30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

March 23rd, 1992, "Cause and Effect"

Fiver by Kira

The Episode

RIKER: Damage report!
CRUSHER: Casualty reports coming in from all over the ship.
DATA: The starboard nacelle has sustained a direct impact. We are venting drive plasma.
LAFORGE: Initiating emergency core shutdown.
RO: Inertial dampers failing. We're losing attitude control.
RIKER: This is the Bridge. All hands to emergency escape pods.
DATA: Core shutdown is unsuccessful. We are losing antimatter containment.
LAFORGE: We've got to eject the core!
DATA: Ejection systems offline. Core breach is imminent.
PICARD: All hands abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon
(KaBOOM!!!!)

Are people supposed to be able to reach the escape pods in less than thirty seconds? Also "emergency" escape pods? As opposed to all of those nonemergency escape pods?

Captain's log, stardate 45652.1. The Enterprise has entered an area of space known as the Typhon Expanse. We're the first Starfleet vessel to chart this unexplored region.

The Typhon Expanse is in Beta Quadrant, it's a shame how seldom we hear "Beta Quadrant." In First Contact Starfleet made a last stand in the "Typhon Sector." Would you really want to encounter a Borg Cube around here?

Deep Space 5 was in the Typhon Sector, the station is smaller than the Enterprise. It's there to try to detect a Borg invasion early enough to mount a defense. Don't ask me why the Borg would approach via Typhon Sector in particular.

DS-5 will come back in "Parallels" and First Contact.

The later novels will introduce the Typhon Pact, negotiated in this region.

(Data does a fast, professional shuffle)
RIKER: Sometimes I wonder if he's stacking the deck.
DATA: I assure you, Commander, the cards are sufficiently randomised.

The number of shuffles required for sufficient randomization has been a long-standing statistics problem. It depends on the kind of shuffle. Wikipedia claims that seven riffle shuffles (two stacks, bent up and released so alternating cards flatten out in the new stack) are needed.

Of course Numberphile has made a video about this.

LAFORGE: At first I thought the catwalk was spinning. As it turns out, it was me. Luckily Ensign Fletcher was there to grab me. It's a long way down to the bottom of the warp core.

The warp core goes four decks below the dilithium chamber and six decks above. At 3.5 m per deck, that's 14 meters or 46 feet. Within a rounding error that's enough for the fall to kill you. If it's flat on the bottom, which I wouldn't count on for the antimatter injectors down there.

CRUSHER: I'll give you twenty cc's of vertazine. That should clear up the dizziness.

Vertazine's only other appearance is in "Parallels". You'll recall that jumping between quantum realities also causes dizziness.

(Beverly is dead-heading a plant and sipping on a night-cap.)

Dead-heading is simply removing the dead parts of a plant. I'd never heard of the term before.

LAFORGE: As you can see, the Typhon Expanse is huge. If we want to chart the most remote star system, we'll have to launch a probe within the next few hours.

Why? I'd imagine that the Enterprise only has X days to spend on this mission, but they could've explained the time constraints better.

LAFORGE: The flux spectrometers are still down for re-alignment.
RIKER: I thought they were supposed to be back online yesterday.
LAFORGE: They were, until the stellar dynamics lab decided they needed to install new modules.
DATA: I recommend we use a gravitron polarimeter. It will perform a similar function.

I get that both devices are fictional, but just based on the descriptions I can't imagine how these gadgets are supposed to do the same thing.

RIKER: Decompress main shuttlebay. The explosive reaction may kick us out of the way.
DATA: Captain, I suggest we use the tractor beam to alter the other ship's trajectory.
PICARD: Mister Worf, make it so.
WORF: Engaging tractor beam.

You'd think Worf would automatically use the tractor beam in this case. Plus we've seen that it takes like ten seconds to open the main shuttlebay doors. There's no time. Plus you'd have to imagine that there are people in the shuttlebay who can't evacuate in less than ten seconds.

PICARD: My Aunt Adele cured a lot of sleepless nights with this steamed milk.

This is the second mention of Aunt Adele. Her ginger tea appeared in "Ensign Ro" and the milk toddy will also appear in "Schisms."

