Equinox, Part II (episode)

Captain Janeway takes her quest for revenge against Captain Ransom to extremes when she orders the use of photon torpedoes against the Equinox, tractors a neutral ship, nearly kills an Equinox crewman during an interrogation, and relieves Chakotay of duty when he questions her actions. (Season premiere)
== Summary ==
=== Teaser ===
An attacking nucleogenic lifeform knocks Captain Janeway to the deck, but she manages to dodge the thermionic radiation. Yelling for tactical control, she uses a deflector pulse to reinforce the shields – at least, temporarily. The aliens' attacks are halted, but Chakotay lies unconscious; Paris contacts sickbay with no response from The Doctor. Ensign Kim reports there have been two fatalities with thirteen wounded. Kim reports the has gone to warp, but the absence of nucleogenic particles indicates that they have not engaged their enhanced warp drive. Janeway tells him to keep looking, but then there is the ominous sound of interspatial fissures opening.
Meanwhile, aboard the Equinox , Maxwell Burke tells Ransom that with the multiphasic shielding in place, the aliens are staying clear. Noah Lessing reports that Voyager is under attack; Ransom orders him to maintain course, away from the beleaguered Voyager.
=== Act One ===
Janeway, wandering the corridors of the , comes across the remains of an alien killed in the attack, before being handed The Doctor's mobile emitter by Neelix, who found the device on Deck 9. She takes it and reactivates the EMH back in sickbay, not realizing that it is the EMH program from the Equinox, whose ethical subroutines have been deleted. "The Doctor" explains that when he was taken hostage by the Equinox he deactivated himself to escape. He begins by treating Chakotay, whom Paris has managed to stabilize. While Janeway insists that they focus their efforts on finding the Equinox, Chakotay argues that they need to stop the attacks by the aliens first. While they are debating, they are interrupted by the sound of the interspacial fissures, which indicate the presence of the aliens.
On the Equinox, Ransom tries to persuade Seven of Nine to stop resisting him and to become part of the crew, instead of spending her time in the brig for the remainder of the journey. Seven refuses to comply, however, telling him bluntly that he would be an inferior role model to her, and that Voyager made a mistake to trust him. While trying to treat Seven, Max Burke realizes that their EMH has left them a replacement, and activates The Doctor from Voyager. Seven and The Doctor realize they're stuck on the Equinox together.
Meanwhile, the Equinox prepares to activate their enhanced warp drive, using the aliens as fuel to get back to Earth within several months. However, just as the ship is accelerating, it stalls. The power relays to the modified injectors have been encoded – Ransom quickly realizes it must have been Seven of Nine. He tries to get her to give him the codes, but Seven refuses again. Burke suggests extracting the codes themselves if she won't give them. When The Doctor protests, Ransom simply deletes his ethical subroutines, and gets him to extract the information by any means necessary.
On Voyager, Chakotay and Harry Kim have come up with a way that may allow them to communicate with the lifeforms. Despite misgivings, they drop the shields around the bridge and send the message. An alien appears, flies over to Kim's station and shrieks unintelligibly at the ensign for a moment, then disappears into its realm. However, the shields are attacked again. Another deflector pulse is activated, but it loses power quickly. Janeway, who is growing more impatient, gives an order to repair the warp drive so they can pursue the Equinox. When Chakotay asks to take another shot at the message to the aliens, she rudely dismisses him. Over in the ready room, Chakotay tells Janeway that he understands her anger towards Ransom who has betrayed everything the Federation and the uniform they are wearing stands for, but that she cannot compromise the safety of this ship to satisfy some personal vendetta. She tells him that she appreciates his candor, but that even so, she is not going to stand for Ransom continuing to murder and torture another lifeform so he can get home faster. She vows to hunt him down no matter how long it takes, no matter what the cost and if he wants to call that a vendetta, then he can go right ahead.
