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SUMMARY: 700 years in the future, the Doctor's back-up module is re-activated and he finds himself and Voyager's crew accused of mass murder.
In the Kyrian Museum of Heritage, its Curator, named Quarren, demonstrates to both Kyrian and Vaskan visitors the main exhibit which is a screened 3D simulation of events 700 years previously. Those events remain of enormous significance still, since according to history the brutal crew of the Warship Voyager precipitated the bitter civil war between Vaskans and Kyrians.
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| Quarren works the controls of the simulation and presents the exhibit to Vaskan and Kyrian visitors to the Museum |
According to historical records, an evil Captain Janeway agreed to aid the Vaskans in conquering the Kyrians in return for knowledge of a wormhole shortcut back to Mars, and she had no hesitation in unleashing Voyager's superior technology against the Vaskans including biological weapons that slaughtered millions. The simulation, which includes 3D re-creations of Voyager interiors, shows how Captain Janeway captured the heroic Kyrian leader named Tedran and ruthlessly murdered him when he refused to order his people to surrender. Tedran became a martyr to his people. Eventually the Vaskans and Kyrians, once Voyager had gone, came to an uneasy understanding and presently are supposedly at peace. The museum simulation's portrayal is supported by a number of surviving artefacts from the period, including a Voyager torpedo casing, a phaser and a medical tricorder.
in the simulation, Daleth persuades Janeway to help the Vaskans conquer the Kyrians in return for a shortcut home |
in the simulation, Voyager's android Doctor reports that it has prepared the biogenic weapons to unleash against the Vaskans |
in the simulation, knowledge of Tedran's whereabouts are obtained by torturing a prisoner |
in the simulation, Voyager's Borg force neutralise part of Tedran's boarding party |
the simulation's Captain Janeway |
the simulation's Daleth |
in the simulation, Captain Janeway kills Tedran's aide... |
...then Tedran himself |
Despite those events occurring 700 years previously, there are still underlying currents of tension, and one Vaskan visitor challenges Quarren about the accuracy of the historical record. Quarren replies that they have just discovered a new artefact from an archaeological dig in the ruins of Kesef, which is a data storage device of some kind that should, once it is examined, reveal more information to support the history portrayed in the simulation.
Museum interior |
Quarren answers a Vaskan's enquiry about historical accuracy |
Left alone within the 3D simulation of the Warship Voyager, Quarren examines the data storage device. Realising it contains a holographic program, he activates it. He discovers that it is Voyager's back-up EMH program. The Doctor (he will be described as such in this Synopsis) is shocked to learn that everyone he knew is far away and long dead. Worse, he is told that he will have to answer for the genocidal crimes he committed 7 centuries before, for according to historical records it was he who created the bacteriological weapons that massacred 8 million Kyrians.
the Doctor and Quarren in the simulation of Voyager's engineering |
the Doctor learns that he may have to face charges, with the penalty for genocide being the decompilation of his program i.e. death |
When Quarren plays the simulation presentation for the Doctor, he is horrified to see how extensive the inaccuracies are. There are comparatively minor errors consisting of incorrect names, ranks and jobs, e.g. a crew of over 300 soldiers including Borg and Kazon, the Doctor is recorded as being an android, the ship had a triple-armoured hull, 30 torpedo tubes, 25 phaser banks, fighter shuttles and a variety of biogenic weapons. Another inaccuracy is that Seven was fully Borg and led a Borg fighting force which recruited by forced assimilated. Far more important, however, the Voyager crewmembers are wholly incorrectly portrayed as thugs bent on mass murder, and the wholly incorrect depiction of Tedran's death.
Quarren angrily de-activates the Doctor |
Appalled, the Doctor tries to describe Voyager's side of the story. He explains that Janeway had just negotiated a trade agreement with Daleth the Vaskan Ambassador when they were attacked by a Kyrian raiding party led by Tedran. Rather than precipitate the war, the Voyager crew wanted only to extricate themselves impartially from it, and the last thing he remembers is Kyrian ships attacking Voyager. Quarren baulks at the idea that his people were the aggressors and that Tedran was in fact not the martyred hero, and he angrily de-activates the Doctor. |
After thinking about what the Doctor has said, and realising that the truth must be learned and faced, Quarren re-activates his program and even allows him to create a simulation of his own. This is shown to an arbitration group consisting of Vaskans and Kyrians. In the Doctor's simulation, Janeway had just concluded the trade agreement with Daleth when they heard that Tedran's Kyrian raiding party had taken several crewmembers hostage including Seven. When Voyager security guards trapped Tedran in the Messhall, Daleth killed him using his Vaskan gun.
in the Doctor's simulation, Tedran holds Seven hostage |
in the Doctor's simulation, Janeway, the Doctor and Daleth face Tedran |
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| as Voyager security guards burst in and hostage Seven punches Tedran, Daleth kills Tedran |
One arbitrator, a Kyrian woman, rounds on Quarren for betraying his people by aiding and abetting the Doctor who (she is convinced) is a proven murderer. The Doctor explains that if the extant tricorder, that had scanned the dead Tedran, was to be examined, it would prove that a Vaskan weapon had killed him, not a Voyager phaser rifle as depicted in the museum simulation. Despite the Kyrian woman's protest, the chief arbitrator, a Vaskan, gives permission for the tricorder to be examined.
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| the arbitrators, and one accuses Quarren |
a mob rampages through the Museum |
After the meeting with the arbitrators, the Doctor and Quarren are in the 3D simulation of Voyager's engineering, working on the tricorder, when a mob of Vaskans breaks into the museum. These Vaskans are furious about the Kyrians' revisionist history, and they trash the museum and the Voyager exhibits. As the Doctor and Quarren hide from the rampaging mob, the Doctor accidentally leaves behind the tricorder in a vulnerable place. |
a mob rampages through the Museum |
Once the Vaskans have left, Quarren and the Doctor emerge. Hearing that there are race riots and two people have been killed, the Doctor decides it would be best if his program is decompiled because, although he wants to clear Voyager's name in history, it is not worth more bloodshed. But Quarren refuses, realising that finding the tricorder is more important now since the Kyrians are determined that the Doctor be punished for genocide while the Vaskans are equally determined to hear his version of events. The civil war threatens to erupt anew. |
However, this did not transpire. Years into the future, watching another 3D simulation, a group of Vaskans and Kyrians see that the Doctor managed to give his testimony of events and was believed. Because of that pivotal moment in history, the Great War was at last portrayed accurately. Dialogue between the two sides occurred and eventually ushered in the Dawn of Harmony whereupon Vaskans and Kyrians came to live at true peace with each other. The Doctor served for several years as the people's Surgical Chancellor, but then left in a small spacecraft and headed toward the Alpha Quadrant to trace Voyager's path to Earth.
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| A later Museum Curator presents a simulation to Vaskan and Kyrian visitors which depicts events correctly based on the Doctor's testimony. There is a picture of the Doctor as Surgical Chancellor. |
 | | BACK-UP DOCTOR: From my perspective, I saw them all only a few days ago, but in fact it's been centuries, and I'll never see them again. Did they ever reach home, I wonder? |
| | QUARREN: I'm willing to keep an open mind, that's the most I can promise. Try to understand my point of view. All my life I thought I knew the truth. There was never any doubt. .... I want to know the truth, and I want the Arbiters to know it too.
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