How do Conspiracy Theories start? Probably just like this, with an influx of TOO MUCH INFORMATION. The more information, the more the probability that most or all of it is bad, and in the end all there is left is a bloated bubble, primed for being burst.
To see Seven of Sixty-Nine acting like a Birther is an eye-opener.
Seven set herself up for this, by deciding to do more enhancements to her Alcove. Enhancements that work great if you are a Borg Drone, but if you are in individual living in a community the outcome is basically Civil Unrest. She had programmed her Alcove to download mass information as she regenerates. Unfortunately, it was too much information.
At first, it appears that her memory-generation was a success: She finds a nest of Space-Bugs that eventually could have caused some problems down the line.
Meanwhile, Voyager comes across an alien dude who has perfected some kind of Long Range Catapult. He encourages Voyager to use it if his flight is successful, and to that end Janeway agrees to help him work out some other "space-bugs" - Interesting that this episode deals with "Bugs" - In a real sense and in the sense of Technology that still needs work. So Seven runs the specs of the Space-Catapult into her brain while she regenerates, and therein is where all the fun, and paranoia begins.
Her Sleep-Scan reveals that the Catapult ironically uses a power source similar to or maybe even the same as one on The Caretaker's array, The Caretaker who had Sucked Voyager into the Delta Quadrant, and reveals that our Alien of the Week in fact was keeping this information secret from Voyager. He gives a good reason, but Seven is on a roll. She views the old logs from the destruction of the Caretaker's Array and finds what appears to be a tractor beam from a cloaked ship. Then she finds a Cardassian Ship that had been sucked over (one with a cloak apparently, maybe one of the ones from the Orias Shipyards made by The Obsidian Order- But we can dismiss this, the Obsidian-Order ships were only used to invade the Founder's planet in DS9).
From then on, the "evidence" keeps piling up, and one conspiracy after another is submitted to both Janeway and Chakotay, who are now wearing Phasers in each other's presence!
The end effect is that new seeds of distrust have been sowed into the Voyager crew. This is the ultimate effect of ALL Conspiracy Theories - None of these things Seven finds can be proved, as it was all circumstantial evidence. But the effect can be immediately seen in the instant effect it has on the command structure of the ship.
This is why I suspect all conspiracy theories, truth be DAMNED. They can only cause existing problems to become worse, and cause new problems where none existed before. A little Rumour? A Little Innuendo? You think proving a stupid point is gonna change anything? It's not.
In the case of Seven, she had already dropped all interest in the original conspiracies she found, she keeps finding new ones- Because her Implant was broken.
That was her excuse. We, as people have none.
What happens in this episode, has happened recently in Politics in the US: And where the original "Conspiracies" fell flat (because they were all made up in the first place), they kept finding all kinds of new ones. See, this is how it works: You suspect someone of something, you try to prove it. Then you are proved wrong. You don't make up a new Conspiracy to take the place of original one you made up. If you do, pretty soon nobody believes anything you say anymore, even if you finally manage to find a real conspiracy (Which will never happen - Finding a real conspiracy I mean).
If you consider all of the "Evidence" Seven gives to Janeway and Chakotay, which seems to be fact after fact after disconnected, unrelated fact delivered in rapid succession, it is all inconclusive, derivative. Some of these facts are interesting but not one thing Seven spits out can be proved to have any relation to any of the other things. In fact, they don't - And they don't have to be explained, they are, basically not worth explaining.
Thankfully, Janeway and Chakotay come to realize this almost instantly, if only real people in the real world can see: You can't prove it, so just drop it. The other thing we can take away from this episode, is don't mess with anything that can affect your mind or your perception of reality- Like believing conspiracies exist in the first place.
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