Before and After (episode)

Template:Realworld

Kes finds herself in temporal flux, her consciousness oscillating back and forth between her birth and her death.

Summary

A blur slowly transforms itself into a view of sickbay from a lying position, with a hairy-headed Doctor standing over top. The year is 2379, and Kes has reached the near end of her lifespan.

Over 98% of her memory engrams have been lost, and the Doctor is in the process of activating a bio-temporal chamber, a device he invented that he believes will extend her lifespan for at least another year. A young boy approaches her, giving her a present that he apologizes for delivering so late. Kes has no idea what the boy is talking about, but before she can do anything, a blinding flash hits her, and she finds herself in her quarters, in her bed.

Walking into her room, she finds a young woman and the boy there. The young woman identifies herself as Linnis, Kes' daughter, and the young boy is Andrew, her grandson. Kes is married to Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris, and Linnis is married to Lieutenant Harry Kim. Andrew is startled when she comes in, because he is still working on her birthday present. Confused as to what is going on, she just tries to explain, despite her situation being dismissed as being part of the morilogium, when another flash appears and she finds herself in the mess hall.

It is now Kes' ninth birthday party, and everyone is singing "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" to her. Startled, she approaches the Doctor and tells him her situation, but the Doctor is amazed when she mentions the bio-temporal chamber, because he had just come up with the idea that morning and had meant to tell her about it as a birthday surprise. She runs into Andrew, who apologizes because he doesn't have a present for her yet.

Captain Chakotay checks in on Kes in sickbay, wondering what is happening to her, as are Paris and Kim. Kes explains that she at first remembers Andrew giving her a belated birthday present, then later Andrew working on that same present, and then just recently Andrew apologizing for not starting on her present. Chakotay surmises that there must be a time paradox at work, while the Doctor believes that Kes must have developed a form of precognition that allows her to see future events that have not yet happened. Chakotay decides that he and Tom Paris will scan for any temporal anomalies that may be causing Kes to experience these things.

Sometime later, Paris meets Kes in their quarters where they reminisce about their life together, which Kes cannot remember. Going through her records, she finds an incident in 2374, where a fragment of a chroniton torpedo, used by a race called the Krenim, leaked radiation through the hull of USS Voyager, irradiating the entire crew with chroniton radiation. This was what Paris had called the beginning of the "Year of Hell". Kes also learns during this period that Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres died in this attack. Paris had a sense that the chroniton radiation may have something to do with Kes' current situation. But before they can make progress on it, Kes again experiences a shift through time - back to her quarters, holding an infant, Andrew, her new grandson.

Now thoroughly perplexed, she runs straight to the Doctor, who she must again describe her dilemma to with the information she had gleaned from her previous jumps through time. The Doctor says he inoculated the entire crew against the radiation, but maybe the bio-temporal chamber reactivated the chroniton particles and started her backward trip through time. Having all this information ready, the crew gets Kes to sickbay, where the Doctor creates a force field that might keep Kes in temporal sync with them, but it ultimately fails, and Kes jumps back again - to a shuttle, where she is giving birth to Linnis.

File:Birth of Linnis.jpg

The birth of Linnis.

After the successful delivery, Kes goes back to USS Voyager, but then the ship comes under attack. After the attack is over, Kes sits on a cot in the mess hall, while Captain Chakotay tries to understand what is happening. Before anyone can do anything, she begins to shift, and Kes reverts back to - the first Krenim attack.

Death of Janeway and Torres — Janeway and Torres killed in the Krenim attack.

This time she is on the holodeck, and she sees Paris there, wrapped around a woman she has never seen before. Kes quickly realizes that this is B'Elanna Torres, but then the ship comes under attack. Kes goes to the bridge and realizes that this is the Krenim she had been worried about, and figuring out who Captain Janeway was, Kes gives her information about the torpedoes. But then a console explodes, killing Captain Janeway and Torres. With the Doctor now offline due to the attack, she goes to where the fragment of a chroniton torpedo was lodged in a Jefferies tube to find out the exact temporal variance frequency of the missile, inadvertently exposing herself to the chroniton radiation. She smiles as she finds the exact frequency - 1.47 microseconds - before she passes out and reverts yet again - to the present time period, 2373.

Once here, she tells Captain Janeway about the Krenim in the future, then informs the Doctor that he needs to create a bio-temporal chamber to purge her system of the chroniton particles. If he is successful, her jumps will stop. He creates it, and places her in it, having B'Elanna bombard Kes with anti-chroniton particles. As her chroniton count begins to drop, she experiences another jump - and arrives on her first day on Voyager.

