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Displaced (episode)

Voyager crew members begin disappearing one by one, being replaced by aliens.

Summary

Teaser

With a bat'leth in hand, B'Elanna Torres storms out of a holodeck, followed closely by Tom Paris. Torres resents the fact that Paris took her to a Klingon training session. She laments Paris' new-found interest in Klingon martial arts, and insists that she is not interested in disemboweling holographic monsters. An argument between the two ensues. Paris calls Torres hostile. At that moment an alien is transported on to USS Voyager. The man appears to be lost and confused.

Act One

Paris signals the bridge and informs them of the visitor's arrival. The alien appears frightened, and out of place in Voyager's artificial environment. He is brought to sickbay, where he is examined by The Doctor. The alien identifies his species as Nyrian. He claims to have been walking in the street when he was transported aboard. When inquired about how he came aboard Voyager, he described feeling lightheaded, everything around him "bending, or rippling", then a curious sensation. The Doctor asks Tuvok to pass him a medical instrument, causing Tuvok to ask where Kes is. The Doctor tells him that Kes hasn't shown up for her shift and asks the computer to locate her; the computer reports that she is not aboard Voyager. Captain Janeway asks what time she left and when their visitor arrived aboard, and the computer confirms that Kes disappeared at the exact same moment the alien appeared aboard. Janeway orders Kim and Torres to start investigating. There are no indications that a ship could have transported them, and that the closest inhabited system is over ten light years away. Ensign Kim is beamed away a few minutes later, and another Nyrian appears on the bridge. Nyrians are now regularly appearing on Voyager with Tuvok disappearing right in front of Captain Janeway soon after. At a senior staff meeting, it's revealed that in the last three hours, twenty-two people have disappeared, and that in eighteen hours, the entire crew will disappear. Torres explains that what is happening could have been anything, a naturally-occurring phenomenon or a kind of technology. She shows a surge in polaron particles, and a spatial distortion field surround the abductees before they disappear. Janeway orders that the Nyrians be confined to the cargo bays. Chakotay does not feel threatened and considers the Nyrians friendly, but Janeway has a gut feeling that something is wrong about them reminding him that while they're still throwing theories around to try and work out what is going on the Nyrians are slowly replacing the entire crew.

Act Two

"Captain's log, Stardate 50912.4. It's been twelve hours since these mysterious exchanges began, and we still haven't discovered their cause. I've already lost over half my crew."

With the still-confined Nyrians now outnumbering the crew, Janeway orders that all non-essential functions are to be shut down. In engineering, Torres has a theory that Voyager has snagged onto a wormhole the moment that it was forming. Soon, Janeway herself is beamed away. With a skeleton crew, Chakotay is left in command. He mans the helm and an ensign has tactical, restricting all computer interfaces to Starfleet voiceprints only. As he does this Neelix becomes the latest abductee. Torres is working with a Nyrian scientist, conducting a tetryon scan of the area against the scientist's objections. Torres concludes that the anomaly isn't a wormhole, nor is it any kind of natural phenomenon. The scientist, Rislan, strikes his security guard and grabs the guard's phaser. He then presses a few buttons on the control panel and says that she has been moved to the front of the line. She is transported to an idyllic version of Earth, along with the missing crewmembers.

Act Three

The Nyrian security guards take her combadge and leave. Torres, Janeway, Kes, and Paris all swap theories on what is going on, and what the Nyrians want. Tuvok reports that the crew is spread across twelve different compounds and at all ends there is an insurmountable barrier, a cliff or a river. Torres notes that the environment is not suitable for the Nyrians, but in fact seems to be have been built created speifically for Voyager's crew.

Crewman Gennaro tells Chakotay that Rislan's guard, Ensign Molina, is unconscious in engineering and that Rislan and Torres are gone. Chakotay runs to the cargo bay to have a talk with the Nyrians. He draws his phaser and jumps into the room in an aggressive posture. The room is empty, confirming his suspicions that the Nyrians are behind the disappearances. He issues a security alert to the remaining twelve crewmen on board. The crew moves to secure engineering and the bridge, but it is futile. The Nyrians storm both stations and easily overpower the personnel there. Chakotay knows that with only a couple of crewmembers remaining including himself, they have no chance of retaking the ship, so he orders the remaining personnel to sabotage anything they can however it isn't long before he's the only one left. Chakotay finds that the Nyrians are trying to delete The Doctor's program and heads to sickbay. Arriving successfully, Chakotay transfers The Doctor to his mobile emitter as the Nyrians corner him. As he surreptitiously pockets the emitter, Chakotay surrenders and he is transported to the surface, allowing the Nyrians to have successfully taken over the ship.

Back at the prison compound, a Nyrian woman named Taleen appears and welcomes the Voyager crew to their new home. The Nyrians expand their civilization by gradually switching places with the crews of ships, space stations, and colonies and transport their victims to an artificial environment drawn from the victims' own databases. The Nyrians see themselves as benevolent jailers, but Chakotay remarks that it is "still a prison."

