Macrocosm (episode)

"Macrocosm"
VOY, Episode 3x12
Production number: 40840-154
First aired: 11 December 1996
←  53rd of 168 produced in VOY  →
←  53rd of 168 released in VOY  →
←  444th of 911 released in all  →

When viruses grow to a meter in length and begin attacking the crew of Voyager, Captain Janeway and the Doctor must retake the ship.

Summary

"Captain's log, stardate 50425.1. Mr. Neelix and I have completed our three day trade mission with the Tak Tak, one of the more unusual species we've encountered in the Delta Quadrant. We are en route back to Voyager."

After returning from a difficult first contact with the Tak Tak, Captain Janeway and Neelix return to Voyager to find it adrift in space. After hailing the ship a number of times to no avail, they land the shuttle, and attempt to investigate the problem.

Moving round the ship, they discover that the crew are nowhere to be seen, and still nobody is responding on the communication systems. They are also disturbed to find tools where a crewmember was performing maintenence, meaning that he/she simply dropped what they were doing and ran. Now armed with phasers, they both head in the direction of the bridge. However, while travelling in a turbolift, a tendril suddenly bursts through the bulkhead and squirts Neelix with some kind of fluid. The two abandon the turbolift and attempt to reach the bridge through the Jefferies tubes, and Neelix begins to feel very unwell. Janeway turns her back for a few seconds, and something begins to approach the Talaxian. Janeway hears a scream, and when she returns to the place she left Neelix, she is horrified to find him gone.

On the bridge, Janeway is able to access internal sensors and determines the crew are being kept in the mess hall and the cargo bays; however, while she is checking this we see something small buzzing towards her unnoticed, which stings her. Janeway feels the sting, but decides to head to the mess hall.

In the mess hall, Janeway finds a large number of the crew all grouped together, including Chakotay and Harry Kim, Suddenly, Janeway is attacked by a large, multi-tendriled creature. She is able to destroy it, but is now beginning to feel the same symptoms that Neelix felt earlier. Janeway heads for sickbay, and when she pries the doors open, the Doctor sticks a phaser to her chin before realizing who it is. He explains that Voyager was attacked by a macrovirus.

The Doctor explains that while they were away, Voyager received a distress call from a nearby planet, the Garan mining outpost. The aliens had suffered some sort of disease that had incapacitated almost their entire population. Eager to try out his mobile emitter on his first away mission, the Doctor beamed down to the planet's surface, and attempted to heal the aliens. Once with the aliens, he discovered that they were being attacked by a unique form of virus that could grow so large they could be seen with the naked eye, something totally new and very dangerous. Having discovered that there was nothing he could do for them without his lab, the Doctor returned to the ship with a small sample, but didn't realize he'd also brought one of the macroviruses with him via the transporter. He tested the macrovirus in his lab, and, to his dismay, found out that it grows to become a flying organism of about two meters in length. A short while after he discovered that he'd brought the macrovirus with him to the ship, various crew members became infected when B'Elanna Torres discovers that one of the bio-neural gel packs had become infected and it burst all over her, releasing the virus. Very quickly, he became the only uninfected crew member, but was unable to leave sickbay as the virus is attracted to the heat his holographic body gives off, and continually attacked his mobile emitter.

The Doctor completes the antidote, and cures Janeway of the virus. They decide to distrubute the antidote in gaseous form using the environmental systems. Janeway heads for the environmental controls while the Doctor heads to cure the incapacitated crew. However, the virus attacks his emitter again and he is forced to take refuge in a shuttle.

Suddenly, the ship is rocked by fire from an approaching vessel. The Tak Tak delegate she'd been speaking to recently had started firing on Voyager. Janeway hails the Tak Tak vessel, and demands to know why he'd attacked Voyager. He explains that he'd discovered that Voyager was infected with the macrovirus, and he has orders to "purify" them at all costs. He also tells her that he'd already "purified" the Garan mining colony by destroying them. He then explains that the Tak Tak had had problems with this virus before, but never found a cure, and that their only hope was to destroy Voyager.

Janeway pleads with the Tak Tak to stop firing on her ship. He agrees, skeptically, but gives her only a short time to come up with a solution. However, main power is off all over the ship, and the Doctor informs her that the only thing working are items with independant power systems like the shuttlecraft and holodecks. Janeway remembers that the virus is attracted to the heat given by a hologram, and lures all the viruses to the holodeck where they infect all the holo-characters. Janeway then throws an antigen bomb into the holodeck, destroying it and the virus. The Tak Tak are appeased by this, and end their attack as Janeway promises to share the antidote with them. The crew are swiftly returned to full health, and Voyager and the Tak Tak part company.

Memorable Quotes

"I may never put my hands on my hips again."
"You had no way of knowing you were making one of the worst insults possible."

- Captain Janeway and Neelix, on her habit of putting her hands on her hips

"We'll be right with you."

- Captain Janeway, with the Doctor, to the viruses pounding on the door of sickbay as the two prepare to leave

"Who designed this ship anyway?"

-Doctor, to Captain Janeway about the confusing jeffries tubes.

"Good Health."

-Tak Tak captain, closing the comlink

"Good Health."

-Captain Janeway, with her hands on her hips.

Background Information

• The beginning of this episode is quite similar to the beginning of TNG: "Genesis".
• In Good Morning, Voyager, Neelix mentions an inversion nebula Voyager will be passing in the coming weeks. We see Voyager encounter an inversion nebula in "Alter Ego".
• Some good continuity points in this episode include a reference to "Neelix's missing lung" (VOY: "Phage"), and that holodecks run on a separate power source (VOY: "Parallax").
• This episode features the first appearance of (non-compression) phaser rifles in Star Trek: Voyager.
• One of the Tak Tak "guestures" that Neelix' performs (wrists together as if bound with hands opened in supplication) is reminiscent of a gesture preformed by the "People of Vaal" in TOS: "The Apple".

Links and References

Guest Stars

• Albie Selznick as Tak Tak Consul

Co-Stars

• Michael Fiske as Garan Miner
• Tarik Ergin as Ayala (uncredited)

References

ambassador, American Sign Language, biocontainment field, bioelectric interference, biofilter, chromolinguistics, dermal regenerator, Gallagher, Good Morning, Voyager, granite, guinea pig, Indiana, infared radiation, Kaplan, Marie, Klingons, Ktarian, lavafly, level-3 force field, level-4 quarantine, Leyron, mess hall, micron, mucilaginous compound, pot roast, pyroclastic, Rinax marshlands, Rinax, Sector 38, skiing, synthetic antigen, Tak Tak,Tak Tak starship, transporter buffer, Wildman, Samantha

Previous episode: "The Q and the Grey"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 3

Next episode: "Fair Trade"