=== Act Two ===
Ransom, who is hiding the Equinox in the atmosphere of a planet so they can make the repairs, checks in with The Doctor, who reveals that in order to access the information in Seven, he will have to remove her cortical array which contains an index of her memory engrams. By doing so, however, all of Seven's higher brain functions will be severely damaged. Ransom pleads with Seven to give him the codes, but she refuses. He says that doing this to her is not easy for him but that she leaves him no choice. Seven states that he uses that phrase quite frequently: destroying lifeforms to obtain his goals and then claim that they left him no choice. She stubbornly tells him that he will have to destroy her to obtain the codes. The Doctor proceeds.
:"Captain's log, supplemental. Our warp drive's back online but repeated sensor sweeps have failed to locate the Equinox."
Chakotay is summoned to Janeway's ready room – she notes it's unlike him to submit recommendations in writing, holding up a PADD. Commenting on their last conversation he tells her that this was the only way he thought he could interact with her. However, Janeway refuses this suggestion, namely getting in touch with the Ankari, the race who introduced Ransom to the nucleogenic lifeforms, as well. She argues that this would take them 50 light-years off course and waste their time. She notes that from studying Ransom's service record, she found that he has the tendency to hide when he is being pursued. She asks Chakotay to use astrometrics to find likely hiding places, such as a nebula.
Equinox, meanwhile, still in hiding in the planet's atmosphere which shields them from Voyagers sensors, continues repairs. Ransom sends Lessing and Angelo Tassoni down to mine some dilithium while he takes a break to use his synaptic stimulator, a device which allows him to experience various alien vistas. The pair beams down, but is captured by a Voyager away team, Paris and Chakotay. On the bridge, the Equinox EMH tries to warn Ransom that Voyager has found them, and that they have polarized their hull to mask their approach. His communication gets cut off and Ransom orders for battle stations.
=== Act Three ===
Voyager and the Equinox engage in a brief battle, with Voyager taking the Equinox weapon systems off-line. Not willing to accept defeat, Ransom takes his vessel deeper into the planet's atmosphere at a 60 degree vector. Voyager follows, but has to retreat when the deflector, which they are relying on to protect the vessel against the lifeforms, begins losing power in its attempts to protect the vessel against the atmosphere. Equinox escapes to warp, while Voyager is forced to repair its primary systems first before being able to pursue.
Janeway interrogates Lessing, whom she has tied up on a chair in the cargo bay. She threatens to drop the shields in the room and let the aliens in if he doesn't tell her Ransom's tactical status. Getting nowhere with him, she goes outside with Chakotay, and drops the shields. Chakotay quickly realizes Janeway isn't bluffing, and asks her to stop what she is doing, that she is going too far; she insists that Lessing will break while Chakotay states that he won't. When she refuses to do so, he first tries to raise the shield but finds only Janeway can. He then goes in himself and rescues Lessing, saving him in the nick of time. Telling Lessing that he has proved his loyalty to his captain to himself, compromises and has him tell everything he knows on the Ankari. Janeway clearly disapproves, but doesn't interfere.
Janeway agrees to try and find the Ankari vessel less than 2 light-years away. When everyone else is dismissed from the briefing, however, she confronts Chakotay, telling him that even though in the past they had their disagreements, he still never openly opposed her. Chakotay argues that she almost killed Lessing today and that this wasn't about rules and regulations, but about right and wrong; upon warning her that he won't let her cross that line again, she relieves him of duty until further notice.
=== Act Four ===
Voyager pursues an Ankari ship, but it does not respond to Voyagers hails. Janeway orders Tuvok to use a tractor beam on the ship. Tuvok points out the Ankari have done nothing, but is ordered to "just do it". The Ankari recognize Voyager as a Starfleet vessel and are aware of the Equinox crew's actions. Janeway says her crew did nothing wrong. The Ankari captain agrees to act as a translator for the "Spirits of Good Fortune," but states that Voyagers crew will have to be the ones to convince the lifeforms.
Speaking with them in the cargo bay, the lifeforms demand the destruction of the Equinox as retribution. It turns out they can perfectly understand the crew; it is the crew that cannot understand them. Tuvok tries to persuade them that they will punish the Equinox crew in their own way, via imprisonment, but the lifeforms don't believe they would harm their own kind. Janeway tells them the Federation has rules that the Equinox disregarded and unusually promises the lifeforms to deliver the Equinox to them if they stop their attacks on the Voyager. Tuvok tells Janeway her behavior is irrational, reminding her the lifeforms will kill the Equinoxs crew but Janeway overrules him to the point of threatening to confine him to quarters just like she did Chakotay. The lifeforms accept Janeway's offer.
