Star Trek: The Next Generation - S01E18 - Home Soil
Welcome back to the Star Trek Fuck Report, the only scientific study ever conducted to determine which Star Trek character fucked the most. When last we checked in with the Enterprise, the crew was going through a bit of a sexual dry patch so to speak. Sure there were some attempts to fuck a computer program and an old man deaging and attempting to fuck his wife, but something always got in the way. Today we're checking in on a terraforming colony with a secret. Maybe it's a sexy secret, but probably not...
Preexisting Prejudices
I don't remember much about this episode based on the plot description. I'm guessing it's another middle of the road season one episode since the episodes that are good or really terrible I remember. It's the ones like these that I probably saw a million times in reruns while making dinner as a college student that I have zero memory of.
Plot Synopsis
The Enterprise is en route to some kind of official job that is really an excuse for them to get up to whatever bullshit it is that they're going to get up to this episode. While on their way there they've been asked to check in on some terraforming station on Terraforming Planet #3. The station has not checked in in some time and Starfleet is concerned.
Picard tries calling the planet and after a few minutes, the boss of the terraforming station, a dude named Mandel finally answers. He is evasive as fuck and tells them that they were running behind schedule which is why they'd not been in contact but everything is fine now and there's no need for anyone to visit.
Troi mutes the phone and tells Picard that Mandel seems to be hiding something. She doesn't know what it is, but says that his feelings are intense. Picard gets back on the horn and tells Mandel that he's going to send an away team down to have a look around unless Mandel outright refuses. Mandel finally agrees and Picard tells Riker to go with Troi, Yar, Data and Geordi to go down to the terraforming station and figure out what the shit is going on.
Before we hear that good, good Star Trek: The Next Generation theme song, Picard warns Riker to stay on his toes because someone as nervous as the terraforming boss might go buck wild!
Post-Good Good Theme Song, the away team arrives on Terraforming Planet #3 where they meet two white dudes (a bald guy and a MacGuyver lookin' motherfucker) and a Eurasian lady who introduces herself as Luisa Kim. She welcomes the Enterprise crew and tells them that they don't get a lot of visitors on account of Terraforming Planet #3 still being a desolate wasteland but in a few decades it will be a lush oasis of a planet. She then apologizes for Mandel's rudeness and tells them he's been under a lot of stress.
She then asks if they'd like a tour. The Enterprise crew tell her that they've never been to a terraforming facility before and would like to see how it works. Kim is amped as fuck that people are interested in what she and her colleagues are doing and give them a tour, explaining in excruciating detail the process of terraforming before declaring that terraforming makes one feel like a god which is a perfectly normal thing for not a psychopath to declare.
I gotta say that as someone whose sci-fi tastes are closer to the scientific fantasy end of things this hard science info dump might be the single most boring 89 years of Star Trek: The Next Generation I've seen up to this point.
Anyway, Troi tells Riker that Luisa Kim is "as open as she seems," which is a scary thing to say about someone who just declared that she felt like GOD!!!!!!!
Meanwhile, The Best Buds (Geordi and Data) go over to the bald guy's work station and geek out over his terraforming machine. The bald guy tells them that they've been having trouble with the servos and Geordi wonders if its because of the high saline content in the soil. The bald guy thinks the same thing but Mandel shows up and tells him to go work in the laser drilling room and the bald guy heads off to work.
Mandel then shows the away team some charts and graphs because Luisa Kim's detailed explanation of terraforming procedure wasn't dull enough. Luckily we're save by the bell and by bell I mean the screams of a dying man as Troi senses that the bald guy is in grave danger.
They run over to the drilling room and hear the sound of laser blasting and screams of pain. They try to open the door, but it has been sealed shit. Eventually the screaming stops as do the laser blasts. The crew gets into the room and find that it's shot to shit and the bald guy's body is wrecked. The drilling laser is pointed towards his body. LOOKS LIKE WE'VE GOT A MURDER MYSTERY ON OUR HANDS!
