RETROACTIVELY MAKING STAR TREK: VOYAGER GOOD, Part IX
The Plot Thickens
Season Seven - The U.S.S. Gulliver, a Quasar-class science vessel, was pulled into the Delta Quadrant in 2368 while studying plasma streamers far from the Badlands. Half the crew of eighty-eight were civilian scientists and their families, not Starfleet officers, but Captain Kao Xiaoping kept everyone together and casualties of the passage were minimal; after that, though, their journey went quite poorly. Within weeks of their arrival, depredations by the Vidiians resulted in the death and dissection of half the crew and it was only a chance encounter with a wormhole that saved the survivors; tragically, it was the crew of the Gulliver who made the Vidiians aware of the existence of the Ocampa. In the aftermath of the Vidiian attacks, Lt. Felix Aeschliman, the Chief Engineer, arranged the "accidental" death of Captain Kao and assumed command. Violating the Prime Directive, they made contact with the pre-warp civilization of a nearby planet. Striking a deal with the planetary dictator, they gave him advanced Federation technology in exchange for a safe haven and the resources of an entire world. Soon they had repaired the Gulliver and equiped a small fleet of ships with advanced Starfleet weaponry. By the time our heroes meet up with them, Aeschliman's crew have been preying on the nearby systems for nearly seven years, their Federation ethics long forgotten. The Ulysses, with her full compliment of Federation weapons plus Tehlyri and Hirogen additions, is too rich a prize for "Captain" Aeschliman to pass up. "The High Road" is a war between McKenna's crew and who they could have been had the strength of their convictions failed them. In "War of the Worlds," the crew stop the interplanetary invasion of a pre-warp world without the inhabitants even knowing anything other than germs felled the invaders, all set to an eerily familiar radio broadcast. Also, in a format that is a personal fave, we have a pair of flashback episodes: Elisabeth marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of her Academy graduation by recalling her first Starfleet assignment in "Ex Astris, Scientia." In "Act of Contrition," Benicio tells Elisabeth about the darkest day of his life, the first time he took a life and enjoyed it. Set back in his Maquis days, we see Cole, K'rena, Cesca, and the rest of the Maquis as they greet Sovok, a new recruit, and test the Vulcan's loyalty. Everything Benicio's done aboard the Ulysses has been an attempt to repent for that day.

The two-part "Things to Come" begins with the ship being intercepted by a waiting honor guard of Presari warships. The Presari are the Ocampa carried into deep space by the second Caretaker; possessing the power of pre-cognition, the Presari knew just where and when to meet the Ulysses. However friendly the greetings by Kes's distant cousins, not all is well in the land of the pre-cogs. The Presari have build an empire by being able to predict their enemies' movements and weaknesses. The ruthless Field Marshal Ramakar executes the will of Autarch Aelia, the most powerful pro-cog in the Presari Realm. Yet for all their ability to see the future, no Presari possesses Kes or Liz's formidible telekinetic abilities; their purpose in greeting Captain McKenna and her crew is to capture Nick's wife and daughter and weaponize their mental powers. They possess enough telepathy to obscure Kes's sight until they spring their trap. As Ramakar sez to McKenna upon capturing her vessel, "How, my dear, do you propose to fight an enemy who knows your next move before you do?" Wheels within wheels, it's all terribly exciting (in other words, I haven't yet worked out how our heroes triumph nor at what cost). Far beyond the protective blanket of the Tehlyri, the Ulysses detects a rapidly approaching Borg cube in "The Devil You Know." They are quite relieved when the cube ignores them, but the captain's curiosity is aroused when a second cube is detected heading for the same coordinates as the first. Carefully shadowing the Borg, the crew are shocked to discover the first cube a flaming wreck while the second and a previously undetected third are locked in mortal combat with a plethora of small, organic-looking ships. The Borg are slaughtering the organic vessels, but an uninterrupted stream continue to pour out of some manner of transdimensional portal, slowly overwhelming the cubes by sheer force of numbers. The charred remains of an organic ship are brought aboard, where both K'rena and Doc set to work. The vessel is revealed to be a lifeform, akin to a single cell of a greater, collective organism; each vessel is a cell with no will of its own. More terrifying, the vessels are developing an "immunity" to the Borg weaponry, evolving at a quicker pace than the Borg technology can adapt. The cells, nicknamed the Hydra, are determined to eradicate all impurities in our dimension; impurities being any lifeforms not them. *sigh* Nothing's ever easy, is it? While the Borg and the Hydra pulverize each other, the Ulysses enters the Hydra dimension, a weird realm of fluidic space, and seals the dimensional rift with a just-crazy-enough-to-work plan. Cut off from the whole, the Hydra are little match for the sole remaining Borg cube and the Ulysses slinks away during the mop-up.

"Vengeance, Parts I and II": The final battle between McKenna and Cole. With the Xanadu and the Tholian ship at his command, Cole has located the second Caretaker and its array; he will destroy the Ulysses's long sought-after way home unless Captain McKenna and the crew fall into his obvious trap. Cole! Xor (I finally named the Gorn)! The Tholians! The Caretaker! The Revenge! The Xanadu! The Ulysses! A way home! Brother, this one's been building up since the end of "The Mutiny"! Put on a pot of coffee and bring out the Dan Rather bizarre quasi-witicisms, this one's going to be a barn burner! Hot dog! Then comes "Wing and a Prayer," the series finale. The prototype transwarp engine killed the crew of the Xanadu, but with the second Caretaker's array destroyed, it may just be the crew's only way home. Hunted by the vengeful Presari under a nigh-mad Ramakar and a catatonic Aelia, Kes makes a most unusual suggestion. Nearing her eighth birthday, she has already lived almost a full year longer than any other Ocampa; she can sense her end coming. The crew embark upon a desperate plan to gather the materials necessary to reconfigure the salvaged transwarp drive to be powered by Kes herself. Elisabeth proposes to Benicio, Nick sez goodbye to his wife, Liz sez goodbye to her mom, Cole stews in the cell that was once Agrippa's, the Wildman twins and all the other kids cower in wonder and terror, and a family faces one last danger together. An untested, almost certainly lethal device, designed to carry a starship from one side of the galaxy to the other without dumping it inside a sun, powered by nothing but the concentration (and self-sacrifice) of an immensely-powerful-yet-elfin-in-appearance woman, , while the crew face off against aliens who can see the future: what could possibly go wrong? A fiery death or a triumphant return for our heroes? The end of the Odyssey and a hero's welcome for a crew who have truly explored strange new worlds, sought out new life and new civilizations, and boldly gone where no one has gone before.

More to Come
More aliens, an as close to complete as I can make it "Dramatis Personae," and my personal favorite, the episode guide! Woo hoo!