As soon as Taleen leaves, Janeway begins to plan their escape, theorizing that the entire place is likely to be a holographic projection. An alien named Jarlath appears to welcome the crew, saying he is their new neighbor.

Act Four

Jarlath reveals that there are other environments holding different species and that each environment is tailored to the requirements of its prisoners. Jarlath has found a portal between his environment and the one holding the Voyager crew, and Janeway trades him a couple of baskets of food for the means to locate the portal.

That evening, Torres reconfigures the EMH's optical sensors to detect the microwave signature of the portals. She apologizes to Paris but an argument between the two ensues. The Doctor makes comments about the exchanges with psychological analysis until Torres reconfigures the EMH to make The Doctor mute. The EMH discovers a portal that leads into the control area of the prison colony. Janeway, Tuvok, Torres, Paris, and Jarlath enter the control area and split up, carrying home-made phasers "improvised" by Tuvok.

Janeway and Tuvok use a control station terminal and learn that there are 94 different environments, and that they are actually on a ship. Just as they learn more information, an alarm begins to sound.

Act Five

The Nyrians are alerted to their presence outside their environment, and Dammar authorizes Taleen to use force to return the prisoners to their habitats. Dammar also orders Voyager to be taken to the biosphere vessel to reinforce them.

With Nyrian guards on their tail, Torres and Paris (minus the anxious Jarlath who surrenders to the Nyrian guards) are trapped inside the corridors of the Nyrian ship. They come to a frigid, snowy habitat and Torres recalls how the Nyrians found Voyager too cold. Assuming that the Nyrians would not want to pursue them, they enter the habitat. Taleen orders two of her guards to follow them.

Meanwhile, Janeway and Tuvok evade capture, and Tuvok uses the Vulcan nerve pinch on a Nyrian guard. They discover the translocator that the Nyrians used to switch places with the Voyager crew, and attempts to gain command of it. In the arctic habitat Torres and Paris evade the two Nyrians sent in after them. Torres's condition is going downhill, as she explains that Klingons have a much lower tolerance to cold temperatures than Humans. Adjusting the phaser to get one more shot out of it, they are discovered by the Nyrians, but one collapses from the cold and the other is shot by Torres. They set off to find the portal.

Janeway has figured out the basics of the translocator, but not how to lock onto a _target. Looking for something to use as a _targeting scanner for the system, Tuvok discovers bio-scanners the monitoring programs for the habitats, then finds Human life signs in the arctic Argala habitat, in which the temperature is -20 °C. Realizing it's Torres and Paris, they are then alerted to Voyager returning at high warp; they quickly endeavor how to use the bio-scanners with the translocator to rescue the two and use it against their captors.

Lost in the Argala habitat, just as Torres seems about to succumb to hypothermia she and Paris find themselves back in the Earth habitat, and Dammar and Rislan are transported off Voyager into the Argala habitat. Janeway and Tuvok have learned how to use the translocator, and Janeway threatens to relocate all the Nyrians to the Argala habitat unless her crew and all the other prisoners are freed. Faced with death by hypothermia, the Nyrians surrender and relinquish Voyager to Janeway. The alien prisoners are freed, and their native worlds are contacted to take them home. Paris and Torres reconcile their relationship by relaxing under the Paxau Resort's sun on the holodeck.

Log entries

  • "Captain's log, stardate 50912.4. It's been twelve hours since these mysterious exchanges began. We still haven't discovered their cause. I've already lost over half my crew."
  • "Captain's log, stardate 50929.6. The Nyrians have surrendered Voyager, and my crew is safely back on board. The former prisoners on the habitat vessel have contacted their native worlds, and are waiting to be taken home."

Memorable quotes

"Welcome to sickbay – take a number."

- The Doctor, as sickbay is rapidly filling up with displaced aliens


"I've reconfigured The Doctor's optical sensors and as soon as they're aligned he should be able to detect the microwave signature of the portals."
"Then I can begin my new career as a tricorder."

- Torres and The Doctor


"Shows how much you know about Klingons. They have much less tolerance for the cold than Humans do."
"Really? I thought that was Cardassians."
"No, they just complain about it more."

- Torres and Paris inside the Argala habitat


"On your feet, that's an order!"
"You can't give me orders, we're the same rank."
"I'm a bridge officer, and I have seniority."
"Yeah, by about two days!"

- Paris and Torres


"You just pretend that nothing bothers you and then you turn everything into a joke."
"That's a valid observation. Defense mechanisms come in many forms."
"That's ridiculous. l am an easygoing person… who is just trying to be friendly to someone who is obviously terrified of having a friend."
"Fear of intimacy is a common indication of low self-esteem. Perhaps if you stopped to analyze the root cause, you might…"

- Torres, The Doctor, and Paris before Torres shut down The Doctor's voice


"How do you like your first day as chief of security, ensign?"
"It's everything I dreamed of, sir."
"Who says there's no room for advancement on this ship?"

