Fabula
S2E15 · Pen Pals
S2E15
· Pen Pals

Corridor of Lost Wishes

Walking toward Sickbay, Data and Sarjenka share a brief, intimate exchange that crystallizes the moral cost of the crew's choice. The child voices a simple, heartbreaking wish to join the Enterprise; Data answers with a cold, axiomatic truth about unreachable desires. Her gentle insistence and his clinical consolation make their bond painfully tangible. The Sickbay doors slide open as the moment ends — a quiet, devastating prelude to the neural erasure that will sever her memory and punish compassion.

Plot Beats

The narrative micro-steps within this event

4

Sarjenka, trembling with awe and longing, asks Data if she can one day serve on the Enterprise, revealing her childlike idealization of the ship and its crew—a raw admission of attachment that fractures the Prime Directive's cold abstraction into a singular, pleading heart.

innocence to sorrow

Data, stoic and unflinching, answers Sarjenka’s wish with axiomatic detachment—'There are many things in life which we desire but will never receive'—a chillingly logical dismissal that exposes his raw inability to comfort, even as his words sculpt the first fracture in his own emotional armor.

hope to resignation

Sarjenka, undeterred by Data’s cold truth, whispers her defiance—'I know, but I can still wish for it'—a quiet rebellion that crystallizes the episode’s central theme: humanity resides not in logic, but in the stubborn, sacred act of wishing despite impossibility.

resignation to quiet resolve

The Sickbay doors slide open, swallowing the fragile intimacy of their exchange—each step toward the threshold marks Sarjenka’s last walk as a child who remembers the stars, before the scalpel of memory-wiping awaits.

tenderness to impending loss ['Sickbay entrance']

Who Was There

Characters present in this moment

2
Sarjenka
primary

Quietly sad but hopeful — clinging to imagination and desire as a small refuge from fear and uncertainty.

Sarjenka walks closely beside Data, asking hopeful questions and then sighing with wistful sadness; she voices a straightforward, childlike longing to join the ship now, clinging to the possibility of rescue and companionship.

Goals in this moment
  • • To be reassured that she belongs somewhere safe and could one day join the Enterprise.
  • • To express immediate desire for safety and companionship by asking to come now.
  • • To test the boundaries of kindness and see if adults (or the ship) will respond.
Active beliefs
  • • The Enterprise represents safety, variety, and a place she could belong.
  • • Wishing aloud might change or influence outcomes, even if adults say no.
  • • Simple, direct questions can elicit help or comfort from those she trusts.
Character traits
hopeful wistful innocent resilient
Follow Sarjenka's journey
Data
Second Officer
 primary

Calm, clinical compassion — outwardly detached yet motivated by a nascent concern that translates into quiet consolation.

Data walks beside Sarjenka, answers her questions with calm, literal phrasing, and offers a consoling but axiomatic observation about desire and loss, maintaining measured physical restraint while providing emotional ballast.

Goals in this moment
  • • Provide honest comfort to Sarjenka without promising impossible outcomes.
  • • Stabilize the child's mood ahead of medical procedures and minimize panic.
  • • Preserve ethical clarity by not overstepping promises he cannot keep.
Active beliefs
  • • There exist immutable limits to what can be given despite empathic understanding.
  • • Honesty and measured reassurance serve the child's well-being better than false hope.
  • • He must balance compassion with the rules and consequences that govern Starfleet conduct.
Character traits
clinical restrained empathy precise reassuring
Follow Data's journey

Objects Involved

Significant items in this scene

1
Sickbay Doors (Enterprise Corridor Entrance)

The Sickbay doors function as a silent punctuation to the exchange: they part precisely as the conversation ends, turning a personal, liminal moment into an institutional one. Their smooth opening signals transition from corridor consolation to clinical intervention and foreshadows the medical procedures that will enforce memory loss.

Before: Closed; acting as a physical threshold between public …
After: Open; allowed Data and Sarjenka to enter Sickbay, …
Before: Closed; acting as a physical threshold between public corridor and Sickbay interior.
After: Open; allowed Data and Sarjenka to enter Sickbay, transitioning the pair into a clinical space where decisions will be enacted.

Location Details

Places and their significance in this event

2
Main Engineering

The Enterprise corridor is the immediate setting for the exchange, a neutral, linear space that permits an intimate, unguarded conversation. Its function as a liminal artery amplifies the sense of transition: private longing voiced in a public, institutional spine of the ship.

Atmosphere Quiet, measured, slightly clinical — a corridor that encourages brief, private exchanges but carries the …
Function Meeting place and transitional thoroughfare connecting informal emotional exchange to formal medical care.
Symbolism Represents the boundary between personal desire and institutional procedure; a conduit where private human needs …
Linear lights and humming ship systems create an efficient, impersonal backdrop. Close-quartered walkway that forces a private conversation into a public spine. Soft mechanical heartbeat of the ship underscoring personal vulnerability.
Sickbay (USS Enterprise)

Sickbay (Patients' Quarters) is the imminent destination: its clinical promise of care also carries the threat of procedures that will erase memory. In this event it exists both as sanctuary and instrument — where compassion will be translated into an ethically fraught medical act.

Atmosphere Antiseptic, quietly foreboding — comforting in intent but cool and procedural in presence.
Function Refuge for medical stabilization and the staging ground for the forthcoming neural erasure.
Symbolism Embodies the institutional trade-off between healing and control; a place where mercy can become erasure.
Access Medical spaces normally restricted to clinicians and authorized patients; entry implies consent to treatment protocols.
White light and antiseptic clinical surfaces. Diagnostic consoles and sliding hatchways that compress motion into decisive steps. The soft mechanical hum and clinical lighting that make emotional moments feel procedural.

Narrative Connections

How this event relates to others in the story

What this causes 1
Callback

"Data's clinical answer that 'many things we desire but will never receive' directly echoes in the final moment, when he places the Elanin Singer Stone—something that sings for her but not for him—in her hand. The stone is the only thing that satisfies her impossible wish, and he, the machine, gives it to her anyway."

The Singing Stone — Data's Quiet Farewell
S2E15 · Pen Pals

Key Dialogue

"SARJENKA: "You have many different kinds of people here.""
"SARJENKA: "When I'm bigger can I be on your ship?""
"DATA: "There are many things in life which we desire but will never receive. This is one of them.""