Sacred Ground
Stardate: 50063.2
Original Airdate: Oct 30, 1996
By Chakoteya
The Story
‘Captain's log, stardate 50063.2. We've accepted an invitation
from the Nechani to take a few days shore leave on their world.
We're enjoying the opportunity to learn about their culture.’
The Magistrate is showing Kim and Torres, Neelix and Kes around
the local equivalent of a cathedral, where monks worship the ancestral
spirits. Kes’s interest is piqued by a strangely lit shrine
and goes to investigate, only to be struck down by some sort of
energy field. As Kes and Neelix are beamed to sickbay, the Magistrate
explains that this is a very sacred area and that she is going
to die for offending the spirits. He turns down their demands
to scan the area to find out what happened and suggests they return
to the ship before they offend the monks further.
The EMH has no idea how to treat Kes, and the crew are scanning
the sanctuary from Voyager (in violation of the no-scanning order).
Neelix is sent off to research the shrine and what happens there
while Captain Janeway talks with the Magistrate in her Ready Room.
It turns out that it is the most holy place in the sanctuary.
Monks go through a ritual and then enter safely through the energy
barrier to the shrine to talk to the spirits. He tells her that
she has his sympathy, but that there is nothing more to be done.
The scans have revealed a biogenic energy field so strong that
Kes is lucky not to have been killed outright. Neelix has not
found any scientific information, but he has come across a legend
of King Nevad who went through the ritual in order to be able
to plead with the spirits to restore his son, who had wandered
into the shrine accidentally, just as Kes did. The Magistrate
is impressed with the research, and agrees to ask the monks to
let Janeway go through the ritual as the King did. After all,
the Captain is responsible for her crew just as a father is responsible
for his son.
Janeway discusses her plan with Chakotay in his office, sure
that there will be a series of ordeals that alter the body chemistry
to allow her to pass through the barrier. Chakotay cannot persuade
her that there may really be ancestral spirits at work. The Magistrate
calls to tell her that the request has been granted, and that
the ritual starts at sunset. With a sub-dermal bioprobe-cum-homing
beacon in her arm, Captain Janeway beams down to the sanctuary.
There is supposed to be a guide waiting for her, but she doesn’t
see anyone, so she gets out her tricorder and starts scanning.
A woman trying to mend a light asks for her help and Janeway reluctantly
goes over to see. She borrows the tricorder, admires it then confiscates
it. Captain Janeway has met her guide.
In a nearby area, Kathryn is undressed, decorated, and dressed
in a robe for the ritual. She is quizzed to make sure that she
is determined to go through with this, and told that the bioprobe
has been detected, but that it will make no difference to what
happens. Then she is shown into a room where three old people
have been waiting for as long as they can remember. Kathryn does
not want to wait and decides that this is a test of her determination
in face of their distraction to sit and be sociable. The trio
assess her perfectly – driven, determined, on a mission
and thinking herself clever. She hammers on the door and her guide
allows her to continue on.
They go to a room and Kathryn paces around, giving away her expectations
to be taken through a series of tasks while denying that she has
any preconceived ideas at all from her research. The guide tells
her that it is all meaningless, that all that matters is connecting
with the spirits, then leads her to the first ‘challenge’
– standing holding a rock and staring at it until she sees
something else. Up on Voyager, the EMH and Chakotay are monitoring
the bioprobe readings, which show light muscle stress at present.
It is all being put into a programme to try and find a treatment
to Kes.
Next is finger painting, not Kathryn’s forte. She prefers
the absolute right or wrong of mathematics. Then rock-climbing,
then staring at the stone again when for a moment it glows, and
Kathryn has a moment of doubt. Did she really paint and climb
or just have an hallucination? The EMH picks up very high neuropeptide
readings, that may be an indication of a possible treatment.
The guide brings Kathryn a drink, and a basket containing something
that hisses – a nesset. It is a gatekeeper to the spirit
world, and Kathryn is invited to put her hand in the basket. She
steels herself and does, only to be bitten on the arm. The venom
burns through her body, making her chest tight. As she collapses,
she sees flashes of recent events and hears Kes calling to her.
Kathryn is laid in a vault and the lid closed shut over her.
