Kathryn Janeway

Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew, is a fictional character in the Star Trek franchise. As the captain of the Starfleet starship USS Voyager, she was the lead character on the television series Star Trek: Voyager, and later, a Starfleet admiral, as seen in the 2002 feature film Star Trek Nemesis. She is the first, and to date, the only female captain to be the lead character in a Star Trek series.

The character was originally called "Elizabeth Janeway", after the famous writer of the same name. However, after Geneviève Bujold was cast, she requested the character to be renamed "Nicole Janeway". Bujold, who had mainly feature film experience but was not prepared for the schedules demanded by series television, dropped out on the second day of filming on the pilot episode "Caretaker". Kate Mulgrew, who had previously auditioned for the role, was brought in. She suggested that the name be changed to "Kathryn". Actresses Erin Gray and Chelsea Field also auditioned for the role.

Janeway's hometown is Bloomington, Indiana.

Captain Janeway took command of the Intrepid-class USS Voyager in 2371. Their first mission was to locate and capture a Maquis vessel last seen in the area of space known as the Badlands. While there, the Maquis ship and Voyager were transported against their will into the Delta Quadrant, 75,000 light-years away, by a massive displacement wave. The Maquis ship is destroyed while fighting the Kazon-Ogla, and although Voyager survives, there are numerous casualties. In order to protect an intelligent species (the Ocampa), Janeway destroys a device, the Caretaker Array, that has the potential to return her crew to Federation space, stranding her ship and crew seven decades' travel from home.

Her first major task is integrating the surviving Maquis and Voyager crews. Chakotay, captain of the Maquis ship, succeeds the deceased Lieutenant Commander Cavit as her first officer. Janeway also grants convicted criminal, former Starfleet officer, and accomplished pilot Tom Paris a field commission, and makes him Voyager's helmsman.

Janeway's other interactions with her crew include helping the ex-Borg Seven of Nine reclaim her individuality and humanity and advocating for the Doctor's status as a sentient being.

Voyager has protracted contact with the Q Continuum and the Borg. With the intervention of a future/alternate version of herself, Janeway leads her crew in using one of the Borg's transwarp conduits to return her ship to Federation space after traveling through the Delta Quadrant for seven years.

During a cameo appearance in the film Star Trek Nemesis, now-Admiral Janeway instructs Captain Jean-Luc Picard to travel to Romulus at the invitation of the film's antagonist.

Admiral Janeway also appeared in the Borg Invasion 4-D ride at the Star Trek: The Experience venue in Las Vegas, which closed in 2008. In the ride, Janeway leads Voyager to the rescue of ride participants who are ostensibly trapped first on a space station and later on a shuttlecraft that come under attack by a Borg Cube commanded by the Borg Queen. At the ride's end, Janeway tells the participants, "Congratulations. You've defeated the Borg with one thing the Queen can never assimilate: the human spirit. As long as we have that, resistance will never be futile."

Although Paramount considers only the onscreen, live-action Trek episodes and movies to be official canon, Janeway has nonetheless continued as a character in the Star Trek novels. In Peter David's 2007 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Before Dishonor, which is set after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, Janeway is assimilated by a rogue faction of the Borg, and becomes the new Borg Queen. Seven of Nine, with the aid of Ambassador Spock and the Enterprise-E crew, manages to communicate with Janeway's consciousness, buried deep within the Queen's mind. During a brief moment of contact, Janeway helps them destroy the Borg cube, with all hands on board. Although Seven manages to escape, Janeway is killed. Her memorial service sees a vast turnout, and a tall gleaming pillar with a light burning atop it is constructed in tribute to her. The Q female, Lady Q, appears to Janeway's spirit, and tells her that Q and the Q Continuum had taken an interest in her. Telling her that she has a destiny, Lady Q takes Janeway by the hand, and disappears with her into realms unknown. Writer Peter David explained the book was conceived by Pocket Books editorial as one in which Janeway would die, and that he was brought in to write it in order to give her a heroic send-off.