Star Trek: Voyager — 5x06 — Timeless

Aired 1998-11-18

SpaceOpera.com rating:9

Average reader rating:6.72

Factoids

This story was conceived to celebrate the fact that this is Voyager's 100th episode.
Voyager's new quantum slipstream drive seems many times faster than the original featured in Voy: Hope and Fear. Instead of 300 light years per hour, they were planning to cross thousands in mere seconds!
Seven of Nine's translink frequency is 108.44236000.
Thanks to the brief slipstream flight in this episode, Voyager has shaved about 10 years off their journey. This means Voyager has traveled the equivalent of about 32 years since it began its journey. (10 years [Voy: The Gift] + 5 years [Voy: Year of Hell] + 2 years [Voy: Night, rounded down] + 1 year [Voy: Hope and Fear, rounded up] + 10 years [Voy: Timeless] + 4 seasons of conventional warp = 32 years.)

Problems

Chakotay says: "Looks like they hit the ice at full impulse." Uh, Chakotay? Full impulse is pretty close to the speed of light. There wouldn't have been a ship left to excavate if they hit the ice that fast. Just an impact crater.
The doctor says to Seven of Nine "your blood-synthehol level is 0.5 percent" as an explanation for her drunkenness. But as far as I know, synthehol isn't supposed to get you drunk!
Why couldn't Voyager use their new engine to make a series of ten second slipstream jumps instead of just using it once?

Synopsis

Kim attempts to rewrite history.

Remarkable scenes

Seeing Voyager buried under ice...
Harry excavating the doctor.
The flashback to the party.
Tuvok: "Mr. Neelix, you are an unending source of astonishment."
Harry and Chakotay explaining their plan to the doctor.
The doctor: "Out of the icebox and into the fire..."
Captain LaForge of the Starship Challenger!
Harry: "This is no ordinary phone call, Doc. When talking to yesterday, timing is everything."
Tom: "Captain, we're just a few parsecs from the alpha quadrant!" Janeway: "Not exactly how I wanted to cross the finish line."
The crash.
The doctor making Harry realize he can send a set of corrections which will disperse the slipstream entirely, saving their lives, even if not getting them home.
Harry using the doctor's mobile emitter to power the temporal transmitter.
Harry sending the message just as the Delta Flyer explodes.
Harry: "Wait a second. If I sent a message from the future and changed the past, then that future would no longer exist, right? So, how could I have sent the message in the first place? Am I making any sense?" Janeway: "My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple. Don't even try. To me all that matters is that somewhere, somehow, sometime, you come through for us."

Review

A quantum matrix, benamite crystals, and Borg technology bring us a new and improved replacement quantum slipstream drive inspired by the one first featured in Voy: Hope and Fear that turned out to be in fact too dangerous to use again. The crew believes this new and improved version will work and get them home. But their new version turned out to be even more dangerous than their old one. The best part about this episode is the wonderful directing. The transitions between the past and the future were very well done, such as the scene where Chakotay lays down a PADD, then we see the PADD frozen in the future. We get to hear Janeway's final log entry in the future when Chakotay stumbles on the file, then we get to see her actually make that log entry in the past. I also love the way they alternating showing us Voyager in the past chasing the Delta Flyer and the Galaxy class starship captained by Geordi chasing the Delta Flyer in the future. Finally, we get to see Harry view the message his future self recorded earlier. A surely surreal moment for him. The only thing I don't like about this wonderful episode is the technical issue surrounding why Voyager can never use this technology again, described in the problems section. Otherwise, one of the best time travel episodes and a wonderful celebration for Voyager's 100th episode.

6 reader comments

"But as far as I know, synthehol isn't supposed to get you drunk!"
I think the explanation lies in the TNG episode "Relics". Data tells Scotty that the intoxicating effects of synthehol can be easily dismissed, which would indicate you can indeed be intoxicated by it.
by Mitch89 | 07/30/2013 at 8:52 am

In regards to your full impulse problem: isnt full impulse describing how much force the engines are creating? Yes, that results in near light speeds in space but full impulse in an atmosphere would be much slower. With a shallow enough angle of impact its possible voyager would survive.
by Rick Smith | 10/24/2013 at 5:41 pm

This episode was an excellent character piece for Harry Kim and Chakotay (mostly Harry). It was nice to see the writers do something with the character since 'The Killing Game'.
My only problem with this episode, once again, has to do with the quantum slipstream. It was bad enough that the writers just casually threw that into 'Hope and Fear' without thinking of the ramifications of it; but now, they made it even more ridiculous by making a modified version that is 111x faster than the original alien design. Once again, no thoughts to the repercussions of this insane speed; just treat the revoluntionary device as if it was just another casual machine.
They say in the episode that the ship would only be able to maintain the slipstream for ten seconds. In actuality, Voyager held it for three minutes before the future abort code forced them out. According to Janeway's log after this, the test flight covered 10,000 light years.
So, this MODIFIED slipstream drive has a speed of 1,752,000,000 c that can traverse the entire Milky Way galaxy in only half an hour. If there is a new series set in the old continuity, they need to address the impact this thing will have on the Federation and its neighbors.
by SilverDragonRed | 02/03/2014 at 3:29 pm

I find it incredibly hard to believe that they popped the champagne before anyone did any holosimulations of the new quantum slipstream drive. That just seems like it would be a no-brainer standard procedure for something like this.
Also, why couldn't they contact Seven the day before they used the slipstream with a simply decoded message that said, "Hey, don't do this, you're all going to die?" Although I guess doing it this way shaved 10 years off their journey.
by Dstyle | 06/22/2015 at 3:17 pm

"Full impulse is pretty close to the speed of light. There wouldn't have been a ship left to excavate if they hit the ice that fast. Just an impact crater."
At full impulse, there wouldn't be a planet anymore.
by Andy | 07/26/2015 at 10:31 pm

In response to your third problem about consecutive slipstream jumps……It took me awhile to think of this but I think that Harry had to give them precise phase corrections that would "safely" throw Voyager out of the slipstream. If they tried this again all of the relevant factors (whatever they are) would be different and Harry wouldnt know what phase corrections would safely throw Voyager out of the slipstream. The only reason he knew the first time is that he had a decade to study the situation.
by Rick | 04/18/2016 at 4:55 am