Innocence
StarDate: 49578.2
Original Airdate: April 8, 1996
By Christina Luckings
The Story
A very second hand looking shuttle is sitting on the forest
floor, and Tuvok is rushing out with a medkit whilst trying to
contact Voyager. His companion on this trip, Mr. Bennet, is dying
of a broken back, and regretting that there is no one to miss
him when he is gone. Tuvok tells him that he believes Ensign
McCormick will miss him greatly, and the token yellow-shouldered
crew goes to the next emanation slightly comforted. There is
a noise in the bushes, and a young girl in a red dress dashes
out. Tuvok catches her and gets her to explain her presence.
Her name is Tressa, and their ship has crashed on this moon as
well. She asks about the stasis field he has put around Bennet’s
body, and his explanation seems to assure her that he is trustworthy.
She calls to her two young companions and they emerge from their
hiding place. These three children are the sole survivors of
their shipwreck. Tuvok tells them that he will look after them
and get them home safely. They thank him with a group hug.
‘Captain's log, supplemental. I've sent out scouting parties
to analyse the mineral deposits in the moons around Drayan II.
Meanwhile, I've arranged to meet with the planet's leader.’
On their way to the transporter room, Chakotay tells the Captain
that Neelix knows nothing about the Drayans. It seems they have
kept themselves very private for decades. He wishes they had
some idea of what to expect on this occasion, but Janeway is
looking forward to the unknown. She always envied the captain’s
privilege of making first contact. So did the young Chakotay,
to the point where he made a big error in Tarkannan gesture language
and propositioned the ambassador on his first diplomatic mission.
Relaxed and happy, they arrive to greet First Prelate Alcia and
her party on board Voyager. The Drayans are dressed head to toe
in grey, with veils over their faces, but are polite and the
two groups exchange traditional blessings. Alcia is only meeting
them because the story of their journey has intrigued her. Captain
Janeway invites her to tour the ship.
In engineering, Alcia asks if technology is their highest achievement.
Janeway explains that it is merely a tool to help them explore
the universe, and Alcia tells her that they used to be a very
technologically minded race, until they had a Reformation and
returned to putting the people first. Chakotay comments that
some human societies feel the same way.
On the moon, Tuvok has moved Bennet’s body into the shuttle,
and Tressa tells him that the attendants on their ship got the
children to the escape pods before they crashed. The other two
children, Corin and Elani, want to leave straight away, but Tuvok
explains that he has to repair it first but that he is more concerned
with finding a way to navigate through the electro-magnetic turbulence
that caused him to crash in the first place. He tells them that
Vulcan parents never shield their children from unpleasant truths,
and when they ask for food, gently explains that they only have
rations to eat, not takka berries in cherel sauce. The three
youngsters become very upset when they think that they will have
to stay on the moon overnight. That is when the Morrock comes
out of its cave and takes it’s victims. The cave is within
sight of the shuttle, so Tuvok goes over to scan it with his
tricorder, while Corin explains that last night it took the other
children from the ship, and tonight it will take them.
Next stop on the grand tour is the Sickbay, where Alcia and
her group are greeted by the EMH, proudly boasting that should
anything unfortunate happen to them while they are on board,
they will receive the best possible medical care. Janeway explains
that the EMH is a hologram, and this gives Alcia the opportunity
to share the Drayan philosophy that physical matter is an illusion,
a mere representation of the true self. Janeway picks up the
cue and refers to Plato’s idea of higher planes of true
existence. Just as the two women have reached a common understanding,
Kim calls through with a message for the First Prelate. She takes
it in the Doctor’s office while the Captain thinks through
the next step in these diplomatic exchanges – finding out
what the Drayans might what in exchange for the polyferranide
in their moons. Her plans are crushed when Alcia comes back out
of the office and suggests that Voyager continues on it’s
journey. Snubbed, Janeway brusquely orders the scouting parties
back.
