star trek captain braxton

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Braxton (mirror)

In the mirror universe , Captain Braxton was a Terran male who commanded the timeship Aeon in the 29th century .

At some point, Braxton time traveled to the 20th century , where he encountered Henry Starling , a software engineer and computer scientist. Starling killed Braxton after turning his own 29th century brain-scanning technology against him and used the information he ripped out of Braxton's cortex to stay one step ahead of competitors, eventually founding the Chronowerx Corporation . ( Decipher RPG module : Through a Glass, Darkly )

Captain Braxton headed the timeship USS Relativity , and was a Starfleet officer from the 29th century. Braxton claimed that the USS Voyager had been responsible for the destruction of the Sol system in the Alpha Quadrant in the 29th century, and so had traveled back to destroy Voyager. Braxton was a prudent follower of upholding the Temporal Prime Directive . Despite this, he was responsible for multiple violations of this Directive.

As Captain, he recruited Seven of Nine from the year 2375 for a mission to save USS Voyager from destruction due to sabotage. It was later revealed that it was Braxton himself who was the saboteur, from a later point in his personal timeline. He would suffer from temporal psychosis , and blamed Voyager's Captain Janeway for his early retirement. Placed under arrest for crimes he would commit, no fewer than three versions of him ended up being held in custody.

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Captain Braxton was a Starfleet officer from the 29th century . Braxton had several interactions with the crew of the USS Voyager during the latter half of the 24th century . ( VOY : " Future's End ", " Future's End, Part II ", " Relativity ")

• 2.1 Fanon appearances
• 2.2 External links

History [ ]

Appendices [ ], fanon appearances [ ].

• " Brother's Keeper "

External links [ ]

• Braxton article at Memory Alpha , the canon Star Trek wiki.
• Braxton article at Memory Beta , the non-canon Star Trek wiki.

Captain Braxton

Character » Captain Braxton appears in 5 issues .

Braxton is a temporal agent and a Starfleet from the 29th century. He encounters Captain Janeway and her crew twice, and is the cause for the alternate timeline in TNG; The Last Generation.

Summary short summary describing this character..

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Last Generation

Star Trek: New Frontier - Double Time

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Missions Continue

Captain Braxton last edited by gravenraven on 01/12/24 09:43PM View full history

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E8FuturesEnd

Star Trek: Voyager S3E8 "Future's End" » Recap

The one with an evil version of Doctor Ehrlich , and Sarah Silverman .

This episode has the following tropes:

• Accidental Time Travel : Given that Braxton was trying to destroy Voyager , not send it (or himself) back in time.
• Aliens Steal Cable : Voyager herself does this, with Neelix and Kes doing the monitoring. And of course, they both get addicted to soaps .
• Apocalypse How : Earth's solar system in the 29th Century was/will be obliterated by Starling stupidly flying the time ship there without properly calibrating it.
• Applied Phlebotinum : Starling discovers and downloads Voyager 's Emergency Medical Hologram, which he projects using the holographic system in his office . He demands the Doctor come with him as a hostage, which Doc points out is impossible. Cue the Doctor stepping out of Starling's limousine, staring in awe and delight at everything around him. It's all thanks to a piece of 29th Century technology called a "mobile emitter", which the Doctor wears on his arm and can store and project his entire program.
• Artistic License – Geology : It is mentioned by Janeway that during an earthquake, half of California sunk into the ocean. While this is a popular notion , the San Andreas fault is actually a strike-slip fault, meaning that instead of sinking, the Los Angeles area would instead be moved upward.
• Artistic License – Physics : When Voyager makes her low-level flight over Los Angeles, she's traveling at impulse speeds (which are well over the speed of sound), yet there's no indications of any sonic booms from an object the size of a modern-day aircraft carrier moving at supersonic (if not hypersonic) speeds through the lower atmosphere.
• Asteroid Thicket : Chakotay mentions that he spent part of his pilot training dodging asteroids in the belt.
• Attack Hello : Braxton doesn't even try talking to Voyager . He just blasts away with a Wave-Motion Gun and only talks because they're able to knock it out temporarily.
• Batman Grabs a Gun : After being punched several times by Butch, to no effect, the Doctor punches out Butch — a personal first, and very uncharacteristic for a medical hologram programmed to take the Hippocratic oath.
• Battle Discretion Shot : Tuvok and Doc in the phaser battle with whomever was outside the militia hideout.
• Beard of Sorrow : Spending nearly 30 years in the 20th century really hasn't done Braxton any favors.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished : Janeway gets some fairly extensive first-degree burns on the right side of her face when she launches a photon torpedo from inside the tube .
• Big Damn Kiss : You just know Tom and Rain are going to end their partnership with one.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands : Tuvok hits Dunbar's super-phaser, giving him, Tom, and Rain time to escape.
• Blatant Lies : Rain Robinson gets annoyed at the increasingly ridiculous fibbers she's being told by our heroes. Tuvok's Pointy Ears are a family trait; he's very sensitive about them. Tom Paris claims they're secret agents and the so-called UFO she detected is actually a KGB satellite. Rain has to inform Voyager 's " expert " on this century that the USSR broke up five years ago. Paris: That's what they want you to think!
• Bond One-Liner : "Divine intervention is unlikely."
• Brick Joke : Tuvok, the "freakasaurus".
• Broad Strokes : Because their surveys had shown most people who watched the series weren't hardcore Trekkies, the producers decided to just leave out all reference to the Eugenics Wars and have events take place in the contemporary Earth the viewers were familiar with , rather than confuse them with a Great Offscreen War that was only mentioned in a single Original Series episode (later episodes in Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek Into Darkness would mention the wars without specific dates ). While the changes to the timeline could mean that these events never happened , there's a model of the S.S. Botany Bay in Rain's room, which fits with a later Expanded Universe trilogy Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars that tried to handwave the issue as a Secret War amid actual conflicts of the 1990's.
• California Collapse : Janeway mentions an earthquake that caused the Los Angeles region to sink under 200 meters of water to become one of Earth's largest coral reefs.
• All the way to the TOS episode "Space Seed" . Rain has a model of a DY-100 interplanetary spaceship, canonically in use in 1996, in her office.
• Rain also has a Talosian figure on her desk...
• Janeway complains that using 20th Century technology is like using " stone knives and bear skins ".
• While trying to scan past one of Starling's force fields, Chakotay can't find a control panel or an access port .
• Janeway has to adapt a photon torpedo manually .
• Captain Crash : Chakotay crashes yet another shuttle, right after boasting of his piloting skills at Starfleet Academy.
• Neelix and Kes are monitoring TV broadcasts. Would that include a popular television franchise called Star Trek ?
• Rain mentions watching Mission: Impossible , made by the same studio as Star Trek: The Original Series and sharing several production staff and actors including Leonard Nimoy (Spock).
• Humorously averted; the crew beam down in 20th Century dress, but on seeing the denizens of the Santa Monica boardwalk, Tuvok states that they could've worn their Starfleet uniforms and no-one would've noticed. Also a Shout-Out to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in which the Enterprise crew just wore their regular off duty 23rd century outfits with only the rank insignia removed in 1980s San Francisco.
• Tuvok's statement is mostly confirmed later when the Doctor steps into a public square in his uniform and no one so much as raises an eyebrow at him (though Rain later refers to him as "Mr. Leisure Suit " and says he has the worst fashion sense she's ever seen). Also, the survivalists evidently assume that the captive Chakotay and Torres' unfamiliar uniforms are merely those of one of the many secret government agencies they always suspected of existing though they'd never encountered it before now.
• Chekhov's Gun : The tattoo on Starling's arm shows that he's the hippie from The Teaser .
• Chekhov's Gunman : Captain Braxton will return in "Relativity".
• The Chew Toy : Braxton. He crashes his timeship and has to spend thirty years in a primitive society , including being drugged in a psychiatric centre for speaking a Cassandra Truth , until he Goes Mad From The Revelation that he caused a disaster which destroyed the entire solar system by going back in time in the first place. And then there's what happens to him in "Relativity".
• Classified Information : How Tom and Tuvok justify not telling Rain anything . Given that she's already detected a UFO in orbit and seen a large pickup truck vaporized, the explanation that they're secret agents is rather unconvincing.
• Cold-Blooded Torture : The Doctor isn't impressed when Starling tries to make him deliver information on Voyager until Starling adjusts his tactile sensors to give the Doctor the same sensation as a Man on Fire .
• Come Alone : Except Starling is aware of this and brings along the Doctor as a hostage and Dunbar as backup.
• The Doctor mentions a recent memory loss ("The Swarm").
• Rain has a model of the S.S. Botany Bay and a poster of its launch (TOS " Space Seed ").
• Corrupt Corporate Executive : Henry Starling
• Crazy Homeless People : Braxton ends up as one, though his sanity was already questionable.
• Being shot over a dozen times by Crazy Survivalists doesn't inhibit the Doctor's ability in this area one bit. Porter: God in heaven help us! EMH: Divine intervention is unlikely.
• Tom Paris tries to go for the Everybody Laughs At The Vulcan Ending , but Tuvok turns it around on him. Paris: You should have seen it when the parking enforcement officer came over to the van. Tuvok tried to use pure Vulcan logic to talk her out of giving us a citation. Chakotay: Did it work? Paris: Of course not! Tuvok: Given Mister Paris' alleged familiarity with Twentieth Century America, it is a wonder we survived the experience at all. Paris: Tuvok, has anyone ever told you you're a real freakasaurus?
• Death by Materialism : Take that, you 20th Century Neanderthal!
• Decoy Getaway : Our heroes follow Dunbar driving a semi-trailer out into the desert and blow him up . Turns out false signals were being used to make them think the timeship was on board, and Starling is about to launch it from inside the Chronowerx Building back in Los Angeles.
• Disintegrator Ray : The 29th Century phaser wielded by Dunbar. Ironically it doesn't do anything that ordinary phasers can't do (at least on ST:TNG ).
• Doomsayer : The crew find Captain Braxton as a crazed hobo , putting up signs saying "The End is Nigh". Well, give or take nine centuries...
• The Dragon : Dunbar. Doesn't stand out much as a character, but has the wherewithal to free his boss from Voyager after he's captured.
• ET Gave Us I.T. : The computer revolution happens because a timeship crash-lands next to a 60's hippie who becomes a 90's yuppie ( probably based on Steve Jobs ) by reverse-engineering its technology. Since the Federation tend to put all of human knowledge into the computer of every single starship , Sterling was able to quickly learn what he needs to just by asking the right questions. His progress is stunted when he gets to (then) modern-day technology, however, claiming that he had reached the limit of what he could adapt from the timeship. He is planning a trip to the future to get more technology, apparently too egotistical to realize all the problems this would entail.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : Starling refuses to believe Janeway's story about an impending cataclysm if he launches the timeship , concluding that she wants to steal its future technology like he did, and are targeting him because they can steal it more easily from a "20th Century Neanderthal", as he puts it.
• Fade to White : When Voyager travels through time.
• Failed Future Forecast : Star Trek: The Original Series predicted that Earth would suffer the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s, during which Khan Noonien Singh would come to prominence. As for that California Collapse in 2047, we'll just have to wait and see on that one .
• Failure Is the Only Option : At the end of the Two-Part Episode , Voyager ends up right back where it started.
• Fan of the Past : There's a clever subversion of the common trope of the Fan of the Past taking charge—Tom Paris is indeed an expert on the twentieth century, but given how far in the past it is, his knowledge isn't quite specific enough and he keeps dropping out-of-date phrases and references, including using the term "Groovy" in complete seriousness and invoking the now-defunct Soviet Union as the enemy causing this mess.
• Fanservice : Rain's bustiness is on display while running down the steps of Griffith Observatory after Tom and Tuvok. She also jiggles quite visibly when she flounces down into her chair after calling Sterling to report her discovery of the signal he wanted to know about.
• Foreshadowing : Janeway says she doesn't know what her contemporary ancestor is up to. In " 11:59 " we find out.
• The shuttlecraft is used, but not until the second part of a two-parter episode and long after the audience are scratching their heads wondering why they aren't being used. Voyager tended to vary the number of shuttlecraft according to what they needed for an episode, so when the shuttlecraft crashes no one mentions taking a second one down to locate the first.
• The 29th Century tricorder recovered from Starling isn't seen again.
• Averted when the mobile emitter is used by the Doctor from now on. The writers specifically introduced it because they were sick of the Doctor being restricted to Sickbay or the holodeck. It also served as a useful weakness; despite being Immune to Bullets and most other threats, damage to the emitter could be used to shut the Doctor down if the plot required it .
• This has been acknowledged in at least one of the spin-off novels, which explains that time-travel leaves characters' molecularly out of phase with their current time period; the only way for them to get back to their own time is to repeat the circumstances that sent them through time in the first place, otherwise... well, it gets theoretical, but it's generally agreed it wouldn't work. Other novels have suggested that the slingshot only ever worked for the Enterprise crew, for various reasons. Star Trek: Picard would finally make use of the Slingshot Effect in the second season.
• Funny Background Event : When Ensign Kim contacts Captain Janeway regarding Rain's attempt to communicate with them , all the nearby Los Angelitos take out their mobile phones and beepers in response to her communicator's beeping.
• The Future Will Be Better : As per usual for Star Trek — Rain is impressed with Tom Paris' selfless dedication. You'd never find that in a handsome, unattached male who majored in astrophysics and shares her taste for B-Movies in her century!
• Geeky Turn-On : Tom and Rain bond over their love of B Movies .
• G-Rated Drug : After being told to monitor the electronic broadcasts , Kes and Neelix get hooked on soap operas .
• Hair-Trigger Temper Chakotay: Only you, B'Elanna, could start a brawl in Astrotheory 101.
• Have We Met Yet? : When Voyager's crew encounter Captain Braxton for the last time and mention their two previous encounters , he just says he's not familiar with that timeline.
• Hollywood Hacking : Starling is using a 29th century computer. Somehow this lets him instantly hack into Voyager, download (and wipe) a third of its database, and control and disable its systems at will. This is despite only having 20th century hacking skills despite Voyager's systems being completely unfamiliar to him, and despite Voyager's computers being five-century-old legacy technology as far as his tools are concerned, in a field where a ten-year gap is usually insurmountable.
• The Doctor enjoys the freedom of his new mobile emitter. Then he's told to go to the launch tubes to treat Captain Janeway, and has to admit that he doesn't know how to get there, having never been outside Sickbay or the holodeck, or walked from Point A to Point B before . Thinking on his feet, Chakotay promptly orders an ensign to escort him there.
• Even before that, when the Doctor escapes from Starling's henchman he's clearly struggling to work out how to run, as he's literally never had to do it before.

