The Voyager Conspiracy

 DVD, Voyager S6 (The Voyager Conspiracy)

"It's quite clear we've been the victim of an elaborate deception." Another Seven of Nine story? But we just had one last episode! Thing is, she's usually more than ripe for great stories so it's hard to feel hard done by even if some of the actors probably felt that way. This one is no exception, though it's one of those that I wasn't sure if I'd liked before, an uncertainty only increased by the gradualness of its quality to come through. It takes most of the running time to build up a head of emotional steam, but it's one that comes roaring at you full force right at the end and once again proves it's the personal, not the external plot's magnitude that makes Trek sing at a level above other TV. And it's another of those episodes that reminds me why I enjoy Trek in the first place, which I often find myself questioning when I watch the (increasingly expanding), modern era with all its bells and whistles which nevertheless misses the heart of Trekness. On the face of it, it's a Big Story with ramifications for the entire series that could boggle the mind if it were true. While I could see new Trek running with this storyline and making these conspiracies actually true, as that's the kind of garish sensationalism it tends towards (even while utterly ruining Trek's greatest conspiracy in Section 31!), and this isn't a review to bash the current state of affairs (that's not fun), 'Voyager' manages to work in facts, or seeming facts, about the ship's original mission and how it truly ended up getting stranded in the Delta Quadrant, that could almost make you start to wonder...

It's actually nowhere near as plausible as Section 31's own gambit to recruit Dr. Bashir in 'Inquisition,' in which they worked in some great details of the doc's career over the previous few years, things that we'd seen and fit neatly into this paranoia they were instilling. The 'Voyager' writers, for all their abilities were never going to be as accomplished as their counterparts on 'DS9' (perhaps one more reason Ron Moore found his situation untenable), so they don't come up with things nearly as believable as in that episode, plus they cheat a bit by having Seven's reel of evidence fading out so we don't hear all of it as there really isn't very much you can pull on to suggest Chakotay was planning a Maquis uprising. And that image of what could be a tractor beam was very dodgy, no matter how pleasurable it was to revisit the series' origins by showing clips of the Caretaker's array and other bits of the pilot (not to mention the occasional other episodes, 'Dark Frontier' and 'Scorpion' - why, it's practically a clips episode, or as close as they'd come, but it puts 'Shades of Grey' in the, well, shade...). No doubt the writers were intending to show up the inconsistency and mental gymnastics of conspiracy theorists, but there's no way they'd realise just how deep the rabbit hole would go in succeeding decades, because this could easily be an analogy of today: Seven overloads on downloads, filling her mind with all kinds of facts, reports, unverified sensor readings, etc, just like we can do now by hoovering up all we can take from the internet, and then proceeds to join the dots to make a pattern that suits her growing paranoid state of mind.

Tuvok can even admit that some of what she says is logical, but he goes no further than that earlier in the episode: logical, but highly speculative. This of course is when she's first spitting out theories, or one theory, about the existence of some 'photonic fleas' and is proved to be right, having absorbed enough data to create this relatively unlikely scenario that does indeed prove to be true and fuels her later speculations and logic leaps. It was a good setup for what comes after, and though the episode doesn't exactly jump into its story wildly with both feet, it has a gentle, pleasant, 'life aboard Voyager' quality to it. It may be that I've thought of Season 6 and on as being too undeveloped for its position when I think of the dramatic advancement in story quality, the vast landscape of characters, races and ongoing plots that rose to arguably its highest level in the equivalent season of 'DS9' and they were exceeding expectations, while on 'Voyager' they're still turning out relatively simple 'little' mystery stories of the week instead of building up anything or really developing characters - this could almost have been a Season 4 episode when you remember how many times Janeway had to argue and battle Seven with words, as well as teaching her the hard way when she disobeyed like a petulant teenager. My point being that they weren't moving the series forward, sticking with what worked, and it does work, but it isn't a classic that it could have been with a richer backdrop to lay it all on.

