“Friendship One” is episode twenty-one of season seven of Star Trek: Voyager.
A probe with ‘Friendship One’ written on the side is approaching a planet whilst broadcasting material making it clear it’s from Earth. People on the planet are monitoring it as it enters the atmosphere.
Captain Janeway is in astrometrics talking to a former professor of hers, and admiral, Hendricks, about species that Voyager has encountered. Hendricks tells her she’s made first contact with more species than any captain since James Kirk. The captain says it helps when you’re the only ship in 30,000 lightyears. The admiral tells her Starfleet has a mission for them.
The captain is briefing the senior staff, with Friendship One‘s recording. The probe was launched four years after the first warp flight in order to reach out to other species and prepare the way for manned missions. It contained a lot of data on how to make things. Seven comments that if the Borg had intercepted the probe, humanity would have been assimilated centuries ago. Neelix asks if the probe was before the Prime Directive; Tuvok tells him it was before Starfleet. Contact was lost with the probe 130 years ago. And they’re now in the neighbourhood. Starfleet would like it finding.
They start following a search grid, but thanks to Harry spending time extrapolating the probe’s trajectory with more information than Starfleet, they find it faster. Seven briefs the captain and Chakotay in astrometrics on the planet the probe is located on. The planet sounds nasty and there are no lifesigns. Given it was seen descending on an inhabited planet, and not one that unpleasant, this seems odd.
Those going to the planet need inoculations from antimatter radiation. B’Elanna wants to go; Tom manages to talk her out of it, because, you know, radiation and pregnancy. Descending in the Delta Flyer they see ruins on the planet. Still no lifesigns, but someone in protective gear is watching them land.
On the planet in environmental suits, Harry and Chakotay head one way and find antimatter missile silos; Neelix, Tom and Carey head another and find a cave. The cave has partial shielding from the radiation outside and there’s a lab or control room that’s been assembled from bits and pieces. And parts of the probe. Tom contacts Chakotay and says they’ve found Friendship One and are preparing to transport it. However, they end up surrounded by armed people that the tricorder didn’t register.
Chakotay and Harry return to the Delta Flyer. There’s someone on it, who Chakotay stuns, but they come under fire from antimatter weapons and have to head out before they’re destroyed. The others are now captives; Tom says they’ve just come from the probe. The leader, Verin, says it’s a shame they didn’t come sooner. It would have saved a lot of suffering.
Voyager is hailed by Verin who says they have the crew as prisoners. Verin claims they committed genocide and knows they’ve arrived from Earth. He wants to make them pay for what their people did to the inhabitants. They’re not as naive as they used to be. Verin wants a new home finding and evacuation starting in three hours.
The captain heads to sickbay where the Doctor explains that the garment of the person found on the Delta Flyer is lined with magnecite that gives limited protection against the radiation. His tissues are saturated with antimatter radiation, making him virtually indistinguishable from the environment.
The man, Otrin, is woken up. He says he was on the Flyer trying to find something to undo the damage the captain’s people caused. They sent the probe. The Doctor offers to treat Otrin’s radiation exposure. Otrin seems confused that they don’t expect anything in return. Otrin explains that the missiles were for self-defence and were never used. A containment failure ion the power grid caused the destruction. Before the probe, they’d never conceived of antimatter.
It seems the inhabitants used the information sent with the probe to make a new power grid which failed dramatically. They now believe that the probe was sent with information the senders knew the inhabitants wouldn’t be able to handle, in order to destroy them. Because that’s easier than invasion. Years of mistrust over one demonstration of why the Prime Directive is a good idea are going to make it difficult to convince the inhabitants that Voyager isn’t on a mission of conquest and that the destruction wasn’t deliberate.