Captain Archer is nervously preparing his speech for the ceremony marking the ratification of a full alliance between Earth, Andoria, Vulcan, the Tellarites and many other worlds. It has now been ten years since the Enterprise originally left spacedock, and after the ceremony, the ship is headed for its own final frontier – decommissioning. But Archer and his crew unexpectedly heed one last call to adventure when their old ally Shran, an Andorian commander who everyone believes to have died three years ago, contacts them. His daughter has been abducted by some shady business associates he accumulated after falling out of favor with the Andorian Imperial Guard, and he’s calling in old favors to rescue her. Despite protests from his crew about everything from the timing of this mission to his own personal safety, Archer is confident that the Enterprise crew can rescue Shran’s daughter without incident. Unfortunately, Archer has miscalculated, and the entire future of the United Federation of Planets is in peril unless a member of his crew makes a supreme sacrifice to save his captain. And in the future, struggling with an ethical dilemma precipitated by the reappearance of his own first commanding officer, Commander William T. Riker watches these decisive moments play out on a future Enterprise’s holodeck.
written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
directed by Allan Kroeker
music by Dennis McCarthyGuest Cast: Jonathan Frakes (Commander William Riker), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Jeffrey Combs (Shran), Jonathan Schmock (Alien), Solomon Burke Jr. (Ensign), Jef Ayres (Med Tech), Jasmine Anthony (Talla), Brent Spiner (voice of Lt. Commander Data), Majel Barrett (Computer voice), Mike Fincke (Engineer), Terry Virts (Engineer)
Notes: The script for These Are The Voyages… was actually written by executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga a year before the episode was produced and broadcast; in the event that the show had gotten cancelled before its fourth season, they considered it a fitting end for the series. The voices of William Shatner and Patrick Stewart were lifted from the introductions those actors recorded during the original broadcast run of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Two of the engineers working with Trip aboard the Enterprise were real-life astronauts: International Space Station veteran Mike Fincke and Terry Virts. Fincke reportedly kept up his Enterprise viewing habit even during his months in orbit.
LogBook entry by Earl Green