Scorpion, part I
Stardate: 50984.3
Original Airdate: May 21, 1997
By Christina Luckings
The Story
See the Borg cubes, floating in space. See the streaks of energy
blast them to atoms.
Signorina Catarina Janeway is listening to Leonardo da Vinci
complain about the lack of payment from his patron, and talking
him into allowing her to work along side him in his studio. She
finally persuades him by suggesting he model his flying machine
not on a flapping bird but on a soaring, gliding hawk. Chakotay
summons his Captain to Engineering, to tell her that their long
range probe has stopped transmitting after two months, and the
last thing it saw was – a Borg cube.
The senior officers briefing examines telemetry from the lost
probe which shows a Borg-free passage which is riven with gravitational
problems. They are going to go for this, and the EMH reports
that he is getting to grips with the Borg nanoprobes. Neelix
has plans to make their rations go further. Voyager becomes a
hive of activity as everyone prepares for the possibility of
being boarded.
Whilst Kes and the EMH consider ways to try and slow down assimilation
by using the victim’s own immune system she has a vision
of dead Borg piled up in a heap. Tuvok reports that she is continuing
to see images as Voyager is suddenly caught in the middle of
subspace turbulence with fifteen Borg vessels closing on them.
The little ship is bounced about in their wake as they streak
past. One scans them, then continues on its way. Later, Chakotay
tries to prise Janeway out of her Ready Room to eat something,
but she is working through various log entries about the Borg.
This moment was inevitable, and she has doubts as to whether
she should go on, or tell the crew that they are going to turn
around and find somewhere to settle down.
Kim reports that the fifteen Cubes are now dead, and, consumed
with curiosity, Captain Janeway orders them to set a course to
investigate. Once at the sight, the viewscreen is full of debris.
There is the weapons signature of a second kind of ship. Someone
powerful enough to destroy the Borg. Kim is keen to meet them – the
enemy of our enemy is our friend - then they pick up traces of
a biomass on the side of a near intact Cube. Chakotay, Tuvok
and Kim are sent to find out more.
Phaser rifles at the ready they make their past drones stuck
in their last assigned task, and come across the pile of bodies
that Kes saw in her first vision. At the biomass, they find a
drone trying to assimilate it, and constantly failing. Chakotay
requests permission from Janeway to enter what appears to be
an organic ship, and sends Kim to download what data he can from
a nearby node. Inside, Tuvok notes that the walls are regenerating
themselves from weapons damage, while Kim picks up something
nearby. Kes has a premonition in sickbay and insists that the
team are in danger. The EMH contacts the bridge, but Torres cannot
get a clear lock, so she tries a skeletal lock instead. An alien
lashes out at Harry and injures him just before the away team
is beamed to safety. The bioship powers up, and Voyager makes
its escape. Kes has received a message from the pilot in the
meantime - the weak will perish.
‘Captain's log, Stardate 50984.3. It's been 12 hours since
our confrontation with the alien life form. There is no sign
that we're being pursued, and we've had no further encounters
with the Borg. I've decided to hold our course. The Northwest
Passage is only one day away, and I won't allow fear to undermine
this crew's sense of purpose, even if that fear is justified.’
The EMH has been unable even to sedate Harry since he was infected
with alien cells. Now they have multiplied and are eating him
alive. Although the Borg nanoprobes are normally ineffective
against the invaders, the EMH has modified a few and they are
successfully fighting the infection, but it will take him several
days to modify enough to cure him.
On the bridge, Torres has been examining the data Harry got
from the Cube. The aliens have been designated species 8472,
and they can be found in that exact part of space that Voyager
is heading for. There are over 133 bioships emerging from a quantum
singularity ahead and Kes can hear them. These aliens come from
a place where they are all alone, and they intend to destroy
everything here. Janeway takes Chakotay into her ready room to
discuss their options, which are now down to turning around or
dealing with the Borg. Chakotay suggests she sleep on it, and
she agrees, but instead goes to talk with Leonardo. He is sitting
gazing at the shadows cast by candlelight on a wall, seeing many
images with his imagination. Catarina tells him that she cannot
find a way between her options of being destroyed by mutual enemies
or never getting home. Leonardo suggests they wake the Abbott
and appeal to God for a solution. She dismisses the idea, then
considers it’s opposite – what if she made an appeal
to the Devil?
Explaining herself in the briefing room, she says that she is
going to offer the EMH’s research into fighting Harry’s
infection in return for safe passage. By keeping all the information
on his holomatrix, the Borg will not be able to get at it, and
after all, they are only one small ship. She dismisses them,
but Chakotay stays behind. He disagrees with her, and tells her
the parable of the Scorpion and the Fox, in which the fox is
persuaded to allow a scorpion to travel on his back as he swims
across a river. Half way across, the scorpion stings the fox,
and they both drown, because it is in it’s nature. Janeway
is confident in her plan, while Chakotay wants to turn around,
find a safer way. He doesn’t want to help the Borg assimilate
another species just to help the crew get home, and cannot be
persuaded. She calls on his trust, and asks if she has his support.
He tells her that as her first officer, he will follow her orders.
She dismisses him.
Voyager makes it’s rendezvous with a Borg vessel orbiting
the nearest Borg inhabited planet. As a tractor beam is locked
onto them, Janeway makes her pitch, sending a small sample of
their information as a taster of what they can offer. In reply,
they beam her on board a Cube, and tell her that they need the
technology to stop 8472 now. Escorting Voyager through their
space first would take too long. She sticks to her guns, and
offers to work with the Borg to develop a weapon more quickly
en route. A quantum singularity suddenly opens nearby and a swarm
of bioships launch an attack on the Borg planet, blowing it and
the nearby cubes apart. Just one gets away, dragging Voyager
with it.
To be continued…
Review:
Finally, as promised in the epilogue to Blood Fever, and all
through Unity, here are the Borg. Big, black, cubed and – at
war with someone more dangerous to humanoid life than they are.
If you like explosions, spooky corridors and Harry suffering
silently as he gets eaten alive, you’ll be happy here.
However, there is something sitting not quite right with this
show, and it’s Captain Janeway. For most of this season
she has been channelling James T Kirk, and the show has benefited
from it. Now it appears to be Captain Ahab, with all the blinkered
vision that implies. She won’t take her first officers
advice, and the implication is that if he ‘loved’ her,
he’d go along with everything she said. Janeway has got
religion, and her fanatical creed is to Get Home no matter what
danger she puts everyone in.
Her holodeck program has changed, for the better, which is another
source for the ‘religious’ overtone of the episode.
Sadly, the Captain is being lured to the Dark Side, making a
pact with the devil she knows, the Borg.
It’s a well presented story, and the stakes have been
increased with an adversary even more fearsome than the Borg.
It’s a great cliff-hanger too.
Grade: 8/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Guest Cast:
John Rhys-Davies as Leonardo da Vinci
Creative Staff:
Director: David Livingston
Teleplay By: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky
