@@Randomnessisreasuring Think of the Logistics of saving everyone from a planet is staggering and takes time. I'm sure when the end came it came quickly.
The one thing i always appreciated about this episode and character is his view on Drones. He hates the Borg for destroying his home, he hates Janeway and her crew for going along with her plan to aid the Borg against 8472. However, unlike a lot of people who show hate and hostility like B'lanna, Chakotay, Picard to a degree and I assume Sisko would have charged the first Drone he saw at any given time,. at no point does he blame 7 of 9 or the Borg Drones, knowing they are victims forced to do as the Collective tells them.
Yeah, at least he didn't blame Seven or the Borg Drones for what happened to his people as they were also victims of the Collective. Even the Borg Queen was a victim of the Collective so there must be some sort of presence within the Hive mind of the Collective making all the Borg do what they do.
@@girlgarde Different people react differently, in him case, his race has known about the Borg for a long time and knew that the drones were victims, in Picard's defence, the Borg were very new to the Federation, so the feeling of being violated by the Borg for Picard would have felt more raw, but again, everyone would react differently to that kind of thing.
@girlgarde: The Borg Queen WAS the Collective, the embodiment of it. If the Queen had been implanted into an once unassimilated being, she would be a different individual each time we saw the Queen, following the previous Queen’s destruction. Alice Krige played the Queen 3 different times (Picard S3 was voice only), and even with the other actresses, I believe we were meant to believe that she hadn’t changed. The way she comes together from different anatomical segments, shows she is quite different from any other nanoprobe altered pre-assimilated life form.
If I was Janeway, I'd have said, "One of the few communications we got from 8472 was that they were going to wipe out all life in our galaxy." Since y'know, they did that.
But the better option would be to destroy both if possible Janeway opted to side with one or the other, knowing ether has the capacity to destroy the galaxy
She likely did off screen but it probably didn't do any good as he clearly felt that all life in the galaxy getting wiped out was better then his people getting assimilated by the Borg, he WAS nuts by this point.
At this point, the Borg had already infested the Delta quadrant for a long, loooong time. They were the boogeymen, everyone knew about them. Some species, like Arturis', had even adjusted to simply evading them for the rest of their lives. They were a known quantity, not like the Delta quadrant's more recent arrival, 8472. Janeway knew 8472 was ultimately the bigger threat, but that knowledge would have taken a long time to disseminate among the quadrant's inhabitants (and even more time for Borg-haunted people to actually believe it). Arturis' motives here are absolutely believable and understandable, and although this scene is wonderfully acted, it doesn't quite succeed in communicating the weight of that context.
We may never know I mean it's possible that species 8472 could have been negotiated with but odds are while the threat of the borg might have been defeated the trade of is a species more dangerous then the borg who we have no way of knowing what they will do after they finish with the borg.
To those saying 8472 would have "purged" the Galaxy, and he knew, of should have, sanity was not his strong suit at this point. Having seen what the Borg did to his people, understandably, took it's toll.
He also had no way to know about 8472's purge agenda. Although, the later episode introducing Human-form 8472's actually indicates the whole "purge" thing may have just been Janeway misinterpreting the intentions of a radical minority. How many times have some random Klingon pledged to destroy the entire Federation? We don't extrapolate the bragging of a random tryhard as the Klingon Empire's official stance on Klingon-Federation diplomacy lol So they're both right and both wrong, ironically enough.
2:12 From the first time I saw this episode, the way he says this line always stuck with me. The way is holding back tears, angry, and heartbroken. Quite sad! 😭
Its episodes like this that make you wonder if Voyager's creators were aware of some of the uneven writing, so they created this episode to show the consequences of Voyager's actions, and how they could be devastating. But this episode outlines of DS9 worked so well too. TNG and TOS focuses wholely on a single Federation vessel and only a little bit on the worlds it was traveling to. DS9 and Voyager were able to show Starfleet from another angle, where they weren't the heroes.
The counter to this however is Janeway was right to stop species 4872. Yes it left the Borg in their original poistion of power, but they were arguably the only force capable of deploying the weaponry required to fight species 4872 who had decided to eliminate all life in our galaxy, not just the Borg, the Borg were merely their 1st target as the ones who started the conflict. Once the Borg were defeated, they would have begun destroying everyone else, and no one short of the Q had any form of defence against them. They would not negotiate, not even consider civilians, they would merely have arrived in populated systems and blown up any world with life on it, as they had done hundreds of times already against the Borg. Yes there were consequences to her actions, but inaction had far worse consequences. This is also skipping over the fact that the Borg are actually fairly passive/restrictive in their tactics, they could in truth overwhelm everyone in a matter of months. They maintian planetary populations which are frankly useless to them, they could just build ships constantly, fielding fleets in the millions or even billions of cubes, but instead they send small groups that let the races they encounter fight back, which is what they seem to want. That fighting back forces technological development to advance rapidly, its only once that development dead ends do they finally assimilate the remnants. Hell look at their weaponry and it shows they want you to fight back, they don't deploy long range unmanned air burst area assimilation weaponry, but rather send individual drones and ships, giving you the ability to fight, there are no first strike weapons used by them.
@@cgi2002 I agree with everything you say but Arturis didn't care about any of that. He likely felt that having his people and all life in the galaxy wiped out by Species 8472 was better then having his people assimilated and the status quo generally maintained. While this is a selfish and insane mindset, Arturis was a mad man by this point and unable to see anything other then getting revenge on someone he felt got his people assimilated by the Borg. As for the Borg's actions, I tend to see them as gatherers who only assimilate bits and pieces of other races to get their technology to enhance their collective and to gain valuable knowledge as well as physical improvements to their drones. They are not over the top expansionists like the Klingons or Romulans, they're into evolving themselves.
It was a tough decision from Janeway, but it was the right decision, if Janeway didn't do what she did, his race likely would have fell anyway, Species 8472 wasn't interested in just ending the Borg, they wanted to wipe out all life in the Galaxy, at least that's how it was shown. The real question is, is it better to live as a Borg or be wiped out by Species 8472? In the end, Arturis and his race were likely doomed either way and if I was his race, I would have relocated as far from that sector of space as possible, after all, they clearly had the technology to travel a long distance, far more than the Federation can.
Stop poking at my favorite plot hole. In my head canon, the borg have a collective intelligence, but it isn't very high. They make really dumb and strategically bad decisions all the time.
There's a fan theory that the Borg didn't really want to assimilate Earth. Not yet anyway. What they really want is technology, and they knew the Federation could make significant technological advancements with the right coaxing. (Of course now it requires one to ignore the entire stupid, continuity breaking plot of season 2 of Picard)
The Borg always do what's most efficient, nothing more or less. A single Borg cube should have been sufficient to assimilate Earth. It almost did, and wiped out a lot of Starfleet ships in the process. Both times, there were exceptional circumstances which turned it into a Federation victory. This poor fellow's species had managed to outwit the Borg for centuries, which is pretty remarkable. When they finally sensed weakness, they left nothing to chance.
I keep thinking of when that Riker from another universe was begging not to be sent back to a universe where Borg overran the Federation: his sheer terror at the thought of ever going back. It’s a lot easier to sympathize with this guy when you think of that.
This really shows how advanced this guy's race is. They designed this ship with incredibly advanced technology, made it look like Starfleet, guy got himself 'randomly' introduced during a normal mission, created an incredible forgery of a Starfleet admiral, etc. Moreover it says something that his race *eluded* the borg. As in, out-smarted them. Were always ready to pick up and run away. How crazy intelligent does your race have to be to predict where the borg are going to be and then run away before they find you? Seven even designates them as "species 116,' as in, they're one of the first species the borg ever became aware of. The lowest "species xxx" number listed in all of voyager. (Humans are species 5618!) And in the end... he doesn't even hate the borg. His words earlier about "You don't hate a storm on the horizon, you just avoid it," were completely true. He hates Voyager. He hates Janeway. Fortunately, the collective doesn't need that. Wonderfully written and acted villain. Sympathetic, layered, and tragic. Even his final fate which showcases he is definitely dead and won't be a reoccurring threat is chilling. He knows he's going to rejoin his people. Why not? He has nothing else left. There's no attempting to trick Voyager again. Bravo to the writers of this one.
Arturis DID say that his people stayed one step ahead of the Borg for many centuries and that only in recent years did their luck start to run out which is why they hoped that the Borg were wiped out by Species 8472.
