3.6 remember

The story starts with Torres, lying in bed. There is a knock at the window. She opens her eyes, smiles a smile of glee, and runs to the window to admit her lover, and they kiss and embrace. Torres is oversleeping because she is enjoying a series of very erotic dreams. After a few nights these dreams continue to unfold into a narrative, and it becomes more like a nightmare. It is the story of a young woman, in love with a rebel of whom her father disapproves. When Torres begins to go into something more than sleep, the doctor investigates and discovers that it she is actually viewing someone else’s memories. The cause of this would seem to be the Enarens, a friendly race with telepathic powers who are hitching a ride on Voyager. Janeway and Torres confront the Enaren leader, who denies that any of them would be involved. Torres is fitted with a suppressant to stop the dreams, but she removes it, wanting to know how the story unfolds. She learns that her lover was part of a group labeled ‘subversives’ because they rejected technology. The government rounded them up and supposedly led them to an isolated colony, but in reality they were simply put to death – and the story was completely suppressed. When the dream suddenly stops, Torres, who has realized it is an old Enaren woman, visits her quarters, to find she has been mortally wounded. The woman admits to transferring her memories so that someone, finally, will know. She completes transmission of the story just before her death. Torres, angry, confronts the Enaren leader in the midst of a ‘going-away’ party, but he and the other Enarens continue to die that such a thing could have happened. Later, in Janeway’s ready room, Torres fights again to get proof of the story, but Janeway, although sympathetic, tells her that nothing can be done, that it is none of their business (very different than the last two episodes, she has now returned to the principles of the Federation again). But Janeway also reminds Torres that the Enaren engineers are just packing up, and suggests that Torres may want to say ‘goodbye’. It’s a subtle prod to get Torres down there to talk to the female engineer, the most receptive of the lot. Torres encourages the Enaren to find out the truth when she returns to her homeworld to ‘prove her wrong’. She expresses sadness that this Enaren cannot see what she has seen. At this, the Enaren female states that she can use her telepathy to make the connection. She does…we flash to the Enaren woman, lying in bed, when there is a knock at the window. She opens her eyes, smiles a smile of glee, and runs to the window to admit her lover, and they kiss and embrace.

It has helped me a lot to have read excerpts from the book ‘Star Trek Voyager: A Vision of the Future’ by Stephen Edward Poe. In it, Poe explains that each Voyager episode is meant to instruct, enlighten, and/or to hold up a mirror so we can examine ourselves. Once again, in this episode, we find the crew of Voyager taking the moral high road, intent on enlightening the Enarens. It isn’t a matter of showing the Enarens as bad people and disgracing them (most cultures have a dark side, a dark past, and a list of terrible mistakes); it’s more important that they are aware of their past mistakes so they avoid making the same mistakes again.