Voyager Flashback: The Omega Directive

As a franchise with a strong positive focus on science, Star Trek isn't in the best position to tell stories about religion (unless it's to dismiss religion as backward and primitive). But they were making 26 episodes per season per series at the time, and couldn't resist the occasional attempt at the topic. One result was the mixed bag "The Omega Directive."

Voyager detects a rare and highly volatile particle on a nearby planet, and automatically delivers a new mission to Captain Janeway: destroy the particle before it destroys warp travel on a galactic scale. But Seven of Nine is eager to tap this "Omega particle" as a powerful energy source, fueled by a reverence instilled in her by the Borg -- for the particle is the closest thing to true perfection in existence.

This was reportedly a difficult script for the Voyager writing team to crack. It started out centered on the idea of "a directive that superseded even the Prime Directive." It never really escaped the concept of "a threat to warp travel" (which The Next Generation had already covered). They finally decided to inject the religious angle -- Seven's yearning for the Omega particle -- as a way of putting more meat on the story bone.

But to my mind, none of that is what's most interesting about this episode. I'm drawn to the friction among the characters. Janeway is initially required to keep this mission secret from her entire crew, which is a quite interesting jumping off point for the story. (The logic of Starfleet encoding their ships to flash an ominous symbol on every monitor when trying to keep a secret is questionable, but whatever.) The notion that Janeway actually does have one person she can confide in... but it's Seven of Nine, who she's repeatedly been at odds with? That's gold. Chakotay is having to order crew members to do things even he doesn't understand -- another great source of tension.

Yet I feel like the episode doesn't dwell nearly long enough in this interesting state. Chakotay argues for the crew to be "read in" on the crisis, and Janeway caves too quickly. The secrets and strife among the crew are resolved too quickly, and then it just becomes another mission. (Even "redshirts" seem to know about Omega soon enough -- a bunch of background ensigns are milling about on the Away Team later in the story.)

After resolving the most interesting aspect of the plot a third of the way into the episode, the writing actually stumbles onto another interesting story element. But it doesn't fully engage with this one either. The alien society who has discovered Omega is facing a global crisis, the literal end of their entire society. Only Omega will rescue them, we're told... and Janeway must take it away from them. Yes, the galactic stakes are very high here, but there's no musing about "the needs of the many," no dark night of the soul where Janeway must accept that she's condemned an entire planet to armageddon for "the greater good." In the midst of an episode about religion, you'd think there would be room for a serious examination of the morality behind enabling an apocalypse (even if you think your reasons are noble).

There's little examination of the fact that it's Janeway specifically in this position. Tuvok points out that her desire to destroy Omega contradicts the scientific curiosity that's normally key to her character. She simply says "the final frontier has some boundaries that should not be crossed," and that's that. Wouldn't having Janeway herself wrestle with this contradiction have been at least as interesting as playing another conflict between her and Seven of Nine?

And yet, for all these roads not taken, the episode does still serve up a number of compelling scenes. Seven of Nine makes an unusually impassioned plea to Chakotay at a spiritual level. She experiences the character growth of actually respecting the command structure (mostly) this time, rather than rebelling -- and she's basically rewarded; she gets to "see God" before Omega is destroyed.

Then there's a sprinkling of comedic moments that all work pretty well. Kim and Tuvok spar a couple of times in the episode, first over a kal-toh board, and later with the amusing exchange: "Wanna know what I think?" / "No." Seven is put in a leadership role, and responds by assigning Borg designations to her subordinates. So it's not like this episode is missing out on good stuff and giving us nothing, it's just missing out on good stuff.

Other observations:

• Janeway mentions Carol Marcus and the Genesis Project, citing a nice (and prominent) bit of Star Trek lore.

• Roxann Dawson appears as B'Elanna in only one scene in this episode. She went into labor immediately after filming it, so her remaining scenes in the episode were hastily rewritten to give her lines to other characters. She would be on maternity leave for a few more episodes... though to my mind, would return to work fully in a surprisingly short amount of time.

"The Omega Directive" is a fun sort of swashbuckling adventure, but it feels like the potential was there for a far more insightful and introspective story. I give it a B-.