The Delta Flyers - The Omega Directive
Episode Date: January 17, 2022The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting... at the very beginning. This week’s episode is The Omega Directive. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.The Omega Directive:Captain Janeway must carry out a top secret Starfleet directive regarding the most powerful and dangerous substance known to exist.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, & Brannon BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Mike Devlin, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey,Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, John Mann, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Melissa Lau, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Bronwen Duffield, Elly Post, & Brandon MayAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Jennifer, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Louise Storer, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Red Wizard, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, & Robert PicardThank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers.
Robbie.
Hey, buddy.
Hey.
We never do a full intro like that.
It's been a while.
It's been a while, but our Patreon patrons have been so amazing with this show, with the podcast, their involvement, not just their subscribing monthly or whatever, but their involvement in the Discord groups, in our Admiral Chats every month, in their emails and Facebook participation, the groups that have gotten together.
say. We often talk about what we are wearing. So today, I am wearing some items that were sent to me
as a holiday gift by our Delta Flyers J.C. Shippers group. And so what you see is a J.C. Shipper's hat
that they sent me. And it says, hashtag J.C. deserved better. Oh, J.C. deserved better. Yes. And
And then I am wearing the t-shirt they sent me, which you can see J.C.
Yeah.
And it says, invading your personal space since 2371.
And it's a J and a C.
And inside the J is an image looks like a black and white and gray image of Chikote.
And inside the C, there's an image of Janeway, which is kind of cool because you would think the J.
would be Janeway and then C would be Chicoatay, but they reversed it.
But they're in love.
They're in love.
It's a nice shirt.
They belong together, clearly.
So this is what I'm talking about.
Like, I want to thank our Patreon patrons because they get involved.
Yes.
They've connected with each other.
I want to thank them personally.
This wonderful gift was from Gemma, Kellyn, Alexis, Steph, and Amanda.
And I want to thank you so much for, I love this.
I'm a full J.C. shipper myself.
now because of the Delta Flyers podcast. I cannot believe they never got together. It's shocking.
All of the evidence. There's evidence in the episodes. You can see they belong together.
What I love is the creativity. Creativity. Like you said, it's a great, it's a really cool design.
It is. Very well done. More importantly, our Delta Flyers fans understand the true nature of
Janeway and Chacote. And along with me, we all realize that,
they really do belong together.
Anyway, that's my little update.
But thanks to the J.C. Shippers and the Delta Flyers fans and the Patreon patrons that support
us, we're having so much fun.
You know, I'm just thinking about fans always talk about there should be a Voyager movie.
This should be a Voyager movie.
And I was thinking, if there was one, the opening shot could be, you know, just it's dawn.
It's an alarm clock goes off for someone to wake up and the camera pans up from the bottom of the bed.
And it's basically older Janeway, older Chikote in bed, waking up as a married couple.
There you go.
She calls to the replicator, replicator, two cups of coffee, black.
Two cups of nebula coffee, please.
Nebula coffee.
And that's where they've gone into business and now they own Nebula coffee.
She's got a coffee company.
It's bigger than Starbucks.
That's right.
She doesn't even, she doesn't even need to be in Starvation.
Nebula coffee.
I love it.
All right.
Okay.
So that just showed up today.
When did you get that?
It just showed up today, yes.
Okay.
That's wonderful.
Yes.
Okay.
So this week's episode is the Omega Directive.
Very cool title.
Sounds cool.
I like it.
Oh, you know why I like that?
Because when I was a kid, my father loved this movie called the Omega Man with Charlton
Heston, where he was the last, the last man alive, the Omega Man. Was that your dad's film that he loved to watch? It was one of
his favorite movies. Yeah. He looked Planet of the Apes. Yeah. And he loved the Omega Man. Oh, wow.
The originals. And so this episode is kind of already, I want to see what it's, what's happening there because of the title.
Well, I'm pretty sure Charlton Heston is not in this episode. So that is, I'm going to go on a limb and say he's not in there.
But this could be a really, really good episode.
We don't know, right?
So let's go watch this.
I can't wait to watch it.
We'll be right back with our discussion and recap of the Omega Directive.
Patreon, patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.
All right, we are back from watching a very densely packed episode known as the Omega Directive.
My goodness.
I have to tell you.
I had to rewind, I can't even count how many times I rewound different parts of the episode
just to re-hear different scenes because it just seems so, that script was chock full of lines
and just compacted into this one 42 minute time period.
And I'm shocked.
It was almost like an episode of Gilmore Girls.
It was like, good grief.
How many lines can you cram in here?
And not just regular lines.
We're talking techno babble all over the place too.
it was very sort of intellectual this episode yeah it was all about like trying to understand
the idea of a molecule being simultaneously the most dangerous thing to ever have existed
and also the most beautiful perfect thing for seven you know it was like how can this thing
I don't know it was a weird argument to make and it was it was hard for me I'll be honest to
stay engaged with the story it was dense I agree with you very dense yeah I agree
Okay, all right, let's start up with our poetry synopsis of the episode Omega Directive.
Here is my haiku for the Omega Directive.
Yes, sir.
Classified Mission, the most powerful substance.
Omega destroyed.
That's it.
Wow.
That's nice.
It's simple and it's kind of sad.
It's really sad.
This episode left me sad.
This episode left me sad.
at the very end.
We'll talk more about it
when we get to it,
but I feel just,
yeah,
I feel bummed out
after watching this up.
Yeah.
I'm curious to hear about that.
Yeah.
But let's have a little
lemurk action.
Yeah,
let's have a limerick.
Yes, lightning.
Here we go.
Our limerick for Omega Directive.
Omega molecules are found in space.
Janeway must get them and erase.
Seven disagrees.
But Janeway needs her expertise.
Perfection
disappears without a trace.
Bam, bam, bam.
Ooh, yeah.
Robieca,
Robieca, you are so good.
Yes, yes, I love.
Are you zizzing me?
That's for everybody out there.
That's my life.
Garrett's laugh, which Robert Beltran
trademarked with the sounds like a bee buzzing.
It does.
It kind of starts off.
that's my old laugh you haven't heard that in a while though that's my laugh on the show exactly
and that's me attempting to squelch don't squelch well you know the true laugh for those of you
who've watched amadeus with tom holson it that laugh that tom holst that's your real laugh that's my
real laugh. That's my real laugh that I had in high school, junior high school, grade school,
and it's all over the place. It's super melodic and it's crazy. It doesn't sound like, it sounds fake.
That's how that's how exuberant it is. You know, it's just everywhere. You have to embrace it.
No, I had to squash it down and that's why you got the bumblebee, you know, the bumblebee laugh is what
it is. Oh my goodness. All right. Good job on the limerick, my friend. Very good. Thank you. I liked it.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. So the Omega directive, teleplay by Lisa Klink, and this was her very last script that she wrote for Voyager. I know.
She wrote the teleplay. Story is by Jimmy Diggs and Steve J.K. We also have the director, Victor Lobel, who has directed before, right? This is not his first. I think was his second episode.
Second, a Voyager episode? That sounds about right. Okay. Yeah. And.
The guest star, Jeff Austin, do you have any words?
Oh, yes, I do.
We had a couple of speaking guest stars here, actually.
We did, but there was only credit for one, though, in the beginning.
Well, Kevin McCorkel is the alien captain, who we see on the view screen.
Okay.
