Captain Picard's internal moral crucible: balancing Starfleet duty, diplomatic protocol, and a humane obligation to a conditioned soldier (Troi's empathy vs. Picard's duty).

Counselor Troi, drawn back down the corridor by an empathic flare, finds Roga Danar waking in a maximum-security cell. Their charged eye contact produces an intimate pause before Danar alternates …

Picard, Data, Troi and Worf materialize in the Angosian senate to confront a government that engineered soldiers and then cast them aside. Data and Troi expose Angosia's ethical failure while …

After confronting Angosia's manufactured crisis, Picard closes the mission with a measured, moral maneuver: he instructs Riker to record that Federation technical and rehabilitative aid will be offered only if …