The EMH gives Janeway, who has a headache, a painful massage, thinking it's because of stress or sleep deprivation. Chakotay hails her to the Bridge to look at some "binary pulsars" with very strong gravity, but she's too distracted by her headache. Then, B'Elanna and Tom have a snog in Engineering, but are busted by Tuvok. The crew has a staff meeting about the pulsars, after which Janeway tells Tom and B'Elanna off. Chakotay then drinks some coffee and is scanned by the same aliens. His hands start shaking and he loses hair, so he rushes to Sickbay.
The EMH confines Chakotay, now an old man, to Sickbay. In the mess hall Neelix begins shaking and having severe body pains, so he too is sent to Sickbay. There the EMH discovers that Neelix (who now has black spots all over and no whiskers) is becoming a Mylean, the species of his great-grandfather. As more patients with strange ailments show up, the Doctor and B'Elanna discover that Chakotay and Neelix have barcode-like marks, which are emitting signals, on their DNA. At that point the Doctor starts being deleted, but manages to hail the Bridge before disappearing.
While Janeway, Tom, Harry, and Seven of Nine discuss the whereabouts of the Doctor (while B'Elanna is now on a biobed with malfunctioning lungs), Seven gets a hail. The EMH lets her know that he's hiding in the Leonardo Da Vinci holonovel, but not to tell anybody. When she gets there, he tells her that aliens are monitoring and interfering with the crew, and modifies her eyepiece so she can scan for said aliens.
Soon she sees one, who sticks a device into her chest. She then sees more aliens sticking devices into other people without them knowing and taking notes. While Janeway is complaining about the crew's lack of professionalism, Seven enters and sees that the reason Janeway has a headache is because aliens are sticking devices into her head.
Seven and the Doctor decide they must stop the aliens, and decide to give the whole crew a sort of shock to disable the tags. She starts working on this, but then Tuvok demands to know why. Seven tries to lie, but he doesn't believe her and orders her to stop. When three aliens walk up, Seven phasers one, who turns visible. Seven grabs the alien woman and warns the other two aliens that she'll kill her if they don't back off.
The captured alien, Alzen, is thrown in the brig and Janeway orders Seven to keep trying to disable the tags and Tuvok to scan for the aliens. She then asks Alzen what her species are doing. Alzen reveals that they're biomedical scientists. Janeway points out that the experiments are unethical, but Alzen doesn't waver. She reveals that they've been increasing Janeway's dopamine levels, which is why she's been so aggro lately, and threatens to "terminate" everyone if the experiments are interrupted.
When Janeway finds an ensign dead as the result of the experiments, she decides they have to stop. She plans to fly the ship into the binary pulsars, which would crush Voyager, unless the aliens don't leave. She also sasses their leader, Takar, by saying that her reckless action is the result of their experiment. The aliens leave, the crew goes back to normal, and Tom and B'Elanna resume their romance.
This episode has the following tropes:
- Aliens Made Them Do It: At the end of the episode, B'Elanna and Tom wonder if their entire relationship might be a result of the aliens messing with their hormones. It's a good thing they found out in time, they conclude while snogging.
- All There in the Manual:
- According to supplemental material, the nameless aliens are called the Srivani.
- Also, the Expanded Universe identifies the nameless Red Shirt as Ensign Roberta Luke, and she is (or was) an agent of Section 31.
- Anachronism Stew: Hiding in the DaVinci program on the holodeck, the Doctor tells the computer to replicate a Type IV micro-inducer. Instead of placing it on the rack of other medical instruments he already has, it gets dumped into a bucket hanging from the side of the table.
- Apology Gift: Tom replicates some Flowers of Romance for B'Elanna to apologize for missing their date
- Artistic License – Biology: Certain features of the scientific method include controlling the variables of each experiment and being able to repeat results, something that's hard to see as possible with 100 different experiments done on a crew of various races, most of which live tens of thousands of light years away.