And then we have Jeff Austin.
So let's start with Jeff Austin.
Jeff Austin plays Allos, is what he's credited as.
Okay.
He was not a newcomer to Star Trek because he was a bullion security officer in
DS9's third season episode, The Adversary.
A Bolian.
He's a Bolian security officer in that episode.
So this was his second Trek makeup job that he went through.
Yeah, another alien.
Yeah.
Jeff Austin, it was born in 1954 in Chicago, so he's 67 right now.
Okay.
Kevin McCorkle is the other guest star.
He plays the alien captain from the warships when they start attacking us late in
our story. He was born
1958 in Long Beach, California.
He's 63 years old right now.
Okay, so we open up.
We open in Cargo Bay.
Seven of nine is in her regeneration pod.
And I just got to say, all of a sudden it hit me, how many freaking stations does seven
need in the cargo bay?
I felt like there were so many regeneration pods.
There's one Borg on our ship.
We've got like so many pods.
I don't understand.
You know how I justified that?
I felt that the first pod, the first pod was her Monday pod.
Then she regenerated in her Tuesday pod.
So just to kind of change it up a little bit, right?
She wanted a little bit of variety.
She didn't want the same pot every day.
Don't they do the same thing, though?
Of course they do.
But this was, this is my justification.
This is my justification.
Or maybe they felt if one pod malfunctions, there's another one.
There's five more to go just in case.
Right.
Okay.
But you're right.
It is overkill.
There's a lot of pods in there.
Yeah.
So she gets her supplies organized.
She's going to go fix something with Harry Kim.
Yeah, sensor diagnostic.
Sensor diagnostic.
She's got to go do that.
So she's getting ready.
Then we cut into the mess hall.
Yeah.
And there's Harry and Tuvok playing a little calto.
A little calto action.
I love it.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And Harry is so focused on trying to beat Tuvok, probably for the first time.
He's looking at every single angle of this.
And then seven shows up.
up and she's, you know, she's, she's not too upset, but you can tell she's a little annoyed.
She's like, okay.
She's a little annoyed.
And she's like, let's go.
And Harry's like, no, no, no, I got to finish this.
He's obsessing.
And even Tuvok goes, you should go to you should forfeit.
He said, you should forfeit this game and do it to your duty.
He goes, heck, no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Harry's like, heck, no.
And he keeps looking.
So seven stares at it for a second, grabs the piece out of Harry's hand, sticks it on the thing.
And bam, game over, done.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
You know what?
You know, when you have bored implants helping you out, that's not.
It's not fair.
That's not fair.
Come on.
I did laugh, though.
It was very funny after she does that and she leaves.
And then you take this long beat of just sitting there like, I can't believe she just did that.
Yes.
And then you stand up and then you lean down to two, like, I would have gotten that.
Yeah, I would have gotten that.
Yeah, it was funny.
It was funny.
It was funny.
It was good.
I'm glad I entertained you.
It was funny, laughed out loud.
So now we have Savon and Harry walking down the corridor, and Harry's,
Harry's still kind of miffed over the fact that she ruined his Caltoe game.
So he's like, so is this typical of the Borg that they just know everything, you know,
of all the species they've assimilated over the years, you know,
you must be the smartest person in the whole universe.
And she's like, probably.
So she's really, I don't even think she understands that Harry is digging into her.
You know, I mean, to her, she's so.
She's, what's the term?
She's just dry.
She doesn't have a sense of humor.
And I don't think she understands sarcasm or anything like that at this point.
She's still trying to be human.
So to me, funny scene.
Now we jump to the bridge.
We've dropped out of warp.
There's some type of shockwave that we've been hit by.
Yes.
And Chocote is confused.
And all of a sudden, this message comes through.
And you see this huge omega symbol on all the displays.
Very strange.
The work drive is suddenly offline.
We've got weird sensor readings.
Yeah.
We don't know what that means.
And nobody can open it.
Nobody can open it.
He doesn't have clearance to access this message.
None of his command protocols or none of his command codes can.
Authorizations and codes, yeah.
Yeah.
And he's nobody can open it.
Chitote can open it.
Harry can open it.
No.
Nobody can.
Paris can't open anything.
And suddenly Janeway walks in.
Yeah.
And she goes to a console, types some stuff in.
She's on a mission.
And she says, she says, don't worry, I'll take care of it.
Yeah.
And heads to her ready room.
And then turns around and says, send all the data to my, yeah, she goes, send all the
sensor data about the particle wave to my ready room.
And don't talk about this anybody.
Bye.
So, yeah, okay.
Yeah.
So we cut inside her ready room.
And the first thing she does is seals all the doors.
She locks the doors.
Yeah.
Then she's got this big, fancy code to unlock.
So clearly this is something, like she says, authorization.
something, something, something red, number 10.
Like, as she listed out the code, I'm like, whoa, that's, that's a serious code if it's
got red in it.
So anyway, she honestly, awesome if she just, if she just kind of rambled on for two
minutes of code, right?
There's a lot of numbers.
January 1, alpha, beta, exclamation point underscore, backslash, asterisk.
I felt like she, felt like she should have put in an exclamation point in that code somewhere.
Exclamation.
Exclamation coin code, donut symbol and just like just random stuff, right?
And then that makes me, you know what that makes me think of actually now that you mention it.
What?
Like in Star Trek, all of the authorization codes are either just a combination of letters and numbers.
There's no capitals.
There's no.
There's no symbols.
No.
There's not a.
And even now for me to log into my Amazon account, I got to put in six letters.
letters and different cases, multiple cases, and at least two symbols or whatever.
Like, my password to buy, you know, paper towels in Amazon is more complicated than that.
The simple letter number combo.
I mean, I guess the color, that was the thing, red.
Well, clearly, Robbie, Starfleet computers were very hackable.
You know, I mean, anybody can get in.
No kidding.
Those are simple authorization code.
But if you think about it, when we filmed this, we weren't really, you know, in the 90s, nobody, yeah, nobody, no passwords.
Well, there were passwords then, but they were not.
They were very simple.
Nobody said include a symbol, include a number, include a capital, include lowercase.
That wasn't even there.
Now, if you don't do that, you know, God help you.
If you don't add all those stuff, you are hacked almost immediately.
That's why Janeway added.
red. This was super unhackable. I think she should have ended with coffee is what she should have
had. Yeah, J.M.A. Alpha, red coffee is what she said to said. All right. So she hacks in with her
simple past word. Yes. And the computer says that sensors have detected the omega phenomenon
1.2 light years away from the ship. Very close. And a computer tells her that she is to immediately
implement the Omega Directive.
The title of the episode right there in the first five minutes of the episode.
Implement the Omega Directive immediately and all other directives.
All other priorities are null and void.
Out the window.
And I wrote, does that include the Prime Directive?
Because when I heard that, it was like all other directives.
Prime Directive 2?
Like, it's well?
Because the Prime Directive is the all encompassing directive.
right so i don't that's what i that's why i wrote it down but think about it later on later she does
say yeah she does she does so she does but i was like maybe maybe in this moment it caught me i was
like whoa wow that's that's serious all other directives and priorities right so maybe she has
authorization from starfleet to ignore the prime director ignore everything deal with this this
omega thing mhm a sap yeah a sap sap sap sap sap
Okay. So then we go to engineering. Yes. And Chocote is giving instructions to on a need-to-know basis to Paris and Torres.
