I didn’t always like the idea of Janeway becoming an Admiral after bringing Voyager home. But I think I can see it.
I could see Kathryn Janeway returning to the Alpha Quadrant in the wake of the Dominion War and a lot of her fellow captains thinking she had it easy by “getting her ship lost”. And then the ship’s logs start hitting general access after the debriefings are over. (The same way Janeway was able to pull other captain’s logs for reference).
And her fellow rank-and-file get the logs dealing with the Borg, the Hirogen, Species 8472, the Vidiians, the telepathic pitcher plant, the macrovirus, what have you. And combining all that with making the journey in seven years and the fact that the entire Voyager crew is now a highly trained influx of fresh staffing after the Dominion War, with seven years of Janeway’s desperate insistence on Starfleet morals informing them?
Suddenly Janeway’s crew is captains and commanders and lieutenants, and she’s this Teddy Roosevelt-esque figure in Starfleet in that she’s revered for her leadership but also considered the type of admirably insane that wins wars.
And right about this time Janeway is looking at how Starfleet principles - the very same principles she clung to for her own sanity for seven years - have distorted and changed to be more war-like after the Dominion took so many lives, and she’s thinking “???? have you all??? gone mad???? you know what, yeah, put me in charge.”
The admiralty thinks they’re pulling one over on her by getting her innovative/insane mind to accept a desk job. Jokes on them, after seven years of being an absolute authority on Starfleet principles wherever she goes, she’s perfectly happy to be back in a spot where she can’t be outranked.
