Let It Come: Targeted Strike and Delayed Retribution
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
The warship bypasses the Enterprise and targets the Uxbridges' house on Rana IV, destroying it in a single strike.
Picard orders the Enterprise to fire on the warship, destroying it after it has already completed its mission.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Focused and curious — professionally engaged and seeking direction after the crisis.
Carries out helm orders to change orbit at Picard's instruction, asks clarifying tactical questions about what to monitor after the engagement, and executes maneuvering commands.
- • Maintain optimal orbital position for surveillance
- • Remain alert to further threats and follow command guidance
- • The ship should be positioned to observe and respond to further danger
- • Clear orders from command are essential for effective execution
Deceased (as confirmed by bridge scans); in-scene emotional presence is absence — her loss catalyzes grief and moral outrage among the crew.
Mentioned by Data as one of the residents of the targeted house; her house is subsequently obliterated and sensors report no survivors—she functions as the absent victim whose loss provides the ethical hinge for the scene.
- • Survive and live peacefully on Rana IV (implied prior to attack)
- • Maintain personal life away from conflict (contextual belief)
- • Believed safety by settling in a reconstructed home (implied)
- • Civilians should be protected from military reprisal (contextual moral presumption)
Surface calm and inscrutability masking a decisive moral calculus — steady, purposeful rather than emotionally detached or indifferent.
Commands the bridge with measured authority: refuses pre-arming, watches the attacker pass, orders a scan, accepts the confirmed civilian loss, then authorizes and orders the photon torpedo before withdrawing to his Ready Room.
- • Prevent the Enterprise from acting preemptively or escalating without clear cause
- • Preserve institutional control so that response is proportional and purposeful
- • Immediate retaliation is not always morally or strategically justified
- • Observing the enemy's intent may reveal culpability and change the moral basis for action
Concerned in tone (as scripted): objective alarm grounded in numeric certainty rather than emotional speculation.
Provides precise sensor readings and calculations about the warship's distance, vector, and probable target, supplying the crew with the factual basis that drives Picard's decision and the subsequent horror at the attack's target.
- • Deliver accurate, timely tactical and target assessments
- • Provide evidence to inform command's ethical and tactical choices
- • Objective sensor data should guide command decisions
- • Clarity of target and intent matters morally and operationally
Alert and dutiful while the attack unfolds; mortification and anger emerge once the civilian casualty is confirmed.
Attempts to ready phasers and photon torpedoes on Riker's order, queries evasive action, conducts survivor scans after the blast, reports 'no survivors,' and fires the torpedo at Picard's command.
- • Defend the Enterprise and execute combat orders effectively
- • Determine the human cost of the attack and respond appropriately
- • Protecting life is a primary duty unless ordered otherwise
- • Once a hostile act is confirmed, decisive military response is warranted
Concerned and unsettled — struggling to reconcile the captain's restraint with immediate duty to protect civilians and ship.
Responds to sensor updates, attempts to arm weapons and initiate defensive posture, visibly surprised by Picard's belay, tries to interpret the tactical and ethical consequences while remaining operationally focused.
- • Restore defensive capability and protect the ship and civilians
- • Understand and legitimise the captain's orders to the bridge crew
- • Command decisions must balance tactical urgency and ethical responsibility
- • Arming weapons when threatened is standard and usually necessary
Astonishment and mortification — shocked by both the enemy's cruelty and the captain's restraint.
The collective bridge crew reacts with astonishment, carries out scans and weapons arming as ordered, registers alarm at the blast and loss of life, and watches Picard leave without explanation.
- • Execute the technical tasks required by bridge operations under stress
- • Understand the rationale for command decisions and maintain crew cohesion
- • Institutional protocol and defensive readiness are essential
- • Leaders should explain actions that have grave moral consequences
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Enterprise's defensive shields are referenced implicitly as inoperable earlier in the scene; their degraded or unresponsive state frames the ethical and tactical limits the crew faces during the warship's passage and attack.
The Main Viewer is activated at Picard's command to track the warship's passage; it visually confirms the attacker passing the Enterprise and firing the single destructive pulse at Rana IV, making the violence immediate and public for the crew.
Photon torpedoes are readied and then fired at Picard's order; one torpedo launches and strikes the warship, delivering the retaliatory destruction that follows the civilian massacre.
Represents the attacker: its weapons system fires the single compressed burst that vaporizes the Uxbridges' house. Functionally, it is the instrument of cruelty whose choice to spare the Enterprise and target civilians establishes moral culpability.
Bridge sensors provide the numeric and vector data (distance, course, target calculations) that inform every spoken decision; Data's calculations are sensor-derived and enable Picard's refusal to act until the target is confirmed.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Enterprise Main Bridge is the stage for the moral confrontation: decisions, sensor readouts, and orders are exchanged here; the bridge is both decision engine and moral crucible where Picard's restraint collides with crew instincts to defend.
The Enterprise's orbit around Rana IV is the operational vantage point; it frames the tactical limitations (compromised shields/weapons) and allows persistent surveillance after the attack at Picard's instruction.
Rana IV is the distant site of the atrocity; its surface receives the single pulse that creates a glowing crater where the Uxbridges' home stood, and the planet becomes the moral focal point that justifies or complicates Enterprise action.
The Uxbridges' reconstructed house is the explicit target of the warship's single burst; its obliteration is the human cost that transforms tactical anomaly into moral crime and forces Picard's next actions.
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
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"Belay those orders, Mister Worf."
"There will be no interference from us, Mister Data."
"Ready a photon torpedo. Fire at the vessel when ready."