Please critique my Star Trek story ideas :D - (not a long read)

[You_Will_Fail]

Below are some of my ideas for Star Trek episodes. To make them a bit more specific, I have fitted some of the more general ones to Star Trek: Voyager as its probably the most flexible series of them all when it comes to stories but many of the below stories could be applied to any trek.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts on my ideas and if you have any questions about how the episodes might unfold, feel free to ask. Here are 6/20 I have written so far and the oens I feel are strongest:


Shift
B’Ellana begins to suspect that she is in an alternate universe where events have unfolded slightly differently.
A group of crewmen aboard Voyager put on a play about various events that have taken place over the last 6 years. After the play B’Ellana remarks that the writers took a bit too much artistic licence in changing what actually happened, however no one else agrees and on looking through the ship’s computer, B’Ellana notices several discrepancies between her memory and the logs and memories of others. The Doctor confirms her suspicions and in meditative sessions with Tuvok, B’Ellana begins seeing visions of the destruction of Voyager and eventually discovers that in her death aboard the other Voyager, her consciousness was transferred to the B’Ellana of a parallel Voyager. B’Ellana returns to the other Voyager via the quantum strand that destroyed her Voyager to prevent the disaster, now with the knowledge of how the other Voyager avoided it.

Recollections
B’Ellana is awoken 400 years in the future from stasis by a group of Federation scientists who have only just discovered a cure for a degenerative disease she contracted in the Delta Quadrant.
B’Ellana is awoken from stasis by Federation scientists on a drastically different earth and is told that she was discovered aboard an adrift and deserted Voyager on the edge of the Beta Quadrant by a long range exploration federation starship 30 years after Voyager was “lost”.
Soon, there is great interest in B’Ellana and Voyager’s journey and people want to know everything there is to know about Voyager and her experiences. B’Ellana becomes increasingly irritated and suspicious however and it soon emerges she is being mentally invaded by an alien species who have kidnapped B’Ellana in order to find out more about Voyager and how they can capture it.

Rebirth
Two officers on board Voyager intend to resign and live aboard Voyager as civilians.
After a low ranking science officer is killed on an away mission at the hands of the Vidiians, two of his friends hand their resignations in to Janeway and announce their decision to live aboard Voyager as civilians in order to avoid the danger of a mission they never signed up for. Janeway must grapple with the potential affects of their resignation while also considering the principles of Federation freedom in their unique circumstances.
Meanwhile the Doctor makes a breakthrough in finding a cure for the Vidiian phage and Janeway makes a detour to an unarmed Vidiian colony to test the new cure.

Untitled Retrospective Episode
An alien species insists on inspecting Voyager’s logs and questioning the decisions of Janeway and her crew have made in their journey through the Delta Quadrant before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by the Daluran Republic who, before allowing Voyager to pass through their space, inspect their logs to determine whether they are a threat. Janeway and her crew are interrogated and are asked to explain their decisions (with the aid of holodeck recreations) and must defend several of the decisions they have made in their years in the Delta Quadrant. While the interrogations go on, crew members think over their time spent in the Delta quadrant so far and what they would have done differently if they could do it again.

Reformation
An alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology requires that the Voyager crew spend a month living without technology on a Ferghanian farm before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by an alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology and have planted devices that inhibit warp drive throughout their space. When an ambassador boards Voyager, Janeway and them become embroiled in an ideological argument involving the merits of technology. Before the Fergahni allow Voyager to pass through their space, they require the crews to work on a Ferganian farm in the hope they may be swayed by a slower pace of life without technology.
Many of the crew become accustomed to a rural life away from the technology and the danger of Voyager and choose to stay on the Ferghani homeworld while some of the Ferghahni delegation sent to Voyager elect to join them on their journey to Earth.


Dreams
The Voyager crew must decide whether they want to leave Voyager and travel to the Alpha Quadrant in stasis aboard a larger and more advanced alien vessel.
Voyager encounters an aliens species called the Kowlari aboard the Sulaka, an advanced starship that is on course to the Alpha Quadrant on a long term exploratory expedition. The crew of the Sulaka offer to put the crew of Voyager into an advanced stasis until it reaches the Federation where they will be woken. While the crew debates the merits of leaving Voyager for the Sulaka, Seven begins investigating only to find that the Kowlari are not all that they seem and that while under stasis, the Voyager crew will actually be used to power the Sulaka’s unique computer core along with hundreds of other aliens the Sulaka have collected.
Alternatively: The Kowlari will replace the crew’s memories with that of dead crewmembers currently stored in some technobabble bullshit matrix.

