Memory as Bait: Pulaski's Diagnostic Gamble
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Troi reads Riker’s softened state—warmth and friendship—while Pulaski tags it as memory recall triggered by the neural stimulator. The team recognizes emotion-laced memories as an active treatment variable.
Pulaski throws up the diagnostic diagram and spots a shift: the organism’s metabolism changes under stimulation, suggesting the microbes react to Riker’s neural activity.
Pulaski commits to a targeted gamble, refocusing the device on the interpretative cortex to intensify memories; Troi tests the premise, Pulaski confirms, and she activates the device to probe its effect on the microbes.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Determined and slightly surprised; professional focus masks the anxiety of making a high-stakes, untested clinical decision.
Pulaski interrogates a diagnostic overlay, notes an unexpected metabolic change in the organism, and decisively refocuses the neural stimulator onto the interpretive cortex—an experimental, ethically fraught maneuver she then activates.
- • Determine whether neural stimulation alters the organism's metabolism
- • Save the commander's life by finding an operational treatment
- • The organism's metabolic changes indicate sensitivity to host neural activity
- • Experimental modulation of brain regions can produce measurable effects on the pathogen
Surface calm and warmth from memory immersion; physically vulnerable with an undercurrent of dependency on his crew for survival.
Reclining on a biobed, Riker's face has softened; he is passively reliving memories under neural stimulation and is the physiological and ethical locus for Pulaski's experiment.
- • Remain stable and not resist medical intervention
- • Trust the medical team to act in his best interest
- • He trusts Starfleet medical protocols and his officers' competence
- • His memories are a private refuge that can calm him even when his body is threatened
Focused, quietly worried; professionally steady but personally invested in Riker's comfort and outcome.
Standing at Riker's bedside, Troi concentrates to read his affect and reports the quality of his memories; she serves as interpreter between Riker's inner life and Pulaski's clinical choices, asking clarifying questions about intensifying memories.
- • Accurately report Riker's emotional state to guide treatment
- • Protect Riker's emotional wellbeing while enabling effective medical action
- • Riker's subjective emotional state is measurable and relevant to treatment
- • Amplifying memories will increase the emotional signal Pulaski seeks to test
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Pulaski brings up and studies the diagnostic schematic of Riker's body with the organism highlighted; the diagram visually confirms a metabolic shift in the pathogen and triggers the decision to retarget neural stimulation. It functions as both evidentiary display and narrative fulcrum for the experiment.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Enterprise Sickbay provides the clinical arena where private memories, hard data, and ethical decisions collide. Its diagnostic consoles, biobed, and monitoring systems make the neural stimulation possible and render the organism's metabolic response visible, converting an intimate bedside into a laboratory for a dangerous hypothesis.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Recognizing Riker’s warmly positive memories precedes Pulaski’s discovery that the microbes double their growth."
"Pulaski targets the interpretive cortex, intensifying Riker’s pleasurable Minuet memory."
"Pulaski targets the interpretive cortex, intensifying Riker’s pleasurable Minuet memory."
Key Dialogue
"TROI: "He's relaxed... experiencing feelings of warmth. Friendship.""
"PULASKI: "Look at this! The organisms metabolism has changed. I wonder if the stimulation is affecting them somehow...""
"PULASKI: "I'm going to refocus the impulse pattern on the interpretative cortex.""
"TROI: "Will that intensify the commander's memories?""
"PULASKI: "Exactly. And we'll see if that has an effect on the microbes...""