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According to the Memory Alpha episode summary for ST:DS9 "Paradise:"

Following the runaway Rio Grande in the Orinoco, Kira and Dax work on a way to catch it. Kira plots an intercept course and plans to beam over, but Dax looks for a better idea. She begins configuring the runabout's controls and claims she can use "an old rope trick" she once learned from a Hopi.

"Paradise" episode summary on Memory Alpha - Act Four

Why couldn't they have linked into the Rio Grande's computer and dropped it out of warp? Is this an example of script writers forgetting established technology?

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    if CBS/Paramount had a dollar for everytime a technobabble crisis forgot some other technobabble solution from a different episode, they wouldn't have to charge to watch Discovery :D (examples: using the transporter to reset somebody. Given what has been shown in TOS/TAS, they could have just rebooted dead Tasha Yar via transporter patterns)
    – NKCampbell
    Oct 24, 2019 at 15:28
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    Offhand, my guess would be sabotage - it was meant to take an unpiloted suicide run into a star, so they could compromise the systems in ways that a hijacker (who presumably still wants to fly the ship) can't.
    – Cadence
    Oct 24, 2019 at 16:38
  • At this point, the Federation is becoming aware of a group of "irrational hotheads" called the Maquis. They're mostly former Starfleet officers and Federation colonists based near to the Cardassian border and their modus operandi is hit-n-run attacks using decomissioned Starfleet ships. I can only imagine that effectively giving them the keys to bigger and better ships would be a really bad idea
    – Valorum
    Oct 24, 2019 at 18:28
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    Why didn't they just use the prefix codes on the Rio Grande?
    – SpacePhoenix
    Oct 24, 2019 at 18:46

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As I recall, they did try the so-called standard solutions. Alixus had reprogrammed the runabout to override the normal control system so that it's path would be masked and the location of the planet hidden. Alixus would have anticipated several standard remedies to the problem, and apparently blocked those.

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