Picard's Evacuation Ultimatum — Data Mobilizes
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Data receives Picard's urgent transmission confirming Sheliak intransigence and evacuation orders.
Data and Ard'rian mobilize for immediate confrontation with Gosheven.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Supportive and slightly apologetic; she feels the weight of local loyalties but chooses practical action over sentiment.
Ard'rian hosts Data in her front room, articulates why she trusts Data, admits social limits with Gosheven, then responds physically — grabbing her heavy coat and agreeing to go speak with Gosheven to aid evacuation preparations.
- • Use her local standing to persuade Gosheven to accept evacuation preparations
- • Support Data's effort to protect the colonists
- • Convert private trust into public action
- • Computers (and Data) are impartial and therefore trustworthy
- • Gosheven undermines those he desires to dismiss as a defense mechanism
- • Immediate, practical measures are necessary once negotiation fails
Defensive and stubbornly proud; likely perceives evacuation as surrender or insult to local memory and autonomy.
Gosheven is described by Data and Ard'rian as resistant to evacuation: though absent, he is the primary target of the protagonists' forthcoming persuasion and the social obstacle whose pride will determine the colony's fate.
- • Maintain control of the settlement and keep colonists in place
- • Protect local sovereignty and reputation against outside authority
- • Diminish the credibility of outsiders (especially machines) who urge evacuation
- • External directives (especially from machines) are illegitimate or insulting
- • Evacuation would dishonor ancestral sacrifices and community heritage
- • Local leadership must not appear weak or alarmist
Measured urgency: authoritative and controlled, but clearly aware of the moral stakes and time pressure.
Picard appears only via com: he delivers a legal and operational verdict — the Sheliak won't bargain — and reports he is contacting Starfleet to arrange transport, ordering that the colonists be prepared for rapid evacuation.
- • Secure Starfleet transport to evacuate the colonists
- • Convey the legal finality of the Sheliak stance to prompt action
- • Buy time through logistical preparations and chain-of-command mobilization
- • The Sheliak enforce treaties rigidly and will not be moved by bargaining
- • Starfleet resources can and should be used to save lives
- • Clear, unambiguous orders will catalyze necessary local action
Calm, determined, and businesslike — emotion is muted, but there is an urgency underneath his clinical exterior to translate information into protective action.
Data receives Picard's com, acknowledges the non-negotiable Sheliak stance, immediately shifts from analysis to command: he concludes they must speak with Gosheven and initiates departure with Ard'rian.
- • Convert diplomatic information into concrete evacuation action for the colonists
- • Persuade or compel Gosheven to prepare the settlement for rapid departure
- • Recruit Ard'rian as an inside ally to undermine Gosheven's resistance
- • The Sheliak will not negotiate; delay is lethal
- • Gosheven will not accept warnings from an android alone
- • Mobilizing sympathetic insiders increases the chance of successful evacuation
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Clusters of computer parts and consoles litter Ard'rian's front room and are used narratively to establish her technical competence and to underline the contrast between crude local equipment and Data's sophistication; they underscore why Ard'rian trusts Data and provide a visual cue that persuasion should be technical and practical rather than purely rhetorical.
Ard'rian grabs her heavy coat as an immediate, practical preparation for leaving the house to confront Gosheven — the coat functions as a physical transition from private conversation to urgent public action and signals readiness to move into the cold, contested world outside.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Ard'rian's stone-front room functions as the intimate staging ground where private trust is tested and then converted into public action: the domestic, well-worn setting contrasts with the mechanical clutter and becomes the launch point for an immediate evacuation effort.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Data and Ard'rian's mobilization against Gosheven leads directly to Gosheven's violent counterattack using the electronic prod."
"Data and Ard'rian's mobilization against Gosheven leads directly to Gosheven's violent counterattack using the electronic prod."
"Data and Ard'rian's mobilization against Gosheven leads directly to Gosheven's violent counterattack using the electronic prod."
Key Dialogue
"ARD'RIAN: "Because of that fact. I don't have any silly prejudices against computers -- I like them.""
"DATA: "In spite of the fact that I am an android?""
"PICARD'S COM VOICE: "The Sheliak won't bargain. I'm contacting Starfleet to arrange for transport. Get those people prepared for evacuation. We may have to move very quickly.""