| The Next Generation | |
| 104 | |
| Silicon Avatar | |
| 45122.3 | |
The away team is in a meadow! They are helping to supervise a new development. Riker's new development seems to be the project's coordinator, and he drops straight into his sleazy routine. Surprisingly she responds, telling him that she "provides the most memorable deserts". Riker's grin broadens to previously unseen widths.
Their planning is cut short when the speed addicted snowflake returns from a four year holiday - the Crystalline Entity is back! It is making this planet into a new golf course, with lots of sand-traps! Unfortunately Riker's potential bedmate gets sliced for a bogey in the process. The rest of them manage to find shelter in a cave, which protects them from the entity, but since it has only limited air, it may not matter...
The Enterprise is on its way to help, but they are still too far away to be useful. Warp 8 isn't fast enough so they go to warp 9, and manage to get to the survivors just as they are starting to pass out. Lucky, that.
Dr Kila Marr has joined the crew as the ring-in specialist on the Crystalline Entity's attacks. She has been tracking it for most of her life and has investigated the 11 previous attacks. She is slightly less than an objective observer as she started on this quest when her son was killed in the first attack on Data's homeworld. She also doesn't like our plastic pal, as she thinks that he is collaborating with the entity. Balanced judgement - who needs it!
Data and Geordi manage to find a way to track the entity, and Marr wants the Enterprise's photon torpedoes reprogrammed so that they will be able to destroy it. The Bald Avenger isn't entirely happy with this plan, as he would prefer talking with it to killing it. Marr storms off in a huff.
Data is confronted by the mad scientist again, but this time she has something that she wants from him - his memories. Actually more specifically she wants her son's memories that Data still holds. He does a very effective ventriloquist dummy impersonation using her dead son's voice. She wants to know whether her son held her responsible for his death as she left him to pursue her career. Data can't find any such reference.
The entity is heading towards another colony, and decides to take time-out to snack on a transport ship. The Enterprise confirms that they are all dead, and now Trigger-Happy Riker wants it destroyed too.
Data and Marr manage to find a potential way to communicate with the entity - through pulsed graviton beams. Obvious isn't it? They start pulsing, and like a dog to a whistle the entity comes running home. Moderating the frequency of the pulse and looking for a response show clearly that the entity can be communicated with.
Marr then tries a continuous beam, which stops it responding and it starts to resonate. Neither Data nor Geordi can stop the beam, and Dr Marr refuses to - so the entity shatters like a chandelier hitting the ground - smash! Picard is entirely unimpressed, as even he can see that this action might be considered to be a Prime Directive infringement.
Dr Marr seems to have lost her marbles completely, so Data escorts the now marble-less doctor back to her quarters. She wants him to do her son's voice to tell her that he is please that she has revenged his death. Data says that he thinks that her son would now be disappointed, which is just about all she needed to be pushed into the world of catatonia.
