Star Trek The Next Generation
S2E11
· Contagion (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Picard Volunteers for the Away Mission; Riker Assumes Command

In the captain's ready room, Riker delivers grim news: life support is failing on multiple decks and an Iconian probe may be rewriting the ship's systems. Picard, haunted by the Yamato disaster and driven by a lifetime studying Iconia, insists on personally leading the dangerous retrieval to the probe's launch site. He formally transfers command to Riker—a compact, tense handoff that raises immediate stakes: Picard risks being stranded on a deadly world while Riker must protect a crippled Enterprise and manage an escalating Romulan threat. The scene crystallizes duty, sacrifice, and a generational transfer of responsibility.

Plot Beats

The narrative micro-steps within this event

2

Riker demands action rather than paralysis; Picard locates the probe’s origin on Iconia and proposes that nearby launch-site records could hold a solution, prompting Riker to offer an away team and Picard to insist he will lead it.

frustration to decisive resolve ['Iconia (launch site)']

Picard asserts personal responsibility — he’s studied the Iconians since cadet days and must lead — then formally hands command of the Enterprise to Riker, who accepts with a resigned quip about the ship’s tenuous survival.

personal conviction to resigned acceptance

Who Was There

Characters present in this moment

2
Jean-Luc Picard
Captain
 primary

Calm and solemn outwardly; internally motivated by guilt, duty, and a deep, personal compulsion born of long study of Iconia — determination masking worry for the crew.

Picard listens to Riker's report with steadied restraint, links the threat to the Yamato disaster, insists he lead the hazardous away mission to Iconia's launch site, and formally transfers command to Riker in a compact but weighty exchange.

Goals in this moment
  • • Secure records or evidence at Iconia's launch site that could neutralize the probe's threat.
  • • Protect the Enterprise indirectly by shouldering personal risk to remove the immediate danger.
  • • Ensure continuity of command by entrusting the ship to a capable subordinate.
Active beliefs
  • • His lifelong knowledge of the Iconians uniquely qualifies him to lead the retrieval.
  • • A direct, hands-on attempt at the launch site gives the best chance to find a solution.
  • • The captain must be willing to sacrifice personal safety to preserve crew and mission.
Character traits
resolute stoic self-sacrificial experienced
Follow Jean-Luc Picard's journey
William Riker
Commander
 primary

Professional concern with an undercurrent of impatience — he is anxious about crew safety but steady enough to assume command when duty demands.

Riker reports technical crisis (life support failures), voices the existential risk of an unknown Iconian probe, offers to assemble an away team, accepts formal command of the Enterprise with pragmatic resignation and terse humor.

Goals in this moment
  • • Communicate the immediate technical threats and their scope to command.
  • • Ensure the ship and crew are protected by forming an away team or by taking command decisions.
  • • Provide continuity of leadership so Picard can undertake the away mission.
Active beliefs
  • • The ship's structural and life-support failures are urgent and must be prioritized.
  • • Unknown or superior technology (the probe) represents an existential risk that cannot be casually engaged.
  • • Command responsibility requires someone to stay with and protect the Enterprise.
Character traits
pragmatic concerned decisive protective
Follow William Riker's journey

Objects Involved

Significant items in this scene

3
Away Team (Boarding Party) — Not an Object

The away team is verbally constituted in this exchange: Riker offers to form it and Picard immediately volunteers to lead. The 'away team' functions here as the operational instrument by which the probe's launch site will be investigated and possibly neutralized.

Before: Unformed conceptually, an available operational option pending leader …
After: Functionally assigned leadership — Picard will lead — …
Before: Unformed conceptually, an available operational option pending leader assignment and staffing.
After: Functionally assigned leadership — Picard will lead — and thus committed as the ship's chosen means to retrieve records at Iconia.
Corroded Iconian Device

Iconia is named as the origin of the probe; it functions narratively as the off-screen locus and objective for the away mission. The planet's artifacts or records at its launch site are presented as the only plausible source of a solution to the probe's system‑rewriting behavior.

