Line #53 Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E7DragonsTeeth


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/voy_dragonteeth_078.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Wakey wakey!]]
3
4	->''"I wanted to help revive a civilization, not start a war."''
5
6	When a ShiningCity is under attack, a Vaadwuar scientist named Gedrin is forced to terminate 37 of his colleagues' stasis pods' life support, then seal himself and his wife Jisa in themselves, for five years...
7
8	''Voyager'' is pulled through a rusty brown subspace corridor filled with debris, some ancient, when they encounter a working ship! The inhabitants, the Turei, claim that the 'underspace' belongs to them, and helpfully push ''Voyager'' out of the corridor... and follow them out! The Turei decide ''Voyager'' [[HeKnowsTooMuch knows too much]] and demand to come aboard so they can purge her computers of any information regarding the underspace; failing that, they open fire. ''Voyager'' needs to escape, so they locate a highly irradiated planet nearby that they can lose their pursuers near. They do so, and find a decimated city similar to the one that was bombed in the teaser.
9
10	When investigating some stasis pods underground, Seven Of Nine wakes up Gedrin, who is a bit shaken up to discover that the estimate of five years was a little off...
11	-----
12	!!Contains examples of:
13	* AfterTheEnd: ''Voyager'' sets down on the planet after the holocaust.
14	* AllMythsAreTrue: The Talaxians had many folk tales about, essentially, a Ninja Army - one that would appear, destroy entire civilizations and then vanish... Turns out that the Vaadwaur are that army; they may be scientists, but they're also conquerors. And Gaul wants to revive that latter portion of their history...
15	* TheAtoner: After helping to assimilate others, [[CharacterDevelopment Seven enjoys helping to rebuild the Vaadwaur, and even tells Janeway as such at the end of the episode.]] Maybe that's why Janeway ultimately doesn't come down on her too hard.
16	* BittersweetEnding: ''Voyager'' survives, but the conquering Vaadwaur do too, and though their technology is outdated, they're resourceful; [[{{Foreshadowing}} Janeway doubts we've seen the last of them]]... Of course, they're only seen again once, in season 7, but they do make appearances in the [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] and ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''.
17	* CallBack: Seven mentions the [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E10Counterpoint Devore Imperium]], who presumably haven't changed their AbsoluteXenophobe ways.
18	* CharacterDevelopment: Seven has done a ''complete'' reversal from her time as a drone; she finds the proposition of rebuilding a civilization as opposed to destroying one 'gratifying.'
19	* CruelMercy: Gaul overrides his aide's order to execute the ''Voyager'' crew when they capture the ship. Instead, he orders them imprisoned in their old stasis pods.
20	-->'''Gaul:''' In a few hundred years, maybe someone will be nice enough to wake ''them'' up.
21	* DidntThinkThisThrough:
22	** Seven opens the cyrotube without checking with her captain first if it's the correct thing to do.
23	** Gaul's desire for the Vaadwuar to reclaim what they've lost has a minor problem in that the rest of the quadrant has advanced over the last 900 years, leaving the Vaadwuar obsolete. They also claim there are corridors of which the Turei are unaware, despite the latter controlling and exploring them for 900 years.
24	* EnemyMine: ''Voyager'' and the Turei team up against the Vaadwuar.
25	** This also happened 900 years ago, when all the species the Vaadwaur had attacked united against them and nearly wiped them out.
26	* TheFarmerAndTheViper: Our heroes reawaken the Vaadwaur, who repay them by trying to take ''Voyager''.
27	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: As the Vaadwaur have been in stasis for over 900 years, the Delta Quadrant is a very different place than when ''they'' called the shots.
28	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
29	** Chakotay compares the sleeping Vaadwuar soldiers to the [[TitleDrop dragon teeth]] sown by Cadmus in ancient Greek myth, which rose up and became soldiers. Chakotay doesn't finish the story, but if you know how it ends you have some clue how this is going to end for ''Voyager''.
30	** This episode leans a bit on this, from Gedrin momentarily insisting that Janeway "finish off" a Turei ship, to Neelix revealing the Talaxian meaning of Vaadwuar. Most of all is the ever-perceptive Naomi Wildman, who finds the Vaadwuar children mean and doesn't want anything to do with them.
31	* FromNobodyToNightmare: Gedrin is shocked when he sees how much space the Borg control in the Delta Quadrant in the 24th century. In his time, the Vaadwaur saw the Borg as a minor nuisance, who only controlled a handful of star systems.
32	* HeKnowsTooMuch: The Turei intend to purge ''Voyager'' of all data regarding the underspace corridors; when Janeway refuses to cooperate, they start shooting.
33	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: With Gedrin's help, the ''Voyager'' crew is able to hack one of the Vaadwaur's surveillance satellites, sending targeting data to the Turei fleet so they can bullseye the Vaadwaur fighters from orbit.