On the Equinox, Burke informs Ransom they only have enough "fuel" to jump another 500 light years and will need more "fuel," which Ransom forces him to admit is a euphemism for the dead aliens. Burke coldly acknowledges they will they need to murder several more. Ransom then goes to the lab to see The Doctor, who is about an hour away from finishing with Seven and is singing with her, having triggered her responses. Ransom has another moment of reflection on having "no choice" when The Doctor points out Seven stood in his way of getting his crew home, giving him no choice. He leaves to escape the conflict he's in via the synaptic stimulator.
Although the stimulator is only designed to view landscapes, being nowhere near as advanced as a holodeck, he sees someone in it: he is amazed to discover it is Seven of Nine, who asks, then demands that Ransom find another way home. Seven turns into a nucleogenic lifeform, at which point Ransom ends the program. Burke summons him to the bridge at the same time, as Voyager has found them again.
=== Act Five ===
With Voyager only 58,000 kilometers away and closing fast, Burke suggests hiding in a class 2 nebula less than one light year away. Ransom declines and instead orders the starship to open communications, preparing to surrender to Janeway and make peace with the aliens. Burke doesn't want to accept surrender, sends Ransom to the brig, and takes control of the ship. Marla Gilmore points her phaser at Ransom and takes him away. Burke contacts the Equinox EMH aboard Voyager and asks him to find the vessel's current shield frequency.
Voyager opens fire on the Equinox, and the two ships engage in combat while at warp. Gilmore leads Ransom to engineering and lowers her phaser , confessing that she is on his side and wants this to end as much as he does. The two begin trying to access the transporter controls.
Voyager destroys the Equinox port warp nacelle, and the ship falls out of warp and to one-quarter impulse, leaking plasma. Voyager continues to pursue, still firing its weapons. The EMH transmits the shield frequency to Burke. Voyager moves in, preparing to engage a tractor beam, while Burke manages to fire torpedos through the shields despite Tuvok rotating the shield frequency every ten seconds, Voyager suffers extensive damage, including a hull breach on deck 4 and the loss of the weapons array and impulse drive. Then Ransom hails the ship and tells Janeway he's ready to surrender, but cannot due to Burke's mutiny; however, he has isolated the transporter controls and can transport the Equinox crew to Voyager. He advises her to have guards ready, as not everyone may be happy to see her. Janeway agrees, telling her crew that Ransom is a Starfleet captain after all, even if he forgot that for a while.
Burke isn't ready to surrender just yet, however, and places a force field around the bridge. On Ransom's order, Gilmore transports herself and two other crewmembers to Voyager along with Seven of Nine, while Ransom takes control of his ship's shield grid. They also transfer The Doctor's program back to his sickbay, with ethical subroutines restored. The Equinox EMH threatens to blow out every holoemitter in the room with planted photonic charges set to a command sequence, but the Voyager Doctor simply deletes him, thus stopping his transmissions to the Equinox.
Ransom, still in engineering, contacts his bridge. He tells the stunned Burke that he has dropped the shields around the ship, except for the bridge and his current location. The vital systems are exposed. Burke refuses to transport to Voyager despite his captain's pleas – instead, he tries to lead the three remaining bridge crew to the nearby shuttlebay two decks down, to escape on their last remaining shuttle, but en route the aliens attack and kill them all.
As the lifeforms attack the Equinox warp core, Ransom hails Janeway. He tells her that his ship is about to explode, and he has to get it to a safe distance from the immobilized Voyager. Janeway tries to get Ransom off, asking him to set auto-navigation. He refuses, saying he has no time. He tells her that she has a fine crew and has her promise him to get them home. Having set a course away from Voyager, he wears his synaptic stimulator one last time, looking at a beautiful beach. A moment or two later, Equinox explodes.
:"Captain's log, supplemental. With the Equinox destroyed, the aliens have withdrawn to their realm. I've reinstated Chakotay and we've set a course for home."