• Illogical Combat Roll : Tuvok during his battle with Dunbar.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : Starling demands information on Captain Janeway. The EMH replies, "I'm a doctor, not a database." Starling points out that he's actually a bit of both.
• Immune to Bullets : Two Right Wing Militia Fanatics shoot the Doctor full of bullets and shotgun pellets, which pass right through him to perforate the wall on the other side. They stand gaping in amazement until Doc stuns them with his phaser. B'Elanna and Chakotay are no less surprised, given that Voyager 's Emergency Medical Hologram shouldn't be able to walk into the room in the first place. Chakotay: Doc, how...? EMH: It's a Long Story , Commander. Suffice it to say, I'm making a house call.
• Incredibly Obvious Tail : Tom and Rain follow Dunbar in their van, but Rain points out they're on a desert road with no other traffic so he must know he's being followed. Sure enough a phaser-battle quickly ensues.
• Innocuously Important Episode : While a handful of Star Trek episodes featured time travelers from the future relative to the characters, this episode established that Starfleet of the 29th century has a Time Police with casual Time Travel , with their primary job trying to keep people from their own time period in check rather than all instances of Time Travel across all time. This would indirectly inform the Temporal Cold War Myth Arc of Star Trek: Enterprise which involved a myriad of time travelers trying to influence history to their advantage, and continue with Star Trek: Discovery where the 32nd Century is said to be when all powers involved outlawed time travel to prevent another Temporal Cold War.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall : While stealing cable , Kim makes some pithy comments about how oddly passive it is to just watch TV, compared to the more interactive forms of entertainment they have in the 24th century.
• The Main Characters Do Everything : Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, and Tom Paris beam down to the surface to handle the Crisis of the Week, leaving Harry Kim in charge .
• Missing Backblast : Averted; when Captain Janeway launches a photon torpedo manually, she's knocked down and scorched by the exhaust gasses. Knowing this, Chakotay made sure the Doctor would be on hand to treat her.
• Mundanization : This is a Star Trek: Voyager episode Recycled ON EARTH!
• My Car Hates Me : Rain's van stalls when Dunbar is about to ram it head-on with his semi-trailer. Tom and Rain dive out the doors, when suddenly the semi explodes as Chakotay arrives in a shuttle for a Big Damn Gunship moment.
• Noodle Incident : Tuvok's attempt to use Vulcan logic to avoid getting a parking ticket.
• No Time to Explain : Though you'd think someone manning a Time Machine would have plenty of time!
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore : After two seasons, the entire writing crew was beyond fed up with the Doctor being limited to sickbay or the holodeck, so this story was primarily designed to get him the 29th century mobile emitter. From now on, he can go anywhere he wants.
• Odd Couple : Tom and Tuvok.
• Rain understandably freaks out when Dunbar and Tuvok shoot Death Rays at each other. And then again when Starling gets beamed away right in front of her.
• Starling just before a photon torpedo blows him up.
• Tom and Rain when Dunbar's truck tries to ram their stalled van.
• Ominous Message from the Future : Captain Braxton of the timeship Aeon comes back from the 29th century with information that the entire solar system has been destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion and that Voyager was somehow involved. Now he's here to destroy them before that can happen.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown : To make this episode work, the Voyager had to be without its transporter and weapons systems. Those would have made Voyager's job all too easy.
• Pintsized Powerhouse : The Aeon is a tiny one-man Time Machine armed with a subatomic disrupter that is able to seriously damage the much larger Voyager .
• Poor Communication Kills : Dear God, Braxton. From his Attack Hello against Voyager to his You Have to Believe Me! rants, it's no surprise that nobody takes him seriously.
• Pop the Tires : Tom phasers a tire on Dunbar's truck, hoping to crash it. Unfortunately it's a fourteen-wheel rig, so Dunbar just turns the vehicle around and tries to run his pursuers down.
• Prim and Proper Bun : This is the last episode in which Janeway wears the Bun of Steel. On beaming down to Earth she changes to a bun-and-ponytail combination, and keeps the hairstyle when she returns to Voyager .
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Rain: Talk about a motley crew. We have the Doctor, a guy with the worst taste in clothing I have ever seen . Tuvok, what a freakosaurus! Has the guy ever tried to smile? Paris: Not that I can recall. Rain: And you, Tom Paris. Sexy, in a Howdy Doody sort of way . Pretty goofy, although sometimes I think you're the smartest man I've ever met .
• Ramming Always Works : Chakotay is fully prepared to do this to stop Starling.
• Reed Richards Is Useless : Just the technology Starling managed to reverse-engineer from the Aeon and had installed in his office alone should have been more than enough to revolutionize numerous industries (and make him far richer than he already was). But that was just a fraction of the actual technology inherent in the timeship which he hadn't manage to figure out how to duplicate! Yet his 1996 Earth does not appear to be any more advanced than it was in the real world, clearly indicating that the majority of the technology he had puzzled out still had not been brought to market.
• Reset Button Ending : When Starling and his timeship are destroyed, an entirely non-hostile Captain Braxton appears to investigate what Voyager is doing out of its proper time. He denies any knowledge of himself as a Crazy Homeless Guy saying it must be an Alternate Timeline , and says he will return Voyager to its correct place in the space-time continuum . That's space -time, as due to the Temporal Prime Directive he can't return Voyager to Earth in the 24th Century, but must send them back to the Delta Quadrant .
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic : Ex-Maquis freedom fighters Chakotay and B'Elanna Torres crash their shuttle in Arizona, where they're captured by paranoid survivalists convinced that these uniformed strangers in an apparent stealth aircraft are part of some Government Conspiracy (a far more plausible explanation than the truth, actually). Chakotay is just starting his peaceful warrior speech when said government forces turn up, demanding they hand over the shuttle and whoever was piloting it. Unsurprisingly bullets start flying, but fortunately Tuvok and the Doctor intervene with a Big Damn Heroes . The Doctor's ability to be Immune to Bullets and stun them with a Ray Gun would hardly make them less paranoid and disbelieving of nutty conspiracy theories in the future. (Ironically, Starfleet's intervention probably saved their lives, since the Doctor and Tuvok put a stop to what could have been a deadly gun battle by merely stunning everyone with their phasers. Also, when the feds fail to find much of anyone or anything they were seeking at the compound, the survivalists are likely to get nothing worse in court than a few plea-bargained light sentences for assaulting government agents.)
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens : The survivalists find B'Elanna's forehead ridges rather suspicious, but they figure the Beast comes in many guises . When a man tries to touch them, B'Elanna snarls and tries to bite his finger. Porter: (laughs) Careful, this one's a fighter.
• Rule of Three : Our heroes have three encounters with Captain Braxton — the distraught attacker, the crazy homeless doomsayer, and the calm Temporal agent.
• San Dimas Time : Implied; Braxton begs Janeway to let him destroy Voyager to save the future. Janeway refuses to condemn her entire crew to death on the basis of a ten-second conversation and wants more details, but Braxton just shouts " No time! " and opens fire again.
• Saying Too Much : When Rain asks where Tom learned astrophysics he replies "Starfleet Academy", then realizes his blunder and says that it's an "East Coast school".
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy : Captain Braxton's attempt to stop a temporal explosion that destroys 29th Century Earth by attacking Voyager accidentally sends both ships back to 20th Century LA, putting his ship in the hands of an unstable tech CEO who wants to launch it to the future, causing the explosion Braxton was trying to stop in the first place.
• Series Continuity Error : Official Trek lore states that the Eugenics Wars occurred between 1993 and 1996. It is also known that while a good portion of North America was involved and affected (specifically, the eastern coasts,) "Future's End" served to establish that Los Angeles and the west coast in general was still one such area where life continued on as normal. This is a bit of a Hand Wave though, as the west coast is still a part of the same country as the east coast. Plus, a great deal of the west coast's economy is based on trade with Asia, which was being ravaged by war at the time.
• Ship Tease : While on Earth, Janeway and Chakotay walk very close to each other, for all appearances a couple. At one point they're discussing what their ancient relatives were up to during the time period. During the conversation, Chakotay makes a comment that simply can't be approved under Starfleet regulations towards a ship's captain. Janeway : ( a random woman on skates bumps into the pair and apologies before she skates away ) For all I know she might be my great-great-great- great grandmother. Chakotay : ( smiles mischievously ) She does have your legs.
