Star Trek: Voyager season 2 secretly foreshadowed a huge plot twist that actually happened in Star Trek: Deep Space and Star Trek: Picard. At the time of Voyager‘s pilot episode, “Caretaker,” Deep Space Nine was in its third season, and the two shows continued to run congruently for another four years until DS9 ended after season 7. Although Voyager and DS9 were very different shows, each exploring completely separate parts of the Star Trek universe, the two series did find ways to reference or play off of each other on occasion.
One of the more subtle connections between Voyager and DS9 came in Voyager season 2, episode 5, “Non Sequitur.” The episode followed Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), who woke up to find himself in an altered reality where he had never been assigned to the USS Voyager and thus never become lost in the Delta Quadrant. As Harry struggled to understand how the timeline had been changed, his erratic behavior eventually got him brought into Starfleet for questioning. During his interrogation, Admiral Strickler (Jack Shearer) made it clear that Starfleet was worried Harry might be an alien imposter, a fear that secretly foreshowed a future DS9 storyline.
Star Trek: Voyager Copied A Classic DS9 Episode (Badly)
A season 1 episode of Star Trek: Voyage copied a classic installment from Deep Space Nine, but Voyager failed to recreate the storyline effectively.
Voyager Season 2 Set Up DS9’s Changeling Infiltration Of Starfleet
“Non Sequitur” set up the idea that Starfleet was worried about an alien infiltration of Earth, a fear that ended up becoming realized in DS9 and then later again in Picard. Since Voyager was set in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy, the show rarely dealt with what was happening in the Alpha Quadrant during its run, leaving DS9 to depict the various conflicts that eventually led to the Dominion War. One of the main antagonists of the War were the Changelings, a shapeshifting race who could turn themselves into anything and used this ability to pass themselves off as humans to spy on Earth.
Voyager‘s “Non Sequitur” aired only a few months before DS9‘s season 4 episodes “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost,” which depicted an actual Changeling invasion of Earth. Although the invasion was very small, Starfleet’s paranoia and fear of the Changelings almost took them down, and this paranoia was set up subtly in “Non Sequitur” thanks to Harry’s interrogation. The fact that Starfleet was so quick to be suspicious of Harry’s motives rather than listen to what he had to say demonstrated just how much the Dominion threat was taking its toll. Ultimately, Voyager helped bolster DS9‘s portrayal of how deeply shaken the foundation of Starfleet had become because of the impending war.
The Real Star Trek Changeling Invasion Happened In Picard Season 3
However, a Changeling invasion on the scale that Starfleet was worried about wouldn’t happen until Picard. The invasion in “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost was very small, and blown completely out of proportion because Admiral Leyton (Robert Foxworth) was attempting to stage a coup against the Federation President. The real Changeling infiltration came in Picard season 3, which was set years after the end of the Dominion War. Picard demonstrated that the Federation’s fears about an invasion during the war had been completely justified, since with the help of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), the Changelings came perilously close to taking Starfleet down.
Although “Non Sequitur” didn’t directly set up the Changeling infiltration in Picard season 3, other events in Voyager did end up impacting the Borg part of the storyline. Thanks to a neurolytic pathogen that Voyager delivered to the Borg while using their transwarp conduits to return home, Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the former crew of the USS Enterprise-D were finally able to destroy the disease-ravaged Queen and take the Collective down once and for all. The tease about a Changeling invasion in “Non-Sequitur” may have been too subtle to have an impact as far out as Picard, but Star Trek: Voyager remained connected to the show in other ways.
