30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

May 11th, 1992, "I, Borg"

Fiver by Marc

The Episode

DATA: Readings are still inconclusive, however the moon's atmosphere is capable of supporting life.

I hate it when Trek implies that the only thing that matters for Class M conditions is the atmosphere. They ignore gravity, air pressure, temperature, on and on...

TROI: I would have thought having a Borg on the ship would stir some feelings.
PICARD: I'm quite recovered from my experience, thank you.

Talk about a blatant lie. Even if you don't count First Contact we have the events of "Drumhead" and other episodes.

LAFORGE: If this works the way I think it will, once the invasive programme starts spreading, it'll only be a matter of months before the Borg suffer total systems failure.

Months? I don't think that the Borg would allow that much delay between updates. Isn't that what the transwarp conduits are for?

CRUSHER: I just think we should be plain about that. We're talking about annihilating an entire race.

What race? The Borg have no culture, even if you consider the Voyager retcons. They exist to consume, nothing more. The concept of genocide doesn't apply to the Borg.

RIKER: I agree. We're at war.
CRUSHER: There's been no formal declaration of war.
TROI: Not from us, but certainly from them. They've attacked us in every encounter.
PICARD: They've declared war on our way of life. We are to be assimilated.
CRUSHER: But even in war there are rules. You don't kill civilians indiscriminately.
RIKER: There are no civilians among the Borg.

The Borg are at war with every other sentient race. And Riker is right, there are no Borg civilians. There is no Borg culture. While you could argue that Hugh is a drafted soldier, he's still a soldier.

CRUSHER: When I look at my patient, I don't see a collective consciousness. I don't see a hive. I see a living, breathing boy who's been hurt and who needs our help. And we're talking about sending him back to his people as an instrument of destruction.

Being alive is not the same as being sentient. And while Hugh will eventually become sentient, at this point he isn't. Crusher is short-sighted. You could also argue that Borg drones aren't "alive" in the same way as humanoid, every single function is being supported by machinery.

CRUSHER: He must be hungry. The Borg don't ingest food. Their implants can synthesise any organic molecules the biological tissues require. What they need is energy.

There's another screed here. Does regeneration really consist of just a power socket and ethernet connection? It could be argued that regeneration alcoves also cultivate base biological material that can be transferred to drones. There has to be a limit to how much biological repair a drone can do by itself, after that the implants expand to replace the flesh.

LAFORGE: Yeah, but there's only one of you. Do you have a name? A means of identification?
BORG: Third of five.

I can't help but feel that a unimatrix or cube number should be attached to this designation.

LAFORGE: I've been rationing his portions of energy. I think he understands. When he cooperates, he gets fed. If not.
CRUSHER: Like a rat in a cage.

Alive does not mean sentient, etc.

LAFORGE: Look, if I'm going to figure out his command pathways, I need to learn how he processes information, and the only way I know to do that is by giving him perceptual tests. And for that, I need his cooperation.
CRUSHER: So he can participate in the destruction of his entire species.

The Borg are not a species! They're a virus that only wants to exist and gather information for no particular reason. The writer is really hammering in the foreshadowing, we didn't need this much!

BORG: What is a doctor?

If Data has a built-in dictionary, there's no reason why Borg can't. Stupid line...

LAFORGE: Anyway, I'm having second thoughts about what we're doing here. I mean, programming him like some sort of walking bomb. Sending him back to destroy the others.

Even IF we accept that Borg drones are sentient, THEY ARE AT WAR! Sabotage and Trojan Horses are an accepted part of war. I hate it when Trek writers rewrite reality to convey a message in a hamfisted manner.

PICARD: How can a geometric form disable a computer system?
DATA: The shape is a paradox, sir. It cannot exist in real space or time.
LAFORGE: When Hugh's imaging apparatus imprints this on his biochips, he'll try to analyse it.
DATA: He will be unsuccessful, and will store the shape in his memory banks. It will be shunted to a subroutine for further analysis.
LAFORGE: Then when the Borg download his memory, it'll be incorporated it into their network, then they'll try to analyse it.
DATA: It is designed so that each approach they take will spawn an anomalous solution. The anomalies are designed to interact with each other, linking together to form an endless and unsolvable puzzle.

