February 18th, 1991, "First Contact"
This one will be a lot more fun...
Fiver by IJD GAF
The Episode
NILREM: He took a severe blow. Possible trauma to the telencephalon.
TAVA: Start fifteen octares of quadroline. We'll need a complete del-scan series.
NILREM: I can't find his cardial organ.
I appreciate the alien medical terms, but you can go too far. "Cardial organ" instead of "heart" is just stupid. Telencephalon is another word for the cerebrum.
TAVA: He's missing three costal struts on one side and four on the other.
Costal cartilage means the bits of the ribs that connect to the sternum, flexible to allow for expansion during breathing. I think they're implying that Riker has fewer ribs than they do. Of course you wonder why any alien race that otherwise has bilateral symmetry would have different numbers of ribs on each side.
(holds up a foot)
NILREM: He has digits on his terminus.
Foot! Foot! Furthermore, how can a bipedal species walk without toes?
RIKER: It's for a neighbour's child. Was there anything else found? I had one piece of jewelry, a metal pin.
BEREL: No, I'm sorry, this was all we found.
This is a perfect mission for a subcutaneous communicator. And let me get this out of the way: Riker should not have been on this mission, there has to be a corp of pre-first contact people who could've done this.
(Everyone say hi to Carolyn Seymour, taking a break from being a Romulan)
MIRASTA: At twelve point four after launch, the warp field generator will be activated.
Seymour only played two Romulans, Taris in "Contagion" and Toreth in "Face of the Enemy". Her other Trek role is Mrs. Templeton in Janeway's stupid holonovel (I'm not looking forward to that one in the Voyager retrospective in 2025).
MIRASTA: We have the prototype design for the warp engine. It would simply be a matter of building the actual production units. If I get your approval today, ten months, maybe less.
Thank goodness people realize that it takes awhile to make a warp core. That's one of my problem with the sheer proliferation of starships between Wolf 359 and the Dominion War.
PICARD: My name is Jean-Luc Picard. This is my associate Deanna Troi.
Seriously, where are the First Contact specialists?
TROI: Captain Picard is from a planet called Earth, which is over two thousand light years from here.
Do the locals even have a unit comparable to a light year? You gotta feel bad for the Universal Translator sometimes. "153576.2 thingamajigs from here."
MIRASTA: You've had people on our planet?
TROI: For several years.
With the number of near-warp planets out there, how many people are in the pre-First Contact corps?
BEREL: Well, it's getting out of control. I don't know what else he is, but he is still a patient in this medical facility and we have a responsibility for his care and recovery. Remind them of that, will you?
Thank you for acting rationally.
BEREL: Mister Jakara, we have been unable to confirm anything you told us. No physician named Crusher is on file. Not on this planet. Your address in Marta's an eating establishment. The cook has never heard of Rivas Jakara.
Seriously, the pre-First Contact team didn't rent out an actual location on this planet to maintain the cover? And why would Riker provide info that can't be validated? Why are we paying these specialists if they're so bad at their jobs? (We should take their holodeck rations back!
)
MIRASTA: He's an android, Chancellor. A constructed being.
DURKEN: A machine?
DATA: In a manner of speaking. The term artificial lifeform would be more accurate.
How is Data
not a machine? If he had used a more demeaning term I could understand Data defending himself.
DATA: No, Minister. He has not returned to our designated transport coordinates. We have continued to scan the capital city without success.
He's in a hospital. No shielding and the only human being on the planet. The ship's sensors can't find him? How would the locals have the slightest idea about how to block sensor scans?
PICARD: I've been saving this for a special occasion. My brother on Earth produces fruit known as grapes, which he turns into wine.
Nice reference to "Family", but the bottle should've showed up again. Minimal research says it's about five glasses per bottle.
DURKEN: My world's history has recorded that conquerors often arrived with the words, we are your friends.
And Earth's as well. Thank goodness for common sense.
DURKEN: What do you want?
PICARD: A beginning.
Overly simplistic. We want to protect you from other races who would exploit you. We want to learn your culture and teach you ours. We want to shield you from the mistakes we made when we first ventured into space.
DURKEN: And if I should tell you to leave and never return to my world?
PICARD: We will leave and never return.
SF Debris approved of this, but I don't. I would certainly promise to stay away for a couple generations and check in again then, but "never return" is a little final.
We never get an indication that an exotic power source is being used, so we have to assume antimatter. You don't want to leave that stuff in the hands of people afraid of change, it's a massacre waiting to happen.
DURKEN: I can infer from that directive that you do not intend to share all this exceptional technology with us.
PICARD: That is not the whole meaning, but it is part of it.
DURKEN: Is this your way of maintaining superiority?
PICARD: Chancellor, to instantly transform a society with technology would be harmful and it would be destructive,
DURKEN: You're right, of course.
Exactly. This society hasn't proven that it can safely used the tech it has NOW, more would be disastrous.
DURKEN: I will have to say this morning, I was the leader of the universe as I knew it. This afternoon, I am only a voice in a chorus. But I think it was a good day.
A nice sentiment. I know I wouldn't handle it as well.
RIKER: Now, will you help me?
LANEL: If you make love to me.
RIKER: What?
LANEL: I've always wanted to make love with an alien.
If the Universal Translator is so sophisticated that it can translate an idiom as complicated as "make love", our heroes shouldn't have the problems that it keeps having with the thing. It should've just said "have sex."
LANEL: Will I ever see you again?
RIKER: I'll call you the next time I pass through your star system.
That sounds more like a Kirk line.
TAVA: They've aggravated the injury to his renal organ.
Renal means the urinary system. If they're saying Riker damaged his privates, this is one subtle and dirty joke for the time period.
BEREL: I'm just a physician, Minister. I don't know much about affairs of state, but he is a living, intelligent being. I don't care if the Chancellor himself calls down here. I have sworn an oath to do no harm, and I will not.
Thank you.
PICARD: Centuries ago, a disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war.
First contact with other warp-faring species should have nothing to do with first contact with a species that has just developed warp. As for "decades of war", that's a rabbit hole lined with barb wire that I choose not to go down since it touches Enterprise, Discovery, etc.
RIKER: No. We're here on a mission of peace.
KROLA: Such noble creatures. Why do peaceful people develop such lethal weapons? Or do you still insist it's just a toy?
Riker never should've had a phaser on him. At the very least, they couldn't put a fingerprint scanner on the thing so only Riker could use it? I would've programmed these things to self-destruct unless touched by an authorized user every X hours during a mission like this.
KROLA: Perhaps, like many conquerors, you believe your goals to be benevolent. I cannot.
Oh boy, is that another discussion. You gotta give the writers props for not pulling their punches.
MIRASTA: I'm sorry to say he's probably right. Captain Picard, I have one last request. Take me with you.
DURKEN: She will be unhappy with the restrictions I must place on her at home, Captain.
PICARD: We may not be back here in your lifetime.
This line confuses me. Why can't they return in her lifetime?