Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 14 "Alliances"

I don't think we can afford to keep doing business as usual.

— Chakotay

Diplomacy with the Kazon goes as well as Janeway should have expected.

As raids by the Kazon take their toll on Voyager, Janeway is convinced that she needs to make alliances with local races in order to survive.

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This episode provides examples of

• Action Prologue: The episode opens in the middle of a battle where Voyager is getting hammered by two Kazon warships.
• Aggressive Negotiations
• The Alliance: Attempted. Voyager tries to make an alliance with one or two of the Kazon sects, but each attempt falls apart. Janeway then starts negotiating with the Trabe, former masters of the Kazon who were overthrown, and this leads to a proposal to bring peace to all the Kazon. However, when the Trabe leader betrays her trust and the Peace Conference nearly becomes a bloodbath, Janeway breaks off all negotiations.
• All Is Well That Ends Well / Debate and Switch: This episode raises the Starfleet principle vs. Maquis pragmatism conflict on which Star Trek: Voyager is supposed to be based, only to shut it down with An Aesop that the Starfleet way is the only way. Maquis dissidence is transferred to a single traitor, and continual use of the Reset Button ensures that Voyager is never put in the position of Equinox.
• Artistic License – Physics: Neelix's Kazon contact tries to solve a puzzle in which moving two rods can turn a dodecahedron (polyhedron with twelve sides) into a icosahedron (polyhedron with twenty sides). He's doing this on a two-dimensional surface. It's about as impossible as you may think, but then the Kazon really are that stupid so they may think there really is a solution.
  • Snipe Hunt: The dancer did say she'd sleep with the man who solved the puzzle. Seems a good way to get rid of an Abhorrent Admirer.
  • That, or it forms the net of a polyhedron. It wouldn't be hard to count the sides and verify that they're all triangles.
• A Shared Suffering: Janeway assumes their own situation is similar to that of the refugee Trabe.
• Baby Trap: When Culluh threatens Seska, she taunts Culluh that he'd never harm his own child.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Chakotay and Bendera when they first met during a Bar Brawl.
• Badass Boast: When Hogan suggests they just give the Kazon what they want, Janeway replies thus:
  "I appreciate your concerns, crewman, but let me make myself absolutely clear. I'll destroy this ship before I turn any part of it over to the Kazon."
• Bad Vibrations: Heralding the arrival of the Trabe warship.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The Trabe appear as an alternative to Voyager allying with the untrustworthy Kazon. Then they betray Janeway as well.
  • Voyager's crew thinks one of the First Majes is planning to assassinate his rivals. Knowing the person responsible will leave during the conference, they tense when Maje Culluh stands up from the table...to get himself a drink. Then Mabus urges Janeway to step outside for a quiet word...
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted with Mabus, whose people (the Trabe) look more human than the Kazon. He starts out amiable and penitent for his people's treatment of the Kazon, yet turns out to be just as devious and violent.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Chakotay has second thoughts when the other senior officers endorse bringing Seska into the negotiations.
• Berserk Button: Despite her misgivings, Janeway makes a genuine attempt at negotiating with Culluh... right until he directs a sexist insult at Seska. Janeway reacts by terminating the negotiations on the spot — quite understandably if that's how he treats someone he's already allied with — and when Culluh insinuates Tuvok would be better-qualified to run the negotiations on account of his gender, Janeway orders him thrown off the ship.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Mabus appears a Reasonable Authority Figure. Turns out the Peace Conference he suggests is just so the Kazon leaders will be Lured into a Trap.
• Blatant Lies: When Neelix is seized by two Kazon thugs, the man he's negotiating with claims that Neelix is some unknown lunatic who sat down next to him and started babbling.
• Blood Knight: Bendera's reason for helping Chakotay during the Bar Brawl: "I like a good fight."
• Call-Back: Tuvok compares their current situation to the controversial Federation/Klingon peace treaty in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
• Character Tics: Janeway paces the bridge in her hands-behind-back posture, and there's a close-up of her fingers twitching in impatience.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Jonas begins a Story Arc that culminates in "Investigations", by secretly trying to make contact with Seska.
• Children Are Innocent: An Invoked Trope by Mabus, who points out that those responsible for oppressing the Kazon are old men or dead by now, yet the Kazon want them all dead.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: It's no surprise the Alliance doesn't last.
