| The Next Generation | |
| 84 | |
| The Loss | |
| 44356.9 | |
Wow! Troi seems to actually be doing what her job title suggests she should be doing - counselling! She is trying to help an officer through the death of her husband. It must have been a particularly distressing thing, because no sooner has the officer left, Troi collapses in pain. This looks suspiciously like it is going to be a character development episode.
Meanwhile on the bridge, Worf is once again demonstrating his inability to use the sensors. He thought that there was something strange out there, but now there is not. Don't the sensors record everything and allow you to play it back afterwards for a second look? Appearantly not. We are not left to ponder this for long as the Enterprise's warp field collapses. This combined with the fact that something is dragging them and they can't break free means that it might be a bad hair day for the bridge crew. Riker and Picard always have this problem though...
Dr Bev finally manages to get to Troi and discovers that she is suffering some sort of brain-damage. Oh no, now maybe she'll become a bimbo! After a little introspection, Deanna discovers that in combination with her virtual hair colour change to blonde, she has also lost her empathic powers. She may no longer be able to sense tension, but the rest of the crew certainly can, as she is suffering from a severe dose of bitchiness.
Although there doesn't appear to be anything outside of the ship that could be dragging it around, this is because the crew have only been looking for real things. When they tune the scanners to see virtual particles it becomes clear that the Enterprise is trapped in a polarised graviton field caused by a plane of two dimensional particles. Hands up all of those who understood any of that. None! Great you are clearly getting the hang of TNG tech: physics - who needs it? Unfortunately they can't tell whether the particles are sentient as Troi can't cope at the moment. It's a pity really as I know a two dimensional character like her wouldn't have any difficulty in communicating with two dimensional beings.
Deanna is not having a good day at all. "How do you people live like this" she laments. Obviously better than she does. Do you see Geordi whinging because he can't see natuarally. Of course not. She gets so deep into self pity and denial that she resigns her position as ship's counsellor. Picard could of course have rejected it, and ordered her back to work, but that wouldn't be like him. Riker takes this oportunity to try and console her. He does this by going for a huge grope. Troi, not surprisingly bursts into tears.
Geordi thinks that a controlled warp overload might allow them to disengage. I wonder if Picard thinks about the chance that it will destroy the Entrprise before he agrees with it. That is why there are safety limits isn't it? It doesn't work and they are dragged closer and closer to the purple behemoth that lumes out of the darkness. It a cosmic string fragment 107km long. The fluff of the universe.
As it is the 2D things that are dragging the ship, Worf fires a spread of photon torpedoes ahead of them to try and disuade them. It doesn't work. Next they try a burst directly into the objects. Strike 2. One more strike and it's over to the 2D family...
Deanna gets a visit from her former patient, who says that she did manage to help even though she had no powers. This gives her back the spark of confidence she needs to try and determine empiricaly the psychology of the 2D beings in the mimutes before the ship is destroyed by the tidal forces from the string. Whew, what a lucky break! She wonders if maybe they are acting instinctively, like a moth to a flame. Ok, now the string is the sun and we want to keep it on our left...
Moments before the Enterprise is to be pulled apart like a chicken, they focus the strings characteristic signature behind the ship in a effort to confuse the beings. Home run! It works and they manage to escape. As they leave the field, Deanna gets her senses back and knows that the beings were heading towards the string as it is their home. They are cosmic lint.
