Year of Hell

Infobox Star Trek episode
name = Year of Hell


A severely battered "Voyager"
series = Voyager
ep_num = 76 & 77
prod_num = 176 & 177
date = November 5, 1997
November 12, 1997
writer = Brannon Braga
Joe Menosky
director = Allan Kroeker (part I)
Mike Vejar (part II)
guest = Kurtwood Smith as Annorax
John Loprieno as Obrist
Rick Fitts as Zahl
Deborah Levin as Ensign Lang
Sue Henley as Ensign Brooks
Lise Simms as Mrs. Annorax
stardate = 51268.4
year = 2374
prev = Scientific Method
next = Random Thoughts

"Year of Hell" is a two-part episode from the fourth season of the television series "". Both parts of the episode have an average rating of 4.6/5 on the official Star Trek website (as of March 7, 2008).

Plot

A huge ship appears in the sky of a distant, alien world. Firing a massive beam, the planet's surface changes from a bustling city to mountains and fields. As the wave encompasses the planet, the ship is unharmed- and the wave itself leaves the planet, causing a ripple effect which expands into every direction.

On board Voyager, Captain Janeway is informed by Seven of Nine that the area of space they are currently in belongs to a species that the Borg know as the Krenim, a space faring race who possess devastating temporal weaponry. At this time, a small vessel appears off of Voyager's port bow and hails them. The ship is a Krenim destroyer, and the captain of the vessel (unnamed) barks an ultimatum at Janeway that Voyager must leave Krenim space or be destroyed. Janeway gives the order for Voyager to traverse the area of space anyway, because as small as the Krenim vessel is, it would obviously be no match for Voyager. Further into the area, Voyager comes upon the dominant species of the space in question- the Zahl, and their minister, who readily agrees to a discussion with the Krenim captain along with Janeway acting as a mediator. During this discussion, the Krenim captain and the Zahl minister belittle each other, just as Janeway advises them to focus on the matter at hand, Tuvok receives ship readings that a temporal disruption involving the homeworld of the Zahl race has just occurred (the planet before the opening credits). As they stand there trying to understand what has happened, the wave reaches their sector of space.

Ship readings confirm that the temporal wave is fast approaching both ships, and just as Janeway gives the order to 'Standfast', the wave hits all three ships- wiping the Zahl race from existence, effectively making the Krenim vessel bigger and more powerful- while Voyager's bridge changes to a smoke filled room, a dead ensign on the deck, and Janeway must contend with the Krenim captain on her own. Now cocky and more arrogant, he tells her that Voyager must submit to the Krenim Imperium and prepare to be boarded. Janeway gives the order for Voyager to fire upon the Krenim vessel and then make a quick break for it, to which the Krenim vessel does not give chase. A scan of the region in Astrometrics provides the answer: Krenim warships dominate this region of space and it will be hard for Voyager to actually sneak past them. Because they have not yet identified the source of the temporal waves, Janeway has Torres and Seven of Nine modify the ship's shields to protect them from the temporal waves- and unknowingly, the temporal changes to the timeline itself.

"Voyager" begins a running battle with many Krenim ships over a period of eight months, but the biggest obstacle is the 'Time Ship', the gigantic ship based temporal weapon. Krenim scientist Annorax has developed a technology that can cause "temporal incursions" which can be used to erase events from history. Each temporal incursion must be meticulously calculated so the removal of one event from the timeline has no negative effects on other events. This is rarely possible of course. Using this ship, Annorax attempted to restore the Krenim empire to the apex of its power by destroying its archenemies, but by doing so he prevented the development of an antibody in his people, and they became vulnerable to a plague. 50 million of his people died, including his beloved wife, because of his actions. Now he is bent on undoing his mistakes. The more temporal incursions he creates in the attempt only causes more disruptions in the timeline. Civilizations are being erased from existence. In one timeline, Annorax is able to restore a half of the Krenim's empire, only to have the next temporal incursion revert the Krenim territory to less than even half of what it had been, caused by "Voyager"'s temporal shielding. Annorax makes the decision to catalogue and destroy the ship which made his earlier attempt fail, and upon finding Voyager, promptly fires the time ship's temporal beam cannon in an effort to push Voyager out of normal space time. They manage to escape using the warp drive as Voyager is faster but this causes even more damage to the ship. Janeway is forced to order all but the senior staff to abandon ship as the ship has taken too much damage and can no longer sustain a crew. She and the senior staff remain behind in an attempt to rescue Chakotay and Paris who were captured by the time ship. The senior staff remain on board as long as possible to effect enough repairs to rescue them but given the damage they end up having to abandon ship afterwards as well.

Captain Janeway eventually makes an alliance with two species known as the Nihydron and the Mawasi to attack the Krenim timeship. Torres and Kim are sent to one ship while Tuvok, the Doctor, Neelix and Seven are sent to another. Janeway remains behind alone on Voyager to pilot the ship herself although Tuvok warns her it will likely not survive the battle due to the extensive damage it already has. During the battle two of the allied ships are destroyed along with presumably Torres and Kim. With the help of a dissatisfied crew member Chakotay and Paris take the time ship's temporal core offline rendering it vulnerable to attack and beam to the nearest allied ship. Unfortunately, even vulnerable and without temporal weaponry, the time ship is much too powerful and the two remaining allied ships are disabled and Voyager is badly damaged when one of the ships loses helm control and crashes over the saucer section of Voyager. Ordering the fleet to drop their temporal shields, Janeway rams Voyager into the time-ship while it is powering up for another temporal incursion (having apparently somewhat restored power to the temporal core) destroying Voyager and causing the time ship's temporal core to destabilize. This causes the time ship to suffer a massive temporal incursion itself- restoring Annorax's wife and Voyager to its undamaged state, as it was prior to the year before, and all of the species wiped out by the timeship were restored, thus restoring the true timeline that would have happened if not for the ship's intervention. In the new timeline, Voyager ventures into Krenim space and the captain of the Krenim warship is friendlier- he advises Voyager not to venture through Krenim space as it is still under dispute before wishing them a safe journey. After thanking the Krenim captain for his warning of the mentioned area, Janeway orders helm control to plot around Krenim space so that Voyager will not have to cross that section of space. Janeway remarks to Chakotay that she's thinking of replicating a bottle of wine for Voyager's rededication ceremony, one that came from a 'good year'. And on the colony which he spent so long trying to restore, Annorax is at last reunited with his wife. Working on temporal calculations in his home study, his wife asks him to spend the day with her instead, and he stops studying to instead enjoy the day with her.

Other Versions of the Year of Hell

* In the episode "Before and After", Kes experienced one possible version of the Year of Hell when she traveled through the future into the past. This version turns out differently, and Kes is no longer aboard "Voyager". Though Kes revealed the frequency of the chronoton torpedo, and details of the Krenim in general, the crew appear to have no knowledge of those details in "The Year of Hell" mainly because they found those details in a timeline that did not occur, as Kes was still on the ship in the episode "Before and After," but she left the ship before the events of the Year of Hell took place.

External links

* [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/71431.html Year of Hell, Part I] on StarTrek.com
* [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/71433.html Year of Hell, Part II] on StarTrek.com