“Ascension, Part II”

Review Text

With Voyager dead in the water, Asencia's drones mount an attack. (Keeping with the current-day sense of what a drone is, they even sound like battery-operated quadcopters.) Gwyn convinces Chakotay to come to the rescue with the Protostar, even though that could potentially put the timeline at risk. (But then, the timeline already seems pretty firmly at risk given Asencia's plot to take over Solum and do who knows what else. She's using Wesley to see the future and manipulate timelines, which Wesley objects shouldn't be weaponized.)

Asencia fires a device that breaches Voyager's hull and emits a temporal field with radiation that, if you enter it, ages you decades within seconds. They are able to contain the field with the usual tech workaround, but won't be able to for long. The crew must figure out a way to disable the device, or they'll all be aged to death. (This seems like a rather roundabout way of destroying an enemy ship when you could simply blow them up, but let's be honest — this is more interesting.) There are shades of TNG's "Timescape" in the idea of physical areas of space moving at different rates of time.

If the first part of this two-parter was a classic take on the tactical starship battle, the second part ventures more into the sci-fi aspects of shattering time, while finding the solution to the problem at hand through a key personal sacrifice. In this case, Zero realizes, as a Medusan, that they can withstand the radiation no one else can in order to disable the temporal device, although it will mean the end of Zero's physical body. This solution echoes all the way back to Spock's solution in The Wrath of Khan, and is depicted as a harrowing endurance test for a character who selflessly saves the ship. (Zero survives, and is later awarded a new Jankom-built body that resembles their previous mechanical body, but has the added bonus of sensory input.)

Meanwhile, the kids in the fighter ships attempt to fend off Asencia's drones, which are programmed with an understanding of Starfleet's tactics and can predict their every move. Dal has the very Dal-like solution to "forget your training" as a way of turning the tables by suddenly becoming unpredictable. Although I've complained before that I think Dal could use some growing up, I like how the writers here use his specific personality as a way of tackling the crisis at hand.

For now, our crews are successful. They are able to destroy Asencia's mega-ship (although Asencia was not aboard it and is by no means finished; she still has Wesley as a prisoner and observes that Starfleet is spread thin and vulnerable). Jellico orders the Voyager and Protostar to rendezvous at Solum in an attempt to avert full-scale war. We'll see where this goes.

But I think the key point here is a brief moment in Janeway's speech about victory being achieved through small actions in a unified effort rather than individual heroic heavy lifting (though I would argue Zero's actions run counter to that narrative). It's a reminder about the lesson here of a working crew achieving a goal together, which is far more important than taking the glory (or failure) yourself.

Previous episode: Ascension, Part I
Next episode: Brink

Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee.

◄ Season Index