The Borg have been around long enough to debug themselves to avoid logic loops. Furthermore, this seems like a plan that some other race would've tried a long time ago.

BORG: Locutus.
PICARD: Yes. I am Locutus of Borg.
BORG: Why are you here?

You'd think the Collective would've told all the drones that Locutus doesn't exist anymore.

The Fiver

Data: Sir, I am picking up an automated signal from the moon ahead of us.
Picard: What does it say?
Data: It is a single repeating word. I cannot decipher it, but it resembles the pseudo-Swedish dialect used by a certain culinary artist once featured on twentieth-century Earth television.

Ah yes, the Swedish Chef. "Borg" is a name used in various Nordic and Germanic cultures. There are multiple people with the last name of Borg.

Riker: I'd better take down an Away Team. I've always wanted to have a chef aboard the Enterprise.
Picard: Aren't replicators good enough for you anymore, Will?
Riker: It's the one in my quarters that's the problem. I once called it an overgrown toaster and it never forgave me.

Painful Enterprise joke. The Voyager joke is better by comparison.

Riker: Okay...definitely not Swedish.
Crusher: Why definitely? There's no reason the Borg couldn't have assimilated a few Scandinavians during the Battle of Wolf 359.
Riker: True. I just have trouble imagining what a blonde Borg would look like.

While we don't know Seven's ethnicity, Jeri Ryan is German.

Riker: Doctor, we have to get out of here. The Borg always come back to collect their dead.
Crusher: But he's not dead! He's just resting!
Worf: He looks dead to me.
Crusher: It's probably because he's pining for the Collective.

The Parrot Sketch is a classic. I would've included a few more lines from it, though.

Picard: The Collective is vulnerable because it's so interconnected. Can you devise an invasive program that we could load into this Borg before we return him to the hive?
La Forge: That depends on how good their security protocols are. Do you think they could be fooled into opening an unsolicited message attachment?
Picard: If we make the subject line enticing enough, yes.

Ah, early email gags. Spam filtering has certainly advanced since 2004, hasn't it?

Picard: The plan is to infect the Collective's great link with a logical paradox virus. Within months, the Borg will become so obsessed with solving it that they'll be powerless to do anything else
La Forge: In other words, think of it as a weapon of mass distraction.

I'm reminded of a gag from the movie "You've Got Mail"...

Listen to this, the entire work force of the state of Virginia had to have solitaire removed from their computers because they hadn't done any work in six weeks.

Data: This is the final design for the paradox virus.
Picard: It looks harmless enough. How does it work?
La Forge: I disguised it as an election-year campaign leaflet. It promises to cut taxes and balance the budget while eliminating the national debt and increasing public spending.

There are some politics jokes that never get old.

Guinan: Hugh has feelings. Before you use him as a genocidal weapon, you should at least look him in the eye.
Picard: It is not a he, it is an it, and it deserves no consideration whatsoever!
Guinan: That's not how you felt when Commander Maddox said the same thing about Data.
Picard: That was an entirely different case! My android second officer was being denied his fundamental human righ-- uh, what I mean to say is, um....

Comparisons to "Measure of a Man" are a bit of a stretch.

Memory Alpha

* There's a blooper in Borg designations here. Hugh uses "Third of Five" instead of "Three of Five" as Voyager would establish.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Why is Geordi writing the computer virus instead of Data?
* Phil also thinks that Borg would be able to escape logic loops.
* If Picard fighting to keep his individuality didn't affect the Borg, why would Hugh's?
* Hugh hears that the Enterprise will hide from the Borg cube behind the star. Why didn't the Borg assimilate this knowledge and attack the Enterprise?
* Back in "The Best of Both Worlds" Beverly wanted to program nanites to attack the Borg. Why is she against this computer virus?
* BOBW also established that cutting a drone off from Borg transmissions will kill them, yet they do it in this episode without problems. Oops.
* Why does Hugh think that "doctor" is an occupation and not a name? Phil specifically brings up Judge Reinhold.