In sickbay, The Doctor is distressed at how he became a "Jekyll and Hyde" with a push of the button; Seven of Nine promises to help him put in safeguards so he will not experience that again.
In the briefing room, after dressing down and harshly rebuking the five former and surviving Equinox crew members (Noah Lessing, Marla Gilmore, James Morrow, Brian Sofin and Angelo Tassoni), Janeway ordered them Stripped of rank, telling them that from now on they will serve as crewmen on Voyager, their privileges will be limited, and they will work under close supervision for as long as she deems fit. They will need to earn her trust this time. They are escorted away by Tuvok.
Heading out the other way onto the bridge with Chakotay, the subdued Janeway wonders how the crew is doing. Chakotay says that Neelix has organized a potluck to boost morale. In a silent moment, she tells him that he may have had good reason to stage a little mutiny of his own. Chakotay admits that the thought had occurred to him, but that it would have been "crossing the line." This strikes a chord with the captain, who reflects upon how close her recent actions had come to being no better than that of the Equinox and Captain Ransom.
She then notices the dedication plaque of Voyager that has fallen down for the first time in all these years. Wiping it off, Chakotay suggests putting it back where it belongs – mirroring the earlier fall of the Equinox plaque and a similar conversation she had with Ransom…
== Log entries ==
* "Captain's log, supplemental. Our warp drive's back online, but repeated sensor sweeps have failed to locate the Equinox."
* "Captain's log, supplemental. With the Equinox destroyed, the aliens have withdrawn to their realm. I've reinstated Chakotay and we've set a course for home."
== Memorable quotes ==
"You destroy lifeforms to attain your goals then claim that they left you no choice. Does that logic comfort you?"
:- Seven of Nine, questioning Captain Ransom
"Please state the nature of the… [looks around] don't bother."
:- Equinox EMH impersonating The Doctor, upon seeing Voyagers sickbay littered with casualties
"You know, Janeway's not the only one who can help you explore your Humanity."
"You would be an inferior role model."
:- Captain Ransom and Seven of Nine, when the captured Seven is brought to him on the Equinox
"This man betrayed Starfleet. He broke the Prime Directive, dishonored everything you believed in, and threw Voyager to the wolves."
"Kazon, Vidiians, Borg, Hirogen, Malon. We've run into our share of bad guys. Ransom's no different."
"Yes, he is. You said it yourself. He's Human."
:- Chakotay and Janeway, about Captain Ransom
"We've almost got him. One more torpedo ought to do it!"
"Captain–"
"Fire!"
:- Captain Janeway going too far and Tuvok preparing to object
"What the hell is he doing? Follow him!"
:- Captain Janeway
"We all make our own Hell, Mr. Lessing. I hope you enjoy yours."
:- Captain Janeway, to Noah Lessing during the interrogation
"Do these programs have people in them?"
"No, just landscapes."
:- Captain Ransom and Marla Gilmore on the synaptic simulator
"I'm warning you: l won't let you cross that line again."
"Well then you leave me no choice. You are hereby relieved of duty until further notice."
"What's happened to you, Kathryn?"
"I was about to ask you the same question."
:- Chakotay to Janeway
"Tractor beam."
"Captain, the Ankari ship has done nothing to…"
"Just do it."
:- Janeway ordering to tractor beam the Ankari ship and Tuvok objecting
"I will summon them, but you must talk to them. You must convince them."
:- The Ankari captain, agreeing to help Voyager
"They say, they want the Humans to die."
"A difficult place to start a negotiation."
:- The Ankari captain and Tuvok, upon the former summoning the aliens
"This isn't the brig."
"I know. I'm with you, sir. Let's find a way to end this."
:- Captain Ransom and Marla Gilmore
"He's still a Starfleet captain. He may have forgotten that for a while but I believe him."
:- Janeway
"Well, I see you've made yourself at home."
"What are you doing here?!"
"Taking back my sick bay!"
:- The Doctor and The Equinox EMH
"I'm afraid your physician's no longer on call."
:- The Doctor, after Burke demands to know what the Equinox EMH is doing
"You've got a fine crew, Captain. Promise me you'll get 'em home."
"I promise."
