Another Way Things Could've Gone...

[janeways_gecko]

A few things that might've raised the stakes and made the show a bit more edge-of-your-seat....

Season 2: When Tuvok mind-melds with Suder, his brain is permanently damaged and he can no longer suppress his emotions and must learn to live with them. What comes with this is a heightened telepathic sense and he must work with Kes to bring both of their powers under control.

Season 3: In working with Kes, Tuvok begins to have feelings for her. When one of their meditations goes awry, they end up psychically robbing the entire crew of their inhibitions. Wackiness ensues. Also, we needed a Kes-Neelix breakup episode...after what happened to Kes in "Warlord" and to Neelix in "Fair Trade" it was clear their lives were moving in separate directions, and viewers needed some kind of closure to that relationship.

Season 4: When Kes leaves Voyager, Tuvok mind-melds with her briefly, which passes part of her power to him, and he must deal with not only being alienated from other Vulcans, but a bit feared by the rest of the ship. He finds a comrade in Seven, who knows this feeling. Also, We've had enough time-travel resets in this show...let's deal with some consequences. At the end of "Year of Hell," Voyager isn't destroyed, but the time ship is and all the species restored. The cost of this is that the crew of Voyager must remain on their crippled ship and try to find their crew, who were sent out in escape pods and shuttle craft. The opportunity here for some very scary stories of people in enclosed spaces being attacked by an unknown enemy (the Hirogen, but we don't know that yet). At the end of this the crew, when reunited, befriends an advanced species who helps them rebuild the ship even better than before. Very cool, with lots of neat new weapons. I'd put an amended version of "Dark Frontier" at the end of this season, only the reason they're hijacking the transwarp coil is b/c they know they're about to enter the void (see "Night"), but at the end Chakotay is killed in battle. The last shot of the season: Chakotay's funeral pod being ejected, Voyager heading off into the lightless void, the crew mourning. Last shot of the season: a tractor beam locking on the funeral pod.

Season Five: Several episodes about the crew mourning Chakotay, including "Night," and "Extreme Risk," with some changes. Tuvok has been promoted to first officer, much against his own reservations, because his emotions and his freaky mental abilities are still a bit unpredictable. Also, One was too good a character to have in just one episode. He needed to live for the better part of this season, so that Seven can have someone to mentor and...well, you'll see how he fits in to the arc I'm creating. Eventually we discover that Chakotay was rescued by the Cooperative (remember them?), who have appointed him their leader. Chakotay feels that he can not go back to Voyager, but he wants the crew to help him liberate people from the Borg. They agree, but it turns out that the Cooperative is all about destroying and dissecting the Borg, and Janeway can't quite get on board, especially when Chakotay tries to recruit his Maquis people to the Cooperative. The crew have several battles with the Cooperative, and it becomes clear that Chakotay is just their puppet. Finally they kidnap One to use his 29th-century technology to gain more power, and Seven and Janeway must rescue him and Chakotay. One gives his life to get Chakotay away from the Cooperative and back to Voyager. Chakotay must then go through a long process of regaining the crew's trust, which they are reluctant to give but eventually do when he leads an away mission to disrupt the Cooperative's collective mind for good. The season ends with the crew detecting Caretaker-like lifesigns on a planet known for its technology which allows no discharge weapon to be fired, and for its huge and invasive black market. There is a group of people there who go on and on about "her," about how they worship "her," and the crew thinks they may have finally found Suspiria. When they charge through the back alleys of this planet (fighting hand-to-hand because they can't use their phasers), they lose Neelix and must find him. He comes running up to them, out of breath: "She's here! It's her!" They think that he's been brainwashed by whatever these people worship. But they follow him to find "her," and find a woman fighting off some of the scary acolytes. They pull the men off of her and realize: it's Kes.

