Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force Diaries Part One

Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force was originally released in September 2000, but got a new lease on life when a bunch of Star Trek games were re-released by GOG in 2021. I ran through some of the things on PC Gaming Wiki, such as widescreen, but refrained from installing any mods.

I’m going to level with you, I’m a fan of Star Trek and I’ve been looking for a reason to replay the Elite Force games, so here we are. I played them over 20 years ago, so while I remember some things, I’m going to be just as surprised as you as I play them. Not least at how the keyboard controls just feel wrong, though do allow for rebinding at least!

This is my exploration of Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. Now let’s start Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force…

Ensign Munro’s personal log, Stardate 53854.7. Things had been relatively quiet since the debacle with the Delta Quadrant aliens pretending to be the Voyager and her crew. Before beginning my assignment with the alpha squad of the USS Voyager’s newly formed Hazard Team, I decided to check the personnel files for the senior staff and both Hazard Team squads. I wasn’t quite sure why the chef was still considered senior staff, despite his knowledge of the local area becoming almost useless the second we entered Borg space on Stardate 50984.3…

My direct commander was to be Lt. Foster, a fellow human, and working under me were crewmen Chang, Biessman, Murphy, Chell, and Jurot. Three humans, a Bolian, and a Betazoid, certainly an eclectic bunch, but all with glowing service records — since getting stranded in the Delta Quadrant, anyway. It’s a bit strange that Jurot, a graduate of the Vulcan Science Academy with a degree in medicine, wasn’t chosen to aid the Doctor in Sickbay, rather than letting her do… whatever she’s been doing for six years before assigning her as our medic… But hey, I’m not in command.

Beta squad is made up of crewmen Oviedo, Lathrop, Odell, Csatlos, Jaworski, Nelson, and Laird. The quartermaster, intel & operations, three scouts, the weapons specialist, and another scout. Strange way to list them, especially since Laird was apparently considered for my position of second in command of the Hazard Team…

After my review of the files, I ran through the tutorial where Lt. Cmdr. Tuvok explained my armoured Hazard suit which was outfitted with a rechargeable medical system. Climbing a ladder, I completed a small obstacle course, before the holodeck became a lava cave. Tuvok explained my Tactical Eye Display (or TED, AKA the HUD) which showed my health bar and the amount of energy available to refill it. The energy was used by anabolic protoplasmers and dermal regenerators in the suit to keep me healthy.

Once across the lava, I was presented with another course — but this one had Klingons shooting at me. It was simple enough to get through, before I was taken to a shooting range. While Tuvok explained the phaser compression rifle to me, I shot all of the targets and we moved to a firefight section where I had to kill some attacking Hirogen. I was even given access to an alien weapon, which Tuvok explained used dilithium shards as a power source, rather than the energy packs that the compression rifle used. Once the enemies were defeated, the simulation ended.

Starting my first deployment proper, Captain Janeway narrated some scrolling text, explaining the Voyager’s situation in the Delta Quadrant — on Stardate 48315.6 the ship was transported 70,000 lightyears from home, there were dangerous aliens… So, the Hazard Team was formed by Tuvok to face the more, well, hazardous situations — as there was no way for reinforcements to reach the ship and replace any deceased crew. Equipped with an experimental anti-Borg weapon called the Infinity Modulator (I-Mod), created by Seven of Nine, we had beamed aboard a Borg cube “on a dangerous mission” where we had been overwhelmed and had the weapon taken from us.

Tuvok told me to make my way to the Tertiary Power Modulation Chamber to rescue my teammates, so I shot a nearby distribution node to disable a force field blocking the nearby door. Then another one just down the hallway, which had the added benefit of disabling nearby Borg drones. Since the hallway ended in a dead end, destroying a plasma filter blew a hatch open, giving me access to a ladder and an access shaft. At the end of it, I knocked down something large and it crushed a drone below me, so that was pretty funny.

I could see the I-Mod being examined in the room below, but I didn’t want to twist my ankle so I took the elevator down and snatched it off of the table. To say that this didn’t impress the Borg is an understatement, as some beamed in to attack me! Once they were down, I let Biessman out of a nearby cell and we left the room, following a hallway. Two members of Hazard Team burst into the corridor ahead of us, and I blasted the Borg which had been attacking them. Since Odell was injured, Lathrop beamed out with him and left us with some more attacking Borg!

