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In the late 24th century, a
renegade group known as the Maquis operate outside the law to
right what they see as Federation injustices. After infiltrating
a Maquis cell to apprise Starfleet of the group's activities,
Lieutenant Tuvok, along with the crew of a ship commanded by the
Maquis captain Chakotay, disappear in an area of space known as
the Badlands. Tuvok's commanding officer, Captain Janeway, leads
a mission to find the Vulcan lieutenant, enlisting the aid of
Starfleet prisoner Tom Paris, a former Maquis member, to guide
her ship, the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656, through the Badlands.
Considered a traitor by most of
Voyager's crew, Paris strikes up a friendship with Ensign Harry
Kim, a naive young Starfleet Academy grad. Kim learns that Paris
was drummed out of Starfleet after his piloting error caused the
deaths of three officers. The outcast joined the ranks of the
Maquis, but was soon arrested by Federation authorities.
After reaching the Badlands, Voyager encounters an inexplicable
phenomenon that sends the ship hurtling to the Delta Quadrant,
located 70,000 light years from home. The catapult effect kills
a number of crewmembers, including the Chief Medical Officer,
who is replaced by an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) that
attends to the wounded. But the EMH has barely begun his work
when the entire crew of Voyager is transported to what appears
to be a pastoral farm, populated by friendly humans. But it's
only an illusion; the farm is actually the interior of the
Array, a huge space station, and the residents are holograms.
The crew is imprisoned within a strange laboratory facility,
alongside the missing Maquis.
After being subjected to a painful examination, the crews of
Voyager and the Maquis vessel are returned to their respective
ships, docked outside the Array. But two crewpersons are
missing: Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres, the half-Klingon,
half-human engineer from the Maquis vessel. Returning to the
"farm," Janeway confronts the only remaining inhabitant, an old
man playing a banjo. But the man cares nothing about their
dilemma and offers them no information about the missing
officers.
Noting that the Array is sending energy pulses toward the fifth
planet of a neighboring system, Janeway sets course in that
direction. Far beneath the surface of that planet, an ailing Kim
and Torres regain consciousness in a medical facility. But what
they're doing there — and why — they have yet to discover.
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