2.9 prototype

What is the ‘thing’ that has been beamed into engineering? As the show opens, we see a crackly black and white image of Torres, Janeway and Tuvok discussing whether to try to feed it power or deactivate it. Against Tuvok’s better judgement, Kim pumps some power into it, and, still through its eyes, we see it scan the room until it is looking at itself in a monitor – it’s a humanoid-shaped ‘robot’. Nice scene. Torres takes a personal interest in getting it working again; she succeeds. She learns that the bot was made by the ‘builders’, humanoids who were at war with another race. The builders are now dead, and the bot asks her to build more power units, so their race can ‘procreate’. But Janeway refuses, believing this to be a violation of the prime directive. However, the bot kidnaps Torres and takes her back to his ship. Their superior weaponry forces Torres to agree to build the unit. As she finishes, another robot ship, manned by a hostile group, begins to attack, and Torres learns that this other group was built, similarly, by humanoids that were at war and are now dead. It turns out that the war had ended, and when the humanoids went to turn off the mechanized warriors, who were no longer of use, the warriors saw them as the enemy and wiped them out. Now, by allowing this group to reproduce, Torres has upset the balance and created a very powerful and lethal killing group. She ‘kills’ her creation just before Voyager uses the distraction of the battle to beam her out. Great concept – captivating show.