Schisms (episode)

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"Schisms"
TNG, Episode 6x05 Production number: 40276-231 First aired: 19 October 1992
←	130th of 176 produced in TNG	→
←	130th of 176 released in TNG	→
	{{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 176 released in TNG Remastered
←	238th of 726 released in all	→
Teleplay By Brannon Braga Story By Jean Louise Matthias & Ron Wilkerson Directed By Robert Wiemer
46154.2 (2369)
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Enterprise crew members report that they go to sleep but wake up exhausted; a mysterious subspace pocket forms inside a cargo bay.

Contents 1 Summary 2 Memorable Quotes 3 Background Information 3.1 Video and DVD releases 4 Links and References 4.1 Guest Stars 4.2 Co-Stars 4.3 Uncredited Co-Stars 4.4 Uncredited Stunt double 4.5 References

[edit] Summary

"Captain's log, stardate 46154.2. The USS Enterprise-D has entered the Amargosa Diaspora, an unusually dense globular cluster. We are faced with the daunting task of charting this vast region."

William T. Riker is having trouble sleeping. He is late to his shift, as Geordi La Forge tells him how he is attempting to speed up the process. He just listens, and struggles to pay attention.

Later that afternoon, Data reads some of his poetry. The rhyme and meter are perfect, but there is a no emotional content to it. Riker is very obviously tired, falling asleep twice.

Riker talks to Doctor Crusher, and explaining how he has been on edge all day, and almost swatting away her scanning device on the medical tricorder. She finds nothing wrong with him, and suggests a warm milk toddy.

La Forge gets the sensor array working, but there is a power grid overload in Cargo Bay 4, the location where they were routing power to amplify the sensors. When the damage control teams arrive, they find nothing but people working. La Forge concludes that it was a glitch in the internal sensors.

The next day rolls around, just as Riker seems to have gone to bed. Several other people are yawning. In fact, Worf is getting a haircut, when the way the scissors come at his face cause him to react strongly. He doesn't even know why.

La Forge is trying to diagnose the sensor problem. He couldn't find it, so at Riker's suggestion, just disables the modifications. As he is about to run a structural integrity scan, his VISOR cuts out, making him dizzy. After another strange feeling, he goes to sickbay.

Doctor Crusher finds that there is a bacterial infection around the neural inputs, interrupting the data stream, but it doesn't match anything in the medical database. She runs an additional scan to check there are no other signs of infection.

When La Forge returns, Data indicates he thought La Forge just left. He found his internal chronometer off. He decides to have the cargo bay examined; his VISOR, a sensor glitch, and now Data's chronometer are not a coincidence.

On the bridge, Riker is about to make a course correction for an inexperienced Ensign, when he feels trapped sitting in front of the console. He gets out of the chair, resumes his seat, and decides that Astrometrics won't get their better angle.

Later, La Forge and Data detects a subspace particle emission within Cargo Bay 4. They examine it, and conclude that this a subspace rift, and on the other side is something that is so deep in subspace, it shouldn't exist in this universe.

When Riker explains it to Counselor Deanna Troi, she tells him he is the fourth person to have a fear response provoked by an object. When they get everyone together, they all start to realize they are imagining the same thing. They all begin to describe a vague, but coherent, picture.

They all go into the holodeck, and begin to reconstruct it. Everything was dark, there were clicking sounds, and they were laying on a table, with a bright light focused on the table. As the pieces are physically created, more and more of the image returns. Within minutes, they have most of the scene reconstructed, which they all remember it.

Data, after completing his self-diagnostic, concludes he was not aboard the Enterprise for the time in question. He is missing a side effect of the warp field effect. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard asks the computer if anyone is missing, it identifies two people who have been gone almost since 2300 hours. He decides to locate the source of the tetryon emissions to find the missing crew members.

When the crew members are examined by the doctor, she finds strange things, such as Riker's arm having been surgically removed and then reattached, almost invisibly.

La Forge's analysis of the cargo bay soon finds the tetryon emissions have intensified and coalesced, the beginning of a spatial rupture. They decide to put a subspace containment field around it in case it expands.

Lt. Hagler returns to the Enterprise shortly after that. When Dr. Crusher examines him, she finds his blood turning into a liquid polymer.

At the next staff meeting, La Forge tells then that the subspace containment field isn't working. There is no way to beam the affected sections into space. La Forge also explains that the only way to close the rupture is with a coherent graviton pulse, but that has to be done at the source, and finding the subspace domain within the infinite number which exist is intractable. The captain suggests a homing device, and Riker offers to have it on him the next time he is taken. This will allow them to track him through subspace. The captain also tells Dr. Crusher to give Riker a neuro-stimulant to counteract the effects of the sedative they have been administering.

When they take him through a rift which forms in his quarters, Riker is awake and very afraid. La Forge has trouble finding Riker in subspace, but locks onto him as the rupture in the cargo bay continues to widen.

