These Voyager first contacts were bad, but not USS Equinox bad.
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00:00Did you know that Squarespace are offering a free trial and 10% off your first purchase if you use
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00:11Handling something as delicate as first contact really takes a soft touch. When you're off in
00:18the Delta Quadrant that only becomes much more important because it's not exactly like you've
00:23got an entire fleet standing behind you ready to help. One ship did okay, another ship
00:29maybe was equinoxed by the first one? Not my best pun. With that in mind I'm Sean Farrick for
00:38track culture and here are 10 disastrous USS Voyager first contacts. Number 10, deuterium, hydrogen
00:47sulfate and dichromates. First on this list is a bit of a strange case of a first contact really
00:54because initially the crew of Voyager didn't realize they were dealing with sentient life
01:00form. When in the episode Demon Voyager puts down on the planet in order to do a few repairs
01:05and to do this week's version of trying to get rid of Tom and Harry they come into contact with
01:12what would become known as the Silver Blood. Now there's a little bit of biomimetic life
01:17forms going on, a little bit of happiness here, a little bit of decomposition there. Everyone has
01:22a good time. Later on however we come to the episode Course Oblivion and frankly yeah this this
01:30this gets a bit sad because you see Voyager allowed this Silver Blood life form to copy its crew and the
01:38ship itself but they then forgot that they weren't the originals which meant that when they designed a new
01:45type of warp core that let the ship travel faster they didn't realize it was toxic to their own
01:51genetic makeup which meant they all basically melted and died, all of their logs were lost
01:57and they were never spoken of again. Fun? Number 9, you appear to be leaking. The episode Night is a great
02:07way to open the fifth season of Star Trek Voyager basically because well the production team got to
02:12just not bother putting in all the stars when they were doing the field surrounding the ship.
02:17What becomes a very introverted episode for some of the characters such as Janeway as she effectively
02:23locks herself in her quarters and feels sorry for herself for a long time. Haven't we all done that
02:28this week? We also get first contact with an alien race that would become known as the reason we got the
02:37Delta Flyer. Yeah okay they're also known as the Malon. The Malon come from a now beautiful planet that is as
02:45clean as anything and the way that they do that is by dumping all of their waste out into space.
02:53Definitely no timely messages going on there. Well suffice to say that the Voyager crew and the Malon do not
03:02become friends. Janeway decides to ponderfully destroy the first Malon ship that she encounters
03:09and that sets up how the relationship between these two cultures goes from that point on. Um yeah they're
03:17not going to be on the Christmas card list. Number 8, the tale of the deadly stranger. The Vadoor are an
03:23interesting case because the way that they were set up in the episode Dragon's Teeth really suggests that
03:29we're going to see them again and again and again in Voyager and of course we never do. So in this case
03:35first contact is in fact only contact but it's quite frightening because Voyager accidentally discovers
03:42this subspace corridor network that they're thinking deadly. That's going to get us home no bother. Turns out
03:51it's been effectively co-opted by the Touré but it was originally used by these aliens the Vadoor
03:59in their attempt to conquer the galaxy. Not that much fun then when they are woken up by the crew
04:08of Voyager. In fact Seven is the one who's able to pass on this tale of the deadly stranger because
04:15effectively the Borg have assimilated cultures in the past that tell of these mysterious demon
04:22creatures that just pop up out of nowhere and behind a grinning smile rain destruction. And these
04:29are the aliens that the Voyager crew unwittingly have unleashed again on the Delta Quadrant and they
04:37did fire some fair amount of torpedoes at them before they got away so really if they do bump into
04:44them again we don't reckon second contact's going to go very well. Number Seven. More than a mild shock.
04:51When you think of the Hirogen now you think of these tall fearsome warriors. You think of such actors as
04:58Tony Todd, Mark Metcalfe. These seriously let's not mess with these folks kind of aliens. They are
05:06very clearly based around the Predator movies. They keep trophies on the wall and so when you think
05:12back to the very first time we see them and the fact that Seven Electrocute's one of them through
05:17the astrometrics bay it's actually quite funny. Voyager has found an old communications relay that they
05:23then want to use to connect with the Alpha Quadrant. Brilliant! Turns out the Hirogen have laid claim to
05:28it. They want to stop Voyager using it and Seven in what possibly they thought was going to be a
05:35momentary bit of comedy sends an electric shock through it. They use the substation relay. Everyone's
05:40happy. Well that is until the rest of the hunters turn up. Maybe? Maybe hold off on those impulses for now?