• Commercial Break Cliffhanger: After their negotiations with the Kazon fail, a fleet of their warships bear down on Voyager. Turns out they're actually Trabe vessels, which the Kazon have been using all this time.
• The Consigliere: Chakotay finally confronts Janeway and informs her that they are on their own in this Quadrant and they need to start changing in order to survive, which might mean bending the rules a little. He makes Janeway realize that the interests of the crew are her main concern, and he questions if she is actually prioritizing that by sticking so rigidly to Starfleet rules.
• Continuity Nod: Seska is pregnant, though she's pretending to Culluh that it's his child instead of Chakotay's. It really is Culluh's.
• Decapitated Army: Mabus plans to take out the First Majes of the major Kazon factions with one strike.
• Democracy Is Flawed: "This isn't a democracy, Chakotay! I can't run this ship by consensus!"
• Due to the Dead: Bendera avoids the Red Shirt treatment when we see his memorial service.
• Enemy Mine: Rather than handing over weapons or technology, Chakotay suggests a temporary alliance with the largest Kazon factions, agreeing to defend them if attacked.
• Explosive Instrumentation: Sparks are flying all over the ship during the Action Prologue. Crewman Bendera is killed after a console explodes in his face.
• Facial Dialogue: Plenty of this from all concerned — Janeway whenever Chakotay or Maje Culluh pisses her off. Seska's reaction when Culluh suggests his crew exchange program. Jonas' thoughtful look when B'Elanna shouts down Hogan's idea of contacting Seska again.
• Gut Feeling: For once, Janeway's gut lets her down when she elects to trust Mabus.
• He's Dead, Jim: Bendera
• Idealist vs. Pragmatist: Janeway wants to stick to Starfleet principles, while Chakotay thinks it would be better to break them in emergency situations since they're lost in space. The two have many debates over this, but the episode ultimately comes down on Janeway's side by the end.
• Idiot Ball: It seems strange that Janeway and Tuvok don't discuss the possibility that the Trabe might have a hidden agenda.
• Is That a Threat?: The First Majes think Janeway's Appeal to Force is this. She urges them to think otherwise, but the subsequent ambush does not help her case.
  Janeway: I won't pretend that our alliance wasn't an attempt to make a show of strength. Separately, we and the Trabe are vulnerable. Together, we are stronger.
  Surat: Are you threatening us, Captain?
  Janeway: It is important that you understand our determination, but it's not a threat, it's an offer. A negotiated peace among all of us would provide a greater stability in this quadrant. How could that do anything but benefit us all?
• The Lancer: Chakotay and Tuvok act in this role over the course of the episode.
• Male Gaze: We get a lingering close-up of the scantily-clad buxom dancer in the Bar Full of Aliens.
• Manipulative Bastard: Seska is shown flattering and cajoling Culluh into going to the conference, while Mabus plays Janeway so admirably she never suspects a thing until it's too late to stop him.
• Mauve Shirt: This episode introduces Hogan and Jonas, former Maquis crewmembers who would become recurring characters this season (and both would end up dead by the start of Season 3). Kurt Bendera who dies in this episode can be seen as one of the male Bridge Bunnies in "Resistance".
• No Kill like Overkill: The Trabe fly a warship down into the atmosphere and fire directly through the window into the conference room.
• Noodle Incident: The "slight misunderstanding" between Neelix and his Kazon-Pomar contact.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The crew does a lot more shouting than usual during the opening battle, and Janeway looses a few strands from her Bun of Steel.
  • Tuvok knows that the rare event of Captain Janeway turning up at his quarters means she's troubled and wants his advice.
• Out-of-Character Moment: All throughout Season 1, B'Elanna would attempt to subvert Captain Janeway's orders to help get the ship home. Here, she's the captain's staunchest defender and threatens to beat the crap out of Hogan if he second-guesses her again. And then of course after this episode she goes right back to being skeptical of Janeway's decisions...
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Chakotay urges Janeway to think Maquis instead of Starfleet, saying the latter is only good for the Alpha Quadrant where the power of the Federation backs it up.
• Peace Conference: One that backfires spectacularly.
• Permission to Speak Freely: Hogan doesn't have to ask; Janeway gives it to him preemptively.
