came to that conversation: "so that was why you chose this episode for me - for all that internal skimmed cream goodness")

one small bit that occurred to me several years ago, though i had forgotten to include it into the character and interaction analysis until now, is this: as early as "the gift", seven mentions that her favorite color was (or used to be) red. under the circumstances, a natural response would be to give her an item of clothes or small gift in that color, but the crew never think of this - not janeway, not anyone else. if they did have to dress her in a bodysuit, why didn't they replicate her the same bright red plush unitard kes wore? i've heard some of the later burgundy or reddish-brown bodysuits being described as "red" but i think it's too much of a stretch - at the very least, it's not the generic archetypal hue most of us picture when the color is named. this is a small element, but it's symbolic and raises more questions about the true intent behind janeway's continued and vocal assertions about fostering seven's individuality.

"dark frontier", take one. "i betrayed the crew of "voyager", threatened you with assimilation. i did not expect you to return for me." "looks like you still have a few things to learn." only seven could have said this, and only janeway could have given such a reply. seven had tried, not for the first time, to sacrifice herself and save the rest of "voyager", however misguided the attempt turned out to be, which was forgotten and never acknowledged. it takes a warped self-esteem like hers to turn this inside out and present it as a betrayal of "voyager" instead. for me, the most natural response would be to correct her, as in "no, you didn't betray us, you did what you believed was right to keep us out of danger, but you should have approached me and told me about the messages you were receiving - we would have worked a way out together and this situation wouldn't have happened". but what janeway does is tacitly agree, validating the irrational self-blame. yes, seven, you are right, we were almost assimilated thanks to you. then janeway goes on to tell seven how gracious and kind they were for returning to rescue her in spite of this, and that she hadn't yet come to realize just how much. more or less, go reflect on your unwortiness and on the depth of our mercy toward you. never mind that it was janeway who had endangered the crew with her plan to steal the transwarp coil, and was the reason why seven had been captured in the first place and the crew had to retrieve her and put themselves at risk once again. it was janeway who almost had seven assimilated, then almost had all of them assimilated in turn in an attempt to undo the consequences of her poor decision.

"think tank". so many are going on about how janeway gave seven an opportunity to choose her own future once she was mature enough to make that decision, except i don't see it. janeway knew for a fact that seven wouldn't leave - not until the doubts regarding kurros and his group were resolved and the numerous red flags raised right from the start were investigated. even the way he talked over seven's head as if she was an inanimate object, or not there, and later saw her as a commodity to be bartered in exchange for his favor was one huge warning signal. i don't see anyone wanting to join that group unless they were an opportunist and rather lacking in the department of ethical principles. so the question to seven was a dirty, dishonest move. what i would like to see is janeway asking seven whether she would like to leave the ship next time they land in a trading colony to obtain supplies, but she would never do that, because seven may well say "yes". and what on earth did she mean by "you've earned it" - since when do you have to earn the right to not be held captive on a vessel after being abducted, and since when does a consenting adult earn the right to choose where to live?

