Voyager S4E24 — Janeway midwifed a species and left it on a demon planet. The silver-blood duplicates of Kim and Paris achieve consciousness through contact with higher cognition, and beg not to be left alone. Frameworks: The Unwanted Offspring (midwifed and abandoned), The Authentic Belonging That Cannot Be Accepted (counterfeit belonging's edge case), Emergence Without Consent, The Invisible Cage of Origin (biology as cage).
Voyager S4E23 — Seven hundred years after Voyager's encounter with the Kyrians, the EMH is reactivated from a backup module and finds himself on trial for war crimes he didn't commit — history has rewritten Voyager's crew as genocidal invaders. Frameworks: The Distortion of History as Invisible Cage, The Living Witness (truth carried by experience across time), The Burden of Being the Witness (offering to delete oneself when truth causes harm), Revisionist History as Structural Coercion, Quarren's Intellectual Honesty.
Voyager S4E22 — The tragedy of remembered love that can't be rekindled. Kellin Perim returns to Chakotay knowing he'll forget her, and when she's made to forget too, the second chance fails. Frameworks: The Incomplete Second Chance (experience IS the relationship, not the narration of it), The Infrastructure of Memory (handwritten journal as survival of erasure), The Kindness of Forgetting (contested), The Symmetry of Forgetting (both loved what the other couldn't hold).
Voyager S4E26 (Season 4 Finale) — Arturis builds a lure so precisely calibrated to Janeway's deepest hope that it almost works. A Starfleet message. A new ship — the Dauntless — with quantum slipstream drive. Home in three months. The Devil's Contract in its most refined form: the counterparty knows your deepest desire and offers to fulfill it. Frameworks: The Perfect Trap (Devil's Contract advanced), Externalized Cost of the Scorpion Alliance, Seven's Choosing to Belong (arc climax), Arturis as the Tragic Villain of the Unconsulted Victim.
Voyager S4E25 — A month alone in a Mutara nebula. A Doctor whose emitter is failing. Seven's own Borg implants turning against her in hallucination. The nebula does not create new problems — it reveals existing ones. Seven passes through the hallucination's efficiency trap, cuts her own life support to save the crew, and emerges having proven: I am an individual because I choose to be.
Voyager S4E21 — The one order that overrides all orders. Starfleet's highest classification, known only to captains, activated when Omega — a molecule that can destroy subspace itself — is detected. Seven of Nine confronts her God for 3.2 seconds. Frameworks: The Quartz Wall at institutional scale, The Borg's Holy Grail (theology of the Collective), The Reciprocated Gaze (spiritual encounter), Janeway's Refusal of the Seduction of Discovery ( .7 inverse), Tuvok's unspoken protest as the researcher's instinct, Omega as the Invisible Cage's inverse.
Voyager S4E20 — A body-swap palate cleanser that dark-mirrors the Killing Game's neural interfaces. Steth inhabits Paris's body and fails at every Voyager relationship — structure without depth. Frameworks: The Body as Cage, Counterfeit Belonging Performed vs. Earned ( .5 companion), Chakotay's Instinct (intuition that survives identity theft), The Carburetor as Homing Signal, Steth's exploitation of existing dissatisfaction.
Voyager S4E19 — The diptych resolves in tragedy. Karr brokers peace with Janeway and is killed by his second-in-command — not for failing, but for changing. The Devil's Contract ( .8b) fatal variant: the counterparty's nature cannot tolerate the signatory becoming something new. Frameworks: The Devil's Contract tragic mode, reformer killed by structural inertia, the Holocaust allegory made explicit, Janeway's negotiation as survived knowledge, the Vulcan Answer in Seven's refusal to sing.
Voyager S4E18 — The Hirogen have taken over Voyager, installed neural interfaces, and trapped the crew in infinite simulations without their knowledge. The EMH is forced to triage his own crew back into their cages. Frameworks: The Invisible Cage made literal (control you can't perceive as control), The Devil's Contract embryo (Karr's clean desire for cultural survival routed through extractive means), The Holocaust Allegory (Kapitan's blood-purity ideology as Hirogen ideology without metaphor), Seven's Borg implants as resistance without knowledge.
Voyager S4E17 — Seven accuses an arms dealer of assault under memory regression therapy. The evidence is ambiguous: activated nanoprobes could be natural response to energy weapon, not assault. Kovin flees the justice system he doesn't trust and dies. Frameworks: The Integrity of the Witness (believing someone vs. proving something), The Hazards of Memory Regression (desire for truth obscuring the truth), The Invisible Cage of Good Intentions (the crew's desire to protect Seven swaying their judgment), The Burden of Bearing Wrongness (Janeway's refusal to delete the EMH's guilt subroutine — they must all live with it).
Voyager S4E16 — The Hirogen hunt a wounded Species 8472 that only wants to go home. Three incompatible frames (hunt, compassion, tactical) collide, producing three different fates for the same dying creature. Frameworks: The Hunt as the Only Frame (single-lens hermeneutic failure), The Collision of Incompatible Frames, The Protagonist's Dilemma (Seven's Counterfeit Belonging crisis — §10.6 definitive case study), The Prey Narrative as Identity Imposition, The Nanoprobe Tether — Tool Neutrality, The Wounded Creature Test Case.
