If Admiral Janeway really and truly wanted to get her crew home as quickly as possible and was dead-set on using time travel to do it, I’d like to rationalize why she chose Endgame.
Voyager had many close calls with the Alpha Quadrant, but most were false opportunities or misunderstandings. (The micro wormhole across time, the telepathic pitcher plant, the planet whose mantle allowed long range transport). One that absolutely was NOT a false opportunity or misunderstanding was the episode “False Profits” in season 3. The wormhole was undeniably to the Alpha Quadrant, and the issue was that the escaped Ferengi collapsed it before Voyager could enter it.
If Admiral Janeway were just looking for the fastest way home, the most elegant solution would have been to return to this episode and lay some extra smackdown on the Ferengi to render them unable to escape to their shuttle, and they would never emit the graviton pulse that destabilized the wormhole. Instead, she elected for maximum smackdown on the Borg transwarp hub. Handwaving away that if she came back to season 3, the rest of the show would not have happened, here’s my list of reasons why she wouldn’t do that:
1. False Profits took place in 2373. The Dominion War ended in 2375. To prevent her Maquis crew from being slaughtered and her Starfleet crew from being sent to the front lines and also likely decimated, they should come back after the end of the war.
2. Seven of Nine had not yet been freed from the Collective. She personally faced off against the Borg for Seven too many times to never save her. (Also, choose your flavor of Captain/mentor/lover/mother, but Admiral Janeway came back after Seven becoming her own person and before Seven marrying Chakotay for a REASON.)
3. Admiral Janeway’s journey was motivated by a great deal of self-loathing and guilt. To avoid Time Police prosecution, or worse, someone ‘correcting’ her timeline, a suicide mission was always going to be ideal for her.
4. Destroying the transwarp hub also destroyed an outlet that was in the heart of the Federation and certainly would have been the next catastrophe after the Dominion War if the Borg had popped out right outside Earth. She crippled the Borg’s expansion into the Alpha Quadrant and could justify that action by saving billions of lives.
5. personal vendetta against the Borg Queen. What a move, to tenderly look into your deepest enemy’s eyes as she assimilates you and then you both blow up. Stunning. No notes.
Was any of this considered in the show? Likely not. Do I hold it as interpretation so I don’t start ranting about Endgame? Most certainly.