05:53Hi, I'm award winning journalist and all round truth seeker L. E. Fontana. If you go to squarespace.com
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06:53Number six. One Sporocystean? Two Sporocysteans? Well the alien race that Voyager first encountered
07:02was of course the caretaker although they didn't realize they were encountering them at the time.
07:07The caretaker and though we wouldn't discover her for a while later on Suspiria are members of a
07:12Sporocystean life form called the Nacine. This caretaker has been caring for the Ocampa,
07:20another first contact race, for an age because he accidentally made their home world barren.
07:27He has been looking for compatible member races to, you know, with to create a new caretaker for the
07:36Ocampa. Unfortunately by the time Voyager reaches them they're out of luck. The caretaker dies before
07:42any of the secrets really of the Nacine can be passed over to the Voyager crew. The caretaker's
07:48array is destroyed by Voyager to save the Ocampa from the Kazon, another point for a first contact
07:55there, and later on when Voyager encounters Suspiria who had in fact just been left in Voyager as a sort
08:02of ace in the hole get Voyager home to the Alpha Quadrant if this show wasn't doing very well
08:07card, she doesn't really do much to help them either. So in terms of let's all be friends with
08:13the Nacine wasn't a good first look. Number five, once more without Kronitons. This is a funny one
08:21because we're not sure if this actually counts or not because which first contact with the Krenim are
08:26we actually going to look at here. So you have first contact with the Krenim which was a little
08:31scout ship basically firing torpedoes attempting to play the Chihuahua to Voyager's Bull Mastiff.
08:37That one, not very good. Then off in the distance you've got Krenim on his time ship erasing the Zal
08:45from existence. Suddenly this little scout ship Krenim ship becomes a bit more of a beefy bastard
08:51and it's got something a little bigger in its torpedo tubes and suddenly Voyager is getting
08:56crippled and we get this whole year of hell. That's a good title for an episode. I wonder if
09:03anyone will ever make it. Then of course by the end of this year Janeway pilots Voyager into the
09:10time ship causing an inversion within the ship which resets the clock. Everyone goes back and first
09:15contact now becomes the bigger beefier security ship piloted by the first guy who then just advises
09:25Voyager here. Take the long way around our space. There's a bit of dispute going on. She says thanks
09:29very much. Everyone says good journey. So actually that wasn't that bad but then when you count Kess
09:35in before and after... Time travel hurts my head. Number four. Biomolecular warheads first. Class
09:44reunions later. So first contact with Species 8472 effectively put Harry Kim on his deathbed and
09:51then the ship was nearly destroyed. A lot of Borg were killed. It was a good time. Then we start
09:58reaching out to try and understand who Species 8472 are. The weak shall perish. Okay cool not gonna go
10:05for dinner with them. Then Voyager ends up in fluidic space because the Borg brought them there. They fire
10:11some modified torpedoes. They get the upper hand. The Borg go on their usual rampage through the Delta
10:16Quadrant. Whoops. So pretty bad first contact right? You'd think that might be it. Let's stay away from
10:22them forever. Bit odd then when Voyager finds a holograph or a hologram ship floating in space and
10:29they beam over and they're at Starfleet Academy. What? What's this doing here? Let's test these. Oh my
10:35good Christ they're 8472. They were preparing a full invasion of Starfleet. Thankfully there's a lot
10:43more communication going on this time. So you could argue that this is the proper first contact
10:49between 8472 and Voyager and if that's the case it shouldn't be on this list. So we're going to go
10:56back to the first first contact which was one tripedal alien, one swipe of its claw and Harry Kim's face
11:04eating itself. Number three. Going through a difficult phage? The Vedians are effectively the
11:09vampires of the Delta Quadrant and there's so much tragedy attached to them. However they're also
11:15horrible because of how they try to combat their tragedy. Our very first experience of them is Neelix
11:22having his lungs stolen because the lungs in the people that stole them are rotting away. That's how
11:29they stay alive by harvesting organs from other aliens. In this episode which is aptly called
11:36the phage these same Vedians do in fact save Neelix's life. Now while Neelix's own lungs are
11:43now fully integrated into another person who will die if they're removed, Kes thankfully the Ocampa are
11:51able to effectively live perfectly fine with one lung. She can donate one lung to Neelix, the Vedians can
