Memorial (episode)
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
| This article is written from the Real World point of view |
 |
| "Memorial" | ||
|---|---|---|
| VOY, Episode 6x14 Production number: 236 First aired: 2 February 2000 | ||
| ← | 134th of 168 produced in VOY | → |
| ← | 132nd of 168 released in VOY | → |
| ← | 592nd of 726 released in all | → |
 | ||
| Teleplay By Robin Burger Story By Brannon Braga Directed By Allan Kroeker | ||
| Unknown (2376) | ||
After the return of an away team from an extended away mission, Voyager crewmembers inexplicably begin having horrific flashbacks to an atrocity that occurred 300 years before.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
[edit] Teaser
The Federation vessel Delta Flyer, a specially-designed shuttle of the Federation starship USS Voyager is returning to its mother ship. Aboard, 'fresh' from a completed away mission, are Voyager's First Officer, Commander Chakotay, Ensigns Thomas Paris and Harry Kim, respectively her Flight Controller and Operations Manager, and Neelix, the Voyager crew's Talaxian chef, among other things. The mission was to collect dilithium ore from various planets in the star system they are currently in, and was very successful.
The men are tired, somewhat irritable, and unwashed. They grouse about the way each other smells, as they approach Voyager. Chakotay hails the bridge, requesting permission to return to the shuttlebay. Captain Kathryn Janeway, Voyager's master and commander, grants it, pleased with their success.
Stepping into the corridor from the shuttlebay, they are greeted by The Doctor, the crew's holographic Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Engineer Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres. Torres is especially glad to see Paris, with whom she is in a serious, steady relationship. Once arrangements for physical examination by The Doctor have been made, the group breaks up.
Paris and Torres go to Paris' quarters. Torres has a surprise in store for Paris, an enthusiast of all things 20th century. They enter, his eyes closed. When he opens them, he is very surprised and most pleased to find that she has replicated a 1956 wood-grain finish television set. She happily presents him with the remote control. Pleased as he is, he points out that these television sets had no remotes, but she dismisses the discrepancy as poetic license. He does not mind in the least.
As for what it will show (television came to an end centuries ago), Torres has found several television programs stored in the ship's database. She has even prepared popcorn for them to sit and watch them with. Pleased to no end, he sits in front of it and begins watching cartoons.
She replicates beer to complete the mood, and begins talking to him, asking him questions about the away mission and telling him about happenings in
Time passes. Torres falls asleep on the couch. Paris continues watching television. A war scene comes on. He watches raptly. But then he sees something very strange: the combatants are using energy weapons, which had not been invented for another 100 years from when the show was made. He tries to change the channel, but all channels show the scene. Whacking the set with his palm helps not. The battle becomes very violent and bloody.
Then, as he watches, his eyes go wide with shock. He sees himself - his own face - taking part in the fighting.
[edit] Act One
Paris stares in great alarm at what he is seeing. He watches himself running through a wood, ducking fire and returning it. Then, to his horror, he finds himself actually in the battle, instead of watching an image of himself in it on the TV. He fights desperately, the sounds of weapons fire and death all around him. Then he gets shot in the arm. He falls, screaming in pain. He feels Torres shaking him. He looks around in panic, finding himself back in his quarters, Torres over him, her face creased with concern. He looks at the TV. A 1920s gangster show is on.
He tells her about what happened, saying that he must have fallen asleep and dreamed. But, he notes tensely, it was the most vivid dream he has ever had. She concernedly suggests going back to cartoons, but, very shaken, he declines; he has had enough TV for one day. He turns it off.
Ensign Kim is working alone in a Jeffries tube. Suddenly he starts to hear sounds of war; the screams and shouts of fighting, dying men, and the whine of energy weapons. He looks around in alarm. The Jeffries tube begins to stretch to eternity. He gets dizzy, and very frightened. He scrabbles desperately to a hatch, the sounds of war now deafening. He crawls out. The sounds fade away. He leans against a wall, hyperventilating.
He immediately goes to the Sickbay and reports the occurrence to The Doctor, who examines him. The Doctor diagnoses it as an anxiety attack, brought on by tiredness from the away mission, and, using 'medical rank', orders him to take two days off to rest and recover. He acknowledges.
In the mess hall galley, Neelix is preparing meals for the crew. But he looks extremely uneasy; he is sweating, and his face has a haunted look. When he hears a teapot on the stove start to whistle, he almost jumps out of his skin, holding a knife up defensively. Seeing that it is nothing, he returns to work, but does not calm down.
