Star Trek: Voyager — 4x26 — Hope and Fear

Aired 1998-05-20

SpaceOpera.com rating:8

Average reader rating:6.78

Factoids

Borg species designation: 116, name unknown. Arturis' people. Assimilated by the Borg when species 8472 lost the war against the Borg. The assimilation of species 116 necessitated hundreds of cubes.
The Dauntless' registry was NX-01A. This would indicate that the first Federation ship ever built was named Dauntless. Though it also could mean nothing seeing as how the ship is a fake.
Quantum slipstream is similar to Borg transwarp, according to Seven of Nine.
The fake message from the admiral said a slipstream trip back to earth would take a full three months.
Janeway is shot during transport in this episode and is not affected.

Problems

Voyager remained in the slipstream for an hour before it collapsed and bridged 300 light years. Why can't they just continue to run it for hour-long bursts? They could be home in only 200 jumps! Maybe the damaging effect of the slipstream on Voyager is cumulative. This would seem to be supported by Seven of Nine's statement that she must design a "new method" by which to travel through slipstream.
Was Voyager's slipstream faster than the Dauntless? The fake message from the admiral claimed a trip to Earth would take a full 3 months. But at a continuous 300 light years per hour, the trip would take only ~8 days. ~16 if they went at half that speed, and ~32 if they went at a quarter that speed. Certainly not three months!

Synopsis

Starfleet sends a ship to bring the crew home.

Remarkable scenes

The opening scene with Seven of Nine and Janeway playing Velocity.
Tom, upon boarding the Federation ship: "Wow." Tuvok: "Wow, indeed."
Seven: "I will survive." Janeway: "On what? Borg perfection?" Seven: "Precisely."
Arturis' betrayal.
Janeway's innovative trick to use the Borg technology within Seven of Nine to let her pass through the forcefield.
Janeway: "Understand?" Seven: "No. However if we are assimilated, our thoughts will become one and I'm sure I will understand you perfectly... A joke, captain. You yourself have encouraged me to use my sense of humor."
Arturis' arrival in Borg space.

Review

A fascinating episode introducing a new engine technology. "New warp drive of the week" is not an unfamiliar concept to Star Trek, as evidenced by episodes like TNG: New Ground (soliton wave), TNG: Descent (Borg transwarp), Voy: Caretaker (the Caretaker's array), Voy: Prime Factors (extreme long range transporter), Voy: Threshold (ugh), and Voy: Vis a Vis (coaxial warp); and then there's conventional means like wormholes, time travel, or supernatural entities like Q, but this is the first episode to introduce a new technology aside from Borg transwarp that has the prospect of being used again. The soliton wave in TNG was a flawed concept, the Caretaker's array was destroyed, the long range transporter in Voy: Prime Factors was dependent on natural phenomena, though the aliens could have sent Voyager home if they themselves were actually willing, Voy: Threshold... well let's just forget about Voy: Threshold, and we're not entirely sure what happened to the coaxial warp drive in Voy: Vis a Vis. As you can see, Voyager abuses "new drive of the week" more than any other show, thankfully not in this case. Unlike Voy: Vis a Vis, it is made clear at the end of this episode that Voyager has retained detailed specifications regarding the quantum slipstream drive and that they intend to hopefully use it again some day. Techno ranting aside, suffice it to say I liked the "new drive of the week" in both concept and execution in this episode quite a bit. The episode itself is memorable, fast paced, and action packed. Aturis was an interesting character who I believe was wasted. Then again, adding him to Voyager's crew would solve all their problems immediately, and we wouldn't want that, now would we? ;)

6 reader comments

I don't know about this for a last episode of the season, but I thought the ship was awesome. The outer hull design seems similar to how the crew ends up designing the delta flyer.
by Wes Thompson | 02/25/2012 at 9:31 pm

Wait, let me get this straight. They traveled all the way back to borg space and then only picked up 300 light years on the return trip? So the whole Kes thing is now irrelevant, and they are right back where they started before that?
I originally understood the situation to mean that they picked up 300 light years from where they were when they started using slipstream. This would imply that in an hour they traveled over 10k light years but who knows, the message about 3mos was fake. Either way, both ships traveled over 10k light years to get back to borg space. So what the heck is goin on here
by Rick Smith | 01/06/2013 at 8:34 am

The mystery that this episode fell apart as soon as you hear the 'recording' from admiral windbag in the magic meeting room. His stated speed of 240,000 c(60,000 lys in 3 months) doesn't gel with the actual demonstrated speed of the Dauntless: 15,768,000 c(15 lys in 30 seconds). So, the reveal that Arturis had planned a trap for him wasn't really shocking. It was neat to see a species that didn't view the Borg in the same way as the rest of the galaxy. Kethinov, the return trip to Earth with quantum slipstream would take 2 days at most.
by SilverDragonRed | 10/11/2013 at 4:20 pm

Somehow, I don’t think they went “back” to Borg space. I think writers were just sloppy in how they used the term “Borg Space.” It seems to refer simply to a region of space where all of the civilizations have been assimilated by Borg, rather than what we saw in Unity, Scorpion,etc., where it seemed they were talking about the Borg’s native space or headquarters, or something to that effect. So, I think it’s intended that Voyager is now 300 light years closer to the Alpha Quadrant since the beginning of the episode. Of course, my interpretation creates an equally large problem: encountering a region of space so deeply affected by the Borg and their conflict with Species 8472, after Kes threw them “safely out of Borg space” so many months ago. It’s all a confused mess, which makes it hard for me to give the episode quite the high marks that Kethinov gave it.
But, I must say, the quantum slipstream is super cool. And, I like the idea that in the conflict between Borg and Species 8472, there are those who would have struck a “bargain with the Devil” a la Janeway, but they would choose the opposite devil to bargain with! It reminds us of the moral and tactical messiness of war. The other thing I like is the development of Captain and Seven’s relationship. It’s a nice tension between mutual exasperation and respect; of conflict and harmony (or at least the aspiration to harmony).
by Jadzia Guinan Smith | 06/14/2015 at 5:22 pm

Voyager fires photon torpedoes while they're in the slipstream! Those torpedoes must've been going awful fast!
by Dstyle | 07/01/2015 at 3:38 pm

Mostly good, though I didn't like when Janeway confronted Arturis. They surprise him with a full security detail, but still can't stop him from pulling off a panel, pulling a big lever, and then erecting forcefields. Geez, I guess when he said early in the episode that some species have physical strength and some have strong mental capabilities, he was talking about himself in both cases. Seems they could have gotten around this if he had just issued a voice command.
Also, I hope Seven never gets trapped by a forcefield again. If all it takes is a little tinkering with a filament to get through one, then she should always be prepared to repeat the trick.
by tigertooth | 11/10/2016 at 2:34 pm