:- Captain Ransom (final words) and Janeway's promise
"The last time we welcomed you aboard, you took advantage of our trust. You betrayed this crew. I won't make that mistake again. Noah Lessing, Marla Gilmore, James Morrow, Brian Sofin, Angelo Tassoni; you are hereby stripped of rank. You'll be expected to serve as crewmen on this vessel. Your privileges will be limited, and you'll serve under close supervision for as long as I deem fit. This time, you'll have to earn our trust. Dismissed."
:- Janeway demoting and berating the surviving Equinox crew members
"It's quite disconcerting to know that all someone has to do is flick a switch to turn me into Mr. Hyde."
:- The Doctor to Seven of Nine, about his ethical subroutines.
== Background information ==
* From this episode until its finale , Voyager was the sole carrier of the Star Trek franchise, following the series finale . It is also the first Star Trek episode to premiere on its own since on .
* This was the first Voyager episode on which writer Ronald D. Moore worked, having transferred to the Voyager writers' room after the conclusion of Deep Space Nine. Moore later told an interviewer, "We sat down and approached 'Equinox II' and tried to find what the show was about. What was the point of meeting this ship and this crew and this captain, and what did it mean? We finally landed on this idea that the two captains were going to go in opposite directions. Janeway was going to really feel the same kind of pressures and stresses that Ransom felt, and watch how it could turn a good, by-the-book Starfleet captain into what he had become. At the same time, his interaction with The Doctor and Seven of Nine would rekindle his Humanity. It was this nice, double track approach, but it just got lost in the translation. It has no coherence. You're not sure what's really going on. You've got some potentially good scenes. The scenes between Janeway and Chakotay had some real fire to them, and you kind of felt like she is going off the deep end, a bit. Then she relieves him of duty, and there is this crisis of command between the two of them. But at the end of the episode, it's just a shrug and a smile and off to the next. I just hit the ceiling. I remember writing in the margins, 'This is a total betrayal of the audience. This is wrong. You can't end the show like this. If you are going to do all this other stuff, you can't end the show like this, because it's not fair, because it's not true, and it just wouldn't happen.'"
* Moore continued his criticisms of the episode: "The things that Janeway does in 'Equinox' don't work, because it's not about anything. She's not really grappling with her inner demons. She's not truly under the gun and suffering to the point where you can understand the decisions that she's made. She just gets kind of cranky and bitchy. She's having a bad day; these things keep popping around on the bridge, and we just keep cutting to shots of people grabbing phaser rifles and shooting, and hitting the red alert sign, over and over again. It doesn't signify anything. It's kind of emblematic of the show. There is a lot of potential, and there is a lot of surface sizzle going on in a lot of episodes, but to what end? What are we trying to do? What are we trying to touch in the audience? What are we trying to say? What are the things we are trying to explore? Why are we doing this episode? That was my fundamental question. When I would say, 'What was the point of doing the first part?' there was never a good answer for that. As a consequence, it was hard to come up with the ending to the show that has no beginning. You just start throwing things around. 'Two captains on different courses' at least sounds like an episode. At least there is something in it. Janeway will take something away from that experience, but not in the current version. What does she learn from that experience? I don't know how it's affected her. Chakotay, for all his trouble, he just goes back to work. There is no lingering problem with Janeway; there is no deeper issue coming to the fore." 
* Ronald D. Moore later reworked this concept into the episode "Pegasus" in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series. The Pegasus experiences a crisis similar to the one encountered by the Equinox: alone in Cylon controlled space and with only half its crew, the commanding officer of Pegasus forces refugees into service and takes critical supplies and parts, and then leaves the refugees' shipmates to die.
* It's unclear how and when The Doctor's ethical subroutines were re-instated, as it seems they had been by the time he returned to Voyager. It is possible that Ransom restored them once he had decided to co-operate with Janeway.
=== Cast and characters ===
* Despite transferring to the Voyager crew permanently at the end of this episode, Marla Gilmore, Noah Lessing and Angelo Tassoni do not appear again in the series.
* Brian Sofin (Mark Rogerson) is one of only two characters from the Equinox to later re-appear, in the episode . James Morrow (Matthew Cannon Hanson) appeared in and .
