Star Trek: Voyager Equinox: Part I (1995–2001) Online

Season five of Voyager comes to an exciting conclusion in this cliff hanger episode which finds the crew of Voyager up against an unexpected danger... another Star Fleet ship; The USS Equinox. The opening scene shows the Equinox coming under attack from a strange nucleogenic lifeforms, they send out a mayday which is received by a surprised Voyager. At first the crew of both ships are happy to finally meet another Star Fleet vessel after several years struggling to survive far from home. It soon becomes clear that the crew of the Equinox have abandoned several Star Fleet regulations including the Prime Directive. As the aliens continue to attack Janeway decides that the crew of the Equinox will transfer to Voyager and abandon their heavily damaged ship. Captain Ransom and his crew aren't happy with this and plan to steal Voyager's shield generator and make a run for the Alpha Quadrant using an improved drive which utilises a rather sinister power source. As the episode concludes Voyager is at the mercy of the aliens and Seven is caught on the Equinox as it departs at speed.

This was a gripping episode which left me looking forward to seeing the conclusion when season six begins. As well as the regular cast John Savage put in a good performance as Captain Ransom, one could sense the characters determination to get what ever he wanted no matter what rules he has to break to get it.

This episode begins with Voyager locating another Federation vessel in the Delta Quadrant. The USS Equinox is in bad shape which is the result from battling some sort of creatures. Exactly what they are and why they were there are hidden from Voyager's crew by the wily folks from Equinox. In fact, a lot is hidden and the meeting at first seems like good news. Eventually, however, Janeway learns that the Prime Directive has been routinely ignored by Captain Ransom (John Savage) and she locks the crew in their quarters until she figures out what to do with these jerks. The Equinox crew, however, has an ace up their sleeve--their holo doctor has no moral qualms about ANYTHING and soon he's set in motion a plan to rescue his morally ambivalent crew members. By the end of the show, these folks have escaped and they've stolen Voyager's deflectors--and left them to the mercy of the creatures angered by Ransom's nasty experiments.

This is a nice episode because too often the Prime Directive and and niceness permeates the show so much, it's nice to have a breath of fresh air...or is it stale air?! Regardless, it sets them up for a nice confrontation which will occur in the second part of this two- parter.

The appearance of the Equinox makes for a great new plot element to Voyager, one which based on experience with Voyager, you know will ultimately lead to nothing, due to status quo and Magic Reset Button.

However, this is just another lead-in to Janeway the Tyrant; Janeway's opinions and interpretations are law, and anything counter to that is inherently evil.

Captain Ransom of the USS Equinox is under attack by weirdy aliens that are like ghosts, with powers to instantly remove shields and create holes in subspace to enter into the ship and attack people. Voyager finds them and rescues them.

Apparently this ship got caught by the Caretaker as well, and has been travelling through the Delta Quadrant trying to reach home.

Skipping past all the character introductions and meeting their Voyager counterparts, it turns out the Equinox and Captain Ransom have a DARK AND EVIL SECRET, because nothing like this ever happens in the Trek universe without the other captain being blatantly evil.

So it turns out that these spooky ghost-y aliens are actually nucleogenic lifeforms, and they traded an energy converter with the keeper species for one of them. They wanted to study it, but it died, and they realized they could somehow convert its bodily substance into energy to make them go home faster. They travelled 10,000 lightyears in two weeks.

It's NEVER stated in the episode whether they took more of these creatures to kill them and use their body, nor is it explicitly implied---given that they only took ONE and then travelled TEN THOUSAND LIGHTYEARS AWAY, it's kind of impossible for them to go back on a raid for more.

Nevertheless, Janeway the Despot decides this is EVIL, UNJUST, and a VIOLATION OF THE PRIME DIRECTIVES! And because SHE decides it, that makes it true, despite the fact that the Equinox didn't have the sort of special adventures the Voyager did that allowed them to HAX time and space and find wormholes or Kes or quantum multi-spectral interferometric bullshit bullshits to let them get home faster.

A one-hundred plus year journey (because the Equinox cannot go past warp 8) could be cut down to less than two months, but JANEWAY THE DREAMCRUSHER says THIS IS WRONG AND EVIL because it involved killing ONE alien spooky ghost thing.

So she decides in her insane mind to arrest ALL the crewmembers, regardless of innocence or guilt or the captain being responsible for their actions, and locking them in their quarters, where once they reach Earth in 20 or 30 years, they'll be put in prison for 30 years for... FOLLOWING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE IN TRYING TO FIND THE QUICKEST WAY HOME AND TO SAVE AS MANY LIVES OF THEIR CREW AS POSSIBLE! Yes, JANEWAY THE BABYKILLER sees breaking ONE part of the Prime Directive in order to follow ANOTHER part as not a moral ambiguity or a conundrum of survival, but an ABANDONMENT OF OUR OWN HUMANITY! She believes that the Equinox and all their crew should have just dropped dead under nonstop hostile alien attacks (unrelated to this issue of using the ghost alien) or else die of old age trying to travel to the Alpha Quadrant, rather than bending the rules for a greater good.

It's something SFDebris once stated as a comparison between Sisko, Picard, and Janeway; Sisko follows the Prime Directives, and breaks them only when they get in the way of human decency and compassion. Picard follows the Prime Directives, no matter what usually because of human decency and compassion.

Janeway the Tyrant, meanwhile, follows the Prime Directives no matter what, usually to the detriment of human decency and compassion.

And that malevolent scumbag Janeway has the GALL to claim that abandoning our principles is abandoning that which makes us human. And bending strict, inflexible, easily interpretable rules in order to SAVE HUMAN LIVES apparently makes us less than human, in the eyes of Janeway the Terrible.

Nice premise for a series and a show, but I have a hard time watching it. If I didn't want to see Voyager come home, I would stop watching all together. In this episode, there are so many ridiculous logical faults that irritates me to no end. Disabled ships that aren't disabled. Rouge captains that condemn other captains for illegal activity, but then want to commit murder. Janeway is a moron. The plots she is given are even more stupid. Equinox is no exception and perhaps among the worst. Copies of doctors that turn on and off their ethical programming. Phantom supplies, decisions a 6-year old could improve upon and the litany goes on. Ugh!

Since this is to be continued, I won't say much, other than there is a rogue set of Federation employees on board a starship. One of them is played by Titus Welliver, who, until Bosch, never played a single positive character. In going to the aid of these guys, Janeway has to become a by the book Commander who talks Federationese. But the bad guys are robbing Voyager of her power and leaving her adrift as things end.