Her life in her words.
"Set a course for home."
— Kathryn Janeway, 2371
The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, part of the Star Trek Autobiographies, chronicles the life of Captain (now Vice-Admiral) Kathryn Janeway (b. 2336), in her own words. Read about her ambition, determination, and compassion, and how those traits guided her through the Academy and across an uncharted quadrant of space.
This autobiography provides the following tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Much is made of Janeway and Mark's relationship, even if it's Doomed by Canon.
- Ambiguously Human: There might be more to Boothby than meets the eye. He knows everyone and everything about all the Starfleet cadets that attended the academy and no one can remember how long he’s been the head gardener or when he first arrived. (He’s been the head gardener since when Janeway’s grandfather was a cadet)
- Bittersweet Ending: Most of the Voyager crew is sick of travel and retire from Starfleet. Tom Paris becomes known as the author of Captain Proton, Chakotay walks the earth, Seven deals with a distant family, Harry Kim finally becomes a captain, and Tuvok returns home to Vulcan.
- Breaking the Fellowship: The Voyager crew goes their separate ways rather than stay together after returning to the Alpha Quadrant. Most of them leave Starfleet.
- Canon Discontinuity: As with the other autobiographies, this is incompatible with the Star Trek novelverse. It's also incompatible with Canon as established by Star Trek: Prodigy, which reveals that Chakotay became The Captain of the U.S.S. Protostar, which disappeared in the Delta Quadrant, and that Admiral Janeway took the U.S.S. Dauntless to search for him. It also depicts Seven as part of a Federation "think tank", even though Star Trek: Picard reveals that Seven failed to join Starfleet and instead became a Fenris Ranger until Admiral Picard pulled strings to get her a Starfleet commission.
- Career Versus Man: Janeway's first boyfriend, whom she never names, expected her to marry him and put her career on hold until they raised their kids. He was furious at the idea that he do the reverse.
- Family Versus Career: Janeway has a more serious question on the subject when it's whether to leave an unfulfilling XO's position to marry the genuine Nice Guy Mark.
- Fantastic Racism: Janeway admits that her father's encounters with the Cardassians, as well as her mother's work with Bajoran refugees, left her with an irrational prejudice against the former.
- Jerkass: Neil Ward, Janeway's CO on the Billings, is dismissive towards her from the get-go. She later learns that he'd promised the Chief Science Officer position to a friend of his, not knowing that Janeway had already been assigned, and thus took out his irritation on her. He's also visibly jealous when Janeway is given command of the brand-new Voyager, partly because he never really enjoyed commanding a small research ship like the Billings and would've preferred a ship like Voyager.
- Maybe Ever After: Chakotay and Janeway have a very close relationship post-Voyager, but it is ambiguous whether it's romantic.
- My Greatest Failure: Janeway has complicated feelings on how she handle the Tuvix situation (Which she likens to 'the Trolley Problem' in the sense that she has to sacrifice either one life or two).
- Named by the Adaptation: The nameless CMO from "Caretaker" is named Laurie Fitzgerald, and he and Janeway became friends on the Al-Batani.
- Never Heard That One Before: When discussing her stint as Arachnia, she tells the readers that she's heard plenty of "evil queen" jokes from her crew. This includes how often they would snark "You're no match for Arachnia!"
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Ward comes off as more like this than a actual proper starship captain. It gets to the point that Janeway considers leaving Starfleet.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten:
- While serving on the Al-Batani, Janeway neglects to perform a weapons sweep on three visiting admirals and gets dressed down by Tuvok. She gets razzed about it several times afterwards.
- After Janeway gets roped into Paris's Captain Proton holoprogram, the crew sometimes calls her "Arachnia" behind her back.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Janeway had her eggs frozen as a twenty-something, and they were used by her sister to make a child while she was presumed dead. Her name is Amelia Janeway.
- Take That, Audience!: The way that Janeway addresses some of the more controversial decisions she's made (destroying the Caretaker's array, everything involving Tuvix, etc.) makes it seem like she's directly speaking to Star Trek: Voyager fans who've been criticizing her since "Caretaker".
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Harry Kim gets promoted to Captain rapidly.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last chapter explains what Janeway's senior officers have been doing since Voyager returned to Earth. Some of them, like Paris and Chakotay, left Starfleet to pursue other interests; others, like Harry Kim, B'Elanna, and Janeway herself, continued advancing up the ranks.
