#uss equinox

[stra-tek]

Bridge of the U.S.S. Equinox, which I *think* is the Excelsior bridge rebuilt for "Flashback" and previously transformed into the Prometheus bridge for "Message in a Bottle", redressed with Voyager's command chairs and helm console.

[chernobog13]

The USS Equinox, the Nova-class starship found stranded in the Delta Quadrant by USS Voyager.

And deck plans for the Nova-class starships.

[alphamecha-mkii]

Star Trek: Voyager - USS Equinox Concept Art by Rick Sternbach

[defconprime]

[bumblingbabooshka]

Watching TOS and learning that there's apparently a starfleet-sanctioned and relatively calm court hearing-like process for relieving a captain of their command temporarily is so funny bc on the USS Voyager it's ALWAYS mutiny. I get that Chakotay might not have done it in 'Equinox' because Janeway seemed pretty far gone already but Harry Kim, Starfleet Golden Boy, jumped STRAIGHT to planning a mutiny when Tuvok wouldn't contact the Vidiians and I love him for it.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s5 ep25: Equinox pt 1

The season finale! Back to two part cliffhangers we go! It's been a while since I've seen this one, so I remembered the basic premise, but not the details. Part one is pretty strong on the whole, but my biggest question I hoped rewatching would answer, namely how and why the Equinox ended up in the Delta Quadrant, wasn't answered satisfactorily.

So anyway, this is the one where they meet another Starfleet ship, the USS Equinox, that's also stranded in the Delta Quadrant. I think I might have to watch it again with subtitles, in case I missed some dialog that explained it, because I still don't get how they got there. The Equinox's captain, Ransom, knows who the Caretaker was when Janeway mentions him, but the Caretaker bringing the Equinox there makes no sense, because then they would have met Voyager in the beginning when they were all brought to his array. The Caretaker was specifically bringing ships to his array to find a succesor, not just flinging them willy-nilly to random places in the Delta Quadrant- there's no way both ships could have been brought by him without meeting each other right away. But I guess I'll just have to ignore it and just pretend it makes sense. (Wouldn't be the first time with Star Trek, lol.)

Voyager hears a Federation distress call, and rescues the Equinox from an attack by unknown aliens. There's some really creepy, atmospheric scenes as Voyager's rescue team searches the crippled, crumbling Equinox, and encounters their equally scarred and battered crew. Their ship and crew are much smaller than Voyager, so they evacuate everyone to Voyager.

At first everyone is glad to meet another Starfleet crew, and the Equinox's first officer even turns out to be an old Academy friend of B'Elanna's. (I didn't remember that they actually dated, ew. At least she got out of that relationship quickly! What a narcisisst he is to think the only reason she doesn't want to get back together with him is because she's with Tom now- dude what?? Does he think if she were single, she'd just be cool with it when she finds out he participates in mass murder? Guess he doesn't know her that well after all!) But Voyager eventually learns that the Equinox crew have been lying about not knowing why the aliens attacked them- they find hidden equipment in their science lab that shows they'd been killing the aliens, and using the energy from their bodies to power their failing warp engines. Janeway calls Ransom out on it, but he defends it, saying they were desperate, but yet he still intends to continue killing the aliens and using them until his ship reaches Earth again. For some reason, his crew all go along with it, and with help from their evil EMH, they escape Voyager and go back to their ship, which is where we're left at the cliffhanger, while the aliens begin to attack Voyager.

It's definitely a shocking twist, but it does feel rather odd that an entire Starfleet crew would happily murder living creatures for their own benefit. And the arguments that Ransom makes about being forced to do it to keep his crew alive out of desperation don't even hold up, because his crew could happily live on Voyager now, safe, with plenty of resources, but he still chooses to continue using the aliens, even though he absolutely doesn't need to. Even if their captain is an unhinged nut, the rest of his crew following him seems really unlikely. Forty Starfleet officers who are totally willing to abandon the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation? All of these morally bankrupt people somehow ending up on one ship? Seems improbable. I really think it should have just been a handful of them who followed Ransom, and the rest of them should have defected to Voyager. I actually think it should have been one of the Equinox's crew who tipped Voyager's crew off about what was going on. That none of them would have enough remorse to want it to stop is just too bleak and too dim a view of humanity for Star Trek, quite honestly. They showed a lot of the Equinox crew being traumatized, and some of them feeling guilty about it, but a good deal of their trauma had to have come from straying so far from their humanity in what they were doing, and given the chance to leave and stop doing it, I think most of them would. I don't really remember much of part 2, so I hope that they do eventually have them come around in the next ep. But still, that's kind of late, given how horrific what they're doing is.

Anyway, it's definitely got me interested to see what will happen in the next part, so it's doing what a cliffhanger should do. On to season 6!

Tl;dr: A somewhat implausible premise that ends up being more of a horror story than a moral conundrum, since the morality here is pretty clear cut. Nonetheless, it's well made, delivers a lot of suspense, and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

[trillscienceofficer]

In the novelization of Equinox, [Angelo Tassoni] was called Angela Tassoni, implying that the character was female.

shoutout to the genderfluid Italian crewmember of the USS Equinox

[leahsfiction]

the other day i was on bandcamp trying to scratch the itch of "the twilight mirage soundtrack, but more of it"

here's some albums i like

[n1cks]

USS EQUINOX #NovaClass By Robert Bonchune http://dlvr.it/T580MN

[sci-fi-brickyards]

Unofficial Lego Packaging 🖖

USS Equinox NCC-72381

Captain Kirk's Nightmare

La Sirena Microfighter

[alphamecha-mkii]

Nova Class Ortho Views by Away Team Gear

[defconprime]

USS Equinox

[federationgothic]

U.S.S. Equinox

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

Damn men ain't shit😠 you teach him how to use triquadric algorthims and suddenly he's using it to disrupt your force fields and steal your automatic generator 😤

[spockvarietyhour]

Select Starfleet Ships, Vol. 5: VOY Edition

Top to bottom: Excelsior-class U.S.S. Excelsior “Flashback” Prometheus-class U.S.S. Prometheus “Message in a Bottle” Nebula-class U.S.S. Bonchune “Message in a Bottle” Akira-class U.S.S. Spector “Message in a Bottle” Raven-class U.S.S. Raven “Dark Frontier” Wells-class U.S.S. Relativity “Relativity” Nova-class U.S.S. Equinox “Equinox Pt. 1″ Nova-class refit U.S.S. Rhode Island “Endgame”

[better-worlds]

U.S.S. Equinox, Star Trek: Voyager, Robert Bonchune