"I'm not a fighter. I'm just a cook, who sometimes imagines himself to be a diplomat."
Voyager discovers a contingent of Talaxians living inside an asteroid, in the middle of a mining concern held by rather stubborn miners; more so than the Talaxians, and they want their minerals! Neelix becomes attached to them, and makes a big decision by the end...This episode provides examples of
- Artistic License – Physics: The Talaxians have managed to extract 'geothermal energy' from an asteroid. Asteroids don't have nearly the gravity needed to squeeze the core and create the temperatures that would allow geothermal energy to exist at all.
- Asteroid Miners: Per sci-fi tradition, the adversaries in this episode are a group of miners who are seeking the deposit that the Talaxian colony are living on.
- Big Damn Heroes: Janeway, Paris and Tuvok in the Delta Flyer just narrowly avert Neelix's Heroic Sacrifice, destroying a Voron charge he was on a collision course with.
- But Now I Must Go: Even though Neelix has come to be invaluable to Voyager and to Janeway and the rest, he takes on the huge responsibility of being Starfleet's permanent Delta Quadrant Ambassador, and what better place to do it than among his people?
- Call-Back:
- Naomi tells Brax the story of how Tuvok and Neelix were combined into a single person.
- As Neelix leaves Voyager, he finds the Voyager crew lining the corridor to the transporter pad, echoing the ending of TNG's "Redemption: Part I", as Worf saw a similar farewell from his shipmates as he left the Enterprise to take part in the Klingon Civil War.
- Continuity Nod: The first words spoken by a Vulcan to a human were indeed, "live long and prosper".
- Exact Words: Neelix says he's not leaving Voyager until he's seen Tuvok do a couple of dance steps. As he leaves Voyager, Tuvok calls out to him, then moves his foot in exactly two steps.
- Fictional Holiday: In the opening scene, the crew is celebrating First Contact Day, the anniversary of humanity's first contact with the Vulcans on April 5, 2063. Captain Janeway recalls that it was typically only celebrated with a day off from school when she was a child.
- Friendship Moment: Neelix gets a well-deserved Worf-style sendoff, with the crew lining the corridor to the transporter pad.
- Love at First Sight: Neelix had to have fallen head over heels for the extremely attractive Dexa; besides helping his people and serving as Delta Quadrant Ambassador, she's a big part of why he decided to leave Voyager.
- Pet the Dog: Tuvok giving Neelix something of a pep talk before he goes to defend the Talaxians, and in doing so, admitting (in his own Vulcan way) that he really does have a measure of respect for Neelix after all these years. He even does a very restrained jig with his leg when the crew see Neelix off, after having insisted that Vulcans don't dance.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: It's barely touched on how a Talaxian colony travelled 40,000 light years to the opposite side of Borg space from their homeworld, not to mention having evading countless other hostile species and Negative Space Wedgies.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Janeway bends the Prime Directive again by commanding the Delta Flyer into a Big Damn Heroes moment to save Neelix from his impending Heroic Sacrifice to ensure the completion of the Talaxian shield array.
- Status Quo Is God: The only starring character not from the Alpha Quadrant who was left from the start of Voyager's journey home leaves the series before Voyager gets there. (Icheb, the ex-B does indeed migrate to the Alpha Quadrant and appears briefly in the Series Finale, but the writers apparently thought Neelix having to spend the rest of his life among non-Talaxians was too depressing).
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Suspiciously Similar Song: No "Ooby Dooby" at the First Contact party, sadly. - Took a Level in Badass: Neelix! He fights for his fellow Talaxians fiercely, even going Papa Wolf on a Voron jerk who assaults his little friend Brax.
- Would Hurt a Child: That Voron didn't count on Neelix's fiercely loyal streak.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Doubtful that he has any leadership qualities to help his new Talaxian friends, Neelix then gets this speech from Tuvok. Turns out, after all these years, Tuvok has grown to appreciate certain things about Neelix, and stops just short of going full Dare to Be Badass on him.