• Shout-Out : Captain Braxton's diagram and explanation of the predestination paradox (A leads to B leads to C leads to A) with chalk resembles Doc Brown's explanation of alternate timelines in Back to the Future Part 2 .
• Shrine to Self : Janeway takes note of Starling's "I Love Me" wall. There's even a framed photograph of Starling shaking hands with Richard Nixon . (Apparently, his having been a hippie didn't stop him from making friends with the hippies' least-favorite President once he started using all that future technology to advance his career.)
• So Much for Stealth : At the end of Part One, Voyager does a low run over Los Angeles at night so they can beam up Janeway and Chakotay, who are being held at gunpoint. Someone catches it on video and the image is broadcast all over the news.
• Some Kind Of Forcefield : Starling in Sickbay. There's also a forcefield around the timeship, preventing Voyager from just beaming it up.
• Stable Time Loop : As explained by Braxton . Despite being insane when he does so, he's more comprehensible than most people on this series . While Voyager managed to break the cycle, it's never explained how it got started in the first place.
• Status Quo Is God : Played straight when a second Captain Braxton shows up to return Voyager to their previous time and location in the Delta Quadrant, refusing to return them to 24th Century Earth due to the Temporal Prime Directive. However, he doesn't bother to confiscate the Doctor's new mobile emitter, allowing him to function away from Sickbay or the holodecks for the rest of the series.
• Stealth in Space : There's references to adjusting shields to scatter radar beams and such-like. Unfortunately Starling is expecting someone from the future to come after their timeship , and is using Rain's SETI program to scan for emissions from a warp-powered starship.
• Subterfuge Judo : Rain Robinson ( Sarah Silverman ) tries, with Tuvok and Lt. Paris, to lure him to a business plaza somewhere in Los Angeles. Starling takes the bait, coming to "rescue" her, and bringing the now-mobile EMH. Rain tries to get Starling into her van note  (so Chakotay and B'Elanna can beam him up in one of Voyager's shuttlecraft) , but Starling seemingly is suspicious, as he twice insists taking his limousine instead, forcing Paris and Tuvok, hiding somewhere in the plaza, to quickly change their plan: Henry Starling: Let's go. Rain Robinson: [pointing back] Oh, my van is this way. Starling: [insistent] We're taking my car. [They begin to continue walking] Robinson: [turning back] Oh, well, I left my stuff in the van. Starling: [insistent again] I'll send somebody back for it. [They pause for a beat] Starling: [seemingly suspicious] Is there a problem? Robinson: Nope.
• Surveillance Station Slacker : Rain has her feet up on the desk and is eating Chinese food when she first detects Voyager.
• Swiss-Cheese Security : Justified as Starling and his minion have access to technology 500 years in advance of Voyager 's, so they can break into their computers, or beam someone out through their shields.
• Sword over Head : Averted; Starfleet principles or no, when they've run out of options our heroes don't hesitate to kill Starling and Dunbar.
• Teleporters and Transporters : Much shenanigans with these. First Janeway and Chakotay are beamed out of Starling's custody. They then kidnap Starling by luring him into a place of which they know the co-ordinates and beam him up to Voyager , despite his efforts to stop them with his 29th Century tricorder, leading to a mild case of Teleportation Sickness . Then Dunbar uses 29th Century technology hidden in a Chronowerx satellite to beam his boss out through Voyager 's shields.
• Tempting Fate : Janeway swore she'd never let herself get caught in a temporal paradox. Voyager will get involved in so many temporal disruptions it drives Captain Braxton to insanity by Season Five.
• That Came Out Wrong : Tom says Rain's curves note  her Fourier spectral analysis don't look so good, and Rain demands to know what Tuvok has in his pants note  his tricorder .
• Time Is Dangerous : An incorrectly-calibrated timeship is enough to destroy the entire solar system.
• Timeline Altering Macguffin : Braxton's timeship kickstarts the computer age thanks to it being found by an enterprising hippie.
• Time Police : Captain Braxton is implied to be Starfleet's version of this in the 29th Century. This is confirmed in "Relativity". This would be further elaborated on in the Temporal Cold War Myth Arc of Star Trek: Enterprise which featured 31st Century agents.
• Time Travel Episode Janeway: Time travel . Ever since my first day in the job as a Starfleet Captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes . The future is the past, the past is the future . It all gives me a headache .
• Time Travel for Fun and Profit : Having adapted all the technology he can from the timeship, Starling has rebuilt it and intends to steal more technology from the future.
• Timey-Wimey Ball : The disaster was caused by Starling stealing Braxton's time ship from Earth. Braxton's time ship was on Earth as a result of his mission to destroy Voyager . Braxton undertook his mission to destroy Voyager because of the disaster. Braxton was reduced to a homeless man screaming about the end of Earth and manages to explain a Stable Time Loop to Janeway, but other than stopping Starling from traveling to the distant future it's never explained how this got started.
• When Janeway and Chakotay follow Braxton to where he lives, they walk past a pole where a cardboard sign Braxton posted says "Future's End."
• Took a Level in Badass : The DS9 episode " Trials and Tribble-ations " introduced the Department of Temporal Investigations. In the 24th century all they did was take reports about time travel incidents after the fact, not that there was really anything they could do about them. At some point, they went from toothless bureaucrats to full-fledged Time Police .
• Totally Radical : Tom gets a funny look from both Tuvok and Rain when he uses the word "groovy".
• Trapped in the Past : Chakotay and B'Elanna speculate on what might happen if they can't get back. Chakotay thinks he might become an archaeologist, as many great discoveries have yet to happen. B'Elanna pointedly doesn't discuss how she'd fit into a pre- First Contact society with Klingon forehead ridges .
• Unskilled, but Strong : Starling jump-started the computer age with access to Braxton's time ship but he didn't really understand how it works and that was just what he could replicate; so he was becoming desperate to find something else that could push past the current plateau. His personal equipment taken directly from the ship is also still 500 years more advanced than Voyager's technology and that allows him to hack their systems like firewalls were a myth.
• Unusual Ears : Tuvok's bandanna gets knocked off when he pulls an Unnecessary Combat Roll during his phaser battle with Dunbar, exposing him as a Pointy-Earred freakasaurus . He passes it off as "a family trait" akin to a genetic deformity.
• Vague Age : Since Janeway's date of birth hadn't yet been codified, this episode gives us a ballpark: she mentions playing tennis "in high school" and that this was "nineteen years ago". If twenty-fourth century high school follows the twenty-first centuries age range of 14-18, this puts her age here from 33-37 (Kate Mulgrew was 40 when this season was filmed).
• Viewer-Friendly Interface : On Rain's computer.
• Villain with Good Publicity : Starling. A philanthropist whose computer revolutions benefit all humanity, but really a Small Name, Big Ego playing with technology he doesn't truly understand.
• Watch the Paint Job : In the first half of the "Future's End" two-parter, Tom and Tuvok need some transportation and so take a truck out on a test-drive, leading to Tuvok arguing about the ethics of hanging onto the truck for longer than they told the dealer they would. The discussion ends up being rendered somewhat irrelevant when Dunbar shows up and vaporizes the truck with a 29th century disruptor.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction : The time ship requires a trained pilot to properly Time Travel . A jump that is calibrated wrong, such as by the inexperienced Starling, was apparently destructive enough to destroy most of the Sol System in the 29th Century. The Stable Time Loop came from Braxton discovering a piece of Voyager's hull in the explosion, assuming they were responsible and attempted to destroy them to prevent those events from happening, which only lead to the Time Ship being stolen in the 20th Century.
• You Are in Command Now : Before beaming down, Janeway leaves Harry in command.
• You Can't Fight Fate : Starling is opening a temporal rift, but has made a miscalculation that means he'll destroy the solar system when he arrives in the future. He won't listen to reason and Voyager ' s weapons are off-line. Tuvok says the future disaster may be inevitable. Chakotay says Screw Destiny and they'll ram Starling if they have to . The Captain comes up with another option.
• Averted with Tom Paris. When Rain Robinson demands an explanation, and points out the flaws in his "secret agent" story, he just says that he can't explain but when Dunbar tried to kill her, he and Tuvok protected her, so she's just going to have to accept that they're the good guys and what they're doing is Classified Information .
• You Know Too Much : When Rain emails a professor (who told someone else, who told someone else, etc) regarding the UFO she's detected, Starling sends Dunbar to kill her. Tom and Tuvok try a non-lethal version by simply wiping her hard drive.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me : Starling thinks Voyager can't do this, because he knows from the files he's hacked that their weapon system is disabled. So Captain Janeway crawls into a launch tube and activates a photon torpedo manually .
• Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 7 "Sacred Ground"
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 9 "Warlord"

