Future's End

Infobox Star Trek episode
name = Future's End


Paris and Rain
series = Voyager
ep_num = 50 & 51
prod_num = 150 & 151
date = November 6, 1996
November 13, 1996
writer = Brannon Braga
Joe Menosky
director = David Livingston (part I)
Cliff Bole (part II)
guest = Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson
Allan Royal as Braxton
Ed Begley, Jr. as Henry Starling
Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson
Brent Hinkley as Butch
Clayton Murray as Porter
stardate = 50312.5
year = 2373
prev = Sacred Ground
next = Warlord

"Future's End" is a two-part episode from the third season of "".

Plot

Captain Braxton from the twenty-ninth century appears before "Voyager" and says he must destroy them to prevent a cataclysm that will wipe out most of the Earth's solar system. "Voyager" fights back, resulting in a time rip that sends the future captain to the year 1967, while "Voyager" and her crew are sent to the year 1996, where the starship is mistaken for a UFO and videotaped as a UFO, which placed the US military on alert. This is the second time this happened. The first time this happened was when the "USS Enterprise" time traveled to 1969. That ship was also mistaken as a UFO by the US military, especially by the USAF.

A young hiker, Henry Starling, finds the timeship in 1967, and steals its technology to found his own company, Chronowerx, which leads to the computer revolution of the nineties. Starling, now a rich man, manages to hack into the computer on "Voyager" and steal many of their files, including the Doctor. Meanwhile a young astronomer named Rain Robinson has discovered "Voyager" in high orbit, and assumes it to be extraterrestrial life. She successfully attempts to contact "Voyager", which forces the crew to do some damage control. Captain Janeway, Commander Chakotay, Tuvok, and Tom Paris, all go to Earth's surface. Tuvok and Paris go to find Rain, while Janeway and Chakotay investigate the ex-hippie, Henry Starling.

When attempting to access Henry Starling's computer files, Captain Janeway equates using a keyboard and primitive computer with using "stone knives and bearskins", which alludes to a line Spock uses in "The City on the Edge of Forever", an episode of the original "" series.

Ultimately the crew figures out that Starling's attempt to travel to the future in Braxton's timeship is what caused the explosion in the future. After a failed attempt to convince him to stop before it's too late Janeway destroys the timeship by manually firing a photon torpedo into it destroying it just as it enters a temporal rift saving the future. An alternate Captain Braxton arrives having detected their presence in the past and he returns them to their own time at the place they left it but unfortunately is unable to bring them to Earth in the future as that would violate the Temporal Prime Directive.

Aftermath

The main consequence of the episode was that the Doctor gained his 29th century technology mobile emitter from Starling and thus becomes able to leave "Voyager’s" sickbay with its stationary holo-emitters to go wherever he likes, whether inside or outside of the ship. Because Voyager destroyed Starling's ship, the causality paradox is prevented and all returns to normal for Voyager and its crew. Star Trek Beta's entry indicates that Gary Seven had mitigated this incident as a UFO incident by stating that the USAF had flown a experimental plane over a populated area and were disciplined for it.

External links

*memoryalpha article|Future's End|"Future's End"
*"Future's End" article at Memory Beta, a Star Trek wiki
* [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/68934.html Episode synopsis at Startrek.com - Part I]
* [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/68936.html Episode synopsis at Startrek.com - Part II]