Traumatic memories on top of traumatic memories. Neelix's psyche must be a fun place to be right now.
After a routine scouting mission, Chakotay, Tom, Harry, and Neelix begin experiencing memories of an atrocity that they committed. As more of the Voyager crew also begin experiencing similar memories, they come across a planet with a memorial that projects images of the very same atrocity that occurred decades ago, and are faced with the dilemma of either shutting it down or keeping it active so that others will know what took place in that planet's history.This episode provides the following examples of:
- Artistic License – History:
- In-universe when Tom points out that TV's didn't have remotes until after the 50's and B'Elanna calls it "poetic license". (In truth, though, the first TV remote control was invented in 1950, to be precise, a wireless remote control, the "Flashmatic," was developed in 1955 by Eugene Polley.)
- Gettysburg certainly wasn't an atrocity: it was a bloody loss of life, but still a military engagement between fairly equally-armed sides. The site of the battle is a memorial, yes, but comparing it to the Nakan massacre or the Romulan attack on Khitomer (both of which were against civilian populations) is a huge reach.
- Call-Back: Apparently the Doctor's boring lectures are still putting people to sleep.
- Claustrophobia: The first symptom Harry struggles with, triggered by his working in a Jeffries tube.
- Destroy the Evidence: After a few insurgents open fire, Saavdra's troops begin attacking all of the evacuees, and in the end all eighty-two are killed. So, Saavdra orders the bodies to be vaporized and reports that they found the colony empty of its residents.
- Didn't Think This Through: B'Elanna attempts to take Tom's mind off the traumatic battle he's reliving by bringing him a recording of The Untouchables, a show which had a lot of gun battles in it.
- Distress Call: A reverse one. While they do repair the memorial, the Voyager crew make sure to leave a beacon to warn people of its effects.
- Endangered Soufflé: The soufflé that Seven prepares for Neelix collapses slightly. Not that he'd be very interested in it anyway.
- Fake Memories: Everything that the Voyager crew remembered experiencing in a tragic battle was all transmitted by the memorial. The historical event was real; it's just that the memorial was making the crew live through those moments in their memories.
- Famous, Famous, Fictional: The examples of other honored war memorials Janeway gives to justify repairing the alien device.Janeway: The obelisk at Khitomer. The fields at Gettysburg. Those were other people's memories too, but we don't honor them any less.
- Heroic BSoD: Everyone on Voyager ends up with this.
- History Repeats: The reason the memorial was so extreme was an attempt to prevent this — when they find the obelisk, part of the inscription reads "Words alone cannot prevent this from happening again."
- Hostage Situation: It looks like this when Neelix grabs Naomi and a phaser in the mess hall. He's actually trying to protect her from the battle he's reliving.
- It Won't Turn Off: Tom realizes something is wrong when he starts seeing an alien war taking place on his TV set and he can't change the channels. Then he sees himself taking part and begins to relive the experience in his sleep.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Tom is portrayed as the bad guy for shouting at B'Elanna, but he asked her not to try and comfort him and to leave him alone and she kept pushing at him. He also immediately apologised, but she left in a huff without accepting it.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In Janeway's flashback, Commander Saavdra orders his soldiers to cover up the massacre.Saavdra: They were never here. We disabled their shield generators, entered the colony and they were gone.Janeway: No one's going to believe that!Saavdra: They will if we all keep to the same story.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The crew of the Delta Flyer, and then the crew of the whole ship, not knowing if their memories are fake or if they really did participate in a massacre.
- Not Listening to Me, Are You?: By giving Tom a TV set, B'Elanna ends up creating a bona fide couch potato.B'Elanna: You didn't miss much while you were away. The Doctor gave a lecture on insects indigenous to the Delta Quadrant.
Tom: (engrossed in a cartoon) Uh-huh...
B'Elanna: It was pretty boring. Until Ensign Farley started snoring, and then no one could keep a straight face. Of course, the Doctor wasn't at all amused...
Tom: (changes the channel) Oh! Hockey!
B'Elanna: ...It was a shame we had to cut the lecture short, but the warp core overloaded and then the Borg invaded and we were all assimilated.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
B'Elanna: You haven't heard a single thing I've said, have you?
Tom: (yells at the TV) Oh! Look at that!
B'Elanna: ...Maybe this was a bad idea... - Self-Deprecating Humor: A meta example — Tom, a character on a TV show, comments on how TV was considered a bad influence.
- Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: 82 lives lost in a war crime seems like an incredibly small number of victims to dedicate a psychic beacon to implant everyone who comes even near the planet with the memories of it.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The folks on the scouting mission become this in the first half of the episode. Everyone else soon joins them.
- Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: In Harry's flashback, he's crawling through a tunnel in total panic when he reaches a chamber with a man and a woman, whom he nearly kills on sight. After he gets directions from them on how to escape and is just about to do so, the man stumbles, and Harry and his rifle go ballistic on them.
- Suddenly Shouting: Tom, when B'Elanna suggests that the battle didn't really happen."I WAS THERE!!"
- These Hands Have Killed: Harry, leading to a severe Freak Out.
- Title Drop: Janeway provides one when she realizes what the obelisk is."It's a memorial!"
- War Memorial: An odd example in that it forces passers-by to relive the massacre from the soldiers' POV.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Janeway gets extremely pissed at Saavdra for vaporizing the evidence of the massacre.
- With Due Respect: Tuvok says this to Janeway while advising her that her memories of the massacre are affecting her judgement.