Choices have consequences........and Janeway almost found out the hard way!! I feel bad for him and his species. He had every reason to do what he did and I don't blame him for trying 💯💯💯
I think I just appriciate even more the character and how advance his species is. The Borg only sent 1 cube against the federation and in Wolf 349 they destroyed the fleet within minutes. Against the AL Aurians, a people who had a cold war with the literal gods that are the Q, the Borg sent a certian number which I can't find but it stills appears to be in the double digits. and against his people, the Borg sent hundreds to a single solar system.
Janeway 90% of the time: "I will let literally everyone on this ship die before I break the Prime Directive." Also Janeway, when confronted with the consequences of one of the few times she broke the Prime Directive to save her crew: "I didn't exactly have time to take a poll!" I honestly can't tell if the writers of this show were really bad or if Janeway was intentionally written to be schizophrenic :P
Even if this guy didn't know about Species 8472's plant to purge the galaxy and I can understand his pain, his people should have taken into consideration that they would have eventually the war between the Borg and Species 8472 would eventually have a winner and loser regardless if Janeway and Voyager got involved or not. Sooner or later they would have had to deal with the winner of that war; they couldn't just assume that Species 8472 wouldn't leave them alone anymore than the Borg would.
Death is preferable to assimilation. His people may have invented a comparable bio weapon. But Janeway seems so cold to the damage that she's done. She knew the Borg would go on a mass assiimilation spree after losing so many. And not once did she consider that the Borg started the conflict. How is that possible?
This scene along with how an alien race in Season 7 blamed Humanity for their world being a frozen wasteland made me paranoid that the families and friends of every civilian and Starfleet officer who died because of the unwitting actions of others were out to get revenge on said people. For example, when Dr Crusher accidently caused everyone on the Enterprise to devolve into earlier animal forms and a young ensign was killed because of it, I was afraid that his family would blame Dr Crusher for his death and seek revenge on her.
Gee it's almost like watching people screaming Death to America or F the British Empire, and hating you for things you didn't do. But that'd never happen.
Eh... I'm sure other powerful Species would have beat them. Just because the Borg failed doesn't mean others would. The Krenim for example use time weapons. They could have deleted Species 8472 from all of time.
@@TheBigExclusive And then we'd be right back to the Borg assimilating his species. No 8742, the Borg comes through hard and fast. Cats away, the mice will play.
One of THE BEST Voyager episodes. Todays Star Trek 'writers' are mentally incapable of getting past their pathetic agendas and writing anything close to this.
That doesnt make sense, totally opposite what we learned when Voyager encountered 8472s training station. Well in the very least 8472 was avle to be reasoned with. The Borg cannot be reasoned with. We saw that with Janeways temporary alliance.
@@mainiac430 Did you forget when Kes telepathically communicated with Species 8472, long before the whole training station thing? She's the one that told Janeway that they wanted to purge all life in the galaxy.
@@mainiac430 Thank You! What Kes communicated with Species 8472 was the initial contact. Just like CJ Daigle wrote, 8472 could be reasoned with, this came after Kes left. Also, 8472 were not an issue, until the Borg provoked them. The Borg messed with the wrong race, and deserved to be purged. 8472 probably thought that the whole delta quadrant was like the Borg.
For a one time appearance quite a memorable character. And quite a conclusion to imho Voyager's best season. Also worth noting is that concurrently we had DS9s 6th season, which arguably was also its best thanks to the opening story arc and really strong episodes like "Far Beyond the Stars", "Inquisition", "His Way" and "In the Pale Moonlight". In other words, at this time Trek was firing on all cylinders and I believe in terms of writing that was the high point of Star Trek, which is still unmatched to this day.
This guy is totally in the right. Janeway made a weapon in weeks (days?) that was effective against 8472. They were no threat to the Federation. She should have just sat on the sidelines for a few months and waited for the Borg to be destroyed.
Incorrect remember their whole "the weak Shall Perish" thing and then showing what happened to anyone who stood against them? Yeah they would have come for the Federation pretty quickly. Their mindset very much was "anything not from our space is a threat, and must be slain".
@@Batou3 as stated in my original comment, it didn't take them long to develop a counter measure. Their whole fear of them was based off reading the mind of one random warrior.
@@DG-xh8fz Those countermeasure was based on Borg tech. That wasn't something they come up with solely with their own weaponry. In addition it wasn't communication from just one warrior. Kes felt the cold hatred they had for all life and they communicated their intention to destroy everything from the rift where hundreds of their ships were coming out of. Once 8472 was done with the Borg they were coming for everyone else. No one had technology that could stand up to the kind of firepower 8472 was packing.
He had no way to know about 8472's purge agenda. So from his point of view, they destroyed his people's only hope. Although, the later episode introducing Human-form 8472's suggests the whole "purge" thing may have just been Janeway taking the big talk of a radical minority a bit too seriously How many times have some random Klingon pledged to destroy the entire Federation? We don't extrapolate the bragging of a random tryhard as the Klingon Empire's official stance on Klingon-Federation diplomacy lol
Yes, but Voyager's crew saw no hint of any government or hierarchical structure among 8472 until much later in the series, and even that was very possibly a mimicking of human society/Starfleet methodology. Janeway had to assume the worst by their message through Kes.
Judging by the comments here, Ray Wise did a wonderful job portraying Arturis. He really got through to the audience. He probably should have won an award for it.
Janeway words would have had some meaning unless later they encountered an habitat were species 8472 prepared to infiltrate Federation assuming humanoid forms... and came in a agreement with them obtaining a closure of their menace
Classic transfer. Instead of channeling his hatred towards the Borgs that killed his species, he blame a singular ship whose only fault is having maintained an already pre-established order in the delta quadrant. Janeway, knowing the fate of his species, would have remade a pact with the Borg because it was necessary.
I always wondered how he KNEW it was Voyager who had assisted. Remember, they were in Borg space and going deeper into it when they encountered Species 8472, devised the way to defeat them, implemented it, which resulted in them going back to fluidic space. But then how did the knowledge that it was because of Voyager reach other species? It's not like the Borg have a newsletter that they send out informing the unassimilated of what's going on in their end of the quardrant.
He's gotta point, but who's to say the Borg wouldn't have ramped up assimilation efforts for the war and still wiped out his people. Perhaps it was just their time.
Seems to me, Cpt. Janeway for her crew and this individual for his people had the exact same desire. For life of THEIR PEOPLE! Sadly, too many examples in our own history of Earth, the consaquences for actions are never fully known. Only time and the following circumstances will show the path our civilization as humans will take. (And it's never looked too good!)
The consequences here were pretty evident. Side with the Borg, they'll generally "only" assimilate very advanced species and leave others alone. Don't side with the Borg? Species 8472, without the Borg-Starfleet weapon to stop them, would have wiped out the Borg and then turned that power on the rest of the galaxy. She says she weighed the options and believed 8472 to be a greater threat than the Borg, and she was right. They swept Borg ships aside and blew up their planets with ease.
Don't be mad at Janeway for her decision (which was entirely defensible given the information she had); be mad at Picard for not taking the opportunity to destroy the Borg presented by the "Hugh" incident.
He did decode the damaged message from Starfleet, as well as introduced quantum slipstream technology to the Federation. Nobody on Voyager died, they got 300 extra light years closer to home, so it wasn't really a waste of time.
He has a point. Janeway may have seen species 8472 as a greater threat, but that came from Kes's impression, which turned out to have been unreliable. She may have read the mind of the equivalent of the Fluidic Furhrer and Janeway just assumed they were all like that.
This guy could have so much more good for everyone with his people's technology. Instead he goes on a revenge caper and does nothing. Having said that, I still think Janeway as usual, makes a decision based on the Federation alone. This is typical of Star Trek writing. With few exceptions, it's usually about what works at the moment. By the next episode it's totally forgotten.
Kes warned Janeway that Species 8472 said they wanted to purge the universe. Voyager forgets its own history. Ray Wise even more whiny than as Laura Palmer’s father in Twin Peaks🎉
03:38 when the torpedos skim past the vessel they enter inside the shields' area of protection, but only on impact of the hull do shields seem to react, but react away from the hull.. strange detail
Arturis may have a point about Janeway being too focused on getting back to the Alpha Quadrant to consider the bigger picture. But he, like Captain Ahab, was too focused on killing his white whale. And we all know what resulted from that kind of thinking. He could still be free, evading the Borg, gathering forces against the Borg threat and maybe getting the edge over the Borg - but he just had to go killing white whales.
