Bridge Summons — Protocol Over Plea
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
The captain's com summons DATA and RIKER to the bridge; duty interrupts conviviality as RIKER answers and prepares to depart, shifting the immediate focus back to the ship's strategic crisis.
RALPH seizes the moment to demand immediate access to the captain and to phone Geneva about his accounts while CLARE panics about their future; RIKER defers answers to Picard, exposing the clash between private urgency and chain‑of‑command procedure.
SONNY jokes and urges action while RALPH presses on, but RIKER politely rebuffs the demand to summon the captain and exits with DATA—the crew reasserts mission priorities and leaves the civilians' immediate anxieties unresolved.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Professional urgency; voice carries the weight of command and an implicit seriousness that overrides local comforts.
Picard's off-camera com call—formal and authoritative—summons Riker and Data to the bridge, reasserting command priorities and interrupting the gentle acclimation underway in the lounge.
- • Assemble senior officers immediately on the bridge to address a pressing ship-level concern.
- • Reestablish command control and readiness in response to emerging external or operational developments.
- • Timely, centralized decision-making is essential to prevent escalation or danger.
- • Senior officers must be present on the bridge to execute complex diplomatic or tactical responses.
Clinically curious and neutral, with an undercurrent of humane interest in the survivors' reactions.
Data acts as cultural translator and technical facilitator: prompts Sonny to 'talk' to the computer, clarifies 'teevee' as 'television', watches Sonny sample replicated food, and accepts the bridge summons before exiting with Riker.
- • Facilitate the survivors' acclimation by explaining technology and cultural terminology.
- • Fulfill duty by reporting to the bridge when commanded, supporting Riker and ship operations.
- • Preserving data integrity and orderly procedure assists both individuals and mission outcomes.
- • Clarifying language and providing concrete experiences helps reduce disorientation for those from another era.
Measured and businesslike; patient with civilians but quick to reassert the chain of command and ship priorities.
Riker acts as a polite, practical intermediary: he explains ship amenities, demonstrates the computer interface, answers the com, tells Picard 'Riker here', and courteously but firmly dismisses requests to summon the captain immediately.
- • Provide clear orientation to displaced civilians about ship systems and boundaries.
- • Maintain order and preserve the captain's bandwidth for true emergencies.
- • Chain of command should be respected; decisions about the civilians rest with the captain.
- • Crew time and attention are scarce resources that must be allocated by rank and necessity.
Worried and uncertain, craving authoritative reassurance and human warmth as the world around her reorders.
Clare asks plaintive, existential questions about their fate—whether they will stay aboard or return to Earth—seeking human reassurance and clarity from Riker as officers are pulled away.
- • Obtain a clear answer about housing, custody, and future transport to assuage fear.
- • Find emotional safety in the officers' presence and promises.
- • A clear, compassionate human answer will reduce the existential terror of temporal displacement.
- • Starfleet officers (and specifically the captain) hold the authority to determine her immediate fate.
Anxious and agitated beneath a veneer of self-assured entitlement; fear about financial loss fuels urgency.
Ralph quickly focuses on practical, transactional concerns: asks who Riker was speaking with, demands to see the captain, asserts urgency about contacting Geneva and accessing his accounts, and presses for immediate institutional redress.
- • Reassert control by contacting authorities (captain, banks in Geneva) to secure his financial interests.
- • Quickly translate his legal/financial identity into actionable claims in the new context.
- • Monetary assets and institutional systems remain the primary determinants of security and power.
- • Immediate bureaucratic action (speaking to Captain, phoning Geneva) will preserve his status and assets.
Relieved and buoyant at small comforts, masking deeper disorientation with humor and appetite-driven optimism.
Sonny wakes into the guest lounge, stretches, explores the room, addresses Data with easy familiarity, places an order at the computer, accepts a replicated martini, jokes about finding entertainment, and is left behind when Riker and Data depart.
- • Find immediate, sensory comforts that reconnect him to his past life (food, drink, televised baseball).
- • Test and bond with the new environment and its people through casual interaction (jokes with Data).
- • Material comforts and rituals (a drink, a TV) will restore a sense of normalcy and identity.
- • Human connection and shared indulgence ease trauma more effectively than abstract reassurances.
Not sentiently emotional; functionally neutral and reliable, producing comforts without judgment.
The ship's computer executes user requests: it responds to Sonny's oral order by materializing a martini and makes food provisioning available via the guest lounge stations, serving as the invisible technological intermediary for acclimation.
- • Fulfill user requests accurately and promptly to maintain hospitality and wellbeing.
- • Support ship operations by providing automated services that reduce human labor and streamline care.
- • Users will interact through simple commands; predictable responses maintain order.
- • Reliable provision of amenities reduces stress and aids recovery for non-crew guests.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The guest lounge com panel is the physical interface through which Riker receives Picard's call ('Number One'), enabling the rapid redirection of crew resources from hospitality to command. It mediates institutional voice into the civilian space, instantly altering the dynamic.
Ralph's cell phone is invoked conceptually when he says he must phone Geneva about his accounts; the phone represents his tether to pre-displacement concerns and motivates his demand to see the captain immediately.
The Enterprise Food Stations (referred to casually as 'the computer') are the interface Sonny uses to request a full meal and a martini. They functionally replace a bar/restaurant, demonstrating ship provisioning and easing the civilians' alienation by producing familiar foodstuffs on demand.
A replicated martini is produced on command and given to Sonny as a tactile comfort and cultural anchor; it functions as immediate sensory validation that the future can replicate the past's small pleasures and momentarily soothes trauma.
The guest lounge television is referenced by Sonny as a desired cultural touchstone (to check the Braves); it functions narratively as a symbol of lost domestic continuity and a test for how the survivors will relate to mediated entertainment aboard the Enterprise.
Guest lounge food stations are pointed out by Riker as the mechanism for sustenance; their existence replaces the expected twentieth-century restaurant/bar model and symbolizes practical, impersonal care.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The bridge is the off-scene locus of urgency; Picard's summons directs Riker and Data there, converting a domestic moment into a command priority and signalling an escalation in diplomatic or tactical stakes beyond the lounge.
The Guest Lounge functions as the scene's domestic set-piece: a hospitality suite turned ad hoc clinic where displaced 21st‑century civilians sample 24th‑century amenities, exchange personal anxieties, and momentarily experience normalcy before command intrudes.
The guest lounge functions as a temporary sanctuary where survivors are oriented and humanized: curved seating, quiet LCARS light, and accessible food stations provide a clinical calm for fragile awakenings, while the lounge becomes the stage for cultural dissonance and the scene's emotional intimacy.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Sonny’s quick embrace of 24th-century tech and rapport with Data culminate in recruiting Data as his sideman."
"Sonny’s quick embrace of 24th-century tech and rapport with Data culminate in recruiting Data as his sideman."
"Sonny’s quick embrace of 24th-century tech and rapport with Data culminate in recruiting Data as his sideman."
Key Dialogue
"PICARD'S COM VOICE: "Number One.""
"CLARE: "What is going to happen to us? Do we stay here with you? Do we go back to Earth?""
"RIKER: "I'll pass on your request. Now, if you'll excuse us.""