My favorite episode of Star Trek: Voyager is Voyager Conspiracy. It is the best portrayal of paranoia I know of. After watching it over Thanksgiving weekend with family members, however, it became clear that the episode is really only fully appreciated by the initiated.
A few explanations of the premises are necessary here. The Voyager, under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway, is a Star Fleet vessel pursuing a ship from an unauthorized resistance movement. Both ships are drawn into a far distant part of the galaxy by the Caretaker, an immensely powerful alien running an immensely powerful space station run by tetrion emissions (don’t ask). The Caretaker is using his station to protect the helpless and peaceful Ocampa from the evil Kazons. Now he is dying and begs Janeway to destroy the station to keep it from falling into the hands of the Kazon, who will use it to destroy the Ocampa. Janeway agrees, even though the station has the power to send them home. The rest of the series is about their long journey home, how the Star Fleet officers and illegal resistance learn to get along, the adventures they have alone in a strange and hostile region, and the moral compromises they are forced to make along the way.
Conspiracy centers around Seven of Nine (don’t ask) a Borg. Borg is short for cyborg and refers to creatures who are a combination of machine and organic life form. Most relevant to our story here, Borg have computer parts implanted into their cerebral cortex, and instead of sleeping, they plug into a regeneration pod. Seven decides while she regenerates to plug her cortical implants into the ship’s computer and upload data which she can process much more efficiently than the whole crew combined. At first it works. Assembling seemingly random and unrelated bits of data, she figures out that censor malfunctions are cause by an infestation of “photovoltaic fleas” (don’t ask) that arrived with a food shipment. When a strange being has developed a slingshot device that will allow space ships to travel at accelerated speeds but says it is too dangerous for them to see, Seven combines assorted date to recognize it as tetrion powered.
But then her deductive leaps start getting out of hand. Replaying the destruction of the Caretaker’s station, she recognizes that the explosion was so powerful as to tear a whole in subspace (don’t ask) that the tetrion emitter disappeared into. She suspects a cloaked ship with a tractor beam pushed it in. From there she suspects a series of ships transported it here. She then begins weaving increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, all based on real events from previous episodes. One theory, which she relays to Captain Janeway, is an elaborate resistance plot. Another, which she relays to the resistance first officer, is a Star Fleet plot to invade and colonize the sector. She has compelling evidence for all her conspiracies, constructed out of genuinely odd loose ends from previous episodes and some of the disturbing moral compromises they have made along the way. Soon Star Fleet and resistance are sneaking around, armed and distrustful, suspecting the worst in each other and a general wave a paranoia sweeps over Voyager. Eventually they recognize what is happening and realize that Seven has been downloading more data into her circuits than she can process and that her growing paranoia is a desperate attempt to make sense of it all.
I liked this episode on several levels. One came from a psychiatrist in one of our cases who explained that anyone bombarded with data he or she cannot process starts becoming suspicious and distrustful. At the most mundane level, it includes people with hearing loss (seeing people talking and laughing, wondering if they are talking and laughing about him), people hearing others speak a foreign language (same concerns), to say nothing of observing others whisper. Paranoia, he said, is just an inability to process data normally that lead to suspicion. If this is so, then the episode is essentially accurate in showing what paranoia is and how it works.
Another beauty of the episode is how well it debunks conspiracy theories – all conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are not true, clinical paranoia, of course, but the same phenomenon is at work. Confronted by a complex and confusing world with indigestible quantities of data, some people seek to make sense of it all by organizing it into a recognizable conspiracy. Given the quantity of data out there, they will almost always find evidence to support the theory. An obvious example are 9-11 conspiracy theorists. Reading through the voluminous compilation of eye witness accounts and initial, often confused, journalistic reports, they invariably find a few that will support their theories, especially when taken out of context. Indeed, one anti-9-11 conspiracy website showed how easy it is to comb through the mounds of data and find evidence to support any conspiracy theory. (They chose one blaming the Irish). Anyone who actually bothered to read through all the interviews and news reports (to say nothing of all the other evidence) would recognize how unrepresentative these sample are, how minor they are in the total scheme of things, and how they have been taken out of context. But very, very few people have either the time or the inclination to read through all that and are therefore unable to respond.
That is the beauty of Voyager Conspiracy, but also the reason it is only for the initiated. The vast, indigestible mound of data in this case is the Voyager series, all six seasons up to this point. True fans of the series are familiar with all the evidence and are therefore well equipped to see through the conspiracy theory. They recognize how Seven has taken a few unconnected incidents unrepresentative of the whole and pasted them together. They recognize the true context of these (sometimes troubling) incidents and how they have been distorted. They even recognize that there may be a few loose ends here and there that are never accounted for and mean nothing. And they know the characters and how out of character her accusations are. People who are not fans of the series may hear here evidence and think it is compelling without recognizing the larger context and the distortions.
Finally, the episode accurately shows another trait about paranoia (in the popular, not the clinical, sense). It is highly contagious. Seven nearly has the crew at each other's throats with her unfounded suspicions. Parallels from real life (I have experienced them myself) are all too common.