all this talk about seven's immaturity is starting to get to me. yes, i'd say seven is a teenager, about icheb's age, but she is definitely not an emotional seven-year-old as some will claim. reining in intense fear, anxiety and panic for the sake of duty, even in what amounts to a psychotic state? workaholism? excessive demands toward herself as well as others? willingness to lay down her life for those who don't particularly care for her and use her? i really don't think so. the rest of the crew are even less mature, the one honorable exception being tuvok, and, possibly, chakotay. you know what immaturity is? pressuring a socially awkward person (one who may be said to have the equivalent of mild asperger's syndrome or BAP) into romantic involvement with a stranger and placing a bet on her first date going wrong. making fun of a culture which doesn't understand banter, jokes or good-natured mockery and prescribes its members to exercise self-restraint and tolerate any abuse, making them easy targets. not being able or willing to control the impulse to punch everyone you dislike or are irritated by in the face. i could go on and on and on. out of these, seven had only done the last one, once - and we were never given a coherent explanation as to whether or not she had a good reason. the fact that she, an emotional 17-year old, often looks like the only sane person on board (again, apart from tuvok) speaks volumes.
"someone to watch over me". *takes a deep breath and counts to ten to prevent herself from tossing the first object at hand into the wall* where do i even start? i realize the episode was written largely as comic relief, but the crew's behavior isn't amusing in the slightest. all of them had their moments throughout the series, but the bet between the emh and tom paris on seven's date takes the biscuit. remind me again, who are the puerile and insensitive ones in there? seven, on the other hand, was quite courteous and self-disciplined when she found out, enough to be able to rein in her anger, which was perfectly justified. had b'elanna been in her place, the results wouldn't have been as benign - i have a feeling that tom paris would have been in sickbay with more than a broken nose, but then he would never have done the same to b'elanna, would he? this is the whole point. yes, tom's words about the diplomatic incident became a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it was the two of them who set seven up for this. they didn't even care to warn her in advance about the disruptive, ugly-drunk alien representative at the reception. of course there was a diplomatic incident. what else did they expect? they were lucky that seven is not b'elanna. i'm not going to go into detail about how the emh pressured her into an alien social activity for which she has no objective need (or genuine desire) and forced her to follow through without allowing her to adjust and learn at her own pace, whereas tom never bothered to take her aside and explain to her that chapman is too bashful and awkward to be a good match - all because tom was itching to get out of his duty shifts in sickbay, while the emh has this sick desire to live vicariously through seven and use her as a guinea pig. these people are "awesome" in huge inverted commas.

"hope and fear" revisited. "we have given you a lot, seven. it's time you gave something in return." what? in the previous episode - a month ago - she saved the lot of you and was prepared to die to keep you alive. if it weren't for seven, the entire crew would have been dead. you took it in stride, with sense of full self-entitlement, and now you guilt-trip her over supposedly not doing enough for the same crew to get her to follow you to earth, because you want to use her expertise? earth, which she has never seen and doesn't care for, having been born on tendara - and were she does not want and has no obligation to go, not before janeway or anybody else. it's one of those moments where i can't decide whether voyager's crew were meant to be this ungrateful or it's the fact that this show, or its authors, could no longer remember what happened in the most recent episode by the time the new one aired.

"human error". where do i start? the black jeans and lilac sweater seven is wearing in the holodeck program are more decent and suit her better than anything the crew had bothered to give her so far. now the quarters and the uniform - the two reasons i can think of why she doesn't have them outside of the holodeck are a) she is too afraid of janeway to approach her and ask for them and b) she has already tried to do so and janeway declined. not sure which is worse. i can understand that she may not have the right to an official uniform, but kes' outfits, while also unnecessarily revealing, were better than hers, and last time i checked kes didn't live in sickbay. these people keep her in the cargo hold like a tank of fuel, refuse to give her any decent non-demeaning clothes, and then are surprised that she is reluctant to socialize with them? the red evening dress, on the other hand, is abysmal (my friend remarked that it made her look like a whore). i have a feeling it was the result of her having the doctor as a tutor and, as a consequence, not being able to tell what is or is not appropriate to wear. the doctor has a coarse, basic and, above all, cliched understanding of romance, sexuality and physical attraction (a female has to wear ridiculous high heels, even if she is a science officer on a starship; the more revealing and more figure-hugging a woman's clothes, the better; slipshod hair let down at the last moment and stuck in the wrong shape is more attractive than a neat, professional-looking bun) and it shows.

re-watched "hope and fear". yes, these people are worse than the borg. what they are doing to seven amounts to abduction. there isn't a single reason for her to be obligated to follow them into the alpha-quadrant, and even if she does, she doesn't have to settle on earth - there are plenty of other habitable planets to choose from, other humanoid species, non-military starships she could serve on. as far as i'm concerned, she would have done best in a small- to medium-sized vulcan colony. and, if she wants to, she has the full right to leave the ship in the nearest hospitable alien world. but she is too valuable an asset, what with her knowledge of astrometrics and various technologies and her multi-application nanoprobes, and janeway needs her to be able to brag before starfleet command (and not only) about how she disconnected and resocialized a borg drone. so janeway acts as if it were self-evident that seven must travel to earth with them, and when seven calls this into question, she she pulls out the "you must rediscover your roots/shame on you, you're afraid to go to earth" card.