Comparisons would hurt the best TV shows when it comes to 'DS9,' in my book (and 'Voyager' is certainly up there as one of the best, also in my book!), so I don't intend to demean the episode, it's just a good idea to see it in perspective, unlike the way Seven rips through her discoveries and goes off the deep end! The first inkling that things are not quite right in Sevenland comes when she begins to believe that part of the Caretaker's Array could have been brought all that way ahead of them (she suggests through a relay of ships, though I noticed she didn't give the slightest piece of evidence to back up that idea!), when Voyager's journey has been haphazard at best: they've increasingly found ways to lop years off their journey (as they do in this very episode by using the alien fellow's catapult to launch them three years closer to the Alpha Quadrant), especially in recent seasons, and while I haven't been making a running tally of how far the (was it seventy-five year?) journey has been cut down, the distance has been greatly reduced. The idea that ships carrying this Tetryon Reactor which powered both the Array and this catapult, could somehow get ahead of them without those shortcuts... well, it was farfetched, to say the least. And then when she starts believing in a joint Federation/Cardassian mission to expand their territories into the Delta Quadrant she just starts to look a little loony. Bare facts themselves can only tell so much, and as much as the law is concerned with such, it's also important to remember character and motivation of individuals. Raw facts can provide a structure, but it's what hangs on or within that which matters.

It is the characters of Janeway and Chakotay, the way they act, how they conduct themselves and what their motives have garnered over time that demonstrates who they are and what they stand for. I feel Seven should have brought up the secret Captains Directive about the Omega molecule as evidence that Janeway could go solo and take on something personally, directly from Starfleet that she doesn't need to tell her crew about, or is in fact forbidden from sharing (if that's correct), as proof she can operate without any of their knowledge, but then she'd have had to remember all the events of that episode and that Janeway was right. Still, there were occasionally details that would have served the story, sometimes better than what they did drop in to 'support' her theory: Kes had to leave the ship because she knew too much? In that case why would she part with a gift of pushing them lightyears closer to home? An aside: it was so nice to hear of Kes again, someone that had necessarily been largely forgotten by this point, and she's mentioned a few times so I wonder if they knew they'd be bringing her back later in the season? Possibly, but it was a long way off, coming in the latter half, but maybe they had a long lead-in to ensure Jennifer Lien was available? Other facts used to support her story is the Doctor going aboard a ship in the Alpha Quadrant ('Message In A Bottle'), in order to contact Starfleet, but she knows what he went through there and she trusts him for all he's helped her with in her time on Voyager.

There's also the alliance with the Borg, ceasefire with the Hirogen, etc, as evidence of Janeway's preparation for Starfleet and Cardassia's plans, but for one thing making peace where possible is what Starfleet does, representing the Federation, and as for the Borg alliance she herself knows only too well how... futile that eventually was. It's clear the data is overwhelming her and she hasn't got any hobbies with which to go and let off steam. She should have used Worf's training program where he beat up skull warriors in the Holodeck (actually I could see Seven getting on quite well with Worf in such a context, I wonder if they have any scenes together in 'Picard' Season 3 - only a few more months for me to wait for the DVD release!). Instead she keeps generating theories, even ones that come into conflict with each other as she hops madly about from one story to the next, eventually settling on everything being about her. This is where it suddenly clicked for me ('it's all about you, Michael, everything is about you,' as the ill-fated Airiam once said in 'DSC'), this is what Trek became in recent years, you see the melodramatic ridiculousness of Seven's self-inflated importance where the One is much more important than the Many, and what old Trek showed as delusional and unreasonable is just the kind of thing new Trek does seriously with a straight face! Again, getting off track, not here to bash new Trek, and in fact there's plenty to show it is improving, even if in tiny increments.

This is where it all comes into focus, Janeway beaming to the Delta Flyer which Seven has stolen in order to destroy the catapult, or herself, or both, because she's convinced she's become a target and it was all a plot to take her back to Starfleet HQ and carve her up for more intel on the Borg. Does Starfleet really need to do that after all the Borg they've encountered, even more with the USS Voyager's reports and research gathered over the last few years, so it's clearly ludicrous out of all proportion that so much planning would be made to catch one young woman. It takes Janeway's calm, careful logic to talk her down, persuading her with words, reminding her of all that she herself has done for Seven, the friendships she's made, the encouragement to learn about her family history that has only served to help her grow and learn to accept her new life. If the earlier stuff was a bit of a rickety bridge to Seven's ultimate actions, this scene demonstrated that the 'Voyager' writers could craft that ol' Trek magic when they tried. Even after so many similar scenes in the past where Janeway had to reach out a verbal hand and get Seven to trust her, this still holds so much weight, and it's simply a beautifully written, performed and directed scene where the Captain turns Seven's factual delivery, which she was spitting out like a weapon, around into her own weapon that breaks through the silliness and reaches her crew-member. It's not unique to Janeway that she can dredge up the deepest, truest reality, a way with words was also a well-known attribute of Captains Kirk and Picard (Sisko being more of a presence than a wordsmith), but perhaps because of her femininity she has that unique delivery of compassion from every pore, that her pleas are so persuasive and reassuring.

