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SUMMARY: With everyone hallucinating, can Kes and the Doctor save the crew?
As preparations are made for first contact with a potentially unfriendly species called the Botha, Janeway diverts to Engineering where Kim and Torres explain that they have set up holo-emitters in key areas such as Engineering and the Bridge to give the Doctor some mobility outside the confines of Sickbay. They found several holoprojectors in storage and are reconfiguring them one-by-one. But the imaging interface is apparently not stabilised and the demonstration is not a complete success, for when the Doctor appears in Engineering he is only a few inches tall. As Janeway has not had shore leave for 2 months, has a habit of skipping meals and has not recently spent time on the holodeck, the Doctor, as Chief Medical Officer who outranks the Captain on health matters, orders the exhausted Captain to take some R&R in the holodeck, this being the first time that a hologram has given an order to a captain.
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| the diminutive Doctor orders Janeway to take time off |
Janeway tries to relax in her gothic holonovel, where she plays Mrs Davenport, the governess of children Henry and Beatrice. She is being irresistibly drawn into a romance with the troubled father and widower, Lord Burleigh, when she is interrupted by a call to the Bridge to make first contact with the Botha.
Janeway in the holonovel, with holocharacters Beatrice,
Henry and Mrs Templeton the housekeeper |
Janeway and Lord Burleigh |
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| cucumber sandwiches for tea in the holonovel, with Beatrice holding a cup of tea in a porcelain cup |
Neelix briefs Janeway that, according to Neelix's sources from the planet Mithren, there are numerous rumors of ships entering Botha space, never to be heard from again. The Botha protect their territory fiercely, though some believe that they do not have a legitimate claim to the area. The Botha representative gives Voyager a cold reception but sets up a rendezvous to determine whether or not his people will allow Voyager to pass through their space.
Neelix, on ascertaining that Janeway ate as long ago as last night when she had some soup, persuades Janeway to continue their conversation together in the Messhall where lunch is being served. But when she views the offered dishes Janeway is unsettled by the coincidence of seeing cucumber sandwiches and a teacup and saucer, all of which she had just seen on the holodeck.
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| Janeway sees cucumber sandwiches and the distinctive cup and saucer, it seems......in Voyager's Messhall |
Returning to her quarters, Janeway fancies she hears Lord Burleigh's voice but there is no one there except Lieutenant Ayala, and then suddenly she meets Beatrice! With Torres and Kim monitoring the holodeck systems, Janeway briefly runs the gothic holonovel but they are unable to find any malfunctions, and are unable to attribute Beatrice's appearance to experiments the crew is performing on Voyager's imaging systems. So, troubled, Janeway wonders if she is seeing things.
Janeway thinks she hears a voice |
she glimpses the holocharacter Beatrice |
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| holo-Beatrice confronts the shocked Janeway |
Janeway visits Sickbay where the Doctor's scans show up nothing unusual. Suddenly Janeway sees Beatrice again. But this time, Kes, also sees Beatrice. Kes has been doing some mental exercises with Tuvok to develop her telepathic abilities but had never before experienced anything like this. Kes says: "When I came in, I felt as though something hit me, bounced off me, then I saw the little girl moving right into you." Janeway: "As though you became a mirror. You reflected her back toward me."
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| Kes sees Janeway's hallucination |
holographic character Mrs Templeton determines to kill Janeway |
The Doctor sends Janeway back to her quarters until he can ascertain the cause of the hallucinations. Apparently back there, Janeway hears the voice of her fiance Mark, then she opens the door to find Mrs Templeton, a hostile character from her holonovel, who attacks her with a knife. But she is still in Sickbay, having suffered another hallucination. |
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| Janeway defends herself in her quarters against an attacking holocharacter, but discovers it was an hallucination and she is actually in Sickbay where there is no holocharacter |
Janeway relieves herself from duty and places Chakotay in charge of meeting with the Botha while she undergoes medical testing. Once again, the alien representative is hostile, and this time his ship engages the crew in battle. With Voyager in trouble, Janeway discharges herself from Sickbay despite the Doctor's disapproval and races to the Bridge. There she is stunned to see that it is Mark on the viewscreen - it is him attacking the ship! At least, that is how it looks to her. But at the same time, Paris sees his disparaging father, Admiral Paris, on the viewscreen, while Kim sees his fiancee Libby, and Tuvok sees his wife T'Pel.
Torres contacts Janeway and reports tht the crew seems to have fallen under some kind of psychoactive trance, the result of a bio-electric field emanating from the Botha ship and the psionic properties are penetrating the hull. One effort to block the effects of the field proves unsuccessful, so Torres starts to set up a resonance burst from the warp core as a more permanent solution. But even as she begins on a way to block the field, she falls prey to its spell, imagining a romantic encounter with Chakotay.
Janeway leaves the hallucinating Bridge crew and heads for Engineering, but Mark is there in the turbolift. He questions her commitment to their relationship, and desperate to prove her loyalty Janeway falls into Mark's arms and so deeply into the hallucination that she is unable to break free.
Tuvok, trapped within his hallucination |
Janeway cannot resist the hallucination of Mark |
As more and more of the crew lose themselves to their dreams, it is up to the Doctor and also Kes, whose telepathic abilities allow her to resist the field, to block the mysterious force disabling the ship.
the Doctor instructs Kes |
"Neelix" tries to prevent Kes |
 It is up to Kes to complete Torres' work. The Doctor consults Starfleet's interactive database and talks her through the procedure. Struggling all the while with hallucinations trying to stop her, including ones of Paris and Neelix, Kes has to select magnetic plasma sequencing then raise the warp core temperature to three million kelvins and activate the warp field to emit the resonance burst. In this way, Kes and the Doctor successfully negate the bio-electric field and restore the crew to normal. The alien intruder in the process (pictured). It turns out to be a telepathic Botha, who confesses to having caused the disturbance with no motive other than simply because he could, but he disappears before they can learn any more from him. As they continue on their way, the crew reflects uneasily about what lurks in their mind's subconscious.
 | | JANEWAY TO THE BOTHA REPRESENTATIVE: I assure you we mean no disrespect. We're from another part of the galaxy. We're just trying to make our way home. |
| | JANEWAY, AFTER THE ADVENTURE: Captain's log, supplemental. We have no explanation for the mysterious disappearance of the telepathic alien. We can't even be certain that he was actually here. He seems to have left us with any number of unanswered questions. |
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