Paul Giamatti has a bomb, and he’s not afraid to use it. In Episode 9 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, “300th Night,” we learn that what the Venari Ral stole from a secret Federation laboratory in Episode 6 wasn’t just some experimental space junk. Instead, these very organized space pirates have gotten their hands on Omega particles, specifically something called “Omega 47.” And if this sounds familiar to 1990s Trek fans, it should. Starfleet Academy has brought back a deadly substance 28 years after it was first introduced in canon, and, within the series timeline, over 800 years after Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) grappled with this stuff in the Delta Quadrant.
Here’s how “300th Night” is, in a way, a sequel to the Voyager episode “The Omega Directive,” and why Star Trek hasn’t relied on this specific doomsday weapon for a very long time.