If the most obvious analogy was with wild conspiracy theories, it could also have been aimed at cults and their overarching control of the mind - Seven has effectively brainwashed herself by trying to make sense of more information than she can process. She's more than a machine and this may have been intended as a sign that her former Borg abilities and technology could not continue indefinitely without being maintained within the Collective. That would have been a strong, pure arc for Seven and was certainly one that appeared intended to some degree (I think of the Season 7 episode where her cortical node degrades and Icheb donates his own so she can live, or the very end of the series when even her implants are smaller and less pronounced as she continues to shed Borg technology), but was utterly ruined by her appearance in 'Picard' where she'd apparently reverted back to full implants even while she'd lost the regimented, almost Vulcan-like manner of speech that spoke of the character so strongly. In that regard, and just as in later 'Voyager' they didn't make her 'too' human, it's a sign of marketing - just in case we bring back this character we need her to be recognisable as what she was or those stoopid audience members won't get it! Here, Seven, and Jeri Ryan, are perfect, as is Janeway. (My only question is why they needed to beam back from the Flyer, it makes you think they're abandoning the ship's newest addition!).

It's interesting they chose this episode to show the Captain and First Officer dining together as it hadn't been common ever since 'Resolutions' in Season 2 when they'd decided against the pairing, but then it served this story very well that they can go from gentle banter and an atmosphere of the cordial geniality of equals away from the eyes of the crew to genuinely suspecting the motives of the other as they get pulled into Seven's fantasies - as they noted, she at least had the excuse of a malfunction. You could say that's the only part that doesn't quite ring true. If they'd leant on the pair's disagreements in recent years over the Borg or the Equinox, maybe it would have arisen more naturally, but each taking a Phaser as they investigate? We can put it down to a moment of mutual madness, but that side of the story could have been better set up, especially as the 'evidence' Seven points to, is a string of circumstances that don't add up. With the stuff she was telling Janeway about Chakotay it was just ridiculous - that Seska didn't steal his DNA, it was all part of their plan, and other things that I didn't recognise, which I suppose they made up since there really wasn't anything much to use against Chakotay (I think that's the bit where they fade out Seven talking so they don't have to add more!), but even the DNA thing had already been proved false since the resulting baby was Maje Culluh's anyway! If you remember your Trek facts they can come in handy.

What's fun about the episode is throwing in a lot of references and reminders about the series' past, and indeed parts of Trek lore they rarely had reason to mention or deal with due to their position: the Cardassians, seeing a Cardassian Warship (which we were no longer getting since 'DS9' had ended), talk of Kes and Seska and the Caretaker, the fact they'd met two of that species ('Cold Fire'), and didn't want a third encounter, and is that the last mention of The Badlands in Trek? I wouldn't be surprised. There's even further description of Neelix' life in the year he was hanging around in the region as he'd become close to Kes, though made a point of avoiding the Caretaker. He speculates the Caretaker sent back the other ships that were pulled in (I think he mentions fifty-two ships in that year, which suggests it was one ship per week if a year can be said to be the same in that area of space), and the tests the Caretaker ran took some time, although I'm not sure how well that tallies with the fact he sometimes sent infected victims to be cared for by the Ocampa - what would happen to them, did they find a way to leave or just settled into a new life? I can't imagine a Cardassian doing any less than making extreme trouble for the innocent Ocampa and in fact the Caretaker could have been doing exactly what he wanted to avoid by sending aliens down to their city. But now I come to think of it I think they said all other examples had died so that would clear that up!

