Plot summary
During an episode of The Adventures of Captain Proton on the holodeck in a recurring Voyager hologram program in the style of vintage movie serials such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Ensigns Tom Paris and Harry Kim are forced to leave the program running when spatial distortions trap the ship and disrupt their control over the computer. While the command staff of Voyager seek to discover a way to free the ship from the spatial distortions, extra-dimensional aliens, who exist in a photonic state, cross from their dimension through a distortion in the holodeck. They are detected and attacked by the bombastic villain Dr. Chaotica, who believes them to be invaders from the fifth dimension, and whose holographic deathray — though harmless to humans — is deadly to the photonic aliens.
Eventually, the crew discover the war being waged between Chaotica and the photonic aliens and must defeat him by playing out their roles as the fictional Captain Proton (Tom Paris), his sidekick Buster Kincaid (Harry Kim), the President of Earth (the Doctor, who is a photonic being), and Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People - a campy space queen who is destined to be Chaotica's bride. Paris asks Captain Janeway to take on the role of femme fatale Queen Arachnia. Mortified, she refuses such an indignity, but reluctantly agrees to help Voyager out of its predicament.
Inside the holodeck in full costume, Janeway, as Queen Arachnia, attempts to use her charms to manipulate Chaotica into lowering the "lightning shield" that protects his fortress under the pretence that her loyal subjects in their "spider ships" want to pay homage to Chaotica. He agrees to do so only after she becomes his bride and have been wed. Eventually Chaotica becomes aware of Arachnia’s duplicity when she attempts to deactivate the shields herself. Chaotica then traps her in his "confinement rings" (force field) for double crossing him and gleefully tells her he will kill her after their wedding night.
Using a vial of her "spider pheromones", Arachnia hypnotizes Chaotica's head minion and charms him into freeing her. She then forces Chaotica to deactivate the lightning shield thus enabling Captain Proton to fire his "destructo beam" hitting both the death ray and mortally wounding Chaotica, who monologues till he dies. Freed, Voyager continues on the journey home, Chaotica fiendishly cackling in the background over a title card reading "The End?"
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Bride of Chaotica!. Paragraphs and formatting adjusted; illustrations, reference markers, block quotations and non-story material omitted.