Plot
As Voyager starts its way back home from the Delta Quadrant, tensions between the Starfleet and the Maquis crewmembers begin to rise, and some brief hostilities are incurred. However, both Captain Katherine Janeway and her first officer, Chakotay, originally the captain of the Maquis crew, agree they need to integrate the two crews as one to fill vacancies left by the disastrous events to date. Of note, Chakotay recommends B'Elanna Torres, one of the more outspoken Maquis and a former Starfleet officer, to be Chief of Engineering, a move that Janeway is hesitant about, considering that Torres recently broke another engineer's nose in a fight.
As the ship passes near a quantum singularity, the Voyager crew detect a ship stuck in the singularity's event horizon. Receiving no contact with the ship, they attempt to move in closer to engage the ship via tractor beams, but the result damages more of Voyager's systems. Janeway orders the crew to take Voyager to a nearby planet to seek help for the trapped ship. However, after some time has passed, the crew finds themselves back at the singularities, and quickly realize the ship they are seeing is themselves from before. The ship has become trapped in the singularity, and it is impacting several of the ship's systems.
Eventually, they discover a point in space where Voyager crossed into the singularity, but it has since shrunk, too small for Voyager to exit through. Janeway takes Torres, who has knowledge of singularities, on a shuttle to the opening, using the shuttle's shields to expand the opening large enough for Voyager to pass through. However, the result damages their communications systems; on returning to Voyager they find two versions of the ship, both appearing real to their sensors. Though they have a heated argument about which ship is the correct Voyager, Janeway makes the ultimate decision, and correctly picks the right vessel. Voyager leaves the singularity safely and begins to affect repairs. Janeway follows through on Chakotay's advice and promotes Torres to Chief Engineer.
Read more about this topic: Parallax (Star Trek: Voyager)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)