Season Six: This is where we resolve the Suspiria/Ocampa storyline, which very much needed resolving, thank you. After all, Janeway stranded her crew in the Delta Quadrant for the sake of the Ocampa. We deserve to know what happened to them. Not to mention...Suspiria, yet another character who was too cool to strand in one episode. Turns out, the scary men on the planet worship Suspiria but won't help Voyager find her. Instead she finds them and at first wants to destroy Voyager (again) until Kes convinces her otherwise. Turns out Kes has been travelling in and out of our galaxy, into Elastria, trying to find Suspiria. Her power is much greater and more focused now, and she manages to call Suspiria off of the Voyager crew. Suspiria offers Kes the chance to return to Ocampa to help her people, and she accepts. However, later in the season, Tuvok is meditating and makes contact with Kes, who has been trapped by Suspiria in a dimension where time doesn't pass. Suspiria was trying to harness Kes' power for some reason, and now Kes is wicked pissed. The crew goes after Suspiria's followers in order to find her, and when they do, they use the toxin from "Cold Fire" to trap her in human form, which works for awhile until she body-jumps into Kes and uses her to open a portal to Elastria. The Doctor says that when Suspiria took over Kes' body it most likely killed her, and Tuvok follows her through the portal to get revenge. The rest of the crew can't go to Elastria, because it is a realm of pure thought and you must have a powerful mind to survive it. Instead they kidnap one of Sus's follwers and get her plan out of him. Her plan, it turns out, is to return to the galaxy from which she and the Caretaker came, and the crew must open a spatial rift to get them there....50 million light years from home. As they track her through this galaxy, Tuvok followers her through Elastria, where she leaves Kes' weak (but not dead) body behind. When she leaves Elastria they follow her to the planet where her species, the Nacene live, and find out that the reason she had to get back here was to get the resources to reverse what they did to the Ocampa's planet. Because it turns out that when they did that, it was also responsible for limiting their life spans and their psychic abilities. Oops. So after all that, Janeway and crew must ally themselves with Suspiria, whose species refuses to give her what she needs. Instead, she really DOES take Kes to Ocampa this time, where she begins to help her people, and she returns Voyager to their previous location in the Delta Quadrant. The season ends with the original Unimatrix Zero cliffhanger, because man was that good.

Season Seven: Does anybody else think that "Endgame" should've aired when "Workforce" did so that we could see what happened to the crew after their return? I'm going nuts wondering. So I'm thinking we need an episode about how Starfleet deals with the Maquis, and another about the Doctor and Data forming a coalition to fight for the rights of artificial life forms. Something about Paris and Torres becoming new parents. What happens to Seven of Nine, how does she find her place in the world? What about Ensign Kim and Chakotay? How are their lives different? And we need some kind of big-ass battle at the end, maybe bring back the Unimatrix Zero storyline, see if we can't give the Borg one big, final ass-whoopin.

Some ideas. Feel free to respond. I'm working on fleshing out complete stores/outlines for these episodes and arcs. Right now I'm working on "Broken," the one after "Meld," when Tuvok finds out he can no longer suppress his emotions. It's explosive, lots of good stuff with him and Janeway, him and Neelix, him and Kes. Also, Kim as the new tactical officer? Full of hilarity, especially when he gets in a conflict with a very pregnant, very irritable Samantha Wildman.

Anyway, given time I'll be able to post the whole storyline here so you can see how it goes in detail. I'm having fun writing it.

[Voy_Girl]

Please post your fic,

[janeways_gecko]

THE END OF "MELD"

After Tuvok collapses while confronting Suder, he is taken to Sickbay where he is unconscious. The Doctor, Janeway, and Chakotay are all gathered around, and the Doctor tells them that after thorough scans, he has determined that the mind meld with Suder has permanently damaged Tuvok's brain. Janeway wants to know what is going to happen to him. The Doctor says that from what he can tell, the part of Tuvok's brain that was damaged was the part that helps all Vulcans to control their more violent impulses, the same part that they use to control their emotions and their telepathic abilities. Tuvok has lost a great deal - if not all - of that control.

Janeway tells the Doctor to wake Tuvok so he can be appraised of the situation. Tuvok wakes with a start, and when he sees Janeway a flash of emotion registers on his face: remorse, anger, and a bit of relief. Suddenly he realizes that his rehabilitation hasn't worked and he stands, asking what is wrong. Janeway quickly explains the situation, and Tuvok lashes out in anger. Chakotay steps in to protect Janeway, but Tuvok is physically weak and can barely stand. They help get him back on the bed, and he asks what will happen to him. The Doctor says that he should still have the mental acuity to perform his duties, and Janeway says that he should take some time to rest and think about it, but she still wants him at tactical. Tuvok expresses regret and horror at the terrible things he said to Janeway, but all she says is that she believes in him.