[Nate the Great]

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.

[Nate the Great]

DATA: I am not certain that either human or Bajoran rites are fitting.

Why not?

DATA: In almost all societies, it is traditional to say a ritual farewell to those you call friends. I never knew what a friend was until I met Geordi. He spoke to me as though I were human. He treated me no differently from anyone else. He accepted me for what I am. And that, I have learned, is friendship. But I do not know how to say goodbye.
RO: He seems almost human, doesn't he.

A nice moment from Data, but I'd forgotten about Ro's line. I wonder if Guinan talks about him to her.

LAFORGE: It's supposed to change the structure of matter so it can pass through normal matter and energy. Hang on a second. A few years back, we got intelligence reports that the Klingons were working on trying to combine a phase inverter and a cloaking device. In theory, they believed that a phased ship could hide anywhere, even inside a planet, and that conventional weapons would be useless against it.
RO: How far did they get in their research?
LAFORGE: It never got out of the preliminary stages. There were several accidents.

We'll see that the phase cloak has been considered by both powers for awhile, but...

RO: Then that would explain the explosion and the chroniton fields.
LAFORGE: And us.
RO: You mean we're cloaked?
LAFORGE: Not just cloaked, phased. Our entire molecular structure altered so that we don't have any substance.

That doesn't explain the current scenario. A phase cloak would only phase everything within an active field. You can't attach a "static phase" charge to a person, that's ridiculous.

MIROK: We will set up a muon feedback wave inside the transfer beam. The particles will accumulate in their dilithium chamber. When they go to warp speed, their engines will explode.

How a wave can create particles is beyond me. Maybe this has to do with the higher dimensions that dilithium crystals exist in. Then again, why would the transfer beam be tapping directly into the warp core without an intermediate converter?

PICARD: Deck ten. I've been thinking about the first time I met Geordi La Forge. He was a young officer assigned to pilot me on an inspection tour, and I made some off hand remark about the shuttle's engine efficiency not being what it should. And the next morning I found that he'd stayed up all night refitting the fusion initiators. Well, I knew then that I wanted him with me on my next command.

A nice story.

PICARD: I would like to get under way as soon as possible. The situation on Garadius Four is becoming serious.

Garidians will return in the video game A Final Unity. They resemble Romulans, but I don't know if they're supposed to be an early offshoot just like Romulans were from Vulcans.

LAFORGE: It looks like a great party. Do you mind if we join you?

Great line.

RO: I was raised with Bajoran beliefs. I even followed some of the practices, but I never really believed in a life after death. Then suddenly I was dead and there was another life, and it made me feel like I'd been pretty arrogant to discount everything I'd been taught, you know? Now I don't know what to believe.
LAFORGE: Maybe we should develop our own interphase device. If it can teach Ro Laren humility, it can do anything.

Ro's line is good, but Geordi's is a little offensive. Insulting an emotional reveal for the sake of a joke doesn't seem like Geordi, it seem more like McCoy, doesn't it?

The Fiver

La Forge: Enterprise, two people and one piece of weird Romulan equipment to beam aboard.
Chief Brossmer: (over the comm) I don't like the sound of that, sir. Any chance you and Ensign Ro could fax me a signed waiver before I energize?
La Forge: No.

I'm always surprised to learn that some people still use faxes.

Brossmer: (over the comm): Commander Riker, they vanished! I activated the transporter and they just vanished!
Riker: I presume you mean they vanished in a manner not consistent with the usual workings of the transporter.
Brossmer: Aye, o'course I mean that! D'ye think I'd call ye if they'd just beamed doon?
Riker: Funny how I never noticed that Scottish accent of yours until now.