 

[KobayashiMaru13]

I liked them. I never really watched Voyager, but your ideas and themes are very interesting, and I'd definetely read them.

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

Some really good ideas here - you should flesh them out, they would make very good stories!

One quibble - in Reformation, how does a culture that rejects technology employ advanced technology to inhibit warp fields? That seems contradictory.

Besides that, I really like your ideas.

 

[Admiral2]

Below are some of my ideas for Star Trek episodes. To make them a bit more specific, I have fitted some of the more general ones to Star Trek: Voyager as its probably the most flexible series of them all when it comes to stories but many of the below stories could be applied to any trek.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts on my ideas and if you have any questions about how the episodes might unfold, feel free to ask. Here are 6/20 I have written so far and the oens I feel are strongest:

And I offer my gut reactions to them.

Shift

B’Ellana begins to suspect that she is in an alternate universe where events have unfolded slightly differently.
A group of crewmen aboard Voyager put on a play about various events that have taken place over the last 6 years. After the play B’Ellana remarks that the writers took a bit too much artistic licence in changing what actually happened, however no one else agrees and on looking through the ship’s computer, B’Ellana notices several discrepancies between her memory and the logs and memories of others. The Doctor confirms her suspicions and in meditative sessions with Tuvok, B’Ellana begins seeing visions of the destruction of Voyager and eventually discovers that in her death aboard the other Voyager, her consciousness was transferred to the B’Ellana of a parallel Voyager. B’Ellana returns to the other Voyager via the quantum strand that destroyed her Voyager to prevent the disaster, now with the knowledge of how the other Voyager avoided it.

Unoriginal. The person-out-of-place-in-another-reality has been done numerous times in numerous ways. You might make it interesting but not interesting enough to lose the been-there-done-that feel.

Recollections

B’Ellana is awoken 400 years in the future from stasis by a group of Federation scientists who have only just discovered a cure for a degenerative disease she contracted in the Delta Quadrant.
B’Ellana is awoken from stasis by Federation scientists on a drastically different earth and is told that she was discovered aboard an adrift and deserted Voyager on the edge of the Beta Quadrant by a long range exploration federation starship 30 years after Voyager was “lost”.
Soon, there is great interest in B’Ellana and Voyager’s journey and people want to know everything there is to know about Voyager and her experiences. B’Ellana becomes increasingly irritated and suspicious however and it soon emerges she is being mentally invaded by an alien species who have kidnapped B’Ellana in order to find out more about Voyager and how they can capture it.

Again unoriginal and it was already done on VOY, to the Doctor.

Rebirth

Two officers on board Voyager intend to resign and live aboard Voyager as civilians.
After a low ranking science officer is killed on an away mission at the hands of the Vidiians, two of his friends hand their resignations in to Janeway and announce their decision to live aboard Voyager as civilians in order to avoid the danger of a mission they never signed up for. Janeway must grapple with the potential affects of their resignation while also considering the principles of Federation freedom in their unique circumstances.
Meanwhile the Doctor makes a breakthrough in finding a cure for the Vidiian phage and Janeway makes a detour to an unarmed Vidiian colony to test the new cure.

Struggling with a decision like that would be out of character for Janeway, who made it clear from the beginning that they'd get through the Delta Quadrant as one crew. They've already had two civilians on board (Neelix and Kes) and they were both put to work as soon as they arrived. Janeway's options would likely be (a) decline to accept the resignations, or (b) accept them and put the new civilians to work anyway. It's highly doubtful she'd ever consider the notion of letting them resign and live off the work of others on the ship.

Untitled Retrospective Episode

An alien species insists on inspecting Voyager’s logs and questioning the decisions of Janeway and her crew have made in their journey through the Delta Quadrant before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by the Daluran Republic who, before allowing Voyager to pass through their space, inspect their logs to determine whether they are a threat. Janeway and her crew are interrogated and are asked to explain their decisions (with the aid of holodeck recreations) and must defend several of the decisions they have made in their years in the Delta Quadrant. While the interrogations go on, crew members think over their time spent in the Delta quadrant so far and what they would have done differently if they could do it again.