Chakotay is concerned about Janeway having been poisoned and
being awake for three days. The EMH is monitoring her and is sure
that if she wanted to be beamed out, she could tap the homing
signal. In the meantime, the reactions of the toxin in her system
are proving very informative in a medical sense. Kathryn is really
hallucinating this time. She sees herself with the guide on a
beach by a cliff, and asks if she can see any spirits that might
be there. The guide reminds her that it is all irrelevant and
meaningless. Kathryn makes her request for the spirits to save
Kes, and is told that she has what she needs to save her herself.
It has been 39 hours when Kathryn emerges from the ‘tomb’
and is handed her uniform. Hugging it to her chest she leaves
the sanctuary. The EMH pronounces the Captain in good shape and
that he is ready to treat Kes based on the effects of the nesset
toxin. However, his best laid plans go awry, and an increasingly
anxious Neelix gets in his way as Kes fails to wake up despite
everything being as it should be. He stops the treatment and tells
Janeway that everything she went through was meaningless.
Realising that she had been told the truth all along, Kathryn
goes back to consult her guide. She had set all her own challenges,
and would have settled for nothing else. Now she is back and does
not know what she is seeking. The guide believes she really is
ready now, and sends her into the waiting room. The old folk are
not surprised, they have seen people do extraordinary things to
themselves in pursuit of the spirits. However, they point out
that not everything can be explained scientifically. Kes hasn’t
got better, and yet Kathryn believes that an explanation will
eventually be found, even though her science has failed before
her eyes. She has unconditional trust in her chosen belief system,
which is promising. Then they suggest something that she could
do – an irrational, unreasoning act which goes against all
the facts. Take her back into the shrine, to the biogenic field,
believing that she is ready and that it will save Kes, not kill
her. It is her last hope, and Kathryn says that she will try.
Janeway contacts Chakotay and tells him to get Kes down to the
sanctuary. He beams down accompanied by Neelix and she meets them
to explain what she plans to do. Chakotay’s tricorder still
says that entering the energy field would be lethal, so he threatens
to relieve her of duty if her judgment is impaired. The guide
says that no one knows what will happen to them until they enter
the shrine. Kathryn realises that the challenge is not understanding
what is happening, and picks up Kes. At the top of the steps she
pauses them moves forward. They connect with the energy field
with no ill effects, and Kes opens her eyes.
Back on Voyager, the EMH explains that Chakotay’s tricorder
detected iridium in the field, which helped dissipate some of
the effects of the energy. The treatment Kes had already received
simply required a jolt from the energy to make it work, like a
natural synaptic stimulator. Captain Janeway’s eye’s
glaze over. She is not convinced by this very scientific explanation,
and walks out.
Review:
This story was produced immediately after Basics, and sits uneasily
in among the Season three Kirk/Janeway stories. The whole thing
is supposed to point up the contrast between ‘religious
faith’ and ‘secular faith’, or the lack thereof.
The Captain is a worshipper at the altar of Science, and believes
that there is a rational explanation for everything. Even when
it fails in front of her eyes, she knows that it is only because
there is something else to be discovered which will make sense
of it all. Which makes a slight mockery of her closing words in
Season One’s ‘The Cloud’ when she has found
her spirit guide and asks ‘perhaps there is one powerful
being who will embrace this good crew and give them the answer
they seek.’
In all, the episode is vaguely dull. The resolution is so clearly
telegraphed from the start, that Janeway will have to take a leap
of faith to heal Kes, that the only question is – how often
can the viewer stand to see her be told the obvious without it
sinking in? As for having Chakotay (of all people) beam down into
the sanctuary with a forbidden tricorder and start using it, well,
is this really the First Officer whose respect for other cultures
was so clearly stated in Emanations? I’ve heard of character
development, but that was a change too far. You might as well
get him to ask the EMH to laser off his tattoo if you are really
going to alter the character that much.
The old folk (spirits?) in the waiting room are wonderfully portrayed,
as is Janeway's guide. I really took to her as a spiritual mentor.
There are some beautiful shots, and I’m sure some people
enjoy the sight of Naked Janeway getting her body painted, but
these alone cannot rescue the episode, which is a pity as it is
Robert Duncan McNeill's directing debut. Hopefully he'll get better
stories to work with in the future.
Grade: 4/10
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:
Parley Baer as Old Man #1
Becky Ann Baker as Guide
Keene Curtis as Old Man #2
Harry Groener as Magistrate
Estelle Harris as Old Woman
Creative Staff:
Director: Robert Duncan McNeill
Teleplay By: Lisa Klink
Story By: Geo Cameron
