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Old 05-19-2022, 10:10 PM
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May 18th, 1992, "The Next Phase"

Fiver by Marc

I won't be complaining about the "why don't they fall through the floor" bit, every outlandish Trek tech has to have a handwave to make it plausible. Besides, I'm always willing to suspend logic in the name of a good story. I am NOT willing to suspend logic in the name of lazy writers (looking at you, Voyager creative team!)

The Episode

RIKER: Aye, sir. No weapons. We don't want them to think they're under attack.
RO: This is not a bright idea.

The question of who's right isn't remotely as simple as Riker thinks. Personally I'd refuse to beam aboard a Romulan ship without at least a holstered phaser.

MIROK: Yes. We had a forced chamber explosion in the resonator coil.
LAFORGE: It's a pretty strange set up, but it looks like the graviton field generator has been completely depolarised. There's no way to fix it. It'll have to be replaced.

Time to play Decode the Technobabble! It stands to reason that you'd need some sort of resonating field to keep the artificial singularity under control. However, does it have to be a graviton field? This thing isn't a black hole, it's a quantum singularity, they're not that similar. The polarization is a bit tougher, but perhaps there's some analog of an electromagnet in there and there's no distinct north and south pole anymore. However, polarized gravitons seem a bit...impossible.

BROSSMER: What the hell? Engineering, I need more power to the primary energising coil. Brossmer to Commander Riker. I'm losing them I have to abort.
...
PICARD: Mister Data, begin a level one diagnostic. All transporter systems offline until further notice. Could they have materialised somewhere else?
DATA: Negative, Captain. Sensors are unable to locate them anywhere within transporter range.

So the transporter lost track of the phased patterns of Geordi and Ro. Fair enough, but later it will be revealed that they materialized, just not on the pads. This seems rather impossible. It seems that the endpoints of a transporter beam have to be locked onto before the occupant is dematerialized. Loosing the signal means dead in a wisp of smoke, we're not talking about a person walking along a forcefield and being dropped when the forcefield fails.

It would help if the Romulan and Starfleet transporters were linked here, and there was some sort of football fumbling action here to result in a displaced rematerialization.

PICARD: Mister Data, you may continue the diagnostic of the transporter systems at another time. Take a shuttlecraft and two more engineers down to the Romulan ship.

Two more? The Romulans need more than that! Meaningless aside, why was Ro over there anyway? She's Command, not Security!

WORF: Commander. Emergency bulkheads have sealed this section off from the rest of the ship. There is no way to gain access to the main Bridge or control centres.

Given the sheer volume of a D'deridex warbird, having multiple control centers makes sense. You'd want each major weapon cluster to have a "bridge", as well as the departments in the rear bridge stations on the E-D.

WORF: Readings indicate at least seventy three Romulans are still alive.
VAREL: Seventy three.

If the E-D has half a thousand crew, you'd have to imagine a Romulan warbird would have at least a thousand, just in terms of volume. I don't think you could run the whole ship with only 73 people. Incidentally, Varel's line is a blatant Chekov's Gun about the phased Romulan on the Enterprise, but they could've been clearer about that.

MIROK: The pressure has jumped two hundred melakols!

Melakols only appear in this episode. I wish they had appeared more often, maybe on Vulcan ships as well.

VAREL: I've lost control of the containment chamber.
MIROK: It's going to implode.
RIKER: We'll need to dump the entire engine core.

This is an interesting notion; the quantum singularity has to be contained to avoid imploding, not exploding. You have to assume that a delicate balance has to be maintained.

CRUSHER: You're right. I just hate making out death certificates. Does Ensign Ro have any family?
RO: Captain, I'm right here.
PICARD: None that I know of, but I'll check with the Bajoran liaison Office.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The captain should know about the immediate family of at least the senior staff.

The expanded universe doesn't give her any relatives besides her mother Talia and father Gale. This surprises me, as you'd think a cousin or two would've crawled out of the woodwork by now.

RIKER [OC]: Engineering is modifying one of our subspace resonators to act as a new engine core. It won't do more than warp two, but it'll get them home.

There's no reason that a radically different tech like this would use the same integer warp factors that Starfleet does, but maybe Riker is rounding off.

WORF: Commander, the (looks round) the Romulans want a computer. We cannot give them access to Federation technology. That is an unacceptable security risk.
RIKER: What about a computer core from thirty or forty years ago? One the Romulans are already familiar with.
WORF: That would be satisfactory.
RIKER: Check with the Enterprise, see what's available. Be sure your concern are addressed before we install it.
WORF: Aye, sir. Thank you.

A nice scene. You do have to wonder why they keep spare computers from a period from before the ship was built around, though. I have trouble with the notion that PADDs are replicated, much less computer cores. There have to be industrial fabrication facilities, I suppose, so they're just using a computer DESIGN from thirty or forty years ago.

The notion of the Enterprise-C's computer core running a Romulan ship is still humorous.

LAFORGE: Wait a minute. What are you saying, that we're some sort of spirits?
RO: Spirits, souls. My people used to call them borhyas. Whatever term you want to use, we're it.
LAFORGE: But my uniform, my visor. Are you saying I'm some blind ghost with clothes?

Geordi has a point. Borhyas appear in a few DS9 novels. The DS9 game Harbinger states that if the Bajoran death chant isn't performed a person's soul becomes a borhyas, they sound more like wraiths in this context.

RIKER: In fact I might like to say a few words.
PICARD: You did know La Forge longer than any of us.
RIKER: Actually, I was thinking more about Ensign Ro.
RO: Me?
PICARD: When you're ready, coordinate with Mister Data.
RO: Wait a minute. What are you going to say about me?

I'd really like to know, too! How much do they remember about their romp in the hay from "Conundrum" five months ago?

RO: Captain. I don't believe this. I'm dead. you can't even hear me and I'm still intimidated by you. I just wanted to say thank you. For trusting in me when no one else would.

I wouldn't say "no one else". Does Guinan not count? Where is Guinan this week, anyway? I'm sure she would have something to say about Geordi AND Ro!

WORF: Human custom is to conduct a solemn, dignified service in which the dead are praised by their friends and loved ones.
DATA: Ensign Ro was Bajoran. Her beliefs should be reflected as well. However their death rituals are quite complicated.
RO: Please, not the Death Chant.
WORF: The Bajoran Death Chant is over two hours long.

Why is Ro so annoyed? She doesn't have to hang around and listen to it. Are there other Bajorans on board? Sito Jaxa won't join the crew for another year.
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