Ah, Gamesters of Triskelion.

Ro: Oh, my aching head! How did I end up on the floor outside Sickbay? Note to self -- Romulan ale no longer to be consumed during rescue missions.

Undiscovered Country, too?

Ro: La Forge, can you see me?
La Forge: Yes, and I'm sure glad you can see me! No one else can! I was beginning to understand how Cyrus Ramsey must have felt.
Ro: Who?

This is an Enterprise reference. Ramsey was one of the first human victims of a transporter accident. Or maybe Hoshi just hallucinated his entire existence.

Ro: I think we're ghosts. Dr. Crusher says we died in a transporter accident.
La Forge: I'm not dead!
Ro: Yes, you are.
La Forge: No, I'm not! And I'm going for a walk!
Ro: Look, you're not fooling anyone. Now just wait here with me for the wooden cart, will you?

It's always a good day for a Monty Python reference.

Ro: Won't the whole shuttle go right through us as soon as the pilot starts to accelerate?
La Forge: No, the shuttle seats are made of the same material as the floors of the Enterprise.
Ro: Ah.

If inertia had any effect on them they'd have been left in the dust by the Enterprise the second they materialized. There are times when you should really just relax and not wonder about science facts...

La Forge: Did our near-death experience give you any new insights about life?
Ro: It'd be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference.

Voyage Home, too? And Ro is the last person I can imagine emulating Spock.

Nitpicker's Guide

* If they can't interact with air, how can they breathe or hear?
* At one point Data must step back so Geordi can go by. Oops.
* How would a nonphased couch protech Geordi and Ro from a phased explosion?
* In "The Hunted", an exploding phaser was deemed a risk to the entire deck, but in this episode an exploding Romulan disrupter didn't even fill Ten Forward.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

May 11th, 1992, "I, Borg"
LAFORGE: Yeah, but there's only one of you. Do you have a name? A means of identification?
BORG: Third of five.

I can't help but feel that a unimatrix or cube number should be attached to this designation.

Agreed.

The Borg have been around long enough to debug themselves to avoid logic loops. Furthermore, this seems like a plan that some other race would've tried a long time ago.

Most things the Federation tries seems like something that someone would have already tried long ago.

Fiver is pretty good.

Captain's Log: We are mapping the star systems of the Argolis Cluster, where we have found an abundance of curious asteroids shaped like spheres, cubes and octahedra. I look forward to seeing what other oddities we will discover in the next system on our route.

I'm sure this is a reference . . . ?

Data: This is the final design for the paradox virus.
Picard: It looks harmless enough. How does it work?
La Forge: I disguised it as an election-year campaign leaflet. It promises to cut taxes and balance the budget while eliminating the national debt and increasing public spending.

There are some politics jokes that never get old.

Indeed.

* Phil also thinks that Borg would be able to escape logic loops.

I think they would be able to recognize a low-importance process and not let it take over their entire processing capabilities. This is really something you spring on the Borg during a battle to slow them down a bit, perhaps, rather than expect them to gum themselves up at leisure.

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.

At the bare minimum, he should know if his First Officer's father is an important ambassador from a core Foundation world, am I right?

"The Next Phase" is a good fiver too, nothing sticks out though.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by NAHTMMM

I'm sure this is a reference . . . ?

I think Marc was going for a little dramatic irony. With those particular shapes, the Argolis Cluster was screaming "upcoming Borg" as loud as it was able.

[Nate the Great]

June 1st, 1992, "The Inner Light"

Fiver by me

I'm skipping the fiver coverage, given that I already made a dicer thread on it. Here's a link to the actual fiver, feel free to gush about it. My ego can never get enough stroking.

The Episode

Captain's log, stardate 45944.1. Following a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium Sector, we've detected an object which we cannot immediately identify.

