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Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 4 E 4 Nemesis

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"Did I stumble onto the set of the Predator movies?"

Commander Chakotay crashlands on a planet with a civil war between the Vori and the Kradin, and is forced to pick a side in order to survive.


This episode provides examples of:

  • All Just a Dream: Chakotay was being brainwashed to hate the Kradin through a simulation that depicted them as monsters. Everything that happened from his viewpoint, until Tuvok found him, never did.
  • And This Is for...: The Defenders that Chakotay speaks to all have loved ones killed by their Nemesis.
    Namon: How many beasts will you send to the Wayafter, Rafin?
    Rafin: I couldn't say.
    Namon: Me, I'll nullify one for each brother and cousin that I've lost. And then one more after.
  • Antagonist Title
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: Enforced. As Chakotay falls further under the brainwashing, he's walking around with his finger on the trigger of his rifle.
  • Bait-and-Switch: We're led to believe that the Voyager crew are meeting with the Vori, and that the Kradin are villainous monsters, then we find out the opposite is true. This is intentional, as it is meant to play with audience expectations and make them question their own judgement. Jim "Reviewboy" Wright even points out how the discussions on Voyager go out of their way to avoid naming either the helpful ambassador's people or their nemesis until The Reveal.
    Janeway looks at her senior staff. "Before I risk anyone else's life I want to know exactly what we're getting ourselves into. Understood?"
    A lone reviewer raises his hand from the back of the conference room. "Ummm...which species is Ambassador Treen, anyway? Kradin, or Vori"
    Janeway glares the poor chump naked. "Don't get ahead of the story, Review Boy."
    Yes, Ma'am.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted when it turns out that the Human Aliens are the bad guys, and their butt-ugly enemies are the ones helping Voyager.
  • Berserk Button: Chakotay attacks the Kradin commandant who's hauling off Karya to the extermination facility. This marks his 'graduation' from the brainwashing, showing he's ready for battle.
  • Blood Knight: Namon, who's clearly thirsting for Kradin blood. He gets to kill the Kradin who plugs him.
  • Brainwashed: Chakotay, as it turns out.
  • Brainwash Residue: The episode ends on a bit of a bitter note after Chakotay's rescue from the brainwashing camp. The Kradin ambassador who fought to secure his release comes to see him in sickbay, happy that he's in good health. Chakotay has to excuse himself, finding it hard to see him as anything other than a monster as he was made to believe by his captors.
  • Captain Crash: As it was shot down, at least it wasn't Chakotay's fault.
  • Civil War: The Clash.
  • Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": It's pretty obvious that the writers used the Find and Replace tool on the Vori dialect. "Planet" became "sphere", "morning" became "new light", "fall back" became "backwalk", and so on. The conviction the actors have using all of these terms without missing a beat is chuckle-worthy.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Chakotay is staked out in the sun to die, but is saved by Brone.
  • Deadly Euphemism: Death is referred to as "nullification" by both sides.
  • Death Glare: Averted with our peaceful warrior Chakotay. "His glimpse is too tame to be a Krady." When Rafin's friend is killed, he picks up his own steely-eyed gaze, as does Chakotay by the time his indoctrination is complete.
  • Delirious Misidentification: While under the Vori brainwashing, Chakotay sees Tuvok as a Kradin.
  • Demonization: A common theme of this episode.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The handsome, human-looking, bare-armed Defenders wearing camouflage greens (as opposed to the usual Space Clothes) and using assault rifles (as opposed to energy weapons) make this episode look like a gung-ho action movie of The '90s, which fits with the propaganda theme. It also has echoes of the brutality, dehumanization, and veteran PTSD/inability to adjust to life after war of The Vietnam War, right down to unusual jargon.
  • Due to the Dead: The Vori turn their dead face-down, while the Kradin are shown to leave their victims "neck-strapped and upturned," in violation of Vori customs.
    Brone: We beg peace from the Power that made us Vori, and we commend our brother Namon to the gloried Wayafter.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: The Kradin speak with deep, distorted voices. Later subverted in both senses; the Kradin were trying to help find Chakotay, and when they appear outside the brainwashing simulation, their voices are perfectly normal.
  • Evil Wears Black: The Kradin soldiers wear black. Unlike the above trope, these are their actual uniforms.
  • Execution by Exposure: Being left "neck-strapped and up-turned" is considered both torturous and sacrilegious, as it violates Vori funerary customs. Chakotay finds himself in this position after attacking the Kradin who drag Karya away.
  • Fanservice: Any episode that opens with Chakotay Bound and Gagged is off to a good start. It gets better in the middle of the episode, when he's staked to the ground spread-eagle while wearing a muscle shirt.
  • Fantastic Slurs: The Vori refer to the Kradin as "Krady beasts."
  • Final Solution: Captured civilians who are too old to work are taken away to the Extermination Facility.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Deconstructed Trope; Chakotay is made to empathize with various Defenders and Vori civilians who are then killed, so he'll feel anger towards their killers.
  • Going Native: After Namon dies, Chakotay is given his camouflage uniform under the justification that his bright red Space Clothes will stand out in the jungle. Which is true, but it also labels him as a Defender rather than a stranded alien, and causes him to subconsciously identify with the Defenders. He also starts talking more like them. More significantly he's given Namon's rifle for self defense.
  • Good-Looking Privates: A girl from the village says that the Defenders, which Chakotay has joined, "glimpse great" in their jungle combat gear. They're actually the villains of the story.