His goddaughter, young Naomi Wildman, daughter of junior officer Ensign Samantha Wildman, enters. Neelix dotes upon her, but he is in no mood for anyone's company. She greets him and informs him that she needs to build a tetragon from ordinary materials for her geometry class. She is thinking of using carrots and celery from the airponics bay. Neelix tries his best to listen and be appreciative, but struggles greatly at it.
Then Naomi lifts a lid off a pot to see what is cooking, and burns her hand a bit. It is very minor; a first degree burn that leaves no mark. But Neelix immediately overreacts, checking her and almost screaming that she needs medical attention. The mess hall door opens and three crewpersons enter, laughing at a joke between them. The unexpected noise drives Neelix over the edge completely; he shouts at Naomi to get down and behind her, as if they are under attack.
A bloody battle is seen occurring at night in a forest. The whine and flash of energy weapons is heard and seen. Bodies – civilian bodies – litter the ground. Fighting in the battle is First Officer Chakotay. But it appears to be a dream; Chakotay is seen asleep in bed in his quarters, albeit restlessly, tossing and turning. In the dream, he tries to get the other soldiers to stop firing, but fails. He goes to see the commander, whom he calls by his name, Saavdra, as if he knows him.
He enters the base camp and finds him. He angrily remonstrates with him about what they, himself included, are doing: their enemies are not soldiers; they are, in fact, civilians in a settlement Saavdra, he and the soldiers are supposed to be evacuating. Instead, they are slaughtering them. Saavdra, however, retorts that they had weapons and were firing on the soldiers, and thus the soldiers have no choice.
Suddenly he wakes up, drenched with sweat, hyperventilating. He responds to a repeated hail by Lt. Commander Tuvok, the Vulcan Chief Tactical Officer and Chief of Security, informing him of a "security breach in the mess hall".
Neelix is crouched behind the counter separating the galley area from the eating area. Tuvok and a team his of security officers are in strategic positions in the eating area, armed with phasers. Neelix has a frightened, uncomprehending Naomi Wildman firmly in his grasp in a protective manner, while he fires at the officers with a phaser, shouting that he will not let them hurt her. He looks extremely agitated, his look one of fear and determination. It is implicit that his phaser is set to 'kill', as he believes he is protecting Naomi from enemies intent on killing them both.
Tuvok tries to talk him into standing down, but Neelix will not hear it. Chakotay enters, diving for cover immediately as Neelix sees him enter and fires at him. Tuvok explains that Neelix is hallucinating. Chakotay calls to him and orders him to release Naomi. Neelix refuses, and then says something which shocks Chakotay: he will not release her until "Saavdra calls off his attack". Chakotay immediately recalls his dream and the name of the commander. Two mental images, one a dream, one a hallucination, in the minds of two different men, but both of a bloody massacre in which the commander of the soldiers committing the atrocity is named Saavdra. This, he realizes instantly, is no mere hallucination; something else, perhaps some alien power, is at work here.
He begins to play along. He tells Neelix that Saavdra has ordered the troops to stand down. Neelix is very suspicious, demanding to know why he still hears weapons fire, and how he can be sure he is not being deceived. Chakotay, in a calm, reassuring voice, rises, unarmed, despite the danger of Neelix killing him, and assured the Talaxian that he, Chakotay, will protect Naomi. This, plus Naomi's frightened pleading with him, makes him stand down. Chakotay comes slowly toward his position. Neelix releases Naomi, and clings to Chakotay in haunted terror. Chakotay, understanding exactly what Neelix is going through, courtesy his dream, clings back. Then, arm over shoulder, they slowly make their way out of the mess hall, heading for the Sickbay.
[edit] Act Two
Neelix lies anesthetized in the Sickbay. Captain Janeway is present, talking concernedly with Chakotay and The Doctor regarding the Talaxian's condition. The Doctor reports that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Chakotay tells them of his dream, and informs them that Neelix appeared to be reliving those bloody events. This causes the Doctor grave concern, and he informs them that Ensign Kim was in earlier, for an anxiety attack. He has not seen Paris – yet – but the fact is, everyone who was on the away mission seems to have been stricken by whatever is happening. Chakotay says that nothing irregular happened during the mission.
But the Doctor quickly scans him with a medical tricorder, and begs to differ: what he experienced in his sleep was not a dream; it was, in fact, a memory. Janeway surmises that they could have been abducted and brainwashed. She decides that the best place to start understanding what is happening is with retracing the mission. She orders Chakotay to minutely review the Delta Flyer's sensor logs. He acknowledges.
Neelix is brought back to consciousness. Once the Doctor clears him to leave the Sickbay, they, along with Paris and Chakotay, go the briefing room to discuss these memories of events they were never a part of with Captain Janeway. They each recall the memory, telling her what happened.