ST VOY: "ashes to ashes", again. jetleya's arc could be summarized in the old adage: you cannot step into the same river twice. some changes are permanent and cannot be reversed no matter how much one might long to do so. you have to accept them, move on and leave the past behind. in those cases, returning to the status quo is impossible. any attempts to do so are futile and arrest your growth, as you are stuck chasing a phantom of a former self that is just not there anymore. seven of nine's character arc, like jetleya's mini-arc, is also about change, although of a different variety - the sort where you have to revisit your past as a different person, rediscover its various aspects and determine which of them are worth re-adopting, take your time, reflect. jetleya is fixated on ensign ballard, who is dead. seven of nine believes that annika hansen is dead, but - at least some might say - she is not, and it's up to seven to bring her back to life. (unlike some viewers, i don't think that jetleya's decision to return to her kobali adoptive family came out of the blue. it makes perfect sense if one regards it as an epiphany that had brewed throughout the six months she had spent searching for voyager and then struck her all of a sudden once she found herself on voyager at last and realized that there was a profound gulf between her expectations, that which she was anticipating all those months, and the reality of how her former crew-mates were treating her) i'd be fine with either arc if the show had addressed the difference in janeway's response to their situations, which are similar in more than one sense. she forces seven, an unfamiliar woman she has never met before, to stay aboard voyager for the purpose of rehumanizing her, but allows jetleya to leave, even though she used to be part of her crew - one might say, a member of voyager's extended family. some would argue that there is a fundamental difference because annika had been taken by the borg against her will when she was alive, and, since she was a young child at the time, this destroyed all the opportunities that would have awaited in the future. jetleya, on the hand, was dead in the most literal sense of the word, and would have remained so if not for the kobali. by reviving her, they gave her a new chance at life, albeit in a new form and far from the people she knew and was attached to, which she came to appreciate in the end. nevertheless, the parallel is there and the show fails to deal with it in any meaningful way.

ST VOY: StWoM and "one". i've said this before elsewhere but i'm going to repeat: the so-called social lessons are an utter travesty. therapy doesn't happen this way and neither does communication. the doctor's concept of social interaction is limited and immature. most of the time, he relies on stereotypes he accepts as an absolute an indubitable truth, although in the best-case scenario have a small grain of truth to them but cannot be applied to everyone, while in the worst case they are wildly off the mark. he doesn't know any better, being a hologram, and one can hardly blame him. but the fact that the rest of the crew are fine with having him, of all people, teach seven to socialize in an acceptable manner, and, apparently, with the damage that may result from her imbibing such a warped understanding of human interaction, raises questions about themselves. either they are so immature and clueless they honestly think there is nothing wrong with the doctor's social awareness, or, which i think is a more likely, they can't be bothered and are thinking along the lines of "the time of a proper therapist like tuvok isn't worth being wasted on her" and "let's throw the two experimental semi-technological beings in together, they should get along, having a lot in common and all". after all, tuvok is there when b'elanna needs help with the anger issues or kes with the power incontinence, but not there for seven, with whom he has much more in common, which cannot be explained any other way.

thoughts on rewatching "imperfection" for the third or fourth time: if voyager's inexhaustible reserves of dumb luck (this time in the form of icheb conveniently being close at hand) had run out and seven had died, i'd have placed the blame at janeway's door. you don't "rescue" someone from an environment they are physiologically dependent on if you can't keep them alive afterward. or did janeway think there would be a borg sphere for her to assault and ransack every time she needed a spare part for seven? and the suicidal vibe i keep getting from seven makes my skin crawl - it feels as if she didn't want anybody to find out so she could die. of course, this is ST VOY, so the not-tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01, not-annika hansen, who no longer has a home thanks to janeway and doesn't belong anywhere else, gets a new cortical node from icheb and everybody goes to the alpha-quadrant (un)happy.

i wish the creators of ST VOY had paired off seven with a vulcan and tossed the drama-ex-machina garbage out the window. but no - tuvok, the one decent character on the ship, has to be married with grandchildren, vorik has to be vorik, and there have to be no other vulcans around because, you see, they had decided to prove some contrived point about seven supposedly being incapable of or unprepared for a relationship. it's a contrived issue created literally out of thin air.