Distant Origin

DVD, Voyager S3 (Distant Origin)

Jurassic Voyager! A pretty wacky idea presented in a serious manner, a way you could probably sum Trek up as a whole. Not even 'TOS' dared posit Earth dinosaurs as an advanced species that left home having discovered warp travel and travelled so far away they ended up at the opposite side of the galaxy, the Delta Quadrant. If they really had become intelligent why would they feel the need to go so far when they could have settled in another system? Did they develop enemies out of other spacefaring races? Perhaps they had an offshoot like the Vulcans, that didn't like the Voth way and went off to create their own culture? And maybe they called themselves the Gorn? Okay, there are lots of saurian races out there in Trek-land, but it's fun to postulate a link between the ones we know (for example, could Tosk from the Gamma Quadrant be another kind of Jem'Hadar since they were both engineered for specific roles?), and throwing up questions about the species and life out there is one of those things that makes Trek's universe feel so real. Even so, it is a bit of a stretch to believe in dinosaurs discovering warp speed before Zefram Cochrane! Maybe they should take down his famous statue and put up one of the Voth? Except of course, Earth, Starfleet, and the Federation don't know about this latest discovery thanks to Voyager being out of contact.

That's the thing with this series - they can get away with lore-defining moments without upsetting the status quo back home since no one knows about any of it (until later in the series, anyway). Even then they were spinning stories about B'Elanna's potential child being a Klingon messiah and such, which you'd think would potentially shake up things in the Alpha Quadrant, but we don't get to see that side of things once 'DS9' ended (which makes me wonder if that series would have addressed that particular plot twist had it still been airing at the same time). In the end nothing really changes because the Voth refuse to accept the new evidence, as compelling as it was. But that's the thing about science, it's never complete, there are always new angles, new evidence, disagreements and changing theories so what we have is only as good as what we know at the moment. So maybe the Voth were from Earth, or maybe they weren't, and Gegen might have discovered that actually the genetic markers were wrong or from a very similar planet (think how many Earth-like planets with human-like races there are in Trek!), but the point of the episode, I suppose, is to show that society can be closed-minded to the truth, whether that's scientific or faith-based truth.

Minister Odala was certainly painted in the harshest of terms as a bureaucrat intent on preserving the status quo, not accepting anything that might diminish her own power or that of her race's superior position in their area of the quadrant. There's a moment when Chakotay eloquently sounds forth a strong argument that her people should listen to the new findings, not bury them because it demonstrates their true heritage of struggle and fortitude to advance to such a degree and reach such a distance into the galaxy, that she almost seems to accept it, but instead she closes down the discussion when she sees there's no way to win with words, summarily exercising her control, sitting down as if to underline that there is nothing more to be said and nothing will change. Her people are not being given a choice in what to believe, they are stuck in unknowing ignorance, just like the people in 'The Matrix' waiting for someone to come and uncover their eyes. But it will not be Professor Gegen, who feels he can do nothing but relent and retract his theory to save Voyager's crew.

That was the reason why they came up against such a superior force this time, to make the crew's freedom dependent upon someone else's decision, something we don't see very much as usually Janeway takes things into her own hands, and, relying on her crew, can battle the odds and survive each week. Who knows, but even here they might have escaped if given no other option, and that might well have been a terrific second-part to the story, though it had been done before on the series, in fact at the beginning of this season when the Kazon wrested control of Voyager and stranded the crew, so I suppose it might have been a bit of a rehash. No doubt Gegen would have died helping them escape and it would have played out in the standard way. This episode is certainly different from the norm, not just in the defeat at the end, but in the long opening without any sign of the ship or main cast. Instead we have a sequence of discovery, a reminder of places the ship had been earlier this season as Gegen tracks down this mystery ship, visiting some of those places.

And so we come to the grisliest reappearance of a character on Trek: Hogan, in the form of a skeleton! Not just a skeleton, but one that's had a good bite out of its skull from the Hanon IV eel creature that killed him. It started me wondering if that dinosaur-like monster could be another relation of the Voth, but you can't attribute every saurian creation to one race (unless the aliens from 'The Chase' that 'seeded' the Alpha Quadrant with bipedal species made a trip to the Delta Quadrant, too…), as fun as it is to draw connections. I would have liked them to make it clearer that this is Hanon IV where the crew were stranded by the Kazon, maybe with an onscreen subtitle as they did in some of the Trek films, but if you're in the know it's great to see a few places revisited, such as the space station on the edge of the Nekrit Expanse or what looks like a member of the Tak Tak. With the premise of the series being Voyager always forging on, it was difficult to do throwbacks (even though this is the second in two episodes, though the last one was Kes time-travelling into an old scene so it's not quite the same thing), but they get around that by having the Voth be this not only space-faring race, but space-living, apparently - they chug around in a city ship so they can come to Voyager. I say chug, but they actually travel at transwarp speeds (we know this because the stars look even prettier in transwarp!) - all the better for catching you up with.

