Peace At All Costs

Recently, I have been watching episodes of Star Trek Voyager (yes, I hate myself that much). The thing about Voyager is that it always felt like they were trying to recreate themes, characters and ideas from the previous three shows without ever getting the tone or the chemistry quite right. As a result, the series felt like a disjointed patchwork of imitations of better story lines, more robust people and less cartoonish aliens (which is an accomplishment considering how cartoonish some of the aliens were in TOS *cough*Tribbles*cough*).

Sometimes Voyager actually seems more like a parody of Star Trek than an actual continuation of the franchise. One of the most egregious examples of this happened when Voyager introduced the most terrifying Star Trek villain to date.

The horror! A close up of Species 8472, the most hateful,
xenophobic and malevolent alien race ever encountered
in the Star Trek universe. Also, they are ugly. 

Species 8472 was originally engaged by the Borg as they expanded into fluidic space (whatever that means) to conquer more species. But Species 8472 are so full of hate and violence toward other species that they respond to the Borg incursion into their space by deciding to WIPE OUT ALL LIFE in our universe.

For those of you who don't remember, Voyager is equipped with a telepath named Kes. Throughout the episode in which Species 8472 is introduced (Scorpion, part I), Kes keeps getting telepathic messages from the aliens.

When Captain Janeway asks Kes what Species 8472 are telling her, Kes, with terror in her eyes, says "I feel malevolence. A cold hatred." It seems that Species 8472's motto is "The weak shall perish."

Charming.

The Borg, the most evil species encountered by the Federation until Species 8472 came along, are powerless to stop them. Species 8472 cannot be assimilated, they cannot be reasoned with and they are impervious to all conventional weapons.

Well, shit.

So, to make an already long story a bit shorter, a bunch of stuff happens and the crew of Voyager are forced to work, in a very tense (and tentative) alliance with the Borg, to develop a way to attack Species 8472 on a cellular level. For helping the Borg defeat the malevolent monsters, Voyager gets safe passage through Borg space.

The weapon works and because 8472 has enjoyed virtual invincibility up to this point, the brutal effectiveness of the new weapon sends them scurrying back to the safety of fluidic space. True to form, the Borg try to turn on Voyager once 8472 is no longer a threat, but of course Voyager gets away.

All in all, a good two episodes (Scorpion I and II). A new, scary bad guy is introduced and the Voyager crew engaged with the Borg in a way that hadn't been done before in Star Trek without undermining the previously-established idea that the Borg are one of the most incomprehensibly evil forces in the universe.

Only now, there are two very frightening villains. If we're lucky, they will kill each other off and their mutual malevolence will be the undoing of both species, right?

No. That's too pessimistic for ol' Star Trek.

A year later, I guess some writers took a look at the profile of Species 8472: a xenocidal race bent on the elimination of all life in our universe at all costs because they think any life that has not reached their state of evolution is not worthy of living. Then those writers said to themselves, "Let's have Janeway and crew make peace with these creatures! Because that makes perfect sense."

It is a quaint (and arguably dangerous) point of view that Western democratic thought has pervaded over time that, deep down, everyone is reasonable and can be persuaded -- through diplomatic means -- to avoid violence if you just help them to see the light. Even alien species who want to kill all humans.

Species 8472 is developing technology to make bigger and better piles
of their dismembered victims, you know, for peaceful reasons.

Here's a close up of Species 8472's handiwork, in case you didn't get how unreasonably malevolent they are:

No, but seriously, deep down the monsters that did this are
just misunderstood.

Janeway and her infinite reservoir of compassion for all things, decides that she should try to hear the point of view of the monsters, because if a lion were attacking you, the best bet is to try to talk to it first before you shot it. Anything else would be cruel.

But you know what? Janeway was right! Species 8472's genocidal mania was a result of a simple misunderstanding. See, they took our attempt to stop them from wiping out all life in our universe as an example of human barbarity. An honest mistake, of course.

What about that whole "the weak shall perish" business? Well, that's what Species 8472 say when they're scared. I guess making piles of dismembered bodies is something they do when they're afraid, too?

When Seven of Nine, the recently de-Borgified member of Janeway's crew questions the wisdom of trying to make peace with a species who has as developed a sense of compassion as Jeffery Dahmer did, Janeway responds by telling Seven that she just needs to have faith.

Why did I keep watching at this point? I don't know. Like the moment when two trains collide, I couldn't turn my head away from the impending disaster.

In the end, Janeway discusses the peace with a member Species 8472 who is disguised as a human -- since they were training for an invasion of Earth. "Peace with humans," he chortles good-naturedly. He tells Janeway that he would bring the new information the two species exchanged now that they are friends to his superiors. But he says that he expects to meet resistance because not all the members of Species 8472 are as "forward-thinking" as he is and peace with humans would likely strike them as absurd.

No shit.

In the end, Voyager constructed the most violent and aggressive threat to humanity -- and all life in the galaxy -- and this is how they chose to end it:

A member of Species 8472 disguised as a human gives Janeway a rose,
because I guess he ran out of the severed heads of his victims.

All you need is love, man.