Ohh man, the “demon planet” melting voyager clone episode really set my teeth on edge with this.

Super interesting premise, the metal clones fly out on their own ship, invent/discover new tech that is super useful, almost get home, but then begin to melt. People die, tom gets dark and broody in a realistic way, but then as its getting good and they all start to die. They super warp home to the devil planet but they realize they arent going to mske it, so they fire off a “stable bouy” about who they are/what they learned. By pure, totally realistic happenstance, this buoy both doesn’t survive and the actual voyager is passing nearby at the time, just close enough to see their destroyed remains.

In the insane vastness of space, the chances of these two ships with vastly different propulsion capabilities passing by each other in the very minutes one of them disintegrates is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible, and of course it failed in a way that fully resets any boons actual voyager might have gained from it.