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Counterpoint (episode)

Revision as of 17:51, 27 July 2010 by 212.85.28.88 (contribs) (→‎Summary)
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Voyager smuggles telepathic refugees through Devore space.

Summary

Voyager is passing through Devore space, where telepathy is illegal and telepaths are sent to relocation centers. Devore warships are far larger and more powerful than Voyager, so the ship is subject to frequent inspections to check for telepaths, complete with rough treatment of the crew and their equipment.

The lead Devore inspector, Kashyk, takes up residence in Captain Janeway's ready room. He plays Mahler's First Symphony throughout the ship to "relax" the crew. However, Kashyk expresses an interest in Human culture, allows Voyager to get away with a course deviation that his assistant, Prax, says would normally result in the ship being impounded, and suggests that Janeway could use a friend like him.

The Devore ships then leave Voyager, after which Captain Janeway orders that twelve Brenari refugees, along with Tuvok, Jarot and Vorik, all of whom are telepathic, be brought out of transporter suspension in cargo bay one, which contains contaminated antimatter to block Devore sensors.

Soon after, Kashyk returns to Voyager, but this time alone. He tells Janeway that he knows all about the telepathic refugees and that the nebula containing a wormhole that she plans to transport them to for their escape is a Devore trap. He says that he is defecting and requests asylum on the ship in return for his assistance in avoiding Devore ships. She agrees to grant him safe passage out of Devore space if the Brenari are amenable.

The Brenari leader, Kir, agrees to cooperate. Kir points Janeway to a scientist, Torat, who can help them predict the next appearance of the wormhole. At this point, Janeway begins to cooperate with Kashyk. Torat is reluctant to help Voyager, so she introduces Kashyk as a fellow professor who doubts his work. To prove himself, and in exchange for mercurium isochromate, Torat provides the two with some data on the wormhole. Later, Janeway and Kashyk work to pinpoint the next appearance of the wormhole. They simply do not seem to be able to predict a random occurrence. After standard algorithms fail, Janeway, considering the music that is playing in the background, suggests that the pattern may be found in a subspace counterpoint: if they could run an algorithm based on subspace harmonics, they could reveal the pattern. Following this approach, the computer analysis finally works, allowing the next occurrence of the wormhole to be predicted.

Kashyk and Janeway get into a discussion about their homeworlds and principles and guiding philosophies when Janeway notes that Kashyk is taking considerable risk defecting from his own people and assisting these telepaths. She asks him why and Kashyk explains that three months ago when his team was inspecting a plasma refining vessel, they found a family of telepaths hiding in one of the extraction tanks. There was a child – very young – who had been inside it for days, barely able to breathe. When he lifted her out of the tank and sat her on the deck, she thanked him. He then sent her to the relocation center with the others knowing full well what would happen to her. After that, he could think of nothing else. And when he couldn't stand it any longer, he decided to leave. He tells Janeway that she is his deliverance. While finishing telling his story, they are interrupted by the computer voice that informs them that the analysis is complete.

Janeway accompanies Kashyk back to his quarters who asks her to join him especially because has been looking forward to trying their replicator. But Janeway tells him that this won't be possible as she had the replicator taken offline in case he decided to replicate a weapon. She wishes him a good night and leaves.

Unfortunately, Voyager is soon detected by a Devore scanning array again. Janeway plans to fight the ships with the new information about them she has obtained from Kashyk. But he tells her she will never survive against two of them and offers to take command of the impending inspection to ensure the refugees remain undetected. She is reluctant but still agrees. Right before his departure, they kiss passionately in the shuttle bay.

The Devore inspectors soon board the ship. Janeway meets Kashyk in her ready room, who plays Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and demands that she cease altering her course and leave Devore space. After sending Prax away, he asks about the wormhole. She tells him it is 20,000 kilometers off the port bow and that a photon torpedo properly calibrated will force open the threshold long enough for Voyager to get through. Kashyk congratulates her, ordering Prax to Cargo Bay One to capture the refugees and ordering two photon torpedoes to be fired to destroy the wormhole. Janeway, who finally recognizes the deception, tells him that he has given a masterful performance. Kashyk says that on the contrary, he is impressed with her selflessness and Humanity that made all this so much easier. She asks him whether his touching story about the little girl was a fabrication as well. He tells her that the story was real but what he didn't tell her was that after wrestling with his ethics he realized that he had done the right thing in order to protect his people from a very real threat. With armed guards he escorts her to the bridge and fires the torpedoes onto the wormhole to destroy it.

