REMEMBER
Episode 48

Enaran Dramatis Personae

 

USS Voyager is transporting a group of Enarans from a colony to their home world named Enara Prime. In exchange, the Enarans share technological knowledge and their friendship. One night, Torres and one of the Enarans, a young female engineer called Jessen, are working in Main Engineering. Jessen, who has not yet visited Enara Prime is regaled by the elderly Enaran called Jora Mirell ('Jora' and the masculine 'Jor' are honorifics for elder Enarans) with a description of their home planet's natural beauty. Jessen is attracted to Kim and an opportunity for them to be alone together is presented - the pair leave to dine together, leaving Torres to go to bed. Now in bed asleep, Torres begins to have dreams which are so intense and vivid that they feel like reality. In her dreams she is a young Enaran woman called Korenna, who is in love with another Enaran man called Dathan Alaris. But her father, Jareth, a community leader, disapproves of their romance, and so they meet secretly, with Dathan climbing through a window into Korenna's room. Torres dreams she is Korenna, with lover Dathan Her dream is so strong that she oversleeps, and is woken by Chakotay who reminds her that her duty shift began 20 minutes before. She confides that she has been having these powerful vivid dreams in which an Enaran man is her lover, and that they are the most sensuous and real dreams she has ever had. In their banter about it, she and Chakotay treat it as a pleasant and fun experience for her. The Voyager crew attend a party organised by Neelix, who has decorated the Messhall in the colours of the Enaran flags and set the room temperature to be the cooler one preferred by the Enarans. Kim and Jessen sit together and, along with Janeway and others, watch Jor Brel play a beautiful piece of music on an Enaran instrument which was composed by Mirell. Brel offers to teach Janeway, who never learned to play an instrument. She starts to play a delightfully sonorous tune but stops suddenly as she realises how the skill has been transferred to her. For the Enarans have the telepathic ability to communicate memories and experiences, which is achieved by the transferor standing behind the transferee and placing a hand up to their back but not quite touching it. Torres is absent from the social gathering, having gone to bed early in order to dream again. This time Korenna's father reminds her that Dathan is unsuitable, but once he has left her room Dathan appears - she had hidden him. But while they kiss and embrace, suddenly Dathan's face turns into a horrific burned visage, frightening her and making her wake up. While making a routine report to Chakotay in his office, Torres confides the development in her dreams. She explains that her love of the dream is a forbidden one and observes that each new dream advances Korenna's story. Chakotay says with the presence on board of the telepathic Enarans her dreams might not be coincidence. Later, on her way to Engineering, Torres loses consciousness while having a waking vision of Korenna's life. In her vision she, as Korenna, receives a citizenship award. Dathan meets her secretly to congratulate her, but their meeting is interrupted by the curfew bell. Dathan, along with others of his social group, known as the Regressives, are ejected through the village by the security guards there. proud father Jareth gives his daughter, Korenna, a citizenship award Korenna and Dathan meet secretly and commune telepathically. When they are obliged to part, Dathan lingers in the village gateway to look back at her before he is forced to leave by the security guards. When Torres awakens in Sickbay, having been found by Kes, the Doctor tells her that she is not dreaming, as she believed, but instead she is experiencing actual memories which have been specifically implanted in her mind. Fearing possible brain damage if Torres continues to receive the memories, he gives her a medical device designed to suppress them, despite Torres' protest that she would like to learn how Korenna's story ends. Janeway orders her to take two days' rest and informs her that she (Janeway) will investigate the matter. In her quarters, Torres decides not to use the medical device and settles on her bed to sleep. In her next vision, Torres i.e. Korenna questions her father, suspecting that he, as one of the government's officials, is forcibly 'resettling' people like Dathan. Jareth explains that Dathan and others like him are together known as Regressives because they reject modern technology which includes using it (as he sees it) to maintain basic hygiene, implying