She tried. They weren't interested in talking. They were only interested in wiping everything out. If it wasn't for the deterrent of the nanoprobe torpedoes, they would have destroyed everything in the galaxy.
Talk about violation of the prime directive. So hypocritical of Janeway to have massively interfered in the delta quadrant affairs in this regard and then goes on to say she's a staunch supporter of the prime directive.
I'm sure other powerful Species would have beat them. Just because the Borg failed doesn't mean others would. The Krenim for example use time weapons. They could have deleted Species 8472 from all of time.
That is according to Kes telephatic contact with species 8472\Undine, it was not verified. Janeway later apparently made peace with species 8472 although I think this was simply a ploy to gather time!
@@TheBigExclusive The collateral damage has to be considered. Just like this guy with the Borg, there would have been a lot of carnage before/if 8472 was stopped. High price to pay, and possibly even more people carrying a grudge against Voyager and her crew. Damned if you do, etc. Hypotheticals are fun, as is factoring in info we got after that point, but one has to deal with things using the information they have there and then. 8472 would have cut a nice little path of destruction and genocide wherever they went if left unchecked.
@@mitchellmelkin4078 - The Krenim could delete any invading Species 8472 ships with their weapons. And I'm sure with enough time eventually figure out how to open to a portal to their world. Especially with Species 8472 constantly opening portals in front of them to launch attacks. The Krenim will collect sensor data and eventually figure it out. This is all hypothetical and I prefer not to have a super long discussion about it. But my larger point is that other species had the potential to fight Species 8472. Just because Borg failed doesn't mean the technology of other Races would also fail. Upon further inspection, the Hirogen were also able to fight Species 8472 and even hunt them for fun. So the possibility is there.
The self righteous arguments of Janeway always came off as a missed opportunity to me, there’s the glimmer of a dramatic storyline of a woman pushed beyond her limits and breaking point, willing to do anything and everything to secure her people’s survival no matter the cost to other faceless and nameless peoples she would leave destroyed, but it was always swept away for the progressive “can’t argue with the female captain she’s the first don’t you know” line of this series. And serious drama was what this show desperately needed to keep people invested.
Maybe Neelix tries to get other delta quadrant species on voyagers side and boasted this fact. Then that species tells that to another other species communications.
they sent hundreds of Cubes To assimilate a race considered to be insignificant, but only one cube at a time to assimilate the Federation who they considered to be a threat and then they wondered why they kept losing to the Federation, almost like the Borg are purposely trying to lose the Federation
Meanwhile, in an alternate quantum reality. Arturas: "Your selfishness destroyed my world." Kess: "What are you saying?" Arturas: "You discovered the invaders from fluidic space. You found a way to defeat them, instead you ran, you used the Borg's distraction to your advantage and ran, telling no one what was coming." Janeway: "Species 8472" Arturas: "in your colorful language yes, Species 8472. Did it ever occur to you that there was those of us in the Delta Quadrant with an investment in that war? They were more vicious than the Borg but you couldn't see beyond the bow of your own ship." Janeway: "By my estimation, their war was with the Borg and to ally with them would only have made them stronger." Arturas: "Who were you to make that decision? A stranger to this quadrant!" Janeway: "There wasn't exactly time to take a poll, I had to act quickly, we barely escaped and I lost several of my crew in the process." Arturas: "My people, managed to elude the Borg for centuries, outwitting them, always one step ahead. But in recent years the Borg began to weaken our defenses, they were closing in. But then they were gone, annihilated by Species 8472, who were even more vicious, more cruel. They came to finish the job and you had the means to stop them, you took that away from us! The Outer Colonies were the first to fall, 23 in a matter of hours, our sentry vessels obliterated, no defense against the swarm. By the time they surrounded our star system, thousands of bioships, we had already surrendered to our own terror. Barely any of us survived, a few thousand at best, I was fortunate, I escaped in a vessel, alone but alive. They weren't like the borg. Not mere drones, they weren't just acting with a collective instinct, they were set on purging this galaxy without mercy. They've devoured more than the Borg ever dreamed, the whole Quadrant is doomed and you knew! You had a choice!"
What bothers me is that Janeway won't just admit she did it for her crew. Not to protect all life. Janeway just wanted safe passage for her ship. Understandable reason, but she won't admit it.
She wasn't wrong in what she said, though. She outright states that she believed Species 8472 to be the greater threat, so she sided with the Borg, and she was 100% correct. I mean, remember the pyramid of mangled Borg corpses they found left behind? The fact that they could blow up a planet in a flat minute with a handful of ships? He may have had a "vested interest" in the Borg losing the war, but after they did, 8472 planned to exterminate everything else in the galaxy. We had intruded upon their domain, inexcusable to them. He'd have died anyway. It took a long time to make peace with 8472, when they realized their offensive advantage had been neutralized and they switched to planning for infiltration of Starfleet HQ.
@@LegacyArkGames - Except Janeway was wrong. We see in later Voyager episodes that other alien races could fight Species 8472. The Hirogen were able to outright hunt Species 8472 for fun. The Krenim even have Time weapons that could delete anything from time. It was only Borg weapons that didn't work on Species 8472.
Would he have not done the same thing if it would save his people. Janeways first and foremost concern is her ship and crew. Same with any captain of any ship. And like she said there wasn’t time for a vote
Watching species 8472 reduce a planet to burning chunks of rock in less than a minute I can't disagree with Janeway. Sometimes you make choices and there is fallout no matter what.
I loved the episode and felt like such a fool getting drawn in by his story. The excitement of a ship capable of slip streaming (I think that was the phrase…) was just too much for me to resist 🥹
Species 8472 was the greater threat. They weren't going to stop with just the Borg. They would have came for the entire galaxy. Janeway made the right call.
@@Gryffster - Hmm. If it wasn't for Borg nanoprobes, I suspect they would have delivered on that threat. I mean 8472 literally blew up a planet. Borg assimilation vs total annihilation.
@@hycron1234 how much of the galaxy had they purged at that point? Remember this is all based off the Borg starting a fight with species 8472 in Fluidic space and then getting there asses handed to them and running away...Species 8472 knows nothing of the Milky way species other than they attacked them without warning with full intent to destroy there civilization... in their shoes you'd initially think this galaxy needs purging too.. However once in this new environment they will be exposed to other lifeforms far less homicidal than the Borg... given time to come to terms with this and interact with these myriad of species its far more likely the'yd temper there desire for vengeance using the telepathic declaration from a species still coming to terms with what ever carnage the Borg caused in their Space as an affirmed declaration of actual intent on the entire Galaxy is probably reading far too much into than it deserves..
A race capable of particle synthesis "beyond your understanding", yet they couldn't beat the borg? AND the ship is vulnerable to federation phaser fire?
How many times has Janeway ramrodded down the entire crew’s throat bad decision after bad decision? Remember “Basics”, and how she stupidly demanded everyone eat bugs before they scouted for a better food source? Now also remember how that same Janeway risked the safety of the entire ship for power from a nebula so she could have her precious coffee? Remember, she takes her coffee black, like Tuvix.
Spot on Chris. She really was a bad captain or held Federation rules, way to high. Chakotay warned her about dealing with the Borg. Everyone hated the borg. In the end, she never achieved peace with the Borg.
But so far had not acted on that.. their only contact at that point had been with the Borg who had invaded Fluidic space attempted to assimilate them failed and been chased back to normal space with a righteously furious Species 8472 in hot pursuit determined to ensure that never happened again... given those circumstances a small amount of leeway should be given to a species that otherwise up to that point had never even looked sideways at our galaxy. for them its easy to assume the place the Borg fled to is full of homicidal maniacs hell bent on conquest and destruction... with that sort of first contact you'd also be up for purging the place without a second thought.. given time that may have changed...Janeway made a bad call here...
