It very, very rarely happened during the Rick Berman era of Star Trek, which encompassed The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, as well as the four Next Generation features, that an episode title was provided to the media and then changed. Many episodes changed titles from draft to draft, of course, or even had working titles on the cover of the shooting script, but the publicity department normally sent journalists air schedules and episode synopses that included a final title.
Such was not the case in the fall of 1996 when the season 3 Voyager episode fans know as “Warlord” was titled “The Art of War.” After sending information about “The Art of War,” UPN informed the media that the new title was “Warlord.”
It’s an obscure bit of Star Trek trivia, but fans love such things. In the episode, a powerful Ilari Autarch named Tieran (Leigh J. McCloskey) transfers his mind, along with his big ego and considerable military prowess, to Kes (Jennifer Lien). The episode provided Lien with one of her best acting opportunities, and she took full advantage of it, delivering a strong, tough performance that contrasted greatly with what she was usually called upon to do as the understated, shy Kes.
The episode’s original title did not come out of thin air. Sun Tzu, a Chinese military strategist, wrote “The Art of War” as a treatise 2500 years ago, somewhere between the 5th and 6th Century, B.C. It focuses on how war strategies may work in our daily lives. Rule #1 is deceptively simple: survive. Interestingly, no mention of “The Art of War” is made in “Warlord,” but the book was referenced previously in The Next Generation (in “The Last Outpost”) and later in Enterprise (in “Divergence”), Discovery (in “Battle at the Binary Stars,” “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”), and Strange New Worlds (in “Under the Cloak of War”).
For example, in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2,” Saru (Doug Jones) quotes “The Art of War” while talking Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), and others. “Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.” A surprised Georgiou -- surprised because the Empress looks upon Kelpiens with extreme disdain -- finishes the quote: “Thereby you can be the director of your opponent’s fate.”