“The Voyager Conspiracy” is episode nine of season six of Star Trek: Voyager.
Naomi is waiting in the cargo bay for Seven to arrive so they can play their game of kadis-kot. Seven is busy; they will reschedule for tomorrow. Naomi thinks Seven is redecorating. No; she’s modifying her alcove for cortical processing. On a Borg vessel, information is downloaded to drones. Naomi points out this isn’t a Borg vessel and Seven isn’t a drone. Seven states that Voyager collects a great deal of information, that the crew must read and study. Inefficient. Seven is going to download directly into the alcove and then into her. She will assimilate several months of data in a matter of hours.
Captain Janeway is preparing a meal for Chakotay in her quarters. She asks about a rumour she heard that half of deck 5 is pregnant. The Doctor was running a simulation, Tom glanced at it and jumped to a conclusion and the rumour went from there. Chakotay also wants to look at a Class K nebula.
When Seven finishes her regeneration cycle, she contacts B’Elanna. Quite early by the sounds of it.
On the bridge, the captain notices a graviton fluctuation 10 light years away and orders course altered for a closer look. B’Elanna and Seven arrive on the bridge; Seven thinks insects are disrupting the sensor grid. Seven explains she downloaded six months of data and goes into a complicated explanation about how photonic fleas came onboard with amber spice and went in a replicator Harry was repairing. Tuvok thinks her analysis is logical but highly speculative. However, examining the compartment does show photonic fleas.
At the place the graviton fluctuations were coming from there is a strange construction. They speak to an alien, Tash, who recommends maximum shields; there are a few tech issues. And if he doesn’t sort out the power core, the explosion will be seen wherever Voyager came from. Tash is working on a catapult to send a vessel across space. Really fast. Janeway offers to help.
Tash is telling the senior staff he went through an unstable wormhole and ended up 10 years from home. He decided to build the catapult instead. Captain Janeway offers to help. No charge. But Tash offers to let them use the catapult after he’s finished. It should still be functional and, though 1,000 light years will not get them back to Earth, it would be helpful.
Seven downloads more data and then goes to see the captain, claiming that Tash is trying to deceive them. The technology used is the same that was used to trap Voyager 5 years ago. The catapult uses a tetrion reaction and the only time that has been encountered was with the Caretaker.
The Doctor scans Tash; he’s not a Caretaker. Tash admits he didn’t want them to find the reactor, as it was acquired at great cost and many would do anything to get it. The captain talks to Seven; Seven thinks the reactor may have come from the array. She wants to look over the sensor data.
Seven does so in astrometrics and sees what looks like a tractor beam during the explosion. She heads to the bridge and questions Tuvok on the array’s destruction. She thinks a tractor beam pushed the reactor into subspace. Tuvok disagrees. Seven then heads to see Neelix to ask him what he saw prior to Voyager‘s arrival. Seven thinks there may have been a cloaked ship but Voyager‘s records are incomplete due to damage. Neelix offers those of his own ship.
Seven then speaks to Chakotay privately. She thinks she has found a conspiracy to, essentially, conquer the Delta Quadrant involving the Federation. And the Cardassians. This is only the first conspiracy she comes up with. Seven is analysing so much data that she’s finding links, and if you look hard enough, you will find links, and it’s then possible to explain these supposed connections in a way that makes others believe that there is a conspiracy. A problem that is perhaps even more significant now than it was when this episode was released.
There are a handful of clips from earlier episode, but not many and not enough to make it a clip show. “Shades of Gray” pretty much killed the idea of clip shows.