Janeway said she couldn’t have known. Meaning that she couldn’t have known that his species and a few others had a vested interest in the war, yes? And that, once the Borg were defeated, his people and their allies, along with all other sentient life the Borg would go on to assimilate, would be free to live out their lives as sovereign beings. But, as a traveler in a foreign land, would you not at least consider the consequences of your actions to the inhabitants of that region? Given the nature and goals of the Borg, of which Janeway was fully aware, it’s not hard to arrive at the idea that other species would “have a vested interest” in the Borg getting their ass handed back to them and removed completely. No, not hard at all. In fact, if she had sat down with her senior officers to discuss all the potential consequences of assisting the Borg to defeat Species 8472, they would have seen that assisting the Borg would mean to allow them to continue as they always have, the assimilation of sentient life everywhere they went, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living by artificially suppressing your free-will making each individual into a singularly mind-less drone who is compelled to serve one mind aka the Borg hive mind. It would have been better if Janeway, instead, had said that given the alternative, assisting the Borg to defeat their enemy was the lesser of two really bad options. And then just profusely apologize from the depths of her heart. That other option was to not assist the Borg, thus allowing Species 8472 to destroy all life in the galaxy as they intended after the Borg infiltrated their domain. Could Captain Janeway have made time to seek out these other races and join with them against the Borg? Most likely not. As she said, she had to act quickly as that window of opportunity was closing fast. There were only two options, to assist or not to assist the Borg, each with its own set of unfortunate consequences. Assist the Borg and they go on assimilating after the enemy is defeated. Don’t assist the Borg and the galaxy is purged of all sentient life. What would you do in her place? The win-win would be to destroy both the Borg AND the invaders from fluidic space, but that was definitely not possible. A third option could be to not choose between the two and just keep moving toward home. Of course, not choosing results in the same consequences as choosing not to assist the Borg. Damn, is there no way out of making that one “right” choice with the least amount of damage? This is debatable too, depending on who you’re talking to. But, I’ll stop here. Ya, thank goodness for that!
Sometimes life presents you with a situation in which there is no good choice, only bad choices. In those cases, all you can do is figure out which of the choices is the least bad and go with that. In this case, as bad as the Borg were, they they were clearly the lesser evil. (Since, after all, they've been around for centuries yet the galaxy is still mostly free, compared to 8472's plans to rapidly exterminate everything.) Could also argue that this was a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
It's pretty easy for anyone not in her shoes to criticise her choice but would anyone under the threat of being wiped out or assimilation sacrifice the lives of everyone on their ship for people they've never met and don't know exist or would you rather stop an immediate threat now and actually live to deal with the aftermath? Very easy choice
@@davidreynolds8865 maybe... but so far their only serious contact with the Milky way had been the Borg.. if thats all you knew about the Milky way you'd be up for purging it too.. Species 8472 were attacked by the Borg who were then soundly routed and chased back to normal space...simply assuming the chasing force hell bent on destroying the invaders immediate desire for total destruction is fixed and beyond negotiation is the height of folly. Species 8472 have reacted to a situation forced upon them... but thats not to say they're beyond reasoning with.
Revenge is a poor excuse for Justice and he got his Justice for it... As Janeway was right. 8472 was going to Purge the Galaxy of Humans...And he should have known that. Else how would he know Janeway formed an Alliance with the Borg...
Except we dont really know that for sure... up to that point how much purging had they actually done? I read a lot of ah but they were going to purge the galaxy....based off effectively one telepathic exchange, perhaps that was the intent.. but perhaps with the homicidal Borg wiped out, negotiation becomes possible with a species that are in fact the victims of unprovoked aggression from our space into theirs.
"In a matter of months my people on the outskirts of our world were assimilated." "In four minutes Capt. Janeway will be gone!!" Says the alien guy with the head. What's a month? A minute? Is his months and minutes the same is our Earth months and minutes? That would mean his planet has the exact same mass and magnetic polar directions, and a satellite rotating his planet the same mass and distance as our moon! His sun has the exact same nuclear fusion atomic mass, and his planet has to have the same exact orbital rotational distance around its sun to have the same "minutes and months" as Earths. Sloppy lazy writing on Voyager thinking we viewers are too stupid to notice.
This guy’s reasoning is flawed. He is either an alien dolt, who can’t manage to put two and two together; or is perhaps just unaware, that Species 8472 intended to wipe out ALL life in non-fluidic space. Although, I must admit, that for my part, living on as a Borg drone wouldn’t be any consolation. I would rather be wiped out.
"Your diplomacy destroyed my world!"
"I'm sorry, but do you know how little that narrows it down?"
In a perfect world, Orville for instance, that would have been a perfect response
To you the day Janeway violated the Prime Directive was the most important moment of your life. For me it was just Tuesday.
Pretty sure that Derek Powers said the same thing to Terry McGinnis. lol
This species had the technology to flee the borg but didn't during the war.
@@Randomnessisreasuring Think of the Logistics of saving everyone from a planet is staggering and takes time. I'm sure when the end came it came quickly.
The one thing i always appreciated about this episode and character is his view on Drones. He hates the Borg for destroying his home, he hates Janeway and her crew for going along with her plan to aid the Borg against 8472. However, unlike a lot of people who show hate and hostility like B'lanna, Chakotay, Picard to a degree and I assume Sisko would have charged the first Drone he saw at any given time,. at no point does he blame 7 of 9 or the Borg Drones, knowing they are victims forced to do as the Collective tells them.
I suspect it would depend on how the script was written.
Yeah, at least he didn't blame Seven or the Borg Drones for what happened to his people as they were also victims of the Collective. Even the Borg Queen was a victim of the Collective so there must be some sort of presence within the Hive mind of the Collective making all the Borg do what they do.
@@girlgarde Different people react differently, in him case, his race has known about the Borg for a long time and knew that the drones were victims, in Picard's defence, the Borg were very new to the Federation, so the feeling of being violated by the Borg for Picard would have felt more raw, but again, everyone would react differently to that kind of thing.
@girlgarde:
The Borg Queen WAS the Collective, the embodiment of it. If the Queen had been implanted into an once unassimilated being, she would be a different individual each time we saw the Queen, following the previous Queen’s destruction. Alice Krige played the Queen 3 different times (Picard S3 was voice only), and even with the other actresses, I believe we were meant to believe that she hadn’t changed. The way she comes together from different anatomical segments, shows she is quite different from any other nanoprobe altered pre-assimilated life form.
"I don't blame them. They were just drones, acting with their collective instinct. YOU had a choice!"
Something very noble about Arturis sitting in the chair, not panicking, not regretting, just accepting his fate
Wonder who the actor was
@@Fog66 I'm not sure, but I thought the actor was from the variety show The Electric Company from PBS.
Ray Wise
It’s also very moving.
If I was Janeway, I'd have said, "One of the few communications we got from 8472 was that they were going to wipe out all life in our galaxy." Since y'know, they did that.
But the better option would be to destroy both if possible
Janeway opted to side with one or the other, knowing ether has the capacity to destroy the galaxy
She likely did off screen but it probably didn't do any good as he clearly felt that all life in the galaxy getting wiped out was better then his people getting assimilated by the Borg, he WAS nuts by this point.
@@girlgarde Pretty sure she did tell him that but at this point he didnt care.
That's a thought I've always had when watching this episode. It's something I would have added to the script if I wrote it.
@@michaelhviper I would've too but this guy wouldn't have cared in my opinion as he was crazy by this point.
At this point, the Borg had already infested the Delta quadrant for a long, loooong time. They were the boogeymen, everyone knew about them. Some species, like Arturis', had even adjusted to simply evading them for the rest of their lives. They were a known quantity, not like the Delta quadrant's more recent arrival, 8472. Janeway knew 8472 was ultimately the bigger threat, but that knowledge would have taken a long time to disseminate among the quadrant's inhabitants (and even more time for Borg-haunted people to actually believe it). Arturis' motives here are absolutely believable and understandable, and although this scene is wonderfully acted, it doesn't quite succeed in communicating the weight of that context.
We may never know I mean it's possible that species 8472 could have been negotiated with but odds are while the threat of the borg might have been defeated the trade of is a species more dangerous then the borg who we have no way of knowing what they will do after they finish with the borg.
@@thewewguy8t88 Actually in a later episode they were able to negotiate with Species 8472.
But who TF is she to make that decision? He's right about that, the rest is just speculation.
To those saying 8472 would have "purged" the Galaxy, and he knew, of should have, sanity was not his strong suit at this point.
Having seen what the Borg did to his people, understandably, took it's toll.
He also had no way to know about 8472's purge agenda.