- Artistic License – Military: The recent T/P antics annoy Captain Janeway so she orders Tuvok to crack down on discipline. "You're Security Chief. Don't thirteen department heads report to you every day? Straighten them out!" The writers appear to be confusing the job of Security Chief (responsible for tactical and internal security) with that of the First Officer (responsible for day-to-day management of the ship, who would therefore have all the department heads reporting to him daily and the authority to discipline them if needed; in other words, Chakotay). This may be hand-waved by Janeway not thinking clearly due to the strain of the alien scientists' experimentation.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: The Doctor isolates Comm Frequency Epsilon Two from Voyager's communication system so he can secretly communicate with Seven.
- Barcode Tattoo: When crewmembers start falling ill or undergoing physical changes, the Doctor is surprised to find their DNA marked with microscopic barcodes.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The Srivani wanted to push Janeway to the edge of her sanity. They succeeded.
- Being Watched: B'Elanna and Tom are passionately making out in a Jeffries tube, when they're scanned by an unknown alien. B'Elanna reacts, then thinks she's just being paranoid. The trope happens again while they're making out at a semi-secluded engineering workstation. This time it's because Tuvok has just busted them.
- Berserk Button: The female alien doctor casually wonders where Janeway's limits are. She finds out when one of Janeway's crew gets killed.Alzen: You're a remarkably strong-willed individual. I've been very impressed by your self-control over the past several weeks. We've been increasing your dopamine levels, stimulating various aggressive impulses to test your behavioural restraints. There's been a great difference of opinion about how much more strain you can bear.Janeway: (slams her against the bulkhead) Not much...
- Blatant Lies: Tom tells the Doctor he has to leave his duties in Sickbay to deliver a report (actually to rendezvous with B'Elanna). The Doctor wants to know why he didn't do this earlier. Tom says it must have slipped his mind, what with it being such a busy day. The Doctor eyes all the empty biobeds with a disbelieving air.
- Bros Before Hoes: Averted; Harry Kim interrupts Tom's dinner with B'Elanna with a flimsy excuse, then casually mentions how good his home-cooked dinner smells. Tom shuts the door on him.
- Bullying a Dragon: The aliens poke and prod a captain not known for her emotional stability. They soon discover how dumb that decision was.
- Call-Back: Chakotay's accelerated aging is similar to the ailment the Enterprise crew suffered during the TOS episode "The Deadly Years".
- Condescending Calmness: After being caught, the alien scientists try to talk to Janeway in this manner. She's too pissed off to buy it.
- Cow Tools: The alien medical devices are all the more menacing because it's hard to tell exactly what they're doing.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted when Janeway fails to resuscitate a Red Shirt.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- Janeway is frustrated with all the fooling around on the ship, and tells Tuvok to straighten everyone up. His response?Tuvok: Shall I flog them as well?
- See also the entry for Understatement.
- Janeway is frustrated with all the fooling around on the ship, and tells Tuvok to straighten everyone up. His response?
- Death Glare: Janeway's eyes damn near vaporize Alzen when they first meet face-to-face, even through the brig's Force-Field Door.
- Debate and Switch: It is revealed that the crew have been the subjects of medical experiments by an alien species, a thinly-veiled allusion to animal testing (or unethical experimentation in general), but the issue isn't really debated; Janeway just forces them off the ship after a crewmember dies.
- Disappointed in You: B'Elanna and Tom are surprised when Janeway lets them off with a scolding for their behaviour, but privately they concede the necessity to be more professional during working hours.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The episode has a theme of immoral, nonconsensual experimentation on subjects, which is applicable to both animal testing and unethical tests on humans.
- Everybody Knew Already: At the beginning, Tom and B'Elanna are trying to keep their new relationship a secret — though the fact that they've been taking every available opportunity to make out isn't helping. When a cranky Janeway holds them after a meeting to give them a dressing-down for acting like a pair of hormonal adolescents, they initially assume Tuvok (who caught them at it in Engineering) told on them, but she informs them that the whole crew has been gossiping about them.
- Elderly Ailment Rambling: A prematurely aged Chakotay is stuck in Sickbay along with Neelix, both complaining about their ailments to each other. Chakotay has gone bald, his eyesight is failing, and has severe arthritis in his hands; Neelix's eyesight has become over-sensitive, he's grown odd-smelling sweat glands, and his spinal column is fusing together.
