Captain Janeway sends in the Doctor (Robert Picardo) to investigate, under the assumption that as an immaterial hologram, he cannot be dematerialized in the way the missing crew had been. The Doctor shows signs of nervousness when preparing for his first "away" mission, so Kes (Jennifer Lien) encourages him to take a name to embolden him with having an identity of his own. He states that he has narrowed his choices to three but does not reveal them. Once in the holodeck, the Doctor meets Freya (Marjorie Monaghan), a shieldmaiden, and introduces himself as "Schweitzer". She takes him to the hall, where he is made to prove himself before the others, and after a celebratory meal and everyone has retired to separate rooms, she reappears and suggests that, in the cold of the night when the fire in his hearth has gone out, he ought to join her. Though he dismisses her advances, he relaxes his inhibition in later scenes. Later they are confronted by Unferth (Christopher Neame), who kills Freya. She dies in Schweitzer's arms. With her last words she speaks his name. As the Doctor investigates, he realizes that alien energy lifeforms were beamed onto the ship within the containment field into which the protostar samples were transported. The missing crew members have been converted to energy by the lifeforms from the protostar, presumably as hostages in retaliation for Voyagers actions. The Doctor releases the energy lifeforms on the holodeck; in kind, the missing crew are returned to their original forms. Afterwards, upon reflection, the Doctor decides not to keep the name Schweitzer, as his memories associated with it are too painful. Production Writing Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor and Michael Piller had worked together as executive producers for the pilot of Voyager, "Caretaker", and the following ten episodes. "Heroes and Demons" was the first episode where Piller wasn't involved in the writing of the scripts because he had begun work on the series Legend. Instead, the episode was written by Naren Shankar, the former story editor for Star Trek: The Next Generation during the final two seasons of the show where he worked with Berman, Taylor and Piller. Following the end of The Next Generation, Shankar had pitched a number of spec scripts for a variety of television series including The Simpsons, but "Heroes and Demons" was the first one he sold, which was accepted before Voyager had