- Chakotay and Lang, when they are among only a handful of the crew still left on Voyager


"You don't think I'm hostile, do you?"
"I, uh… wouldn't describe you that way, no."
"I know that I have a temper, but that doesn't mean that I'm always hostile, does it?"
"No, of course not."
"I am forthright; I speak my mind. That is very different from being hostile."
"Very different"
"And if someone described me that way, they'd be way off the mark, wouldn't they?"
"Way off."
"Then why do you look like you're afraid for your life?"

- Torres and Kim

Background information

Story and script

  • With this episode, Lisa Klink wanted to devise a story in a style that she was not used to doing for Star Trek: Voyager. "I really wanted to do an ensemble story that was a little more plot-driven," she said, "because a lot of my stuff has been very character-driven." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 113)
  • This installment's final draft script was submitted on 5 February 1997. [1]

Cast

Production

  • Allan Kroeker enjoyed directing this episode. He commented, "'Displaced' was fun. I remember shooting a lot of stuff with Chakotay running around the ship and sabotaging things." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15)
  • The door of Cargo Bay 2 and the section of corridor outside that room were set pieces which were normally used for the holodecks and shuttlebay. (Delta Quadrant, p. 184) In fact, they can be seen outside one of the holodecks at the start of this episode.
  • The Nyrian corridors were a modified reuse of the Borg interior set from "Unity". (Delta Quadrant, p. 184)
  • According to the unofficial reference book Delta Quadrant (pp. 63 & 184), the Nyrian firearms in this episode were stock weapon props; their rifles had apparently been used in TNG: "Unification I", "Unification II", "Starship Mine" and "Gambit, Part I" as well as Voyager's second season premiere, "The 37's", whereas the Nyrian pistols were purportedly previously used as Romulan pistols. The book specifies that the Nyrian rifle props slightly differ, in this case, from how they are shown in their previous appearances as, here, they have an extension added to the barrel.
  • To show one of the numerous environments aboard the Nyrian biosphere vessel (specifically, an environment that is named – in this episode – as Tanatuva), reused footage of the Bajoran settlement on Valo II (from TNG: "Ensign Ro") is briefly shown.
  • Contrary to Starfleet custom the Nyrian computer screens translated by the downloaded translation matrix showed measurements in cubic feet instead of metric units. Similarly the temperatures are in fact given in degrees Celsius, but given that the 76°C cited for the Federation habitat would be uninhabitable for Humans it appears the American crew entered temperatures in their familiar Fahrenheit which were accidentally not converted to 24.4°C, which would perfectly suit the idyllic climate aimed for.

Reception

  • Allan Kroeker once stipulated that his "only regret" of this entire episode was the Nyrians. He explained, "I thought it would have been nicer if the [Nyrians] were fattening these people up to eat them. [But] all they were doing was taking them from their own environment and putting them in a nice new environment, which was nonetheless a form of imprisonment. I was thinking of the Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man.' I thought it would be wonderful if there was just this awful motive that they actually had, and that they were even nastier than they were. I felt that was missing." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15)
  • This episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 4.7 million homes, and a 7% share. [2](X)
  • Cinefantastique rated this episode 3 and a half out of 4 stars. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 112)
  • Star Trek Magazine scored this episode 2 out of 5 stars, defined as "Impulse Power only". (Star Trek Monthly issue 32, p. 93)
  • The unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 185) gives this installment a rating of 7 out of 10.

Continuity

  • Torres and Paris' bet (referred to at the start of this episode) which led to them visiting the Klingon exercise program takes place in the previous episode, "Distant Origin".
  • This episode is the only one that references the four-month Vulcan Rite of Tal'oth. However, that ritual seems very similar to the ten-day kahs-wan maturity test from the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "Yesteryear".
  • This episode marks the second time that Voyager has been captured by an alien race. The Kazon previously did so in "Basics, Part I".
  • Several lines of dialog in this episode hint at the crew complement of Voyager. Most tellingly of these is a line from Captain Janeway, reading the population count of the "Federation habitat" as 148 and implying that this number correctly accounts for the whole crew (though it is not clear if the holographic Doctor is counted among them). This is consistent with the episode which immediately precedes this one, "Distant Origin", in which the Voth sensors detect 148 lifesigns aboard Voyager. However, in "The 37's", Janeway remarks that there are 152 men and women on board. Since that episode, Voyager has lost at least 12 crew (3 in "Alliances", 1 in "Meld", 1 in "Investigations", 1 in "Innocence", 1 in "Basics, Part I", 3 in "Basics, Part II", 1 in "Warlord", and 1 in "Unity"). One crew member was gained with the birth of Naomi Wildman in "Deadlock". This means that the population should be no more than 141 unless additional crew members had been recruited in the Delta Quadrant.

Apocrypha

Video and DVD releases

Starring

Also starring

Guest stars

Co-stars

Uncredited co-stars

References

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