- Fan Disservice: Tom and B'Elanna are smooching when we're suddenly treated to an X-Ray P.O.V. Cam of their skeletons and internal organs.
- Flowers of Romance: Tom transports himself into the Jeffries tube where B'Elanna is working, holding a replicated bouquet.
- Foreshadowing: Janeway complains that her Headache of Doom is like needles drilling into her skull. When Seven looks at her through See-Thru Specs, she sees aliens doing exactly that.
- For Science!: The aliens' stated motivation.Alzen: Please understand that there's a purpose to our actions. The data we gather from you may help us cure physical and psychological disorders that afflict millions. Isn't that worth some discomfort?
- Friendship Moment:Janeway: When this mutation crisis is over, I think I'll spend a few days in Renaissance Tuscany. There's a little inn outside Siena I've been wanting to try.Tuvok: (sitting down next to her) I will join you for a glass of wine.
- Game of Chicken: Janeway flies Voyager between a set of binary PULSARSnote in the hopes of getting the aliens to cease their experiments before they get destroyed along with the ship. The aliens comply and leave Voyager, though one of their ships doesn't make it, and given the powerful gravity it's possible the other ship got destroyed offscreen as well.
- Godzilla Threshold: Faced with aliens who can instantly kill the crew if they try to resist, Janeway flies Voyager on a desperate course into a potentially deadly stellar phenomenon to get rid of them.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Srivani want to see how far they can push Janeway's sanity. They find out when they make the horrible mistake of murdering a Red Shirt, driving her into an Unstoppable Rage.
- Hangover Sensitivity: Janeway's door chimes while she's plagued by a headache, and she gripes, "Remind me to lower the volume on that door."
- Headache of Doom: Janeway suffers from a near-crippling headache that she compares to "hot needles driving into my skull". Unbeknownst to her, that's exactly what's happening, courtesy of out-of-phase alien scientists conducting experiments on her and the crew.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Tom and B'Elanna, having decided to keep their relationship on the down low for the time being, can hardly be in the same space without acting like these.
- I'll Kill You!: The alien to Janeway, and her crew, when she won't stop flying into the binary pulsar. Since only Janeway's authorization can change the course that's locked in, Janeway tells her to go ahead!
- Interrupted Intimacy: Tuvok busts Tom and B'Elanna making out, while on duty, on an Engineering console! Some Fan Fics don't have to be written.
- Just One Second Out of Sync: Used to make the aliens and their experiments invisible.
- Lightmare Fuel: Among all the Medical Horror in this episode, there's a comic scene involving Janeway getting an overly vigorous massage from the Doctor.
- Make-Out Kids: Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres make up for three years of Unresolved Sexual Tension by making out constantly.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Tom beams to a Jeffries tube where B'Elanna is working so they can make out. Later they get so impatient they start doing it on a console on the upper deck of Engineering.
- Mama Bear: Captain Janeway isn't going to let aliens run medical experiments on her crew if she has anything to say about it.
- Meaningful Echo: An In-Universe version when B'Elanna realises she's giving the same speech to Seven of Nine about following protocol that Captain Janeway once gave to her. She becomes a little more patient with Seven after this.
- Meaningful Look: When B'Elanna tells Tom they need to depart to an isolated workstation so Tom can examine her specs, a member of the Engineering crew can be seen giving them a skeptical look. This foreshadows the reveal that their relationship is an Open Secret.
- Miserable Massage: Aliens are experimenting on Janeway, making her feel a bit snappish and groggy. The Doctor mistakes the symptoms for Sleep Deprivation and massages her back.Doctor: You work absurdly long hours under constant stress, eating on the run, without sufficient exercise or rest. Your body is crying out for mercy.
(Works his elbow into Janeway's back, which gives a Sickening "Crunch!")
Janeway: It certainly is right now! There must be some easier way to do this, Doctor. A hypospray, maybe?
