“Bride of Chaotica!” is episode twelve of season five of Star Trek: Voyager.
The episode beings with Tom and Harry watching a recap of The Adventures of Captain Proton before starting the next episode. Chapter 18, “Bride of Chaotica!” Harry asks why the recaps are so inaccurate. Because they brought people back to the theatres. They start Chapter 18 and Chaotica contacts them. He and Tom engage in some usable hero-villain talk, before Chaotica fires his death ray, bringing Tom’s rocketship crashing to the ground.
They crash on Planet X and they are going to head to Chaotica’s fortress through the underground caverns. Harry asks where the slave girls are. And Planet X looks familiar. Identical to the Mines of Mercury. Tom says that at least there is no volcano. Then the planet shakes. Harry thought Tom said there was no volcano. He did. Harry has found some sort of glowing energy thing, coloured in their black and white program. The computer can’t end the program, as the holodeck controls are offline. They can’t contact the bridge either. They will have to do a manual override.
Captain Janeway arrives on the bridge and is told by Chakotay that they have dropped out of warp and come to a dead stop. Even though the engines are fine. Tuvok tells her that a lot of systems are offline. On the holodeck, Tom and Harry are confronted by one of Chaotica’s minions. They don’t have time for this, so they shoot him. On the bridge, Tuvok says they have entered a layer of subspace that is disrupting their warp field. They have impulse engines, but those don’t move them either. On the rocketship, Tom can’t disengage the program and Harry says a second disruption has appeared. The transporter is operational, so they do a site to site inside the ship.
In astrometrics, Seven of Nine and B’Elanna are saying that the barrier between space and subspace is unstable. The captain asks about the things that appeared in the holodeck. Seven believes they don’t pose a threat. The captain mentions when she was a science officer on another ship and they got stuck in a dense protonebula. They were trying too hard to escape. Shut down the warp core and use minimal thrusters to break free.
On the holodeck, two people in suits materialise from two of the disruptions. They are seized and taken to Chaotica’s fortress. Chaotica isn’t happy Proton isn’t a prisoner, but he’s told there are two captives who claim they are from another dimension. They tell him they are explorers looking to contact other photonic lifeforms. Chaotica tells him their armies are no match for his Space Force. One says the world is hostile; contact should be terminated. However, one is shut and the other disappears. Chaotica promises to rain down destruction on the Fifth Dimension.
After three days, and running short of things that work, Voyager is ready to try and move out slowly. This works, but then the ship starts to slow. There are power signatures of what look like weapons fire, source unknown. Tuvok tracks them down to a holodeck. Harry mentions that a Captain Proton program was running; they couldn’t shut it down.
Tuvok and Tom head to the holodeck. Chaotica’s fortress is damaged and there are dead people around. Tom says he didn’t leave it like that. Constance Goodheart is dead and Tom says she isn’t supposed to die. She’s one of the good guys and in 1930s Hollywood, they didn’t die. Something is wrong. Satan’s Robot is damaged and talking about invaders from the Fifth Dimension. Tom repairs it; Tuvok says his knowledge of the technology is impressive. That may not have been a compliment. The robot talks about the invaders; Tom says there aren’t any in this story. They get the robot to take them to the portals. Weapons fire is coming from the portals. Tom wants to check the ‘sensors’ on his rocketship.
Seven of Nine has established a visual link to the holodeck. The attack originates from subspace. Harry says Chaotica is firing back with his death ray. Seven of Nine says their infantile scenario now poses a security risk. On Tom’s ship, he is reading a communication from the President of Earth about Arachnia, Chaotica and the invaders from the Fifth Dimension. Then one of the aliens appears. He doesn’t register them as being real as they are not photonic.
Tom’s holodeck program has accidentally started a war between the program and photonic beings. Who can be damaged by the weapons in the program. The Doctor is an obvious choice to use to help. The captain holds what may be one of the weirdest staff meetings she has ever held. And that’s before Tom fills her in on the details. A less than serious episode with some extreme of overacting. Could this be the end of Chaotica?