Although, the later episode introducing Human-form 8472's actually indicates the whole "purge" thing may have just been Janeway misinterpreting the intentions of a radical minority.
How many times have some random Klingon pledged to destroy the entire Federation? We don't extrapolate the bragging of a random tryhard as the Klingon Empire's official stance on Klingon-Federation diplomacy lol
So they're both right and both wrong, ironically enough.
2:12 From the first time I saw this episode, the way he says this line always stuck with me. The way is holding back tears, angry, and heartbroken. Quite sad! 😭
I always loved the way he growled "...and spend the rest of eternity AS BORG." The malice in that. Ray Wise is awesome.
Its episodes like this that make you wonder if Voyager's creators were aware of some of the uneven writing, so they created this episode to show the consequences of Voyager's actions, and how they could be devastating. But this episode outlines of DS9 worked so well too. TNG and TOS focuses wholely on a single Federation vessel and only a little bit on the worlds it was traveling to. DS9 and Voyager were able to show Starfleet from another angle, where they weren't the heroes.
The counter to this however is Janeway was right to stop species 4872. Yes it left the Borg in their original poistion of power, but they were arguably the only force capable of deploying the weaponry required to fight species 4872 who had decided to eliminate all life in our galaxy, not just the Borg, the Borg were merely their 1st target as the ones who started the conflict. Once the Borg were defeated, they would have begun destroying everyone else, and no one short of the Q had any form of defence against them. They would not negotiate, not even consider civilians, they would merely have arrived in populated systems and blown up any world with life on it, as they had done hundreds of times already against the Borg.
Yes there were consequences to her actions, but inaction had far worse consequences.
This is also skipping over the fact that the Borg are actually fairly passive/restrictive in their tactics, they could in truth overwhelm everyone in a matter of months. They maintian planetary populations which are frankly useless to them, they could just build ships constantly, fielding fleets in the millions or even billions of cubes, but instead they send small groups that let the races they encounter fight back, which is what they seem to want. That fighting back forces technological development to advance rapidly, its only once that development dead ends do they finally assimilate the remnants. Hell look at their weaponry and it shows they want you to fight back, they don't deploy long range unmanned air burst area assimilation weaponry, but rather send individual drones and ships, giving you the ability to fight, there are no first strike weapons used by them.
@@cgi2002 I agree with everything you say but Arturis didn't care about any of that. He likely felt that having his people and all life in the galaxy wiped out by Species 8472 was better then having his people assimilated and the status quo generally maintained. While this is a selfish and insane mindset, Arturis was a mad man by this point and unable to see anything other then getting revenge on someone he felt got his people assimilated by the Borg.
As for the Borg's actions, I tend to see them as gatherers who only assimilate bits and pieces of other races to get their technology to enhance their collective and to gain valuable knowledge as well as physical improvements to their drones. They are not over the top expansionists like the Klingons or Romulans, they're into evolving themselves.
It was a tough decision from Janeway, but it was the right decision, if Janeway didn't do what she did, his race likely would have fell anyway, Species 8472 wasn't interested in just ending the Borg, they wanted to wipe out all life in the Galaxy, at least that's how it was shown.
The real question is, is it better to live as a Borg or be wiped out by Species 8472? In the end, Arturis and his race were likely doomed either way and if I was his race, I would have relocated as far from that sector of space as possible, after all, they clearly had the technology to travel a long distance, far more than the Federation can.
Such a memorable episode, one of the series best.
it took me months to find you and I watched you waiting for the perfect moment
The actor really sells this scene.
He's got a point. Janeway had a single mission to get her crew home and if a few civilisations had to fall for that to happen, well so be it.
Lucky for Earth, the Borg attack using only one ship at a time.
Stop poking at my favorite plot hole. In my head canon, the borg have a collective intelligence, but it isn't very high. They make really dumb and strategically bad decisions all the time.
Much like those kung foo movies . haha
There's a fan theory that the Borg didn't really want to assimilate Earth. Not yet anyway. What they really want is technology, and they knew the Federation could make significant technological advancements with the right coaxing.
(Of course now it requires one to ignore the entire stupid, continuity breaking plot of season 2 of Picard)
They thought one would be enough. Any more would be wasteful.
The Borg always do what's most efficient, nothing more or less. A single Borg cube should have been sufficient to assimilate Earth. It almost did, and wiped out a lot of Starfleet ships in the process. Both times, there were exceptional circumstances which turned it into a Federation victory. This poor fellow's species had managed to outwit the Borg for centuries, which is pretty remarkable. When they finally sensed weakness, they left nothing to chance.
I keep thinking of when that Riker from another universe was begging not to be sent back to a universe where Borg overran the Federation: his sheer terror at the thought of ever going back. It’s a lot easier to sympathize with this guy when you think of that.
This really shows how advanced this guy's race is. They designed this ship with incredibly advanced technology, made it look like Starfleet, guy got himself 'randomly' introduced during a normal mission, created an incredible forgery of a Starfleet admiral, etc. Moreover it says something that his race *eluded* the borg. As in, out-smarted them. Were always ready to pick up and run away. How crazy intelligent does your race have to be to predict where the borg are going to be and then run away before they find you? Seven even designates them as "species 116,' as in, they're one of the first species the borg ever became aware of. The lowest "species xxx" number listed in all of voyager. (Humans are species 5618!)
And in the end... he doesn't even hate the borg. His words earlier about "You don't hate a storm on the horizon, you just avoid it," were completely true. He hates Voyager. He hates Janeway. Fortunately, the collective doesn't need that.
Wonderfully written and acted villain. Sympathetic, layered, and tragic. Even his final fate which showcases he is definitely dead and won't be a reoccurring threat is chilling. He knows he's going to rejoin his people. Why not? He has nothing else left. There's no attempting to trick Voyager again.
Bravo to the writers of this one.
Arturis DID say that his people stayed one step ahead of the Borg for many centuries and that only in recent years did their luck start to run out which is why they hoped that the Borg were wiped out by Species 8472.
I've always been fascinated by whatever particle synthesis is
@@SamuelBlack84 Sounds a bit like the programmable matter used by the Federation in the 32nd century.
Choices have consequences........and Janeway almost found out the hard way!! I feel bad for him and his species. He had every reason to do what he did and I don't blame him for trying 💯💯💯
What condemning her crew to be Borg, won't bring back his planet
@@stephenstumbke1721 No he is trying to punish voyager's crew for their actions.
What by condemning them to slavery, that is not right
Species 8472 wanted to destroy the galaxy
"Your galaxy will be purged" is what they said
@@stephenstumbke1721 true very true
the road to hell is paved with good intentions
When seeking revenge, first dig two graves.
Ray Wise, a fine actor.
There are no winners in war there is only sadness and death.
I think I just appriciate even more the character and how advance his species is.
The Borg only sent 1 cube against the federation and in Wolf 349 they destroyed the fleet within minutes.
Against the AL Aurians, a people who had a cold war with the literal gods that are the Q, the Borg sent a certian number which I can't find but it stills appears to be in the double digits.
and against his people, the Borg sent hundreds to a single solar system.
borg were prob afriad the federation had some secret weapon that could destroy them.
Janeway 90% of the time: "I will let literally everyone on this ship die before I break the Prime Directive."
Also Janeway, when confronted with the consequences of one of the few times she broke the Prime Directive to save her crew: "I didn't exactly have time to take a poll!"
I honestly can't tell if the writers of this show were really bad or if Janeway was intentionally written to be schizophrenic :P
I think they were showing she's flawed like everyone else
Exactly. She's a hypocrite.
Even if this guy didn't know about Species 8472's plant to purge the galaxy and I can understand his pain, his people should have taken into consideration that they would have eventually the war between the Borg and Species 8472 would eventually have a winner and loser regardless if Janeway and Voyager got involved or not. Sooner or later they would have had to deal with the winner of that war; they couldn't just assume that Species 8472 wouldn't leave them alone anymore than the Borg would.
Death is preferable to assimilation. His people may have invented a comparable bio weapon. But Janeway seems so cold to the damage that she's done. She knew the Borg would go on a mass assiimilation spree after losing so many. And not once did she consider that the Borg started the conflict. How is that possible?
This scene along with how an alien race in Season 7 blamed Humanity for their world being a frozen wasteland made me paranoid that the families and friends of every civilian and Starfleet officer who died because of the unwitting actions of others were out to get revenge on said people.
