March 11th, 1991, "Galaxy's Child"
It was good to see the return of Leah Brahms, but they really made the "ice queen" phase last for too long.
Fiver by Marc
The Episode
PICARD: Yes, Mister La Forge. It seems that the exemplary nature of your work has caught the attention of Starfleet Command. In fact, someone is coming on board just to see the engine modifications you've made.
LAFORGE: Who, Captain?
PICARD: The Senior Design Engineer of the Theoretical Propulsion Group. Doctor Leah Brahms.
This hardly seems like a job for Leah. Shouldn't she have an assistant who can do this?
GUINAN: You know, Geordi, everybody falls in love with a fantasy every now and then.
I'll buy that Guinan wouldn't be one of those "only weirdos fall in love with holograms" people, but she's still taking this too well.
LEAH: The matter-antimatter ratio has been changed. The mixture isn't as rich as regulations dictate.
Not the intermix ratio nonsense again! I'll be growling in the corner if you need me...
LEAH: The magnetic plasma transfer to the warp field generators doesn't correspond to the recommended specs.
Of course it doesn't! Some idiot is pumping extra matter into the warp plasma!
LEAH: You've charted a completely new swap-out schedule for main components replacement.
LAFORGE: You bet. I found the Starfleet estimates for the MTBF units to be unrealistic.
This seems a little petty and below Leah's level. She works in the theoretical field, not the nuts-and-bolts part.
DATA: The anomaly is orbiting the seventh planet, sir. It is a mass of plasma energy contained within discrete boundaries by an outer covering of silicates, actinides, and carbonaceous chondrites.
The actinides are all radioactive. Maybe I can buy that they're part of some interior fusion "stomach", but why would they be part of the skin?
Carbonaceous chondrites are a category of meteorite material. The Gekli (what the novels call this species) could sure make use of such a material for armor, but if they're implying that somehow muscles are made of this stuff, that just doesn't work.
RIKER: Alert science stations to standby. Tell them to coordinate all efforts with Commander Data.
I thought Data was
already in charge of the science teams.
LAFORGE: You remember, the crystal's been reoriented to adjust the direction of the lattice structure.
Nice callback to actual technobabble used in "Booby Trap." They were trying to pump more matter and antimatter into the core, despite that not being the problem they were trying to fix.
LEAH: It's curious. this modification was due to be introduced.
LAFORGE: In the next class starship.
LEAH: Yes. How did you know?
The next class of starship should've already been introduced! You have to imagine that the Nebula class was a modification of the Galaxy specs. I jolly well hope that the modification has been introduced by now!
LAFORGE: I make a great fungilli.
LEAH: I love fungilli.
LAFORGE: Is that right?
This tidbit was in "Booby Trap", but it seems like reaching in this case. Incidentally, fungilli doesn't really exist, but of course
the Star Trek Cookbook has a recipe for it.
DATA: Sensors are having difficulty penetrating the interior.
But you did earlier and found a mass of plasma energy! Besides, the skin is made out of meteorite material, something the Enterprise should know how to scan!
PICARD: Reverse course, Ensign, three hundred kph.
Quarter impulse is 18,665 kps or 67 million kph. Three hundred kph is a crawl, I wonder how few thrusters you need for that kind of speed.
COMPUTER: Warning. Radiation levels at sixty five millirads per minute and rising.
Fatal radiation levels vary by person, but let's use a common threshold of 1000 rad. 65 mrad/min means 50% casualties in 15000 min or 256 hours or 11 days.
RIKER: All decks prepare for radiation protocol.
You'd think this would be automatic, or Data would've done it by now. Now that I think about it, why doesn't each hull have an inner core with extra radiation shielding?
COMPUTER: Warning. Radiation levels at three hundred millirads per minute and rising. Lethal exposure in one minute.
300 mrad/min means 50% casualties in 56 hours. For lethal exposure in one minutes you need 1000 rad/min, or more than three times what they're currently getting. If only they were smart enough to toss an "iso-" in there...
DATA: Radiation patterns no longer coherent.
Thank goodness he didn't say that there was no radiation. As I mentioned before, the actinides in the skin will be radioactive by themselves for awhile. (The half-life of actinides is like 20 days, so these Gekli must eat a lot of meteorites).