that they are unclean. He assures her that the Regressives will be better off in a separate settlement and that their resistance to being sent there is born from ignorance and unnecessary fear. Korenna helps her father and his soldiers gather certain Regressives for transportation, encountering a woman Regressive who exhibits exactly the ignorance and fear Jareth described. Korenna learns that Dathan is on the list of that particular batch to be resettled, but he has deliberately not turned up. She accuses Jareth of using the list to separate herself and Dathan. Her protest is interrupted when a Regressive, attempting to flee the soldiers, attacks her. She receives a large wound across her right cheek. This startles Torres awake, and she realises that in fact it was Korenna who was scarred, and not Torres. Torres realises that it is Mirell who has been planting the memories, for Mirell has a scar like Korenna received in the vision. When Torres arrives at Mirell's quarters, there is no response to the door signal, so she overrides the door control and enters. She finds Mirell lying on the floor, dying. Mirell does not answer Torres when asked who did this to her but does admit that she is Korenna and that she planted her memories in Torres's mind. She did so in order that the truth about the fate of the Regressives will not be forgotten when she dies. Mirell telepathically gives Torres the last part of the story, as follows: Dathan again visits Korenna late at night in her room. He tells her that the 'resettlement' of the Regressives is actually a programme to exterminate them. The Regressives are not transported but killed. No one has heard from any Regressive since they were 'resettled'. He urges Korenna to run away with himself and a group of other Regressives, telling her that she must now choose between himself and Jareth. She is forced to hide him when Jareth interrupts. Jareth convinces Korenna how implausible are the stories put about by the Regressives which he calls lies, so that Korenna comes to think of the idea of a conspiracy to commit genocide to be untrue. Jareth also persuades her that Dathan does not love her but has been manipulating her to gain sympathy for himself and the Regressives. She betrays Dathan by revealing his hiding place. Jareth seizes Dathan and marches him away. Dathan pleads with Korenna to run away with him betrayed by Korenna, Dathan is seized by Jareth Jareth has Dathan publicly executed with Dathan dead in front of her, Korenna shouts "Yes! Yes! Yes!" along with the Enaran mob The final part of Korenna Mirell's memories form a scene in which Torres relives a scene from the life of a slightly older Korenna. She is telling the revised history of events to a group of children, informing these innocents that the Regressives were allowed to resettle but they spread disease amongst themselves which destroyed them. Korenna Mirell dies and Torres awakes. As the Enarans prepare a farewell toast to the crew in the Messhall, Torres bursts in and proclaims the group as murderers, in particular Jor Brel their doyen. She accuses the Enarans of whitewashing their past and killing Mirell to continue the conspiratorial cover-up. But the Enarans do not wish to confront their past, not even Jessen whom Kim tries to persuade that it cannot hurt to listen to Torres. Torres accuses Brel of murdering Mirell and tries to make the Enarans acknowledge the genocide An hour afterwards, in the Captain's Ready Room, Torres' apology for her outburst is countered by Janeway telling her that she would probably have done the same thing. As a result of Torres' experiences, Janeway has cancelled trade agreements and shore leave. Torres is frustrated by Janeway's insistence that it is not up to Voyager's crew to seek justice for the Enarans' mass murder of the Regressives, particularly as the Doctor has been unable to find evidence that Mirell was murdered. However, Janeway does tell her that a group of Enaran engineers are packing up their equipment ready to leave. Torres goes to Main Engineering and talks to Jessen. Torres persuades her to try and prove her (Torres) wrong, by seeking the place where the Regressives are supposed to have been resettled, by talking to people and eliciting their memories. Jessen links telepathically with Torres, and Mirell's memories are thus passed to her. In this way, Mirell's memories about what happened to the Regressives will not die. Jessen listens, and creates a telepathic link in order to receive Mirell's memories from Torres    TORRES TO ENARANS ABOUT JORA MIRELL: She showed me everything: no apologies, no requests for forgiveness, just the truth.