The bizarre collection of artifacts at Daystrom Station raises the possibility that Section 31 may want to add the body of Star Trek: Voyager‘s Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to their grim collection. Star Trek: Picard season 3 revealed that the corpses of legendary Captains James T Kirk (William Shatner) and Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) were stored alongside Starfleet’s darkest secrets. The implications of this are deeply concerning, as it implies that service to Starfleet continues even in death.
It’s worth pointing out that Kirk and Picard weren’t stored at Daystrom Station as a grim memorial to the two most famous Captains of the USS Enterprise. Both of their bodies contained information of scientific interest having spent time inside the Nexus. On top of that, Picard’s brain contained Borg DNA that could have helped Section 31 end the Collective once and for all, but nearly had the opposite effect. Janeway had also briefly been assimilated into the Collective, but with the Borg gone, this won’t be of interest to Section 31. However, there are many other moments from her USS Voyager career that could make her body a source of scientific interest to Section 31.
Will Section 31 Want Admiral Janeway’s Body Like Kirk & Picard’s?
Given the chaos caused by the Borg DNA contained within Jean-Luc’s body in Picard season 3, there’s a degree of grim logic to Starfleet not giving certain officers a proper burial. In a similar way, Kirk’s body is presumably stored at Daystrom to keep his 24th century resurrection a secret, hiding information about the Nexus from those who may seek to exploit it. This suggests that Janeway’s corpse would be coveted by Section 31 for genetic materials that would give them a scientific or tactical advantage.
Janeway’s body could provide a perfect study into the impact of time travel on human biology. No Star Trek Captain before or since has flouted the laws of time as much as Kathryn Janeway, so her body would likely contain some fascinating insights into this field of study. It’s therefore likely that Section 31 would want to analyze Janeway’s biology in more detail, and there would be far more to discover beyond the impact of time travel on human biology.
Why Section 31 Could Need Admiral Janeway’s Body
Janeway’s humiliating Voyager episode in which transwarp travel evolved her and Lieutenant Tom Paris (Robert Duncan MacNeill) into salamanders could give Section 31 genetic information about how transwarp travel affects the human body. By the time of Star Trek: Picard, Starfleet has already discovered alternatives to transwarp in the form of both protostar and quantum slipstream drives seen in Star Trek: Prodigy. However, this technology doesn’t appear to have been widely integrated into the rest of the fleet as the USS Titan-A still appeared to rely on traditional warp drive. Studying Janeway’s body could be enough to convince Starfleet to adopt transwarp travel more widely across the fleet.
The transwarp incident could also provide insight into humanity’s future. Although the Doctor (Robert Picardo) was able to reverse Janeway and Paris’ evolution in Star Trek: Voyager, there are potentially still some genetic markers left behind. These would allow Section 31 to gain further information about the course of humanity’s evolution, enabling them to play God. Augments are still illegal in Star Trek, but the law has never stood in the way of Section 31 before, as there are presumably still laws against grave robbing. Using the genetic information about Janeway’s evolution to genetically engineer new Starfleet soldiers would be chillingly on-brand for Star Trek‘s Section 31.