And Torres. Chiquotay says, you know, Paris needs to reinforce the shuttle for extreme heat. And Boulana's got to, you know, protect the warp core with some reinforcements there.
Yeah. Install multifacic shielding around the warp core. Around the warp core. And Bala's like,
Hey, does this have anything to do with that stuff the captain's dealing with?
And Chacote is like, well, what have you heard?
And they say, well, something about some Omega directive.
Right.
And Seven perks up immediately when she hears Omega directive.
And Chocote tells Seven that the captain wants to see her right away.
And I was surprised at her response because she goes, I assume so or something like that.
Right.
Like, I got to say.
I'm seeing a pattern in seven
who acts like a braddy little teenager
all the time with the captain
like and you're starting to see the captain
deal with her like a bratty little teenager
like okay here we go again
the know it all the yeah
this is this is my life right now
yes it's like all the little comments
like why can't why couldn't he say
the captain needs to see you immediately
why can't she just say understood
and leave why does she have to say
Because she's 13. That's why. Oh my gosh. She is a 13 year old girl.
13 year old girl. Poor boy. I don't know. Would you say, and let me ask you this. I mean, you've had, you have both two sons and one daughter. Would you say your 13 year old sons were more difficult to deal with than your 13 year old daughter when she was 13? Or was it? I think yes, they were equally difficult. I would say that.
Every it has nothing to do with gender this the gender of the of the child it has nothing to do
with that it's the age it's the age and the temperament of that particular young person but right
the majority of those young people act like seven of nine so yeah it's like they know it all and
they're going to do what they're going to do and there's no respect for anything else other than
what they decide is important yeah uh my my cousin my young cousin he told his dad he he he he he he
He essentially, he basically said, I don't need to go to university.
Everything I need to learn, I can learn on YouTube.
I can learn online.
I have no need for any higher learning whatsoever.
I don't need to go to college.
That was his exclamation, you know, as a teenager.
Yeah, I just learned it all from YouTube.
I have no need for secondary learning.
In a way, I think he's not wrong.
I think you can learn a lot.
Like, information is out there.
Yeah.
But part of what you learn going through high school or college,
experiences sure is is the maturity process and the kind of being accountable sure for things
and like learning responsibility learning interpersonal relationships with your roommates
learning yeah learning how to be polite yes seven hasn't learned yet no she doesn't know how to
be polite to anybody she doesn't know anyway we go back to the ready room yeah and seven enters
the ready room and janeway immediately asked what does she know about the omega director right
and seven says she knows everything janeway knows because the borg assimilated many captains in the
past starfleet captains so only captains had this information and because they assimilated them
she knows she knows exactly what yeah what janeway knows yeah and uh she says to janeway that
the board nearly harness an omega molecule and we says well you know what kind of sacrifice did you make
to have this one second of perfection of discovering this thing.
And she said something like 600,000 drones and dozens of ships and org ships.
29 vessels.
Yeah, 29 vessels.
And Jamie's like, well, I'm not willing to sacrifice it.
I'm not willing.
You know, that's where we disagree.
Yeah.
And seven confides in Janeway that as a drone, her highest goal besides perfection was to see this molecule firsthand because of her board drone.
this. This is a driving force to see this firsthand. So we will get to that moment at the end of
the episode where this, where she has this driving desire finally satisfied. She gets to see
the molecule firsthand. Right. So to the Borg, the omega molecule represents perfection. And
Janeway even makes that comment. She goes, ah, the Holy Grail. Yeah. Seven's like, huh? Because she
doesn't get that but um clearly this is very important to the board yeah and i can't i don't think
that can be stressed enough for the story to work and make sense is that to the board it's beyond
uh logic it's beyond intellect it is it is it is it is the closest they could come to feeling human
in a way is to kind of create this to have the experience of the omega molecule um yeah so yeah
It's spiritual. It's intellectual. It's all of those. Well, you say closest to feeling human.
I almost feel like it's the closest to feeling godlike. Godlike. Yeah, I guess so.
To closest to being a deity in a way, right? Well, at this point, Janeway orders seven to go back to the cargo bay,
Cargo Bay 2, and compile all of her info on the omega particle, the omega molecule, so that
she can see this. And then we jump over to Sick Bay. And Janeway is now requesting erythrazine,
from the doctor. Rithrazine is evidently used to combat extreme theta radiation poisoning.
And the doctor is like, wait a minute, you know, this is, no, I can't authorize this.
And Janeway is like, well, I'm authorizing it. And he's like, well, whatever you're planning on doing,
you know, this is very dangerous. And I'll do it. It's very dangerous. Be careful.
Be careful. I hope to see you again after this.
Yeah. And it was a very sweet moment. It was a sweet moment.
It was very sweet with the doctor because he did follow her orders, but he was sincerely concerned.
You could see it.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
So now we're back in Cargo Bay 2.
And now Seven is reporting to Janeway that they have, that she has detected not one, but hundreds of molecules.
Hundreds of these old molecules have been detected.
And now Janeway realizes, oh, my gosh, my original plan of what I was going to do is now kind of void.
I have to increase every, you know, I have to increase all the fortifications.
I, all the, all the modifications that have to be done.
And everything that I, that Janeway had originally planned has to do it by 10fold,
a hundredfold almost to take care of these.
Yeah.
And seven even can see this.
And seven, you know, suggests in the scene in Cargo Bay.
She says, you know, this is going to require the resources of the entire group.
Right.
Not just, not just, not just you and me to solve this.
You're going to have to tell them what's going on because they can help.
Yeah.
Which is interesting because I think seven is, you know, she's starting to lay this foundation.
It's going to play out later.
But yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
So Janeway asked Seven to transfer all of her data to the astrometrics lab so that she can continue working on this.
Then we jump over to the science lab.
We've got Tuvok and Harry.
They're prepping a photon torpedo, gravimetric charge.
Are they in the science lab?
Are they in the transporter room?
area. I wrote science lab because I was looking around doing like, yeah, to me it looked like
the science lab. It felt like the transporter room background, which was very, yeah, it did.
I don't know why. Maybe. Maybe that was the science lab. Yeah. It was hard to tell. It was a very
difficult. The angle that was a very weird angle. Very weird angle. And the reason why I say it's
science lab is because there were a lot of wall consoles. And in the transporter room,
the only consoles that you see or the only wall consoles are behind the
transporter chief. They're not located all around the room. So that's why I felt like it was the
science lab. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So Tuvok and Harry are prepping a photon torpedo.
There is a gravimetric charge that is strong enough for a 54 isotone explosion that is being put
into this photon torpedo. And at this point, Harry's like, what are we doing? What are we doing with
this? That can destroy a small planet. Exactly. Like, what is she telling, ordering us to do?
Yeah, and Janeway pops in and here's the end of that conversation and basically shuts down Harry.
You ask too many questions, Hansen Kim.
And she says to Tuvok, let's increase this charge to 80 isotons, no longer 54, but 80.
And then she orders Harry when he's done helping Tuvok to go help out with reinforcing some shuttlecraft hull with Balana.
Yeah, now let's just pause there for one second.
She says, and Harry, when you're done with this, go help Bologna reinforce the shuttle hole.
Right.
Well, in the scene with Chocote, he told me to go reinforce the shuttle hole.
Oh, that's right.