BROKEN

ACT I/TEASER

On the bridge, Harry Kim has been placed at tactical while Tuvok recovers. However, he cannot figure out how Tuvok has set up his tactical interface, and he keeps shooting the phasers randomly into space. When he accidentally arms a photon torpedo without launching it - a mistake which Chakotay must quickly correct - Samantha Wildman, who is taking Kim's place at Ops for the time being, makes a snarky comment. Paris joins in with his usual commentary. They all get into a war of words.

Meanwhile, in Tuvok's quarters, he can hear the conversation on the bridge, and he is saying the crew's words and thoughts out loud along with them. We pull back to see him sitting in his quarters, which have been absolutely destroyed: tables overturned, smashed glass and furniture everywhere, and his meditation lamp, turned on its side, burning, with a fire-containment force field extending down from the ceiling to keep it from setting the whole cabin afire.

CREDITS

ACT TWO

Janeway walks with Chakotay to the Mess Hall, and as they walk she expresses to him her concern for their tactical officer. People have been talking about it all week, and there are all kinds of crazy rumors going around. Turns out the Doctor had placed a sensor on Tuvok to monitor his vital signs, but at some point it had been smashed or removed, because it stopped transmitting yesterday. If not for the ship's internal sensors they wouldn't even know if Tuvok was alive. Janeway says that she wants to go see her old friend, to help him, but Chakotay warns her against that, saying after what happened the last time, how could she be sure she was safe? She tells him, I meant what I said to him, Chakotay. Emotions or not, he's a good man and I believe in him.

They arrive in the Mess Hall and are warmly greeted by Neelix, who brings up the subject of Tuvok while pouring their morning coffee. He says that the rumor going around the ship is that Tuvok tried to murder Janeway in Sickbay and that all the security officers are too scared to go into his quarters. Janeway reprimands Neelix sharply, saying that as Morale Officer he should be the first one to quell such talk. She says that Tuvok's brain was damaged but that he will still be completely capable of performing his duties once he's had time to rest and adjust to a new way of living.

A few feet away, Michael Jonas pretends to get a second helping of breakfast while listening to their conversation.

Jonas returns to his quarters, where he makes a call to the Kazon Nistrim, demanding that he be allowed to speak with Seska herself. He says he's got news that will undoubtedly prove his loyalty to them. His liaison tries to get the information out of him, but this time he is determined: he will only speak with Seska. The liaison says to contact them again in three hours and he will be able to talk to her.

In his quarters, Tuvok briefly picks up on this conversation, but not enough to understand anything about it. His mind is a roar of voices from all over the ship. We see a montage and hear various snippets of people's thoughts and conversations: B'Elanna thinking about how much Vorik irritates her. Carey telling someone about his two young sons. A crewmember angrily thinking how she's finally going to tell Paris what she thinks of him. Another woman cries about the crewman whom Suder murdered. One of the Maquis thinks to herself, "The Delta Quadrant sucks." A snippet of a conversation between two crewmen talking about him, about how they don't think he'll ever be back at tactical. Suddenly he hears Kes reading over a medical text, and suddenly she looks up. "Tuvok?" They are both very still for a second, then both are knocked across the room by the force of the connection. Tuvok begins a sentence that we see Kes finish: "She's got....a lot of power." Then both pass out.

ACT III

Kes wakes up in Sickbay, the Doctor looking worried as he stands over her. He tells her that she said Tuvok's name, then flew right out of her chair and banged her head against a console. He says while she was out she was mumbling things in Vulcan language. Suddenly she remembers and asks how Tuvok is doing. Unfortunately, the Doctor doesn't know, because the only person who could go check on him was unconscious at the time. The Doctor wants Kes to go check on Tuvok, but she admits, she's a bit nervous. When their minds connected she felt what was in him, and it frightened her.

Meanwhile, Jonas is pacing in Engineering, and he tries not to look nervous as he casually strikes up a conversation with B'Elanna about Tuvok's condition, trying to find out what else the senior officers may know about his return to duty, when it might happen, etc. B'Elanna says that Tuvok apparently connected with a very violent place in himself, and that she knows a thing or two about that. She simply says that in battle it can be an asset or a liability, depending how you use it. She admits that she hasn't learned how to use it herself, but she will feel much safer with Tuvok back at tactical. She loves Harry and all, but if he accidentally arms one more torpedo or blows out the emitter array again, she's going to have to beat him to death, and there have been enough murders on the ship lately. Jonas manages a nervous laugh.