For example, when Dr Crusher accidently caused everyone on the Enterprise to devolve into earlier animal forms and a young ensign was killed because of it, I was afraid that his family would blame Dr Crusher for his death and seek revenge on her.
Gee it's almost like watching people screaming Death to America or F the British Empire, and hating you for things you didn't do.
But that'd never happen.
Dr. Crusher probably gets a nasty letter from that family every year at Christmas time…
@@chrisamon4551 I would've done more then that. I would've tried to get her court martialed and imprisoned for the rest of her life at least.
@@chrisamon4551 this is the Star Trek universe. You must mean Interplanetary Science and Melting Pot Day.
@@girlgarde ehhh it's just an extra. They have a cup of ractachino and a joke afterward in long held ST tradition. Good times...good times.
"Bring my wife back to me!"
"I can't do that. It's not within my power"
"Everything is within your power! You are The Janeway!!!"
8472 would have wiped out all life if they'd defeated the Borg.
Perhaps but Arcturis didn't know that. Plus Janeway did eventually come to an accord with species 8472.
Eh... I'm sure other powerful Species would have beat them. Just because the Borg failed doesn't mean others would.
The Krenim for example use time weapons. They could have deleted Species 8472 from all of time.
@@TheBigExclusive And then we'd be right back to the Borg assimilating his species. No 8742, the Borg comes through hard and fast. Cats away, the mice will play.
I always felt like 8472 was fine with kicking borg ass and going back to fluidic space.
8472 did say that they would purge our galaxy of life.
One of THE BEST Voyager episodes.
Todays Star Trek 'writers' are mentally incapable of getting past their pathetic agendas and writing anything close to this.
I seconded this observation of nu trek.
Yes, because anything written before 2020 certainly doesn't have an "agenda."
Jesus Christ.
I thirdly concur
jesus christ the new writers are terrified of offending their producers. genuine agenda has nothing to do with it.
If this comment had been written before SNW was released, I might have agreed with it.
Arturis: "You destroyed my world"
Janeway: "I missed the part where that's my problem"
Problem is, he didn't know that Species 8472 wanted to wipe out all life in the galaxy, not just The Borg. They thought non-fluidic space was unclean.
That doesnt make sense, totally opposite what we learned when Voyager encountered 8472s training station. Well in the very least 8472 was avle to be reasoned with. The Borg cannot be reasoned with. We saw that with Janeways temporary alliance.
@@mainiac430 Did you forget when Kes telepathically communicated with Species 8472, long before the whole training station thing? She's the one that told Janeway that they wanted to purge all life in the galaxy.
@@mainiac430 Thank You! What Kes communicated with Species 8472 was the initial contact. Just like CJ Daigle wrote, 8472 could be reasoned with, this came after Kes left. Also, 8472 were not an issue, until the Borg provoked them. The Borg messed with the wrong race, and deserved to be purged. 8472 probably thought that the whole delta quadrant was like the Borg.
@@mainiac430
You just want to be all fluid with the fluidy things. Traitor!
Dryness forever!
For a one time appearance quite a memorable character. And quite a conclusion to imho Voyager's best season.
Also worth noting is that concurrently we had DS9s 6th season, which arguably was also its best thanks to the opening story arc and really strong episodes like "Far Beyond the Stars", "Inquisition", "His Way" and "In the Pale Moonlight".
In other words, at this time Trek was firing on all cylinders and I believe in terms of writing that was the high point of Star Trek, which is still unmatched to this day.
In the pale moonlight ... Ranks as one of my top three episodes of any TV show.
This guy is totally in the right. Janeway made a weapon in weeks (days?) that was effective against 8472. They were no threat to the Federation. She should have just sat on the sidelines for a few months and waited for the Borg to be destroyed.
They needed the resources of the Borg to make it work.
Incorrect remember their whole "the weak Shall Perish" thing and then showing what happened to anyone who stood against them?
Yeah they would have come for the Federation pretty quickly. Their mindset very much was "anything not from our space is a threat, and must be slain".
And what if 8472 came for them next?
@@Batou3 as stated in my original comment, it didn't take them long to develop a counter measure. Their whole fear of them was based off reading the mind of one random warrior.
@@DG-xh8fz Those countermeasure was based on Borg tech. That wasn't something they come up with solely with their own weaponry. In addition it wasn't communication from just one warrior. Kes felt the cold hatred they had for all life and they communicated their intention to destroy everything from the rift where hundreds of their ships were coming out of. Once 8472 was done with the Borg they were coming for everyone else. No one had technology that could stand up to the kind of firepower 8472 was packing.
He had no way to know about 8472's purge agenda. So from his point of view, they destroyed his people's only hope.
Although, the later episode introducing Human-form 8472's suggests the whole "purge" thing may have just been Janeway taking the big talk of a radical minority a bit too seriously
How many times have some random Klingon pledged to destroy the entire Federation? We don't extrapolate the bragging of a random tryhard as the Klingon Empire's official stance on Klingon-Federation diplomacy lol
Yes, but Voyager's crew saw no hint of any government or hierarchical structure among 8472 until much later in the series, and even that was very possibly a mimicking of human society/Starfleet methodology. Janeway had to assume the worst by their message through Kes.
Tbf it’s not like she could of know that.
@@jddi1527 True, but she DID know about what the Borg would do.
Judging by the comments here, Ray Wise did a wonderful job portraying Arturis. He really got through to the audience. He probably should have won an award for it.
'Who are you to make that decision?!' He got Janeway there, even 7 knew that.
This is one of my Top 5 favorite voyager episodes
Janeway words would have had some meaning unless later they encountered an habitat were species 8472 prepared to infiltrate Federation assuming humanoid forms... and came in a agreement with them obtaining a closure of their menace
"Typical of Janeway, self righteous"... "Oh, did I offend you? Sorry, not my fault" ...this sums up Janeway as a character for Voyager.
Classic transfer.
Instead of channeling his hatred towards the Borgs that killed his species, he blame a singular ship whose only fault is having maintained an already pre-established order in the delta quadrant. Janeway, knowing the fate of his species, would have remade a pact with the Borg because it was necessary.
I always wondered how he KNEW it was Voyager who had assisted. Remember, they were in Borg space and going deeper into it when they encountered Species 8472, devised the way to defeat them, implemented it, which resulted in them going back to fluidic space. But then how did the knowledge that it was because of Voyager reach other species?
It's not like the Borg have a newsletter that they send out informing the unassimilated of what's going on in their end of the quardrant.
He's gotta point, but who's to say the Borg wouldn't have ramped up assimilation efforts for the war and still wiped out his people. Perhaps it was just their time.
Seems to me, Cpt. Janeway for her crew and this individual for his people had the exact same desire. For life of THEIR PEOPLE! Sadly, too many examples in our own history of Earth, the consaquences for actions are never fully known. Only time and the following circumstances will show the path our civilization as humans will take. (And it's never looked too good!)
The consequences here were pretty evident. Side with the Borg, they'll generally "only" assimilate very advanced species and leave others alone. Don't side with the Borg? Species 8472, without the Borg-Starfleet weapon to stop them, would have wiped out the Borg and then turned that power on the rest of the galaxy. She says she weighed the options and believed 8472 to be a greater threat than the Borg, and she was right. They swept Borg ships aside and blew up their planets with ease.
I thought I dreamt this episode!
Mind you...a dream where i have captain Janeway and 7of9 in my spaceship 🚀 is probably not surprising.
Don't be mad at Janeway for her decision (which was entirely defensible given the information she had); be mad at Picard for not taking the opportunity to destroy the Borg presented by the "Hugh" incident.
The name of that Man's race was ''THE REUGHJAHNE'' (THE ROO-JOHNNY)
Reminder that Janeway will recreate the USS Dauntless and will command it, clearly just to spite on Arturis for wasting her time.
He did decode the damaged message from Starfleet, as well as introduced quantum slipstream technology to the Federation. Nobody on Voyager died, they got 300 extra light years closer to home, so it wasn't really a waste of time.
He has a point. Janeway may have seen species 8472 as a greater threat, but that came from Kes's impression, which turned out to have been unreliable. She may have read the mind of the equivalent of the Fluidic Furhrer and Janeway just assumed they were all like that.