I'm not sure why the Voth hadn't become the Delta Quadrant's version of the Dominion since they were so far advanced than other races we've seen (the Kazon would have been easy slaves, and even the Vidiians would have succumbed to such power), and they have the strong will and sense of authority. I suppose it's down to their disgust or disinterest in inferior warmblooded species, whom they see as beneath them, whereas the Founders took over out of a sense of fear and need to control everything. Maybe the Voth are more responsible than the Founders, or maybe they know about other, more dangerous forces in the quadrant, such as the Borg, and choose to keep, if not a low profile, one that is only concerned with their own affairs. I know this was supposed to be a dig at the Catholic Church for their treatment of Galileo, and you could see the city ship as being similar to the Vatican, a closed-off, fully independent state, only in space. I was reminded of both Shinzon's stair room (as I like to call it), in 'Star Trek Nemesis,' and the Emperor's showing-off chamber on the Death Star in 'Return of The Jedi' by Odala's circular hall (it might have been the shape, the large starlit windows and the lighted stairs), though I wished it had been bigger, with the Elders sat around, as it feels like this is a matriarchy rather than whatever it was, with no one else giving voice to the dictates of the state other than her. It certainly doesn't feel like a democracy, with the state in full control and deciding what each citizen would do, rather giving the impression of Russia.

Whatever the politics of the episode there is a strong science versus faith debate. Or is there? It's another scientist, for sure, and another misunderstood and sympathetic scientist, but in actuality, faith never came into the equation. The Voth have beliefs about their place in the universe and don't appreciate that being questioned, but it's all self-serving, rather than truly being about faith and freedom, so I would suggest it's not the age-old science/faith thing at all, but a reasonable depiction of knowledge being repressed to retain power for those at the top. So I see it as more of a political debate than anything else. There's no arguing with the power the Voth leaders have, Voyager completely powerless (though Tom has a good old go), caught inside the belly of the beast with nary a whisper of defence - the inside reminded me of the vast technological space of V'GER, which made me ponder on Voyager being inside V'GER… I would have liked the takeover of the ship to have been a little more dramatic, with firefights in the corridors and people being beamed out of hiding in Jefferies tubes, and I understand that I sound doltish when I say the episode stays more on the side of talk than action, but I think a great episode has a good slice of both ideas and ideas in action, where this became a bit more of a courtroom drama, though not to the extent of other Trek versions.

There are good things visually, with strong direction, particularly in the choice of angles and shots, with some never-before-seen views, my favourite looking down on the bridge from the rear as Janeway enters, tracking her across to Chakotay, presumably to emphasise the fact that aliens are aboard observing the crew, even though this wasn't actually their point of view. The bulging faces and striking eyes of the Voth are also given full due, though I couldn't help thinking, as I always do when aliens with clawed hands are encountered, that the style and function of their technology would be vastly different without nimble fingers to build and operate it. But it's fair enough that on a television budget you can't create from scratch a completely different alien look and technology, quite aside from the time it would take, and I'm happy to go with it (though they did manage something along those lines in 'Unexpected' on 'Enterprise' with the Xyrillians having a very alien environment, though I expect they also used touch screens, and they had 'normal' hands anyway). Something else that comes to mind is that the Voth weren't quite ready for the change in their history, though optimistically Gegen hopes that future generations will take up the baton and one day the race will be ready to learn the truth - it's reminiscent of the Malcorians in 'First Contact' who discover Riker undercover and are forced to believe in aliens and the possibility of warp travel, though in their case the leader at the top chose to keep it secret for his people's own good, rather than to grip on to power.

I always appreciate it when the Holodecks are used for practical purposes rather than just recreation, as Janeway does this time for researching dinosaurs, though I was half-expecting her to walk over that creature's tail in a recreation of the added scene in the first 'Star Wars' film when Han walks round Jabba The Hutt! I'd have loved to have seen Tom and B'Elanna's Bat'leth duel as we used to see Worf and Dax' as their friendship continues to grow - BYOB, though, was long before texting made acronyms extremely irritating and lazy, so I can forgive them for it here. It was fortunate Chakotay was the specimen Gegen steals away when he and assistant Veer are discovered (the series would do invisible visitors - invisitors? - again in 'Scientific Method'), after underestimating the Voyager crew. I can just imagine Tuvok or Harry reacting badly and refusing to cooperate in any way, but Chakotay is quick to reach out the hand of peace to this alien he's never met before, despite having been shot with a tranquillising dart by Veer. On Veer, it was sad to see him turn against his professor, even though the possibilities of how they're making him say what they want under duress are pointed out, because we never truly know why he discredited Gegen, or had a reconciliation by the end, leaving poor Gegen completely alone with only the hope that one day his research will be revived and believed. But this season has been big on meaningful endings, not shying away from negative ones as much as positive.

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