A few explanations of the premises are necessary here. The Voyager, under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway, is a Star Fleet vessel pursuing a ship from an unauthorized resistance movement. Both ships are drawn into a far distant part of the galaxy by the Caretaker, an immensely powerful alien running an immensely powerful space station run by tetrion emissions (don’t ask). The Caretaker is using his station to protect the helpless and peaceful Ocampa from the evil Kazons. Now he is dying and begs Janeway to destroy the station to keep it from falling into the hands of the Kazon, who will use it to destroy the Ocampa. Janeway agrees, even though the station has the power to send them home. The rest of the series is about their long journey home, how the Star Fleet officers and illegal resistance learn to get along, the adventures they have alone in a strange and hostile region, and the moral compromises they are forced to make along the way.
Conspiracy centers around Seven of Nine (don’t ask) a Borg. Borg is short for cyborg and refers to creatures who are a combination of machine and organic life form. Most relevant to our story here, Borg have computer parts implanted into their cerebral cortex, and instead of sleeping, they plug into a regeneration pod. Seven decides while she regenerates to plug her cortical implants into the ship’s computer and upload data which she can process much more efficiently than the whole crew combined. At first it works. Assembling seemingly random and unrelated bits of data, she figures out that censor malfunctions are cause by an infestation of “photovoltaic fleas” (don’t ask) that arrived with a food shipment. When a strange being has developed a slingshot device that will allow space ships to travel at accelerated speeds but says it is too dangerous for them to see, Seven combines assorted date to recognize it as tetrion powered.
But then her deductive leaps start getting out of hand. Replaying the destruction of the Caretaker’s station, she recognizes that the explosion was so powerful as to tear a whole in subspace (don’t ask) that the tetrion emitter disappeared into. She suspects a cloaked ship with a tractor beam pushed it in. From there she suspects a series of ships transported it here. She then begins weaving increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, all based on real events from previous episodes. One theory, which she relays to Captain Janeway, is an elaborate resistance plot. Another, which she relays to the resistance first officer, is a Star Fleet plot to invade and colonize the sector. She has compelling evidence for all her conspiracies, constructed out of genuinely odd loose ends from previous episodes and some of the disturbing moral compromises they have made along the way. Soon Star Fleet and resistance are sneaking around, armed and distrustful, suspecting the worst in each other and a general wave a paranoia sweeps over Voyager. Eventually they recognize what is happening and realize that Seven has been downloading more data into her circuits than she can process and that her growing paranoia is a desperate attempt to make sense of it all.
I liked this episode on several levels. One came from a psychiatrist in one of our cases who explained that anyone bombarded with data he or she cannot process starts becoming suspicious and distrustful. At the most mundane level, it includes people with hearing loss (seeing people talking and laughing, wondering if they are talking and laughing about him), people hearing others speak a foreign language (same concerns), to say nothing of observing others whisper. Paranoia, he said, is just an inability to process data normally that lead to suspicion. If this is so, then the episode is essentially accurate in showing what paranoia is and how it works.
Another beauty of the episode is how well it debunks conspiracy theories – all conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are not true, clinical paranoia, of course, but the same phenomenon is at work. Confronted by a complex and confusing world with indigestible quantities of data, some people seek to make sense of it all by organizing it into a recognizable conspiracy. Given the quantity of data out there, they will almost always find evidence to support the theory. An obvious example are 9-11 conspiracy theorists. Reading through the voluminous compilation of eye witness accounts and initial, often confused, journalistic reports, they invariably find a few that will support their theories, especially when taken out of context. Indeed, one anti-9-11 conspiracy website showed how easy it is to comb through the mounds of data and find evidence to support any conspiracy theory. (They chose one blaming the Irish). Anyone who actually bothered to read through all the interviews and news reports (to say nothing of all the other evidence) would recognize how unrepresentative these sample are, how minor they are in the total scheme of things, and how they have been taken out of context. But very, very few people have either the time or the inclination to read through all that and are therefore unable to respond.
That is the beauty of Voyager Conspiracy, but also the reason it is only for the initiated. The vast, indigestible mound of data in this case is the Voyager series, all six seasons up to this point. True fans of the series are familiar with all the evidence and are therefore well equipped to see through the conspiracy theory. They recognize how Seven has taken a few unconnected incidents unrepresentative of the whole and pasted them together. They recognize the true context of these (sometimes troubling) incidents and how they have been distorted. They even recognize that there may be a few loose ends here and there that are never accounted for and mean nothing. And they know the characters and how out of character her accusations are. People who are not fans of the series may hear here evidence and think it is compelling without recognizing the larger context and the distortions.
Finally, the episode accurately shows another trait about paranoia (in the popular, not the clinical, sense). It is highly contagious. Seven nearly has the crew at each other's throats with her unfounded suspicions. Parallels from real life (I have experienced them myself) are all too common.
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