They power the drill down and they go into the laser drill room to get the bald guy's body. I guess he's still alive so teleport him back to the Enterprise with Yar. Riker, Troi, Kim and Mandel then teleport back to the ship as well to check after the bald guy while the Best Buds stay behind with that MacGuyver looking motherfucker to investigate what happened.
Data says that it's kind of weird that the laser seemed to stop blastin' at the exact moment that the bald guy stopped screaming. He then has Geordi and that MacGuyver looking motherfucker reactive the power to the laser drill room so he can check the drilling program out and see if there was some sort of problem with the program.
Data watches the laser drill do its thing but we he turns to look at the computer, the laser drill suddenly wheels about so it is pointing at the back of Data's head and puts him on blast. Luckily, Data is quick as fuck and he is able to dodge a laser blast. The laser drill continues blastin' but Data is dodging left and right.
Geordi and that MacGuyver looking motherfucker run back to the laser room and find the door is once again seal shut. Behind it they hear lasers blastin' and shit getting smashed. Geordi shouts for Data but gets no response from the robot.
They finally manage to get the door open and find Data standing tall and a bunch of smashed up shit. Data explains how the machine randomly came online and started laser blastin' all over the goddamn place but he managed to smash it all up. That MacGuyver looking motherfucker looks at the smashed up laser drill forlornly and laments it's destruction, "A year's work...destroyed!"
Data doesn't seem to care though because he survived. He's acting kind of weird here to the point when I was watching it I wondered if we were getting yet another possessed crew member episode, but ultimately that did not come to pass.
Back in Picard's office, he tells Mandel that he is shutting down the terraforming operation until they figure out what the fuck happened. Mandel is pissed! He tells Picard that he is overstepping his authority but Picard's like, "That shitty laser tried to laser blast my robot! That means I have the right to get involved."
Mandel tells Picard that he has a tight schedule to maintain but Picard gives zero fucks and tells Yar to show Mandel to his quarters. After Mandel fucks off, the Best Buds tell Picard that the laser had somehow been reprogrammed to murder the shit out of anyone who entered the room. Picard assumes that one of the three living terraformers must have been responsible. He tells the Best Buds to go back to Terraforming Planet #3 and look around for any signs of sabotage, tampering or negligence. He also has Yar look into the service records of the terraforms and see if there are any red flags and have Troi review the records for motive.
Back on Terraforming Planet #3, the Best Buds arrive to look into lasers and shit and try to determine what happened. Data looks into a pipe and sees some weird flickering light. He scans it to make sure it's not just a reflection or anything but gets no readings so he asks Geordi to use V.I.S.O.R. to scan whatever it is down at the bottom of the pipe.
Geordi scans the object and determines that it's inorganic. Somehow it is pulsing with light and color in an unexplainable way. Data wonders if it is somehow alive but Geordi's all like, "How could it be alive? It's inorganic." This is very bad form since Geordi's best bud, Data, is also alive yet inorganic.
Data doesn't call Geordi out on his racism against robots, instead speculating that this living thing could be what the terraformers are covering up. THE PLOT THICKENS!
Back from commercials the Best Buds return with the object from the pipe. Dr. Beverly Crusher has the object underneath a bell jar to examine it in the medical lab. She scans the object with the computer and the computer finds no organic molecules. Dr. Beverly Crusher ups the magnification of the object and displays it on a monitor revealing an intricate crystalline structure. OH SHIT IT'S A BABY CRYSTALLINE ENTITY FROM THAT SHITTY DATALORE EPISODE!
There's a bunch of energy patterns flowing through the crystalline structure that the computer says does not follow any known energy patterns. The crystalline entity suddenly begins to emit a hum. Dr. Beverly Crusher asks the computer how the crystalline entity is making that noise and flashing light but the computer doesn't know. It is theoretically impossible for the crystalline structure to do any of these things.
