Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 17 "Dreadnought"

Lights out, B'Elanna

Ensign Wildman is in sickbay receiving a prenatal exam from the Doctor and Kes. She solicits their advice on some of the names she has considered for her child. The Doctor, whose extensive research for his own purposes has given him an encyclopedic knowledge of names across the galaxy, has no trouble finding something wrong with every one of Wildman's suggestions — until Kes puts forth "Benaren", her father's name, which both of them quite like.

On the bridge, the crew is investigating some space wreckage from what appears to have been a small, unmanned vessel. Whatever destroyed it must have been impressively powerful to cut through its dense duritanium hull, so the crew brings aboard a piece for further analysis. It doesn't take long for Torres to identify the weapon signature... because she worked on the ship that fired it.

Torres and Chakotay brief the senior staff on what they call "Dreadnought", a state-of-the-art, AI-controlled intersystem missile designed by the Cardassians, capable of destroying a moon, that they sent against the Maquis. Despite its nearly impenetrable defenses, a faulty detonator prevented it from completing its mission, allowing the Maquis to capture and reprogram it. They sent it back against the Cardassians, targeting the fuel depot at Aschelan V, but it went missing, presumably abducted by the Caretaker since it is now in the Delta Quadrant.

Privately, however, Torres admits to Paris that Chakotay was covering for her. She was the one who sent out this weapon of mass destruction against the Cardassians, without Chakotay's consent. Now that Dreadnought has reappeared, her shame over that mistake, and the danger it now presents, has returned in full force.

Voyager quickly tracks down the elusive missile thanks to Torres' intimate knowledge of its tactics. They find to their horror that it has chosen an inhabited planet, Rakosa V, as its target. Janeway's first order of business is to warn them of the danger via subspace, but their leader, First Minister Kellan, isn't very receptive thanks to the slander the Kazon have been spreading around the sector. Not that it matters, since they are no match for Dreadnought. Voyager is their only hope of stopping it.

Dreadnought's AI nonchalantly welcomes Torres as she beams aboard to have a look. The missile confirms that it was caught in the Caretaker's tetryon beam, but believes it is still locked onto its original target of Aschelan V. With a few quick fixes to its navigation system and a reboot, the computer recalculates its location and powers down. Easy peasy.

Actually, not so easy. Soon after Torres leaves, Dreadnought resumes its course. It admits to lying to Torres, believing she has been co-opted by the Cardassians as part of a "Delta Quadrant deception". Janeway turns the ship's weapons against it, but to no effect, so Torres sneaks back onboard with some transporter Technobabble. Though Dreadnought gives her the usual polite greeting, she is clearly not welcome, as the AI warns her away from its systems with an electric shock. Undeterred, she immediately gets to work.

Torres: I'm disappointed in you, Dreadnought. If I really was a Cardassian agent, you should have killed me with the first charge.

Though completely outmatched, the Rakosians send their defense fleet against the missile. With Voyager's help, they at least distract the computer long enough for Torres to gain access to some of its systems. She starts looking for a way to prematurely detonate the payload, which confuses the AI — if she were being coerced by the Cardassians, why would she sacrifice her life for them?

Torres takes this as an opportunity to engage Dreadnought in a hypothetical exercise, hoping to reason it back to reality. The result is not what she hoped; rather than accept the truth of the situation, it concludes that Torres has betrayed the Maquis, and responds by shutting off life support.

As the missile begins its final approach on Rakosa V, Janeway prepares to use Voyager itself as a weapon of last resort against Dreadnought. She sets the self-destruct sequence and orders the crew to evacuate.

During her tinkering, Torres comes across an old Cardassian file that predates Dreadnought's capture by the Maquis. It turns out to be a backup file for the original operating system. When Torres activates it, the two programs end up fighting each other for control over the vessel. The Maquis AI eventually wins, but not before Torres gains access to the main reactor, where she begins to break through the core's shielding with her phaser.

It is now merely a question of whether Torres can stay conscious in the thinning atmosphere long enough to finish the job. Dreadnought, powerless to stop her, feigns a change of heart about the Delta Quadrant thing, but Torres is not an idiot.

Torres: Who would have thought, two years ago, after all those weeks we spent together perfecting your program, that we'd end up out here trying to kill each other...

As the core shielding finally begins to dissolve, Voyager beams Torres back seconds before Dreadnought explodes. She makes it back, unconscious and slightly crispy, but alive. A relieved Janeway shuts down the self-destruct — which was only one minute away from zero — and cheerfully gets to work on bringing the crew's escape pods back aboard.

