Fathom?

[hux]

I gets to glimpsing an episode called Nemesis and fathom it be giving me the trembles. I was new to its clash and didn't glimpse the fullness of it. In the soon after, I did fathom the beast and I did crave to nullify it.

I wrestled the trembles to rages. To the gloried way after. But by my bright coverings I was not a glorified defender. I was not brightly greeted. I fathom I needs be more sturdy and with my glimpses see that two men enter, only one man leaves.

I came many plantings ago. For the soon after, I couldn't fathom the lack of fathom, nor glimpse its meaning.

I see the Kradin beast for what it is. Fathom?

 

[Melakon]

This ain't one body's story. It's the story of us all. We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and 'member. 'Cause what you hears today you got to tell the birthed tomorrow. I'm looking behind us now... across the count of time... down the long haul, into history back. I sees the end what were the start.

It's Poxy-Clips, full of pain! And out of it were birthed crackling dust and fearsome time... It were full-on winter and Mr. Dead chasing them all. But one he couldn't catch. That were Captain Walker. He gathers up a gang, takes to the air and flies to the sky! So they left their homes, said bidey-bye to the high-scrapers... and what were left of the knowing, they left behind.

Some say the wind just stoppered. Others reckon it were a gang called Turbulence. And after the wreck... some had been jumped by Mr. Dead... but some had got the luck, and it leads them here. One look and they's got the hots for it. They word it "Planet Earth." And they says, "We don't need the knowing. We can live here."

Time counts and keeps counting. They gets missing what they had. They get so lonely for the high-scrapers and the video. And they does the pictures so they'd 'member all the knowing that they lost. Then Captain Walker picked them of an age and good for a long haul. They counted twenty, and that were them. The great leaving. "Rescue party departed at first light... led by Flight Captain G.L. Walker. May God have mercy on our souls."

They said bidey-bye to them what they'd birthed. And from the nothing they looked back... and Captain Walker hollered, "Wait, one of us will come."

And somebody did come.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Fathom!

srsly, I thought this was one of VOY's best episodes. The story seems so obvious at first, and then BANG! A little mindfuck at the end. You don't know what's real and what isn't. Definitely the best one that featured Chakotay, I fathom that much!

And I thought the alienspeak was very interesting. At least they tried to do something different - shows the UT isn't exactly infallible. And the language is not that hard to follow, really.

 

[Gepard]

And I thought the alienspeak was very interesting. At least they tried to do something different - shows the UT isn't exactly infallible. And the language is not that hard to follow, really.

The language isn't in there just to be different, it serves an important narrative function – it's a barometer for the audience of just how brainwashed Chakotay is. Notice he begins to adopt their speech patterns once he's deep into the simulation, and we the viewers know he's gone completely over once he adopts their grammar 100%.

Anyway, yes, very good episode. Though I would say the best Chakotay episode is "Timeless," but this one is next in line.

 

[stardream]

And I thought the alienspeak was very interesting. At least they tried to do something different - shows the UT isn't exactly infallible. And the language is not that hard to follow, really.

The language isn't in there just to be different, it serves an important narrative function – it's a barometer for the audience of just how brainwashed Chakotay is. Notice he begins to adopt their speech patterns once he's deep into the simulation, and we the viewers know he's gone completely over once he adopts their grammar 100%.

Anyway, yes, very good episode. Though I would say the best Chakotay episode is "Timeless," but this one is next in line.

Yes. This. Their method of speech doesn't matter. They could have been doing anything...maybe slaughtering a pig and at first Chakotay might have been revolted but then the deeper he gets into their story he would have been right along with them enjoying the Barbecue. The important thing is that he be shown to 'go Native'. Hehe...see what I did there?

I liked the episode but it feels out of place to me. Was it supposed to be shown before Day of Honor?

 

[SPCTRE]

In a lot of ways, it felt like video game quality writing.

 

[Drone]

I rather liked it. Sort of like having Chakotay as the Manchurian Candidate. Its interesting in that puts in opposition a number of aspects of his character. His spiritual beliefs, trying to hew to Starfleet principles, and revealing the urge for vengeance as a committed member of the Maquis before Voyager came along.

I also appreciate that the gravity of the experience didn't vanish as soon as he returned to Voyager. His palpable disdain for the Kradin in the finale certainly was a more vital coda than hearing Chakotay mouth a sanguine, grounded understanding and acceptance of what was done to him, but that had no resonating consequences or reason to even contemplate about going forward.

The ambiguity of the realities of conflict are also played with. We're left with the apparent turnaround that the ugly, beastly looking aliens are in fact the virtuous party, by their assistance in recovering Chakotay if nothing else. The Vori would appear, in the end, to be the savage, unscrupulous, and villainous side. But I think I always retained some doubt that the Kradin were really any better, perhaps inflicting unsavory depredations of their own in a war in which brutality was SOP. I find it possible to accept that the Kradin might have been helpful only to remove Voyager as a potential ally to their enemy.

All in all, a well thought out and executed episode.

 

[hux]

The language isn't in there just to be different, it serves an important narrative function – it's a barometer for the audience of just how brainwashed Chakotay is. Notice he begins to adopt their speech patterns once he's deep into the simulation, and we the viewers know he's gone completely over once he adopts their grammar 100%.

But why would Chakotay's UT not change the language is the point. "Did you glimpse him?" should be changed to "did you see him?" And "Fathom?" should be translated to "do you understand?" UT just conveniently loses the ability to clean the language up (despite presumably cleaning it up enough to make it comprehensible to Chakotay).