34	* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: The ''Voyager'' crew are quite snowed by the calm demeanor of these so-called scientists; but, to the Vaadwaur, [[BestServedCold vengeance is a dish]]... Fortunately, Janeway recovers from this when she hears that AllMythsAreTrue.
35	* HumanPopsicle: Gedrin, Jisa and the other Vaadwaur who put themselves in stasis to survive OrbitalBombardment; unfortunately, Jisa and some of the Vaadwaur didn't make it. Gaul wants to make the ''Voyager'' crew into these in the end, though at least it's a step up from executing them.
36	* InsistentTerminology: Tuvok ''disabled'' the Vaadwuar ships, even though the effects clearly showed those ships were ''destroyed''.
37	* KidsAreCruel: Little Naomi doesn't want to play with the revived Vaadwaur children ([[TheGhost whom we never see]]); they called Neelix names and made fun of the Talaxians.
38	* LetsYouAndHimFight: ''Voyager'' contacts the Turei to fight the Vaadwaur.
39	* LudicrousSpeed: The "underspace corridors" allowed contact with Talax (which is 40,000 light years back).
40	* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Gedrin is the only Vaadwaur who realizes their plan to reassert their empire is doomed to failure, as they are vastly outnumbered and their technology is 900 years behind the times. When Gaul plans to backstab the ''Voyager'' crew and steal their ship, Gedrin pulls a HeelFaceTurn and helps stop them.
41	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The folktales that used the term Vaadwaur from which the race name was defined: ''The Demon with the Golden Voice'', ''The Tale of the Deadly Stranger'', ''The Tale of the Boy Who Lost His Head'', and ''The Tale of the Bloody Hand''.
42	--> "Not exactly Mother Goose!"
43	* NeverMyFault: At the end Janeway tries to pin the entire thing on Seven for waking Gedrin, even though Janeway herself made the decision to revive and rearm the rest of the Vaadwuar.
44	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: ''Voyager's'' attempts to help the Vaadwuar sets off a potential regional conflict.
45	* NotAfraidToDie: Apparently, all the Vaadwaur are this. Gedrin explains that they are taught as children to imagine a different way to die every night, in order to desensitize them to it.
46	* ObviouslyEvil: Other than Gedrin, most of the newly awoken Vaadwaur are more interested in getting their hands on ''Voyager's'' weapons technology than the idea of escaping their ruined homeworld and finding a safe place to reestablish their civilization. One of the Vaadwaur makes small talk with B'elanna, speaking approvingly of the Klingon Empire's "today is a good day to die" mindset. Then Neelix finds mythological evidence that the Vaadwaur weren't the peaceful traders they claim to be.
47	* OrbitalBombardment: The first shot of the episode is the Vaadwaur's ShiningCity being blasted by energy bombs. Later, the Turei repeat that tactic to take out the Vaadwaur fighters.
48	* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Gedrin and the survivors of the bombing are almost 900 after being thawed out.
49	* PortalNetwork: ''Voyager'' accidentally enters a network of subspace tunnels that will cut down their journey. Unfortunately, the aliens who lay claim to the tunnels have no intention of letting anyone else use them.
50	* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Gedrin decides he isn't a BloodKnight like the rest of the Vaadwuar, and with Tuvok's help he sabotages the Vaadwaur's attack at the climax, getting killed in the process.
51	* SealedEvilInACan: Seven of Nine releases an alien race from a 900-year stasis. They turn out to be your standard hostile species.
52	* SequelHook: At the end of the episode, Tuvok reports that several dozen Vaadwaur ships escaped their planet and made it into the subspace corridors. The Vaadwaur never showed up on ''Voyager'' again, but would become the [[ArcVillain Arc Villains]] for the Delta Rising arc of ''[[Videogame/StarTrekOnline Star Trek Online]]'', set in 2410.
53	* ShoutOut: Gedrin's comment that during a rainstorm you should walk with dignity as you're going to get wet anyway is from ''Literature/TheHagakure''.
54	* SummonBiggerFish: When the Vaadwaur fighters swarm ''Voyager'', Janeway decides to call up the Turei fleet in orbit (the same guys they were trying to hide from) and warn them that their ancient enemies are back. The Turei wisely agree to cooperate with ''Voyager'' and start shooting at the Vaadwaur.
55	* TitleDrop: When Chakotay sees the Vaadwaur fleet, he compares them to a Greek myth about a slain dragon whose teeth became warriors and continued fighting.
56	* UngratefulBastard: To wage their war, the contingent of Vaadwaur led by Gaul, who wish to reawaken their warrior nature, are willing to take over ''Voyager'', the people who woke them up from their unnecessarily long slumber.
57	* WhatTheHellHero: Seven broke protocol and woke up Gedrin to begin with. Janeway admits that it was born of compassion and that she might have done the same in her position... but that doesn't make it right.
58	* WithOrWithoutYou:
59	--> '''Janeway:''' ''(to the Vaadwaur)'' I'm going to leave this planet in one hour, with or without you.

Context Recap / StarTrekVoyagerS6E7DragonsTeeth