So why is Bawanna all of a sudden taking over?
And while we're paused, I just want to throw out there for a lot of the fans who may know this and have been waiting for us to talk about it.
This is the episode where Roxanne gave birth to her daughter.
She went into labor during this episode.
Oh.
So that's why she's not in the...
That's why she's not in the later briefing room.
The briefing room scene where she is noticeably, conspicuously absent from that scene.
And that's because she was giving birth.
She went into labor and was giving birth.
So I wonder if this dialogue got...
Maybe Balana was in some of these other scenes.
She may have been in...
Yeah.
You know, she may have been in the scene with you and Tuvok, possibly.
So I don't know what other scenes she was in.
But she definitely was, was, she filmed the one scene in engineering, probably early in the episode.
Right.
And then she went into labor and she went into labor and she was written out of all the other scenes.
Everything else.
So that makes perfect sense now.
So I'm going to not, I'm not going to take it personally that Janeway has now put Balana in charge of reinforcing the shuttle hole and asking you to go help, even though Chiquet already asked me.
And I was working on it.
But clearly, he's in labor.
we're going to say Tom
Tom just said you know what I can't
reinforce the whole I have to go work on
getting my hair fluffy
yeah fluffier left fluffier
the fluffiness was very inconsistent
it was less fluffy in this episode
so now Harry is starting to talk about
all the rumors
he's speculating
yeah he says ensign Hickman says
it's species 8472
there's an opening to fluidic space
that Janeway has to close
and then I love that line
Harry goes, you know what I think?
Tuvac goes, no.
I know.
He says, do you want to know what I think?
And Tuvac says, no, I don't want to know.
I have no, I have no interest in your theories.
Harry thinks there's a type six protostar out there that Janeway is planning to detonate,
which will then open a wormhole to the alpha quadrant, which is, you know, kind of cool,
I guess, right?
But still, it's just funny that Harry's all caught up with all the gossip on the ship.
And he's caught up with the gossip.
And he's trying to get two buck into it.
I also like the fact that he's, you know,
it just reinforces that his character more than anybody really is hoping to get home.
Not that,
not that everyone's hoping to get home,
but Harry just,
he wears that hope very,
very,
you know,
front and center.
You know what?
Getting home is his omega molecule.
Yeah.
Right?
Just as the omega molecule is,
how important that is to seven of nine and the board.
getting home is Harry's most important thing in the world, right, in the galaxy.
He wants to get back.
But yeah, good point.
You were on the money on that one.
Okay.
So we jump to astrometrics, right?
We have Chakotay and Janeway.
Janeway's working by herself.
Chacote enters.
Yeah.
He says, everything's on schedule.
And he says, you know, what's up?
Tell me, can you tell me what's going on?
Yeah.
She says that she and seven are departing in a shuttlecraft at 0600 the next day.
And if they are successful, they'll return.
But if not, and if long-range sensors detect a big explosion in subspace is what
in subspace, then he needs to immediately take that ship to maximum warp, take
forage or maximum warp, and leave the area at once and leave them behind.
Yeah, head to the alpha quadrant, never look back.
You got 10 seconds to do this.
Yeah.
And he goes, how can you ask me to do this?
He said, you know, why can't you tell me why you're doing this?
If I'm, if you're asking me to abandon my best friend.
Well, okay, let's get the line correct here.
He says, if you're asking me to abandon my captain and closest friend to all the J.C. shippers out there,
closest friend without telling me why.
Yeah, that's what he says.
Yeah.
So he's pleading with her.
He's basically saying, look, I need to know why.
and let me just, you know, again, there's the J.C. shirt right there. Look at how close they're
standing. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was a nice, it was a really nice scene. It's a good scene. Yeah.
But he says, he says, look, just let the senior staff in on this. Let us help you. Don't do this on
your own. I, this is not, this is not fair to me since I'm in love with you. It's not fair.
Exactly. Exactly. That's what he was thinking. And then she thinks about a long,
long, hard think.
Yeah.
And she says, okay, assemble the troops.
Since I love you, too, Tukote.
Since I love you, too.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Okay, so now we go to the briefing room, and this is where I was going to talk about
Roxanne and Labor, what we've already talked about.
She should have been there.
She should have been there.
Yeah, I had no clue.
I was wondering what it was.
And now you have answered my question, Robbie McNeil.
This was her labor time.
I do remember when this was all going on.
Yeah.
And you're the one that, that, you know, your question, a molecule?
So you're doing more science in this episode.
Last episode, you're sciencing it.
Now you're sciencing it here, you know.
I wonder if they gave me Bologna's lines in the scene.
Because it felt like Paris was,
it felt like he was talking more than he normally does.
Yeah.
Which, by the way,
at the end of this briefing room scene,
that Seven and the doctor who always are know-it-alls
and can't seem to shut up half the time.
They don't say anything.
They don't say a word.
Harry doesn't say anything either.
No.
no but paris talks a lot yeah and i wonder like i said if it was some of uh balana's lines
because some of it's felt in the balana's wheelhouse there that makes sense yeah really makes
sense but she explains everybody that the omega molecule has the same amount of power as a warp
core it could sustain a few of these connected molecules could sustain an entire civilization
and that a federation scientist named Keterak in the 23rd century is who invented this or first synthesized.
First synthesized it, yes.
The Omega molecule for Starfleet.
And she said it could be used as a power source.
And I think seven's one line in the scene is for a weapon.
Yes.
And then she tells, Janeway tells everybody about the lab accident.
Parris says he's heard of the Lantaru sector.
Yeah.
And that there's no stable warp fields there that warp travel in that sector is impossible.
Yeah.
And then he even says he thought it was a natural phenomenon, right?
That you can only fly through there at sublight speeds.
You cannot create a stable warp field.
But now Paris knows why.
Chain reaction.
Yep.
The explosion of that single molecule was what destroyed all the subspace over there.
And yeah.
And so this is the most powerful stuff in the universe, essentially.
yep right and when janeway says uh this could lose our ability to go to warp for forever yes and hair
and then it cuts to harry and along that side of the table where harry's sitting and harry's head
goes down in his hands that was a nice moment there garr really so sad i was i was writing notes
furiously so i didn't even see that moment oh yeah i completely missed that it was a nice so then it was a
says oh yeah it was like oh and it was sad i re i clicked it back and watched it again but um cool
yeah very very sombering sobering scene but now the the whole senior staff is aware of what's going on
and so now we can work together and then we go to the hallway we got jammary's log while she's
walking down the hallway to cargo bay one yeah she's quite apprehensive about this mission
she talks about other scientists that have gone through uh who have seen uh science and
destruction at the same time talking about the atomic bomb as well i think right Einstein
how Einstein felt about the atomic bomb and then she says something about mark mark who or someone
developed the genesis advice yes what is the genesis device the genesis device the genesis device is that
in trek it's true yeah it's not it's not in um the real life yeah the genesis device essentially
has the power to take a planet which is completely barren and uninhabitable.
And the minute you activate the Genesis device, it then changes, let's say Mars.
Like, Mars is just sand, right?
It changes Mars into a lush Amazonian rainforest thing.
So it has the power of creation is what it is.
But the Genesis device definitely had issues and malfunctioned and everything went crazy.
So, yeah.
So that is what they're referring to,
the Genesis.
Yeah,
but she's,
she's clearly worried.
And I did notice the extras walking behind her,
we're carrying cases.