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Bruce McGill

McGill was born in San Antonio, Texas, and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting. He is well-known for his role as Daniel Simpson Day (aka "D-Day") in the 1978 comedy film National Lampoon's Animal House , which co-starred fellow Voyager guest star Mark Metcalf . McGill reprised his role as D-Day in the short-lived Animal House television series which aired in 1979.

Since his appearance in Animal House , McGill has become highly recognized for his supporting roles in many other popular films, including My Cousin Vinny , The Insider , The Legend of Bagger Vance , Collateral , The Lookout , and Cinderella Man . He is also known for his numerous television appearances, including the recurring role of Jack Dalton on MacGyver and guest spots on Quantum Leap and Babylon 5 .

• 1 Stage work
• 2 Film career
• 3 Television work
• 4 External links

Stage work [ ]

McGill began his professional stage acting career as a member of the Washington, District of Columbia-based National Shakespeare Company in 1973. Later that year, he joined Trinity Square Repertory Company of Providence, Rhode Island, where he remained until 1975. During his time with Trinity Square, he performed in such productions as Tom Jones , Peer Gynt , and Sherlock Holmes .

McGill made his Broadway stage debut in a revival of William Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 1975, in which he played the part of Oscric and understudied for the role of Laertes. He then appeared in a 1977 revival of The Cherry Orchard with David Clennon at the same venue.

In 1983, McGill was part of the original cast of the Broadway musical My One and Only . Among his co-stars in this production was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine regular Nana Visitor , making her Broadway debut. Both McGill and Visitor departed the show later in the year; the play closed in 1985 after 767 performances.

In January and February 2008, McGill worked alongside Sharon Lawrence in the Pasadena Playhouse production of Orson's Shadow .

Film career [ ]

Animal House was only McGill's second film, following Handle with Care (1977, co-starring Ed Begley, Jr. and Charles Napier ). Following Animal House , McGill landed supporting roles in such films as Silkwood (1983, featuring Jim Beaver and Bill Cobbs ), Wildcats (1986, with Bruce French ), Club Paradise (1986, starring Joanna Cassidy and Andrea Martin ), The Secret of My Success (1987, with Mark Margolis and Three Fugitives (1989, with Tim de Zarn , Alan Ruck , and Brian Thompson ).

In the 1990s, McGill had roles in such popular films as The Last Boy Scout (1991, with Frank Collison , Jack Kehler , Frank Kopyc , and Noble Willingham ), My Cousin Vinny (1992), Cliffhanger (1993, with Vyto Ruginis , Zach Grenier , Jeff McCarthy and Paul Winfield ), A Perfect World (1993, with Keith Szarabajka ), and Courage Under Fire (1996, with Albert Hall , Tim Ransom , and Ned Vaughn ). He was also the third male lead in Timecop (1994, co-starring Scott Lawrence , Kenneth Welsh , and Callum Keith Rennie ; his role of Eugene Matuzak would later be played by Don Stark in the TV series adaptation.

McGill had a supporting role in The Insider (1999, with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country actor Christopher Plummer ). McGill reunited with Mann on Ali (2001, featuring LeVar Burton , Michael Dorn , and Brad Greenquist ) and Collateral (2004).

McGill co-starred with Deep Space Nine regular Terry Farrell and Star Trek: The Next Generation regular Wil Wheaton in Deep Core (2000). McGill followed this with a major supporting role in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000, co-starring Harve Presnell . He then appeared in Shallow Hal (2001, with Jason Alexander ), The Sum of All Fears (2002, co-starring James Cromwell ), Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003, with David Doty , Michael Krawic , James Read , Bruce Thomas , Ruth Williamson , Carolyn Hennesy , Monika Spruch , and Keone Young ), Matchstick Men (2003, with Tim Kelleher ) and Runaway Jury (2003, with Bruce Davison ).

McGill played boxing promoter Jimmy Johnston in Cinderella Man (2002, with Ron Canada and Clint Howard ). He then co-starred with Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown and appeared in Slow Burn , starring Jolene Blalock . He has since appeared in Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil (2006, co-starring Ben Cross ) and Vantage Point (2008, co-starring Zoe Saldana ).

McGill had a role in the drama A Line in the Sand , directed and produced by Jeffrey Chernov . McGill was also seen as CIA Director George Tenet in W. (2008), a chronicle of the life and presidency of George W. Bush . He acted alongside James Cromwell in this film. McGill's film credits in 2009 included Obsessed , starring Idris Elba with Jerry O'Connell , and Law Abiding Citizen , starring veteran Star Trek guest actor Gregory Itzin and Next Generation / Deep Space Nine regular Colm Meaney . He then appeared in The Perfect Game (2009, starring Clifton Collins, Jr. ), and Fair Game (2010, with David Andrews ). Reuniting with Gregory Itzin and Dakin Matthews , McGill portrayed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Lincoln (2012, with Grainger Hines ).

Television work [ ]

Between 1986 and 1992, McGill made frequent appearances as pilot Jack Dalton on MacGyver . He worked with several Star Trek alumni during his time on this series, including performers John Anderson , Leslie Bevis , Roger Aaron Brown , Robin Curtis , Anthony De Longis , Judy Geeson , Teri Hatcher , Lance LeGault , Gary Lockwood , Tzi Ma , Patricia McPherson , Ned Romero , Gregory Sierra , Cary-Hiroyuki , and Victor Tayback , and directors Cliff Bole , Charles Correll , and Michael Vejar . In one episode, Deep Space Nine guest actress Constance Towers played McGill's character's mother. This episode was directed by Rob Bowman .

In 1987, McGill co-starred in the made-for-TV adaptation of Walter Tevis' novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth . Also part of this film's cast were Wil Wheaton and Voyager 's Robert Picardo . That same year, McGill was seen in the TV movie The Last Innocent Man with Clarence Williams III .

McGill guest-starred in two episodes of Quantum Leap – the pilot episode in 1989 and the series finale in 1993. This series starred Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell , both of whom later worked on Star Trek: Enterprise . The finale was directed by James Whitmore, Jr. , and also featured Dan Butler , Susan Diol , Mike Genovese , Richard Herd , Stephen McHattie , and W. Morgan Sheppard .

During the 1995-1996 television season, McGill starred in UPN 's Live Shot . Fellow Star Trek alumni Sam Anderson , David Birney , David Coburn , and Jeff Yagher were also regulars on this series. Other Star Trek performers who appeared on the show include Casey Biggs , Chase Masterson , Dion Anderson , John Schuck , Lee Arenberg , Hal Landon, Jr. , Cully Fredricksen and Kenneth Tigar .

In 1996, McGill guest-starred as Major Ed Ryan on Babylon 5 . Bill Mumy and Andreas Katsulas were regulars on the series; Phil Morris and James Parks were also in McGill's episode, entitled "Severed Dreams."

In a blooper from McGill's Babylon 5 episode, Bruce Boxleitner (as Captain John J. Sheridan) asks McGill's character where General Hague is, to which McGill responds, " General Hague… is doing Deep Space Nine . It seems he was double-booked by his agent and there was nothing to be done. You'll have to do with me, sir. " This is a reference to what actually occurred. [1] General Hague was portrayed by Robert Foxworth and he could not return to his role on Babylon 5 because he had indeed been double-booked by his agent and guest starred on Deep Space Nine as Admiral Leyton in the episodes " Homefront " and " Paradise Lost " at the time episodes where he had been cast were scheduled to shoot.

In 2001, McGill was among the many Trek performers to have a role in 61* ; his co-stars included Seymour Cassel , Robert Costanzo , J.D. Cullum , Charles Esten , Bob Gunton , Robert Joy , Christopher McDonald , Michael Nouri and, as a pair of writers, Dell Yount and Enterprise star Connor Trinneer . The following year, McGill appeared in Path to War (with Cliff DeYoung and Albert Hall) and Live from Baghdad (with John Carroll Lynch ).

McGill had a recurring role on Wolf Lake , with Bill Mondy , Gregory Itzin , Sharon Lawrence , Sam Anderson , and Kellie Waymire also worked on this series. He has since appeared on such television shows as The Practice , CSI: Crime Scene Investigation , Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , and Law & Order: Criminal Intent . He also appeared in an episode of CBS' Numbers with Steven Culp and an episode of Psych in which he and Richard Riehle play fellow firefighters. McGill starred as Boston police Sergeant Vincent Korsak on Rizzoli & Isles from 2010 to 2016.

External links [ ]

• Bruce McGill at the Internet Movie Database
• Bruce McGill at Wikipedia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)

Captain Braxton

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Captain Braxton is a Legendary [5-star] crew member.

Captain Braxton is a version of Braxton from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Relativity" (5x24) .

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Star Trek: Voyager – Relativity (Review)

Relativity is perhaps the most Star Trek: Voyager episode that ever Star Trek: Voyaged .

Of course, there are better episodes of Voyager . Of course, there are episodes of Voyager that more effectively showcase the cast and the premise. Of course, there are episodes of  Voyager that do a lot of things that Relativity does, only better. However, there is a sense the episode’s crushing mediocrity is a large part of what makes it so indicative of the show as a whole. Those other stronger episodes stand out from the crowd, and rank among some of the best episodes that Voyager ever produced. In contrast, Relativity is just kinda… there.

Ship of the line.

Relativity clearly belongs to the familiar Voyager subgenre of “timey wimey” action adventures that include epics like Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II , Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II and Timeless . In fact, the subgenre could be extended to include The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II , even if no literal time travel takes place. Relativity also borrows from the “let’s blow Voyager up!” school of plotting that includes Deadlock and Course: Oblivion . The episode also leans on the “reset” button that has been in integral part of Voyager dating back to Time and Again .

There is a sense that Relativity is a heady cocktail of Voyager storytelling tropes, a reiteration of many stock storytelling elements that have been employed in a variety of important and notable episodes earlier in the run. However, these episodes count among the finest example of Voyager ‘s blockbuster storytelling. Relativity is most notable for taking all of these bombastic larger-than-life elements and finding a way to integrate them into a rather lifeless and stale piece of television. In this sense, Relativity is a quintessential Voyager episode.

Keeping those balls in the air.

Relativity is a very light piece of television. It is so light, in fact, that writer Nick Sagan has conceded that the episode is essentially a big ball of fun arriving late in the fifth season :

I think that might have been the easiest one I worked on, because the goal is simply to have fun. With the others I felt a lot of different loyalties to character this, character that. For some reason that one came together very quickly, and it was such a joy to write because we were just trying to please ourselves. I don’t think it’s an episode that needs to be studied, per se, or ruminated upon, you just go with it like a rollercoaster ride.

This is certainly a fair observation about Relativity . In fact, Relativity feels like a very traditional Voyager episode in that there is a real sense that the script was written by the seat of the creative team’s pants.

“No time to argue.”

The Voyager writing staff have a tendency to prioritise plot ahead of all other concerns in terms of storytelling. As a television series, Voyager never seems particularly invested in what is happening so much as the fact that something is happening. Watching Voyager , it can often seem like an episode is being written on an act-by-act basis, with a given episode radically changing direction and focus and story from one block of script pages through to the next. There is always a sense that the writing staff hope that the scripts might move fast enough to conceal these radical shifts.

Episodes of Voyager feel like they have been stitched together from various half-stories, ideas that were interesting on their own merits but were deemed incapable of supporting a full forty-five minute episode of television. Sometimes this element is an incongruous subplot, seemingly inserted into character-driven episodes to satisfy some imaginary minimum threshold of stock “science-fiction” story elements; the Vidiian story element in Resolutions , the alien menace in The Swarm , the strange anomaly in Real Life .

