5 Star Trek: Voyager Episodes With Great Space Battles

In many ways, "Star Trek: Voyager" is the purest of the "Star Trek" shows. The series followed the adventures of the high-tech, engine-folding USS Voyager after it had been unexpectedly whisked to the far reaches of the Milky Way, 70 years away from Earth. No one had heard of Starfleet or the Federation in this part of space, meaning that the Voyager was truly alone. There was no backup coming, and any friend or enemies encountered along the way would be made organically. "Voyager" was about a lone ship stretching the limits of what Gene Roddenberry's utopian ideals could contain. If a utopian future entails everyone working together for a common goal, how would that stand if there's no one around to work with? Sometimes Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) found that she couldn't uphold her ideals in the exact fashion Starfleet meant, and she became forthright and even authoritarian along the way. 

As proof of the shakiness of Starfleet ideals when placed in a lonesome context, the USS Voyager would sometimes get into scrapes. In some cases, it was with new enemies, recently found and freshly alienated. Sometimes it was with familiar foes; the Borg play a major part in "Voyager." And because the titular starship was alone in space, battles had much higher stakes. There was no starbase nearby to offer repairs, no munitions outpost to restock their photon torpedoes. 

Because of the desperation of their situation, the Voyager got into mid-space battles more often than the Enterprise-D on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Indeed, the Voyager went into battle situations weapons-hot more often than most starships, as the show's premise always had everyone on their back foot. This article will list some of the more spectacular, tense, and high-stakes battles from the series. Enjoy.

In the episode "Message in a Bottle," Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has discovered an unbelievably vast network of alien radio relays that the USS Voyager can potentially use to communicate with Earth back in the Alpha Quadrant. Audio signals degrade, but more complex computer systems might not, so the ship's holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) is shunted into the system and broadcasted many thousands of lightyears. He manifests on an experimental prototype starship called the USS Prometheus. It worked! But the Prometheus is abandoned. What? 

It seems the only other person on the Prometheus is that ship's own emergency holographic medical program, the EMH2 (Andy Dick). The crew of the Prometheus has been killed in an attack by the Romulans, which is still in progress. Not a great place to arrive. The Doctor, having developed a consciousness and a sense of identity back on the Voyager, tries to convince the EMH2 that it's okay to fight back against the Romulans as they invade the Prometheus. The two holograms have to overcome their programming and work together to set traps for the Romulans. Much of the episode is an attempt to flood the Prometheus with poison gas; after all, the holograms don't require air. 

In the episode's climax, though, the mid-space battle finally comes, and it's a doozy. The EMH2 manages to activate the Prometheus' secret superpower, which is a multi-vector vessel separation program that essentially turns the Prometheus into three smaller attack vessels. They use this power to blow up some attacking Romulans before the Federation shows up to salvage the ship. The Doctor is shunted back to the Voyager, but not before communicating to Starfleet Headquarters that the crew of the missing USS Voyager is still alive. 

"Basics" was the two-part episode that linked Seasons 2 and 3, and, moving forward, you'll find that the best battle episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" came from its season finales. "Basics" is the climax of the USS Voyager's interactions with the Kazon, one of the first species it encountered in the Delta Quadrant, and the first enemy it made. Most Trekkies dislike the Kazon, as they seem to resemble and behave like Klingons in many respects, just not as fun or intriguing. "Basics" was a sign that the Kazon were likely going to left behind by the show's writers, and many fans of the series breathed a little sign of relief. 

"Basics" involved the Cardassian spy Seska (Martha Hackett) who has once had an affair with Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran). The Voyager was lured into battle when Seska declared she had given birth to their son. This leads, through various plot complications, to the Kason infiltrating the Voyager, and the entire crew of the ship being abandoned on a dangerous volcanic planet nearby. That portion of the episode is a fun adventure novel unto itself. The only people left on the ship are the Doctor (natch) and a dangerous serial killer named Ensign Suder (Brad Dourif) assumed dead in an explosion. 

The mid-space battle is fun, and it involves Lieutenant Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) firing on the usurped Voyager, goading the Kazon on board to fire back. Naturally, the phasers have been sabotaged by the Doctor and Suder, so disaster looms for the Kazon. As a final farewell to a not-very-beloved species, "Basics" is a pretty exciting episode. 

