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SUMMARY: Vivid images of a battle haunt the crew. They remember perpetrating a massacre of unarmed alien civilians, but they never committed such an atrocity, or did they?
Chakotay, Paris, Kim and Neelix return from a two-week away mission during which they scanned planets and gathered dilithium ore. During the away mission the sonic shower went offline. Tempers became frayed because the four of them were living so close together for a length of time. Upon returning to Voyager the away team members are too keen to become comfortable again that they postpone the compulsory away team medical examination.
the Delta Flyer crew suffer from "too much togetherness" |
on the away team's return, the Doctor's request that they immediately attend the compulsory medical falls on deaf ears and he is left alone in the corridor |
Soon afterwards they experience strange and disturbing visions. Paris dreams that he is engaged in an alien battle, initially vividly depicted in his mind portrayed on the vintage television set Torres replicated him as a surprise gift. Kim suffers an anxiety attack during a routine check of a plasma leak in a Jefferies tube and, suffering the sudden onset of claustrophobia, makes a panicked escape. Chakotay suffers from violent dreams in which he is in the middle of a battle offensive. Neelix, reacting to the weapons fire he is hearing in his head, takes the child Naomi Wildman hostage in the Messhall, convinced he has to protect her from danger.
Chakotay, woken from his nightmare by Tuvok, goes to the Messhall. Strangely, he seems to understand the siege scenario Neelix is imagining, and he persuades Neelix to release Naomi and hand over his phaser.
The Doctor examines the nightmare-sufferers. The increased engrammatic activity of Chakotay and the others indicates that they are reacting to actual memories not delusions. When Janeway gathers the away team members together and asks them to recount their away mission, they begin having flashbacks of their roles in an attack force against the Nakan. Commander Saavdra ordered them to evacuate the Nakan from their remote colony, but a small group of the colonists became flustered and began firing weapons. Chakotay and the others on the force panicked in the ensuing chaos and shot back, murdering 82 civilians in the process.
Saavdra briefs his officers on the temporary relocation of the colonists, warning them some might be reluctant to go |
Chakotay reminds Saavdra that the troops are exhausted but Saavdra refuses to allow them rest |
as the troops move the colonists, someone opens fire |
tired and panicked, the troops
also open fire, killing the innocent colonists |
Kim recalls that he tried to escape. He crawled along a tight cave tunnel which opened out into a cave where he found two frightened colonists. In his panic, thinking one, an old man, was going to kill him, Kim shot them.
Trying to solve the mystery, Janeway orders Voyager into the star system the away team was scanning and joins Seven in reviewing the Delta Flyer's sensor logs. As soon as Janeway sees Tarakis, the second planet encountered by the away team, she also begins having flashbacks of the massacre. She remembers that when Saavdra began vaporising colonists' bodies to remove the evidence she pleaded with him to admit their mistake, but he refused to listen. Janeway wakes up three hours later in Sickbay, and learns that the rest of the crew have also begun experiencing the battle memories. Voyager sets course for Tarakis.
Janeway recalls arguing with Saavdra over his attempt to hide the evidence |
Voyager orbits Tarakis |
the away team beam down |
Once Voyager is in its orbit, Kim picks up a weak power signature from the planet. Janeway, Chakotay, Paris, Tuvok, Kim and a security guard beam to the planet surface but find a pleasant green countryside in which there seems to be no trace of a massacre having occurred there. The away team splits into two groups in order to investigate: Janeway and Chakotay; and the others. |
Kim searches for the cave where he killed two colonists |
Janeway and Chakotay follow the
tricorder's reading of a power signature |
the skeletons of the two murdered colonists |
Kim locates a familiar rock formation. He and Tuvok descend into the cave tunnels where Kim remembers that he had killed two of the innocent colonists. The colonists' remains are found, but Tuvok's scans show that they died 300 years ago, so it is impossible that Kim could have killed them. |
Meanwhile, Janeway and Chakotay find a large structure erected in the middle of a grassy field.
in Voyager's Astrometrics Lab, the ship's computer translates the message on the memorial (see quote at end) |
Seven identifies the edifice as a synaptic transmitter which is sending neurogenic pulses throughout the star system. Anyone entering will experience the memories of the massacre, from the viewpoint of its perpetrators. The structure is a memorial to the victims. As well as having a message in the native tongue etched into its surface, which the crew translate, the memorial is also designed to transmit into the minds of passers-by a vivid reminder that such a tragic mistake should never be allowed to happen again. Because the memorial's power cells are deteriorating, the memories are fragmented, which is what so confused the Voyager crew earlier. |
The crew are still shaken by the disturbing realism of the visions they were forced to endure, and they want to shut down the transmitter. But Janeway orders them to recharge the power cells and thus repair the memorial. They do so, with Janeway leading the members of the original away team in this task, as she wants the crewmembers who experienced the memories with the greatest intensity to be present when the whole matter is closed.
Accordingly, the memorial will continue to spread its hauntingly effective message. As Voyager departs, the crew leave behind a warning buoy so that anyone entering the Tarakis system in future will be aware of the nature of the "memories" they experience.
the Delta Flyer away team, and Janeway, take a last look at the memorial as they prepared to beam up |
the Tarakis memorial is left, now fully operational again |
 | | MESSAGE ETCHED ON THE TARAKIS MEMORIAL: Words alone cannot convey the suffering. Words alone cannot prevent what happened from happening again. Beyond words lies experience. Beyond experience lies truth. Make this truth your own. |
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