Doctor: Always looking for the simple fix. Sometimes there's no substitute for intensive osteopathic pressure therapy. You're fortunate to have a masseur who can work all day without tiring. (Janeway gets an Oh, Crap! look) - Misery Poker: After Chakotay is prematurely aged and Neelix is turned into a Myleean (dialated pupils, fused spinal column) they sit on a biobed and try to one-up each other with complaints like a pair of grumpy old men.Chakotay: Do you smell something strange?
Neelix: Oh, I'm...I'm afraid that's me. I seem to be developing Mylean sweat glands. Sorry.
Chakotay: It's not so bad.
Neelix: Well, whatever happens, I try to keep in mind that things could be worse. I still have my home here on Voyager, my friends ...
Chakotay: Your hair.
Neelix: True, but I would gladly lose it if I could have my taste buds back.
Chakotay: At least you're not losing your eyesight. (points to nearby display) See that display over there? It's nothing but a blur.
Neelix: You think that's bad? The Doctor tells me my pupils have dilated sixty percent. I can't even look at that display, it's so bright.
Chakotay: Yeah? Well, I've got chronic arthritis in my fingers. (holds up a glass of water) I can barely keep this glass steady.
Neelix: That's nothing. My spinal column is fusing together. In a matter of days, I won't even be able to walk.
Chakotay: Got you beat — I can barely walk now! - Moral Myopia: The aliens, again.Alzen: I can understand why you're angry. I don't like causing people to suffer, but sometimes it's a necessary part of my work.Janeway: What kind of work is that?Alzen: Medical research. We're scientists, like you.Janeway: From where I stand you're a hostile invasion force. I want to know how long you've been here and exactly what you've been doing to us.Alzen: I can't answer those questions. It's a breach of protocol for me to be speaking to you at all.Janeway: Oh, how convenient. That way you never have to face your victims.Alzen: Captain, please. You're exaggerating the situation. Our techniques are as benign as we can make them.Janeway: What I've been through for the last few days certainly hasn't felt "benign".Alzen: Please understand that there's a purpose to our actions. The data we gather from you may help us cure physical and psychological disorders that afflict millions. Isn't that worth some discomfort?
- Naked People Are Funny: In the middle of her massage session with the Doctor, Janeway gets called to the bridge. She's literally halfway out the door before the Doctor reminds her she's only wearing a towel.
- Nerves of Steel: In the turbolift, Seven has to avoid reacting when an alien sticks a probe into her neck.
- Never Tell Me the Odds!: Janeway and Tuvok, when the captain takes the ship towards the binary stars.Takar: I can kill you and your crew in an instant.Janeway: Go ahead. Without us, you won't be able to prevent this ship from being torn apart by the pulsars. And even with my crew working together, I'd say the odds of us getting through this are, what, one in ten?Tuvok: One in twenty, at best, Captain.Janeway: I'm willing to take that chance. Are you?(After the aliens run for it)Janeway: I hope you were exaggerating about those odds, Tuvok.Tuvok: I was not.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The aliens push Janeway until she takes a course of action to decisively get rid of them.Janeway: Our course is locked in. Only my authorization can release it.Takar: You're not behaving very rationally.Janeway: That's what you are trying to accomplish, wasn't it? Hmm? Pumping up my dopamine levels to push me to the edge? Keeping me awake for four days straight with the constant pain of your devices drilling into my skull? Well, this is the culmination of your work, and guess what? You're going to be right here to collect the final data!
- No Sympathy: The aliens don't really care about the crew's suffering because they believe their work is for the greater good.
- Not Herself: Captain Janeway being very irritable with no inciting incident.
- Not Hyperbole: Janeway describes her headaches as "like hot needles driving into my skull.". Turns out that's actually what's happening to her due to alien scientists experimenting on her.
- The Not Secret: Tom asks Tuvok not to mention him making out with B'Elanna on duty. Tuvok coldly rejects the suggestion that he might lie to his captain. It turns out Tuvok didn't tell Janeway, but she knows anyway as half the ship is gossiping about their affair.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The female alien says this to Janeway. Implied to be directed at humans/the audience, rather than Janeway herself.Alzen: You take care of your own, just as we do. We're really more similar than you care to admit.
