Picard's Last Override
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
With Worf's help Picard hauls blind Data to the console; Data vocally guides Picard through the control layout (colors: blue, amber, red) so Picard can override door locks and time a launch to ensure Data can pass through before detonation, while Worf warns outright that Picard will likely die doing so.
Picard volunteers to go through the gateway to escape the control room and orders Worf to take Data back to the Enterprise as the bridge suddenly comes into view; Worf steps toward the appearing bridge, sealing the split-second plan that risks Picard to save others.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Agonized and exhausted but fiercely resolute; his public calm masks private despair and a willingness to accept personal cost to prevent a larger catastrophe.
Picard physically supports and guides a severely damaged Data, pries the tricorder from his grip, orders its destruction, deciphers Data's broken technical instructions, chooses to initiate a launch/overload plan, and accepts personal transit through the gateway as sacrifice.
- • Prevent Iconian technology from falling into Romulan hands.
- • Use Data's knowledge to create a controlled overload that will destroy the installation.
- • Get Data to safety (back to the Enterprise) so the crew retains any remaining advantage.
- • Iconian technology in Romulan hands would be catastrophic and must be denied at all costs.
- • Data's knowledge is both indispensable and dangerous — it must be preserved selectively and prevented from being copied.
- • A human (or humanoid) life—including his own—may be expendable to avert a far greater war.
Physically failing and resigned; his affect is clinically focused—Data prioritizes transmission of usable data even as his systems are overwritten.
Data, physically malfunctioning and partially blind, provides halting but precise technical cues (colored keys, spatial directions, and the words 'power source' and 'probes') that enable Picard to identify the launch sequence and the method to cause an overload; he surrenders the tricorder and weakly assists being guided to the console.
- • Convey the minimum required technical instructions to effect the denial strategy.
- • Stay coherent long enough to help prevent the transfer of Iconian technology to hostile forces.
- • His positronic integrity is under attack by the Iconian program and will continue to degrade.
- • Providing precise procedural data is the most valuable contribution he can make in his compromised state.
Concerned and dutiful; Worf's stoicism hides anxiety about the moral extremity of Picard's decision but he follows orders and prioritizes crew survival.
Worf physically assists in supporting Data, questions tactical assumptions, reports time remaining, hesitates at destroying the tricorder but complies, fires his phaser to eliminate the device, and then escorts Data through the returning Enterprise doorway when it appears.
- • Ensure Data survives to return to the Enterprise if possible.
- • Follow Picard's orders to deny the technology, even when personally troubled.
- • Maintain security discipline while facilitating the evacuation.
- • Obedience to command and mission priority overrides personal hesitation.
- • Preserving the crew and preventing enemy access to dangerous technology is paramount.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Data's tricorder contains the only complete record of Iconian data gathered; Picard demands its destruction because its preservation would allow the technology to be reverse-engineered. Worf shoots the tricorder, and it is destroyed/vanishes, removing direct evidence and ensuring the crew cannot hand the record to outsiders.
The Iconian control room console is the central interface Data and Picard use to identify the launch keys and to initiate the probe launch sequence. It functions as both the mechanism to complete the denial plan and as the locus of the Iconian Program's control—being directly interacted with and overridden under stress.
The Iconian launch probes are identified by Data as the mechanism to trigger a destructive backwash. Picard plans to launch these probes intentionally so their exhaust will feed into and overload the installation's power grids, detonating the power source and denying the technology.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Iconian Control Room is the claustrophobic battleground where the moral decision is made: its pentagonal console, spinning gateway domes, and convulsing consoles force Picard to choose denial over study. Practically, it houses the console, probes, doors, and the gateway—making it the physical and symbolic center of the sacrifice.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
No narrative connections mapped yet
This event is currently isolated in the narrative graph
Key Dialogue
"PICARD: Data, respond."
"PICARD: Destroy this."
"WORF: Captain, you will be killed. PICARD: I'll go through the gate."