Only mention of the Parvenium Sector. Kataan is actually in the neighboring Silarian Sector, which isn't mentioned elsewhere either. Which is weird given the episode's popularity.

DATA: The probe is composed of paricium and talgonite, a ceramic alloy.

Only mention of either of these, although a ship made out of "crystalline ceramic" appears in "How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth." I'm dubious as to whether you could make a spaceship out of ceramic materials. Does Kataan even have titanium?

WORF: Sir, I am detecting a low-level nucleonic beam coming from the probe.

Nucleonic beams reappear in "The Cloud." I'm not sure if these could be the same thing.

DATA: The beam is scanning the shield's perimeter. The probe is emitting an unusual particle stream.
WORF: Sir, the beam is penetrating our shields.

How? Penetrating shields shouldn't be this easy. Then again, we're told that blocking telepathic transmissions are impossible.

PICARD: Computer, freeze programme. Computer, end programme.

Why would "end program" work when "freeze program" doesn't?

BATAI: Thank you. This sapling is planted as an affirmation of life in defiance of the drought and with expectations of long life. Whatever comes, we will keep it alive as a symbol of our survival.

I get the symbolism of this, and it makes a nice recurring tableau. Whether these people should be wasting water on this instead of their crops is another question...

BATAI: Eline should've put you in the hospital, but she insisted on caring for you herself.
PICARD: Eline?
BATAI: Your wife. If you don't remember that, maybe it's safer not to go home.

Always a funny line.

PICARD: Kataan. Not a Federation planet.

Various sources say that the Federation has about fifty planets during the TOS era and 150 planets during the TNG era. I'm not sure that even Kirk could memorize 50 planets. Maybe Picard keeps track of all planets around where he is for a particular mission, but this is still silly.

PICARD: Are there other planets in this star system? Do you visit other systems? All right.

Poor Eline, Kamin must be sounding like adults in Peanuts cartoons right now.

PICARD: Do you have a communication system here? How do you send messages to other communities, to other places?
ELINE: The usual way, by voice-transit conductor.

This sounds more like telephone than radio. How can these guys launch interplanetary probes again?

PICARD: And what do I do here in Ressik?
ELINE: You're the best iron weaver in the community. At least I think so.

What's an iron weaver? Does he braid wires into cables? Can these guys make wire so narrow that you can make cloth out of it? Why would you want to wear chainmail on a planet in the middle of a drought?

ELINE: You prefer playing the flute, of course.
PICARD: The flute?
ELINE: Yes.
(she fetches him a penny whistle decorated with a tassel)

Penny whistles, more formally known as tin whistles, were only able to be invented in the 19th century when reliable thin metal sheets became possible. They descend from older "fipple flutes", which are the ancestors of what we now call recorders. Technically a "flute" is played by blowing air across it rather than into it. Flutes will give you twice as many notes as a whistle.

PICARD: And when did I learn to play it?
ELINE: I'm afraid you never did, dear, but you keep trying.

Now that's a wife line. Hehe.

(as she leans forward he sees a pendant on a necklace - it is the same design as probe that the Enterprise encountered)
PICARD: Where did you get this?
ELINE: Kamin, this is the first gift you ever gave me.

So is this just an Easter Egg to remind us of what's really going on, or is this double-finned design a Kataan trademark and the pendant and probe both derive from the same source?

CRUSHER: Pulse and blood pressure are normal I'm getting hyperactive fibrogenic activity. This is odd.

Fibrogenic just means "making fibers". In medicine it usually refers to disorders of the liver or kidneys. I'm sure this is just medicalbabble in this context.

RIKER: Agreed. Stand down phasers, Mister Worf. In the meantime, take us out of range. Ensign. Thrusters only, one hundred kph nice and easy

100 kph? Workbees go 10.8 million kph! Quarter impulse is 67 million kph! Do the thrusters even have a gear for a speed that slow?

ELINE: Was your life there so much better than this? So much more gratifying, so much more fulfilling, that you cling to it with such stubbornness?