Once the area was clear, I led the way to a doorway blocked by a blue force field, but the disnode that powered it was nowhere in sight. Biessman volunteered to stay there while I went looking for the power source, since I had the I-Mod. Down an elevator, I shot some Borg before blasting open a ventilation shaft and moving through it, then climbed down a ladder to find myself in a shaft serving some purpose. As I had no way forward, I blew up a plasma filter which caused a chain of explosions, and I headed back towards the ladder. Biessman called over the comm badge to say that the force field was down — then called for help as he was abducted by Borg!

Giving chase, I came under attack from Borg as I followed the hallway and went up a short lift and found Chang injured. He pointed across a chasm with a destroyed gantry, saying that the Borg had taken Biessman through there, then he beamed out. Utilising the several rising and lowering green objects along the walls, I made my way across the chasm, then down one lift and up another, fighting Borg as I went. Entering a room with several Borg in regeneration alcoves, I took them all out as they activated one-by-one to attack me, then rode some device up to the next level. It wasn’t designed as a lift, but it certainly acted like one!

This led me into a room with a member of Hazard Team on a table being assimilated, and two cells with Chell, Biessman and Murphy held prisoner. After blasting some Borg and a distribution node, I gained access to a console and attempted to hack it. But, with Chell shouting for me to stop, I shot it instead and it exploded.

Chell said that he told me so as the Borg cube faded, being replaced by the holodeck. Tuvok entered and dismissed the others before chastising me for not following procedure as we walked to a turbolift. As I had no other ideas how to free my teammates, Tuvok said that this was my personal Kobayashi Maru. Suddenly, Cmdr. Chakotay called a red alert, so Tuvok routed the turbolift to the bridge.

Exiting into the action, an alien ship was firing on Voyager, and phasers were having no effect. It had lured us here with a distress signal before opening fire, and when Cpt. Janeway ordered photon torpedoes be fired, the alien ship exploded, sending out a red wave which caused Voyager to disappear!

Reappearing in another area of space entirely, the ship was surrounded by derelict vessels. En. Kim reported that it was likely that we had been pulled through an isodimensional rift, and since sensors were offline, we had no idea where the rift had deposited us….

Lt. Torres called the Bridge and reported that a warp core breach was imminent unless a containment breach was brought under control! Since I was wearing a hazard suit, Janeway told me to report to engineering, so I hopped in the turbolift. Unfortunately, it didn’t take me straight there, so I hoofed it through the corridors, passing people affecting repairs. There was an explosion and crewman Renner was knocked down by it. He called to me that the EPS conduits were going to blow, and told me to activate a nearby panel to bring up a containment field. I did so, and he was vaporised by the following explosion, but I believe that I saved the ship at the sacrifice of one crewman.

Around the corner, Chell and some nameless crewman who didn’t deserve subtitles had some floor panels up, repairing the data shunt. However, due to what they were doing, it blocked my way to engineering. Before I could ask for a way around, the crewman exclaimed that a power surge was imminent — luckily, the panel next to me stopped that in its tracks. Chell told me to head through a Jeffries tube to find an override, so I entered and it literally blew up in my face.

Uninjured, I exited the tube and went into a turbolift shaft, climbing a ladder to another tube which led me to the console. Backtracking, I was finally able to use a third Jeffries tube to climb down to deck 11. However, that just led me into a cargo bay — a flooded cargo bay at that, with hazardous liquid covering the floor. With some jumping, I reached a console to drain the fluid and exit into the corridor.

Around the corner, Torres chewed me out for taking so long and sent me into main engineering with orders to cut the power relays, then decouple the dilithium matrix. Once I retrieved my helmet from my belt-mounted transporter buffer, I entered and waited for the force field to deactivate. However, once it had, I had no idea which console controlled the power relays! So I ran around, consoles exploding at me as I went, until I found one. Since it denied me access, Torres suddenly remembered that I needed an access code from a different console!

With the power relays cut, I climbed the ladder to the upper level as the computer told me a warp core breach was 30 seconds away! Luckily, there were fewer stations upstairs, so in seconds the dilithium matrix was decoupled and I had saved the ship. Leaving engineering, Chakotay summoned all security and Hazard Team personnel to the loading dock! We were being boarded!