Kyana Prime, a Krenim colony
The Krenim Imperium was the sovereign state of the Krenim people, located in Grid 005 of the Delta Quadrant, over sixty thousand light years from Earth. The Krenim rose to power based on their mastery of temporal science, which allowed them to create fearsome weapons such as chroniton torpedoes that could penetrate deflector shields. At its height, the Imperium spanned five thousand parsecs and controlled thousands of warp-capable vessels, over two hundred star systems, and some nine hundred planets.
In the 2170s, the Imperium had declined greatly due to conflict with the Rilnar. Annorax, a Krenim military commander and temporal scientist, sought to reverse this state of affairs by building a weapon ship that could erase targets from the space-time continuum. With it, Annorax destroyed the Rilnar and restored his people to glory. However, the elimination of the Rilnar indirectly led to a plague that devastated the Krenim, necessitating another temporal incursion. Over the next two centuries, Annorax erased countless civilizations from history, but could never achieve the full restoration of the Imperium that he desired. (VOY: "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II")
In one possible timeline, the USS Voyager encountered the Krenim on stardate 50973. Over the following year (dubbed the "Year of Hell" by the Voyager crew), Voyager suffered severe damage and heavy casualties battling Krenim warships as it traversed the Imperium. (VOY: "Before and After")
In another possible timeline, the USS Voyager encountered the Krenim in mid-2374. The region was then dominated by the Zahl, whose elimination by Annorax resulted in a 98% restoration. Again, the Voyager crew endured a "Year of Hell", battling the warships of the restored Imperium. However, in this timeline they managed to develop temporal shielding to defend against chroniton torpedoes. Unexpectedly, the shielding also interfered with Annorax's temporal calculations, leading him to inadvertently reduce the Imperium to a pre-warp state with the erasure of the Garenor. Annorax attempted to erase Voyager to correct this mistake, but failed to do so.
Ultimately, the Voyager crew forged a coalition with the Mawasi and the Nihydron and attacked the weapon ship. Captain Kathryn Janeway set Voyager to collide with the weapon ship, triggering a temporal incursion that erased the ship, and thus all the effects of its many incursions, from history. The original timeline, in which the Imperium was a medium power in contest with its neighbors, was restored. In this timeline, Voyager peacefully circumvented Krenim space on the advice of a Krenim commandant. (VOY: "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II")
Although it is unclear who the Krenim were in dispute with in this "restored" timeline, it seems likely that it is the Rilnar.
The Krenim were involved in the later Temporal Wars, inventing what would become known as the time bug or Krenim chronophage which were designed to paralyze an enemy ship by randomly cycling them through time for weeks or months until the time bugs ran out of power. By the 32nd century, the time bugs were available on the black market. (DIS: "Face the Strange")
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Apocrypha[]
In Star Trek Online, the Krenim have been defeated by the Vaadwaur, though Kyana Prime manages to escape destruction using Annorax's temporal technologies.
The novel A Pocket Full of Lies features the Krenim as antagonists manipulating the timeline in order to ensure Krenim supremacy.
External link[]
- Krenim Imperium at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works