Tuvok is interrogating the children while searching for the
Morrock and the others. It is clear that he believes that their
missing companions simply wandered off, but Tressa assures him
that they have been taken. He points out that the only fact they
know is that they are not within range of the tricorder. To calm
their fears, he teaches the three a simple meditative technique
to picture the fear as a cloud, then imagine a wind blowing it
away from them. He goes to repair the shuttle, expecting them
to behave like good Vulcan children. Of course, they do not,
and he has to tell them to sit down again. So they ask him questions
about Vulcans, and the shape of his ears, and he answers them
with patience and thoroughness. In an attempt to stop Elani fiddling
with some equipment, he makes them clasp their hands and focus
on the ends of their fingers to try and attain a meditative state.
During the question sessions, he admits to being ‘incomplete’ without
his children, in a wistful sort of way. Then Tressa hears another
ship coming. They all go into the shuttle to see if the sensors
can identify it. It is a Drayan vessel, and the children tell
him that it has not come to rescue them. They are the ones who
sent them here to die.
Tuvok and the children hide in the bushes as a search party
reaches the shuttle. He sets the tricorder to hide the group
from the Drayan’s scanners and they are passed by. Then
they discuss why a society should send it’s children to
die on a moon, and the nature of death itself. It turns out that
Tuvok doesn’t entirely believe in the katra, or soul, but
does think that there is something else after this life. However,
he does promise to protect them and get them safely to Voyager.
On Voyager, the bridge crew is beginning the search for Tuvok
and Bennet. Torres and Neelix had found a source of pure polyferranide
on their survey, and when they last spoke to the other team,
they had been told that they were going to check the outermost
moons. Paris follows the shuttle’s trail to the moon, where
they find a Drayan ship already in orbit and Alcia in a bad mood.
She accuses Janeway of desecrating their sacred ground, their ‘crysata’ and
tells her to transport anyone on the moon back to Voyager immediately.
Unfortunately, solar flare activity is causing the electro-magnetic
disturbances and preventing the targeting scanners and sensors
from doing their jobs properly.
Night has fallen, but the children cannot sleep. Tuvok leaves
his repairs to return with them to the camp fire and tuck them
back into to their beds. He reminisces about his youngest son’s
fondness for the epic ‘Falor’s Journey’ when
he could not sleep. It is a 348 verse song, sung to lute accompaniment.
Tuvok sings them a couple of verses, and they fall asleep immediately.
Dawn breaks and Tressa awakes to see two empty blankets. Somehow,
whilst Tuvok was awake and keeping watch over them, Elani and
Corin have both vanished.
Meanwhile, on Voyager, Torres has sorted out the sensors and
now they can see the two crashed shuttles on the moon. Kim has
found life signs too, but one moment there were four, and then
there were only two. Transporters are still not an option, so
Janeway tells them to find a way to get a shuttle down there
safely, as a last resort.
Tuvok is baffled. The sensors did not pick up any other life
forms during the night and there is no sign of the missing two
within five kilometres. So he hands Tressa a phaser, and seals
the shuttle while he goes to look inside the cave. There he finds
two sets of clothing, but no bodies. Tressa is greatly relieved
to see him back safely, and, as the disappearances have only
happened at night, he promises her that they will try to leave
before sunset. In return she promises to be quiet and not touch
anything. That will make it hard for you to help me, he tells
her.
The Drayans have several search parties on the surface now,
and Chakotay is getting impatient. Then there is a break in the
interference and Tuvok makes contact. He explains about the disappearing
children, and Tressa’s belief that the Drayans want to
kill her. Then they lose contact again. The mood on the bridge
changes, and Janeway hails Alcia to offer help with a joint search
party. The First Prelate insists that outsiders must not set
foot on their blessed haven, which is a shame as Janeway tells
her that she is going anyway. Voyager will not leave Drayan space
until every member of her crew is back on board her ship. She
picks Paris to go with her, and Kim tells her that the Drayans
use a dielectric field to protect themselves from the turbulence.
Janeway overrides her first officer’s objections by saying
that she has to be the one on the scene if there is any chance
of a diplomatic solution.
The pre-launch check list is glanced at briefly and they launch
with the warp drive offline while Paris creates the dielectric
field with it. The Drayans give chase, and they just hope that
they will not fire.