Yes,
they were.
You never see extras in our hallways,
like carrying cases,
yeah.
Carrying cases.
It was just weird.
It sort of jumped out at me as an unusual thing.
But clearly,
you know,
the senior,
everybody's got projects going on.
So it made sense.
Yeah.
And then we see Janeway enters cargo bay.
And I have a question.
I don't know.
why it just occurred to me.
I was like, what is in the barrels that are right next to, like, why so many barrels,
why so many regeneration pods?
It's, it just is.
What's in the barrels?
Are they Borg juice in the barrels?
Sardines.
That's what Borg's like to eat.
Yes, yes.
Okay.
So that has become a Borg delicacy.
There's like giant barrels stacked up.
And I was just, for the first time, I'm like, why the barrels?
And why is seven sleeping right next to a bunch of barrels?
Yeah, the barrels are, yeah, who knows what they are?
I don't know.
That is good, that is good pushing.
Now, do you?
They look cool.
Yes.
I like them, but I just don't.
No, when Janeway enters, when Janeway enters Cargo Bay, too, what does she say?
What's the first line that she says?
I don't know.
What's she said?
Status report.
Ah, the old status report.
Not status update.
Not a status report.
I have begun to listen now, Robbie, to every single episode to see if I can hear update anywhere.
So this is a bit of an inside joke between Robbie and I and the admirals, but.
Because I always say status update.
Yeah.
And I say, that's not trek enough.
That's not support.
It's not the official trek language.
No.
So, no.
Okay.
Okay.
So after the status report request, Seven does show Janeway the schematics for a harmonic
residence chamber that the board designed to contain and stabilize Omega. And Janeway's a little
snippy. She goes, I thought I asked you to work on the photon torpedo. And that's when Seven says the
torpedo may be insufficient. I can modify the chamber to emit an inverse frequency, which will be
enough to dissolve Omega's inner atomic bonds or interatomic bonds. So it's just neutralizing
the Omega molecules, what this will do.
And Janeway says, well, here's to Borg ingenuity.
Excellent work, seven.
We could, we can, may, uh, may need this.
This is this the first time she compliments seven for anything?
I don't know, but it's, it's, I did jump out at me.
It was a nice compliment.
Yeah.
I was like, what?
And, and then, uh, immediately, uh, I forget what seven says, but she starts to talk about
what she's going to do.
And she goes, assist me.
Right.
Right.
And Kate's face after she goes, assist me.
And Kate was like.
Janeway's face was like, what?
Okay.
That was the teenager moment.
I was like, oh my God.
It really was.
It really was.
She has a permanent teenager.
Yeah.
And Mama Kate was just like,
oh, teenagers, fine.
I'll assist you.
Yeah.
But then they start working on,
God knows what,
they're hitting a bunch of buttons.
But what I found weird about the scene is they talked a lot about board history
and about the omega molecules and all that.
I don't even know.
what they were saying for the most part or even why the button pushing all i was aware of was
they kept switching places back it was like a weird move interesting i was just like why are they
randomly like moving over here and then moving over there oh wow like if seven had to move around
and janeway was in the way why didn't janeway just step to the other side out of the way so she didn't
have to or if they were going to play that blocking as a movement that seven kept having
move from one side to the other, then they could have played the awkwardness of like, oh, I'm
sorry, excuse me, or something, right, but it was a weird middle ground where they just kept
switching places over and over again. I was like, a little docee dough, a little dosy dough, which we do
all the time in television. It's consolidated its lighting setups and things like that, but you
want to hide it. You don't want it to feel like blocking. That one just felt like blocking to me.
Well, I didn't pick up on that because once again, I was furiously writing down things about this.
And because when you were kind of tuning out and looking at the doci dough movement back and forth,
I was writing down, okay, so the Borg's history of learning about the omega molecule was from all
the species that they assimilated.
And she started going through the most ancient of species, like the first species that
they assimilated had talked about how the omega molecule could burn the sky is what they were
talking about, right?
And then the second species that they assimilated was a little bit more modern, but still very ancient.
And they said, this molecule was like a drop of blood from our creator of the universe or creator of our people.
So she kind of ran through the timeline of Borg assimilation.
Janeway also makes a point at one moment where she talks about how Omega is kind of like the creation myth in some of these stories that Seven is sharing with her.
with her. She's like, oh, it reminds me of the creation myth. So again, another kind of
religious or spiritual sort of tying together this, this omega molecule with sort of a religious
or a genesis kind of idea. Yeah. Like the Big Bang. Yeah, exactly. Omega is the reason
why the Big Bang happened, or at least that was, that's one of the theories, right? The Omega particle or
the omega molecule provided the energy for the creation of the universe in a way.
Yeah.
So then we go to the bridge and Janeway is called to the bridge and she shows up and they say
that this area of subspace is destroyed, that it's all messed up.
Scans revealed that it's coming from a nearby moon of an M-class planet.
Yeah.
We're encountering distortions as well on the bridge.
And so Harry sort of zooms in, sensors zoom in on the M-class moon and the,
the area where the omega molecules are coming from being detected and there are over 300,000
square kilometers of destruction that we see.
Everything is just, it's, it doesn't look good.
High levels of radiation are coming from the structure that has been decimated.
And Janeway decides to assemble a rescue team to head down there.
Yeah, and first she actually says, though, it looks like the same kind of destruction as the Starfleet facility.
Oh, right.
And Janeway says to Tuvok, scan for omega molecules.
And he scans and he finds nothing.
Yeah.
But he does say some areas of the facility are still intact and shielded.
So maybe it's somewhere inside the facility, but I'm not picking up anything right now.
So they're contained.
Anyway, that's when Janeway, yep, you're right, says, assemble and away team.
And she does say to Tom, she says,
and Mr. Paris, uh, uh, join us. We'll need a field medic. But you don't join them though.
No, I'm never down there. Oh my goodness. She says we'll need a field medic. So I, I don't know.
I mean, it's just an odd specific detail that she would say, join the away team. We'll need a
field medic down there because then later on, because I made a note of it. I was like, yay, I'm on the
away team. And then I started watching. I'm like, where am I? I'm not on the away team.
did you actually cheer did you say yay like that i did i got really excited i did
anyway we go down to the planet we go down to the planet we're in the laboratory
and i got to say the very first thing we see in this destruction the door opens in the
background yeah and some extras come out some background some background people come out
it's not starfleet extras it's not yeah it's not janeway it's not tuvok they're following and
I was like, that's weird.
We never have, usually it's our Janeway leading the way or Tuvok leading the way.
And then the background people fall in behind.
Right.
But the door opened and we had a couple of background artists come over and start scanning
the bodies in the foreground.
And then Tuvok and Janeway came out.
It was just a strange kind of flip that I don't, you don't normally see.
Okay.
But, and if you, if you remember, I saw a lot of familiar faces in some of the background artists
in the episode.
Sure.
I couldn't recall all of their names, but there were a lot of, a lot of our regular team that were stand-ins and background.
And it was nice to see them having moments, you know, featured.
Definitely.
Definitely.
Janeway comes across Survivor, is an alien research scientist that's kind of laid up against a wall.
