Natural Law (Voyager episode)

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Star Trek: VOY episode
"Natural Law"
Chakotay and Seven are stranded
Episode no.	168
Prod. code	268
Airdate	May 2, 2001
Writer(s)	James Kahn Kenneth Biller
Director	Terry Windell
Guest star(s)	Paul Sandman as Healer Autumn Reeser as Girl Robert Curtis-Brown as Ambassador Neil Vipond as Kleg Ivar Brogger as Barus Matt McKenzie as Port Authority Officer
Year	2377
Stardate	54827.7
Episode chronology
Previous	"Friendship One"
Next	"Homestead"

Natural Law is an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the 22^nd episode of the seventh season.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

While traveling in a shuttle to the planet Ledos for a conference on Warp Field Dynamics, Chakotay and Seven of Nine take a small detour to admire the natural landscape. There they scrape an ancient energy barrier that begins to break the shuttle apart.

They are forced to transport to the planet's surface, where they find themselves in a lush jungle. In spite of Chakotay's leg injury, they decide to search for the shuttle's debris in hopes of constructing a distress beacon.

While searching for the debris, they encounter a tribe of primitive humanoids called the Ventu living in the jungle. Because of the Prime Directive, Chakotay and Seven agree to limit their contact with the Ventu as much as possible.

As Chakotay rests from his injury, he is found by two Ventu and taken to their camp, where he begins to communicate with them. Unaware of this, Voyager attempts to rescue stranded Chakotay and Seven, but inadvertently disables the ancient energy barrier, that was erected by an alien species to separate the peoples of Ledos, protecting the Ventu from invasion and colinisation. These aliens where eventually assimilated by the Borg (which is how Seven was able to penetrate the field during the crash). The shield going down opens up the primitive inhabitants to outsiders. After realising this, Voyager re-establishes the energy barrier.