“The Thaw” is episode twenty-three of season two of Star Trek: Voyager.
Harry is in his quarters practicing his clarinet with Tom listening, until Harry’s neighbour objects. Harry thinks they should have thought of this when they designed the ship’ Tom points out it was designed for combat performance, not musical. The cargo bay has bad acoustics. Tom suggests getting Harry’s neighbour transferred to the night shift. Harry says they couldn’t do that – then asks if they could. He’s trying to prepare for an important performance; a new orchestral program. With someone Tom has been chasing for six months. It seems she’s friendlier when she’s playing the oboe. Chakotay calls the senior officers to the bridge and, as they leave, Tom mentions he’s always fancied learning the drums.
Voyager is in orbit around a glaciated planet, with non-functional communications satellites in orbit. According to Neelix, this used to be a major trading spot. The captain asks him when and Neelix isn’t sure. Harry says there was a major solar flare 19 years ago. Neelix guesses it was a trading spot about 19 years ago. The planet suffered magnetic storms and radiation and there are no lifesigns. Any attempt to evacuate the planet would have been prevented by the atmospheric disturbances. There used to be 400,000 people living there.
However, something from the surface hails them. A message from someone called Viorsa, who says that this message was automatically activated. A few of the inhabitants survived in a state of artificial hibernation. 15 years from when the recording was made, they would be brought out to rebuild their settlement, and to please not interrupt their timetable. Said timetable already has a problem; they were supposed to be brought out of hibernation four years ago. Harry didn’t detect any signs of suppressed metabolic activity, but he scans deeper down and finds some well below the surface. Three humanoid lifeforms, and two more, dead. It’s safe to transport the hibernation pods to Voyager, so they are brought to one of the cargo bays.
The man who left the message is in one pod. Another holds a corpse. The system doesn’t appear to have broken down; it all appears to be working correctly. The brains of the three survivors are interconnected into a complex sensory system controlled by the computer. Their minds are active, and suggestive of dreaming. The computer is creating an artificial environment, something Starfleet used to do in deep space travel. The bodies in stasis; the minds active and alert. But why are they still inside?
The occupants had a subroutine which would display external conditions. Yet they haven’t activated the exit program. According to the Doctor, the two dead died of heart failure and suffered massive neural trauma; evidence of extreme fear. They can’t just unplug the system to get them out. So, Tuvok suggests they ask the three. By using the unoccupied pods.
Harry and B’Elanna head in for a quick look around. Inside, there are people performing, but these are created characters. NPCs, if you will. One, who appears to be in charge, suggests they dance. And they are taken and escorted to a guillotine. Before it can be used on Harry, the three survivors tell the one in charge to stop. Because they won’t be alone. It was only a matter of time before they were found.
The three in the system are not in charge; one of the created characters is. He doesn’t want anyone to leave, because the created world, and its inhabitants, will disappear if that happens. When the exit program leaves, the lead NPC, a sort of clown, says if anyone leaves, he will kill one of those remaining. And, it seems, he can do it.
Outside, the others are trying to work out what is happening. They can’t bring Harry and B’Elanna out either, because Harry stops them from inside. Although Harry tells the Clown it would be smart to let one of them go, to carry the Clown’s demands to the others. The demands are to continue to exist. If one isn’t allowed to leave, some way of shutting down the system will be found.
It seems that the system was adaptive, and manifested the fears of its occupants as a new character – the Clown. Because the users’ minds are linked to the system, the Clown has access to what they are thinking. Which makes plotting rather difficult. B’Elanna is allowed out, and she explains the situation.
There are many problems in trying to fix the situation, an artificial world where an NPC has taken over. The system won’t exist without people in it, which would require one person to be left in stasis permanently to allow the NPCs to continue to exist. It will take too long to revive those in stasis; enough time, even after doing it as fast as possible, for the Clown to kill someone. They also need to communicate with him from the outside. On the plus side, the Clown can’t kill everyone. Admittedly, that means up to three people could die.