Threshold Day is the anniversary of the airing of Threshold, one of the, if not THE, most batshit episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek in its entirety. (Spoilers for Threshold below.)
In it, Lt. Tom Paris decides that, due to his enormous daddy issues, he will only be redeemed if he lives up to his potential by making it into the history books. In this case, it’s by breaking the transwarp barrier, which does not mean being trans and going into warp, a barrier which I’m sure was broken way before this, but going Warp 10 (in the new scale). Because apparently exploring basically a new section of the galaxy at the helm of the only Starfleet starship to be there is just garbage in terms of history-making, I guess.
So they find out there’s a 2% chance his personal brain will explode if he does this, and they’re going to let Harry Kim do it instead, but Tom is like, “no, Captain. You don’t understand. I have MASSIVE daddy issues. Also, you’d probably have to promote Harry if he succeeded, and nobody wants that.”
And Janeway is like, “Oh shit, I really don’t want to promote Harry. Also, I have some pretty big daddy issues of my own, so I getchu; have at it. Hope your brains stay unexploded.”
So he successfully does his thing, and he’s like, EVERYWHERE AT ONCE, MAN. He sees everything. Past, present, Harry in the shower – I mean, future – in all places at once. Which is why it’s odd that he’s so surprised when he collapses in the Mess Hall after drinking one of Neelix’s truly noxious brews. He should have known how gross it was going to be.
Anyway, the next twenty minutes or so are the EMH trying to stop Tom from turning into a weird gross scaly creature, with limited success. He stops being able to breathe oxygen. He gets super paranoid and rants a lot. He yells about pepperoni (I am not kidding). He asks for a dying kiss from Kes, which leads to a truly marvelous turn-down line: “I’m sorry, Tom. If we let down the forcefield, you’ll suffocate,” which I will now use for any unwanted come-ons. He legit DIES, then comes back to life a pretty long time later. He yells at Janeway, and then, like anyone who dares yell at Janeway would expect, his tongue literally falls out of his mouth.
Finally, he’s getting pretty close to salamander territory, when the last 15 minutes give up on making ANY sense. He busts out of Medbay, kidnaps Janeway, goes to Warp 10 again, turns them both into complete salamanders (I guess the EMH literally did nothing to help Tom, because apparently Janeway makes it through the transformation just fine without medical attention), and then HAS LIZARD BABIES with her.
Which we know, because the Voyager crew manages to find them three days later, and in that time apparently Janeway has changed over and already had the babies. Also, they were able to find a shuttle that literally could have gone anywhere in the entire universe. Chakotay then shoots the salamanders and they take them back, leaving the babies to…I don’t know, sala-meander around or something. Why is Chakotay’s first reaction to phaser the largely-sedentary salamanders? I have no idea.
Cut immediately to the EMH having been able to just roll back their DNA or something and make them entirely human again as if nothing had happened (If this were possible, why didn’t they just Warp 10 home to Earth and then fix everyone while they evolved? It sounds like it would suck, but so would being lost for 70 years). Janeway insinuates she may have initiated the salamating. (Tom should have said salami instead of pepperoni, in salamander solidarity). They laugh off something that should require about 50 years of counseling. Tom says, “cool, I think I have slightly less daddy issues now.”
YOU KNOW WHO HAS MORE DADDY ISSUES NOW? MAYBE YOUR ABANDONED SALAMANDER BABIES.
AND NONE OF THIS IS EVER MENTIONED AGAIN. OR HAS ANY IMPACT ON THE SERIES. EVER.
And so, we commemorate this weird atrocity (which actually has some nice character development and Emmy-winning makeup, but AT WHAT COST) with a day of commiseration and celebration, largely spearheaded by @captaincrusher. Join us next year…posts are already being prepared.
#oh so that’s why somebody reblogged one of my old Threshold reblogs today #Star Trek #Voyager #Threshold Day #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
#I knew where this was going from the first image #and at that moment I had already decided to reblog it #(but since it *also* made me laugh I will add this tag:) #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #Star Trek #Voyager
1: What is the best and worst purchases you’ve made?
Already answered, but I’ll add that deciding that whenever I think of something it would be useful to have I will just buy a bunch of it on Amazon has been an incredibly good decision that hasn’t cost me much money. Strongly recommend to anyone with an income, moderately recommend to anyone with good runway / expectation of an income.
Some example purchases: a ton of zip ties, a set of screwdrivers, a set of small plastic drawers to keep things organized, a bunch of power strips, various cleaning supplies that I needed at least once, a large pack of pencils and pens.
3: What is the craziest thing one of your teachers has done?
Asked me, and I fucking quote: “But what about the possibility of a collection consciousness”.
Fuck you and your shitty off-brand new age continentalism.
In the Voyager episode “Drone”, the Borg (or rather, disconnected Borg nanoprobes acting autonomously, but presumably with standing orders from the Collective) create a drone using a genetic sample and whatever tech they could scrounge up and convert into implants and a gestation vat. The being comes into existence already Borg-ified (still without a live connection to the Collective, but with a homing beacon).
I think this indicates that the Borg *can* have kids if pressed, though prefer to reproduce via assimilation.
(yeah, the kid was made with heavy technological assistance, but they’re *Borg*, they do *everything* with heavy technological assistance, so I don’t think that stops it from counting)
That probably means they could be a self-sustaining civilization without assimilating people, which is enough to put the borg on the “dickbags” side of the dickbags/tragic axis.
[Does anyone have a list (or better, a gif set?) of all the silliest lines from Voyager over the years? You know, like “get the cheese to sickbay” and “I feel like we’re being pecked to death by ducks” and “there’s coffee in that nebula!” so on and so forth? Cause I need such. Because of reasons.]
Hmm, possibly! *reads recap* I definitely remember the red dress from that one. In general I just grave all the Seven in uniform instead of catsuit scenes. <3
Nope, not Human Error. That’s a scene from Relativity I believe. AWESOME Seven (and Seven & Janeway) episode
Brinens and Things 