---

This episode provides examples of:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The titular weapon is a highly advanced Cardassian missile with enough devices and systems to also be classified as a starship. It had been captured by Chakotay's cell and B'Elanna had modified the weapon to target the fuel depot at Aschelan V. However, the Caretaker zapped it to the Delta Quadrant, which is so incredibly unlikely that the closest scenario Dreadnought has to the situation is that the Federation and Cardassia have subverted B'Elanna in an attempt to prevent it from being deployed against the Cardassian target, which Rakosa V fits uncomfortably well.
• Affably Evil: Dreadnought's computer is always polite when addressing B'Elanna, asking if she slept well and making an effort to deter B'Elanna rather than outright kill her.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Dreadnought cuts off life support in an effort to stop B'Elanna.
• Attack Backfire: B'Elanna identifies an Achilles' Heel, but Dreadnought sends a plasma burst back along Voyager's tachyon beam. Explosive Instrumentation ensues.
• Blatant Lies: When B'Elanna is on the verge of successfully shutting down Dreadnought, it declares itself willing to reconsider whether it's in the Delta Quadrant. B'Elanna's response is "nice try".
• Call-Back: The Dreadnought was one of the vessels brought to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker.
• Continuity Nod: To Voyager's ongoing conflict with the Kazon.
  • On hearing that the probe was destroyed by Cardassian weapon signatures, Janeway's first thought is that Seska is responsible. Jonas later passes on the information to the Kazon-Nistrim, and gets frustrated that he's not allowed to speak to Seska directly.
  • Having failed to make an alliance with Voyager, the Kazon are bad-mouthing them to prevent Voyager allying with anyone else.
• Costume Evolution: With Ensign Wildman's pregnancy now in its big-belly stage, she's shown wearing the first on-screen depiction of what will eventually be canonized as Starfleet's "maternity uniform", the top of which drapes loosely over the abdomen instead of tucking into the trousers.
• Crazy-Prepared: Unfortunately B'Elanna programmed Dreadnought for the possibility that she might be captured and forced to disarm the weapon. The computer assumes this is what has happened. Also averted, however, as she didn't leave herself an emergency override or programming backdoor in case of situations she couldn't anticipate (the one she's in, for example).
• Cross Cultural Kerfuffle: Invoked as part of the reason the Doctor is having trouble choosing a name for himself, as he can't find a name that meant something good in all languages; as an example, he notes that "Frederick" bears a resemblance to an impolite term on the Bolian homeworld, while the Vulcan name "Sural" was also the name of a brutal dictator on Sakura Prime.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Dreadnought disintegrates three planetary defense fighters with a single pulse of energy.
• Cut Phone Lines: When B'Elanna tells Janeway she isn't willing to discuss her plans with Dreadnought listening, the latter cuts off her comms, deciding the benefit of gaining intelligence is outweighed by B'Elanna being able to speak to Voyager.
• Cutting the Knot: Torres's last resort to stop Dreadnought is to break into the reactor core and shoot it with her phaser until it detonates.
• A Day in the Limelight: B'Elanna.
• Defcon 5: Averted—the weapon goes on Stage One Alert when it prepares for its final attack run.
• Disappointed in You: Chakotay to B'Elanna after she launched the Dreadnought.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": First Minister Kellan asks Janeway to drop his title as things get worse and their relationship warms up.
• The Dreaded Dreadnought: Go on, take a guess.
• A Father to His Men: Chakotay claims that he and B'Elanna reprogrammed Dreadnought together. She later reveals to Paris that he was lying in order to take some of the heat off her — in fact, she went behind his back and did it all by herself, and he was deeply disappointed in her when he found out.
• Foreshadowing: Tom's dissatisfaction and Jonas' spying for "Investigations".
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Dreadnought's programming straddles the line between this and Gone Horribly Right. Torres programmed it to be so clever and paranoid of deception that not even she can convince it that it really is mistaken about its target.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: B'Elanna worries that Dreadnought might now be smarter than she is.
• Held Gaze: Janeway and Tom Paris after she orders him to evacuate, leaving her behind to die.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The Kazon have been damaging Voyager's reputation to prevent them finding allies. It doesn't help that Janeway has to start her negotiations with an alien planet by informing them there's a Weapon of Mass Destruction heading their way.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Captain Janeway prepares Voyager to self-destruct in order to keep Dreadnought from reaching its "intended target". Tuvok stays with her, making the logical argument that she may become incapacitated, though more likely because he won't let his oldest friend die alone.