Or they could say "no" to the Dalurans and go around. Unfortunately, that bit of common sense would also be out of character for Janeway. This would be the type of Trek story that defies all manner of logic, but that just means lots of people who read it would love it if you wrote it. I won't be one of them, but you won't need my input.

Reformation

An alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology requires that the Voyager crew spend a month living without technology on a Ferghanian farm before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by an alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology and have planted devices that inhibit warp drive throughout their space. When an ambassador boards Voyager, Janeway and them become embroiled in an ideological argument involving the merits of technology. Before the Fergahni allow Voyager to pass through their space, they require the crews to work on a Ferganian farm in the hope they may be swayed by a slower pace of life without technology.
Many of the crew become accustomed to a rural life away from the technology and the danger of Voyager and choose to stay on the Ferghani homeworld while some of the Ferghahni delegation sent to Voyager elect to join them on their journey to Earth.

And speaking of defying all logic:

-How do they control any space beyond their own planet without using technology?

-How would they maintain a field that kills warp drive without using technology?

-If Voyager were coming up on an area of space where they could see that warp drive wouldn't work, don't you think somebody with half a brain would suggest to Janeway "Gee, maybe we ought to just go around."?

-Assuming Janeway remains Janeway and plows in anyway, how would they get to this planet of alien Amish people anyway? How would they communicate from orbit with people with no radios? How would the sight of people transporting to the planet or shuttling to the planet effect a civilization consiously devoted to horse and buggy?

-And seriously, if you had a spaceship and people who didn't even have airplanes said "You can't travel through our sky," what could they really do to stop you?

The only way any of this works is if the people are Organians or Q, and that kind of twist would be boring.

Dreams

The Voyager crew must decide whether they want to leave Voyager and travel to the Alpha Quadrant in stasis aboard a larger and more advanced alien vessel.
Voyager encounters an aliens species called the Kowlari aboard the Sulaka, an advanced starship that is on course to the Alpha Quadrant on a long term exploratory expedition. The crew of the Sulaka offer to put the crew of Voyager into an advanced stasis until it reaches the Federation where they will be woken. While the crew debates the merits of leaving Voyager for the Sulaka, Seven begins investigating only to find that the Kowlari are not all that they seem and that while under stasis, the Voyager crew will actually be used to power the Sulaka’s unique computer core along with hundreds of other aliens the Sulaka have collected.
Alternatively: The Kowlari will replace the crew’s memories with that of dead crewmembers currently stored in some technobabble bullshit matrix.

"Dead Stop" without the "Dead" part.


Write out the retrospective episode.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Below are some of my ideas for Star Trek episodes. To make them a bit more specific, I have fitted some of the more general ones to Star Trek: Voyager as its probably the most flexible series of them all when it comes to stories but many of the below stories could be applied to any trek.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts on my ideas and if you have any questions about how the episodes might unfold, feel free to ask. Here are 6/20 I have written so far and the oens I feel are strongest:

I'll help--but I'd better warn you: I'm a tough critic, who doesn't mince words. I'll be constructive, though.

So--without further ado....

Shift
B’Ellana begins to suspect that she is in an alternate universe where events have unfolded slightly differently.
A group of crewmen aboard Voyager put on a play about various events that have taken place over the last 6 years. After the play B’Ellana remarks that the writers took a bit too much artistic licence in changing what actually happened, however no one else agrees and on looking through the ship’s computer, B’Ellana notices several discrepancies between her memory and the logs and memories of others. The Doctor confirms her suspicions and in meditative sessions with Tuvok, B’Ellana begins seeing visions of the destruction of Voyager and eventually discovers that in her death aboard the other Voyager, her consciousness was transferred to the B’Ellana of a parallel Voyager. B’Ellana returns to the other Voyager via the quantum strand that destroyed her Voyager to prevent the disaster, now with the knowledge of how the other Voyager avoided it.

Nice concept--but there doesn't seem to be much of a "danger" element for B'Ellana. I'd say there has to be something that really motivates her to get back now, rather than postponing it so she'll leave no stone unturned, etc.

Also...it seems very similar to the TNG ep, "Parallels". I'd recommend you ensure that it's set apart from that one--make it as different as you can.