Her meeting with Janeway goes awry as she explains that she doesn't belong here, before another rapid jump takes her back to one year old - on Ocampa's surface, before she even met Voyager. In 2373, her chroniton count is almost gone. Kes jumps back to herself as a newborn infant and realizes she can do nothing but pray the Doctor succeeds. She then becomes a fetus, then a simple egg cell, and finally vanishes completely. But just as she does so, she reappears as an egg cell, then rapidly matures into a fetus, is born to her mother, and then her final flash transports her back to 2373, where the Doctor tells her he has purged her chroniton count completely, and she is a healthy three years old.

On the holodeck, the crew pushes Kes to tell them about the future, but Tuvok rightfully points out that what Kes experienced was only one possible future. Kes does promise to give Captain Janeway all her information on the Krenim, but decides to keep the rest - to herself.

Log Entries

(log entry made by Captain Chakotay)

Captain's log, stardate 55836.2. Kes has remained in temporal sync with us for two days now, but since we don't know when she may jump again, we can't afford to rest until we've found some way to help her.

Background Information

This episode introduces the Krenim, who eventually reappeared in the two-part "Year of Hell". According to Star Trek Monthly, the show's producers intended that episode to be the cliff-hanger between Seasons Three and Four, but the planned addition of Jeri Ryan to the cast as Seven of Nine led the producers to postpone the concept and replace it with "Scorpion". However, the "Before and After" timeline is not related to any timeline seen in these episodes, as Kes is obviously no longer on board the ship. Her place in the Jefferies tube is taken by Seven of Nine in the later episode.
This is the second time we see Neelix in an Operations gold uniform. Other occasions include "Tuvix" (season 2), "Year of Hell", and "Living Witness" (both season 4).
In Kes's future, Chakotay has become captain of Voyager after the death of Captain Janeway, Tuvok has been promoted to commander and is first officer (albeit he retains his operations/security gold uniform), Tom has been promoted to lieutenant commander, and Harry has been promoted to lieutenant.
In addition to performing the role of captain, Chakotay also has the rank of captain, complete with four Starfleet-style rank pips instead of a provisional insignia worn by the former Maquis members. It is not explained how he received the new rank, although the events depicted in the TNG episode "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" (Commander Riker promoted to captain after Jean-Luc Picard's assimilation) and described in "Tapestry" (Jean-Luc Picard taking command of the Stargazer upon the death of its captain) suggest that Chakotay could simply 'inherit' the rank by assuming command after Janeway was killed. Also, none of the Maquis members actually have official Starfleet rankings, but rather field commissions that Janeway has personally bestowed while in the Delta Quadrant, so Chakotay's "promotion" is clearly just a field commission given to himself.
This episode introduces Kes's longer hair style instead of the very short hair style from seasons 1, 2, and part of 3. Jennifer Lien, the actress who played Kes, was apparently sensitive to the make-up and adhesive used to apply her Ocampa ears. With the longer hairstyle, it was no longer necessary to apply the Ocampa ears each time she was filmed.
The Doctor's mobile emitter does not appear in any of the scenes set in the "future." It might be assumed that, having lost him temporarily in the destruction of Sickbay during the Year of Hell, the crew renewed their attempts to project him throughout the ship (as seen in "Projections" and "Persistence of Vision") and retained the mobile emitter only for use off the ship. No such explanation is given in canon, however.
Before and After includes the third of many times Janeway "dies" during the series. On this occasion, as observed by Kes during a Krenim attack.
The crew in this episode seems to have disregarded the Temporal Prime Directive, as they keep asking what Kes experienced in the future.

Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 3.11, 1 September 1997.
As part of the VOY Season 3 DVD collection.
As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Alternate Realities collection.

Links and references

Guest Stars

Co-Star

Rachael Harris as Martis

Uncredited Co-Stars

Stunt doubles

Leslie Hoffman as stunt double for Roxann Dawson
Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Kate Mulgrew

References

47; amnesia; angla'bosque; anti-chroniton; Beta Quadrant; biobed; bio-temporal chamber; bio-temporal field; bio-temporal flux; Carey; Joseph; chroniton; chroniton radiation; chroniton torpedo; diaper; electron volt (MeV); engram; humor; hypothalamic scan; Jimbalian fudge; Kazon; kilodyne; Krenim; Krenim warship; medical tricorder; mess hall; microsurgery; molecular scanner; morilogium; Mozart; Ocampa; Ocampa (planet); precognition; replicator ration; röntgen; senility; sickbay; tactical sensor; tea; telepathy; telekinesis; temporal flux; temporal sync; temporal variance; tricorder; van Gogh; Vincent; Yattho; "Year of Hell"

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Star Trek: Voyager
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