And she discovers that, well, at least he tells her, there was an accident.
we lost containment
and the minute he starts speaking
well first of all
the makeup I go wow that kind of looks like
Steph from vis-a-vis
it looks like I first saw
but then I went no it's not Steph
it's a little different
Beauty and the Beast
he looks like beauty in the beast
yes it's the same shape of the nose
of Beauty and the Beast
the hair the way the hair
is sort of done back like the Prince
hair from the cartoon Beauty and the Beast
it looks just like that
but did you catch the
The minute he started to speak, all I could think of was that is Brannon Braga's voice.
And then I started thinking, is that Brandon Braga actually in, you know, alien makeup?
That's crazy.
That he, you know, he played a cameo in this episode because holy moly, that guy's voice spot on for Brandon.
Did sound like Brandon.
Yeah.
I didn't think of that, but you're right.
You're right.
And we also find out, Janeway asked, well, are there any more particles, any more?
molecules left. He says, yes, located inside the primary test chamber. And Janeway orders Tuvok
to investigate. And Tuvok says, well, yeah, this is this duritanium. It's very thick, but it's
melted into the doorframe. And Janeway says, well, we got to get through. And Tuvok says,
well, we can cut through with phasers. She goes, yep, let's that what we're going to do. Let's do it.
And that's when Tuvok says, we're going to, we're going to break in the prime directive. We're violating the
prime directive and she says for the duration of this mission the prime directive is rescinded so this
must refer to the prior scene then right that's because i yeah and i thought about that when it said
all directives are rescinded yes all direct i was like yeah because you don't hear that word directives
very often so that's why i immediately was like oh i wonder if that's the prime directive and here
it pays off so yeah um and and we also know that we're going to cut the doors with the phasers and
Janeway has said beam back these injured, these injured people to our ship, because that'll
become important later. We got those guys on our ship now. But we're helping and we're taking
care of them. Yeah. We go to cargo bay and we have this really cool high shot in the cargo
bay that comes across and sees the dome, which is this big dome. The chamber. The chamber.
Harmonic chamber. That's the first reveal of this chamber, the residence chamber. And there's seven
working on the residence chamber.
Yeah.
And she's talking to a crewman, and I didn't recognize that face.
But she renames this crew member.
She gives him orders and renames him three of ten.
You will now be known as three of ten.
She gives him a designation, a board designation, which is very funny, right?
It's very funny.
Neelix now comes in, and he's got some supplies.
I forget what he had.
They were some kind of tubes, some cool looking tubes that lit up green or something.
And he's given them to Harry.
He says, Seven told me, you know, to give these to you that you're going to do this, this, whatever with the green things.
And Harry's like, nope, I'm going to go play on this console.
And then you see Seven kind of looking at him from the back.
Well, yeah, but before that happens, this is when Neelis goes, but that's supposed to be Ensign Wildman's job.
And then that's when Harry goes, come.
You're like, Harry's like, come on.
This is ridiculous.
You know, this is.
And then, of course, that's the sideways glance from, uh,
from seven in the background, right?
Yes.
And seven comes over and he is not doing the work.
He's supposed to be doing.
He's doing someone else's.
And she calls him six of ten.
And I laughed out loud.
Which she actually said six of ten.
Yeah.
And then Harry's like, will you please stop calling me that?
Which is great.
She's like, you're being inefficient.
And Harry's like, you know what?
This is ridiculous.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
And then that's what?
Well, then now you are two of ten.
So then she demotes him.
And she demotes you.
She like bumps.
She hips checks you out of the way.
Yeah.
Takes over.
Now you're two of ten.
And I've been assigned to chamber maintenance.
Yeah.
And Megan goes, you're the chamber made now?
I said, no, no, I'm not the chamber made.
I'm in charge of chamber maintenance.
Whatever that is.
Which sounds like scrubbing something.
Is it cleaning something?
So in essence, yes, I guess I am, I am a housekeeping.
now. And I like Harry's
line when he goes, well, I'm glad you're not the
captain. Yeah.
And then Kim, you know, Chikote
shows up and Harry complains
to Chacote about all
of Seven's ridiculous commands
and designations. And
then Chakotay size was seven.
He's like, he does. Yeah.
You're going to have to adapt.
Dealing with the board, you better learn to adapt. I'm like,
oh, want, want, want.
Yeah. Funny scene, though.
It was a great scene. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
It was a nice light moment in the midst of what was a very dense and heavy intellectual episode.
I really liked.
I thought that scene was great.
So if you think about it, if you think about it, Robbie, now it's two times that Harry has entertained you with lightness.
I know.
With Calto and here being called six of ten made you chuckle too.
And then getting demoted to two of ten.
To two of ten.
I know.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then we go to Sick Bay.
Yes.
And seven wants to talk to the scene.
senior researcher and ask the doctor.
And the doctor's like, absolutely not.
He's recovering.
This is my life.
She insists.
She insists. She starts walking over to the surgical bay.
And the doctor cuts her off.
He like jumps in front of her.
He does.
And they have a bit of a standoff and he ultimately relents.
He says, be brief.
Be brief with him.
Be brief.
That's right.
So seven goes over.
So talking to the senior researcher.
And she discovers that the aliens have synthesized not hundreds,
but 200 million molecules.
And so now we're thinking about, you know,
what we've learned so far about how powerful this stuff is.
200 million molecules?
Oh, my goodness.
We also learned that the iso frequency of the containment field was 1.68
terahertz.
And then 7 of 9 also talks about how she can beam this stuff onto the ship or bring it over here.
And the guy's excited.
He's like, so he can save them.
And she says, no, we're going to do.
destroy them. And that's when he flips out. He's like, wait a minute. This is my life's work.
This is that this is what. He was on death's door. And then he was on death door. Yeah. He sits up. He's like,
what are you talking about? He's like begging. Yeah. His civilization depends on this stuff.
Yeah. He wants it to stay safe. And this is the future of his species. Right. So this is and he and he says,
you don't understand this. And she looks at him. She's like, well, no, actually, I do. You know, because she's
bored. And she under this is their holy.
But this is the moment where I start thinking, you know, when I'm watching this, I'm like, my goodness, Starfleet does not even know what this is about. Starfleet has not done enough research about over, you know, into this matter. And we are, we are breaking the prime directive to destroy this. I mean, this is not fair. And I kept thinking, goodness gracious, this is something that needs to be that you've got to give more time to it. It can't just be like get rid of this stuff immediately. Because this alien.
in this scene, to me, prove that this wasn't a weapon.
This was something to save their civilization.
So, you know, and this is when I started getting sad.
And he also has learned a lot about it because his containment approach at one point, seven goes,
that containment approach is innovative and I can improve it.
Using the resonance of the molecules themselves,
which is something the Borg never even thought about and something that Starfleet had never thought about.
So clearly, this alien race is even more advanced than Starfleet and the Borg combined so that
I, you know, at this point, I started not liking this episode that much because I felt, I thought, oh my gosh, you guys just missed out on something that is amazing, you know, completely.
Well, you know what else happened in this, in this scene besides that made you sad is when seven leaves and the doctor walks up to the surgical bay and the man who's just pleaded for his civilization, you know, the species future.
Yeah.
And the doctor grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him down.
I was like, what, yeah, I was like, what do you shove him?
This is so funny to me.
Why did you shove him?
Like, Doc, sick.
He's dying.
And especially with the Doc, the Doc block seven from talking to him.
He's like, well, he needs some time to recuperate.
He's very delicate.
He's very delicate.
He's like, take that.