This guy could have so much more good for everyone with his people's technology. Instead he goes on a revenge caper and does nothing. Having said that, I still think Janeway as usual, makes a decision based on the Federation alone. This is typical of Star Trek writing. With few exceptions, it's usually about what works at the moment. By the next episode it's totally forgotten.
Whats done is done. Janeway doesn’t dwell on the past
Aktuellt Janeway could have none and did know. When the balansen of power changes it will allways have a fallout.
Never f*ck with Capt Janeway.
Kes warned Janeway that Species
8472 said they wanted to purge the universe. Voyager forgets its own history. Ray Wise even more whiny than as Laura Palmer’s father in Twin Peaks🎉
03:38 when the torpedos skim past the vessel they enter inside the shields' area of protection, but only on impact of the hull do shields seem to react, but react away from the hull.. strange detail
Man did President Dugan fall a long way...
lol i was about to ask if im the only one who noticed it was the president. i look at him and all i can think is "sweet mother"
Quite funny that he just delivered himself to the Borg in the end. 😅😅😅
Arturis may have a point about Janeway being too focused on getting back to the Alpha Quadrant to consider the bigger picture. But he, like Captain Ahab, was too focused on killing his white whale. And we all know what resulted from that kind of thinking. He could still be free, evading the Borg, gathering forces against the Borg threat and maybe getting the edge over the Borg - but he just had to go killing white whales.
Janeway negotiated with the BORG, yet never tried to negotiate with 8472...
She did try. The one the Hirohen were hunting down and almost destroyed Voyager over.
She tried. They weren't interested in talking. They were only interested in wiping everything out. If it wasn't for the deterrent of the nanoprobe torpedoes, they would have destroyed everything in the galaxy.
Talk about violation of the prime directive. So hypocritical of Janeway to have massively interfered in the delta quadrant affairs in this regard and then goes on to say she's a staunch supporter of the prime directive.
The Undine/8472 would've killed all of them anyway. No difference either way.
I'm sure other powerful Species would have beat them. Just because the Borg failed doesn't mean others would.
The Krenim for example use time weapons. They could have deleted Species 8472 from all of time.
@@TheBigExclusive 8472 are an extra dimensional threat.
That is according to Kes telephatic contact with species 8472\Undine, it was not verified. Janeway later apparently made peace with species 8472 although I think this was simply a ploy to gather time!
@@TheBigExclusive The collateral damage has to be considered. Just like this guy with the Borg, there would have been a lot of carnage before/if 8472 was stopped. High price to pay, and possibly even more people carrying a grudge against Voyager and her crew.
Damned if you do, etc.
Hypotheticals are fun, as is factoring in info we got after that point, but one has to deal with things using the information they have there and then. 8472 would have cut a nice little path of destruction and genocide wherever they went if left unchecked.
@@mitchellmelkin4078 -
The Krenim could delete any invading Species 8472 ships with their weapons. And I'm sure with enough time eventually figure out how to open to a portal to their world. Especially with Species 8472 constantly opening portals in front of them to launch attacks. The Krenim will collect sensor data and eventually figure it out.
This is all hypothetical and I prefer not to have a super long discussion about it. But my larger point is that other species had the potential to fight Species 8472. Just because Borg failed doesn't mean the technology of other Races would also fail.
Upon further inspection, the Hirogen were also able to fight Species 8472 and even hunt them for fun. So the possibility is there.
Particle Synthesis.. precursor to Programmable Matter... but basically just ship wide replicator tech.
I always wondered if his species was far flung colony of Talosians from the alpha quadrant.
The self righteous arguments of Janeway always came off as a missed opportunity to me, there’s the glimmer of a dramatic storyline of a woman pushed beyond her limits and breaking point, willing to do anything and everything to secure her people’s survival no matter the cost to other faceless and nameless peoples she would leave destroyed, but it was always swept away for the progressive “can’t argue with the female captain she’s the first don’t you know” line of this series.
And serious drama was what this show desperately needed to keep people invested.
How did he know Voyager were responsible for helping defeat species 8472? Did the Borg tell him?
long range sensors
Given the scale of that conflict and the power displayed, it’s hard not to know of them
He read the script.
Maybe Neelix tries to get other delta quadrant species on voyagers side and boasted this fact. Then that species tells that to another other species communications.
"Vengeance has consumed you."
they sent hundreds of Cubes To assimilate a race considered to be insignificant, but only one cube at a time to assimilate the Federation who they considered to be a threat and then they wondered why they kept losing to the Federation, almost like the Borg are purposely trying to lose the Federation
Meanwhile, in an alternate quantum reality.
Arturas: "Your selfishness destroyed my world."
Kess: "What are you saying?"
Arturas: "You discovered the invaders from fluidic space. You found a way to defeat them, instead you ran, you used the Borg's distraction to your advantage and ran, telling no one what was coming."
Janeway: "Species 8472"
Arturas: "in your colorful language yes, Species 8472. Did it ever occur to you that there was those of us in the Delta Quadrant with an investment in that war? They were more vicious than the Borg but you couldn't see beyond the bow of your own ship."
Janeway: "By my estimation, their war was with the Borg and to ally with them would only have made them stronger."
Arturas: "Who were you to make that decision? A stranger to this quadrant!"
Janeway: "There wasn't exactly time to take a poll, I had to act quickly, we barely escaped and I lost several of my crew in the process."
Arturas: "My people, managed to elude the Borg for centuries, outwitting them, always one step ahead. But in recent years the Borg began to weaken our defenses, they were closing in. But then they were gone, annihilated by Species 8472, who were even more vicious, more cruel. They came to finish the job and you had the means to stop them, you took that away from us!
The Outer Colonies were the first to fall, 23 in a matter of hours, our sentry vessels obliterated, no defense against the swarm. By the time they surrounded our star system, thousands of bioships, we had already surrendered to our own terror. Barely any of us survived, a few thousand at best, I was fortunate, I escaped in a vessel, alone but alive.
They weren't like the borg. Not mere drones, they weren't just acting with a collective instinct, they were set on purging this galaxy without mercy. They've devoured more than the Borg ever dreamed, the whole Quadrant is doomed and you knew! You had a choice!"
Arturis also played Ian on Young & the Restless as Nikki’s abusive former boyfriend.
Someone should clarify why anything I do or say influences more than my 4 subscribers.
What bothers me is that Janeway won't just admit she did it for her crew. Not to protect all life. Janeway just wanted safe passage for her ship. Understandable reason, but she won't admit it.
She wasn't wrong in what she said, though. She outright states that she believed Species 8472 to be the greater threat, so she sided with the Borg, and she was 100% correct. I mean, remember the pyramid of mangled Borg corpses they found left behind? The fact that they could blow up a planet in a flat minute with a handful of ships? He may have had a "vested interest" in the Borg losing the war, but after they did, 8472 planned to exterminate everything else in the galaxy. We had intruded upon their domain, inexcusable to them. He'd have died anyway. It took a long time to make peace with 8472, when they realized their offensive advantage had been neutralized and they switched to planning for infiltration of Starfleet HQ.
@@LegacyArkGames - Except Janeway was wrong. We see in later Voyager episodes that other alien races could fight Species 8472. The Hirogen were able to outright hunt Species 8472 for fun.
The Krenim even have Time weapons that could delete anything from time.
It was only Borg weapons that didn't work on Species 8472.
Would he have not done the same thing if it would save his people. Janeways first and foremost concern is her ship and crew. Same with any captain of any ship. And like she said there wasn’t time for a vote
What makes a sane person go insane? When you no longer have anything to lose or fight for.
Watching species 8472 reduce a planet to burning chunks of rock in less than a minute I can't disagree with Janeway. Sometimes you make choices and there is fallout no matter what.
Either way The Borg or those beings from fluid space, who wanted to annihilate all life in that quadrant of space, His world was doomed 4:36
Wasn't one of the first things species 8472 said something along the lines of "Your Galaxy will be purged"? That didn't sound promising.
I loved the episode and felt like such a fool getting drawn in by his story. The excitement of a ship capable of slip streaming (I think that was the phrase…) was just too much for me to resist 🥹
That alien clearly was suffering from Post Dramatic Borg Syndrome.
this guy always reminds me of David Soul
Sucks to be him.
“Vengeance has consumed you.” Chadwick Bosman.
Species 8472 was the greater threat. They weren't going to stop with just the Borg. They would have came for the entire galaxy. Janeway made the right call.
