Captain Kathryn Janeway, played by
Kate Mulgrew
The first and to date I believe only female starship captain, Janeway was in pursuit of a ship full of Maquis rebels when she ordered her then-experimental USS
Voyager into the area known as The Badlands, and they were all transported seventy thousand light years by the creature known as The Caretaker, thus beginning the fourth series in the franchise. Janeway is the archetypal strong female character: she does not like being addressed as ma’am but frowns on the traditional navy affectation of calling all crew by “mister”, and so she will not accept being called “Sir” either. She says “Captain” is fine.
She is certainly not a weak woman, but in ways her single-mindedness and refusal to bend often lead her into difficult and dangerous situations, like when she makes an alliance with the Federation’s traditional enemy the Borg, or when she makes the decision to strand Voyager and its crew in the Delta Quadrant. Not a woman used to having her orders questioned, she demands unswerving obedience and expects everyone to fall in line. She has a husband back in the Alpha Quadrant, of whom we only hear once, in the pilot episode, and while away her main confidantes are Tuvok and Chakotay. When Voyager rescues the Borg drone Seven of Nine, she becomes a sort of surrogate daughter for Janeway, who tries to show her how to remember to be human again. Janeway constantly battles with the ship’s doctor, who, though a hologram, is as opinionated as any crew member --- perhaps moreso ---- and is one of the few who will openly challenge her orders, perhaps because as CMO he is the only one who has the authority to relieve her of command, should the occasion arise.
Janeway’s morals are very fluid. On one level she is the quintessential Starfleet officer, sticking rigidly to its codes of conduct and hiding behind the Prime Directive, while on other occasions, when it suits her, she will flout these very rules and make often bad and ill-informed decisions. When Neelix and Tuvok become merged as one (god help the poor Vulcan!) she makes the decision to separate them, acknowledging uncomfortably the resultant new lifeform’s accusation that she is “murdering one person to save two”, perhaps another example of Spock’s “the needs of the few” logic. When everyone is against her making a deal with the Borg she goes ahead and does so, and then sulks when the alliance falls apart and she is seen to have been duped. She constantly shoots down suggestions from officers she should trust, and despite a pretty shining career refuses to promote Harry Kim in seven years.