30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

TROI: I'm fine. There's nothing wrong. I'm just tired, that's all.

Why would Troi hide this? What did the attempt achieve?

PICARD: Now where did that come from?
RIKER: Apparently it was riding a Lagrange point, hiding behind Rana Four's furthest moon.

A Lagrange point is a point where a third object can maintain position relative to two other objects (sun/planet, planet/moon). The only Lagrange point where a ship could hide is the L2 point. Too bad this is ludicrous, as subspace sensors shouldn't care one bit about the gravitational fields of the system. Couldn't they say the ship was using an unknown form of cloaking device?

RIKER: But that's our boy. Approximately five times our mass and carrying enough armament to pulverize a planet.

Not that you care, but the E-D has a mass of almost five million metric tons. The Earth has a mass of 6(10^21) metric tons. If we say that the invading ship is 20 million metric tons of antimatter and 5 million metric tons of matter (i.e. the ship itself), you're still only talking enough antimatter to obliterate less than a TRILLIONTH of the planet. I hardly call that "pulverizing". Heaven forbid Riker just say enough armament to render the surface uninhabitable!

DATA: They have received the message, Captain, but are ignoring it.

If this sucker's an illusion, did Kevin send back an acknowledging signal for the Enterprise? How would he know how to do that?

WORF: The vessel is firing jacketed streams of positrons and antiprotons. Equivalent firepower, forty megawatts.

Wouldn't "antimatter stream" be sufficient? I'd do the math on the 40 megawatts, but this stuff is boring even me. No more Doing The Math for this entry, just keep in mind that I could and it would always be inaccurate.

WESLEY: Aye, sir. The vessel has reached warp two and continues on a steady acceleration curve. We're not getting any closer, Commander.
RIKER: Give us a superior curve, Mister Crusher.
WESLEY: Warp three. Warp four. The warship continues to match our curve simultaneously point for point.

Finally, reasonable technobabble!

RISHON: Kevin and I first saw each other on a ship at sea. He was a starving student with this threadbare suit and mismatched shoes.

This IS the post-scarcity Federation, right? No poor people? Nobody ever starves?

RISHON: Well, what do you think, Mister Worf?
WORF: Good tea. Nice house.

Classic line.