11:58make it happen. Okay sounds like we got a good ending to a bad situation. Janeway does take the
12:04time to say listen if we see you again we're going to blow you out the sky. I'm paraphrasing but that's
12:08effectively the message. As time goes on and we encounter more of the Vedians turns out Janeway
12:13made the right call. They're not very nice. Dinara Pell is one of the few Vedians who shows their
12:20humanity if you like has not been lost to the phage. So with that and the knowledge that the members of
12:29the think tank which Voyager encounters a few years later have cured the phage, time might be right for
12:36second contact with the Vedians now. Number two, most storms don't rain nanoprobes. In the finale of the
12:44fourth season of Star Trek Voyager we meet Arturus and he initially seems to be a friendly alien who
12:51can speak all of the languages and understand absolutely everything and totally coincidentally
12:56Voyager also encounters the USS Dauntless which is equipped with a new slipstream drive everyone's
13:03happy we'll be home for tea. You never really thought that was going to happen did you? Turns out
13:08Arturus was a member of a species that was directly counting on species 8472 to effectively destroy
13:16the Borg. When Voyager made the deal with the Borg that saw species 8472 sent back to their own
13:23fluidic space the Borg then turned around and assimilated Arturus's culture leaving Arturus
13:30little understandably infuriated. Knowing that he can't take on the entire collective he effectively
13:37settles his rage on Voyager itself. He uses the line that the Borg are like a storm on the horizon
13:43you don't get angry with the storm but if the Voyager crew were the ones who sort of pushed the storm in
13:49their direction they can be blamed and I could sort of see his point. Voyager does survive the day and
13:58you know Dauntless unfortunately ends up in the hands of the Borg who having transwarp ability already
14:03possibly just don't care about slipstream but it's quite a sobering thought to think that
14:08this final to date encounter with Arturus's species I mean he says a few other survivors got away but
14:15was one of pure rage pure blame and quite frankly ends in sadness for Arturus. I'd be a bit concerned
14:24really for Voyager if they're nipping back to the Delta Quadrant anytime soon. Number one no more
14:29scarves on Sicaris. Very early on in Voyager's journey to the Delta Quadrant they encounter the
14:35Sicarians. Now initially these are a hedonistic sort of you know up their own backsides but not
14:43overtly unpleasant kind of people. In hosting the Voyager crew they reveal that they have a technology
14:50which they call a spatial trajectory which can send people or even starships up to 40,000 light years
14:57away. At this point Voyager was still 75,000 light years from Earth that would have made a serious
15:03serious chunk of their journey gone like that. Unfortunately the Sicarians were like we kind of
15:10have this directive thing where we don't share technology. Although Janeway sort of well she has
15:16to accept this she does attempt to negotiate she does attempt to explain their position and
15:21alas the Sicarians won't budge. So when Seska and B'Elanna basically hatch a plot to steal some of
15:31this technology, a plot that Tuvok gets involved in as well, they are then left in a position when it
15:37turns out the technology is completely incompatible with Voyager. They can't exactly ask the Sicarians
15:43for help either because they've just stolen from them. So it's all a bit of a disaster really and it
15:49gets a little bit more awkward when years later Seven of Nine reveals the fact that the Borg have
15:56assimilated this spatial trajectory technology which is saved only for the use of the Queen and why it
16:02wouldn't be used for a full-scale assimilation of the galaxy, God only knows. But yeah does that mean
16:09that the Sicarians didn't have a happy ending? I'm not sure I like this list. Thankfully though that's the
16:15end of it. Thanks very much. What do you think should be on this list? Thank you so much to Jack
16:20Kiley for writing this list originally. Go check it out over on whatculture.com. Thank you to the
16:25wonderful Tom for making this look pretty. Don't forget to follow us along on Twitter at Trek
16:30Culture and then you can follow us over on Instagram at TrekCultureYT. Remember every Tuesday we have a
16:36podcast that drops so that will be on all of the podcast catchers of your choice. Don't forget to follow
16:41Jack over on Twitter. He's at Jack Riley. I'm at Sean Ferrick. Tom is at Tom C Finn or Tom Roberts Finn.
16:49I think that's everyone. You are all awesome. Make sure that you look after yourselves until I see you
16:54again. Make sure that you live long and prosper. Our friends in Ukraine, Slava, Ukraine. Everyone
16:58have a wonderful however long it is until I see you again. Make it so.