Recollections
B’Ellana is awoken 400 years in the future from stasis by a group of Federation scientists who have only just discovered a cure for a degenerative disease she contracted in the Delta Quadrant.
B’Ellana is awoken from stasis by Federation scientists on a drastically different earth and is told that she was discovered aboard an adrift and deserted Voyager on the edge of the Beta Quadrant by a long range exploration federation starship 30 years after Voyager was “lost”.
Soon, there is great interest in B’Ellana and Voyager’s journey and people want to know everything there is to know about Voyager and her experiences. B’Ellana becomes increasingly irritated and suspicious however and it soon emerges she is being mentally invaded by an alien species who have kidnapped B’Ellana in order to find out more about Voyager and how they can capture it.

This actually seems extremely similar to the TNG ep "Future Imperfect", except in this case, Riker--or rather, B'Ellana--is right. It is a scam to get Starfleet secrets.

Now, it is a great concept--and, after all, Shakespere himself borrowed plots--but again, I'd strongly recommend your going to great lengths to set it apart from the TNG ep.

Rebirth
Two officers on board Voyager intend to resign and live aboard Voyager as civilians.
After a low ranking science officer is killed on an away mission at the hands of the Vidiians, two of his friends hand their resignations in to Janeway and announce their decision to live aboard Voyager as civilians in order to avoid the danger of a mission they never signed up for. Janeway must grapple with the potential affects of their resignation while also considering the principles of Federation freedom in their unique circumstances.
Meanwhile the Doctor makes a breakthrough in finding a cure for the Vidiian phage and Janeway makes a detour to an unarmed Vidiian colony to test the new cure.

This is good. As a rule, "Lower Decks" episodes are always good. Also, the twist of their wanting to resign is an excellent touch. Still...I'd say a connection between the character story and the cure subplot is a must.

Untitled Retrospective Episode
An alien species insists on inspecting Voyager’s logs and questioning the decisions of Janeway and her crew have made in their journey through the Delta Quadrant before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by the Daluran Republic who, before allowing Voyager to pass through their space, inspect their logs to determine whether they are a threat. Janeway and her crew are interrogated and are asked to explain their decisions (with the aid of holodeck recreations) and must defend several of the decisions they have made in their years in the Delta Quadrant. While the interrogations go on, crew members think over their time spent in the Delta quadrant so far and what they would have done differently if they could do it again.

Hmm...its seems to take off of the subplot of "Coming of Age"--again, a TNG episode. Nonetheless...I can easily see how this could turn into an excellent tale.

Reformation
An alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology requires that the Voyager crew spend a month living without technology on a Ferghanian farm before allowing them to pass through their space.
Voyager enters a vast region of space controlled by an alien civilization called the Ferghani that rejects technology and have planted devices that inhibit warp drive throughout their space. When an ambassador boards Voyager, Janeway and them become embroiled in an ideological argument involving the merits of technology. Before the Fergahni allow Voyager to pass through their space, they require the crews to work on a Ferganian farm in the hope they may be swayed by a slower pace of life without technology.
Many of the crew become accustomed to a rural life away from the technology and the danger of Voyager and choose to stay on the Ferghani homeworld while some of the Ferghahni delegation sent to Voyager elect to join them on their journey to Earth.

Hmm...somehow, I'm not entirely convinced a race that condemns all technology would be able to exercise such control over a region of space as to inhibit warp drive--let alone communicate with the Voyager crew.

I'd recommend a rewrite, or at least a tweak of concept, to address this paradox.

Dreams
The Voyager crew must decide whether they want to leave Voyager and travel to the Alpha Quadrant in stasis aboard a larger and more advanced alien vessel.
Voyager encounters an aliens species called the Kowlari aboard the Sulaka, an advanced starship that is on course to the Alpha Quadrant on a long term exploratory expedition. The crew of the Sulaka offer to put the crew of Voyager into an advanced stasis until it reaches the Federation where they will be woken. While the crew debates the merits of leaving Voyager for the Sulaka, Seven begins investigating only to find that the Kowlari are not all that they seem and that while under stasis, the Voyager crew will actually be used to power the Sulaka’s unique computer core along with hundreds of other aliens the Sulaka have collected.
Alternatively: The Kowlari will replace the crew’s memories with that of dead crewmembers currently stored in some technobabble bullshit matrix.