PICARD: We're out here to explore, to make contact with other life forms, to establish peaceful relations but not to interfere. And absolutely not to destroy.
I'll just
throw up a link to this powerful moment. Poor Picard.
TROI: Captain, everything you did was consistent with established Starfleet procedures.
Is that supposed to make him feel better, Deanna? Are soldiers supposed to not feel shock from killing people just because it's their duty? Go that way and you end up with Jem'Hadar, you don't want to go that way!
LAFORGE: Okay. Computer, subdued lighting. No, that's too much. I don't want it dark, I want it cozy.
I get that the computer can't possibly be programmed with every possible command to alter the lighting level, but I'd think "subdued" should be one of the possibilities.
COMPUTER: Please state your request in precise candlepower.
Is Geordi supposed to dig out a tricorder to measure the current candlepower?
Incidentally, "candlepower" was an obsolete unit even when the episode was made. We use "candela" now. Technically 1 candlepower is about 0.981 candela, but nowadays they're more or less equivalent.
But of course, given that the metric system has taken over by the 24th century, they should be using lumen (1 lumen=1 candela-steradian, where a steradian is the 3D equivalent of a radian, or the curved area of a light projection divided by the square of the distance from the light source to the curved area)
LAFORGE: See, it's not a matter of precision, computer, it's a matter of mood. Brighter than this. More. More. A little more. Hold. Right there. Perfect.
Seriously, dimmer switches are extinct in the 24th century? The computer can't configure a panel with a virtual scrollwheel for Geordi to do it himself? And frankly, with the number of failed dates Geordi has under his belt, he should've configured a "romantic lighting" preset with the computer by now.
LAFORGE: Now, some music. Maybe a little soft jazz. No, that's not right. Let me think here. Oh, I got it! Some Brahms! A piano etude. Nah, that's too corny. Probably everybody thinks of that.
Playing Brahms in front of Brahms IS corny. And by the way, an "etude" is just a short song designed to improve a player's proficiency with an instrument. He just told the computer to play a random song.
LEAH: Oh, you've changed.
LAFORGE: Yeah. The uniforms are so formal.
Yeah, you're having dinner in his quarters! Even if you didn't think it was a date, you should've known it would be informal! You're an idiot, Leah. Or in other words, they deserve each other.
LEAH: To be honest, people find me cold, cerebral, lacking in humour.
So the initial hologram design in "Booby Trap" was accurate, Geordi just didn't know it. It's a nice touch.
DATA: This new concentration of energy was detected only after the surrounding material became inert.
I'm having trouble with this. Data found the radioactive slush of the Gekli's stomach before and he didn't find Junior?
CRUSHER: It's dangerous to generalise about new life forms, but based on my experience with other beings who bear their young in this manner, I'd say that the offspring is still premature. Otherwise, it would be able to break through the outer body shell of the parent.
I won't get into a full gynecological rant, I'll just ask how Crusher came to this conclusion. You've never met anything like a Gekli before! Even Gomtuu seemed more-fleshy for lack of a better term, than this thing.
WORF: I advise against this, Captain. The parent proved to be a threat to the ship. We do not know how the offspring will react.
This would be a great time for a saucer separation. If only they'd filmed the model in more shots to begin with to allow for them. The ship won't separate again until Generations.
By the way, only the full six-foot model could separate. By this time the smaller four-foot model had supplanted it as the main model. However, reused footage could be used for most of it; the main problem was rebuilding the Battle Bridge set every time.
LEAH: The first thing I'd like to do is inspect the power transfer conduits.
LAFORGE: You realise the only way to inspect them is to crawl inside.
LEAH: I designed them, Commander. I know what's involved.
Do you? I thought you focused on the warp core.
LEAH: The acoustic signature doesn't sound right.
LAFORGE: You're probably the only other person in the galaxy who could pick that up.
I bet Data could.
LAFORGE: It's a mid-range phase adjuster. Puts the plasma back into phase after inertial distortion.
Inertia should only be an issue at impulse speeds. Why do you care about the plasma when the warp drive isn't in operation?