Deadlock

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This ensemble episode explorse one of the coolest final implications in the series.

As Voyager enters some turbulent space, they fire proton bursts to compensate. Meanwhile, they enter a plasma surge to avoid a Viidian ship. They start receiving proton bursts from an unknown source, damaging the ship heavily and killing Kim and Ensign Wildman’s newborn baby. The crew shelter themselves in engineering but loses Kes. Finally, an alternate Janeway witnesses her ghost-like image flee the bridge. Turns out the proton bursts were coming from a duplicated, out-of-phase Voyager, and the two can’t exist simultaneously. The two Janeways establish contact, and the damaged Voyager will self-destruct. Suddenly, the in-tact Voyager gets overrun with Viidians. The Kim and Wildman’s baby who survived flee to the damaged ship, while the other self-destructs and stops the Viidians.

The episode ends with Kim waxing philosophy with Janeway as the ship is repaired. That’s exactly how I’m left thinking, too. It brings to mind that quantum idea that all possibilities which happen, do happen, and what that might mean for those I’ve lost in my life; or even what that means for my close-call situations. Perhaps, on the advice of Janeway, I can ignore those thoughts.

This was originally posted on Dec 1, 2020. Transported to neocities on Mar 25, 2026.