While Seven begins to re-learn how to be a human, she suddenly experiences a flashback to her assimilation. This prompts her to begin exploring her former life, with her parents. Meanwhile, Janeway attempts to negotiate passage through a section of space 'owned' by the B'omar, a territorial species...
This episode provides examples of:
- 2-D Space: The circuitous route through B'omar space is mapped on a 2D plane, with the ship forced to navigate obstacles like a 2D maze.
- "Ass" in Ambassador: The two B'omar officials are condescending and rude to the crew, seemingly just because they can.
- Catchphrase: When Seven suddenly says, "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile" you know it's not good.
- Comfort Food: Seven is told that her human physiology has developed enough that it's time to start the inefficient process of eating. This is just after her first nightmare, so this subtext is implied also. Neelix tries in vain to explain the joys of eating.
- Cutting the Knot:
- When faced with a stronger-than-usual force field, Seven just beams directly into a shuttle.
- Janeway and Tuvok try in vain to convince the B'omar to let them take a shorter route. In the end Voyager just barges through at Warp 8, pursued by an armada of B'omar warships.
- Dark and Troubled Past: THE darkest and most troubled of any main cast member of Star Trek, we begin to explore Seven's past here.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Janeway discovers the nature of the bird from Seven's hallucinations, she knows what to look for: the U.S.S. Raven, the Hansens' ship...
- Face–Heel Turn: Seven's flashbacks make her perform one, apparently. But Janeway refuses to accept this.
- Foreshadowing:
- Janeway suggests that Seven create her own holodeck program to explore aspects of her life that wouldn't fit into her life as a Borg. She might not have given that advice if she knew it would inflict the horrors of C/7.
- Janeway encourages Seven to read her parents logs. However she avoids the task until "Dark Frontier", in which the Back Story of the Hansens plays an important part.
- Heroic BSoD: The strongest of Seven's flashbacks, involving her parents being taken away by the Borg and her hiding from them but being pulled out, induces this when she and Tuvok find the Raven.
- Here We Go Again!: A flashback to her father in great pain from being assimilated begins to regenerate Seven's implants, including her adaptive shields and what we initially think is her Hive Mind link...
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Seven manages to nerve pinch Tuvok.
- Hyperspeed Escape: Having already pissed off the B'omar by flying into their space and firing on their vessels to rescue Seven, Janeway just has them haul ass to the other side at Warp 8.
- Informed Attribute: Seven says that the dense musculature of Talaxians makes them highly suited to manual labor. None of the Talaxians we've seen have ever demonstrated significant strength.
- Jerkass Has a Point:Gauman: Let's tally the events, shall we? First, you arrive uninvited and unwelcome, requesting a shortcut through our space. Then you proceed to unleash some sort of rogue Borg and now you want us to help you get it back.Janeway: I apologise for what's happened here, but we certainly didn't unleash anyone. We can resolve this situation quickly, gentlemen, if we work together.Gauman: Captain Janeway, after what I've seen here, I question your competence.
- Layman's Terms: Hypnogogic regressions = flashbacks.
- Lethal Chef: The crew has become so accustomed to taking shots as Neelix's culinary skills that even the Doctor joins in despite having never tasted it.
- Nightmare Sequence
- Not Helping Your Case: Janeway is trying to negotiate with the paranoid B'omar when Seven sprouts Borg implants, steals a shuttle, and flies directly into their space.
- No-Sell: Before her shields adapt to the phasers, a stun blast has no effect on Seven. And she walks right through a force field, shorting it out.
- No Social Skills: Seven instinctively rattles off facts about the Talaxians' usefulness to the Collective as drones, while Neelix is preparing her first actual meal in a while. Neelix, to his credit, doesn't let it rattle him.
- Not So Stoic: Seven's first flashback evokes her very first fearful reaction. Her tone is significantly lighter when she is in this mindset.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The B'omar apply heavy restrictions to Voyager's presence in their sector, including a ridiculously circuitous course and frequent checkpoints.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Seven loses her Borg stoicism when she boards the derelict Raven, speaking in an almost childlike tone as she relives memories of her childhood and the day her family was assimilated.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Seven looks particularly wide-eyed and vulnerable in this episode.
- Right Behind Me: Seven apparently anticipated Tuvok's move to beam into her shuttle, and was ready for him. Hoist by His Own Petard!
- Short Cuts Make Long Delays: The B'omar try to invoke this, giving Voyager a bunch of regulations that would make cutting through their space take longer than just going around.
- Shout-Out: As Seven's first meal since being freed from the Borg, Neelix prepares a Talaxian dish, Chadre'kab, named partly after the Chandra-Fan alien species from Star Wars.
- Space Clothes: The B'omar have the bizarre alien version.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Despite losing most of her Borg implants in "The Gift", Seven is still able to leave Voyager by generating a personal forcefield (though it's implied her implants have started replicating again), take a compression phaser rifle from the armoury, break through several Forcefield Doors and Tuvok's security team, and steal a shuttle.
- There Was a Door: Seven blasts out of the shuttle bay doors after Janeway orders them sealed.
- This Means War!Gauman: You're committing an act of war, Captain.Janeway: You've left me no choice, Chancellor.
- True Companions: Tuvok is very brave in potentially facing down several Borg drones with Seven, but he is suspicious of the whole situation...
- Voice of the Legion: Subverted when it turns out the Borg Collective's voice is just from Seven's memories.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Seven believes the Borg signal will take her back to the collective. In fact, it's a beacon from the wreckage of the U.S.S. Raven, the ship her family was assimilated on.
