History Recap / StarTrekVoyagerS5E9ThirtyDays

* LookingForLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: Lampshaded by Tom re Harry, who's attracted to Megan (who is pointedly ''not'' interesteds in ''him'') while rejecting the advances of the equally-attractive (literally) Jenny (who ''is'' interested, but Harry's not).

* MildlyMilitary: The writers screwed up B'Elanna inviting Tom to dinner (an evening meal) at "0700". Like all Starfleet vessels, ''Voyager'' operates on a 24-hour clock, meaning 7 o'clock in the evening would be ''1400'' hours.

Tom Paris is demoted to Ensign and confined to the brig for thirty days. While there he dictates a letter to his father about how this came about. It started when ''Voyager'' came across a celestial body that is essentially an ocean held in a planetary shape by a containment field. After making contact with the world's people, the Moneans, the crew learns that the world is losing its water and that the Moneans themselves are causing it with their oxygen-mining operations, and that if they don't cut back or cease, they could lose their world altogether. Paris wants to help the Moneans stabilize their world, but their ruling council and Captain Janeway prevent him from doing so, with the latter citing the Prime Directive. Paris decides to go against the captain's orders and steals the ''Delta Flyer'', taking one of the Moneans with him to destroy one of the oxygen-mining refineries so that they could have time to rebuild it better. Captain Janeway finds out what Tom Paris is doing and stops him from achieving that purpose, which leads to his demotion and thirty days of incarceration.

-->'''Paris:''' Ah, boatswain. Ready to shove off?\\

* AxisMundi: Paris is incarcerated in Voyager's brig for an unknown crime, that isn't revealed until the end of the episode. As we see in flashback, Voyager visited a planet, known as "the Waters", that, as one can tell by the name, is completely water; no landmasses or atmosphere. It's being held together by a containment energy field. Unfortunately, the humanoid beings who live there, the Moneans, are in danger of losing their home, because of an unknown crisis that releases water from the planet. When they collaborate on a mission to figure out what is causing the loss, they find a 100,000-year-old computer-driven structure in the center of the water mass that seems to be generating the containment field. Furthermore, the structure is delibrately releasing water to ease pressure, caused by the Monean's oxygen refineries extracting the gas from the water. When the Moneans refuse to do anything to fix their problem, Paris, along with one of the Moneans, attempts to destroy a refinery [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight in violation of the Prime Directive]], only to by stopped by Voyager, whereby Janeway demotes his rank and sentences him to thirty days of solitary confinement in the brig.

* CallBack: The scene of Paris being given the leola root stew is a callback to "The Chute" where in one scene, he mentions that he would go for leola root stew. Given that both episodes were essentially written by the same person, it seems to be less of a coincidence!

* DistressedDude: Proton's trusty SideKick Buster has been captured by the Twin Mistresses of Evil!

* IfIWantedYouDead: The Moneans greet ''Voyager'' with phaser fire, but even three-to-one they're no match for ''Voyager''. Once Janeway loses her patience, she has Tuvok disable one of them to get their attention, then points out how she could have blown up the ship if she wanted to. This gets them talking.

* LookingForLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: Lampshaded by Tom re Harry, who's attracted to IceQueen Megan while rejecting the advances of the equally-attractive (literally) Jenny.

* MilitaryMaverick: Harshly {{deconstructed}}. Janeway nearly kills Tom to stop his one-man crusade, and demotes and imprisons him when he's recovered.

* MinorInjuryOverreaction: Tom gets what Naomi Wildman would call a "boo-boo", but begs the Doctor to take him to Sickbay for a full medical examination. This is mostly because of his growing case of CabinFever.

* RagnarokProofing: Averted; the machine at the core of the planet has been there for millennia, but oxygen-mining is increasing the density of the water, forcing it to divert power to prevent it from being crushed. This means the ocean will eventually dissipate into space.

* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: Tom and Riga try to destroy the oxygen refinery so the Monean bureaucracy will be forced to make changes. Janeway stops them with a well-placed photon torpedo.

%%* CouldSayItBut:%%Quotes aren't acceptable context.
%%-->'''Paris:''' I'm not supposed to get involved in the internal affairs of alien worlds. Unless, of course, someone makes a direct request...

* ContinuityNod: Megans mentions working on some star charts for Seven of Nine, a reference to the twins working in Stellar Cartography.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Even after ''Voyager'' gathers conclusive evidence that the oxygen refineries are going to destroy the ocean, Butkus says that the results are going to be sent to sub-committees for review, all but guaranteeing that any action to be taken will be too late.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: ZigzaggedTrope; the water planetoid is only about 1200 km in diameter (about a third of the Moon, for comparison), and is composed entirely of water (meaning that's only got a density of 1 g/cubic center, less than a third that of the moon), so its gravity will be correspondingly less (hence the need for a containment field, as the math comes out to about 2% of Earth's gravity), and the water pressure will be ''massively'' reduced compared to Earth as a result. Still, water doesn't get ''denser'' without turning into ice, so the climax action doesn't really work...

* [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask The Woman Wearing The Captain's Mask]]: After Tom is hauled off to the brig by Security, Captain Janeway visibly struggles to maintain her composure.