Great concept--with the potential for some excellent internal conflict!

But...I'm not sure the addendum of "oh, BTW, we don't really have to do this soul-searching, because as it turns out, this is not as tempting as it looks..." is necessary.

At the very least, put this "reveal" off until near the very end, when the crew, or at least part of the crew, has decided to go into stasis.

(To be frank, this "reveal" is a bit predictable--somehow, whenever this sort of thing happens, you just know the crew will, for whatever reason, make the "right" decision in the end, so that the show can go on. To make this work, you'd best ensure that none of the known characters make a decision to leave.)

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Regarding Rebirth

Struggling with a decision like that would be out of character for Janeway, who made it clear from the beginning that they'd get through the Delta Quadrant as one crew. They've already had two civilians on board (Neelix and Kes) and they were both put to work as soon as they arrived. Janeway's options would likely be (a) decline to accept the resignations, or (b) accept them and put the new civilians to work anyway. It's highly doubtful she'd ever consider the notion of letting them resign and live off the work of others on the ship.

The Neelix and Kes situation was different, the two starfleet officers who wish to resign are Federation citizens and I believe would be Janeway's responsibility and in keeping with starfleet regulations to keep Federation citizens aboard her ship should they request it.

This is good. As a rule, "Lower Decks" episodes are always good. Also, the twist of their wanting to resign is an excellent touch. Still...I'd say a connection between the character story and the cure subplot is a must.

The title "Rebirth" applies not only to the rebirth of the Vidiian civilization that should come from the new cure but also the rebirth of the two Voyager crewmembers to their duties and to exploration and discovery in light of seeing Voyager cure the Phage. It was my intention that these two plot strands should be entwined.

Regarding Shift

Unoriginal. The person-out-of-place-in-another-reality has been done numerous times in numerous ways. You might make it interesting but not interesting enough to lose the been-there-done-that feel.

I definitely acknowledge that this is a somewhat unoriginal idea but I believe the execution could make it a somewhat entertaining episode. I think the scene with the play and B'Ellana's confusion would be highly entertaining but perhaps its best not to build an episode around it.

Regarding Reformation
There seems to be some confusion over the Ferghani and obviously what I believed was implied hasn't be taken up, allow me to clarify some points
-I envisage the Ferghani as a highly advanced race that evolved to such a point technologically that they eventually rejected technology and reforming to a more pastoral way of life (not unlike the Baku). They insist that the only real exploration is the exploration of within.

-They reject the use of technology in every day life but obviously acknowledge that there are alien species all around them, this is why they built the warp inhibitors (obviously during their period of reformation to limit contact with other species) and still have a small but powerful fleet that controls the space - I thought this was kind of implied.

-The space is obviously very large and the warp inhibitors spread over a large area of space, it would take too long to go around so Janeway must negotiate a way through and a month spent on a farm is much safer and quicker than 3 months going around.

I think it could really be a great episode where the crew actually have a chance to stop and think about what is important in life, I also see many an opportunity for humor.

Regarding Recollections

-Its actually nothing like "Living Witness" if you read the episode summary.
-It is however like "Future Imperfect", I actually saw that episode fairly recently and it must have been at the back of my mind or in my subconscience or whatever when I wrote this episode.
The idea started out with Voyager being discovered empty and adrift at the edge of the Beta Quadrant and a rescue crew looking through the logs to find out what happened but I couldn't quite figure out a way of resolving that story without using Time Travel which I felt is used too much anyway.
I then remembered how much I enjoyed "Frame of Mind" and thought that some sort of mind bending slant might be a good explanation and a threat from an alien race, apparently the result is a "Future Imperfect" clone!
However I do feel the episode itself could be extremely entertaining. The idea of the future earth begin drastically different comes from the concept that the aliens trying to coax information out of B'Ellana have very limited information on the Federation and have had to try and get around that in several ways. But then B'Ellana's increasing suspicion of the world around her would be just like Riker's suspicions in "Future Imperfect". Alas, coming up with truly original concepts that have no similarities to any of the 700+ episodes already made is mighty hard!

Regarding Dreams

"Dead Stop" didn't even occur to me when writing the ending to that and besides, the crewmembers powering a computer is not the crux of the episode at all.
I do however think the alternative is more interesting.
Since it is a long range exploratory vessel it seems likely that the operating crew would have a way of staying alive for long periods of time (avoiding it becoming a generational ship with lots of children wasting resources), perhaps they do this by transferring their consciousnesses into new hosts.