=== Continuity and trivia ===
* Janeway says in this episode "Borg, Hirogen, Malon. We've run into our share of bad guys," referring to species that Voyager first encountered in , , and , respectively.
* The Doctor may have been referencing the events of when he says "It's quite disconcerting to know that all someone has to do is flick a switch to turn me into Mister Hyde." Indeed, "Darkling" is considered by Robert Picardo to be "pretty much a classic 'Jekyll and Hyde' story".
* Harry Kim confirms two deaths of Voyager crew in this episode, with a further death being registered by Tom Paris in Sickbay. These three deaths mark the 20th, 21st and 22nd confirmed deaths of Voyager crew since the pilot episode , the previous death having occurred in the fourth season episode . This would put the crew complement as of the end of this episode at 148, given the crew complement of 146 that was most recently established in , and the addition of Noah Lessing, Marla Gilmore, James Morrow, Brian Sofin and Angelo Tassoni to the crew.
* Voyager fires at least seven photon torpedoes in this episode, four having previously been used in . This brings the total number of torpedoes confirmed to have been used by Voyager over the course of the series to 60, a total which exceeds the irreplaceable complement of 38 that had been established by Chakotay in the first-season episode .
=== Reception ===
* This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series.
=== Video and DVD releases ===
* UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 6.1, 
:For the fourth season in a row, the video sleeve is redesigned. The character images remain in place, but the episode band is made smaller, with the volume number at the center, and the two episode names on either side.
* In feature-length form, as part of the UK VHS collection Star Trek: Voyager - Movies: Volume 3 (with "The Killing Game"), 
* As part of the VOY Season 6 DVD collection
== Links and references ==
=== Special guest star ===
* John Savage as "Captain Ransom"
=== Guest stars ===
* Titus Welliver as Max Burke
* Olivia Birkelund as Marla Gilmore
* Rick Worthy as Noah Lessing
=== Co-stars ===
* Eric Steinberg as Ankari
* Steve Dennis as 
* Majel Barrett as Computer Voice
=== Uncredited co-stars ===
* David Keith Anderson as Ashmore
* Majel Barrett as Narrator
* Tarik Ergin as Ayala
* Sylvester Foster as Timothy Lang
* Matthew Cannon Hanson as James Morrow
* Joyce Lasley as Lydia Anderson
* Robert Picardo as the Equinox EMH
* Drew Renkewitz as Equinox command officer 1
* Mark Rogerson as Brian Sofin
* Brian Simpson as Angelo Tassoni
* Unknown performers as
** Equinox command officer 2
** Equinox operations officer 1
** Equinox operations officer 7
** Voyager command casualty
=== Stand-ins ===
* Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan
=== References ===
adverb; amputation; Ankari; Ankari vessel; Astrometrics; atmosphere; auditory processor; banter; ; "BLT"; brig; casualty report; chestnut; class 2 nebula; cognitive skill; confined to quarters; cortical array; cortical node; crouton; damage; decihertz; dedication plaque; deflector; deflector pulse; "Dem Bones"; deuterium; Earth; Epsilon IV; ethical subroutine; fairy; freedom; gas giant; ground squirrel; heart; hell; high warp; higher brain function; holodeck; ; inertial damper; interspatial fissure; kilometer; language; logic; McKinley Park; memory engram; meter; morality; "My Darling Clementine"; nebula; neural interface; ; nucleogenic lifeform; nucleogenic particle; occipital node; ocular node; offline; olive branch; parthogenic atmosphere; personal vendetta (aka "vendetta"); phaser burn; photon torpedo; photonic charge; place; plasma; poison ivy; polarized hull plating; port; potluck; power core; power relay; reticular node; Regellian blood worm; role model; salad; sensory node; service record; ; shield frequency; stripped of rank; surrender; synaptic stimulator; tactical control; Tenkaran coast; Terrelian seapod; torture; tractor beam; Type 6 shuttlecraft (Equinox shuttlecraft); ; vessel; (unnamed); warp engine
==== Ransom's personnel database references ====
Klingons; Klingon Bird-of-Prey (unnamed); Romulan Neutral Zone; T-Tauri type; Zaphod sector
=== External links ===
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