Lineage (Star Trek: Voyager)

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Star Trek: VOY episode
"Lineage"
A projection of Tom and B'Elanna's baby
Episode no.	158
Prod. code	258
Airdate	January 24, 2001
Writer(s)	James Kahn
Director	Peter Lauritson
Guest star(s)	Manu Intiraymi as Icheb Juan Garcia as John Torres Jessica Gaona as Young B'Elanna Javier Grajeda as Uncle Carl Paul Robert Langdon as Dean Nicole Sarah Fellows as Elizabeth Gilbert R. Leal as Michael
Year	2377
Stardate	54452.6
Episode chronology
Previous	"Shattered"
Next	"Repentance"

"Lineage" is an episode of the TV series Star Trek: Voyager, the 12^th episode of the seventh season.

[edit] Plot

B'Elanna Torres is in a good mood, until she arrives at work in Engineering and almost faints. Icheb scans her and panics when he thinks she has a parasite within her. Seven of Nine also scans Torres and comes up with a different diagnosis: B'Elanna is pregnant.

The Doctor confirms Seven's diagnosis. The fetus is perfectly healthy, except for a genetic defect that causes abnormal spine curvature in Klingon females. B'Elanna, who is half Klingon, had surgery as a baby to correct this defect. The Doctor says that nowadays genetic resequencing is the preferred treatment. He performs the procedure the next day.

B'Elanna reminisces back to her childhood as a Klingon girl on the colony which she grew up. She blames herself, especially her Klingon half, for her human father leaving her, and resolves to not let the same happen to her daughter. She proposes further genetic resequencing to delete various Klingon genes, but the Doctor and Tom Paris, B'Elanna's husband, disagree.

During one of the couple's arguments, Torres mentions Voyager has 140 humans on board. This is not intended as a full crew count as other aliens, such as Vulcans, Bolians and Bajorans are also part of the crew.

When the Doctor suddenly changes his mind, Tom seeks a second opinion from Icheb (his aptitude for genetics was first referenced in "Child's Play"). Icheb disagrees with the Doctor's new assessment and discovers that the EMH's program has been tampered with. Tom stops the procedure in the nick of time, and he and B'Elanna have an argument. She tearfully admits what she fears will happen to her daughter, and Tom reaffirms his commitment to his growing family. B'Elanna asks the Doctor to be the godfather.

[edit] Notes

The doctor's willingness to preform genetic manipulation on the unborn child would seem to be in conflict with the Federation's prohibition on genetic enhancements mentioned in "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?."Although in that DS9 episode it is stated the genetic manipulation is only to be used to cure birth defects, which is what this condition is. Also, when the Doctor was going to perform the procedure purging all the klingon DNA from the child, his programming had been altered so he probably wouldn't have done it if he had been operating normally.