In the neck of time.

However, there are episodes where the primary plot has no attention span.   Alter Ego starts as a story about Kim in love with a hologram, then develops into a story about a hologram in love with Tuvok, then becomes a story about a deep-space voyeur remote viewing via the holodeck.  Coda begins as a grim variation on Groundhog Day before transitioning into a blend of Tapestry and The Next Phase . Worst Case Scenario begins as a return to the Maquis premise, evolves into a meditation on authorship, then becomes a run around featuring the return of Martha Hackett.

Waking Moments begins as a weird existential mystery about weird visions, and evolves into a standard “hijacked ship” narrative. Demon begins as a story about low resources, develops into a story about Kim learning to assert himself, becomes a weird story about a strange substance that affects the crew, and then reveals itself to be a tale about duplicates and copies. Some of these episodes work better than others, but there is always a strange sense of desperation and urgency to these scripts, as if the audience is watching the writers work through their writers’ block.

Time for a time out.

Relativity has that same strange structure, where every act seems to radically change the concept of the episode in such a way that the plot is always moving sideways rather than in a forward linear progression. Relativity opens with the killer story hook of a time-displaced version of Seven of Nine on Voyager before the events of Caretaker . She is trying to find a bomb hidden on Voyager, which adds an interesting tension and mystery to the episode. It helps that the entire episode is built around a play on the phrase “time bomb.”

However, as soon as this iteration of Seven is killed, Relativity jumps back to Voyager in “real” time, towards the end of the fifth season. Seven of Nine is no longer the episode’s focal character, with the episode instead focusing on a string of weird occurrence on board; Seven has trouble with her vision, the EMH receives a time-displaced summons to the messhall, Janeway sees three versions of Chakotay, Paris witnesses his table tennis ball frozen in midair, time starts moving at different speeds in different sections of the ship.

What a racket.

All of this is vaguely interesting, in that it would be possible to build a potentially interesting episode about all of these strange uncanny distortions culminating in the destruction of Voyager. However, that episode does not belong wedged into the middle of Relativity . The problem is that this section of the episode exists in marked contrast to the rest of Relativity , creating a narrative dissonance with the rest of the story being told while slowing the pace of the instalment to a crawl.

In terms of focus, this transition to fifth-season Voyager means that Seven gets lost in the shuffle for an entire act, despite being the central character. It isn’t a clever or elegant transition, instead feeling like a distraction or an interruption. Seven is very much the central throughline in  Relativity , and the second act loses sight of the character. In terms of pacing, the earlier scenes had already established that Voyager was destroyed by a temporal weapon, so the entire act feels like unnecessary exposition. What is the point of beginning with action, if the story is going to cut back to set-up?

The science of storytelling.

Compounding this sense that Relativity was written in a fit of desperation is the sense that the plot makes no actual sense. To be fair, time travel has always been a complicated narrative device, one that can be used both inventively and haphazardly. Any number of narratives propose any number of alternate models of time travel. Even that Star Trek franchise have never quite settled on one consistent approach to time travel, from the cataclysmic consequences to the single timeline of The City on the Edge of Forever to branching multiverse of Star Trek .

As such, it would be unreasonable to expect Relativity to hang together perfectly. Time travel has always been an elastic concept within the Star Trek universe, and so it makes sense that there would be minor inconsistencies within Relativity . It makes sense that Relativity might recast Captain Braxton from Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II , trading up from Allan Royal to Bruce McGill. It might even be excusable that Captain Braxton somehow recalls being stranded on Earth in Relativity when he explicitly stated he had no recollection of that timeline in Future’s End, Part II .

McGill is the bomb.

However, there are certain storytelling mechanics that need to remain in place for a story to hang together, even one built around a device like time travel. To be fair, Star Trek understands this. The franchise has constructed any number of compelling and effective time travel narratives. Producer Brannon Braga is a deft hand at this sort of narrative trickery, as demonstrated by scripts like Cause and Effect or All Good Things… Those scripts are cleverly constructed so that the story flows logically for the audience even as time swirls around the characters.

Cause and effect, action and reaction, event and consequence. Time travel stories allow writers to disentangle these concepts from one another, but there must be some thread of logic running through the narrative that the audience can follow. Otherwise, a story risks becoming a sequence of events, a chain of causes that never have any real effect. Then again, this feels like a perfect embodiment of Voyager ‘s narrative style, a series of actions in rapid succession that never seem to lead to a reaction.

Time’s up.

Just in terms of logic, the mechanics of Braxton’s “temporal disruptor” are frustratingly vague. Seven of Nine hunts for the device in two separate time frames; before the events of Caretaker , and then around the events of Alliances . In purely chronological terms, the events of Alliances occur after the events of Caretaker . However, when Seven of Nine visits the ship before Caretaker , she discovers that the time bomb is already in place. This is not necessarily a problem. After all, this is an episode about time travel; it is interesting to imagine non-linear weapons.

However, this makes no real sense when another version of Seven jumps forward to the time period around Alliances . She moves to the location where her predecessor had found the device during sequences set before Caretaker . However, in a twist, the device is not present. She reports, “There’s no sign of the weapon.” How does that work? Obviously, this is an indication that Seven has arrived before the bomb was placed, but then the fact that the bomb was present in the earlier time period suggests that before is an abstract concept for this sort of weapon.

This raises any number of questions. When future! Braxton plants the bomb, does it extend backwards in time as well as forwards? If the bomb’s existence extends backwards in time, what about the time before Voyager was constructed? After all, the bomb has clearly moved more than seventy thousand light years with Voyager, but does the bomb exist across history tethered to the elements that will be used in the construction of that Jefferies Tube junction? If all of this is true, how does the bomb appear over a year before it was planted, but not ten minutes?

All of this suggests an arbitrary approach to the rules of time travel, revealing that the episode’s restrictions upon time travel are driven more by plot convenience than by anything resembling logic. The answer to any of those questions is “… because the plot wouldn’t work otherwise.” After all, the real reason that the bomb is not present ten minutes before it is planted is so that there is a very straightforward and easy way for Seven of Nine to know that it is about to be planted. This also explains why the bomb waits over three years to detonate.

“Best out of seven?”

It also explains the seemingly arbitrary limitations on how many times Braxton and Ducane can abduct Seven of Nine. “We’ll have to recruit her again,” Braxton reflects after the previous version of Seven of Nine dies in transport. Ducane is horrified. “Sir, a fourth jump?” he protests. “She could suffer neural damage, even temporal psychosis.” This is all nonsense, of course. After all, there is no logical reason why Braxton and Ducane shouldn’t be able to abduct a version of Seven of Nine from earlier in the timeline, except that the plot needs some dramatic tension.

In many ways, this is archetypal Voyager . The script creates a problem through exposition by stringing a bunch of words together in an effort to generate dramatic stakes, and then allows its characters to transcend that particular problem in the hopes of creating a satisfying dramatic climax. However, none of this is rooted in anything tangible or relatable. Voyager uses a series of pseudo-scientific words to tell the audience about a problem, only to (more often then not) use another combination of pseudo-scientific words to resolve the problem. It is not good drama.

“We’re out of time.”

The most obvious question marks surround the literal “time bomb” set by future! Braxton. future! Braxton apparently sets the bomb on Voyager during a Kazon attack at some point in the second season. However, for some reason, Braxton sets the device to go off half-way through the fifth season. Why? What is the point? It might make sense for future! Braxton to set the bomb to explode after Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II to avoid a paradox, but why in the space between 11:59 and Warhead ?

More than that, why set a time bomb at all? Why not beam a device on to Voyager in the middle of the Hirogen attack that happened shortly before The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II ? That would be a lot cleaner, and would leave a lot less room for error. After all, future! Braxton is a former time agent. He understands that placing the bomb in advance would simply allow regular! Braxton an opportunity to stop him. On that point, why doesn’t future! Braxton remember trying to stop himself?

Brax to the future.

To be fair, Relativity obliquely and winkingly nods towards possible answers to these questions. At one point, Ducane and Seven discuss “the Pogo Paradox” , which is “a causality loop in which interference to prevent an event actually triggers the same event.” The name of the paradox seems to be a reference to Walt Kelly’s iconic comic strip. Given the mechanics of the paradox, it seems to be an allusion to Kelly’s iconic observation that “we have met the enemy and he is us.” This adage is literalised in the reveal that a future version of Braxton is behind the attack.

future! Braxton is a literal embodiment of that trope. future! Braxton is a science-fiction twist on the old cliché of a detective who is really investigating himself. It is one of the oldest twists in genre fiction, a very easy way to layer a seemingly procedural story with deep psychological or philosophical undertones. There is a reason that Charlie Kaufman’s script for Adaptation mercilessly skewers the trope through Donald Kaufman’s script for “The Three.” (To be fair, films like Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 also play with this narrative convention in a science-fiction setting.)

His own worst enemy.

However, the Voyager staff were inordinately proud of the twist. Before the broadcast of the episode, Brannon Braga proudly boasted to Cinefantastique :

Braga, who did a lot of rewriting on the episode explained, “Relativity is a time travel romp. It’s an incredibly fast-paced, mind-bending, fun, time travel story. [The identity of the bomber] will be a real shocker.”

The identity of the bomber is anything but a shock. A more innovative (but still hackneyed) twist on the trope would be to make the bomber Seven or Janeway.

“Logic really has very little to do with any of this.”

Still, the allusions to “the Pogo Paradox” in the context of Relativity seem to half-heartedly tease the idea that Braxton is his own worst enemy, that perhaps the actions of his future self are what cause that same future self to come into existence. “Listen very carefully,” future! Braxton advises his younger self. “The circumstances of your life are going to change in the next few years. You’ll be sent into rehabilitation again, forced to retire, and it’s all because of Voyager.” It seems entirely possible that f uture! Braxton is warning his younger self about the events of Relativity .

After all, almost as soon as future! Braxton is revealed as the bomber, Ducane takes regular! Braxton into custody. “I’m sorry, sir,” Ducane insists. “I’m taking command of this vessel, and I’m relieving you of duty for crimes you’re going to commit.” Ducane makes it clear that this is not a procedural matter. regular! Braxton is sent to the brig. When Ducane ends up with three versions of Braxton in custody, he explains, “They’ll all be reintegrated in time for the trial.” So the events of the episode roughly fit with future! Braxton’s warnings.

The next phaser.

This is a very superficial version of a “smart” twist, in that it plays with the ironic reality that attempts to prevent horrific events can often contribute to them. ( For example, the War on Terror was originally intended to prevent more terrorist attacks, but led to a series of events that raised both the profile and the recruitment of organisations that it was intended to destroy .) This is an interesting idea to weave into a story about time travel, where cause and effect can become literally confused and entangled. However, Relativity never commits to the idea and fudges it in a number of ways.

