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Eye of the Needle (Star Trek: Voyager)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Star Trek: Voyager episode | |
| "Eye of the Needle" | |
 An inside view of the wormhole being projected on Voyager's main screen |
|
| Episode no. | 7 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 107 |
| Airdate | February 20, 1995 |
| Writer(s) | Bill Dial Jeri Taylor |
| Director | Winrich Kolbe |
| Guest star(s) | Vaughn Armstrong as Telek Tom Virtue as Baxter |
| Year | 2371/2351 |
| Stardate | 48579.4 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "The Cloud" |
| Next | "Ex Post Facto" |
"Eye of the Needle" is the seventh episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
Voyager detects the signs of a wormhole and a course is set to investigate, in the hopes that it may shorten Voyager's journey to Earth. To the crew's disappointment, it is discovered to be a decaying micro-wormhole which is only a few centimeters in diameter. Nevertheless, Captain Janeway suspects that it could be used to transmit a message to the alpha quadrant, and a micro-probe is launched into the wormhole to determine where it exits.
However, the probe gets stuck in gravitational eddies, and is unable to pass any further. Meanwhile, a vessel at the other end of the wormhole is investigating and making scans of the probe. The crew of Voyager detect the scans and make contact, using the probe as a communications relay. The vessel identifies itself as a Romulan ship, and confirms that the wormhole does indeed exit in the Alpha Quadrant.
Janeway convinces the Romulan captain to take securely-transmitted messages from the crew which can be passed on to Starfleet and the family of Voyager's crew members.
Before long, however, Chief Engineer Torres suggests to Janeway that the probe could be used as a relay not only for communications, but for transporting the crew directly back to the Alpha Quadrant. Several tests are conducted and all found successful. The Romulan captain arranges for a support vessel to rendezvous and accommodate the Voyager crew, and is then invited and transported to Voyager.
It is then discovered, however, that the Romulan has been transported into the future by 20 years. The micro-wormhole not only exits in the Alpha Quadrant but also in the past. The crew are unable to transport back to the Alpha Quadrant for fear of altering history, and it is also decided that the Romulan must not prevent Voyager's fate. Instead, an arrangement is made so that the Romulan delivers the messages in 20 years time, after Voyager has left the Alpha Quadrant.
After the Romulan is sent back to his ship and all contact ceased, Chief of Security Tuvok reveals that, upon researching the computer's data banks, the Romulan died four years before he could pass on the messages.
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- Several novels have used this episode as a basis, including Christie Golden's Dark Matters trilogy.