Equinox (Star Trek: Voyager)

"Equinox" is a two-part episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, the cliffhanger between the fifth and sixth seasons.

Part 1 is the 26th episode of the fifth season, 120th overall.

Part 2 is the first episode of the sixth season, 121st overall.

Plot

Part I

Voyager‍‍ '​‍s crew is surprised to receive an emergency hail from another Federation starship, the Equinox, in the Delta Quadrant. They arrive to find the damaged ship under attack by nucleogenic lifeforms. Under advice from the Equinox captain, Rudy Ransom, Captain Kathryn Janeway has Voyager extend its shields around both ships, quelling the attack, though the creatures continue to bear down on the shields, weakening them over time.

The combined crews begin to aid the surviving crew and assess damage and effect repairs on the Equinox.

Ransom explains to Janeway that they were also pulled into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker array, and have been using a modified warp drive to try to return to the Alpha Quadrant. Repairs to the Equinox are estimated to take a couple of weeks, but the nucleogenic creatures will wear down Voyager‍‍ '​‍s shields within days, so efforts are made to salvage what they can from the Equinox and abandon the ship.

Unknown to the Voyager crew, Ransom and the surviving Equinox crew do not want this to happen, and instead plan on taking Voyager‍‍ '​‍s shield generator and continuing on their own.

While salvaging, the Voyager crew finds an area of the ship they cannot access due to intentional overrides by the Equinox crew. Janeway sends the holographic Doctor to the area, where he finds the Equinox crew has been harvesting bio-energy from the nucleogenic creatures, killing them in the process.

Ransom and the other Equinox crew are immediately captured, and explains that en route, they met a species with the means to summon these creatures and control them.

When they realized the creature's bio-energy could be used to power their enhanced warp drive, they no longer felt compelled to follow the Prime Directive over the prospects of returning home as soon as possible.

The Doctor continues to explore more of the Equinox, enters its medical bay, and activates its Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH). When the Doctor asks whether the EMH was aware of the Equinox crew killing the nucleogenic creatures, the EMH affirms he helped develop the process after his ethical sub-routines were erased, and then attacks the (Voyager‍‍ '​‍s) Doctor's holographic emitter, replacing the Doctor's program with its own and stranding the Doctor aboard the Equinox.

The EMH, acting as Voyager‍‍ '​‍s Doctor, returns to the ship and is able to free the Equinox crew. They complete the theft of the shield generator and quickly install it on their ship, allowing them to escape, having captured Seven of Nine along the way. Voyager suddenly finds itself under attack from the nucleogenic creatures.

Part II

The Equinox continues its course to the Alpha Quadrant, but when they attempt to use the enhanced warp drive, they find its controls have been locked out by Seven.

After learning the Doctor in their sickbay is from Voyager, and erasing his ethical sub-routines as they did with their EMH, they threaten to use him to probe Seven's mind to obtain the encrypted codes, despite the fact this may permanently incapacitate her. During his examination, he sings Clementine with the partially unconscious Seven, much dismaying Ransom as it seems to make his probing go more slowly.

Voyager eventually is able to temporarily stop the nucleogenic creatures' attack, even after attempts at communication fail.

The ship follows the Equinox‍‍ '​‍s trail to an area of space where their sensors have difficulty tracking the ship.

Reviewing Ransom's record, Janeway is able to predict where Equinox is heading and eventually discovers the ship hiding off a planet and captures two of the Equinox's crewmen.

The Equinox‍‍ '​‍s EMH secretly warns Ransom about Janeway's discovery, allowing them to evade the initial assault by Voyager, but after a furious firefight, Voyager eventually disables the Equinox weapon systems and captures some of its crew.

Equinox takes off into warp while Voyager remains behind to effect repairs, Janeway threatens one of the Equinox captives with being left in a cargo bay with one of the nucleogenic creatures.

Commander Chakotay, seeing this as torture, steps in to release the captive, forcing Janeway to relieve him of duty.

Eventually Voyager is able to find a way to communicate with the creatures, who say they will stop attacking if Voyager will give them the Equinox.

Ransom starts to realize the error of his ways and orders the crew to return the Equinox to Voyager, but the remaining crew at the helm attempt to mutiny against this. Ransom transports the crew, as well as the Doctor and Seven, back to Voyager, offering to sacrifice himself to the nucleogenic creatures, moving the ship far enough away from Voyager to protect it from the resulting explosion.

As Voyager resumes its journey home, Janeway reinstates Chakotay to Commander and strips the surviving Equinox crew of their ranks while integrating them with the rest of her crew. Seven promises to help the Doctor secure his ethical sub-routines from being deleted in the future, as he feels terribly sorry for his actions. She also wittily remarks that, during their time together on the Equinox, he sang Clementine slightly off-key. At the end of the episode, the mock-angry Doctor arranges a date in a holo-deck: "Just you, me... and a tuning fork."

External links

• "Equinox, Part I" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Equinox, Part II" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Equinox, Part I" at TV.com
• "Equinox, Part II" at TV.com
• Equinox, Part I at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Equinox, Part II at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Equinox, Part I at StarTrek.com
• Equinox, Part II at StarTrek.com