Like, yeah, it was like, why.
Yeah, that might have made you sad too.
That made me sad as well.
I was like, you know, you know, what are you doing?
Doc, why wouldn't you hurt that man like that?
You're the one that was championing his call.
and now you don't even care about his well-being.
Poor guy.
Poor beast guy.
Poor Beast guy.
Poor Beauty and the Beast lead researcher guy.
Oh my gosh.
So sad.
We have a shot of the moon, the moon surface and the blue beam that's beaming up from this
destroyed, all this destruction.
It was kind of cool.
It looked to me like that was a collage of shots from the Mojave Desert and out under Lancaster
and things like that.
They sort of, that often are vis effects.
would create these matte shots they call them or these these kind of vis-effect shots where
they would collage together some real photos with some painted images and some digital parts
and so that that was that just made me think of the mojave desert and things like that
where we shot on caretaker the pilot's right same kind of the uh the dry lake
home world over there yeah and the kiz look kind of like that so then we go inside the lab on
the planet too vok is phasering open the lock janeway goes over and use
is a little muscle
and pulls it open
and there's this bright, bright blue
light, which I thought was really well
done by Marvin Ruch and the lighting team there.
Yeah. And then
Janeway calls over an ensign. Who was
that ensign? Did you write it down?
No. It's one of our regular guys.
Yes. I can't remember.
I remember so many faces,
but I, you know, I can barely remember
the blonde guy, right? Was it the blonde guy?
Was that who it was? I don't remember who this was,
but I made a note like,
was the ensign. What's his name? He was one of our regular,
of our regular background. He stood in for, in the scene, the guy that gets called over by
Janway, that actor and background artist stood in for Neelix quite often. I can't think of
his name. Really? Yeah, he would stand up for Neelix. I thought Jerry Flex's nephew was
Neelix's stand it. That's who this was. That's right. Are you sure? In this scene, is that him?
I think so. Huh. I'm pretty sure that's. Okay, okay. But there were
a lot of moments like that where I saw some of our
background artist. That's right,
Jerry Fleck's nephew. Jerry Fleck was
our first AD. He passed away
from a heart attack during
the making of Enterprise that series.
And he was the best.
Jerry Fleck was the best. And I
forgot his nephew was one of our stand-ins
in Beckman. Simon, yes. Is that it? I think I
got it. I think you got it.
It sounds like, yeah, I think it's Simon.
He was a good kid
and a hard worker and Jerry was
awesome. Jerry was amazing. He really was. So she tells Chicoatay to complete the chamber up on the ship,
tells them to complete the chamber. We're going to transport these things into the chamber.
This could destroy half of the delta quadrant, she says. Yeah. That's how much of this omega
molecules are here. Yeah. And I love Janeway's line when she says, the final frontier, she says to
Tuvok, the final frontier has some boundaries that should not be crossed. Yeah. And
And we're looking at one.
Yeah.
I thought that was a great line.
Yeah.
It was a good line.
So they're going to beam it up there to that chamber and they're going to destroy it.
That's the plan.
That's Captain's orders right now.
Right.
And that's where we're headed.
So we go to Cargo Bay.
Cargo Bay, too.
Seven has discovered how to stabilize the molecule using their own resonance as told to her by the alien lead researcher.
So she kind of talks to Chakotay about this.
And she's like, look, let me show you a couple things.
And Chocote takes a look.
He's like, hmm, yeah.
Simulation.
Yeah, simulation, but it looks good.
You are, you're on the money, Seth.
And it says, can you test it, though?
How are you going to test it?
Right.
This is just a simulation.
How are you going to test it?
And she goes, I can't test it.
Yeah.
And he says, well, then we can't, we can't risk it.
We're going to follow orders.
We have to destroy this stuff.
Yeah.
And she starts to beg him.
This is the personal request.
Yeah.
She gets slightly a.
emotional in this scene. She does. She really does. Yeah. Chacote says, why is this so important? And she
tells a little history. She says this is the Borg designated this particle 010. And it is perfection.
Yeah. We jump back and forth between alien research facility and the bridge during the transport of the
omega molecules to the chamber. Then we are back in Cargo Bay 2. And Janeway shows up to confront
or two, yeah, would you say confront?
I would say confront seven, I guess, yeah.
And Omega is stabilizing at the last second.
This is after the decompression of cargo pay two order by Janeway,
and you look inside and all these molecules are now,
they're not erratic, they're coming together,
and they're forming one larger molecule.
And seven, the look on her face is just like, ah, I mean,
And just, and that light on her.
And that is the small thumbnail on Netflix, is the, is the image of, of the blue light on Seven's face to see the coming together of the stabilization of that omega molecule, which it's stabilizing on its own.
It's not, it's not anything that at, because remember, Seven, it talked about she, she can, she's found a way to stabilize it.
And she doesn't do anything.
It's stabilizing itself.
And I almost felt, I felt so sad at this point, because I felt like,
The molecule was sentient.
It knew what was happening, that it was about to be jettisoned out of cargo bay, too,
and it was about to be destroyed.
And it was trying to come together to try to plead with seven to say, look, this is not right.
You don't understand what my nature is, what I'm meant to do.
I give life.
I'm not a destroyer.
I'm not a weapon.
I'm not going to destroy this all of subspace.
That's what I felt.
That's what I got from that scene.
And that's when I just got so depressed.
Watching that.
I'm like, no.
Well, this scene was intense.
long scene with Janeway and seven because at one point Janeway says I don't care if you can make
it sing and dance we're going to get rid of it and she starts to walk past her and tries to walk past
and seven blocks her path very aggressive yeah and seven says you know I should have done it anyway
and I still could again teenager see true teenager but Janeway's line I don't care if it can sing and
dance let's get rid of it is the same words spoken from every modern civilization
about something that they don't understand and that they're afraid of, right, that they think
is dangerous, but it's not dangerous. And it ends up, you end up, well, it was dangerous. I mean,
in terms of Starfleet, this is the Omega Directive. This is not just a little thing. This is,
but I agree, they don't know enough about it. But let's put it in, yeah, let's put it into
perspective, Robbie. That accident that happened with the physicist, the Starfleet physicist cataract,
Keterak happened over a hundred years ago, you know,
when their technology wasn't as advanced as our technology now on the show,
not, you know, now.
And it's like, come on, guys, you know.
It's interesting.
This whole debate you and I are having right now in the January and Seven had gets to the theme
for me, which I'll get to later on about the theme of this show.
But I don't disagree with you.
Okay.
There is knowledge and wisdom.
and things that we don't understand that are just out of reach sometimes.
And to me, the question is, are you ready for that knowledge and wisdom?
Have you prepared yourself well enough to take that knowledge and wisdom on?
Are you prepared enough?
And also, what are you willing to risk?
How far are you willing to go?
Because you know, you may not be ready.
You may not have all the information.
And so it is a gamble those things.
And I think that's the debate that James Seven's going,
this is so important.
I'm willing to gamble everything.
Right.
And Janeway's going, I don't feel ready.
I don't want to. I'm not ready.
I'm not prepared.
We don't know enough.
We got to stick with a destroy it plan.
So it's an interesting debate.
It is.
It is.
And during this, you know,
decompression of Cargo Bay,
two voyagers being chased by two of the alien ships that are trying to,
to, you know, regain their technology, basically and what their work.