They were, so it seems, members of a military unit that was assigned to evacuate a civilian population of a people called the Nakans. Saavdra was the commander of the unit. The events are seen unfolding, with all four of the Voyager crewmembers in question supposedly present. The unit moves into the settlement, in a wooded area at night, to carry out the operation. All the men are grimy, exhausted and tense. They round up the population and begin moving them to the transports.
But the population does not want to be willingly moved; in fact, they hate it, viewing the unit with hostility. And 24 of the population, whose exact number the unit has, are missing. Members of the unit begin to fan out to search for them when suddenly, out of the woods, the deadly blasts of weapons fire erupt. As the officers recall the event, they begin acting and speaking as if they were in fact there. The discussion turns into a shouting match; they furiously yell at each other, some saying that they had no choice; the civilians fired first, others retorting that that could not have been certain; perhaps it was a weapon malfunction from one of their own men, and, at any rate, that was no justification whatsoever for what they did. Janeway, not angry, but firmly nonetheless, demands to know what happened.
The story is seen continuing. The rounded up civilians scatter in terror. And the soldiers, tense and exhausted as they are, begin firing indiscriminately, killing them. Men, women and children are seen getting shot as they run, crying out in pain and terror before falling dead. Neelix tries to save some of the children, but they run away from him. Kim, overwhelmed, runs away himself, into a cave and finds a couple hiding there, unarmed. They beg him to spare their lives. He threatens them, telling them that he will only do so if they show him the way out. They do, and he moves to leave. Then he sees the man reaching for something. In a panic, Kim raises his weapon and fires on them both.
In the briefing room, Kim watches his hands in horror. Tears are on the verge of running down his face. He wails that they were going to kill him. Paris and Chakotay try to calm him down, but he is inconsolable. He screams in anguish, as they try to restrain him: "Why?! Why wouldn't they listen?!" Paris, Neelix and The Doctor take him to the Sickbay, Janeway watches in shock. Her shock changes to abject horror as Chakotay informs her of the exact thing that they 'did' that night.
They massacred the civilians. All 82 of them.
[edit] Act Three
Paris lies on the couch in his quarters, haunted by the horrific memories of the massacre, a massacre which every part of his mind tells him he was a part of. Torres comes to see him. She tries to comfort him, telling him that there is no evidence that these memories are actually his. But he refuses to be comforted, and, unable to deal with anyone, including her, he angrily sends her away. She leaves, sad and hurt.
In Astrometrics, Captain Janeway and Chakotay are reviewing the Flyer's sensor logs. Assisting them is Seven of Nine. They peruse images of planets scanned, surveyed and visited, along with aliens met, such as one charlatan named Bathar who tried to sell them a useless chemical compound he claimed would stop the aging process. Janeway snickers when she hears this.
But then a new image stops her snickering. A flash of violent memory passes through her mind. She recognizes the planet. She names it: Tarakis.
She is seen on the planet, a part of the military unit that committed the massacre. Bodies are being piled up. Soldiers are fanning out, looking for survivors... not to transport them but to kill them. Saavdra has ordered the entire thing covered up, and the soldiers are going along with it.
Hearing weapons fire, Janeway goes toward the sound. She finds Saavdra supervising the vaporization of the bodies. She is shocked and horrified beyond measure. She tries to get them to stop. Saavdra orders her not to interfere. Consumed with rage and guilt, at both at herself and the other soldiers, she screams at him that this is doubly wrong; first they murder them, now they are covering it up. Saavdra angrily orders her to stand aside, insisting that it was self defense, but others would not understand. She tries to appeal to the soldiers, but they agree with Saavdra. They raise their weapons at her; they killed 82 civilians; they have no qualms whatsoever about killing one of their own to keep it hidden. Furiously and helplessly, she withdraws.
She wakes up hyperventilating in the mess hall. The room is dark. Lines after lines of cots are there, each with a crewmember, broken by the strain of dealing with these horrific memories, and the guilt of seemingly being a part of what happened. Tuvok informs her that 39 crewmembers besides have joined Chakotay, Paris, Kim and Neelix in the experience. The entire crew is beginning to be affected.
[edit] Act Four
Janeway rises and accompanies The Doctor and Tuvok, visiting the afflicted crewmembers. He informs her that he situation is now critical; the crew is being incapacitated. There is no way whatsoever she or they can work burdened by this. The only ones not affected are Tuvok, who is able to overcome it with his Vulcan mental discipline, The Doctor himself, a hologram, and Seven of Nine, who, constantly carrying her own guilt over the mass destruction of entire species through killing or assimilation, which she helped carry out as part of the Borg Collective, will not fall apart at the thought having killed a 'mere' 82 people. A solution to the situation must be found, and found immediately, before crewmembers' minds are irrevocably broken. Janeway makes a decision. She knows where the planet that the massacre happened is; much of the crew does now. She orders Tuvok to have a course set for it.
