UNITY
Episode 59
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SUMMARY: Voyager's first encounter with the Borg is with a group of former drones who request the starship for help.
Chakotay and Ensign Kaplan get lost while returning from a shuttlecraft mission scouting in the Nekrit Expanse. They are surprised when they suddenly pick up a Federation distress call from a planet. After launching a buoy to let Voyager know where they are, they land to offer assistance. But they are attacked by a hostile group of humanoids, and Kaplan is killed. The injured Chakotay is rescued by another humanoid group led by a human woman named Riley Frazier. Riley explains to Chakotay that she is part of a co-operative made up of different species whose members were kidnapped by aliens and left to fend for themselves. The other kidnapped aliens who are not part of the co-operative are not as friendly. For his part, Chakotay explains who he is and Voyager's course toward home in the Alpha Quadrant. He estimates that it will take sixty-seven years to get home from this point in Voyager's journey. He cannot leave in the shuttlecraft because the hostile group stripped it for parts so that it is effectively destroyed. Meanwhile on Voyager, the crew find a Borg cube adrift in space containing eleven hundred dead drone. When they board it, they find a perfectly preserved Borg corpse which they bring aboard Voyager for the Doctor to study. Investigation reveals the cube ceased operation five years earlier. On the planet, Chakotay wanders outside the sickroom and happens across several of the co-operative, and realises that Riley's story was only partly truthful, for she and the others were once Borg drones. He is now given the full story. Riley was assimilated at Wolf 359, where she was a science officer aboard the Federation Starship Roosevelt. Five years ago, their Borg cube was damaged by an electrokinctic storm and their link to the Borg Collective was severed. Those who survived settled on the planet, but they began fighting each other for the limited food and supplies. First a group of Klingons attacked the Cardassians, then the Farn raided the Parcin, and eventually anarchy reigned. There are three humans that Riley knows of, besides her, along with some Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, and dozens of other species she has never seen before. The co-operative wants to stop the fighting and Riley seeks Chakotay's help as it is only a matter of time before they succumb to the hostile raiders. But for now, it is Chakotay who needs help. Due to the serious nature of his injuries, he is told his only option is to join his mind temporarily with Riley and others of the co-operative in a healing link, akin to the neural link that Borg drones have with each other throughout the Borg Collective. For the Borg Collective consciousness allows them to transfer information instantaneously, to think with one mind, and it also has inherent medical applications. The Borg were connected by a continuous neuro-electric field which was capable of regenerating the damaged components of an injured drone, and of healing both organic and inorganic body parts. To establish the healing link, a small neurotransmitter is attached to the base of Chakotay's skull. Afterwards his injuries are improved, and Chakotay feels far closer to the group, particularly Riley. For instance, during the link he learned that Riley's favourite flowers are bluebonnets, which she used to pick with her grandfather. In the autopsy of the Borg corpse, the Doctor determines that the subject shows signs of having been electrocuted (which ties in with Riley's account of an electrokinetic storm). Tracking the shuttlecraft buoy, Voyager locates Chakotay and beams him and Riley up to the ship. There Riley asks Janeway to help her use the generator on the dead Borg cube to re-establish a neural link among all the former Borg on the planet. (They cannot use the sort of neurotransmitter they used for Chakotay as it is too small, is only powerful enough to link a small group of people and the effect is only temporary. In order to reconnect the entire population permanently, they need a much bigger neural-electrical field generator, like that found on the Borg cube, and they need Voyager's aid in order to reach it and activate it.) Riley and the co-operative believe this will stop the fighting and allow them to work together to build a true community. Upon consideration, Janeway refuses as it would mean imposing a decision on people who had no choice and she is afraid that activating the Borg cube and creating a new collective would be a terrible risk with unknown repercussions. Chakotay asks Riley how long she thinks she and her co-operative can hold out against the raiders on the planet and she replies they will do the best they can and maybe they will be able to access the Borg cube another way in order to re-initiate the neural link. He asks her to join him on Voyager but she responds that her place is with the co-operative. Riley returns to the planet, but she and her group use their former link with Chakotay to force him to assist in their plan. Under their control, Chakotay commandeers the shuttlecraft that he and Torres are in to travel back to Voyager. He goes to the Borg cube, and boards it in order to activate the generator and achieve the co-operative's neural link. Time is running out for the co-operative - even as they instruct Chakotay on how to activate the generator and the neural link, raiders are attacking the co-operative's bunker. Despite the efforts of a Voyager away team, commanded by Tuvok, to prevent Chakotay, the link is re-established. Fortunately, rather than Janeway's fears being realised, the faction fighting on the planet ceases as the co-operative reaches out telepathically to all the former Borg. The resulting new collective destroys the Borg cube and releases Chakotay from their link, thanking him and the Voyager crew for their coerced help.
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T H E E N D
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