Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 7 E 4 Repression

While you're in there, Tuvok, find out where that sudden interest in boxing came from.

It's a normal day on Voyager, and Paris is taking B'Elanna on a date to the holodeck to enjoy a good old fashioned 1950s horror movie, Revenge of the Creature. To their surprise, however, they find Tabor, a Bajoran crewmember, unconscious in the front row of the movie theater. Upon examination, the Doctor finds that he is comatose, with no hint as to what happened except for some unexplained microfractures in his skull.

As Chief of Security, Tuvok is tasked with investigating. He has a hunch that Tabor was assailed by a member of the crew, but admits to Janeway that he has no logical explanation for it. Crewman Jor, a friend of Tabor's, is his first suspect, but it is not long before both she and Yosa, another crewmember, also turn up comatose in separate incidents.

A pattern emerges: all three victims were former Maquis. This leads to suspicions that someone has a grudge against them, though it doesn't explain why they would suddenly lash out now, apropos of nothing. For safety, Chakotay orders all remaining former Maquis to travel in pairs and stay armed. Meanwhile, Paris and Kim are on the holodeck trying to extrapolate forensic data about the attacker from the holodeck logs, but the information is not specific enough to exclude more than about half the crew.

Tuvok investigates the contents of the latest data stream from Earth, which arrived only just before the attacks. He questions Kim about a letter he received in the data stream, which made mention of a friend that was killed by the Maquis, and suggests it may have provoked Kim to violence. Kim is incredulous, saying his friend's death was old news to him and that he had already gotten over it. Tuvok, who seems to tacitly agree that Kim is an unlikely suspect, expresses frustration over the inscrutability of the case. In sickbay, Tabor wakes with no memory of his attack and no apparent health effects, which only raises more questions.

B'Elanna, who refused to stay with her partner and ventured out alone, becomes the next victim. Chakotay discovers her in one of the cargo bays and is then attacked himself. The assailant is revealed to be none other than Tuvok, who overpowers Chakotay and renders him comatose using a mind meld.

In response, Janeway confines all non-essential crew to their quarters. Tuvok continues the investigation with no recollection of his involvement, but feels a sense of unease, as though he can feel the assailant's presence. While meditating in his quarters, Tuvok begins to have flashbacks of the attacks, then sees the reflection of an unfamiliar Bajoran man in his mirror. Rushing back to the holodeck, he finds that Paris and Kim have more forensic data about the attacker, and that it matches Tuvok's description precisely. Convinced that he is the instigator, Tuvok requests that he be sent to the brig.

The mysterious Bajoran man, whom only Tuvok can see, is apparently controlling him. Seven-of-Nine finds a subliminal message hidden in a letter from Tuvok's son from the last data stream, which Tuvok neglected to check during his investigation. Chakotay and B'Elanna, who have now woken from their comas along with the rest of the victims, identify the man in the message as Teero Anaydis, a fanatical Bajoran vedek who did experiments in mind control but was expelled from the Maquis for his lack of ethics.

With Janeway's help, Tuvok begins to recover memories from when he worked undercover in the Maquis. Teero apparently knew that Tuvok was a Starfleet spy, but chose not to reveal him. Instead, he implanted something in his mind to be activated later, and repressed his memory of the event. Still fighting Teero's control, Tuvok calls Chakotay and speaks a cryptic Bajoran phrase said by Teero in his message. Chakotay calmly acknowledges, then proceeds to stage a mutiny with the aid of the others who were attacked by Tuvok.

Now in control, Chakotay declares Voyager a Maquis ship, and starts searching for a habitable planet on which to leave the Starfleet crew. Tuvok appears to still be under Teero's control, but since he betrayed the Maquis once before, Chakotay arranges a test of loyalty for him. He ushers Janeway into the ready room, gives Tuvok a phaser set to kill, and orders him to shoot her. Tuvok complies, but the phaser was sabotaged, so Janeway remains unharmed.

Satisfied, Chakotay clears the room to speak privately with Tuvok, but the moment he turns his back, Tuvok grabs him and initiates another mind meld, undoing Teero's control. Together, they neutralize the Maquis on the bridge, and Tuvok is able to free the rest of the compromised crew. Tuvok later explains to Janeway that he fired the phaser to gain Chakotay's trust, wagering that he would not have given Tuvok a functional phaser while his loyalties were still in doubt.