Neelix lies on a cot, his face a mask of haunted guilt and misery. Seven of Nine comes to see him with a plate of two of his favorite foods: Talaxian stew and terra nut soufflé. Neelix refuses it; not only do the memories afflict him; he is also thinking of how terrified Naomi Wildman must now be of him. He sadly tells this to Seven, who responds that Naomi in fact is concerned about him and wants to visit him. But he refuses, fearing he may do something to frighten her again. Seven moves to leave.
But then Neelix asks her a question: does she ever feel remorseful about what she did as a Borg drone? "Frequently," she responds. He asks her how she deals with it, seeking a coping strategy. She responds that her remorse helps her remember what she did, so that she does not ever do anything like it again. Guilt, she muses, can be a difficult, but useful emotion. He thinks about what she has said, which lifts his spirit a little. He starts to eat the food.
Voyager is seen approaching Tarakis. Because of the gravity of the threat to the crew, the ship is on red alert. Janeway has the planet displayed on the viewscreen. As the ship goes into orbit around the planet, Chakotay asks about lifesigns. Tuvok scans the world and reports there are none. Neither are there any signs of weapons fire. But, acting upon Janeway’s order to run a full spectral scan, Tuvok reports the presence of a power signature.
Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Ensigns Paris and Kim, and one of Tuvok's security officers, beam down to the planet, in the general vicinity of the power signature. It is a lush, idyllic world. The day is bright, sunny and quite beautiful. The senior officers remark that, though the place looks very familiar, it does not look like the horrific killing zone they remember. They break into groups and begin searching.
Tuvok, Paris, Kim and the security officer find the cave where Kim remembers killing the couple. Meanwhile, Janeway and Chakotay detect the power signature, and head in its direction.
Tuvok, Paris, Kim and the security officer reach the cave. As soon as he sees it, Kim begins to hyperventilate, his face flushed with fear. Tuvok orders Paris and the security officer to stand guard at the mouth, and he and Kim enter. As they go deeper inside, Kim struggles to keep down his panic; he is terrified that he will find that he had indeed murdered the couple. Tuvok advises him to take slow, deep breaths and continue on. He does, slowly. They continue forward, until they come to the cavern. They find the skeletons of the victims. Tuvok scans them.
He reports his findings to Kim; they died over 300 years ago. Thus Kim was not responsible. Kim is extremely relieved.
Janeway and Chakotay close in on the power signature. They finally find it. It is a towering monument, in the middle of a green, open field. Atop it is a yellow globe that pulses weakly. One side of the base is covered with writing. Chakotay remarks that they have found their war.
[edit] Act Five
In Astrometrics, Seven of Nine scans the monument. Janeway and Chakotay are present, looking at the results on the lab's huge viewscreen. Seven finds that the structure contains a synaptic transmitter, powerful enough to permeate the entire star system the planet is in with neurogenic pulses. These pulses transmit vivid visions of the Nakan massacre into the minds of anyone within range of the transmitter. Thus anyone who enters the system experiences the visions as if they were their own memories; they remember the massacre as if they participated in it.
Chakotay has Seven translate the writing found on the base. She does. It speaks of mere words not being enough to convey the horror of what happened, neither enough to prevent it being repeated. Actual experience of it is necessary. Janeway realizes that the monument is a memorial to the massacre. But this memorial does more than simply bear testament to the massacre, Chakotay notes with anger; it thrusts unsuspecting innocents into the horror, making then feel as if they were actually a part of it.
Janeway muses that perhaps that is the point of it, to leave an indelible memory of what befell these people with passers-by. But the monument is losing power and will soon shut down. What should they do? Let it? Shut it down themselves, given its effect? She decides that, given that the entire crew was affected, she cannot make that decision without hearing their input. She calls a meeting of the senior staff to discuss it. The senior staff will represent the crew.
The senior staff is gathered with Janeway in the briefing room. She explains the nature of the monument. Opinions on what to do with it, if anything at all, are quite strong, especially when The Doctor informs them that, even if they leave the range of the transmitter, their memories of the massacre will remain; they are permanent. Chakotay, Paris and Kim argue that it should be shut down. No-one should be forced to relive a tragedy that they were not a part of.