"Year of Hell" is a wild episode, and, as some Trekkies familiar with the show's history might tell you, it was supposed to last an entire season. Instead, it was merely a two-part episode that aired during the fourth season of "Voyager," but the premise was still broad and clever. Kurtwood Smith plays an Krenim named Annorax who is equipped with a special, high-tech time-warping ship that can essentially rewrite history in an instant, merely by firing an energy beam. A planet can be struck, and an alien species can be completely wiped out, never having been allowed to evolve. The causality ray makes the Krenim more powerful as well, as they often rewrite their own history to make their technology advance faster. 

The crew of the Voyager, not to put too fine a point on it, has their asses handed to them on a silver platter. The ship is battered and severely damaged, while Tuvok (Tim Russ) is scarred and blinded. The Voyager has to team up with some other beleaguered local allies in the sector to fight against Annorax. Meanwhile, Annorax refuses to stop monkeying with time, as he is secretly trying to rewrite history so that his dead wife never died in a plague. 

It seems that the Voyager is not coming back from this one. The only way to survive is to undo all of the weird history rewriting that Annorax has been doing, and that will involve a giant multi-pronged space battle wherein the Voyager commits to a doomed run at the enemy. Because time travel is involved, this is one of the rare "Star Trek" battle episodes wherein extremes can be taken. All weapons can be fired. The ship can be sacrificed, people can die. And we can rest assured that somehow ... somehow ... the status quo will be restored. 

"Unimatrix Zero" was the two-part "Voyager" episode that linked up the show's sixth and seventh seasons, and it is essentially one prolonged battle with the Borg. Earlier in the series, the Voyager crew found that they were, for the first time, reaching the edge of Borg space. Because it would add decades to their trip to fly around it, they find it worth the risk to sail through. By the end of their first encounter with the Borg, they accumulated a crew member, Seven of Nine, and somehow managed to form an uneasy alliance. That alliance became increasingly strained with each subsequent Borg encounter. 

"Unimatrix Zero" sees the Voyager flying into the middle of a Borg enclave while also discovering a strange, mentally disconnected dream state within the Borg called Unimatrix Zero. Individuals can recall their past, pre-assimilation selves in this dream realm, something that was orchestrated by humans in the past. If Borg drones can remember their past lives, they can shake free of the Borg's influence. Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres (Roxann Dawson) allow themselves to be assimilated, hoping to help those in the Unimatrix. 

The battles in "Unimatrix Zero" are essentially Borg-on-Borg attacks. The Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) threatens to destroy rogue drones, and the episode ends with the threat of an impending Borg Civil War. There's not a lot of weapons-hot fire in the episode, but the stakes are very high. And the Borg rarely show up on "Star Trek" without someone exchanging fire. The Borg don't care — they'll assimilate everyone. "Unimatrix Zero, Part I" ends the same way as the famed "TNG" episode "The Best of Both Worlds," with the crew assimilated by the Borg, and audiences unsure of whether they'll be able to escape. 

The final episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" is both amazing and something of a disappointment (to fans and cast members alike). Rather than show the USS Voyager finally returning to Earth after years of struggle, "Endgame" flashes forward several decades, after Janeway has been made an admiral, and the crew has merrily reassimilated into Earth society. In the timeline of "Endgame," the USS Voyager made the 70-year voyage home in only 23 years. Sadly, the 23-year timeline left Tuvok suffering from an untreated brain illness, and several other crew members died. 

The gray-haired Janeway finds that unacceptable, and elects to travel back in time using then-current technology, equip her younger self and the Voyager with high-tech super weaponry, which would allow it to attack the Borg head-on, use a special Borg space portal, and shave a few decades off the trip. The older Janeway commits several crimes to do this, but does end up in the past (that is, "Voyager's" present), eager to outfit the Voyager with power cannons and a super-shield. In an ethical twist, the younger Janeway refuses the help, feeling that mucking around with timelines is unethical. After "Year of Hell," you can see why. 

Eventually, though, the older Janeway gets her way, and in the show's most badass sequence, she gives the Voyager its mega-shield and the ability to kick some serious Borg butt. The scenes of the Voyager laying waste to Borg ships might be one of the most cathartic of the series, as Janeway clearly always wanted this level of destruction, and the Borg are being taken care of, seemingly once and for all. There's a reason they saved this battle for the end of the series: It's the best one.