As the crew of the Enterprise gets closer to the entity, the hum gets louder and when they move away it tones it down. Dr. Beverly Crusher asks the computer to hypothesize what is going on with the crystalline entity and the computer replies, "Life."
Later, Picard tells Mandel and his people what they discovered with the crystalline entity. Mandel gets super defensive and says that the Federation had verified that Terraforming Planet #3 was completely lifeless. Picard is like, "That's understandable brah on account of how wacky this particular lifeform is," but Picard is still not 100% certain that Mandel didn't LEARN there was life on that planet once he started terraforming it.
Picard reminds him that doing so would be a direct violation of the Prime Directive (a rule that means fuck all when it's inconvenient). Mandel gets all pissed off and growls at Picard, "I create life! I don't take it!"
After he leaves Troi explains that Mandel did have some knowledge about the crystalline entity but seemed like he was taken aback by the accusation of murder. She and Yar then talk about the permanent records they looked into. Only Mandel and the bald guy would have had the skills to reprogram the drill that killed the bald guy. She says that all the terraforms are kind of obsessive but reminds Picard, "Terraformers are often obsessive. It frequently goes with the career profile."
Riker then asks what her take on Louisa Kim was. Troi tells him that she has a lot of good ideas but doesn't do well with data or something and then implores him to go fuck some answers out of her. Are Troi and Riker a thing right now? Do they have "an understanding?" Am I just being a prude or is it kind of gross that Troi wants her imazi or whatever to go fuck some Eurasian lady in a jumpsuit to try to get more information out of her?
Anyway Riker visits Louisa Kim in her quarters. She's been crying about her dead coworker or something. She asks him if they really found a lifeform. Riker says that it seems like it but it's not 100% certain yet. She asks him what it's like and he explains and tells her that due to its small size and inorganic nature it's no one's fault that they missed it.
She complains that everything she had, "worked so hard for is falling apart."
Riker, trying to get into that gray jumpsuit tells her it's very beautiful offers to show it to her some time but she turns him down. Riker, realizing he's not getting into her pants leaves.
Back in the medical lab, Dr. Beverly Crusher tells Picard that she has new information about the crystalline entity. Picard arrives and Geordi gets him up to speed on what V.I.S.O.R. is showing him about the crystalline entity. I guess there's been a shift in the colors or something and the structure is undergoing internal changes. Suddenly the light brightens and the hum gets louder. When the light and hum subsided everyone is shocked to discover there are now two crystalline entities in the bell jar.
Data is like, "See! That thing is totally alive since only life can replicate itself!" Everyone else is thrown into a panic by this asexual reproduction. Dr. Beverly Crusher tries to activate a containment field around the bell jar, but is having trouble keeping it up. The computer then informs the crew that a translation request is being made, meaning the glowing things in the jar are intelligent life attempting to communicate with them. Instead of waiting around for the translation program to boot up to see what the crystalline entities want, they all haul ass out of the lab and evacuate the lab.
After a break to sell products and services, we check in on the bridge. Worf informs Picard that the crystalline entity is generating enough interfering other computer system. Picard asks Geordi if he can get the cameras in the medical lab back on. Geordi tells him that he can't but might be able to if they reduce power to the the quarantine seal.
Dr. Beverly Crusher advises Picard not to and so the quarantine continues. Yar then calls Picard and tells him that Mandel and his associates are in the conference room. Picard gathers up Troi and tells Riker that he's in charge until he gets back.
In the conference room, Picard wants Mandel to cut the shit and tell him exactly when he knew that there was life on Terraforming Planet #3. Mandel eventually admits that there were random energy patterns that would interfere with their drilling but that hardly constitutes life...at least not any life he's ever heard of.
He doubles down on the crystalline entities not being life by declaring them to be, "meaningless silicon crystals, which rebroadcast sunlight," but Picard is like, "Fuck that. They are intelligent and are trying to communicate with us."