Chakotay and Kim are huddled over the tactical console on the bridge, both admittedly stumped as to how Tuvok has the whole thing set up. The pattern is obviously a kind of logic so advanced that their "measly human brains" just can't get around it. When the console shocks Chakotay, he gets angry and storms into Janeway's ready room, where she's just replicated a cup of coffee. She looks pretty stressed out herself, as she downs the entire mug in one gulp and looks at him. They agree: this crew needs their tactical officer back. But how? First they must know what his condition is, so the Doctor can begin to treat him. At that moment, the Doctor calls and asks them both to come to Sickbay.

Kes is there, insisting that she is fine. But she seems to have a great deal more energy all of a sudden and is bustling around, cleaning things up. The Doctor says that he picked up a huge spike in her brain wave patterns at one moment about two hours ago, right before she went unconscious. She comes over and explains that she and Tuvok touched minds somehow, and the Doctor confirms this. Obviously the two of them have a connection, being two of the most powerful telepathic beings on the ship. Janeway wants to send Kes into Tuvok's quarters to try to help him, but she's still pretty frightened. Janeway explains that Kes might be the only one who can help him now, and Kes understands that her good friend is worth any risk. However, she says, she needs to focus all this nervous energy she has before she can do it. Can they all please leave for a moment and let her meditate? Chakotay, Janeway, and the Doctor retreat into the Doctor's office while Kes crawls up on a bio bed and begins to try to focus her energy. The Doctor asks what Janeway thinks Kes is going to be able to do. She says she's not sure, but it's obvious the two of them have a connection, and right now Kes' mental abilities might be the only thing that can help Tuvok. Chakotay suggests that they send one of the other Vulcans on the ship, but Janeway dismisses that, saying that the other Vulcans seem to have written Tuvok off, and besides, Tuvok doesn't have the kind of connection with them that he has with....Kes?

They all walk out of the office, watching Kes meditate. She opens her eyes and sees them approaching her. We pull back to see that she is floating several feet above the bio-bed. Janeway asks her, "Kes?"

"What?"

ACT IV

Kes is standing on solid ground again, with a still-surprised Janeway, Chakotay, and Doctor standing around her, asking if she is ready. She says she is, she's a bit scared, but she's ready. Janeway says, "You understand the plan?" Kes does, and Janeway promises that she will be safe.

Jonas contacts the Nistrim again and this time is allowed to speak directly to Seska. He tells her about the situation with Tuvok, and that Harry Kim is now the tactical officer. This is a perfect time for the Kazon to attack Voyager and take it. Seska is doubtful at first, until Jonas explains that Tuvok has been locked in his quarters all week, and that he is brain damaged. The crew doesn't believe that he will ever emerge from his room. Seska thanks him for the information, and goes directly to speak to Culluh. He is less than enthusiastic at first, until Seska convinces him that without Tuvok at tactical, they won't even need their most powerful ships. Culluh eventually comes on board with this plan and they set out for Voyager's position, only a couple light-years away.

On the bridge, Harry has figured out the basic tactical controls but is still pretty shaky. Janeway comes to him to express her confidence in his abilities, but it's pretty clear that she's hoping there won't be another Kazon attack for awhile. She pulls Chakotay to one side and asks, "Any word from Kes?" She's on her way to Tuvok's quarters now.

We see Tuvok in his quarters, wrapped in a torn robe, unshaven, bleeding from several places. He's frantically writing on pieces of paper, writing Suder's name, his own name, the thoughts of the crew he's still hearing and can't process. It's obvious that his condition has worsened. He is crawling all over the floor, cutting his hands on glass as he moves. His meditation lamp is in the corner, unlit, and he crawls to it, picks it up, then drops it because of the pain in his hands. The door beeps. At first it startles Tuvok, and then he goes to stand in front of it, suddenly giggling. "Enter."