@Rush Limborg, I'm in two minds about whether to have the dark secret or to simply make it a show about the crew facing a dilemma. I believe we could have the best of both worlds if we keep both the dilemma and the investigation/dark secret.

Regarding Untitled Retrospective Episode

-Once again, its much quicker for Voyager to go through their space if they can...you know to get home and all o.O

-I barely remember "Coming of Age" at all and don't remember that particular subplot.

-I don't think its a groundbreaking concept at all and I'm sure people have come up with something similar- definitely all those people who wanted Janeway to face a court martial when she got home have thought up a scenario along those lines.
Perhaps its a little unoriginal but I'd love to see it nonetheless.

-I definitely see how some of the above episodes appear derivative, although I do think Reformation and Rebirth are fairly original concepts. I have quite a few more stories that aren't as high concept and as a result are perhaps a little less derivative, I shall post them here eventually.

 

[kes7]

Why don't you just write the story you want to write and see what happens? I don't hate any of your ideas except the farm one (for the reasons already stated above), but really ... just write what speaks to you.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Well...at any rate, I'd most strongly encourage Rebirth and Dreams. I'd say those two are the ones you can run with the best.

But hey--no one can really tell you what to write...or what not to write. In the end, you could have the worst concept in the world, and make it an excellent tale--or perhaps you could have the best concept in the world...and completely botch it up.

It all depends on you, the writer.

My best advice would have to be...look at your concepts--every one of them--and ask yourself, "Which one can I run with the most? Which one is the most clear-cut in my mind?" And so on.

And then...once you've answered your question--write!

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Why don't you just write the story you want to write and see what happens? I don't hate any of your ideas except the farm one (for the reasons already stated above), but really ... just write what speaks to you.

I think Reformation makes perfect sense as an episode.
And I don't really have an intention to write, I just enjoy the challenge of thinking up stories for episodes.

 

[Finn]

I'm sorry but many of those are obvious ripoffs of episodes from TNG, ENT or Stargate, either in part or almost wholly.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I've only seen 2 seasons of SG1, so I'd like to know what I ripped off.
As far as I can see, "Reformation" and "Rebirth" are completely original.

 

[Finn]

Recollections is almost exactly the same as a SG1 cliffhanger early on.

Reformation doesn't make any sense. You don't explain what technology they are rejecting. And how would they know what kind of people the crew of Voyager is. Scanning their database would kinda go against that principle, of exploring within for betterment which your latter description kinda implies. Even then, why would they force them to do it for only a month? It will go by quickly. Sending them away would make the message moot, from where those aliens are standing. Yes, the crew would learn something, but it doesn't really make sense overall.

As for rebirth, it might be more original, but it's boring. Okay, they resign their commission. What would they do? Spend time on the holodeck. They wouldn't let them take the shuttlecraft on trips...... You say they would resign to avoid the danger they didn't sign up. What difference does it make if they stay aboard. Look at all those attacks Voyager endured over the years.

 

[DarKush]

I liked the ideas. You should've been on the VOY writing staff.

 

[Kaziarl]

I was thinking for Rebirth, and this is only outloud so feel free to ignore it, that a good way to connect your two plot lines could be as thus:

Voyager has already struck a deal with a somewhat more reasonable Vidian. (Perhaps even the one the Doctor formed a brief relationship with since she's helped them out once before.) Together they agree to work on a cure. The two crewmen who resign are scientists assisting the Doctor, and due to their resignation puts a major delay on the project. One of the Vidians, say a captain of another ship the Vidian Doctor is working with as well, interprets this as Voyager backing out on their agreement and decides to harvest the entire crew for his personal stash or something. The two crewmen then see that, because of their actions (or rather inaction via the resignations) that they have put the crew in more danger then they would have by standing by their fellow crewmen, change their minds, and help the doctor finish the cure just in time to stop the crazy vidian captain from playing farmers market with the crew.

As for why this would put a delay on the project? Non-starfleet crew are not allowed in certain area's of the ship or to handle sensitive materials. Even Kes and Neelix had certain restrictions (although that was probably more because they were unfamiliar with the ship)

I could see that being an episode. Might not be a bad one either.