By Chris Snellgrove | Published
For better or worse, Star Trek has slowly turned into an action franchise: the Kelvinverse films are powered by lens flares and explosions, and Adoption started with a season focused on the pain of the war with the Klingons. Soon, other NuTrek shows adopted the same strategy, hence the whole thing Picard to Section 31 to Starfleet Academy centered on the terrifying prospect of a mustache-twirling giant threatening the galaxy with a giant weapon.
This is in marked contrast to the Golden Age of Star Trek, when shows like it The Next Generation they were focused on quietly exploring the galaxy. One Voyager The episode, “Elogium,” is very cold. It was a bottleneck episode where Captain Janeway had to figure out how to rid the ship of other space creatures that were absorbing energy from the helmet and shields. Interestingly, this quiet episode of Star Trek was secretly inspired by the last thing any fan would suspect: The Vietnam War!
To Check Out Strange New Fish
In “Elogium,” Voyager encounters a cloud of critters that fill the ship and begin to drain power. This presents Janeway with an interesting dilemma: she must save her ship and escape the swarm, all while not harming or killing the little things she’s just discovered. Meanwhile, in B’s strange land, Kes goes through a Pon Farr-like mating cycle and must ponder whether, at a young age, she is ready to start producing Neelix’s children.
Now, one thing that made the Golden Age of Star Trek so cool was that, with multiple episodes per season, the producers were able to entertain the songs of any fans who had a good story to tell. The story “Elogium” was based on an idea by freelance writers Jimmy Diggs and Steve J. Kay. Diggs served in the Navy during Vietnam, and had a vivid memory of a time when he and other crew members had to clean a ship before an inspection. However, the moon and stars were not very visible, so the only light came from the ship’s lights.
A War Story With a Happy Ending
As a deckhand, Diggs quickly realized that the ship’s lights were attracting fish. A a lot of fish: when the ship arrived for future inspection, they were there thousands of them. As he said later The Official Star Trek: Voyager MagazineDiggs was moved by the strange beauty of a peaceful night during America’s most controversial war. “The way the fish glistened in the water because of the lights, it seemed surreal,” he said. It felt like we were in space surrounded by millions of moving stars, and we were in the spaceship, ours, the Enterprise.”
The memory stayed with Jimmy Diggs for many years. There he went Star Trek: Voyager ideas to Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga, the memory resurfaced, and suggested an episode where small aliens are attracted to the ship because of its unique resonance signature. The producers liked the idea, and included it in one of the quirkier episodes Voyager‘s second season.
“Elgoium” would not have been written if not for Diggs and his experiences during the Vietnam War. He turned a moment of extreme beauty amidst horrific conflict into a memorable story for the greatest sci-fi franchise ever created. In this way, Voyager showed that art really imitates life. Fortunately, Diggs’ wartime memories were not marred by the most harrowing sight of all: a sweaty Neelix wondering if he and his leola root were ready to get his one-year-old girlfriend pregnant!