Most obviously, the ending of Relativity is structured in such a way that the events of the episode never actually happen. In the episode’s final act, almost as an afterthought, Ducane sends Janeway back in time to apprehend future! Braxton before he can plant the bomb in the first place. “Needless to say, we need to clean up the timeline,” Ducane explains. “Someone must go back to the beginning and prevent the chain of events from occurring in the first place.”  So, Janeway is sent back to push the reset button.

“Dammit. I thought I had a better line for this. Do over?”

It is a curiously limp sequence, in terms of both execution and in terms of what it does to the episode’s narrative flow. Janeway apprehends future! Braxton without any trouble, in a scene that lasts about thirty seconds without any real tension. It feels very tacked on to the end of the episode, a narrative idea that might be interesting in the abstract but lacks the space necessary to develop into anything interesting. More than that, the intervention would seem to create a paradox rather than prevent it.

Janeway apprehended future! Braxton before the bomb was planted, then why did regular! Braxton and Ducane recruit Seven of Nine in the first place? If they did not recruit Seven of Nine in the first place, how did Kathryn Janeway become involved? If Janeway was never involved, then how could Janeway apprehend future! Braxton before the bomb was planted? There are also other questions raised by implication that the arrest of regular! Braxton for future! Braxton’s crimes created future! Braxton in the first place; if future! Braxton never planted the bomb, how could he be caught?

Carrey on, regardless.

More than that, Relativity is quite explicit about the complete lack of stakes within this final go-round. Janeway’s final trip back in time feels perfunctory and limp. “Deck four, section thirty eight,”   future! Braxton confesses. “I’ll stumble over a wounded crewmember. That will be your chance to capture me.” Ducane quickly warns Janeway, “Don’t miss it, or we’ll have to do this all over again.” This the worst cliché of time travel stories, explicit confirmation that this futuristic technology eliminates dramatic tension.

There are next-to-no consequences if Janeway messes up. If Janeway fails to capture future! Braxton, the episode suggests that all Ducane has to do is adjust a few settings and try again. That is hardly satisfying for a hot-shot time agent, but it is also not the end of the world. This is one of the challenges in crafting stories about time travel. What is to stop the protagonists from simply using time travel to prevent the crisis from happening in the first place and to retroactively fix any problems that they might encounter along the way?

“Feels like going home.”

There is a bitter pointlessness to this last-minute tidy-up. It wipes the events of the episode from continuity, but without any sense of irony or tragedy; the major players involved in this incident still remember it. Rewriting history so that future! Braxton never places the bomb in the first place also opens up all sorts of moral questions that Relativity has no interest in answering. That ending means that regular! Braxton is no longer being charged for something he will do, which seems questionable enough from a standpoint of justice; he is now being held accountable for something he won’t .

There are any number of interesting directions in which this story might branch. After all, Philip K. Dick had built the premise of his short story Minority Report around a similar dilemma. That would serve as a cornerstone of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation three years after the broadcast of Relativity . There are interesting things to be done when narratives play with the logic of cause and effect, asking tough philosophical questions about how people and societies make sense of the world. Unfortunately, Relativity does nothing with any of these ideas.

Past excited.

That said, there is a sense that Relativity is in some ways about Voyager . Indeed, the episode’s time travel motif might be seen as an intrusion from outside the narrative. After all, time travel has frequently been used as a metaphor for stepping outside of the Star Trek narrative. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was as much about television characters entering the real world as about characters thrown back in time. On Star Trek: Enterprise , the Temporal Cold War played like an extended metaphor for the intrusion of forces external to the production.

The episode repeatedly puts Braxton and Ducane in the perspective of audience members watching a drama unfold on television. When Seven is apprehended by Janeway and Tuvok, Braxton spends most of the scene providing commentary, even after the communications channel is closed. “Don’t say anything,” Braxton urges. Ducane interjects, “She can’t hear you, sir.” Nevertheless, Braxton remains engaged with the drama unfolding, almost like a viewer watching drama unfold on television.

“Dammit, Ducane, I figured out who the mad bomber was by the second ad break.”

With that in mind, it makes sense that Braxton and Ducane should serve as enforcers of the status quo . They are essentially dedicated to ensuring that nothing unforeseen or unpredictable happens to Voyager . They are guardians of the timeline, but they are also sworn protectors of the show’s internal continuity. Braxton and Ducane become time travelling enforcers of the “reset button” , even taking care to tidy up the events of this episode so that nothing lingers that might clutter the show going forward.

Because future! Braxton is captured before he could plant the bomb, none of the weird drama of the episode seems to have happened. Janeway does not remember meeting Seven of Nine before the events of Scorpion, Part II , while there are no records of a stranger skulking around Voyager while the ship was in dry dock. Of course, Seven and Janeway remember what happened, but they are quickly sworn to secrecy. “Remember the Temporal Prime Directive,” Ducane advises them. “Discuss your experiences with no one.”

“There. Set the recorder for Discovery .”

Indeed, one of the more interesting aspects of Relativity is the way in which the episode is structured so that Seven of Nine is essentially navigating three different versions of Voyager . The character is not really moving between time periods so much as crossing over between different iterations of the series itself. One of the big recurring issues with Voyager was the sense that the writers never settled on a consistent identity for the series beyond a generic Star Trek series.

Voyager was several different television shows at various points in its existence. In fact, Janeway was arguably several different character. Janeway is perhaps the least well-defined series lead in the history of the Star Trek franchise, in large part due to the difficulty that the production team had in establishing a core personality for the character. James Tiberius Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard and Benjamin Lafayette Sisko all had strong and distinctive personalities. Janeway arguably had three different personalities.

Board to death.

Relativity navigates between these three versions of Janeway and these three versions of Voyager . The early parts of the episode hint at the character of Janeway as imagined by writer and co-writer Jeri Taylor. This is very much “Janeway as scientist” , a broad archetype that exists in contrast with “Kirk as adventurer” , “Picard as diplomat” and “Sisko as builder.” This version of Janeway shines through in episodes like  The Cloud or Heroes and Demons , with Janeway expressing a keen scientific interest in the wider universe.

In the teaser to Relativity , Admiral Patterson makes a point to test Janeway’s memory and recall. She is not off the transporter pad before she is answering questions about constellations and molecules. “I wasn’t expecting a pop quiz,” she admits. Patterson explains, “Just wanted to make sure all those pips haven’t made you forget you’re a scientist first.”  There is some small irony in this opening scene, as Janeway drifted away from this persona in the years that followed the first season, barring an occasional relapse in episodes like Concerning Flight .

Making patter with Patterson.

The early seasons of Voyager occasionally suggested that Kathryn Janeway was never the perfect choice to lead this crew on this journey. Unlike Kirk or Picard or Sisko, Janeway came up through the science division rather than the command division. Unlike Picard, Janeway was not a seasoned commanding officer with a wealth of experience under her belt. In Caretaker , Janeway’s briefing was a simple mission of search and recovery. Janeway was not commissioned to command Voyager as part of a long-term mission, let alone a seventy-year mission.

On paper, this set up any number of interesting ideas and possibilities. After all, Janeway’s lack of command experience should have made her command more precarious when the Maquis were incorporated into the crew. Chakotay might not have been a Starfleet officer any longer, but he had more experience leading his crew on dangerous missions. In these early episodes, Janeway would seem to exist at a remover from her crew. Janeway was not a mother figure, often retreating into herself (as in The Cloud ) or the holodeck (as in Cathexis ).

Luckily, the crew roast to the occasion.

The early sequences in Relativity allude to this early version of Janeway, acknowledging that neither Starfleet nor Janeway could conceive of what would happen in Caretaker . Unlike Kirk’s five-year mission, Picard’s seven-year mission, or Sisko’s long-term brief, Janeway was handed a short-term assignment. Somewhat ironically, Janeway complains to Patterson, “I wish Starfleet would give me more than three weeks. With a little more time we could really explore the Badlands.” Of course, Janeway will get to spend significantly more than three weeks exploring.

Of course, this version of Janeway and this version of Voyager would not last long. It was quickly superseded by Michael Piller’s vision of Voyager . When Piller returned to the show in its second season, he returned with a very strong vision of what the show should be. Piller wanted Voyager to be bolder and more experimental, to embrace some of the grittiness baked into the concept of a lone Federation ship on the far side of the galaxy populated by a loose alliance of Starfleet and Maquis. This generated some tension on the writing staff, to say the least.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back by whatever twenty-fourth century Christmas is.”

Piller’s vision of Voyager threw the show into chaos, leading to mangled long-term arcs. The Kazon became a focal point in episodes like Initiations and Manoeuvres . A traitor emerged on Voyager itself in episodes like Alliances and Threshold . In the meantime, Tom Paris began acting out in episodes like Meld and Investigations . Piller had a very clear idea of what he wanted Voyager to be, but that vision was not shared by the rest of the writing staff. As a result, the show struggled to find its footing, halfheartedly committing to terrible long-form storytelling.

So it is no surprise that when Relativity throws Seven of Nine into the middle of the second season, she emerges in the heat of battle. Seven visits the second season of Voyager during a Kazon raid, suggesting a time of strife for both the ship and the series. This version of Janeway is a little more aggressive and assertive than her earlier counterpart. The earlier version of Janeway was a scientist investigating a mystery, while this version of Janeway is a commander hunting a threat.

Oh, it is Kaz on .

It is appropriate that future! Braxton plants his time bomb at some point in the second season. There is a credible argument to be made the second season of Voyager represents the moment at which the series lost its way, that the second season represented the point at which the creative team made a number of important decisions that would define the rest of Voyager and the first two seasons of Enterprise . The second season of Voyager set the franchise on a course that would lead to a decline and erosion that was beginning to be felt during the fifth season of Voyager .

The second season of Voyager represented the series’ only real sustained attempt at long-form storytelling. To be fair, there were nice threads running through the middle stretch of the fourth season with the Hirogen from Message in a Bottle to The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II , but there was never anything as ambitious as an attempt to tell a single complex story across a full season of television. The spectacular failure of the Kazon arc seemed to scare the production team away from any further attempts at serialisation.

“Detecting no dangling plot threads.”

Deep Space Nine embraced the potential and possibilities of serialised storytelling, but it would prove something of an evolutionary dead end in the larger context of the Star Trek franchise. Ronald D. Moore would briefly join Voyager in its sixth season, but none of the writing staff involved in the running of Deep Space Nine would have a long-term impact in the direction of the Star Trek franchise. Voyager was the primary evolutionary branch of Star Trek , leading directly into Enterprise . However, Voyager ‘s storytelling had frozen somewhere in 1995.

