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SUMMARY: Characters who form part of the Holodeck program Fair Haven become suspicious of the Voyager crew when they notice strange, other-worldly happenings.
While driving along in the holographic Irish town of Fair Haven (first seen in [#131 Fair Haven]), Paris crashes his vintage automobile. Town resident Seamus cannot believe his eyes when he sees the damaged tyre magically repair itself. He immediately heads to Sullivan's pub, The Ox And Lamb, and tells his friends that he believes Paris is from the spirit world. The townsfolk recount the tale of another Irish town which vanished due to malevolent 'spirit folk' who had originally been welcomed into the town.
Tom Paris "magically" repairs his motor vehicle
after invoking Voyager's computer; he is seen by Seamus. |
Seamus (left) regales the townsfolk with his
story but Michael Sullivan (right) is sceptical |
Seamus' beliefs seem to be confirmed later when he and Milo secretly follow Tom Paris and see him pulling a prank on Kim by turning his girlfriend Maggie into a cow at the very moment when he is about to kiss her. Seamus and Milo rush into the church of St Mary's, bringing the cow, to tell the other townsfolk exactly what they saw.
Maggie, in the process of being transformed into a cow by Tom Paris. |
Seamus and Milo with Maggie the cow in the church;
the priest, played by the Doctor, is in the pulpit. |
The Doctor, who has taken the role of town priest, tells Seamus not to worry as Tom Paris is a known prankster and he himself has just seen Maggie outside the church. The Doctor ends the Mass early and tells Seamus and Milo to leave the cow. Shortly aftewards, Seamus and Milo see Maggie running her flower stall. She tells them that she woke up from the strangest dream in which she was walking around town with nothing but a bell around her neck, and she dreamt that she was in church with everyone looking at her.
The Doctor with Maggie the cow. |
Seamus and Milo hear Maggie's tale. |
| In the pub, various townsfolk regale the others with stories of "magical" happenings, such as Katie O'Clare "magically" healing the injuries of a fall suffered by a child. They suspect Katie, Tom, Harry, and the priest (the Doctor), whom someone saw vanish right before their eyes, are spirit folk conspiring against Fair Haven. However, Michael Sullivan insists the townfolk should act like civilised people and plans to have a talk with Katie O'Clare. |
Some townsfolk in The Ox And Lamb pub. |
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When Janeway, as Katie, visits Sullivan that evening in his pub, he tells her the townsfolk think that she and her friends are not from this Earth. He asks her where she is from. Because Janeway knows that he has begun to suspect that she is lying to him, she ends the holoprogram. |
| The senior staff gathers to discuss how the Holodeck characters could possibly be questioning their origin. In the Holodeck research laboratory, Paris and Kim bring up the Sullivan character to study. They find that he is surprisingly aware of his surroundings. Kim sees that each character's perceptual filters are offline, and in order to save the holoprogram they have to repair the malfunction by accessing each of the characters' controls from Sullivan's pub. Sullivan, meanwhile, cannily pretends he has been repaired but, still aware of his strange surroundings, listens carefully to their conversation. |
Paris and Kim investigate the Sullivan hologram in Voyager's holographic research lab. |
After being transferred back to his pub in Fair Haven, Sullivan goes to have a talk with Doc Fitzgerald. Sullivan tells him he remembers being spirited away to an unknown place where there was talk of changing the people of Fair Haven. The townsfolk make anti-spirit preparations, based in the church. When Kim and Paris enter the pub to work on the Holodeck control panel located there, one of the townsfolk is lying in wait for them and reports their presence to the others. The townsfolk burst into the pub, throw a net over the pair, believing this will stop the faeries from changing shape, and try to capture them. Seeing the Holodeck control panel and believing it to be bad magic, Milo fires a gun at it which damages the Holodeck controls. When Paris instructs the computer to freeze the program, only some of the townsfolk are frozen. Paris and Kim make a run for the Holodeck entrance, with a mob of townsfolk following close behind. But the damaged holodeck controls result in the entrance disappearing just as the mob descends on them.
Seamus supervises the capture of Paris and Kim using twine. |
Milo fires a gun at the Holodeck control panel. |
staff meeting; also present are Neelix, the Doctor and Seven |
Outside the Holodeck, Torres suggests cutting power to the hologrid, but Janeway refuses on the grounds that some of the crew have grown attached to the characters and would prefer an alternative solution. |
Paris and Kim find themselves tied to chairs near the altar of the church. As the townspeople use incantations to try to send them back to the spirit world, the Doctor appears in his role of the town's priest. The townsfolk, however, suspect him and find his mobile emitter. When they remove it, he becomes part of the malfunctioning holoprogram. Seamus hypnotises the Doctor, asking him questions about banishing the "spirit folk" to the "other world". In the hynoptic trance, the Doctor tells them about Voyager, and Sullivan demands that he instruct him on how to be transported to Katie's location.
Prisoners Tom Paris, Harry Kim and the Doctor. |
Sullivan interrogates the hypnotised Doctor about Voyager. |
The Voyager crew, assuming the re-activated mobile emitter to be attached to the Doctor, transfer him to the Bridge, but it is Sullivan who materialises, wearing the mobile emitter. Janeway decides to tell him something plausible and which is not an outright lie but does not tell him he and his Fair Haven friends are holograms. Instead of explaining to him that he is a hologram, Janeway tells him that her crew are similar to time travellers who live on a futuristic spaceship and who like to spend time in Fair Haven.
Sullivan finds himself on Voyager's bridge.
Janeway and Sullivan return to the Holodeck together and enter the church. He calms the townsfolk, and reminds them of all the good deeds and friendship they have experienced from the Voyager crew which shows they mean no harm.
Sullivan talks to the townsfolk.
Everyone is a friend again. |
The townsfolk agree with him that they would like to continue their friendship with the Voyager crewmembers. |
| While the damaged holodeck is being repaired, the Voyager crew enjoy one last time at Sullivan's pub before Fair Haven is temporarily put to rest. Janeway, back in her role of Katy O'Clare, gives Sullivan a copy of Mark Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' which contains certain allegorical elements about her relationship with Sullivan. |
One last visit to Fair Haven. |
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