Stardate not given: Voyager arrives at a planet on which a massive polaric explosion has recently devastated the surface and extinguished all life. While examining the phenomenon, Janeway and Paris step into a subspace rift and find themselves at a time when the planet is still intact and Voyager is still far away. They suspect that sabotage on a polaric power plant by opponents of this technology was the cause of the global disaster, but Janeway orders Paris not to interfere because of the Prime Directive. Janeway, however, changes her strategy when she becomes aware that they have already interfered; their presence made the protesters change their plans. She now tries to prevent the sabotage. When she witnesses how a subspace rift opens, created by the Voyager crew in the future in an attempt to rescue her, she recognizes that this is the true cause of the disaster. Janeway uses her phaser to seal the rift, upon which the timeline is reset. The cycle is broken, the catastrophe never happened, and no one has any memory of it - except for Kes who is relieved when Voyager passes by the now inconspicuous planet.

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