While in orbit around a planet where Voyager is negotiating for some duterium, Paris returns from the surface with an interesting object. It seems that the inhabitants of this planet have learned how to probe one's memory and encode it on small sphere that looks much like two geodesic domes put together. Then, the person can take the individual segments off one at a time, interface them with Voyager's computer and relive those memories - all memories - whether recent or past - vivid memories, vague, forgotten or even subconscious memories. When Paris demonstrates the sphere to some of the crew, they all beam down to the planet to get one. As we see the crew using the spheres, we can get an idea of some of the past events in our crew's lives - Janeway's happier times with her boyfriend Mark, Tuvok and his children, Kim graduating from SFA, Chakotay on earth with other members of his tribe, etc... Eventually, the crew begins inadvertantly running into less pleasant memories - Kes' capture and torture by the Kazon as she ventured to the surface, Paris' treason trial... As Paris relives this painful memory, he gets an idea - why not just discard this one chip - this one bad memory? He doesn't ever want to remember it, so getting rid of the chip won't do any harm. So, he destroys the chip. And as soon as he does, he immediately feels better. He reports to the bridge whistling and humming. His performance, however, is somewhat lacking. He makes a mistake and shrugs it off as nothing. When quesitoned about it by Janeway, he gets a little defensive. Later, he tells the others about destroying the chip and how much better he feels. So, others slowly begin doing the same - and we gradually see changes in everyone - and though they claim to feel better, the changes in their personality are NOT for the better. It seems the sphere doesn't merely record their memories, the memories co-exist in the mind and on the spheres. Throwing chips away effectively erases all memory of those experiences from the person, causing these personality changes. And these are all NEGATIVE changes, because your bad experiences help shape who you are as much or more than the good ones. Paris, in throwing away the chip where he must face the consequences of his actions, becomes laxadasical and shuns responsibility. Tuvok gets rid of memories of momentary losses of mental discipline and therefore loses some of his emotional control. Janeway gets rid of times in her past where she has made questionable decisions and becomes indecisive. Torres wants to get rid of any Klingon memories, and thus loses her vast engineering knowledge, since her Klingon side gave her the drive to learn. Kim is tired of his naivete and becomes calloused... but none of them realize they have changed... The only crew member not affected is the one who had no interest in having a sphere made for himself - Neelix. His life has been so hard and he had no desire to remember any of his past. Now, he must find out what is causing the strange behavior in the crew. After figuring out that the spheres are responsible, he has an even more difficult task - convincing the crew that they have indeed changed and convincing Janeway that they must return to the planet to see if they can set things right. Janeway and the others don't believe a word he says, but, in the end, he finally convinces her to take Voyager back. There, the people, who meant no harm by the spheres, are able to restore the memories of the crew and return everyone to normal.....
Braga's comments: This story intrigued Brannon. After I said the last word, there was utter silence on the phone for a good 30 seconds. Then, he said, "I'm thinking," and 30 more seconds of silence followed. He liked the idea, and we discussed it for four or five minutes. He did see two problems with it, however. First, he didn't think it really had a middle (I later came up with an idea to have the neural gel packs affected as well, which would endanger Voyager and the crew, but I was never able to relay this to Brannon). And second, he said that they had done several memory shows (I assumed he meant including The Next Generation), and they didn't seem to work very well. But, he liked it and said he'd pass it on to the writing staff for consideration.