The crew discuss how they came to Tars Lemora while repairing the proto-drive, and the Diviner and Asencia discuss how they came to the past.
Tropes:
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: Part of the hatred of the Order is motivated by Solum being left alone by the Federation until they sorted out their civil war on joining them. This in spite of the fact that the conflict was motivated by a belief that Starfleet had nothing of value to offer their people.
- Ambiguous Situation: It looks like "the hero" was happy to play along with Rok's clowning when he realised what she was doing, and was sad to see her go even though the new version of the show was less popular. It also looks like he became less interested in looking after her when the show stopped doing well. Since they didn't share a language, we never learn what he actually thought.
- The Alleged Car: The Sleeper Starship Jankom Pog was sent away on had numerous flaws that Jankom developed his engineering skills repairing singlehandedly.
- Breather Episode: Most of this episode is meant for the Protostar crew to share their backstories. The rest is for "Asencia" (aka the Vindicator) to bring the Diviner up to speed on their plan.
- Broken Pedestal: According to Asencia/The Vindicator, The Diviner was once one of the people that wanted Solum to join the Federation. That they refused to take a side in the civil war over this choice that devastated their world completely flipped that opinion.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Kazon hunt Medusans with visors identical to the one worn by Spock in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
- The episode ends with Holo-Janeway telling the kids about Mollie, the real Janeway's Irish setter, mentioned in several Voyager episodes.
- Jankom's Sleeper Starship is the same design as the Tellarite cruisers from Star Trek: Enterprise.
- Contrived Coincidence: Of all the places the Protostar could have wound up, it happened to be right on Solum's doorstep after they had reason to hate the Federation.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The non-lethal kind. Jankom takes off in an escape pod so that the rest of his ship's crew has enough oxygen to survive, being picked up by Kazon shortly after that.
- Internal Reveal: Janeway walks in on the Vindicator in her natural state, only to be knocked out by the Diviner.
- Never My Fault:
- The Diviner blames Gwyn's betrayal on the fact that "she met a boy". Charitably, Dal at best cemented a betrayal the Diviner himself inspired by callously leaving Gwyn to die in favor of securing the Protostar, and the Diviner is clearly mentally stable enough at this point that he probably remembers what he did.
- The Order formed by the vengeful Vau N'Akat placed sole blame on Starfleet for a civil war their own people started that devastated their world, simply because they couldn't reconcile whether or not they should join the Federation and the Federation refused to aid either side.
- The Reveal: Grab a notepad, because this is gonna be a long one.
- The Protostar encountered a temporal anomaly, being flung into the future after Solum had already been decimated by their civil war. It was captured and outfitted with the Living Construct, but before they could launch it, Chakotay set the auto-pilot and remotely piloted it back into the temporal anomaly, leading to it eventually landing on Tars Lemora. Chakotay's fate from that point isn't revealed.
- The Diviner and Asencia, known as the Vindicator, are part of a group known as the Order, dedicated to destroying the Federation. After Chakotay threw a wrench into their plans, 100 ships, each containing one Vau N'Akat and one Drednok, were launched into the temporal anomaly. Most were destroyed, and those that weren't were spat out in random places and times. The Vindicator arrived a mere three years ago and infiltrated Starfleet, joining Janeway's crew, while the Diviner has been searching for two decades.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Jankom goes through hell and back fixing every system on the Sleeper Starship so he can return to stasis, only to be told all that effort has made it impossible for him to be put back in without compromising life support for the others, forcing him to leave in an escape pod for their continued survival.
- Ship Tease: According to the Diviner, the reason Gwyn betrayed him is because "she met a boy". Dal's failed rescue in the mid-season finale evidently left an impression.
- Tap on the Head: Janeway is knocked out by the Diviner with a simple neck chop.
- Third-Person Person: The helper robot on the Sleeper Starship only answers queries if the person gives their full name first, hence why Jankom reflexively does so almost all the time.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Most of the episode is flashbacks explaining how several Alpha Quadrant aliens wound up halfway across the galaxy in the same place, and the particulars of how the Diviner traveled back in time and how the Protostar factors into that.
