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State of Flux (episode)

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Real World article
(written from a Production point of view)
"State of Flux"
VOY, Episode 1x11
Production number: 111
First aired: 10 April 1995
← 10th of 168 produced in VOY →
← 10th of 168 released in VOY →
  {{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 168 released in VOY Remastered  
← 357th of 727 released in all →
Teleplay By
Chris Abbott

Story By
Paul Robert Coyle

Directed By
Robert Scheerer
48658.2 (2371)
  Arc: Seska (1 of 9) →
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  Arc: {{{wsArc2Desc}}} ({{{nArc2PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc2PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc3Desc}}} ({{{nArc3PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc3PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc4Desc}}} ({{{nArc4PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc4PartCount}}})  

An unknown Voyager crew member secretly sends information to the Kazon.

Contents

[edit] Summary

[edit] Teaser

While Commander Chakotay and an away team, including Carey and Neelix, are on a scouting expedition on an alien planet, Tom Paris, on board the Voyager, notices something that may be a cloaked ship. Tuvok reveals it is in fact a ship using some kind of masking circuitry unfamiliar to him. He suggests using a polaron burst; when Captain Janeway gives him the go-ahead, the burst reveals the outline of a Kazon raider. Janeway immediately orders the away team back to the ship.

On the surface, Chakotay assembles the away team, but there is no sign of Seska. He has the rest of the team beam back aboard Voyager while he looks for her in some nearby caves. He finds her picking mushrooms so she can teach Neelix how to make Chakotay's favorite soup. As they move to leave the cave, they are surprised by a pair of Kazon soldiers. Chakotay is injured in the firefight, and Seska helps him out of the cave to the transport site.

[edit] Act One

"Captain's log: Stardate 48658.2. We've successfully left orbit without further interference from the Kazon. Commander Chakotay is injured but is recovering from his wounds."

Seska visits Chakotay's quarters bringing him mushroom soup. They savor it together as she describes how she and her fellow Maquis officers stole the mushrooms from the kitchen while Neelix was dealing with a convenient case of homesickness that arose with several other officers. Chakotay, visibly upset at her raiding the kitchen and stealing food, revokes everyone's replicator rations for two days. He also threatens to throw Seska and her co-conspirators in the brig next time. As Seska leaves, Janeway calls the senior staff to the bridge.

Voyager receives a distress call from a ship identical to the one seen at the previous planet, and while the call appears to be genuine based on sensor readings, Neelix advises caution; the ship hails from the Kazon-Nistrim, one of the most violent sects in the Kazon Collective. With no indications of other Kazon ships in the vicinity, Janeway plots a course to intercept the ship.

When an away team beams aboard the Kazon ship, they find several bodies on the bridge, all dead from what appears to be a kind of subatomic manipulation that has melded them with pieces of metal. They detect nucleonic radiation emanating from an area of the bridge, contained automatically via force fields. One survivor is among the Kazon crew, so he is beamed aboard Voyager to be treated in sickbay, but the away team finds something strange in the vicinity of the radiation: a composite unique to Federation technology. Janeway finds the idea that someone on Voyager might have given technology to the Kazon disturbing.

[edit] Act Two

The staff meets in engineering, where B'Elanna Torres brainstorms possible ways to retrieve the console. Although Seska thinks they can use force fields to "push back" the radiation, B'Elanna thinks it is too risky and instead opts for Carey's idea to manipulate it via subspace. The plan will take until the next day, so they get to work; however, when Torres assigns jobs to the engineering crew, Chakotay claims that he does not want Seska on the engineering team but on the bridge instead.

Seska is upset at Chakotay's decision to pull her away from the engineering team, but Chakotay assures her that he is only trying to protect her; visiting sickbay, she asks The Doctor to inform her immediately if their Kazon guest wakes up, as he is the only one who can prove her innocence. While she is there, Kes notes that Seska never got around to giving a blood sample. Seska tells her that she would at a more appropriate time, pointing out that her blood would probably be useless to the Kazon anyway because of a childhood disease she had once and which rendered her blood useless for transfusion.

Later, Seska tries to retrieve the console herself by transporting over to the damaged Kazon ship. However, an accident occurs in the process, resulting in her being injured and in need of medical assistance.

[edit] Act Three

Janeway calls Carey into her ready room, where Tuvok and Chakotay are waiting. They interrogate him about any personal communications he might have had with the Kazon since Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Carey vehemently denies everything and although he does mention Seska's name, he stops short of implicating her directly.

When another Kazon ship arrives, the First Maje Culluh of the Kazon-Nistrim introduces himself. Like all Kazon, he is aggressive, but he is intent on protecting Kazon property. Janeway refuses to leave the ship alone until she has the console, using her superior technology as the stick. Culluh agrees to settle for visiting the still-unconscious survivor of the accident.

Culluh and his bodyguard arrive in sickbay, where The Doctor explains about the accident and the nucleonic radiation from the console. The Kazon want to be left alone with the man, so Janeway talks to The Doctor in private,not eager to release their patient into Kazon hands. Janeway prepares to inform the Kazon of her intentions when Culluh's bodyguard takes out a small needle. Tuvok attempts to intervene, but he injects a neurotoxin into the patient's blood, killing him instantly. Disgusted, Janeway orders Culluh and the bodyguard off her ship.

Once the Kazon are gone, Kes and The Doctor have important news for Janeway: according to Seska's blood screening, she is not Bajoran but Cardassian.

[edit] Act Four

As an away team is preparing to beam over to the vessel to take back the console, the other Kazon ship threatens war if anything is removed. Janeway threatens a harsh tactical response if they interfere, and the Kazon back down.