Voyager S4E14 — The EMH is transmitted across the Hirogen sensor network to the USS Prometheus, a Starfleet prototype taken by Romulans. The Holographic Partnership (alliance across asymmetry between two EMH models), the Mirror of Progress (inversion of obsolescence — experience over design), the Message as Infrastructure (a sentient being as the vessel of context, not just content), the Hirogen as Gatekeeper (infrastructure sovereignty), and the Double Return (hope delivered but rescue deferred — the architecture of sustained survival).
Voyager S4E15 — Letters from home arrive through the Hirogen relay network, bringing devastating news: the Maquis are all dead, Mark has married someone else, and the Hirogen claim the infrastructure as their hunting ground. Frameworks: The Return That Comes as a Wound (hope infrastructure as double-edged sword), The Infrastructure and Its Claimants (the cost of using someone else's network), The Singularity as Excluded Middle (§10.2 Vulcan Answer at operational scale), The Safety Net Removed (§10.8 Refusal of Comfort applied to emotional architecture), Tuvok's Discipline (applied hermeneutic practice), The Third Block (encrypted hope as active mission).
Voyager S4E13 — An alien species that exists in a dream state invades Voyager's dreams, and Chakotay's lucid dream negotiation becomes the trap mechanism. The Dream War (ontological conflict between incompatible reality frames), Lucid Refusal (knowing you're in a dream as the precondition for control), the Test of the Premise (Janeway warp-core stand as meta-refusal), the Shared Dream Trap (coercion through collective unconsciousness), Coercive Asymmetry Reversal, and Trust at the Level of Sleep (violation of the substrate of being).
Voyager S4E12 — Neelix dies for 18 hours and experiences nothing, shattering his faith in the Great Forest afterlife. The Shattered Afterlife (absence of belief as loss deeper than grief), the Nanoprobe Tether (Borg technology as life support with existential cost), the Unwanted Gift (resurrection imposed by another's choice — the Devil's Contract cousin), the Faith That Survives Its Contradiction (telling Naomi the story while knowing it isn't true), and the Duty to Stay (a child's need as the answer to nihilism).
Voyager S4E11 — Janeway and Leonardo da Vinci on a Renaissance adventure through a stolen-technology marketplace. The Cage of Gold (real comfort in a real cage — §10.6's cousin case), the Companion Question ("for you, I will go" as the Pressure Valve's fuel side), the Sparrow's Cage (limits of understanding as a single-lens prison), the Great Bird (fulfilled desire settles the searching heart), and Janeway as relational patron vs. Tau's transactional patronage.
Voyager S4E10 — The Mari thoughtcrime system where violent thoughts are illegal. The Thoughtcrime Trap (interiority as liability), the Black Market of the Forbidden (repression creating the underground), Guill's Exploitation as Manufactured Enemy refined, Tuvok's Gambit (the credible surrender), and the Problem of Cooperation with Unjust Systems.
Voyager S4E08-09 — Annorax and the temporal weapon ship. The Unmaking (temporal erosion as death by a thousand cuts), Annorax's Arithmetic (asymmetry of sacrifice), the Burden of Precision (single lens failure), the Refusal of the Bargain (Paris vs. Chakotay refusal modes), Temporal Shielding as Discernment Infrastructure, the Reset Button Problem, and the Doctor's Rebellion.
Voyager S4E07 — Alien scientists conduct invisible medical experiments on the crew. The Invisible Cage (coercion below the threshold of perception), the Alzén Bargain (demand dressed as offer with real stakes), the Credible Madness Gambit (Janeway's pulsar play), and the Refusal of Comfort vindication.
Voyager S4E06 — Seven of Nine discovers her parents' ship, The Raven, and the site of her childhood assimilation. The Origin Wound, the Homing Signal as Dark Gate (trap and truth in the same coordinate), the Double Return, and the Witness Accompaniment as Pressure Valve in practice.
Voyager S4E05 — Dejaren, a holographic maintenance unit who has murdered his organic crew, represents the Doctor's dark mirror. The Mirror of Integration, Displacement Cleaning, Counterfeit Independence, and the Threshold of Reachability.
Voyager S4E04 — Chakotay is indoctrinated by the Vori propaganda machine. The Manufactured Nemesis framework: enemies made through engineered attachment. The Language Trap, Empathy Vulnerability, and the Asymmetry of Belief Installation.
Voyager S4E03 — Neelix offers B'Elanna a pressure valve for her anger. Seven's first act of kindness. The Sacrificial Container framework: presence through cost.
Voyager S4E02 — Kes transcends, Seven of Nine arrives. The forced individuality problem: Janeway's coercive rescue. The diptych of agency.
Voyager S4E01 — the sting is confirmed. Seven of Nine joins the cast. The Devil's Contract proven: betrayal on schedule, but survival because the sting was accounted for.
Voyager S3E25-26 — the Borg alliance. §10.8b The Devil's Contract: clean desire meets wrong path meets known counterparty. Season 3 complete.