However, he soon realizes that it is he who has been double crossed: the neutrino emissions indicating a wormhole off the port bow are actually antimatter residue signatures, and it is not refugees, but cargo containers filled with vegetables that are suspended in the transporters in cargo bay one. Janeway changes the music to Mahler's first symphony, while the refugees escape through the wormhole via shuttlecraft. Prax suggests that Voyager be impounded and the crew sent to detention centers, but Kashyk angrily notes that neither of them can benefit from having this failure on their records.

When they are alone on the bridge, Kashyk congratulates Janeway for having played this so well. She tells him that she had to take some precautions but that she never lied to him for her offer to take him with them was genuine, and it would still stand if he had kept his part of the bargain. Kashyk merely smiles at her and before leaving tells her that for what it's worth, she made a tempting offer.

Memorable Quotes

"You created false readings!"
"That is the theme for this evening, isn't it?"

- Kashyk and Captain Janeway


"Federations, Imperiums. Why do you people feel such a need to align yourselves with monolithic organizations?"

- Torat

Background Information

  • The original pitch for the episode - written by Gregory L. Norris and Laura Van Vleet, based on a screenplay of Van Vleet's, and entitled "The Hiding" - was focused on Seven of Nine. The refugees were hiding in Voyager's landing pads, and, when Voyager was forced to land, Seven risked her life to take the refugees into neutral space in a shuttlecraft, against Janeway's orders. The two pitchers were delighted with the changes made to their pitch by Michael Taylor, in particular the focus on a love story for Janeway. (Star Trek Monthly issue 80)
  • The working titles for this episode were The Refugee and Refuge.
  • In an interview shortly after filming, Kate Mulgrew called this her "favorite episode to date." In another, she claimed to have kissed the script when she first read it. Subsequently, she chose it as her favorite episode, and it was included as such in Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log.
  • Mark Harelik was cast at Mulgrew's recommendation.
  • J. Patrick McCormack previously played Admiral Bennet in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". Randy Oglesby had also appeared in DS9, playing Silaran Prin in "The Darkness and the Light".
  • Janeway's list of telepaths on Voyager includes only Tuvok, Vorik, Jarot, and Lon Suder. She neglects to mention the other Vulcans aboard, mentioned in VOY: "Endgame". Lt. Stadi, the Betazoid helmsman who was killed in VOY: "Caretaker" was also not listed.
  • The whereabouts of the three telepathic crewmembers (Tuvok included) are not discussed at the end of the episode, although Tuvok is at his station on the Bridge when the inspection teams arrive.
  • This is Alexander Enberg's only appearance as Vorik in which he has no lines.
  • This episode was selected by public vote in the UK as the best of the "Captain's Picks" (episodes selected by the four series leads as their favorites) during the BBC's Star Trek Night on 16 September 2001.

Video and DVD releases

Links and references

Starring

Also starring

Guest stars

Uncredited co-stars

References

algorithm; angstrom; antimatter; antimatter residue; aurora borealis; board of inquiry; Brenari; Brenari freighter/Brenari vessel; cellular degradation; class 2 shuttle; coffee; confinement beam; dark matter inversion; Devore; Devore Imperium; Devore sensor array; Devore shuttlecraft; Devore warship; fractal coefficient; gaharey; gray mode; imaging scanner; impulse signature; interlink node; intermittent cyclical vortex; interspatial flexure; ion storm; Jarot; Kazon; kolyan kolyar; Mahler; mercurium isochromate; Mutara class; neutrino; Ogre of Fire; pattern enhancer; photon torpedo; plasma injector; primary energizing coil; Prime Directive; refractive shield; scanning pulse; shield modulation; subspace harmonics; subspace matrix; subspatial transkinetic analysis; Suder, Lon; Tchaikovsky; Tehara system; telepathy; transporter; transporter suspension; vegetable; warp field; wormhole

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"Thirty Days" 		Star Trek: Voyager
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