But, surprisingly, Neelix, who was most traumatized by the effect, is against shutting it down. He himself was a victim of a massacre; his family and the entire population of his people on his birthplace of Rinax were killed by a WMD (VOY: "Jetrel", "Once Upon a Time"). He thus understands fully why the monument was made and given this power, and is very much in favor of keeping it running, to ensure the victims' story is never forgotten.
The argument becomes very heated between him, Chakotay, Paris and Kim. Tuvok, of course, remains calm. But he also opposes Neelix' point of view. The Humans
Captain Janeway listens to both sides, and comes to a decision. Chakotay comments that some things are best forgotten. She strongly disagrees. Throughout history, she tells them, monuments have been built in memoriam of tragedies. She names some of them: the obelisk at Khitomer; the fields of Gettysburg. These memorials, she continues, are honored. They cannot shut this one down, and they will not leave it to run out of power. Chakotay tries to argue, but she sternly makes it clear that the discussion is closed. The officers acknowledge.
However, her idea is not to simply leave it so that unsuspecting passers-by will be caught by it unawares. She decides that, after repairing the power to the transmitter, they will place a warning beacon in orbit around the planet, so that anyone who approaches the system will be informed of what to expect before they enter the transmitter's range.
The senior officers who were affected by the signal: Captain Janeway, Chakotay, Paris, and Kim, beam down along with Neelix to the monument. As Janeway watches, they silently install power cells onto the monument, to keep the transmitter going. When they finish, they step away. Janeway looks at them and tells them that, though this was hardest on them, if they had not stopped at this planet, the tragedy that occurred there 300 years ago would have been forgotten. The 82 Nakans, she finishes, would be grateful to them.
She turns around. The five of them face the monument solemnly. Janeway hails Voyager and orders that the party be beamed up. The transporter beam takes them.
And, in the middle of the empty field, on this uninhabited planet, as the power cells come online with a whine, the the globe at the top of the monument begins glowing with a bright, steady light, transmitting to the crews of all ships that may pass by a stark, unforgettable warning of awful possibilities, and a reminder that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Never forget.
[edit] Log Entries
- "Captain's log, supplemental. We've entered the system where the away team conducted its recent survey, hoping to find an explanation for their memories of the Nakan massacre."
[edit] Memorable Quotes
"Words alone cannot convey the suffering. Words alone can not prevent what happened here from happening again. Beyond words lays experience; beyond experience lays truth. Make this truth your own."
- - Chakotay, reading a translation of the memorial.
"It's given us the chance to bond."
"The bonding stopped when the sonic shower went off line."
- - Neelix and Kim
"It was a shame that we had to cut the lecture short, but the warp core overloaded and then the Borg invaded and we were all assimilated."
"Uh huh."
"You haven't heard a single thing I've said, have you?"
"Oh, look at that!"
"Maybe this was a bad idea."
- - B'Elanna and Tom, realizing that he is distracted by the new TV set
"What the hell are you doing? They're already dead!"
- - Janeway
"This isn't about logic; it's about remembering!"
- - Neelix
"The obelisk at Khitomer. The fields at Gettysburg. Those were other people's memories too, but we don't honor them any less."
- - Janeway
[edit] Background Information
- The original pitch for this episode came from James Swallow.
[edit] Video and DVD releases
- UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 6.7, 4 September 2000.
- As part of the VOY Season 6 DVD collection.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Guest Stars
- L.L. Ginter as Saavdra
- Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman
- Fleming Brooks as a soldier
- Joe Mellis as a young soldier
- Susan Savage as a Nakan colonist
- Maria Spassoff as a Nakan colonist
- Robert Allen Colaizzi, Jr. as a dying colonist
- David Keith Anderson as Ashmore
[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars
- Tarik Ergin as Ayala
- Leslie Hoffman as a Nakan colonist
- Bill Blair as a Nakan colonist
- Dustin Courtney as a Nakan colonist
- Unknown actors as
[edit] Stunts
[edit] References
beer; Bathar's species; Capone, Al; carrot; cartoon; celery; champagne; chocolate; claustrophobia; colony; continent; Delta Flyer; dilithium; Farley; geometric sensor; geometry; Gettysburg; hockey; Hodos; insect; jingle; Khitomer; memory engram; Nakan; Nakan massacre; Ness, Elliot; neural suppressant; neurogenic pulse; norepinephrine; obelisk; particle weapon; physical; pizza; plasma; plasma leak; plasma residue; popcorn; post-traumatic stress disorder; power cell; remote control; shield generator; sickbay; sonic shower; spectral scan; spotter; synaptic transmitter; Talaxian stew; Tarakis; television; Tera nut soufflé; tetragon; Toranius Prime; translation matrix; tripolymer enzyme; The Untouchables; warning buoy
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