The crew is in serious danger when all of their dreams seem to come true and home seems closer in sight.
Seven of Nine returns from a survey to find the crew has discovered what they think is a wormhole leading to Earth. A probe detects Starfleet signals containing letters full of good news to the crew. Although sensors detect erratic neutrino levels in the wormhole, Starfleet says the flux is unimportant. Suspicious of everyone’s unfettered optimism despite signs the anomaly may not be all it appears to be, Seven accesses Janeway’s logs. At first she reports that scans determined the wormhole was a deception, but in supplemental logs, Janeway suddenly believes it is real.
When Seven locates an alien vessel in the wormhole not detected by Voyager’s sensors, she hails it. The alien, Qatai, warns her that her ship is being deceived, but they are cut off when Janeway routes power from the lab to another system. When Naomi tells her everyone is acting strangely, Seven realizes they are the only two unaffected by whatever is manipulating the crew. Soon, Starfleet orders that the Doctor be taken off-line to avoid system interference and that she be put in stasis while Voyager passes through a Borg section of the wormhole.
As Chakotay escorts her to her alcove, Seven tricks him and erects a forcefield to contain him. With Naomi’s help, she keeps security at bay while she transports to Engineering and stuns Torres with a phaser. After erecting another forcefield, Seven attempts to shut down the impulse drive to keep Voyager from entering the wormhole. However, Janeway transmits a surge to the engineering console that puts Seven in stasis.
Once they enter the anomaly, the crew is unconscious. When Naomi wakes Seven, the two hail Qatai and convince him to beam aboard. He explains the crew has been a victim of psychogenic manipulation. They are inside a bio-plasmic organism, a beast, that consumes starships by telepathically preying on their crews’ desires. Qatai has been there for years and not found a way out.
After activating the Doctor’s program, Seven informs him that Voyager is being devoured in the digestive chamber of the organism. Realizing that bodies are designed to expel foreign objects, they plan to fire one of Qatai’s tetrion-based weapons at a pocket of anti-matter released from Voyager’s warp core. It creates an unpleasant reaction that causes the beast to expel the two ships through its esophagus. Once Janeway and the others regain consciousness, Voyager resumes its course to the Alpha Quadrant, but Qatai, unable to resist the power of having all his desires appear to be granted, returns to the beast.
CAST
CAPTAIN KATHRYN JANEWAY
KATE MULGREW
CHAKOTAY
ROBERT BELTRAN
B'ELANNA TORRES
ROXANN DAWSON
TOM PARIS
ROBERT DUNCAN MCNEILL
NEELIX
ETHAN PHILLIPS
THE DOCTOR
ROBERT PICARDO
TUVOK
TIM RUSS
SEVEN OF NINE
JERI RYAN
HARRY KIM
GARRETT WANG
GUEST STAR
Naomi
SCARLETT POMERS
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
MORGAN SHEPPARD as “QATAI”
Teleplay by: ROBERT J. DOHERTY
Story by: BILL PRADY
Directed by: CLIFF BOLE
HIGHLIGHT LISTING
STAR TREK: VOYAGER: “Bliss” -- The crew is in serious danger when all of their dreams come true and home seems closer insight.
