MEDICAL LOGS

SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Season 4 : Episode 75

 

MEDICAL REPORT:

Unusual and mysterious medical problems afflict certain crew. Janeway suffers terrible headaches, due to increased dopamine levels, not relieved by the Doctor's heavy-handed massage during which he comments that her trapezius is as hard as a rock.

massage - see also DOCTOR'S QUOTE below

headache

Chakotay suddenly develops the childhood genetic disorder progeria which was eradicated two centuries earlier. Neelix, whose great-great-grandfather was Mylean, suddenly starts turning into a Mylean.

progeria

becoming Mylean

Torres and the Doctor investigate samples of affected DNA and are about to make a breakthrough when suddenly Torres' lungs stop working properly and it seems a mystery attacker tries to delete the Doctor's program.

The Doctor goes online, with the attack apparently successful, but he succeeded in rescuing his program and hides in the Da Vinci holoprogram (taking the role of the Maestro himself). The operation to restore Torres is successfully conducted in his absence.

a patient is treated in Sickbay (another victim of the mysterious aliens' scientific experiments)

Torres recuperates after the operation to restore her lungs

The Doctor and isolates com. frequency Epsilon 2 from the rest of the system so he and Seven can communicate secretly via her Borg audio implants. He adjusts her Borg sensory nodes to a phase variance of .15 so that she can scan for the "invisible" alien intruders. Seven observes 56 aliens on the ship, noting that there could be more. The aliens possess submolecular technology beyond anything Starfleet has developed. Their DNA tags transmit a signal and are slightly out of phase, which is why initial scans did not reveal them. The Doctor believes that a neuroleptic shock would neutralise the genetic tags.

the Doctor examines a DNA sample	DNA sample
the mysterious genetic tag	the Doctor realises that both the DNA of both Chakotay and Neelix have the same mysterious genetic tag
the Doctor and Torres, about to discover the aliens' presence

Seven sees the "invisible" aliens experimenting on the crew

the reason for Janeway's headaches, namely alien interference with her dopamine levels

The power relays can be reconfigured to emit the shock. However, when Seven goes to Engineering to modify the equipment she is noticed by two aliens. Seven fires a precisely modulated phaser beam at an alien which reveals the hitherto invisible presence. The aliens reveal they are scientists doing often horrific genetic experiments on the crew to gather data that might help them cure physical and psychological disorders which afflict millions. The alien threatens to kill everyone if the experiments are not allowed to continue. Helpless for the moment, Janeway and the Doctor are urgently called out of a meeting in the Captain's Ready Room when a female Bridge crewmember goes into convulsions after being made the subject of another alien experiment. The Doctor scans the patient: "She's in hypertensive shock. 20 milligrammes lectrazine. (Janeway prepares a hypospray.) Her blood pressure is 360 over 125! - Severe adrenal stress." The administered lectrazine has no effect. "Her arterial pathways are rupturing. She's in cardiac arrest. We're losing her. Captain," as Janeway attempts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, "I'm afraid that won't help. There's too much internal bleeding."

Janeway, unwilling to tolerate the aliens' impositions any longer, gambles by taking Voyager toward a binary pulsar, knowing it could mean certain destruction. She gambles successfully, for the aliens evacuate the ship, as Voyager plunges through at full throttle. The ship comes out relatively unscathed, and the Doctor is then able to neutralise the effects of the alien experiments and restore the crew's health.

LECTRAZINE:

This drug, administered to stabilise cavdiovascular and renal systems in humanoid patients, is used in  [#35 Lifesigns],  [#49 Sacred Ground],  [#52 Warlord] and this episode, and a mixture of lectrazine and hyronalin is administered in  [#64 Real Life].

MORGUE RECORD:

A female crewmember, unnamed, dies under non-benign alien experimentation. See above under MEDICAL REPORT.

MEDICAL PERSONNEL:

Paris pretends to the Doctor that he forgot to turn in his conn report: "...and Chakotay gives me a hard time when it's late" (not "if" but "when"!), and the Doctor allows him to end his duty shift early. Paris then goes to have an assignation with Torres.

Paris pretends he has "some errands to run" then that he has to finish his conn report, but actually goes to romance Torres

DOCTOR'S QUOTE:

To Janeway as he gives her painful massage: "Sometimes there's no substitute for intensive osteopathic pressure therapy. You're fortunate to have a masseur who can work all day without tiring."