Neelix' remembrance of Kes' speculations, as well as his own independent records and logs from his ship only adds fuel to the fire of Seven's theory and though both he and the Doctor aren't included much, I did like that they were used in a way that made sense, not merely there to make up the numbers. Of course the doc couldn't be too visible or he'd have quickly realised something was wrong, being probably her closest friend. Other than Naomi, who's only a child, and that was a tough moment when she sends the little girl away with a flea in her ear, babbling her theories, rattling away about her Father being Ktarian, and blah, blah, blah. The poor child doesn't know what to make of it, and Seven is an odd enough fish that she wouldn't go and inform someone what happened (though if there was more time I could imagine a scene with either her Mother or Neelix who find her down in the dumps - that could have been a clue as to Seven's mental state, though it could just as easily be explained away as her being in a bad mood). The pairing is always delightful, a continual reminder of Seven's own childlike nature, despite the vast growth she's gone through over the last two-plus years. Naomi also serves a useful purpose of setting up Seven to seem mean and aggressive to her in contrast to their friendly, easygoing first scene - you could even say it throws in a childhood lesson of the week as you'd get in old cartoons: learning is about quality, not about quantity, it's more important to take learning in than how much you can cram. And then we're automatically set for a pleasant way to send the episode out as they're friends again and all is as it should be, exactly the kind of reassurance to leave viewers in a happy place rather than shocked or anticipating what horrible thing will happen next...

The real message of the episode is it's never a good idea to download chunks of data into yourself - Tom Paris typically condenses the process very neatly by equating Seven's downloads to 'learn while you sleep.' Even if this is a very Seven and Janeway story it finds a way to include everyone confidently, be that Tom making his comments, Tuvok allowing himself to be quizzed by Seven without a stir of equanimity (of course he remembers exactly what yield he programmed into the Tricobalt explosive that he used to destroy the Array over five years ago - he's Vulcan!), or B'Elanna sounding typically annoyed when Seven wakes her up early in the morning, or is confused when Chakotay serves up an almost Maquis-like level of intrigue, asking her to take her time to give him time. Maybe the only thing missing was a scene between them later where they joke about the likelihood of a Maquis takeover, but it wasn't really necessary. Even the guest character served the story quite nicely, if a bit of a stretch that he could singlehandedly build this huge catapult, somehow fighting off any curious aliens that would typically come as marauders to steal his wallet. If he could build it then you wonder why Voyager couldn't do the same, make a jump as far as they could go, then build another. I don't think we were told exactly how long it took this enterprising shoehorn-head (typically great design from Westmore - it's almost taken for granted at this point!), to build his catapult, so maybe it took a while, plus the whole point was that the necessary reactor was hard to get. At least we can throw out one of Seven's theories quite easily - she claimed it was being used to pull ships in as an invasion fleet, but catapults don't pull, they push!

Tash was the third and final contribution from Albie Selznick in Trek (unless new Trek proves me wrong), who began back in 'TNG' as The Juggler in 'Cost of Living,' then an equally movement-based role on 'Voyager' as the Tak Tak Consul of 'Macrocosm.' This was the best makeup he got, though. My problem with new Trek (this again, I know, I'm sorry, it's good to get it off my chest), or one of them, is that aliens always speak so casually as if they're only human, but I have to say that this was the case with Tash, too (and to be fair, the Voyager crew can also come across a bit contemporary sometimes), but perhaps the difference here is that it's not an established race, he's just a one-off alien-of-the-week so it doesn't hurt. If a Cardassian was speaking like that, or a Romulan, Vulcan, etc, that's when it really undoes that sense of continuity and internal reality. When they mentioned the 'photonic fleas' I instantly thought they were somehow holographic, but on checking the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia' it said energy-based beings, which includes, but isn't exclusive to, holograms (they do love that little junction down a Jefferies Tube, though, don't they - is it the third time in recent episodes they've opened that hatch?). 'Making warp drive look like a wooden sled,' was a good line and slogan if Tash ever gets around to marketing his Tashtastic Catapult (TM), though it reminded me of the 'Transwarp' claims of the Excelsior. And I loved the touch of the Replicator warning that a plate was hot when Janeway was going for culinary authenticity (she obviously doesn't like actual cooking, unlike Sisko or Riker). Finally, Neelix' request to turn a Cargo Bay into a nursery wouldn't be as premature as it appeared since the Borg kiddies would be coming eventually.

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