Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force

Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force is an American computer game released in 2000 that was developed by Raven Software and distributed by Activision. It is a first-person shooter that is set in the Star Trek universe. The player is a member of a battle-tested task force on the USS Voyager .

action

To deal with the dangers that the Delta Quadrant holds in store for the crew of the USS Voyager, security chief Tuvok has set up a so-called hazard team, which has targeted combat training and is to be deployed in particularly dangerous situations. This is currently conducting a training session on the holodeck that simulates the infiltration of a Borg cube when the red alarm sounds: The Voyager is attacked by an alien ship and, when it is destroyed, is hit by a shock wave and teleports the Voyager into an unknown area, where she is damaged and drifting around with a multitude of equally damaged spaceships.

By deploying one of these ships outside, the Hazard Team can provide further information on the situation: The area is dominated by a large space station known as "The Forge", which uses an energy field to hold all the hijacked spaceships in place. Shortly thereafter, the crew had to fend off an attack on the Voyager: A group of so-called scavengers boarded the Voyager and stole its supplies. The looters are an amalgamation of different species (including humans, Klingons and Malon ) who jointly raid the other ships in order to survive. After the successful defense, several teams are secretly smuggled into the base of the scavengers in order to obtain a rare substance called isodesium from there. With this it would be possible for Voyager to neutralize the effects of the energy field. The isodesium can be recovered, but just as the Hazard Team is about to beam back, several Borg drones appear and take the isodesium. The Hazard Team is therefore forced to infiltrate the Borg ship and retrieve the substance, which they succeed.

Back on the Voyager, however, the next danger quickly looms: A spaceship approaches the Voyager from the forge, which is a so-called harvester: These ships attack the stranded spaceships and steal their material (including biological) that they use for this use to complete the still unfinished forge. To stop the ship, the Hazard team is sent to a dreadnought ship, a gigantic weapon, which is also stranded in the anomaly, to activate it and use it to shoot the attacking harvester ship. This succeeds, but some harvesters get on board and can only be defeated with united forces.

Since the morale of the crew continues to decline, Captain Janeway decides to come up with a counterstrike: The Hazard Team uses the stopped harvester ship to be brought to the forge and sabotage the facility. Inside the station, which has not yet been fully built, you will come across a large number of incubators in which creatures are bred. A voice makes telepathic contact with the team: The alien species calls itself Vohrsoth and the forge built here is said to be just the first of many. The creatures bred here, genetically compiled from various captured species, represent a superior warrior race with which the Vohrsoth ultimately want to conquer the entire galaxy. The team succeeds in destroying the forge's energy core, which collapses the energy field that previously held all ships.

The team should then return to the Voyager, which now wants to leave the place as soon as possible. Team leader Alexander Munro (alternatively: Alexandra Munro) defies the order after the leader of the Vohrsoth telepathically announced that this victory meant nothing and that a new forge would soon be built. Munro fears that this will actually be the case if they move away and the planned campaign of conquest will only be postponed. He tracks down the Vohrsoth leader single-handedly. Munro learns from him that a species known as "the ancients" once created the Vohrsoth to initiate the conquest of the galaxy. Munro tries to keep the creature from doing its thing by arguing that it was all more than 1,000 years ago and that the ancients may just wanted to explore the galaxy, but that the actual mission objectives were lost over time. However, the creature cannot be changed and is eventually killed in battle by Munro. This is beamed back to the Voyager, shortly afterwards the entire forge explodes. Another subspace wave catches the Voyager and this is moved back into the space from where it came - but now a few months closer to the destination of its journey.

The members of the Hazard Team and the rest of the crew killed during the missions are buried and Ensign Munro is promoted to lieutenant. Janeway mentions to Tuvok that this incident showed the merits of a Hazard Team and that Starfleet might be interested in adopting this idea for other spaceships in the Alpha Quadrant upon their return.

background

Chell and Jurot are the only characters on the Hazard Team who were not invented specifically for the game, but were seen sporadically as supporting roles in the series.

In the original version as it was released, Seven of Nine was not dubbed by Jeri Ryan , Joan Buddenhagen did it. With a later published patch, however, their voice could be replaced by Ryan's.

reception

The game received mostly good ratings for the PC version. Metacritic has an aggregate average rating of 86%. The PS2 version was rated significantly worse and only achieved an average of 55% on Metacritic.

extension

The expansion pack released for the game also enabled the player to explore all of Voyager's decks, and some new multiplayer cards were added.

Comic adaptation

In the same year WildStorm published a comic for the video game entitled Elite Force , the plot of which is heavily based on the game, but the content differs from the original. Some sections of the game were completely deleted for this implementation, such as the encounter with the Etherians, the infiltration of the Scavanger base, the fight against Species 8472 or the dreadnought mission. These gaps are filled in by the increased use of the Borg in the comic. The comic only takes up the core members of the team, the second row, however, was not taken over for the adaptation.

The differences between game and comic are accordingly: The Borg do not steal the isodesium from the team, but beam themselves onto the Voyager and steal some technical equipment that they need for their ship. Lieutenant Foster is assimilated by the Borg in the comic, but survives in this form in the end. The Borg help the Voyager crew to destroy the smithy during the finale. In the initial holodeck similation, Munro does not fail because he acts rashly and carelessly and shoots at a console, but does not manage to open fire on his now assimilated teammates. Likewise, in the comic, the performance of the entire team during the assimilation is described as very poor, while in the game only Munro was criticized. Biessman does not die defending an opposing force, but is killed by a creature when he carelessly destroyed a glass tube in which it was located. The power behind the forge is called Vohrsoth in the game, whereas the comic speaks of Tarlos, both species are visually clearly different from each other. If the Etherians Munro rush to help in the final battle in the game, in the comic it is the Borg.

continuation

2003 came the sequel Star Trek: Elite Force II on the market. Its action now takes place after Voyager has returned home in the Alpha Quadrant, where Alexander Munro (a female variant no longer exists) is now used as the head of a new hazard team on the USS Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. While the first part was only played indoors, the sequel is now more stakes on the surface of planets.

A possible third sequel was under discussion, but has never been tackled.

Web links

Star Trek: Elite Force at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

[1] ttps://www.gamespot.com/articles/jeri-ryan-coming-to-elite-force/1100-2711222/

[2] ttp://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-trek-voyager-elite-force

[3] ttp://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/star-trek-voyager-elite-force

[4] ttps://www.gamespot.com/reviews/star-trek-voyager-elite-force-expansion-pack-revie/1900-2717201/