How did he even find out about the agreement between the Borg and Janeway? Did the Borg tell?
The thumbnail for this video had me thinking a Hologram from Red Dwarf had kidnapped Janeway
The man has a point.
Well at least until species 8472 wiped everyone out. _"Your galaxy will be purged."_
@@hycron1234 They seem more amenable than the Borg
@@Gryffster - Hmm. If it wasn't for Borg nanoprobes, I suspect they would have delivered on that threat. I mean 8472 literally blew up a planet. Borg assimilation vs total annihilation.
@@hycron1234 how much of the galaxy had they purged at that point?
Remember this is all based off the Borg starting a fight with species 8472 in Fluidic space and then getting there asses handed to them and running away...Species 8472 knows nothing of the Milky way species other than they attacked them without warning with full intent to destroy there civilization...
in their shoes you'd initially think this galaxy needs purging too..
However once in this new environment they will be exposed to other lifeforms far less homicidal than the Borg... given time to come to terms with this and interact with these myriad of species its far more likely the'yd temper there desire for vengeance
using the telepathic declaration from a species still coming to terms with what ever carnage the Borg caused in their Space as an affirmed declaration of actual intent on the entire Galaxy is probably reading far too much into than it deserves..
The sound is a bit slow, their voices are deep. Weird.
the cruddy part, voyager never used this tech again.
Please tell me who is the actor playing Arturis , he looks like David Soul. Someone has to know.
Ray Wise.
A race capable of particle synthesis "beyond your understanding", yet they couldn't beat the borg? AND the ship is vulnerable to federation phaser fire?
How many times has Janeway ramrodded down the entire crew’s throat bad decision after bad decision? Remember “Basics”, and how she stupidly demanded everyone eat bugs before they scouted for a better food source?
Now also remember how that same Janeway risked the safety of the entire ship for power from a nebula so she could have her precious coffee?
Remember, she takes her coffee black, like Tuvix.
Haha. What?
Just don't call her Shirley.
On one hand youre right, on the other you are over exaggerating about the nebula coffee thing.... They all needed that energy.
Spot on Chris. She really was a bad captain or held Federation rules, way to high. Chakotay warned her about dealing with the Borg. Everyone hated the borg. In the end, she never achieved peace with the Borg.
She's not bad just written that way ala Jessica rabbit.
why did you stretch the video to a widescreen and make everything look weird instead of simply leaving it in it's original aspect?
Kate Mulgrew: "Does this aspect make me look fat?"
janeway could ahve added "they wanted to purge out galaxy" which would ahe included his people
But so far had not acted on that.. their only contact at that point had been with the Borg who had invaded Fluidic space attempted to assimilate them failed and been chased back to normal space with a righteously furious Species 8472 in hot pursuit determined to ensure that never happened again... given those circumstances a small amount of leeway should be given to a species that otherwise up to that point had never even looked sideways at our galaxy. for them its easy to assume the place the Borg fled to is full of homicidal maniacs hell bent on conquest and destruction... with that sort of first contact you'd also be up for purging the place without a second thought..
given time that may have changed...Janeway made a bad call here...
Janeway said she couldn’t have known. Meaning that she couldn’t have known that his species and a few others had a vested interest in the war, yes? And that, once the Borg were defeated, his people and their allies, along with all other sentient life the Borg would go on to assimilate, would be free to live out their lives as sovereign beings. But, as a traveler in a foreign land, would you not at least consider the consequences of your actions to the inhabitants of that region? Given the nature and goals of the Borg, of which Janeway was fully aware, it’s not hard to arrive at the idea that other species would “have a vested interest” in the Borg getting their ass handed back to them and removed completely. No, not hard at all. In fact, if she had sat down with her senior officers to discuss all the potential consequences of assisting the Borg to defeat Species 8472, they would have seen that assisting the Borg would mean to allow them to continue as they always have, the assimilation of sentient life everywhere they went, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living by artificially suppressing your free-will making each individual into a singularly mind-less drone who is compelled to serve one mind aka the Borg hive mind.
It would have been better if Janeway, instead, had said that given the alternative, assisting the Borg to defeat their enemy was the lesser of two really bad options. And then just profusely apologize from the depths of her heart. That other option was to not assist the Borg, thus allowing Species 8472 to destroy all life in the galaxy as they intended after the Borg infiltrated their domain. Could Captain Janeway have made time to seek out these other races and join with them against the Borg? Most likely not. As she said, she had to act quickly as that window of opportunity was closing fast.
There were only two options, to assist or not to assist the Borg, each with its own set of unfortunate consequences. Assist the Borg and they go on assimilating after the enemy is defeated. Don’t assist the Borg and the galaxy is purged of all sentient life. What would you do in her place? The win-win would be to destroy both the Borg AND the invaders from fluidic space, but that was definitely not possible. A third option could be to not choose between the two and just keep moving toward home. Of course, not choosing results in the same consequences as choosing not to assist the Borg. Damn, is there no way out of making that one “right” choice with the least amount of damage? This is debatable too, depending on who you’re talking to. But, I’ll stop here. Ya, thank goodness for that!
also, 8472 would have just invaded any way, they were planning the end of life in the Milkyway any way after the borg invaded
Sometimes life presents you with a situation in which there is no good choice, only bad choices. In those cases, all you can do is figure out which of the choices is the least bad and go with that. In this case, as bad as the Borg were, they they were clearly the lesser evil. (Since, after all, they've been around for centuries yet the galaxy is still mostly free, compared to 8472's plans to rapidly exterminate everything.) Could also argue that this was a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
It's pretty easy for anyone not in her shoes to criticise her choice but would anyone under the threat of being wiped out or assimilation sacrifice the lives of everyone on their ship for people they've never met and don't know exist or would you rather stop an immediate threat now and actually live to deal with the aftermath? Very easy choice
@@davidreynolds8865 maybe... but so far their only serious contact with the Milky way had been the Borg.. if thats all you knew about the Milky way you'd be up for purging it too..
Species 8472 were attacked by the Borg who were then soundly routed and chased back to normal space...simply assuming the chasing force hell bent on destroying the invaders immediate desire for total destruction is fixed and beyond negotiation is the height of folly.
Species 8472 have reacted to a situation forced upon them... but thats not to say they're beyond reasoning with.
Revenge is a poor excuse for Justice and he got his Justice for it... As Janeway was right. 8472 was going to Purge the Galaxy of Humans...And he should have known that. Else how would he know Janeway formed an Alliance with the Borg...
Except we dont really know that for sure... up to that point how much purging had they actually done? I read a lot of ah but they were going to purge the galaxy....based off effectively one telepathic exchange, perhaps that was the intent.. but perhaps with the homicidal Borg wiped out, negotiation becomes possible with a species that are in fact the victims of unprovoked aggression from our space into theirs.
He had a point
The guy had a good point.
Because vengeance has consumed everything else about him
I always felt bad for him.
3:35 Tuvok is a bad shot...
DIRECT HIT- I nailed it!
@@k.bizzle I guess 1 successful torpedo out of 4 is cause for celebration with their “limited supply”!
Well, the dude is shooting from inside a freaking transwarp conduit, let´s give him some credit...
am I missing something where did 7 of 9 go?
Take revenge!
He should have prayed to The Picard for help.
He was right.
if your people had a drive equal to better then Transwarp why make a colony vessel far away
They are clearly way ahead of Federation technology-wise so how come an equally sized Voyager can take down its shield so quickly?
2:23 so how did you defeat him frozone? HE WAS monologuing!
"In a matter of months my people on the outskirts of our world were assimilated." "In four minutes Capt. Janeway will be gone!!" Says the alien guy with the head. What's a month?
A minute? Is his months and minutes the same is our Earth months and minutes? That would mean his planet has the exact same mass and magnetic polar directions, and a satellite rotating his planet the same mass and distance as our moon! His sun has the exact same nuclear fusion atomic mass, and his planet has to have the same exact orbital rotational distance around its sun to have the same "minutes and months" as Earths. Sloppy lazy writing on Voyager thinking we viewers are too stupid to notice.
Jeri Ryan 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
This guy’s reasoning is flawed. He is either an alien dolt, who can’t manage to put two and two together; or is perhaps just unaware, that Species 8472 intended to wipe out ALL life in non-fluidic space. Although, I must admit, that for my part, living on as a Borg drone wouldn’t be any consolation. I would rather be wiped out.