So, and also their, their physicists, their lead researchers.
Yeah, the warships have tractored them at this point.
They're demanding the Omicron particles.
They want their people back.
You're holding our people.
Chukotay refuses.
They're opening fire on them.
Back in the cargo bay, they've neutralized at this point, 72%.
Right.
Which Janeway says that's enough.
So she jettisoned, you know, they jettisoned the harmonic chamber.
Janeway says, seven, let's get out of here.
We have to go.
There's 15 seconds before this entire cargo bay is going to decompress.
The chamber is jettisoned.
Tuvac, sorry, is it Tuvok?
Chiquotay orders the firing of the photopon torpedo, which then destroys the harmonic chamber,
and it also destroys all of the remaining omega molecules that are there.
And then now after that's...
And Tuvok does a little scan on the bridge, and Tuvok says,
sensors show no traces of omega molecules.
He does say censors.
Sensors show no traces.
I love that.
Sensors.
Yeah.
And there's a long push-in, camera push-in on Janeway, and a long push-in on 7-9.
Yeah.
We cut out to space, we have a little log where Janeway says the guests, you know,
their guests have been returned to their people.
That's right.
And all the classified data files have been destroyed.
Everything is destroyed.
This never happened.
Yeah.
No one will even know it exists.
That's your sadness right there.
Yeah, really sad.
And then Da Vinci's workshop is the final scene, and we see seven of nine.
Yeah, seven and nine's there in front of the fireplace.
We've seen a wide shot, and we cut into what she's looking at is an old crucifix up on the wall.
And she's pondering and contemplating crucifix.
And then Janeway enters.
And Janeway says, I wondered who was running my program.
Pastor Da Vinci doesn't like any visitors after midnight.
Seven responds, he protested, I deactivated him.
Yeah.
That's like a teenager.
He protested, I deactivated him.
She says, Seven says that she wanted to study the religious ideas that were in the
Da Vinci program and understand what she had seen when she looked at these omega molecules.
And then they sit by the fire side by side, shoulder to shoulder.
And Seven says, the Borg have assimilated many species with mythologies to explain such moments of clarity.
I've always dismissed them as trivial.
Perhaps I was wrong.
Yeah.
And before that, she says for 3.2 seconds, I saw perfection for 3.2 seconds.
And you know what's interesting about this.
So I understand what Seven is describing, I think.
But when when you look at it, it wasn't that amazing.
I almost wish we had never seen the omega molecules.
Yeah.
Because it almost would have been better as an audience to have seven of nine describe it.
Right.
To have other people see it and have the audience never see it.
So that the audience can use their own imagination.
Yeah.
Correct?
Because as soon as you cut to it, it looked like a TV vis effects of some molecule.
It didn't look any more interesting than slides I've seen under a microscope myself.
Understood.
So I wish we had never seen it.
That would have made a huge difference to me.
Okay.
That didn't bother me at all.
I was still, I was still, I bought in, I was all in on seven and what she was going through.
And, you know, and then Janeway, for me, I felt like, wait a minute, at the end of this, at the end of the episode, you have the nerve and audacity to say to seven that you just had your first spiritual experience.
It's like, you're the one that destroyed her spiritual experience.
You're the one that's destroyed what was perfection.
It's like, wait a minute.
How dare you say that?
And all I could think about this whole time was like, it's just, you know, back in the, back in the day when people were saying, okay, the earth is flat.
And if you go too far in your ships, you're going to fall right off the edge of the planet, right?
And that's the end of it.
And people were afraid to travel too far because they didn't want to risk dying.
And really, once they risk, once they risk it, then they just.
discovered, you know, that this.
Well, I don't disagree with you.
I think the risk would have been when Chacote said seven, how are you going to test this?
And she said, I can't.
Yeah.
If she could have tested it in any way, that would have been the risk.
If you could contain the risk to a test situation where, sure, there may be consequences.
But to gamble with whatever it was, 600 million molecules that could destroy, the, the choice was risk.
destroying half of the Delta Quadrant, the whole quadrant, Janeway said, or miss this
opportunity and down the road, maybe, you know, maybe we can try this again. Yeah. But they destroyed
all the classified data finds. So if they destroyed everything they learned, then I, that's the part
that bothers me. I wish they'd kept it. She should have kept it and encrypted it. She should have
kept it, encrypted it with her very, very horrible, easy to pass password, easy to hack password. But still,
it would have been encrypted right red 10 red 10 that's all you need to know and you can get
into any star fleet super secret file janeway alpha birthday cake red 10 that's it um i i you know what
i think it is the reason i i'm going to say right now robby the reason why this episode resonated
with me or the reason why i was so upset about this episode is that i feel like the overall lesson or
the overall analogy, really, is, it's that fear of the unknown.
And I felt that the omega molecule was the unknown.
What did occur to me is the atomic bomb and the atomic energy and things like that, the fear.
And there is good and there is danger with atomic energy and atomic fusion.
And so learning when we are ready to be responsible with atomic fusion, that's the analogy I made.
That seemed like the closest.
And the religious analogy or all of those analogies are really what make Trek stories.
That's the beauty of them is that you can kind of use them as a jumping off point for great conversations and great, you know, reflection and thinking.
So I love that.
And if you stay within the parameters of the episode of the sci-fi, it was so disheartening to see that lead researcher pleading to seven of nine.
saying, look, you don't understand this.
This is what's going to save our people, my people.
We need this.
This is so important to us.
You don't get it.
And more often than not, in the world that we live in, when we don't understand
something or whatever, it's like, okay, get rid of it.
Just get rid of it.
You know, I don't know.
That might be dangerous.
That might be contagious.
That might cause some type of disease.
Let's just kill it.
You know, it's always about killing something or eliminating something.
instead of working with something and understanding something,
collaborating with someone or something, right?
A lot of things that you don't understand,
you need to take the time to try to understand it
before you make a rash decision to end the life
or end the existence of something or someone.
This is, I guess, the lesson for me, really.
Wow.
My theme, so that's the lesson for you.
My lesson would be more of a question of how much,
are you willing to risk for perfection or how much are you willing to risk for a spiritual
experience to me it's it was more of a question because i think uh people's different characters
willingness was very very different you know what they were willing to risk to to
have an experience with this omega molecule right and understand it and how far were they willing to go
They all had different limits.
So, yeah, that's, that's, that's our recap and rewatch and review with passion of the Omega Directive.
This is the most passion that I've been in an entire rewatch over a molecule, over a, over a little old molecule.
But yeah, that molecule meant something to me.
It really did.
Yeah, I can see that.
That was really fun.
Thank you for joining me on this rewatch.
It was a lot of fun to talk about.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks, everyone for tuning in and tune in next week
when Robbie and I will rewatch and recap and discuss unforgettable.
Unforgetable.
Unforgetable.
Can you sing that song?
I don't know if it was unforgettable for me.
It may have gotten forgotten.
But we will see next week, won't we?
Yes.
You'll have to tune in next week to know whether it was forgotten or whether it was
unforgettable.
Unforgetable.
I wanted you to sing for us, Robbie.
I know that you have your singing jobs.
Unforgetable.
Thank you.
In every way.
Unforgetable, that's how you'll stay.
That was great.
That was really good.
Thank you.
That is
That is forgetable
That is why
Something's forgetable
To
And this song's forgettable to
Me
All right
All right, everyone
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Bye.