• Plot Hole: The episode acts like the five Majes who attend the conference are the entire Kazon leadership, which isn't the case.^note  Back in "Initiations", Kar stated that the number of sects changes every day, but the last count was eighteen. In particular, the two most powerful sects — the Ogla and the Relora — are both notable by their absence, yet nobody considers the possibility that either of them may attack the conference. This also means that Mabus' plan would likely have blown up in his face: while the elimination of a substantial swath of the competition might leave the other Kazon too busy fighting over the scraps to bother anyone else, their mutual hatred of the Trabe is the one thing to have united the Kazon in the past; a bunch of their fellow Majes being wiped out by them in an attempt to destroy the Kazon leadership might well be enough to get them to call a truce for long enough to hunt every last Trabe down.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Maje Culluh's misogyny towards Janeway and Seska is pretty much not veiled at all.
• Power Trio: After Chakotay urges a more flexible attitude, Janeway goes to her other adviser, Lieutenant Tuvok, to talk over the matter.
• Properly Paranoid: Janeway is rightly opposed to Culluh's idea of a crew exchange program, which would provide him with hostages while Kazon warriors are Not Afraid to Die. Averted when she takes Mabus on face value.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Janeway decides An Aesop of the episode was that she was right all along, and Starfleet principles rather than pragmatic adaptation to circumstances will see them through. Thanks to the Reset Button, the fact that Voyager is in exactly the same position as before doesn't bother anyone.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Doesn't work.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Maje Culluh gives one to Captain Janeway over her hypocrisy in allying herself with the Trabe, who have violently oppressed them in the past.
  • Janeway then gives one to Mabus for turning the Peace Conference into an attempted massacre.
• Reset Button:
  • After the Action Prologue we never see a hint of the damage being repaired; Voyager is its usual pristine self inside and out.
  • B'Elanna reports that the warp engines are in good condition, despite Chakotay reporting to Janeway earlier that he wasn't sure if they could ever get them running again.
  • The episode begins with Voyager having suffered its fourth attack from the Kazon in two weeks. After this the only sect that bothers Voyager is the Kazon-Nistrim, and that's only due to Seska's scheming. While it's possible the others were too afraid to pursue them (either because of the attack on the conference or thinking the Trabe would continue attacking them whether or not they were allied with Voyager), or that Voyager finally ended up beyond Kazon territory (with the Nistrim only dogging their trail due to Seska and Culluh's vendetta), none of this is ever explained onscreen.
• Save the Villain: Janeway warns the Kazon majes Just in Time to stop them from being Board to Death. Unfortunately this includes Maje Culluh.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: A Trabe vessel fires its weapons at point-blank range into a building and only breaks a window.
• Shout-Out: The ambush resembles the helicopter ambush in The Godfather Part III, including a conspirator leaving the conference early to avoid getting killed.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Mabus says that the Trabe responsible for the atrocities against the Kazon are all dead or close to it by now, and it's time to leave the past in the past and try to work out a peace. Then he goes on to commit some sins of his own.
• Table Space: The representatives to the Peace Conference are seated at a triangular table, so all factions are represented equally.
• Take a Third Option: Chakotay urges this between the options suggested by Hogan (give the Kazon the technology they want) and Janeway (give them nothing at all).
• Tastes Like Friendship: Another Invoked Trope by Mabus, who prepares a Fancy Dinner for Janeway and her officers.
• Tempting Fate:
  • "It's hard to imagine things getting much worse."
  • In dealing with the Trabe, Janeway says "It's always been Starfleet's policy to deal with new species on a basis of openness and trust until proven otherwise." Brace yourself, Kathy...
• Too Dumb to Live: The Kazon, once again. One of the guards sees a grenade roll towards him and nudges it with his foot.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The Kazon were once a slave race of the Trabe, penned up in slums, bullied by the police and encouraged to fight among themselves. They banded together long enough to overthrow the Trabe, only to revert to their previous inter-clan conflicts.
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Chakotay and The Captain have a terse conversation in the turbolift about their situation.
• Villain Ball: Seska is entirely for an alliance with Voyager as it's what she wanted all along. Culluh however overplays his hand during negotiations with Janeway, insults them both, and gets thrown off the ship.
• Violence is the Only Option: Mabus' view of dealing with the Kazon.
• With All Due Respect: Chakotay does one to the captain that, unusually for him, verges on insulting.
  "With all due respect, maybe your imagination is limited by Starfleet protocols."
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Harry's reaction to Janeway announcing an alliance with the Kazon. Also, Chakotay's reaction when B'Elanna takes Harry's quip about contacting Seska seriously.

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