Before: Distant, off‑screen object of study and suspicion; presumed …
After: Designated as the target destination for Picard's impending …
Before: Distant, off‑screen object of study and suspicion; presumed to contain automated launch records and dangerous relics.
After: Designated as the target destination for Picard's impending away mission; its significance and danger are affirmed but unchanged physically in this scene.
USS Yamato — Galaxy‑class Schematics

The Yamato appears in dialogue as a past disaster that frames present decisions; the schematic object (canonical proxy for the Yamato) stands for the precedent that haunts Picard and justifies urgent action by illustrating catastrophic consequences of the probe's reach.

Before: Referential: the Yamato's fate is a known narrative …
After: Remains a haunting precedent; its mention hardens Picard's …
Before: Referential: the Yamato's fate is a known narrative precedent that exists in command memory and briefing materials.
After: Remains a haunting precedent; its mention hardens Picard's resolve to take direct action and drives the handoff of command.

Location Details

Places and their significance in this event

4
Captain's Ready Room

The captain's ready room is the intimate, authoritative space where the crisis is privately parsed and the moral decision is made. The room frames the handoff: quiet counsel, private accountability, and the momentary suspension of bridge theater for a personal transfer of responsibility.

Atmosphere Tense, hushed, and solemn — a contained pressure-cooker where weighty decisions are voiced in low …
Function Meeting place for the commander and first officer to exchange critical information and to complete …
Symbolism Embodies institutional authority and moral solitude—Picard's readiness to bear personal risk apart from the public …
Access Restricted to senior staff; private and not open to general crew.
A compact command desk and low console noise (implied); quiet, focused lighting appropriate to private counsel. The room's intimacy amplifies the emotional weight of the conversation and the formal handoff.
Deck Seven

Deck Seven is cited as one of the specific failing zones aboard the Enterprise; its failing life support is an immediate, physical measure of the crisis and a driving tactical pressure on command decisions.

Atmosphere Urgent and hazardous — implied alarms and dwindling environmental stability that demand rapid triage.
Function Indicator of shipboard collapse and a constraint on available time and resources.
Symbolism Represents the tangible, human cost of inaction and the stakes that compel leadership choices.
Access Operationally hazardous; access limited by life‑support failure and rescue priority.
Life support failures (explicitly cited). Serves as a metric for how rapidly the ship is degrading.
Deck Thirteen

Deck Thirteen is the second specifically named zone with collapsed life support; its mention doubles the urgency and reinforces the sense of shipwide systemic threat that justifies an immediate retrieval mission.

Atmosphere Cold, compromised, and alarming — a concrete location where crew lives are at risk.
Function Concrete target for rescue and triage, illustrating the spread of damage across the Enterprise.
Symbolism Amplifies the impression that the ship is in decline and that command must prioritize both …
Access Likely restricted due to environmental failure; rescue operations prioritized over casual access.
Explicit life support failure noted in dialogue. Acts as an urgent justification for decisive leadership and resource allocation.
Iconia Launch Site

The Iconia Launch Site is named as the probable origin of the probe and as the location where records might exist that could explain or halt the probe's destructive behavior; it becomes the explicit destination for the away team Picard volunteers to lead.

Atmosphere Implied hazardous and eerie — a ruined site with automated systems and dangerous legacy technology.
Function Objective of the retrieval mission and the narrative pivot that forces Picard's personal involvement.
Symbolism A threshold between present danger and possible knowledge: where past technology meets current responsibility.
Access Off‑world, mission-only access; dangerous and likely uncontrolled.
Identified as the likely origin of the probe (dialogue). Characterized by the implication of automated systems and recoverable records.

Narrative Connections

How this event relates to others in the story

No narrative connections mapped yet

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Key Dialogue

"RIKER: Life support has failed on Decks Seven and Thirteen."
"PICARD: I will lead it."
"PICARD: The Enterprise is yours."