CRUSHER: I ran a scan to see if I could detect what he was seeing. I picked up miniscule distortions in the surrounding dekyon field. Somehow, his visor is translating those distortions into visual impulses.

Dekyons will reappear in "Parallax," in a way inconsistent with this episode.

WORF: Maybe we should reverse course.
RIKER: For all we know, reversing course may be what leads us into the crash.
PICARD: No. We can't afford to start second guessing ourselves. We'll stay on this course until we have reason to change it.

Like hearing voices from a previous loop? As the next scene will reveal, our heroes can feel when events are "new".

DATA: I have encountered the numeral three an inordinate number of times over the last two hours.

Actually, Data, you've encountered number threes. "3" is a numeral, *** is a number. You can thank SF Debris for this nit.

DATA: To date we have encountered two thousand eighty five conspicuous examples of the number three.

No 47? Someone's been dropping the ball.

PICARD: Mister Worf, end Red alert. And try to access a Federation time base beacon. Let's see if we can find out how long we've been in this causality loop.
WORF: Time base confirms our chronometers are off by seventeen point four days.

They got lucky. Over on Stargate they were stuck in a loop for AT LEAST three months.

WORF: Captain, we are being hailed by the other vessel. The computer identifies it as the USS Bozeman, a Federation starship, Soyuz class.
LAFORGE: Soyuz class? They haven't been in service in over eighty years.

The Soyuz is like the Miranda, only without the rollbar and a longer rear shuttlebay section (and the side sensor turrets).

BATESON [on viewscreen]: This is Captain Morgan Bateson of the Federation Starship Bozeman.

"I'm listening". You have to give me one Frasier joke.

PICARD: Captain, do you know what year this is?
BATESON [on viewscreen]: Of course I do. It's twenty two seventy eight.

Pardek started his career as a senator in this year. Chekov was also promoted to full Commander in this year. It's also the year that Data originally graduated before his backstory was completely rewritten.

The Fiver

Enterprise: KA-BLAM!

I still like Kablazmo better.

Data: The sensors can't find anything. I believe the Doctor is nuts.
Picard: I concur.

Like I've said, I don't like it when people are thought to be insane. That's why I don't watch "Remember Me" and "All Good Things" anymore.

Crusher: La de da de do.
Voices: You need singing lessons, lady.
Crusher: What the...?

Well, if she was the Singing Doctor as well as the Dancing Doctor she'd be trapped in a horrible Scrubs musical episode. I don't think that's a good thing.

Crusher: I heard voices.
Picard: Could this have anything to do with those magic mushrooms you're growing in Sickbay?
Crusher: Well, I...aw, dammit.

Is there a movie or whatever where mushrooms cause auditory hallucinations?

Captain's Log: If a ship blows up in a time loop, does anybody care?

I care more than I did that time that a tree fell on a mime...

Captain Bateson: You morons! You almost hit us!
Picard: Why should we care? That old rustbucket you're driving is no match for the Enterprise.
Bateson: The Enterprise? Oh my God! Kirk -- you've lost all your hair!

Actually, in the novel Ship of the Line I think it was revealed that Bateson was friends with Scotty, not Kirk.

Memory Alpha

* Braga pointed out that this episode came out before Groundhog Day.
* The creators wanted to have Kirstie Alley's Saavik on the Bozeman, but she was busy with Cheers.
* Only appearance of Shuttlebay One, and even then it was only a model.
* First appearance of Ogawa's last name.
* Crusher must've learned of Aunt Adelle's warm milk in the final loop, as she introduces it to Riker in "Schisms."
* First mention of a warp core ejection. Really?

Memory Beta

* The major appearance of Bateson and the Bozeman crew after this is in the novel Ship of the Line. Bateson took command of the Enterprise-E during the shakedown cruise. Also featuring Scotty and Picard teaming up with Gul Madred!

Nitpicker's Guide

* How is the Enterprise going back in time for each cycle if time is passing for the rest of the universe?
* Did the Bozeman go through a "jump in time" temporal anomaly before the "time loop" temporal anomaly?
* Why didn't Picard do the shuttle bay compression AND the tractor beam?
* The time that Geordi arrives in Sickbay varies a lot between cycles.
* Why didn't Bateson mention the current captain of the Enterprise (this would be Kirk, it's the last year of the second five-year mission under him).