That MacGuyver looking motherfucker and Mandel then tell Picard about some patterns they found in the sand. Luisa asks why she wasn't told about them, because even in The Next Generation, bosses leave women out of important work-related conversations (unless of course you're a
Back out on the bridge, Worf, Data, and Geordi are working on those science computers. Data has the computer analyze the crystalline entity and determine its chemical make up. The computer lists off a bunch of random-ass science words that might be real or could be on that unobtainium tip. Whatever these chemical elements and compounds are they can emit light and electrical charges and serve as conductors and shit.
When the computer is done analyzing, Worf asks his colleagues, "But is it alive?"
The computer responds, "Probability positive."
Worf gets annoyed by the computer answering his question and shouts at it, "I wasn't asking you!"
Suddenly from down in engineering, Chief Engineer A. Lady (last seen in the horny as fuck S01E03) phones up the bridge and reports that there are an increasing number of power surges that are fucking everything up. Riker goes to check it out and puts Data in charge.
Down in engineering Chief Engineer A. Lady tells Riker that the quarantine seal is weakening and that whenever she tries to redirect power to it from somewhere it gets diverted away from the seal. She worries that they could hit the nursery or the sickbay with their energy blasts or something.
I don't care about that but I do care that people are raw dogging it with such regularity on the Enterprise that there is a dedicated nursery. Why can't we check in with these anonymous passengers and lower deck crew members to see all the sexcapades they get up to?
Anyway back on the bridge, the universal translator suddenly comes online. "UGLY GIANT BAGS OF MOSTLY WATER!" the translator intones.
Picard is like, "The fuck is this thing on about?" But Data says that that is an accurate description of human beings.
Dr. Beverly Crusher asks the crystalline entity if it can understand them. It says that it can and that it was the Ugly Bags of Mostly Water that did not listen. They explain that they tried to get the terraformers to leave peacefully, but when they did not listen they had no choice but to turn to violence.
Riker is like, "HOLY SHIT MYSTERY SOLVED! THEY KILLED THAT BALD GUY!" since apparently he has not been paying attention to anything that happened in this episode.
Troi interjects and tries to deescalate the situation telling the crystalline entity that they did not realize they were there before but now do and think they are beautiful. The crystalline entity, however, does not care about this flattery and says that the terraformers did know they were there and are thus left with no option but to wage war on the Bags of Mostly Water. They then cut off communication and shake the cameras on the bridge causing the crew to pretend to stagger about and fall over.
When the cameras stop shaking, Data tells Picard that the energy surges must be part of the crystalline entity's reproductive cycle and now the single cells have joined together into a living computer of a sort that he dubs a "microbrain," which is the goddamn dumbest name for a thing that's existed on this show up to this point. Data also points out that microbrains, like computers, become more powerful the more of them there are.
We return from commercial to find Picard dropping a Captain's Log reminding us that the microbrain has declared war on them and that attempts to restore communication with it have proven unsuccessful.
On the bridge, Data tells Picard that the microbrain seems to be using its flashing lights to interface with the ship's computers and is able to do so faster than the crew can. There is another energy flare bringing about more disturbances on the ship before the crystalline entity seems to fall asleep.
Dr. Beverly Crusher says that with single-celled lifeforms, reproduction is often followed by a period of rest...maybe a cigarette. She speculates that the same might be true for crystalline entity microbrains.
Picard realizes that while the crystalline entity microbrain slumbers, it's time to strike. He orders Yar to beam it down to the planet, but when she attempt the teleporter beam gets shunted to somewhere else leaving the crystalline entity microbrain completely unscathed. Picard is now fucking pissed and orders Data to suck all the atmosphere out of the medical lab in an effort to suffocate the crystalline entity microbrain. Data tries, but he too is stymied by that rascally crystalline entity microbrain.
Picard meets with the terraformers again and tells them that the crystalline entity told him that it had tried to contact the terraformers before but they were ignored. Mandel says that if it had tried to communicate with them, they didn't know.
