REG BARCLAY AND PROJECT PATHFINDER ref.[#152 Inside Man] (this page was originally called REG BARCLAY, HERO) In [Inside Man] he saves the lives of Voyager's crew.

Screenshots are from [Inside Man].

In 2376 Voyager established contact with Starfleet in the Alpha Quadrant thanks to the Pathfinder project and the brilliance of one Lt. Reginald Barclay [#130 Pathfinder]. Soon after [Pathfinder] Voyager has been receiving monthly datastreams from Starfleet. Voyager's data on the Delta Quadrant has initiated new fields of study in the Alpha Quadrant, and information about Delta Quadrant species such as the Talaxians and the Ocampa are taught in schools. For Voyager, the Starfleet datastreams provide both tactical information and private mail which the whole crew has come to rely on and look forward to receiving. One month's datastream in 2377 (specifically stardate 54129.4) is never received, however, and so the crew are relieved when the following month, on stardate 54208.3, the datastream is received successfully after initially jamming Voyager's transceiver and at the eventual minor cost of a few burnt out relays. It does not contain the expected material but instead a large holographic program which is identical to its creator Reginald Barclay.....or so it seems.

All that is known to the Project Pathfinder team is that twice they have tried to send the Barclay hologram to Voyager and both times have failed. Neither they nor Voyager's crew realise that in fact three Ferengi (led by one called Nunk) hijacked the first missing month's datastream in order to steal the holographic version of Reginald Barclay. They reprogrammed it with new motives, together with false medical information formulated to give the impression that Starfleet had developed the means of protecting Voyager and ship's crew while travelling through a geodesic fold. The Ferengi then transmitted the modified Barclay hologram to Voyager, where it informs a happy crew that they can bring themselves and their ship through a geodesic fold provided they implement the (false) medical information it claims was provided by Starfleet. The wicked Ferengi plan thereby to bring Voyager to them where they wait in their D'Kora class marauder vessel, so that they can seize Seven's body and extract her nanoprobes to sell for a vast fortune.

The concept of 'folding' space and creating a direct pathway between two hugely distant points is well known to the United Federation of Planets. They have made previous attempts to develop technology around the theory, including the crude system created by the Ansata Terrorists of Rutia IV based on the Elway theorem in 2366 [TNG: The High Ground], and the Spatial Trajector developed by the Sikarians in the Delta Quadrant [#10 Prime Factors]. Janeway informs the Barclay hologram that her crew have previously considered generating their own geodesic fold in space, but it quickly became clear through the simulations they undertook that the crew would never survive the trip. Voyager may have been a state-of-the-art ship when launched in 2371 but even its shields are useless against the fatal levels of geodesic radiation present within the entrance and exits to the spatial fold.

However, the plan presented by the altered Barclay hologram appears to be simple, seemingly answering all the problems previously encountered with geodesic fold transportation. To paraphrase the altered Barclay hologram:

Voyager is travelling toward Grid 898, a sector of space occupied by a red giant star - at that very moment, the altered Barclay hologram claims a team of Federation scientists are orbiting red giant 23139 in the Alpha Quadrant, although in reality it is a Ferengi marauder ship waiting in position to spring the trap and secure the priceless Borg nanoprobes contained in Seven's body. By targeting red giant 23139's magnetic field with a verteron beam, a geodesic fold will be created adjacent to the giant's north pole that will simultaneously generate a fold in the upper atmosphere of the Delta Quadrant red giant. Space is effectively punctured, and a gateway is generated between the two points, allowing Voyager to journey the equivalent of 30,000 light-years in a matter of seconds. The generation of the fold in the Alpha Quadrant has to be carried out very precisely, as Voyager has only 16 seconds in which to travel through the link and emerge through the upper atmosphere of the Alpha Quadrant red giant.