Tuvok is ready to take off, and he has also worked out about
the dielectric field. The shuttle’s thrusters are a problem
however, and there is a search party approaching. With a shower
of sparks from a console, he lifts off and hopes that they can
clear the atmosphere so that Voyager can beam them aboard. Alcia
appears on the view screen, promising to answer all Tressa’s
questions if only they return to the surface. When Tuvok refuses,
the Drayans open fire on him and he begins to lose power. Janeway
makes contact with him and after he has explained his situation,
she tells him to land. She and Paris will follow him down.
The sun is beginning to set again as Tuvok and Tressa walk into
the clearing by the Morrock’s cave. Tressa is afraid, and
Tuvok can only say that he will be there with her. Then both
Alcia and Janeway arrive to begin the confrontation. Tuvok refuses
to leave Tressa, and his Captain backs him, saying that the child
wants to live. Finally Alcia explains the reality of Drayan existence.
Tressa is not a child, she is 96 years old and about to die.
To the Drayans, other races aging processes are reversed, and
outsiders cannot understand how they approach death as innocent
children until the moment that the energy inside their bodies
is released. Nothing can change it, not even wanting to live.
They are all drawn back to the cave at the end to complete the
cycle of life. Tressa appeals to Tuvok, who calmly explains that
he cannot and would not try to protect her from the normal conclusion
of life. Alcia tells Tuvok that he has fulfilled an honourable
role in attending a child on the crysata, and accepts Janeway’s
apologies for disturbing their traditions. The two groups leave
Tressa and Tuvok alone in the clearing for the most sacred moments
of Tressa’s life – the final ones. She now knows
that it is her time, and for those moments she is no longer a
child, but a grandmother with sorrow at leaving her family behind.
Assuring her that she will live on in their thoughts, and his,
he takes her hand and together they walk into the cave.
Review:
This is an episode that you will either love or hate. You will
either adore the way Tuvok easily relates to the children, patiently
answering all the questions with just a brief glimpse of exasperation
as they play while he is trying to do his repairs or the Drayans
with their veils and their backwards aging premise with drive
you to despair. I recommend that you push the weird lifestyle
resolution of the mystery to one side and just enjoy Tim Russ
giving Tuvok a depth of character and motivation that he needs.
Tuvok is the only family man in the main cast. Ayala is known
to miss his sons, and we can assume other members of the 150
strong crew feel likewise, but it is only through Tuvok that
such feelings get clearly expressed, albeit couched in ‘non
emotional’ Vulcan terms of incompleteness and so on. The
two very short Drayan moon days he spends in the company of the ‘children’ give
us a good view of the caring, tolerant father that he evidently
must be to his four children back home. Like another Vulcan before
him, he is also a lute player. I wonder if it is safely in his
quarters, ready to emerge for a jam session in the mess hall
in some future episode?
The young actors acquit themselves well too. Their performances
have a relaxed, natural feel that you don’t always get
from children on television. Quite often you get a stilted, stylised
self-conscious performance (think Suspiria in Cold Fire) which
is uncomfortable to watch. Alcia had passion too. Behind that
veil the actress did a fine job. Oh, yes, those veils. How impractical.
Perhaps they only wear them when outsiders are about? And I suppose
we have to conclude that the young looking First Prelate is actually
a very mature woman, given that they ‘age backwards’?
It’s an interesting concept, and the evidence of the episode
suggests that, at their core, the Drayans are really an energy
life-forms who take physical form just for a while. Hence the
lack of bodies in the cave, just clothes. It’s a shame
that the limitations of television didn’t allow a better
representation of this people than ‘humanoid with thing
on forehead’.
Poor Ensign Bennet, such a brief role, to set the scene for
this journey into the meaning of death. The yellow shouldered
uniform is the twenty fourth century equivalent of the original
series red-shirt, but at least deaths in action are comparatively
few on Voyager. They don’t have a ready source of new recruits
to fill the gaps, after all.
Grade: 7/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Richard Garon as Ensign Bennet
Marnie McPhail as Alcia
Tahj D. Mowry as Corin
Sarah Rayne as Elani
Tiffany Taubman as Tressa
Creative Staff:
Director: James L. Conway
Teleplay By: Lisa Klink
Story By: Anthony Williams
