Emanations

Episode Synopsis

I don’t have a huge amount of energy today, as you will know if you follow me on Riaan’s Pre-Warp Apothecary or Star Trek Therapy, so in lieu of writing a big long explanation of what happens in the episode, I’ll give you a TLDR synopsis, and you can check out Memory Alpha for more info if you’re not familiar with the story.

In short, Voyager discover what they think is a new element in a ring system, but it turns out to be a product of decomposing bodies, which have been deposited on asteroids via a subspace vacuole which is a natural teleportation wormhole, which Harry Kim gets sucked into and visits the homeworld of these people, the Vhnori. Meanwhile they revive one of the just-dead bodies, Ptera, and she is devastated to discover herself on an alien starship instead of in the next ’emanation’.

The culture of the Vhnori is for weak, sick, disabled people to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their family, so they’re not a burden on them, by volunteering to go through the wormhole Cenotaph pod in the belief that they will be transported to the next ’emanation’ (their afterlife).

It all works out and Harry gets back home.

On the Chakotay Homestead

This episode feels particularly relevant for me on two scores – firstly, I am one of the long-term weak, sick, disabled people who is not able to work and the feeling that I am a ‘burden’ is a recurring one, and right now it is emphasised daily by the current culture of government who make it almost impossible to access support whilst encouraging people to name, shame and blame sufferers by suggesting we’re all trying to fiddle benefits, while the real scoundrels have taxes cut and grants and programmes multiplied at the expense of the people who really need it.

“It’s not my place to judge your culture, but from my perspective, it’s a little chilling” – Harry Kim.

Secondly, like Ptera, I spent the first 4 decades of my life believing in an afterlife, in which I could look forward to seeing all the people I had lost, as well as a future Judgement where all the wrongs would be righted, all the tears wiped away, all the injustices corrected.

But “none of that is true, is it?” None of the people I love are here. I’m alone. I don’t belong here. I can’t live like this. Can’t you send me home?” – Ptera

I can’t pinpoint the date when I began to lose my faith. It was a long, gradual process. I know that many, if not most people who leave religion experience it as liberating and joyful but, as I have said many times here and elsewhere, for me it has been a process of loss and grieving that I haven’t been able to find closure for. The idea that this life is all we get, that there is no hope of better things to come, that the only peace or comfort or justice we will ever get has to happen now or it just doesn’t happen – that’s just too hearbreaking to bear.

In the episode, we are given a tantalising idea that when the Vhnori die, a kind of energy is released into the ring system, which Captain Janeway suggests to be some kind of mysterious release of spiritual energy, but it’s really just a token that’s ultimately unsatisfying and unconvincing.

LLAP