The altered holographic Barclay quickly dismisses the reservations of Voyager's crew by claiming that great advances have taken place in geodesic research in the six years they have been journeying through the Delta Quadrant, a lie created by the Ferengi as part of their nefarious plan. A series of schematics designed to upgrade Voyager's shields are held within the matrix of the altered Barclay hologram, as well as medical technology formulated to provide enhanced protection for the crew in liaison with the shield modifications. The real Lt. Barclay is known and trusted by Janeway and her crew, therefore a number of teams are given specific tasks in order to prepare the vessel for the dangerous journey, unaware that they would not survive the passage through the fold:

• Paris is charged with charting the best course to and through the fold
• Tuvok and Torres are to work on the shield modifications
• The Doctor is to manufacture of the geodesic radiation innoculations
• Neelix is told by the altered Barclay hologram that his task may be the most important of all - to maintain crew morale throughout the long and tiring hours of work.
• Seven is certain that despite any shield modifications Voyager will sustain significant damage while journeying through the fold, and suggests the implementation of Borg technology to generate a structural integrity field in front of the vessel to reduce the massive pressures on the ship, similar to that used aboard Borg ships as they traverse transwarp conduits.

The most serious doubts about a successful journey through the geodesic fold comes from the Doctor. His study of the false Starfleet medical treatments does not satisfy his fears of the crew not being adequately protected from the lethal geodesic radiation during the short journey. The new innoculations are virtually identical to existing Starfleet radiogenic vaccines, and even with the incorporation of a synthetic antigen they only serve to improve resistance to geodesic radiation by 10 percent. The altered holographic Barclay claims that will be enough while working in combination with the shields. If the treatments do not work, however, the entire crew will be liquified.

Fortunately for Voyager, Reginald Barclay probes the reason why two months' datastreams did not reach Voyager, carrying on investigating even when his immediate superior tells him that Admiral Paris, who is in charge of the Pathfinder Project (and who is Tom Paris' father), has decided that the following month they will revert to sending ordinary datastreams. When Barclay learns that a Borg ship travelled close to where the data transmission was lost and wonders if the Borg stole his hologram, he is told to go on leave. Again, fortunately for Voyager, Barclay is very tenacious. Instead of letting the matter rest as ordered, he visits his friend and therapist Counsellor Deanna Troi (Deanna Troi Index) to discuss things (they both served together on USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D). She encourages him to investigate a possibly related mystery - that of his girlfriend Leosa's sudden abandonment of him and subsequent disappearance, for she senses some guilt on Barclay's part that Leosa and his talking about his work are connected. When Starfleet track down Leosa, they question her and Deanna Troi manages to elicit an admission that she worked with the Ferengi, and deliberately cultivated Barclay in order to learn about the hologram. Thanks to a hint unintentionally given by Leosa, Barclay deduces the Ferengi's entire plan, nanoprobes and all, and realises that Voyager is in deadly danger. He confides his fears to Deanna Troi but dare not reveal them to his superiors without evidence. Is this the end for the crew of Voyager?

Meanwhile, in the Delta Quadrant, as Voyager approaches the geodesic fold at one-quarter impulse, Seven detects three types of radiation not accounted for but before she can inform Janeway the altered holographic Barclay incapacitates her. In the Pathfinder lab, Barclay masquerades as the altered holoprogram of himself. He stands in the holosimulation of Voyager's engine room as a convincing backdrop, informs the Ferengi Janeway has discovered their plan and is after revenge, and thus convinces them to close the fatal geodesic fold before Voyager can pass through it. Meanwhile, the altered Barclay hologram beams itself and Seven to an escape pod and ejects from the ship, but are beamed back. The altered Barclay hologram is deactivated although the crew do not know why it went wrong nor know the full story. They will have to wait until they reach home for that. To them, once again a way home has been tried and failed, yet they do not know how lucky they are to be alive.....and that they owe their lives to Reginald Barclay.

In Voyager's astrometrics lab Seven is rendered unconscious by the altered Barclay hologram.

Reginald Barclay masquerades as the altered holographic version of himself. He convinces the Ferengi plotters to close the geodesic fold before Voyager can enter it.

 

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