Riker Assembles the Away Team and Prepares for Descent into Danger
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Data, Beverly, and Geordi volunteer to accompany Riker on the away mission, each citing strategic or compassionate reasons, while Worf declines to join, choosing shipboard tactical command.
Picard affirms Worf’s tactical judgment and authorizes the formation of the away team, bracing for the perilous descent to Vagra 2.
The away team solemnly prepares to beam down; Riker asks if anyone has final words before ordering energize and descending toward the silent shuttlewreckage.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Calm and composed externally, masking underlying concern and reluctance about the cost of the mission.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard maintains calm authority, tempering the crew's emotional turmoil with steady, measured command; appoints Worf as chief of security and reluctantly endorses the dangerous rescue mission.
- • Maintain order and focus within the crew despite emotional upheaval.
- • Authorize a rescue operation that balances crew safety with mission necessity.
- • The survival of crewmembers is paramount and justifies calculated risk.
- • Emotions must be managed to ensure effective command and mission success.
Calm and focused, with underlying concern for crew safety and mission success.
Data logically assesses the threat posed by Armus’s forcefields, requests permission to accompany Riker to assist with technical challenges, demonstrating calm concern and a readiness to act.
- • Provide technical support during the rescue operation.
- • Aid in overcoming Armus’s forcefield obstacles.
- • Technical acumen is essential for mission success.
- • The entity Armus represents a unique challenge requiring direct engagement.
Resolute and dutiful, balancing personal courage with strategic necessity.
Lieutenant Worf accepts promotion to chief of security but chooses prudence, electing to remain aboard to manage tactical defense rather than join the away team, prioritizing ship safety over direct engagement.
- • Protect the USS Enterprise from external threats.
- • Support the away team indirectly through tactical command.
- • Direct confrontation is risky and best handled by a specialized team.
- • Maintaining ship security is crucial to mission success.
Outraged, steeling himself to transform grief into strategic action and leadership.
Commander William Riker leads the emotionally charged discussion, visibly outraged yet resolute, asserting the imperative to mount a rescue mission to retrieve trapped crewmates and confront Armus’s malevolent hold on the planet.
- • Assemble and lead a capable away team to rescue the survivors.
- • Understand the intentions and weaknesses of Armus through direct confrontation.
- • Armus intends to manipulate the crew and must be confronted directly.
- • Leaving Troi and Prieto behind is unacceptable and contrary to Starfleet principles.
Enraged and resolute, channeling grief into fierce advocacy for her injured crewmates' survival.
Doctor Beverly Crusher expresses enraged grief over Tasha Yar's senseless death, reports uncertain but faint life signs of the shuttle crew, and insists on joining the away team to provide critical medical support on the planet’s surface.
- • Ensure the rescue and medical aid of Counselor Troi and Lieutenant Prieto.
- • Support and protect the away team during the dangerous mission.
- • Every life aboard the Enterprise is valuable and worth risking for.
- • The crew must act decisively despite the unknown dangers posed by Armus.
Absent physically, but emotionally present through the crew’s concern and resolve to save her.
Counselor Deanna Troi is noted as missing and in urgent need of rescue on the hostile planet, her fate motivating the crew’s determination despite being physically absent in this scene.
- • Survive entrapment by Armus until rescue.
- • Provide emotional support and psychological strength to the crew remotely.
- • The crew will risk everything to save her.
- • Her survival is key to understanding and potentially defeating Armus.
Concerned but hopeful, eager to apply his skills to the mission's success.
Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge volunteers proactively to join the away team, motivated by his technical expertise and hope to find an exploitable weakness in Armus.
- • Assist in detecting vulnerabilities of Armus.
- • Ensure the safe rescue of the trapped crew members.
- • Scientific analysis can turn the tide against Armus.
- • Direct involvement is necessary to provide meaningful support.
Absent physically but emotionally manifests through crew fear and determination to confront its cruelty.