When the field then fluctuates, they are forced to begin the graviton pulse. The aliens attempt to counteract it, La Forge starts adding a random shift to the frequency, but it doesn't work. He is forced to channel all of the graviton energy into a single burst, which does work.

As Riker sees the gate begin to disappear, he grabs the Ensign, shooting an alien on the way out, and jumps through the rift moments before it collapses.

"Captain's log, stardate 46191.2. The tetryon emissions in Cargo Bay 4 have ceased, and there have been no further indications of alien intrusions. All Enterprise crew members are safe and accounted for, but we are still left with some unanswered questions."

Data examines the tricorder readings, and concludes that they were creating a pocket of their universe in the domain of the aliens', allowing them to examine their victims. La Forge hypothesizes that they first discovered the Enterprise with the modified sensor signal. Captain Picard decides that Starfleet will be notified not to perform that modification in the future. While the alien intent was unclear, Riker believes that the motivation behind the experiments was more than simple curiosity.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature."

- Data, reciting his poem "Ode to Spot"

"Your hesitation suggests you are trying to protect my feelings. However, since I have none, I would prefer you to be honest."

- Data, asking for feedback on his poetry

"Whoever it was that sent that thing was more than simply curious..."

- Riker

"Have you dreamed about scissors recently?"

- Troi

[edit] Background Information

• Although hardly the first Trek episode in which characters have been abducted by aliens, "Schisms" marks Trek's first foray into the phenomenon of alien abduction in the popular sense.
• A schism is a split or division. As such, the title refers to the splits in subspace that allow the aliens to abduct crewmembers.
• The stellar formations of the Amargosa Diaspora seen at the beginning of the episode turned up again later in the season to represent the Borgolis Nebula.
• This is the final appearance of the Bolian barber Mot (although Picard would later masquerade as Mot in "Starship Mine"), as well as conn officer Sariel Rager.
• The empty holodeck seen in this episode is relatively small in comparisons to other holodecks seen in episodes like "The Defector" or "Where Silence Has Lease". In those episodes, the holodeck was a model, in this episode it is a physical set constructed on the studio lot. The Enterprise did, however, have two different sizes of holodecks, as the ships blueprints reveal.
• On a display without overscanning it is possible to discern the top of the holodeck set.
• The versatility of the main biobed in sickbay is seen in this episode. Riker is seen putting his arm on top of a retractable transparent scanner sheet while sitting on the bed. A scan of his forearm is then seen on a viewscreen, showing that it was severed by the aliens.
• This episode introduces Data's poem "Ode to Spot."

[edit] Video and DVD releases

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 66, 17 May 1993.
• As part of the TNG Season 6 DVD collection.

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Guest Stars

• Lanei Chapman as Sariel Rager
• Ken Thorley as Mot

[edit] Co-Stars

• Angelina Fiordellisi as Kaminer
• Scott T. Trost as Lieutenant Shipley
• Angelo McCabe as a crewman
• John Nelson as a medical technician
• Majel Barrett as the USS Enterprise-D computer voice

[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars

• Lena Banks as an operations division ensign
• Michael Braveheart as Martinez
• Tyce Bune as Edward Hagler
• Carl David Burks as Ensign Russell
• Cameron as Ensign Kellogg
• Tracee Lee Cocco as Lieutenant j.g. Jae
• Elliot Durant III as an operations division ensign
• Holiday Freeman as a command division officer
• Kerry Hoyt as a security ensign
• Mark Lentry as a lieutenant
• Christina Wegler Miles as a command division ensign
• Unknown performers as
  • Ensign Lopez
  • Setti

[edit] Uncredited Stunt double

• Tom Morga as stunt double for Jonathan Frakes

[edit] References

Adele; Amargosa Diaspora; amino acid; anapestic tetrameter; anti-grav lift; astrophysics; auxiliary power; bacteria; barbershop; beard; blood; bulkhead; cargo bay 4; cat; coherent graviton pulse; conduit; deflector grid; diagnostic; diagnostic team; dream; keV; EM signature; EPS mains; EPS explosion; FGC-13; fish; force field; globular cluster; Gordon; gravimetric interference; graviton; graviton emitter; Hagler, Edward; haiku; hippocampus; holodeck; honeycomb; internal chronometer; internal sensor network; isolinear chip; joke; Jorkemo; Keats, John; liquid polymer; metallurgical analysis; milk; muscle; neural input; neuro-sedative; neuro-stimulant; nucleonic interference; "Ode to Spot"; plasma infusion unit; poetry; probe; quasi-molecular flux; radius; REM sleep; resonance tissue scan; scissors; sector; security alert; sedative; self-diagnostic; sensor array; sensor relay emitter; sentience; serotonin; servo fluid system; Setti; shore leave; solanagen; solanagen-based lifeform; sonnet; spatial rupture; Spot; Starfleet; stellar cartography department; structural integrity; subspace; subspace containment field; subspace field tap; sunflower; tertiary subspace manifold; tetryons; tricorder; ulna; universe; visual cortex; warp field; warp grid coupler; warp-power transfer

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