Janeway: That's where you're wrong. (lowers the forcefield and steps into the cell) What you're doing isn't self-defense. It's the exploitation of another species for your own benefit. My people decided a long time ago that that was unacceptable, even in the name of scientific progress. - Oh, Crap!:
- After Seven of Nine detects the invisible aliens she rushes to the Ready Room to warn the captain, only to find the aliens already there and doing experiments on Janeway as well.
- Played for Laughs when the Doctor is giving Janeway a Miserable Massage, and informs her that as a hologram he can work all day without tiring.
- Ominous Hair Loss: Chatokay's Rapid Aging is first revealed when his hair starts falling out in clumps.
- Out Sick: Chakotay is confined to Sickbay and barred from working after turning elderly.
- Overcome with Desire: B'Elanna and Tom resolving three years of Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Playing with Syringes: The aliens come across as an entire civilization who crossed the
Moral Event Horizon long ago and have just kept on going. They routinely do medical experiments on sentient creatures, mutilating, torturing them, and even killing them if they feel it will benefit their medical research to do so. They feel completely justified in their actions and not only do they feel no remorse or regret over their actions, they feel that what they do is noble and beneficial. Genetically deforming, maiming and killing the crew of Voyager is the Nightmare Fuel evidence of their crimes and that is only the tip of the iceberg. What is really terrifying is that their flimsy justifications allow them to murder entire societies with impunity and go on torturing and killing as many sentient creatures as they feel is necessary for their "research." - Please Put Some Clothes On: Janeway is so eager to escape the Doctor's tender ministrations, she almost rushes to the bridge in her towel.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "Sorry, these lab rats are fighting back!"
- Professionals Do It on Desks: B'Elanna has to switch off the console when it starts beeping after Tom Paris pushes her onto it for some nookie.
- Rage Breaking Point: The aliens stupidly, stupidly push Janeway to this, and are treated to a faceful of Janeway's Unstoppable Rage.
- Rapid Aging: Chakotay is transformed into an old man.
- Reset Button: Everyone is cured (except for that nameless Red Shirt, of course) once they've gotten rid of the aliens, though Tom and B'Elanna's relationship continues.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the aliens realize how crazy they've made Janeway, they get the hell off Voyager. At least one of their ships doesn't make it, however.
- See the Invisible: The Doctor figures out there are invisible aliens on the ship and modifies Seven's Borg eye implant to detect them. When she opens her eyes again, she can see the aliens. Everywhere. And they're doing horrible things to the crew.
- Sleep Deprivation: Discussed when the EMH initially thinks Janeway's headache might be because she hasn't slept enough.
- Spaceship Slingshot Stunt: Voyager is flown between binary pulsars fast enough to escape out the other side without being torn apart by gravitational stress.
- The Stoic: After Tuvok busts them making out, B'Elanna and Tom wonder if he'll tell Captain Janeway.Torres: Well how did he sound? Annoyed? Amused?
Paris: He sounded Vulcan. What more can I tell you? - Stupid Evil: It's unclear what scientific value driving a woman in charge of a starship batshit insane would have, and it's certainly unclear what scientific value triggering her Mama Bear instincts would have, but the Srivani do it, with deadly results (for them).
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Averted; Tuvok quickly detects Seven's attempt to create an overload and moves to stop her before she can finish.
- Tainted Veins: Shown on the female ensign when she collapses.
- Tested on Humans: In this case, the entire crew are Unwitting Test Subjects.
- This Means War!: Or as Janeway puts it, "This ends right now."
- Try and Follow: Janeway gives the aliens a choice between maintaining their control and risking death, or fleeing.
- Understatement: Tuvok says Janeway's Spaceship Slingshot Stunt is "a far more reckless course of action than I've come to expect from you." Afterwards:Janeway: I never realised you thought of me as reckless, Tuvok.Tuvok: A poor choice of words. It was clearly an understatement.
- You Know Too Much: Right after they discover the alien markings on the crew's DNA, B'Elanna collapses into a coma and the Doctor's program starts to shut down. Fortunately he's able to transfer himself to the holodeck in time.