But I think I always retained some doubt that the Kradin were really any better, perhaps inflicting unsavory depredations of their own in a war in which brutality was SOP. I find it possible to accept that the Kradin might have been helpful only to remove Voyager as a potential ally to their enemy.

So you could say that the episode successfully brainwashed you too. There is nothing to suggest that the Kradin are anything but civilised people dealing with a ruthless enemy.

And yet the way they look and the experiences Chakotay has endured appear to have combined to make you dislike them.

I think that's the best compliment the episode could get.

 

[Lynx]

This episode is great!

"Nemesis" is actually one of the few season 4-7 episodes I really like and which I can rate as high as many of my season 1-3 favorite episodes (the other one I really like is "Blink Of An Eye").

As I see it, this should have been the scenario for "Tattoo". Chakotay stranded on an alien planet, caught between two groups of people at war with each other. They could have thrown in some memories from Chakotay's chldhood to get his background story and kept the subplot with The Doctor's simulated flu and it would have been a perfect episode.

Anyway, "Nemesis" is great as it is. I really like the twist in the tale where the Vori are revealed to be not as good as we may have thought and the Kradin not so bad as we may have thought.

And I like theVori language thing. Not exactly necessary and not of so much importance to the story itself but sort of icing on the cake.

I'll give this episode 4 points out of 5

 

[stardream]

I don't do this often but sometimes I wonder how an episode might have been different if another actor had played the lead. What if this had been Kim? Or Paris? Or Tuvok? How would they have played it differently? Or Torres or Janeway for that matter. Would they have been so quick to have been brainwashed?

It was hinted that Paris was originally supposed to have gone with him. What if there had been two of them...would one have succumbed earlier than the other?

 

[Catarina]

I like the episode now.

 

[Drone]

But I think I always retained some doubt that the Kradin were really any better, perhaps inflicting unsavory depredations of their own in a war in which brutality was SOP. I find it possible to accept that the Kradin might have been helpful only to remove Voyager as a potential ally to their enemy.

So you could say that the episode successfully brainwashed you too. There is nothing to suggest that the Kradin are anything but civilised people dealing with a ruthless enemy.

And yet the way they look and the experiences Chakotay has endured appear to have combined to make you dislike them.

I think that's the best compliment the episode could get.

Perhaps. You are correct in saying that there is nothing shown that hasn't been filtered by the Vori that would actually suggest that the Kradin are the malign party of the two. However, I do think that the nature of the conflict seems to be one of a rather brutal guerilla nature in which it is not unknown that both aggressors are pretty likely to step out of more "civilized" modes of combat, including vicious reprisals and indiscriminate "collateral damage", regardless of who was responsible for the confrontation to begin with.

Supposition maybe, but forgive the vernacular, it's the kind of vibe that I've sensed however many times I've seen the episode.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And yet the way they look and the experiences Chakotay has endured appear to have combined to make you dislike them.

If you're suggesting that the ghastly appearance of the Kradin is part of the brainwashing program? I used to think that, except we see the Kradin ambassador in sickbay at the end when the program has dissipated. So unless Chakotay is having some kind of flashback, that really is what the Kradin look like.

Not so for the Vori - they all look human because that's part of the program, to help Chakotay identify with them. If it had been Tuvok, for example, the Vori would have all looked like Vulcans.

 

[hux]

No, I'm suggesting that their appearance was deliberately ugly to manipulate the audience into coming to the same negative conclusions as Chakotay (i.e. they're bad).

 

[Lynx]

No, I'm suggesting that their appearance was deliberately ugly to manipulate the audience into coming to the same negative conclusions as Chakotay (i.e. they're bad).

That's my opinion too.

 

[tomalak301]

I thought Nemesis was one of the best Chakotay episodes of the series (But then I also liked The Fight). I loved the language used in this episode, and how it helped show the brainwashing that Chakotay was dealing with.

 

[Lynx]

I thought Nemesis was one of the best Chakotay episodes of the series (But then I also liked The Fight). I loved the language used in this episode, and how it helped show the brainwashing that Chakotay was dealing with.

I didn't care about "The Fight" but I find "Nemesis" excellent.

 

[Drone]

And yet the way they look and the experiences Chakotay has endured appear to have combined to make you dislike them.

While I didn't say so in my initial response to this comment, I don't feel that my original post in the thread really contained even the germ of a personal opinion about the Kradin's actual role in the conflict due to their appearance. My point, was that the writers might have been trying to include in the story a more nuanced message about the messiness and ambiguity inherent in this kind of conflict, rather than just the straightforward narrative of what Chakotay experienced when submitted to the level of control that the Vori exercised over him.

From my perspective, this subtext added a lot more interest in the episode than just the semi-facile, though well executed, nature of the main emphasis of the plot. The Kradin's physical makeup is a matter of indifference to me, other than the knowledge that it is appropriately rendered in the context of the story and perhaps some satisfaction that the Vori's adversary was more distinct from them by virtue of not being just another humanoid species with some spikes on their forehead or an unorthodox hairstyle.

 

[hux]

I don't feel that my original post in the thread really contained even the germ of a personal opinion about the Kradin's actual role in the conflict due to their appearance.

Then why bring up that they are ugly, beastly looking aliens, at all?

the ugly, beastly looking aliens are in fact the virtuous party

The implication being that what they look like matters in relation to what kind of species they might be. That was clearly part of the writers intentions as far as influencing the audience is concerned. Seems to me, they succeeded on that score. I also don't think it's an accident that they resemble the predator alien ("you're one ugly motherfucker!")

 

[Lynx]

I've actually started thinking about a future project.

If or when I become a rich man, I will buy some land in some rather remote place in Canada or the US where I will start a community where the Vori language will be spoken, read, learned, developed and cultivated.