  • Gun Accessories: Namon has a big flashlight attached to the carry handle of his rifle.
  • Hand Signals: The Vori Defenders use them.
  • He's Nullified, Jim: Namon.
  • Human Aliens: The Vori—though, as Chakotay's interactions with them were during and just after his brainwashing, this may just be a facade.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Chakotay sees Tuvok as a Kradin commando, and nearly shoots him before Tuvok talks him down.
    Tuvok: You are Commander Chakotay of the starship Voyager. You are a scientist, an explorer. You are not a killer.
  • Improperly Placed Firearms: The Defenders use bullpup assault rifles including the British SA80, while Kradin soldiers use a Kalashnikov type, both modified with plastic coverings. The Kradin aircraft are CGI-modified Harrier jets.
  • Innocent Flower Girl: Karya greets Chakotay by placing a garland of flowers around his neck.
  • Ironic Echo
    Ambassador Treen: I'm only sorry we weren't able to rescue you sooner from our nemesis. (Chakotay walks out) Have I said something wrong?
    • "Welcome to Larhana settlement, gloried defender. You are brightly greeted." At the end of the episode, Chakotay is shocked to get the exact same greeting from the same girl he'd seen being dragged off for execution.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Chakotay suffers this off-screen, courtesy of the (illusory) Kradin.
  • Just One Man: Tuvok rejects the idea of a Voyager away team blundering about a war zone, and suggests that one man go in with a team of Kradin commandoes.
    Paris: Fine with me. When do I leave?
    Janeway: Something tells me that's not what Tuvok has in mind.
    Tuvok: Naturally, I am the logical person to carry out this mission.
    Paris: Naturally.
  • Kick the Dog: Deliberately Invoked by the "simulation" Chakotay finds himself in, where the Kradin seem to do nothing but commit war crime after war crime, including desecrating the Vori's dead, rounding up civilians for slave labour and eventual execution, and even threaten a young girl, all so that Chakotay and the other recruits would come to hate them.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better
  • Mutual Kill: Namon shoots the Kradin who shoots him. They both die.
  • Never Say "Die": Vori are not killed. They are nullified.
  • New Meat: Novice Rafin, who has never killed anyone and has "the trembles" at the thought of confronting the Nemesis.
  • Nicknaming the Enemy: The Nemesis. Also referred to as "Krady beasts." In a moment of Dramatic Irony, it turns out the Kradin use the same term for their enemy.
  • Not Quite Dead: The Kradin bomb the Larhana settlement, force-marching away the survivors as slave labor, and send off Penno and Karya to be executed. Tuvok takes Chakotay back to the settlement to find it restored and everyone still alive. He receives the exact same greeting from Penno and Karya as before.
  • Obviously Evil: Subverted with the Kradin.
  • Off-the-Shelf FX: The Kradin look suspiciously similar to Yautja. They also bear more than a passing resemblance to the Nausicaans.
  • Pistol Whip: Chakotay yells at one of the Kradin about Karya's ailing grandfather and gets a rifle to the face.
  • Predator Pastiche: Vori mind control makes the Kradin look very similar to the Predator. And the episode focuses on soldiers fighting each other in a jungle to boot.
  • Propaganda Machine: Chakotay thinks the stories of the Krady beasts are due to this. He doesn't realise that he's actually experiencing the process himself.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil / Mars Needs Women: The Kradin are said to "make playthings of our sisters".
  • Rousing Speech: Brone gives one after the Seventh Contingent is found massacred and their bodies desecrated.
  • Separated by a Common Language: The universal translator that Chakotay has renders the Defenders' language into approximate English, but uses different base words: "clash" instead of "war", "savory" instead of "tasty", fly "so close to the sphere" instead of "low to the ground", and "Nemesis" instead of "Enemy".
  • Series Continuity Error: At the briefing, Janeway asks Neelix what he knows about the war taking place on the planet, and he gives details about it in a manner that suggests he's well familiar with the conflict. Apparently the writers forgot that Neelix's knowledge of the Delta Quadrant had previously been established to end at the far side of the Nekrit Expanse, and that was about ten thousand light-years behind them. Although the nature and phrasing of Neelix's information suggests he got it all from the Kradin ambassador.
  • A Shared Suffering (Invoked Trope): Having fought the Cardassians who were trying to take his own homeland, Chakotay identifies with the Vori Defenders. He tries to coach them out of their Black-and-White Morality, but ends up adopting it himself due to experiencing their privations first hand.
  • Sighted Guns Are Low-Tech: When Rafin is showing Chakotay how to use their weapons, they both aim the rifle when shooting at targets. After Rafin gives a badass speech, he then shoots several targets without using the sights.
  • Son of a Whore: The Defenders refer to the Kradin as "motherless beasts".
  • Strange-Syntax Speaker: The Defenders have a Chaucer-like dialogue. Whether this is due to translation issues, or something to do with the brainwashing process, is not revealed, but Chakotay is shown talking the same way as the brainwashing takes effect.
  • Teach Him Anger: Brone does this to novice soldiers, but the actual target is Chakotay.
  • The Unreveal: We don't know for certain if the Kradin really are the good guys, as both sides accuse each other of the same atrocities. However, seeing as the Kradins help Voyager out without strings attached and the Vori brainwash random strangers to fight and die for them, the Kradins would appear to be the good guys.
  • Wham Shot:
    • The friendly ambassador Treen who's been informing Janeway about their Nemesis beams aboard, and he's a Kradin.
    • Chakotay walks into a Vori village that he saw destroyed in a Kradin attack — and it's very much not destroyed, proving that what he experienced wasn't real.

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