Wakey wakey!
"I wanted to help revive a civilization, not start a war."
When a Shining City 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...
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 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.
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...
Contains examples of:
- After the End: Voyager sets down on the planet after the holocaust.
- All Myths Are True: 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...
- The Atoner: After helping to assimilate others, 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.
- Bittersweet Ending: Voyager survives, but the conquering Vaadwaur do too, and though their technology is outdated, they're resourceful; Janeway doubts we've seen the last of them...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 Expanded Universe and Star Trek Online.
- Call-Back: Seven mentions the Devore Imperium, who presumably haven't changed their Absolute Xenophobe ways.
- Character Development: 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.'
- Cruel Mercy: 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.Gaul: In a few hundred years, maybe someone will be nice enough to wake them up.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Seven opens the cyrotube without checking with her captain first if it's the correct thing to do.
- 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.
- Enemy Mine: Voyager and the Turei team up against the Vaadwuar.
- This also happened 900 years ago, when all the species the Vaadwaur had attacked united against them and nearly wiped them out.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Our heroes reawaken the Vaadwaur, who repay them by trying to take Voyager.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: 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.
- Foreshadowing:
- Chakotay compares the sleeping Vaadwuar soldiers to the 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.
- 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.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: 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.
- He Knows Too Much: The Turei intend to purge Voyager of all data regarding the underspace corridors; when Janeway refuses to cooperate, they start shooting.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: 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.
- Horrible Judge of Character: The Voyager crew are quite snowed by the calm demeanor of these so-called scientists; but, to the Vaadwaur, vengeance is a dish... Fortunately, Janeway recovers from this when she hears that All Myths Are True.
- Human Popsicle: Gedrin, Jisa and the other Vaadwaur who put themselves in stasis to survive Orbital Bombardment; 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.
- Insistent Terminology: Tuvok disabled the Vaadwuar ships, even though the effects clearly showed those ships were destroyed.
- Kids Are Cruel: Little Naomi doesn't want to play with the revived Vaadwaur children (whom we never see); they called Neelix names and made fun of the Talaxians.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Voyager contacts the Turei to fight the Vaadwaur.
- Ludicrous Speed: The "underspace corridors" allowed contact with Talax (which is 40,000 light years back).
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: 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 Heel–Face Turn and helps stop them.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: 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."Not exactly Mother Goose!"
- Never My Fault: 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.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Voyager's attempts to help the Vaadwuar sets off a potential regional conflict.
- Not Afraid to Die: 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.
- Obviously Evil: 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.
- Orbital Bombardment: The first shot of the episode is the Vaadwaur's Shining City being blasted by energy bombs. Later, the Turei repeat that tactic to take out the Vaadwaur fighters.
- Really 700 Years Old: Gedrin and the survivors of the bombing are almost 900 after being thawed out.
- Portal Network: 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.
- Redemption Equals Death: Gedrin decides he isn't a Blood Knight 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.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Seven of Nine releases an alien race from a 900-year stasis. They turn out to be your standard hostile species.
- Sequel Hook: 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 Arc Villains for the Delta Rising arc of Star Trek Online, set in 2410.
- Shout-Out: Gedrin's comment that during a rainstorm you should walk with dignity as you're going to get wet anyway is from The Hagakure.
- Summon Bigger Fish: 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.
- Title Drop: When Chakotay sees the Vaadwaur fleet, he compares them to a Greek myth about a slain dragon whose teeth became warriors and continued fighting.
- Ungrateful Bastard: 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.
- What the Hell, Hero?: 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.
- With or Without You:Janeway: (to the Vaadwaur) I'm going to leave this planet in one hour, with or without you.
- Zerg Rush: The Vaadwaur attempt to seize Voyager with ships 900 years behind the times, but they can mobilize dozens of ships to overwhelm Voyager through sheer number even though their ships explode in one hit. Voyager evens the odds by calling up the Turei for an Enemy Mine.