Armus, though not physically present in the scene, is referenced repeatedly as the malevolent antagonist responsible for Yar’s death and the forcefield blockade, looming as the menacing unseen threat driving the crew’s desperate plans.
- • Maintain control over the planet and shuttle.
- • Draw the crew into a confrontation to feed on their suffering.
- • The crew’s pain and fear empower it.
- • Its invulnerability under forcefield control ensures dominance.
Absent (deceased), but her loss casts a shadow of grief and urgency over the crew.
Lieutenant Natasha Yar, though deceased, is central to the discussion as her death galvanizes the crew; her sacrifice is mourned and motivates the urgent rescue effort.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The advanced operating table is implied as the place where Lieutenant Yar’s lifeless form was previously brought aboard, symbolizing the grim cost and medical urgency of the situation.
Enterprise phasers are referenced as the weapons previously used by Tasha Yar in an attempt to reach Troi and Prieto, emphasizing the futility of force against Armus and underscoring the lethal stakes that have galvanized the crew’s resolve.
The malevolent forcefield created by Armus is explained by Data as an undefined barrier immobilizing transporter functions and communications, effectively trapping the shuttle survivors and complicating rescue efforts.
Shuttlecraft Thirteen remains the critical site of the trapped survivors Troi and Lieutenant Prieto, whose faint life signs and desperate plight motivate the entire rescue operation.
The transporter beam is the critical technology enabling the away team’s imminent deployment from the Enterprise to Vagra 2, symbolizing the threshold between safety and danger in this high-risk mission.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
USS Enterprise Transporter Room 4 functions as the staging ground where the newly formed away team prepares for the perilous beam-down to Vagra 2, the tension palpable as they ready themselves to enter the hostile environment controlled by Armus.
The crashed shuttlecraft on Vagra 2 is the focal point of the rescue mission, the site of Troi and Prieto’s entrapment and the malevolent presence of Armus, waiting silently as the away team arrives nearby.
The Observation Lounge serves as the somber setting for the crew’s emotional confrontation with grief and anger, where strategic decisions crystallize into the resolve for action and rescue, embodying both mourning and hope.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The crew's mourning and outrage over Tasha’s death manifest in emotional responses and leadership resolve."
"The crew's mourning and outrage over Tasha’s death manifest in emotional responses and leadership resolve."
"Picard channels crew grief into focused leadership to continue the rescue mission."
"Picard channels crew grief into focused leadership to continue the rescue mission."
"Picard’s command to proceed carefully echoes the theme of understanding evil before confrontation, setting a tone of measured resolve."
"Picard channels crew grief into focused leadership to continue the rescue mission."
"Picard channels crew grief into focused leadership to continue the rescue mission."
Key Dialogue
"BEVERLY: She didn't do anything, Captain. Her phaser was lowered. She only wanted to get to Troi and Lieutenant Prieto."
"RIKER: There was nothing provocative about what she did."
"PICARD: All right. This is very emotional for all of us, but we still have members of this crew down on that planet, so, until the shuttle crew is safely aboard this ship, our feelings will have to wait."
"RIKER: This creature that calls itself ARMUS is down on that planet waiting for us to come back. It wants us to come back. It killed Tasha. It could have just as easily killed us all. It didn't. Troi and Ben Prieto are still alive. For a reason. It wants something -- and it knows we will not leave so long as Troi and Ben are alive."
"PICARD: What does it want?"
"RIKER: The only way we're going to find out is to go back down."
"DATA: Sir, request permission to accompany Commander Riker. He may need help -- and ARMUS may allow us through its forcefield only once."
"BEVERLY: I am going too. There are injured people down there."
"GEORDI: Captain, perhaps I can see something in the creature which will be helpful."
"WORF: The object here is not to engage this creature in battle. The goal is the safe return of Counselor Troi and Lieutenant Prieto. I can best accomplish this from the Tactical Station."
"PICARD: Agreed, Lieutenant... Number One, I see no other choice. Prepare your away team."
"RIKER: Is there anything left to say?"