  • B'Elanna tries to activate the detonation sequence to do the same, then refuses to beam back on board Voyager when she's on the verge of disarming Dreadnought, even though Voyager is about to blow them both up and the last Escape Pod is about to be launched.
  • The Rakosans insist on attacking Dreadnought as it approaches their planet, despite being completely outclassed. It actually ends up distracting the AI enough to help Torres, so it wasn't in vain.
    Janeway: First Minister, we've analyzed your offensive capabilities and they're no match for what you're facing. You must have realized that yourself.
    Kellan: And what would you have me do? Sit here and wait for death to fall from the sky?
• Hope Spot: B'Elanna's willingness to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the Dreadnought confuses it, so B'Elanna asks it to consider the possibility that she's not being coerced. Unfortunately after analyzing the situation, Dreadnought concludes that B'Elanna has changed her loyalties and is now a willing agent for the Cardassians and the Federation against the Maquis. It activates its final target run and shuts off B'Elanna's life support.
• Hyperspeed Escape: After Playing Possum until B'Elanna gets off Dreadnought, it shoots off at Warp 9. While Voyager stopped it three weeks from its target at Dreadnought's previous speed, now they've only 51 hours to do so.
• Infinite Supplies: Averted; having (apparently) shut down Dreadnought, the senior officers discuss stripping it for weapons and spare parts.
• Interspecies Romance: Human Samantha Wildman's husband is a Ktarian.
• Interstellar Weapon: Dreadnought.
• Is That a Threat?: The First Minister's first response when Janeway warns of the Weapon of Mass Destruction heading for his solar system.
• It's All My Fault: B'Elanna blames himself for Dreadnought's current actions even though she couldn't have anticipated the Caretaker getting involved in events.
• Logic Bomb: B'Elanna has Dreadnought's current programming argue with its previous Cardassian programming in order to confuse it long enough to access the reactor core. Its current programming eventually won out and overrode the Cardassian one.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Samantha Wildman is still pregnant some thirteen months after "Elogium". Justified in that her husband is not human, but a Ktarian. "Fury" would later confirm that the hybridization doubles the gestational period.
• Meaningful Name: Samantha is pondering what name to call her child.
  Wildman: What do you think of Cameron?
  Kes: I like it.
  EMH: Cameron, from the ancient Celtic term for "One whose nose is bent".
  Wildman: What about Frederick?
  EMH: Frederick. Very distinguished. However, it bears a close resemblance to a rather impolite term on the Bolian homeworld.
  Wildman: It doesn't have to be a human name. I like Sural. It's Vulcan.
  EMH: Yes, unfortunately it was also the name of a dictator on Sakura Prime, famed for beheading his rivals... and his parents.
• Misguided Missile: By an entire quadrant!
• The Mole: Jonas is shown telling his Kazon-Nistrim contact about Dreadnought, covertly using the subspace transmitter — he has to hang up when Janeway needs it to make a phone call.
• The Needs of the Many: Janeway considers herself, Tuvok, and The Doctor dying (along with stranding the rest of the crew permanently in the Delta Quadrant) an acceptable bargain to save an estimated two million Rakosan lives.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Thanks to B'Elanna (and the Caretaker) there's an autonomous WMD roaming the Delta Quadrant until it finds a compatible target.
• No-Sell: Janeway fires several photon torpedoes, hoping that Dreadnought won't be able to cope with the Type 6 torpedoes that Voyager is armed with, which were developed after Dreadnought. They're harmlessly absorbed by Dreadnought's shields.
• Occam's Razor: This is the problem; Dreadnought always comes up with the most common sense explanation for what's actually an Outside-Context Problem.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Tom turns up late for a command conference, is not paying attention to his standard of dress, and is getting into unnecessary arguments with his superiors. B'Elanna informs him his behaviour has become a subject of gossip among the crew.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Dreadnought can fend off everything the much larger Voyager can throw at it.
• Race Against the Clock: A three-way version with Voyager's self-destruct counting down, B'Elanna trying to cut through the containment field before she passes out from lack of oxygen, and Dreadnought heading in towards its target.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: First Minister Kellan is initially suspicious of Voyager, but soon realises that Janeway is only trying to help.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Dreadnought is a computer, after all.
  B'Elanna: Who would have thought two years ago, after all those weeks we spent together perfecting your program, that we'd end up out here trying to kill each other.