I get that Eline doesn't have the right context for this judgement, but this is still troublesome.

ELINE: It must have been extraordinary. But never in all of the stories you've told me have you mentioned anyone who loved you as I do.

There's a whole discussion about how deep into romance Picard has let himself get into, especially after Jack's death, but I'm not interested in writing that particular screed.

ADMINISTRATOR: There you are, Batai. Perhaps you can explain to me, when crops are dying all over, how this tree is flourishing?

Has this guy never come around in the last five years?

BATAI: You've been brooding behind that flute all evening.
PICARD: I'm not brooding. I'm immersed in my music.
BATAI: Music.
PICARD: I find that it helps me think, but the real surprise is I enjoy it so much.
BATAI: No, the real surprise is that you may actually be improving.

I'm reminded of SF Debris' lament that bit characters in the TNG era were never given the same opportunities as TOS bit characters to show personality. There are exceptions like the cast in this episode.

ELINE: Batai?
BATAI: Yes, ma'am.
ELINE: Go home.
BATAI: Yes, ma'am.

Hehe.

CRUSHER: Two cc's delactovine.

Only mention of delactovine. I would've liked a namedrop of cordrazine here.

MERIBOR: Analysing soil samples. There isn't any anaerobic bacteria. The soil is dead.

I learned the difference between aerobic and anaerobic years ago. Aerobic bacteria need air (like we do when we engage in "aerobics"), anaerobic bacteria don't.

As a matter of fact, "anaerobic exercise" does exist. They're motions that make your body break down glucose that's already in your body instead of using new oxygen like aerobics.

PICARD: Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.

Always a classic.

LAFORGE: We've charted the alien probe's radiation trail for over one light year.
RIKER: Any way to extrapolate am origin?
LAFORGE: Looks like a star system in the Silarian sector. Kataan.

Let's say that the distance traveled is three light years, if the Enterprise had to extrapolate. A thousand years means 2700 km/s, or a little slower than a workbee.

PICARD: You shouldn't be outside so long. It's damaging, you know that.
MERIBOR: I'm wearing plenty of your skin protector.

Picard knows how to make advanced sunscreen? Does Ressik have manufacturing capability?

ELINE: The rest of us have been gone for a thousand years. If you remember what we were, and how we lived, then we'll have found life again.

(Riker hands him a box and leaves. Inside it is a penny whistle with a tassel. Picard clutches it to his chest for a moment, then plays his Skye Boat song variation on it)

I already made a post of Inner Light covers, I don't need to repeat it.

Memory Alpha

* Originally Picard's experience would start before courting Eline. I agree that it would've taken valuable time away from more important things.
* "The Inner Light" is the name of an obscure Beatles song. It was an injoke by the screenwriter and Beatles fan Morgan Gendel. Upon hearing it I can understand why it's an obscure Beatles song.
* A sequel called "The Outer Light" was written but never filmed. It was eventually turned into a webcomic.
* I remember a Strange New Worlds story where Picard finds a wormhole that leads back to Kataan at a time right after they launch the probe in the first place. He's able to send a message back to the people telling them that their plan worked.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil is incredulous that this society could create a spaceworthy probe, much less memory-imprinting technology. The fans say that a society can be advanced in some areas but not others. Phil doesn't buy it. At best he thinks that the Kataanians deliberately created a pastoral, nostalgia-bait version of their culture for the probe.
* How do they know the planet is named Kataan?
* Picard's porch light would render his telescope unusable.
* This time Phil does the stardate conversion. "Time's Arrow" is five days after this episode, how did Picard recover so fast?
* Only twenty minutes have elapsed, and somehow Beverly was able to leave the bridge and change her hair. Oops.

[Nate the Great]

So I've read most of "The Outer Light" webcomic, and I have to say that I'm not impressed. I refrain from additional criticism, I'll just say that even the Internet Archive hasn't kept all of the pages of the comic, so you won't even get a complete story.