As such, it seems fair to suggest that the second season of Voyager effectively set a time bomb near the heart of the Star Trek franchise. Those creative missteps led to an overreaction that trapped Voyager in amber, preventing any real sense of evolution or forward momentum. Relativity suggests that this time bomb was on the verge of exploding towards the end of the fifth season, perhaps reflecting the franchise’s dwindling cultural cachet. Star Trek: Insurrection was hardly a breakout hit; ratings were noticeably in decline ; the vultures were circling in the press .

Down the tubes.

Of course, the truth is that the second season of Voyager did not plant a time bomb at the heart of the franchise. Instead, a cancer took root that would slowly eat away at the Berman era. The Star Trek franchise remained locked in place, as the rest of popular culture marched right on by it. When Voyager came to an end, the franchise was still popular enough for UPN to commission Enterprise . However, the ratings and cultural attrition continued through the first two seasons of Enterprise , leading to a radical retool and reinvention in the third and fourth seasons.

By that stage, it was too late to save this iteration of the franchise. Star Trek could not make up the ground that it had lost. The Berman era did not end in a catastrophic explosion. Instead, the Berman era withered away over an extended period of time. The Berman era died at some point over these seven seasons, but so gradually that nobody really noticed. The Berman era would shuffle on as a zombie during the four seasons of Enterprise , before everybody came to accept that this iteration of the franchise was dead.

Detecting key structural flaws.

In some respects, this shifting realisation is reflected in the changing face of time travel across Voyager and Enterprise . In Voyager , the future was regarded as relatively stable. Episodes like Future’s End, Part I , Future’s End, Part II , Timeless , Relativity and Endgame all assumed that there would be a version of Starfleet that existed into the far future that took some responsibility for policing the timeline. As far as Voyager was concerned, there would always be a future, even if the finer details of that future could be rewritten and changed.

In contrast, Enterprise imagined a more precarious and uncertain future. Through the Temporal Cold War, it often seemed like the very future of the Star Trek universe was being thrown into chaos. The first and second seasons of Enterprise were bridged by Shockwave, Part I and Shockwave, Part II , when it seemed like the utopian future of the Federation had been wiped from existence. The character of Daniels would show up in episodes like Azati Prime , Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II to insist that the very future of Star Trek was in question.

“What’s up?” “Doc.”

These differing views of time travel reflected the differences between the end of the twentieth century and the start of the new millennium. Voyager was broadcast against the backdrop of the long nineties, and imagined a future where the crew had already arrived at “the end of history” and the the future of mankind could be extrapolated from the present in a linear and straightforward manner; there was a Starfleet in the twenty-fourth century, so there would be a Starfleet in the twenty-ninth. Enterprise coincided with the War on Terror, so its future was more uncertain.

However, these shifting views of the future also give a sense of where Voyager and Enterprise see themselves in the grand Star Trek pantheon. While the final seasons of Voyager seemed more introspective and reflective than the earlier years, Voyager seemed to imagine that the future of the Star Trek franchise was relatively stable no matter how many times Voyager exploded. In contrast, by the time that Enterprise was broadcast, the future of the entire Star Trek franchise seemed to be in doubt.

“Have you talked to a counsellor about these annihilation fantasies?”

It should be noted that the fifth season of Voyager was particularly preoccupied the destruction of Voyager, as demonstrated by the icy death trap in  Timeless , the slow decay in  Course: Oblivion and the ticking time bomb in  Relativity . At the same time, the fifth season of  Voyager was also intrigued by its weird potential shadow selves. The darkest of these shadow selves is lurking at the end of the season in Equinox, Part I , but alternate versions of Voyager can be seen in episodes like The Disease , Course: Oblivion and even Think Tank .

In keeping with the sense that Seven of Nine is not so much traveling through time as shifting between three different versions of Voyager , Relativity is built around the idea of iterations of three; three time periods, three versions of Braxton, three versions of Janeway. The audience gets to spend time with three different versions of Seven of Nine, deputised by Braxton and Ducane. Indeed, Ducane suggests that it is only possible to make three time jumps safely, and that any more jumps could lead to the dreaded “temporal psychosis.”

“Please, don’t judge me by this. Certainly don’t replace me with a hair-trigger-tempered terrorist who didn’t even graduate the Academy.”

Relativity literalises the idea that Voyager was three different series and that Kathryn Janeway was three different characters. Towards the end of Relativity , Ducane suggests that it should be possible to bring those three different iterations together. Noting that he will have three different versions of Braxton in custody by the end of the episode, Ducane assures Janeway and Seven, “Don’t worry. They’ll all be reintegrated in time for the trial.” Interestingly, Relativity consciously avoids the opportunity to reintegrate the three versions of Janeway. They remain separate.

Relativity is noteworthy as the last Voyager script to be credited to writer Nick Sagan. Sagan joined the Voyager writing staff at the start of the fifth season, and worked on a number of the season’s most intriguing episodes. Sagan was responsible for In the Flesh , Gravity , Course: Oblivion and Juggernaut , often working closely with Bryan Fuller to deliver some of the fifth season’s weirder and more eccentric installments. It is a shame that Sagan did not hang around longer, that he not get to leave a bigger footprint on the Star Trek franchise.

Engineering a solution.

Sagan explains that he left for a number of reasons, mostly tied to a sense that there was not much left that he wanted to accomplish within the framework of Voyager :

Basically, it was for a couple of reasons. I’d had a wonderful time working on it, but there were also frustrations. Brannon [Braga] and I started talking about it, and there were other writers that they wanted to bring in like Ron Moore and there were other projects I wanted to get involved in. And as much as I enjoyed it, I felt like I’d done what I’d set out to do, and I didn’t feel like I needed to stick around to get them home. So, all in all, I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. I had a wonderful time working on it, and being able to contribute to the Roddenberry mythology. I had a blast, and I’m really grateful to Brannon for giving me the opportunity.

Although Voyager marks his last on-screen credits, Sagan would go on to publish science-fiction novels and to work in game design.

Relativity is a mess of big ideas that is somewhat bungled in the execution. It makes sense that this should be the quintessential Voyager episode.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: braxton , nick sagan , star trek , star trek: voyager , time bomb , time travel , voyager |

8 Responses

“Seven of Nine to Seven of Nine, what’s your status?”

Lord knows it been said before. But I’d watch the hell out of the continuing adventures of Captain Braxton, Commander Ducane and Crewman Daniels (if he behaved more like his character from “Scrubs”)

They sunk so much time and creative capital into the DOTM, so it seems odd that they never got their own standalone series.

I do wonder if they’d have been the focus of a season of Bryan Fuller’s original pitch for Discovery.

Nice you mention Minority Report which popped up in my mind immediatley when they arrested Braxton for crimes he would be committing in the future by going into the past. But I am not sure if it would have hurt the light-weight adventure feeling of the episode to have some ethical debate or a discussion about the physicalistic logic behind this. I kind of liked the continuity regarding the Braxton-character . And the effect with the ping-pong-ball stuck in midair is pretty cool.

Just a few days ago on my Babylon 5-rewatch I saw the two-parter from season 3, where they do an admirably well time-travel episode that is very confusing but has more incentives to think it through (because the plot mattered for the overall series, contrary to this one – and where was the Relativity in “Endgame”?).

I think the episode is aiming for that blockbuster Voyager sensibility, arguably codified by Year of Hell and The Killing Game . It’s notable that the fifth season arguably tries to condense these sorts of stories down to single episodes, making every episode an event – I’m thinking of the fact the season only has a single two-parter within it rather than two and that Timeless is the kind of adventure that could easily have been split across two parts.

A horrible episode that has one basic premise: How many plot holes and logic gaps can be jammed into 42 minutes of TV?

Worse, this time travel and time police theme is entrenched into an entire series in Enterprise. It’s nonsensical, even for cartoony sci fi like Voyager. There’s more going on with this series than network interference and conservative producers. The show often struggles with just plain terrible writing. This episode is a good case study. That Braga can claim this is a fun or surprising episode points to how deluded he was.

It has the plot/story sophistication of watching Adam West battle a weekly villain on Batman.

Easily one of the most entertaining episodes of the entire series, and the Devil take the rest. The smash cut between Janeway’s exasperated comment about her headache and the space battle in the past is one of the funniest moments in the history of the franchise.

I am somewhat less fond of this than you, it seems. But I do love Timeless from earlier this same season.

I love this episode, but then again, to me, it seemed explicitly and intentionally to be written as a comedy, with the most serious moment in the narrative being the climactic conversation between Janeway and Seven, and that’s not particularly heavy, really.

In any case, Voyager’s series-best comedic moment comes late in this episode, a line reading by Kat Mulgrew followed by a perfectly timed smash cut.

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• Star Trek Series | 2364 - 2378
• Star Trek: Voyager

Captain Braxton

• Thread starter Kilana2
• Start date Feb 4, 2018

Vice Admiral

• Feb 4, 2018

I'm not a fan of recasting a character. In some cases they didn't have a choice when an actor wasn't available and they wanted a character to reappear. In this case I love the Journey's End episodes, but I prefer the Relativity Braxton. Both actors don't resemble each other much. I don't know the reason for the restaffing in this case. Which Braxton version do yo prefer and why?  

I prefer the Braxton from "Future's End". I guess it's because he was the "first Braxton" and because I really like those episodes.  

Well, Warren Munson doesn't resemble Richard Herd, but you're not complaining about Admiral Paris ;p  

Dukhat said: Well, Warren Munson doesn't resemble Richard Herd, but you're not complaining about Admiral Paris ;p Click to expand...

Thomas Eugene

• Feb 5, 2018

F. King Daniel

Fleet admiral.

Kilana2 said: As fas as I remember the different Owen Paris was seen only one time. Richard Herd had more to do to fill the role and is therefore rather linked with Paris than the other actor. Even the Borg Queen was played by different actresses... Click to expand...

Braxton Nr. 2 suffered from temporal psychosis. Has Braxton ever met someone of the Department of Temporal Investigations?  

at Quark's

Rear admiral.

Kilana2 said: Even the Borg Queen was played by different actresses... Click to expand...

Mr. Laser Beam

• Feb 6, 2018

Kilana2 said: Braxton Nr. 2 suffered from temporal psychosis. Has Braxton ever met someone of the Department of Temporal Investigations? Click to expand...

cosmic mouse

I like both of them, but maybe have a preference for McGill since he provides more facial recognition for me... (My Cousin Vinny and all) and I prefer his performance in Relativity vs. Royal's in FE.  

Voth commando1

• Feb 10, 2018

Relativity Braxton had more personality. Though the character was portrayed well by both actors.  