Picard wants to know what the terraformers were doing that would have pissed off the crystals and make them go buck wild. Kim explains that the bald guy had been draining saline water from the sand. Dr. Beverly Crusher suggests that maybe the crystals needed that saline water to live.
Data compares the crystalline entities to computers and says that alone the crystalline entity is much but when linked together with others it became extremely powerful. He surmises that the entity used the saline solution in the soil to link to each other and when the terraformers began to siphon it away the crystalline entities were driven to kill.
Meanwhile in the medical lab, the crystalline entity in the bell jar has grown brighter until the jar and shattered. Data and Geordi determine that because they detected some kind of salt that creates electrical current when exposed to infrared light the crystalline entity might be photoelectric. Picard decides to take a page out of every kindergarten teacher every and decides to turn off the lights to stop a rowdy
Riker goes down to the medical lab and opens a control panel and turns off the lights. Now alone in the darkened lab, the crystalline entity begins to weaken and eventually begs for the lights to be turned back on. They agree to end the war they apparently declared if Picard agrees to return them to their "wet sands."
I'm kind of confused by this entire situation. Terraforming Planet #3 was always shown as being dark as fuck and Geordi and Data found the crystalline entities in a darkened pipe in the mining room. How weren't they already dead if they are so dependent on light? What a dumb episode, now back to the plot of the episode...
Picard tells Riker to turn the lights back on, just a little bit, so not to kill them. Picard then tells the crystalline entity that it is sorry for harming them and will send them home to their "wet sand." The crystalline entity tells Picard to return in three centuries when humans are maybe ready to learn some shit. Picard then has the crystalline entity back to Terrafroming Planet #3.
With things back to normal, and the inorganic lifeform returned to its wet sands, Picard places a quarantine on Terraforming Planet #3 and then heads off to a nearby spacebase to drop off the three remaining terraformers.
How Rikered Was Riker?
Our main man, William Riker, though not the main focus of this episode, was full on Rikered today. He tried to mack it to a grieving scientist in order to get information from her and was clearly bored as fuck when people were explaining hard science to him. Dude was all kinds of drunk this go round.
Final Thoughts
Watching all these episodes in order it becomes abundantly clearly that no one was ever supposed to watch the vast majority of these episode straight through and in order. I've complained about the over reliance of serialization on prestige dramas in the present day, but when you've got an episode that revolves entirely around an inorganic lifeform and how amazing it is that such a thing exists, it's probably better if that episode doesn't air three or four episodes after the crew discovers a giant inorganic lifeform that flies through space eating energy (to say nothing of the fact that there was a similar inorganic lifeform on an earlier TOS episode). All this was made even worse by the fact that they kind of acknowledge the existence of that episode (Data makes an offhanded reference to there being multiple versions of him when the MacGuyver guy asks if there are other versions of him) and yet they completely ignore the astonishing discovery they made in that episode so they can have a less astonishing discovery this time. Not so good.
Fuck Count
So today we finally encountered something I've been worrying about since I first started my research into the field of Star Trek fuckology: How do we deal with asexual reproduction? The crystalline entity reproduced asexually at least 4 times, but does that really count as "fucking?" Should I be counting reproduction and fucking as the same thing?
Part of me, tired of all these utterly fuckless episodes, wants to declare that there were 4+ fucks in this episode, but is that really accurate? There was no foreplay, no goofy costumes and chest hair, no sexaphone fuck-riffs...none of the stuff that makes fuckin' well fuckin', so I'm declaring this episode another zero. That being said as this is a highly scientific research and thus subject to peer review I am more than willing to listen to arguments as to why I should include the asexual reproduction that transpired in this episode and reconsider my stance should someone in the field of Star Trek Fuckology or related areas of study present a valid reason as to why these single cell creatures' asexual reproduction should count as fuckin'.
Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 6
Total Fucks for Series: 6
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