SACRED GROUND
Episode 49

 

SUMMARY: Janeway undergoes a mysterious sacred ritual in a bid to save Kes' life. While visiting the Nechani home world, several crewmembers are taken on a tour of the sanctuary tended by the members of the Nechisti Order. The sanctuary honours the Nechani ancestral spirits and no scanning equipment is permitted there. Kes and Neelix, upon examining a special carved rock, lag behind the others in the tour, and the curious Kes enters a chamber which she does not realise contains the shrine, the holiest place. As she goes up to the shrine itself, she is struck unconscious by blinding white light. after being struck by a massive energy discharge in the shrine, Kes falls down unconscious Her body is beamed back to Voyager where she remains in a coma as the Doctor is unable to treat her until he know exactly what caused her injury except that she received a severe neuro-electric shock which disrupted her cortical functions. There are 800 megajoules running through the naturally-occurring biogenic field which protects the shrine and the thoron radiation levels are off the scale, but the members of the Nechisti Order are somehow able to pass through unscathed after preparing themselves with a sacred ritual during which they speak directly with the Ancestral Spirits. Janeway is most interested by a Nechani story that Neelix discovers. The story is about a young prince who wandered into the shrine accidentally and was struck down into the same death-sleep as Kes. Everyone said that it was the will of the Spirits. His father, King Nevad, refused to accept that, and went through the sacred ritual to seek an audience with the Spirits. The Spirits granted the King's plea for his son's life and the son was restored to health. Janeway decides to do the same for Kes and is granted permission by the sympathetic Nechisti Order to try. According to the Federation's cultural database, most spirit quest ceremonies involve some type of physical challenge or test of endurance to prove the mastery of spirit over body. With a bioprobe implanted in her body, Janeway beams into the sanctuary to begin the ceremony. She meets the Guide who confiscates her tricorder. Janeway changes into a plain robe and her face is painted with special markings. the Guide Janeway is helped into a ritual robe She is shown into a waiting room with three elderly Nechani who seem happy just to wait perhaps forever. Impatiently Janeway bangs on the exit door and is let out, wanting to proceed swiftly with the ritual. Janeway meets three old Nechani in the waiting room Now come the physical challenges and tests of endurance that she expected. In the ritual chamber, the Guide hands her a rock and asks what she sees. Janeway says she sees a stone, and is told to keep looking. Hours and numerous gruelling tests later, an exhausted Janeway is told to put her hand in a basket, where a three-fanged creature named a nesset bites her. The Guide places Janeway in a small coffin-like underground covered recess. Janeway is bitten by the nesset Janeway is sealed inside the small underground chamber On Voyager, the Doctor tracks the toxins from the bite as they course through Janeway's bloodstream, theorising it might be the key to treating Kes. In a vision induced by the toxins, Janeway asks the Spirits to restore Kes' health. Coming out of the vision, and released from the underground room, the Guide cryptically tells her that she already has what she needs to save Kes. in the toxin-induced vision, Janeway petitions the Spirits The ritual over, Janeway takes back her uniform and tricorder, and returns to Voyager where the Doctor prepares a cure from the toxins in her system. Yet when the cure is given to Kes, her condition worsens. the Doctor's cure derived from the toxins in Janeway's body fails to revive Kes, indeed she worsens Baffled, Janeway confronts the Guide. When Janeway realises that her own impatience kept her from accepting the truth of the ritual, she is sent back to the waiting room. The elderly Nechani she met there before chide her, saying she has no faith in the Spirits because she cannot scan them with her technology. They tell her that the only way to save Kes is to take her back through the shrine's energy field. Janeway realises that for this to work and for Kes not to be killed outright, she Janeway must believe, if not in the Spirits then in her own faith that she can help Kes. Despite protest from Chakotay, Janeway carries the unconscious Kes back into the shrine, where they are both hit by the mysterious energy and Kes is healed. Janeway takes Kes back into the shrine, are hit by the biogenic field; and Kes wakes from unconsciousness - cured On Voyager, the Doctor explains that Janeway's altered biochemistry caused the healing but Janeway suspects that it may have been something a little more spiritual.      GUIDE: I haven't led you anywhere, Kathryn. You've taken me along wherever you wanted to go. This was your Ritual. You set these challenges for yourself. JANEWAY: It's true that I came here with certain expectations. Are you saying that you simply fulfilled my expectations? GUIDE: You'd've settled for nothing else.