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Old 11-18-2021, 12:40 AM
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It's a day early, but whatever...

November 18th, 1991, "A Matter of Time"

Fiver by Kira

The Episode

Captain's log, stardate 45349.1. The Enterprise is on its way to Penthara Four, where a type C asteroid has struck an unpopulated continent. The resulting dust cloud could very well create a phenomenon not unlike the nuclear winters of twenty first century Earth.

So this is a reference to World War III. It lasted from 2026-2053. I'm sorry, but I'm surprised that a world war could last that long in the age of nuclear weapons.

PICARD: The Lieutenant's sensors detected a temporal distortion almost in our current course. There's a small object back there that wasn't there a few moments ago.

They almost treat this as routine. I'd mock this, but in retrospect they weren't too amazed at the Guardian of Forever, either.

RASMUSSEN: Late twenty sixth century Earth, to be exact. I've travelled back nearly three hundred years just to find you.

Did the writers forget that it's the late twenty-FOURTH century? That's two hundred years, not three hundred.

PICARD: Exactly what kind of historian are you?
RASMUSSEN: My focus is on the twenty second through the twenty fourth centuries. Early interstellar history.

If you want early Earth interstellar history, you need to include the twenty-first century as well. Idiot.

LAFORGE: The hull is made of some kind of plasticised tritanium mesh. We've nothing like it on record, at least not till now.

"Plasticized" means to either make something moldable like plastic or coat it with plastic. I don't see why you'd do either to a ship's hull.

PICARD: Bring his vessel into the shuttlebay. Place it under guard.

"The" shuttlebay? You do know that there are three shuttlebays on this ship, right?

PICARD: I realise that this visit is going to be difficult for some of us, but I've examined his credentials, and everything seems to be in order.

One of the biggest headscratchers in this episode. How would you know a set of credentials from the future is in order? How could you even check it?

RASMUSSEN: This is really a thrill, Data, like running across a Redstone missile or a Gutenberg bible. To think, the Model T of androids.

The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile, in service from 1958-1964. I wonder if the viewers of the early '90s would even know what that is. The term "Model T of androids" also makes me scratch my head. The Model T was a revolution in mass production, something that doesn't apply to Data.

I'm getting conflicting numbers for how many Gutenberg Bibles are left. Apparently different people have different requirements for how complete a copy has to be to be a "complete copy."

RIKER: Why is there no record of other future historians travelling back to witness important events?
RASMUSSEN: We're obviously very careful. As a matter of fact, a colleague and I recently paid a call on a twenty second century vessel.

Must resist urge to insult Enterprise, must resist urge to insult Enterprise...

RASMUSSEN: What do you see as the most important example of progress in the last two hundred years?
RIKER: I suppose the warp coil. Before there was warp drive, humans were confined to a single sector of the galaxy.

Single sector? Try single system. A sector is twenty lightyears across. Sector 001 has Alpha Centauri and the Wolf system in addition to Earth.

WORF: There were no phasers in the 22nd century.

How the phase pistols of Enterprise compare to the phasers of later eras is a discussion for another time. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a major difference is the discharge crystal.

RIKER: All he wanted to know about was previous starships. What I thought was innovative about the last Enterprise, the one before that. He said he wanted to see if we had a grasp of the fundamentals.

I wonder what was innovative about the Enterprise-C. The Ambassador class was designed to be between the Excelsior and Galaxy and nothing more.

LAFORGE [OC]: We're okay, but those were pretty big, sir. If this was Earth, I'd say around an eight or an eight five on the Richter Scale.

The Richter scale is logarithmic, so there's a big difference between 8.0 and 8.5. 8.5 has six times the energy of 8.0, in fact. Geordi should be more precise.

RASMUSSEN: What in God's name is that?
DATA: Music, Professor.
RASMUSSEN: Music?
DATA: Yes, sir. Mozart's Jupiter symphony in C major, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto number three, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, second movement, molto vivace and La Donna e Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto.

Listen to Mozart here. Listen to Bach here. Listen to Beethoven here. Listen to Verdi here, or the EMH version "Tuvok You Are a Vulcan Man" here.

I wouldn't recommend opening all of these links at once.

RASMUSSEN: How the hell can you listen to four pieces of music at the same time?
DATA: Actually, I am capable of distinguishing over one hundred and fifty simultaneous compositions, but in order to analyse the aesthetics, I try to keep it to ten or less.

This seems odd. You'd think Data could play them all in his head anyway.

PICARD: Unless we do something about it, I'm told that in a matter of weeks thousands, maybe tens of thousands, will die.
RASMUSSEN: That'd be a shame.
PICARD: Yes, it would. It would be quite a shame.

I'm trying to think of a bigger understatement in Trek, but nothing's coming to mind.

PICARD: Oh no, I'm not. Everything that Starfleet stands for, everything that I have ever believed in, tells me I cannot ask you that. But at the same time, there are twenty million lives down there, and you know what happened to them. What will happen to them.

This seems more like a Kirk sentiment, frankly.

WORF: Warp power has being rerouted to the main deflector dish, Commander.

I wonder if they reenforced the power conduits after the Borg invasion to make this easier to do.

(tricorder, the neural stimulator, a hypospray, one of Geordi's visors, a PADD, a Klingon knife)

How many spare VISORs does Geordi have? Of course they'd want one spare around, but how did Rasmussen find it?

RASMUSSEN: I was quite content with the notion of returning with those trinkets. I'd invent about one a year. But now, look what fortune has graced me with. You will take a little longer to figure out than a tricorder, but it should be well worth the effort.

I'll buy that Rasmussen could figure out a tricorder faster than the Sigma Iotians could figure out a communicator, but I don't think he could reverse-engineer Data. Maddox can't do it with a team of engineers and full Starfleet support, so how could this con man?

(the time ship shuts its door and vanishes)
RASMUSSEN: No!
PICARD: I'm sure there are more than a few legitimate historians at Starfleet who will be quite eager to meet a human from your era. Oh, Professor. Welcome to the twenty fourth century.

We'll cover Rasmussen's future in the Memory Beta section

The Fiver

Worf: Captain, I have detected a temporal distortion.
Picard: But this is a "save the planet" episode, not a "time travel" episode.
Worf: Perhaps it is both.
Picard: Nonsense, that's ridiculous.

No more ridiculous than a time travel episode also being a romantic drama episode, Captain...

Riker: What exactly are you here to witness?
Rasmussen: Does it really matter? Unless I've stumbled on a Holodeck episode, something's bound to happen.

Not really, the Enterprise spends a lot of its time as a taxi, and that's not very interesting...

Rasmussen: What if you manipulate the timeline and people die?
Picard: Nonsense. I would never do anything that stupid and irresponsible.

This one's funny because you can't pin down which episode Picard is talking about.

Picard: Guards, put this man in the brig.
Rasmussen: The brig? What for?
Picard: To do time, of course.

That's a weak pun.

Memory Alpha

* The creators were thinking of Robin Williams for the role. I can't see it.
* First reference to the Enterprise-B. I doubt it, the ship's been on the observation lounge mural for ages.

Memory Beta

* I forgot that Rasmussen took place in Quark's poker tournament in "The Big Game." That's a fun novel.
* A Strange New Worlds story tells us that he went back in time and inspired Roddenberry to make Star Trek.
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