Tropes:

• Book Ends: The episode starts and ends in Paris' 1950s movie theater recreation on the holodeck.
• Blinded by the Light: A victim working in a Jeffries tube is dazzled by someone shining a SIMS beacon in his eyes. This also hides the attacker's identity from the audience as well.
• Brainwashed: Teero's brainwashing of the crew is nearly perfect. Besides Tuvok, everyone who was affected behaves perfectly normal both before and after being "activated", with their loyalties being the only thing that changes.
• Continuity Nod: Chakotay's Maquis ship is revealed to have been named the Val Jean. Maquis leader Michael Eddington's obsession with Les Misérables was previously highlighted back in "For the Uniform" on DS9.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  Janeway: I'm beginning to think our perpetrator is a ghost.
  Tuvok: Perhaps we should conduct a seance.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": After taking control of Voyager, Chakotay tells Tuvok to drop the formalities.
• Everyone Has Standards: The Maquis gave Teero the boot for being too extreme.
• Foreshadowing: Tuvok's unexplained Gut Feeling that Tabor's attack was the work of another crew member hints at his repressed knowledge of it. For anyone else, it wouldn't be unusual, but Tuvok is a full-blooded Vulcan with no reason to have such a feeling.
• Idiot Ball: After finding Chell roaming without a buddy, Chakotay leaves his own buddy with him and heads off by himself—and is soon attacked.
• Insane Troll Logic: The justification for the mutiny used by the Teero-brainwashed crew, given that Voyager can't possibly affect anything the Maquis were fighting for. Even ignoring them still being nowhere near the Alpha Quadrant, it's been three years after the movement was destroyed, Cardassia is no longer an imperial power, and the entire reasons they were fighting no longer exist due to the Dominion War. (The closest justification for all this is that Teero has gone certifiably insane.) It's even explained In-Universe.
  Janeway: We're thirty-five thousand light-years from Earth, Chakotay. No one out here even knows about the Maquis. It doesn't make sense. There's nothing you can accomplish.
  Chakotay: As long as we exist, so does the rebellion.
  Janeway: That's Teero talking. He was unstable, you said so yourself.
• The Killer in Me: Tuvok is the amnesiac variety, although he does not actually murder anyone.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: B'Elanna's reaction to Tom's movie theater.
  B'Elanna: Protective lenses?
  Tom: These will make the images on the screen appear three-dimensional.
  B'Elanna: Let me get this straight — You've gone to all this trouble to program a three-dimensional environment that projects a two-dimensional image and now you're asking me to wear these to make it look three-dimensional again?
• Manchurian Agent: When Tuvok, in the secretly encoded message from his son, hears the phrase, "Pagh t'em far, B'tanay," or "This is a holy time, a time of awakening," Teero's Maquis programming asserts itself in Tuvok.
• Mind Rape:
  • Tuvok's forced mind-meld on the former Maquis members on board Voyager.
  • Teero apparently did this to Tuvok years ago in preparation for this event.
• The Mutiny: Teero's mind control causes Tuvok to unwittingly start a pro-Maquis mutiny. Once he regains his self-control, he quickly stages another to return to the status quo.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While being brainwashed by Teero, Tuvok loses control of his emotions and begs him to stop.
• The Remnant: With the Maquis having been wiped out over three years ago, Teero is one of the final holdouts.
• Sarcastic Confession: Lampshaded
  Harry: You got me Tuvok, I confess. I was so distraught after hearing Max's name that I fired my Captain Proton Comatizer at every Maquis crew member I could find.
  Tuvok: Your sarcasm could be viewed as subterfuge.
• Shoot Your Mate: Chakotay demands that Tuvok shoot Janeway to prove his loyalty. Tuvok correctly gambles that the phaser is not functional, and thus succeeds in winning Chakotay's trust by making the attempt.
• Subliminal Seduction: Tuvok's message from his son includes a coded message from Teero that activates him as his brainwashing agent.
• Suspect Is Hatless: When trying to extrapolate the physical parameters of the attacker by dampening the photonic ambience in the holodeck and reversing the polarity, Paris and Kim are able to conclude that they were about 170-190cm in height and 75kg in weight — which matches about half the crew. Kim quips that they can, at least, rule out Naomi Wildman.
• Trigger Phrase: "Pagh'tem'far, b'tanay", Bajoran for "This is a holy time, the time of the awakening".
• Yawn and Reach: Tom demonstrates this to B'Elanna while showing her what theaters were for, besides the movie itself.