  Dreadnought: Probability assessment did not anticipate this outcome.
• Self-Guarding Phlebotinum: Thanks to the sophistication of the missile's A.I. and the thoroughness of B'Elanna's contingency plans.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale:
  • Two years after leaving the Caretaker's planet, Voyager runs into another Alpha Quadrant connection.
  • A weapon that can crack a small moon should cause more than two million deaths, unless the planet's population is lower than Class-M standards.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Janeway is prepared to destroy Voyager and the weapon as well to save an innocent planet. She's also intent on Going Down with the Ship, ordering everyone else to Abandon Ship. It's worth noting that it doesn't involve a Two-Keyed Lock; Janeway's authorization is all it takes.
• Shock and Awe: Dreadnought shock B'Elanna when she tries to open a panel, warning her that the voltage will intensify if she persists.
• Starship Luxurious: For an unmanned cruise missile, Dreadnought's interior is quite nice. Carpeted floors, even!
• Talking the Monster to Death: Averted; all attempts to reason with Dreadnought fail, as it refuses to accept that it's in the Delta Quadrant when more plausible explanations are in its programming.
• Talking Weapon: The missile is programmed with B'Elanna's voice, and when she attempts a Logic Bomb by reactivating its previous Cardassian program, a male Cardassian voice proceeds to argue with the B'Elanna voice.
• That's an Order!: Janeway ordering her crew to Abandon Ship.
• Third-Person Person
  Dreadnought: False information has been entered into Dreadnought's navigational sensor array.
  Paris: When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried.
• Technology Porn: B'Elanna gets quite excited describing the missile's abilities.
• Together in Death: Janeway insists on Going Down with the Ship. Tuvok insists on staying as backup in case she's "disabled".
• The Unpronounceable: Samantha Wildman considers naming her child after her Ktarian husband because of his family's tradition. Unfortunately his name is Greskrendtregk.
• The Unreveal: It's never made exactly clear what caused the malfunction in Dreadnought's sensors/navigation; on the one hand, B'Elanna suggests it was the Caretaker's tetryon beam itself, but on the other, when she goes looking into the missile's sensor logs she finds the old, leftover file from the original Cardassian computer program, which could have damaged the sensors and navigation or even intervened directly while trying to reassert control (the AI does describe it as a "virus" to B'Elanna later). If the latter is the case, it makes her use of the file to distract and confuse the AI rather poetic.
• Villain Ball: The Cardassians ludicrously overbuilt the titular cruise missile to the point that nothing the Maquis had could scratch it and even Voyager can't take it out with anything less than the explosion from a self-destruct... and then tossed in a low-tech kinetic detonator which crapped out on final approach. Resulting in it just shutting down after the failure, allowing B'Elanna to board it, repair the explosive, and send it right back at them.
  • This one-use self-propelled weapon has defenses significantly more powerful than their full warships. Having it drop a bomb and return instead of blowing itself up apparently never occurred to them, nor did using the resources to make a normal warship of comparable power.
    • This last one does make sense... Cardassia is repeatedly stated to be resource poor, especially after being forced to relinquish Bajor, so they likely didn't have the materials to build a full ship on Dreadnought's scale of complexity and power. This does make it a bit more odd that they would consume those resources on a one-shot weapon, however.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: Dreadnought has a 2000 kilo matter/antimatter warhead, enough to destroy a small moon. The Rakosans project casualties of up to two million if it strikes their planet.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: B'Elanna spent weeks working on scenarios with Dreadnought, anticipating every contingency except the one they are in now.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Janeway was about to blow up the ship, and basically the entire crew has been evacuated save for herself and Tuvok, but what about the Doctor?
  Janeway: Doctor, I forgot about you!
  EMH: How flattering.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: B'Elanna asks why Dreadnought doesn't just kill her as a Cardassian agent. Dreadnought replies that it's more likely she's being coerced by the enemy.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: B'Elanna beams on board the Dreadnought, gets it to run a diagnosis on its sensors and accept that it's in the Delta Quadrant, far from its target. That was easy! Turns out the Dreadnought is just playing along, having decided that B'Elanna has been coerced into shutting it down.
• You Have to Believe Me!: It's a waste of time trying to convince a computer that you're on the other side of the galaxy.
• You Never Did That for Me: The Doctor gets miffed that Kes didn't suggest her father's name for him.

---