Harry's date Eudana whisks him away 40,000 light years to bask in the euphoria breeze on Alastria. This spacial trajector could get Voyager halfway home! But the Sikaris Canon of Laws forbids any sharing of tech with less advanced cultures for fear of its misuse. They're also not big on file-sharing.
It's a crappy-ass rule, but Janeway points out that people on the wrong side of the Prime Directive feel exactly the same way. Also, pirating is wrong for a reason, people!
The Sikarians are nutty for stories, and with official channels closed, some guy named Jaret offers Harry a trajector for a copy of all the literature on the Voyager. And all the bacon and eggs they have. Janeway refuses to break laws, even a jerk's jerky jerk laws. Tuvok, therefore, does it for her, and Torres, Seska, and Carey rig it up to the ship behind the Captain's back. At last! The crew is getting along... as one jolly, cohesive, mutinous family.
When it doesn't work, Torres and Tuvok sheepishly admit their actions to Janeway. Torres gets the 'I'm disappointed, and next time you screw up you lose your job' speech, while Tuvok gets "You failed me as a conscience, your logic sucks, and your kung fu is weak". "Prime Factors" travels well, but I was surprised to discover how much COOLER it could have been. Original writers David George & Eric Stillwell proposed that the superior alien race be the ones who sent Gary Seven on his 'Assignment: Earth'! Able to beam all across the galaxy, they'd have been a great idea for a recurring villain: a batch of morally holier-than-thou types who are really only out for their own gratification. It seems I can blame producer Michael Piller for pulling their hedonistic pants up (so to speak), and removing the shout-out to the Original Series. The real shame is the villain part: I've barely begun this re-watch and I'm already pretty sick of those lackluster Klingon knock-offs called the Kazon all over again.
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