| "Relativity" | |||
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| Star Trek: Voyager episode | |||
The EPS relay before the device is planted. |
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| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 24 |
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| Directed by | Allan Eastman | ||
| Written by | Nick Sagan Bryan Fuller Michael Taylor |
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| Production code | 218 | ||
| Original air date | May 12, 1999 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Bruce McGill as Captain Braxton |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes | |||
"Relativity" is an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the 24th episode of the fifth season. The episode has an average rating of 4.6/5 on the official Star Trek website (as of August 31, 2007).[1]
In this episode, Braxton is captain of the timeship T.S Relativity, a ship existing outside space-time; its crew are able to scan time to look for temporal incursions or paradoxes, whereupon they can venture in to prevent the said paradox.
Someone has planted a device aboard Voyager which is causing a time paradox, and Braxton needs to find out exactly when and where it was placed, in order to prevent it from being put there in the first place. To do this, he recruits Seven, who possesses superior visual acuity, and is able to detect the device through her ocular implant.
Braxton takes Seven off Voyager and explains what she needs to do. This involves going back in time (from Seven’s point of view) to a time when Voyager was still in drydock. She is seen by Captain Janeway, but this appears not to cause any problem. However, as Seven is trying to locate and dismantle the device, Janeway becomes suspicious, notices a chronoton flux, and moves in to investigate what Seven is up to. Realizing that Seven is about to be found, Braxton hastily whips her out of that time period, but due to numerous time 'teleport' travels Seven dies in transport.
Braxton recruits Seven again, from another time, and sets her off to perform the same mission again. But this time, she needs to go to a time before she joined the crew and the USS Voyager was under sustained attack by the Kazon. She is captured by Janeway, who recognizes her as the Ensign aboard her ship when in dry dock. Lt. Ducane mutters "Tempus Fugit" on the bridge of the Relativity. Janeway releases Seven after she explains the situation. Together, Seven and Janeway locate the device, and discover that Captain Braxton planted the bomb himself. Apparently, because of the shock and stress he suffered from living on Earth back in the 1990s, when the time line was restored Braxton was forced to undergo extensive rehabilitation before being allowed to return to duty. At some point, he convinced himself that Janeway was the cause of his pain and humiliation, and because he had to clean up the timeline after every temporal incursion that she created, he came to the conclusion that destroying Voyager itself would finally make him normal again.
Braxton returns to the past, when Voyager was in dry dock. Seven chases him, but begins to suffer ill-effects from too much time-travel. Braxton transports one last time to the day when Voyager would be destroyed: Seven of Nine can no longer keep chasing Braxton, but she warns the crew of that time period—which includes herself—to apprehend him.
Back on Relativity, Lt. Ducane relieves Braxton of duty and arrests him "for crimes he is going to commit". The present Braxton protests, saying he has no wish to harm Voyager, but is still taken into custody.
Braxton’s staff now recruits Janeway, as it is too dangerous for Seven to be snatched from her own time frame a fifth time, and send Janeway back to capture the Braxton who originally placed the device on Voyager.
Janeway is successful, and this Braxton is also now transported onto the timeship Relativity, and is “re-integrated” with the other two Braxtons that are already in custody.
Janeway and Seven are also “re-integrated” with their other selves and sent back to the time whence they originated, with their memories intact, and strict orders not to speak of the incident.
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