Kes walks slowly in, looks around, offers a bit of cleaning advice. She says that she is here to help him, to take some readings for the Doctor. Tuvok is angry, saying "The Doctor can't help me. I'm broken. No one can help me." He asks her if she is afraid, and she says she's seen what is in him, what's boiling at the surface right now, and says it's the same thing that boils just under the surface of everyone who is forced to feel emotions: the violence, the sadness, and the good things too. She says it's hard for him to feel that just now because of what is happening to him. He screams at her that he doesn't want to feel any of it. That it's beneath him. She calmly tells him that it's not, that feeling it will make him stronger. Sardonically he asks her, "Are you going to be like Janeway now and say you believe in me?" She says that she does, that the whole crew does. He tells her she knows that's not true. "If someone doesn't believe that you can make it through this, that only means they don't know you, Tuvok." He covers his ears and lets out a little scream - he can hear them, all of them on the ship, thinking and talking and moving and even dreaming, he can hear them. She says she knows, and she's here to help make it stop. He yells, she can't. He's broken. It's hopeless. She gets in his face. "Nothing's hopeless, Tuvok, unless you make it that way." He screams and lunges for her, reaching for her neck, but suddenly she is gone. We see her in a transporter room, her eyes closed, reaching out to Tuvok's mind. She nods to B'Elanna, who beams her into Tuvok's quarters. He is standing there, confused, when suddenly he turns and is contronted by a Kes who is not just in his mind. She grabs him and mind melds with him before he can even blink.

ACT V

The Kazon ships are entering sensor range, and Seska is enthusiastic about their chances of defeating Janeway once and for all. Culluh is less so, until she relates to him the story of Harry Kim accidentally arming a photon torpedo. Culluh smiles.

Kim shouts to the Captain, we've got four Kazon ships closing fast. Janeway says, "Oh, well, of course today. Why not today?" She declares Red Alert and asks Harry how that tactical interface is coming. He says he's mostly got it, but then the phasers accidentally fire. MOSTLY got it, he says. Janeway tries not to look afraid, but she and Chakotay exchange glances. "I hope Kes is making some progress."

Kes and Tuvok are locked in a mind-meld, speaking to one another telepathically. "You see, Tuvok? I can hear them too, you taught me to open my mind to it. I know what you hear." He says he never should have taught her to do that. "Listen to them. They're scared to death because you're not there for them right now. They're afraid that you've given up and they're all going to die because of it." We see another montage and hear the crew's thoughts as they ready themselves for battle, all about how they're screwed without Tuvok to help them, and finally, very briefly, of Jonas thinking how it's about time. This seems to pass them by. "We need you, Tuvok." He says, "What if I can't control it, the violence, the voices? What if I can't block them out?" "Then learn to use it." We pull back and see that they are locked in a mind meld, both floating several feet off the floor. The voices grow louder and louder, and then suddenly begin to fade, and the two of them drop to the floor. They look at one another and take off running to the Bridge.

Harry is fighting off the Kazon as best he can, and he actually manages to disable one of the ships, but the other three converge and Voyager takes heavy fire. The sheilds don't have much left in them, and the photon torpedo firing mechanisms are down.

Culluh coordinates the attack on Voyager with his other ships, and it seems that they are waging a fierce battle. Seska tries to step in and bark some orders, but Culluh tells her that it is his battle, his sect. She reminds him that if not for her contact on Voyager, this attack never would have happened. They face off for a second until their ship is rocked by a powerful blast.

Tuvok stands at tactical, Kim to one side, Kes behind him. His hands are still cut and bloody, and he's bleeding all over the console. He looks at it for a second and asks, "Harry, what the hell did you do to my interface?" Harry is speechless, and Kes smiles. The rest of the crew stand, agape, watching Tuvok, who orders Paris to use the thrusters to turn the ship around as fast as possible. He opens the torpedo launch doors and uses the ship's centrifugal force to shake three torpedoes loose. As the torpedoes rush away from Voyager, he uses the phasers to detonate them, crippling the three Kazon ships long enough for Voyager to get away. "Got 'em," he says, smiling, then collapses backwards into Kes' arms.

Tuvok awakens in Sickbay, a smiling Janeway standing beside his bed. She says see? She was right, he can do it. He smiles weakly, and apologizes for all the things he said to her in "Meld." She knows that he was confused, he didn't mean it. He asks the Doctor if he's going to be okay. The Doctor says that while he may not regain emotional control anytime soon, Kes' mind meld helped restore some of his telepathic control. He sees Kes laying on a bio-bed and is terrified for a moment that he hurt her, but the Doctor assures him that she is simply resting after a tiring ordeal. He says they will both be fit to return to duty whenever they wish, which is a great relief to Janeway, and, she says, to Harry.

Tuvok pulls Janeway aside and says, he felt it, all the sadness on this ship, everyone is still mourning the loss of their families back home. He says, she has to get them home, because the despair on this ship is too much for one crew to hold up. She says she knows, he says she doesn't. Not really. She says, "I'm going to need your help, old friend. I can't get them home without you." The last shot is of his face, scared and yet smiling weakly, trying to believe in himself and in her.