An away team including Torres manages to successfully beam the console, decontaminate it, and begin analysis in Engineering. Torres identifies the console as a food replicator, however it lacked sufficient shielding to prevent nucleonic radiation from leaking and causing a cascade. It is also identified that the components in the console contain bio-neural circuitry, proving that those components could only have originated from Voyager.

Chakotay confronts Seska in sickbay with the evidence of the food replicator components and the diagnosis that she is believed to actually be Cardassian. Seska indicates that the reason for this is that she had suffered from Orkett's disease as a child and received an extensive bone marrow transfusion from a Cardassian to survive. Chakotay informs her that an extensive search of security logs is currently underway to identify the traitor.

Once Chakotay leaves sickbay, Tuvok informs him that Carey has also been told about the pending search and that the trap is now ready to catch the culprit.

[edit] Act Five

Chakotay and Tuvok play gin in engineering while monitoring the activity of the manifest logs. Upon detecting changes, they find that Seska's security codes are being clumsily planted into the logs. Torres believes this means Carey is the guilty party, but Chakotay realizes it is Seska. They trace the computer station used to enter the data and confirm it is located in sickbay.

Chakotay enters sickbay to confront Seska with the evidence of the manifest logs. He tells her that it is over and that he knows that she gave the technology to the Kazon. Seska denies everything, complaining that she doesn't know what evidence they think they found but Chakotay replies that actually they found the evidence she put out there for them to find: her own security code. He explains their trap and how they were hoping she'd fall for it. She knew no one would believe she could be that careless by typing in her own security code, so that is exactly what she did, hoping that everyone would believe that someone else was trying to frame her. The Doctor also refutes her claim to be the victim of Orkett's disease, confirming that in fact she is Cardassian.

At that moment, the lights in sickbay go on and Captain Janeway and Tuvok enter. Upon realizing that she has been exposed, Seska finally fesses up to everything. She claims to have done it for Chakotay and for this crew that is alone in this part of the galaxy, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens because of the incomprehensible decision of a Federation Captain who destroyed their only chance of getting home. She mocks Federation values and angrily points out that if this were a Cardassian ship, they would be home now by having forged alliances with powerful allies such as the Kazon Nistrim in exchange for some minor technology. She says that building a base of power in this quadrant at any cost is all that matters, finally pointing out to the Captain what a fool she is and what a fool Chakotay is for following her. She escapes Voyager using a voice-activated transporter program to transfer over to one of the nearby Kazon ships. Attempts to get her back fail and Janeway quickly realizes that they are going to be soon outnumbered by Kazon ships from all over if they stick around.

Later in the mess hall, Chakotay sits down with Tuvok to discuss Seska's betrayal; He does not understand how Seska of all people could fool him to this extent and asks if there was something about him that made it easy for everyone to deceive him. When Tuvok reassures him that Seska had him fooled as well, Chakotay - much to Tuvok's confusion - feel a bit better about himself.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"We should be able to make an attempt by tomorrow."
"I want it ready by the end of the day."
"No Captain. When I say 'tomorrow', I mean tomorrow. I don't exaggerate."

- B'Elanna Torres and Kathryn Janeway in Engineering


"On the contrary, the demands on a Vulcan's character are extraordinarily difficult. Do not mistake composure for ease. How may I be honest with you today?"

- Tuvok, to Chakotay


"You Humans! You're not used to roughing it, are you?"

- Neelix


"You were working for her [Janeway], Seska was working for them [the Cardassians]... was anyone on that ship working for me?"

- Chakotay to Tuvok, on finding out that Seska was a Cardassian spy


"Oh, thank the Prophets!"

- Seska


"You damned Vulcans and your defined parameters!"

- Chakotay, to Tuvok


"Get off this ship!"

- Kathryn Janeway


"You know, I'm really easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullies and I don't like threats, and I don't like 'you', Culluh. You can try and stop us from getting to the truth but I promise you that if you do I will respond with all the 'unique technologies' at my command."

- Kathryn Janeway


"Any unexpected life signs down there, commander?"
"Nothing but bloodworms. Neelix wants to take some back with us for a tartare he wants to make. I've tried to talk him out of it."

- Janeway and Chakotay


"Why would anyone on this ship betray us? We're all in this together."

- Janeway


"I did it for you. I did it for this crew. We are alone here, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens, because of the incomprehensble decision of a Federation captain. A Federation captain who destroyed our only chance to get home. Federation rules. Federation nobility. Federation compassion? Do you understand? If this had been a Cardassian ship, we would be home now. We must begin to forge alliances. To survive, we must have powerful friends. The Kazon-Nistrum were willing to be our protectors in return for some minor technology."

- Seska


"You are a fool, captain. And you are a fool to follow her.

- Seska


"We'll have to wait for another day to settle up with Seska."

- Janeway

[edit] =Background Information

[edit] Props

[edit] Video and DVD releases

[edit] Links and references

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Guest stars

[edit] Co-star

[edit] Uncredited co-stars

[edit] References

automatic containment system; axiom; Bajoran; blood chemistry; bloodworm; Cardassian; cloaking device; Command XJL; cytological screening; EM scan; Emergency Holographic Medical program; gin rummy; herbal broth; Jackson; kaylo; Kattell; Kazon Collective; Kazon-Nistrim; Kazon warship; kelotane; leola root; low orbit; Maquis; masking circuitry; mildew; mineral; mushroom; mushroom soup; needle; neosorium; nucleonic radiation; Orkett's disease; poison; polaron; Prophets; Rakan folk song; replicator; ring; Starfleet Security; stealth; subspace bubble; vakol fish; vitamin; windpipe


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