Equinox (Star Trek: Voyager)

USS Voyager's crew is surprised to receive an emergency hail from another Federation starship, the Equinox, in the Delta Quadrant. They arrive to find the damaged ship under attack by nucleogenic lifeforms. Under advice from the Equinox captain, Rudy Ransom, Captain Kathryn Janeway has Voyager extend its shields around both ships, quelling the attack, though the creatures continue to bear down on the shields, weakening them over time.

Janeway and Ransom discuss how both their ships had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant, five years earlier, by The Caretaker. Ransom shares that they found a wormhole and made enhancements to their warp engines, explaining how this allowed the smaller (with a crew of 80) and slower (warp 8) Nova-class Equinox to travel the same 40,000 light years as Voyager on its return to Earth. Of Ransom's crew, only 12 are still alive.

While salvaging, the Voyager crew finds an area of the ship they cannot access due to intentional overrides by the Equinox crew. Janeway sends the holographic Doctor to the area, where he finds the Equinox crew has been harvesting bio-energy from the nucleogenic creatures, slaughtering dozens of creatures just to enhance their warp drive, traversing 10,000 light years in two weeks.

The Equinox crew, knowing they can reach Earth within weeks (while using more murdered creatures) if they ditch Voyager, steal a shield generator from Voyager and escape, having captured Seven of Nine along the way. Voyager, unable to raise shields, suddenly finds itself under attack from the angry nucleogenic creatures.

Seven has encrypted the codes accessing the Equinox warp controls, delaying their plan to murder another 63 aliens for fuel. After learning the Doctor in their sickbay is from Voyager, and erasing his ethical sub-routines as they did with their EMH, they tell him to probe Seven's brain to obtain the codes, despite the fact this may permanently incapacitate her. During his examination, he sings "Oh My Darling, Clementine" with the partially unconscious Seven, much dismaying Ransom as it seems to make his probing go more slowly.

Janeway starts taking the objective of stopping Ransom to extremes when she orders torpedoes to be fired on the Equinox, nearly kills an Equinox crew member during an interrogation, tractor beams an Ankari ship, and relieves Chakotay from command when he questions her orders.

Ransom starts to realize the error of his ways and orders the crew to return the Equinox to Voyager, but the remaining crew, except for Ensign Marla Gilmore, attempt to mutiny against this. With Gilmore's help, Ransom transports part of the crew, as well as the Doctor and Seven, back to Voyager, while the remaining mutineers are killed by the aliens. After transporting Gilmore to Voyager, Ransom stays behind, sacrificing himself to the nucleogenic creatures while moving the ship far enough away from Voyager to protect it from the resulting explosion.

As Voyager resumes its journey home, Janeway reinstates Chakotay to Commander and strips the five surviving Equinox crew members of their ranks while integrating them with the rest of her crew. Seven promises to help the Doctor secure his ethical sub-routines from being deleted in the future.

In 2011, Cinema Blend rated this the best episode of Star Trek Voyager.[2]

Gizmodo ranked the "Equinox" pair 23rd out of the top 100 Star Trek episodes in 2014.[3] The Hollywood Reporter ranked Equinox 30th best out all Star Trek episodes in 2016,[3] and it was ranked the 2nd greatest Star Trek:Voyager episode behind the Season 4 two-parter "Year of Hell".[4] In 2015, SyFy rated it among the top ten of Voyager episodes.[5] In 2017, Space.com rated "Equinox" as the 9th best Star Trek episode overall.[6]

In 2017, Radio Times ranked this the sixth best episode of Star Trek, especially for those unfamiliar with the franchise.[7]

In Wired's Star Trek:Voyager binge-watching guide for the show, they did not recommend skipping "Equinox" 1 & 2.[8]

In 2018, CBR ranked the "Equinox" pair as the 11th best episodic saga of Star Trek overall.[9]

A regional newspaper of Cleveland ranked "Equinox" as the 25th greatest episode of Star Trek (prior to Star Trek: Discovery').[10]

In 2018, TheGamer ranked it as one of the 25 creepiest episodes of all Star Trek series.[11] They found the alien attackers to be "lethal, vengeful… and they never give up."[11]

In June 2019, "Equinox" was rated tenth best of all Star Trek episodes up to that time by Screen Rant.[12] (By 2016 there was 726 episodes of Star Trek television before Star Trek: Discovery)[13] They note the two-part episode for highlighting the struggle to maintain morality in difficult circumstances, including how to maintain morale, and the dangers of greed.[12] They point out the episode explores concepts of trust and self-interest in difficult circumstances, such as Voyager's 75-year journey back to Earth after being cut-off from Starfleet.[12]

In 2020, SyFy Wire ranked the Equinox episode pair the ninth best episode of Star Trek: Voyager, they said that the plot was worthy of a movie and keeps the audience guessing about the outcome.[14]

• "Equinox, Part I" on IMDb
• "Equinox, Part II" on IMDb
• Equinox title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• "Equinox, Part I" at TV.com
• "Equinox, Part II" at TV.com

• Equinox, Part I at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• Equinox, Part II at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• Equinox, Part I at StarTrek.com

• Equinox, Part II at StarTrek.com