Preferences are irrelevant since the actors played the character consistent for me. The issue I had was the Berman writing staff never exploited the changing of an actor; since Rick Berman's Trek Universe felt tinkering with the past has no consequences what's so ever. But what if it did? Voyager gets swept back in time, on Earth --which was preposterous to begin with-- in the year 1996, but there's no sign or word of the supermen or the Eugenics age, nothing. Voyager or Braxton or Sisko or TNG or Archer or whoever don't give a crap about doing their homework when time traveling caused the Star Trek Universe to be altered. Not in an Edith Keeler kind of way but just in a way where things and events were altered slightly... like character faces, such as Braxton's, were different. Characters' motivations were altered like Picard acting like a completely different person from the TV series to those crappy movies. Where Archer and the NX-01 crew were never mentioned in any of the Star Trek iterations: TOS, TOS movies, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, wiping themselves out of existence.  

STEPhon IT said: Where Archer and the NX-01 crew were never mentioned in any of the Star Trek iterations: TOS, TOS movies, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, wiping themselves out of existence. Click to expand...

STEPhon IT said: Voyager gets swept back in time, on Earth --which was preposterous to begin with-- in the year 1996, but there's no sign or word of the supermen or the Eugenics age, nothing. Click to expand...

• Feb 11, 2018

STEPhon IT said: Voyager gets swept back in time, on Earth --which was preposterous to begin with-- in the year 1996, but there's no sign or word of the supermen or the Eugenics age, nothing . Click to expand...

JirinPanthosa

ItIsGreen said: Hardly surprising since they were written before Enterprise was a thing. ENT has been referenced in the Kelvin movies and Discovery. Click to expand...

Prax said: Click to expand...

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As my Star Trek character commanded the weight of a starship, I was hours away from becoming a father

The lines between fiction and reality collided when i welcomed my child into the world.

Social Sharing

This First Person column is the experience of Patrick Kwok-Choon, who was born and raised in Montreal. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ .

I was on the set of Star Trek: Discovery and my character Gen Rhys had been thrust into the captain's chair, burdened with making life-and-death decisions for himself and his crew.

I can't believe this was happening to me.

It was a milestone for my character — the first time as acting captain on the Starship Discovery — but also an important moment for me as a lifelong fan of the franchise.

Sitting in that chair, I couldn't help but think of the iconic performances by Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew and Avery Brooks. The weight of their legacy was palpable, and being part of that tradition felt incredibly significant.

But my real concern wasn't the scene; it was the crisis unfolding at home.

At 3 a.m., my wife went into labour. When her contractions increased, we called our midwife at 9 a.m. Despite the unpredictability of childbirth, she assured me, based on her extensive experience, that it was OK for me to go to work. She mentioned that while it's not guaranteed, deliveries typically occur at night, offering me some peace of mind.

I was contractually obligated to go into work that day and my wife reassured me that her contractions were only uncomfortable, not painful. She insisted I go.

With a heavy heart, I asked my neighbour to watch over my wife and to call me if there was any emergency. I would come home immediately, regardless of the consequences.

When I arrived at work, my castmates greeted me with joy. The higher-ups were quickly informed and a production head came down to assure me that everything was being done to expedite my departure. The shooting schedule was rearranged so all my scenes would be filmed first. I immediately called my wife to share the news.

As I spoke with her, another production head approached, offering congratulations and reiterating the plan. But he added, "If things get too crazy at home and we haven't finished, just bail." I told him my wife felt we were still in the early phases of labour, and we should still have time. He leaned in, gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, "Just bail."

All hands on deck

I was at a loss for words — studios aren't obligated to accommodate actors in such situations. I've heard terrible stories of actors unable to attend births, weddings and even funerals due to rigid shooting schedules. Yet here, amid the bustling set of a multimillion-dollar shoot, this person was giving me permission to prioritize my family. It was a heartfelt gesture that I'll never forget.

Returning to the chair, it felt like an actual "all hands on deck" moment straight out of Star Trek. Each department rallied together with precision and urgency, and I could feel their support willing me forward. Together, we navigated the challenges of the day, ensuring I could fulfill my duty as both actor and father-to-be.

After what felt like an eternity, the first assistant director called out, "That's a wrap on Patrick. He's free to leave."

I leaped out of my chair and shouted, "I'm going to have a baby!" to the applause of the cast and crew.

At this point, I had been at work for nine hours and it was 8 p.m. I rocketed out of that studio at warp speed. When I got home, my wife's contractions had reached the point where the midwife advised it was time to go to the hospital. I couldn't believe my luck. Despite the chaos of the day, I had made it just in time for the delivery.

Five hours later, as I held my newborn in my arms, I was overwhelmed with a sense of relief and profound joy. The juxtaposition of the day's events felt surreal — acting out life-and-death stakes on set only to experience the miracle of life in reality.

My child is now 20 months old. Just this weekend, I had the luxury of taking my child out for a morning stroll, pushing them for what felt like an eternity on the swings, and sitting in silence together on a park bench as I watched them slowly gobble up a muffin, basking in the absolute wonder of this little miracle. A gift. My gift.

I am miles away from the fearful day on set and have come safely to the other side of things – just as I'm light-years from my youth when I feared becoming a parent because, in my naive mind, it meant getting trapped into something or sacrificing my career, time and energy.

But I think most parents would agree: what you gain is absolutely priceless. No longer do I find myself consumed with work or clinging desperately to career aspirations. I have reshaped my understanding of what's really important to me and my life is immensely richer for it.

The day I spent in the captain's chair on Discovery will forever be etched in my memory, not just for the professional milestone it represented but for the personal journey it paralleled. The lines between fiction and reality blurred, the weight of commanding a starship colliding with the anticipation of welcoming new life into the world.

It was a stark reminder of the beautiful, unpredictable nature of life, where our most significant moments often unfold in the most unexpected ways.

Do you have a compelling personal story that can bring understanding or help others? We want to hear from you. Here's  more info on how to pitch to us .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Freelance contributor

Patrick Kwok-Choon was born and raised in Montreal. He is best known for the five seasons he spent on the hit CBS/Paramount+ show Star Trek: Discovery.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Future's End

• Episode aired Nov 6, 1996

A timeship from the future who tries to stop Voyager gets thrown with Voyager into the twentieth century. His timeship is found in 1967 and Voyager discovers that a company that has benefite... Read all A timeship from the future who tries to stop Voyager gets thrown with Voyager into the twentieth century. His timeship is found in 1967 and Voyager discovers that a company that has benefited from its technology exists in 1996. A timeship from the future who tries to stop Voyager gets thrown with Voyager into the twentieth century. His timeship is found in 1967 and Voyager discovers that a company that has benefited from its technology exists in 1996.

• David Livingston
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Kate Mulgrew
• Robert Beltran
• Roxann Dawson
• 16 User reviews
• 6 Critic reviews

• Capt. Kathryn Janeway

• Cmdr. Chakotay

• Lt. B'Elanna Torres
• (as Roxann Biggs-Dawson)

• Lt. Tom Paris

• Ensign Harry Kim

• Rain Robinson

• Captain Braxton
• (as Allan G. Royal)

• Henry Starling

• Ensign Kaplan
• (as Susan Patterson)

• (as Christian R. Conrad)

• (uncredited)
• Big Street Vendor

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Sarah Silverman was considered to join the regular cast for the fourth season, after executive producer Brannon Braga enjoyed her work in this two-part story. But he eventually chose Jeri Ryan to join the cast instead.
• Goofs Janeway says she has no idea what her ancestors were doing in the 1990s, yet we later learn in 11:59 (1999) that she is intimately familiar with the tale of one ancestor in 1999.

Captain Janeway : Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache.

• Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Celebrities You Didn't Know Were on Star Trek TV Shows (2017)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: Voyager - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Jerry Goldsmith Performed by Jay Chattaway

User reviews 16

• Jun 16, 2019
• November 6, 1996 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California, USA
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 44 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Giant Freakin Robot

Battlestar Galactica Line Honors Star Trek Iconic Character

Posted: June 28, 2024 | Last updated: June 28, 2024

Battlestar Galactica was Ronald D. Moore’s masterpiece, a show he created and ran after years of writing for Star Trek: The Next Generation and its spinoffs. Normally, the two franchises didn’t have much in common: Star Trek was a Utopian show about humanity’s potential, and Galactica was a dystopian show about humanity’s folly. However, the third episode of Battlestar Galactica (“Bastille Day”) surprisingly gave one character a throwaway line that was a deliberate homage to Dr. McCoy in Star Trek: The Original Series.

An Easy To Overlook Line

The line comes from a relatively minor character, the captain of the civilian fleet vessel Astral Queen. At one point, the captain quips, “I’m a bus driver, not a warden.” It’s a line that might not mean much to the average Battlestar Galactica fan, but it has special significance to anyone who grew up watching reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series. 

The Famous Star Trek Quote

In that show, the cantankerous Dr. McCoy once quipped, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer” in the episode “The Devil in the Dark.” While this is arguably the most iconic line, McCoy had several variations in other episodes, including “I’m a doctor, not an engineer” and “I’m a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.” The cranky doctor’s tendency to complain about the various responsibilities thrust upon him eventually became a pop culture catchphrase that even non-fans tend to quote.

It’s Funnier With the Modern Update

Interestingly, audiences tended to add (perhaps because of the Mandela effect) a bit of vulgarity in front of the phrases with “d*mn it, Jim,” and the profanity certainly seemed fitting to McCoy’s character. However, he never delivered his catchphrases with that profanity in The Original Series.  They were, though,  added to the Star Trek reboot films with fun new variations, including “D*mn it, man, I’m a doctor, not a torpedo technician!”

Battlestar Galactica’s Creator Was A Trek Writer

Why, though, does this Battlestar Galactica episode go out of its way to pay homage to a classic Star Trek line? There’s a chance that episode writer Toni Graphia simply wanted to add a winking nod to the classic science fiction series. However, if we had to bet money (preferably those weird little cubits from the show), we’d gamble that this reference was due to the influence of Ronald D. Moore.

As we touched on earlier, the Battlestar Galactica showrunner was previously known for writing Star Trek, and he got his start in television by joining the staff of The Next Generation. One of his strengths in this role was that he was a superfan of The Original Series, and he often snuck references to Kirk’s adventures in the newer episodes. Amusingly enough, his nickname on the TNG writing staff was “the Klingon guy,” and his obsession with this warrior race from Kirk’s era led him to write almost every TNG episode with a Klingon focus.

The Anti-Trek

Long story not very short, we don’t think it’s a coincidence that Battlestar Galactica, a show created by the world’s biggest fan of Star Trek: The Original Series, had an homage to Dr. McCoy hidden in an early episode.

The homage is still ironic, though, because Galactica was deliberately written as the opposite of Star Trek: it told grim and ongoing stories whereas Voyager (a show Moore abruptly left after writing only two episodes) told happy stories and consistently hit the reset button. Looking back, he may not have known how much overlap the different shows’ audiences would have, but what would you expect?

After all, he’s a writer, not a mind-reader.

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