Voyager: Macrocosm

Janeway is a badass. There's nothing subjective about this. It's just a fact. She defends her crew at all costs. She sticks to her convictions but violates the Prime Directive when she has to. She plays mother, sister and friend to everyone under her care while never failing to command respect. And, she can also strip down to a tank top, climb through the bowels of her own ship and win knife fights with ginormous virus monsters.

People talk about how cerebral Star Trek is and mope and whine a lot about how the newer movies have "too much" action, how it's not Star Trek. I'm not sure how this happened. Kirk fist-fought so many alines in TOS that when the Motion Picture came out people moped and whined a lot about how there "wasn't enough" action.

Whatever. Each Star Trek and each captain is their own thing, with their own strengths. I think Janeway is the perfect combination of smart, assertive, compassionate, kind, and tough. As a kid, Janeway was the kind of woman I aspired to be. She still is. I'm not done cooking. And, I think the chick who knifes monsters while engineering and distributing an antidote AND diplomatically dealing with hostile aliens is the chick I want still want to be when I grow up.