Leap Through the Flickering Gate
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Sparks spit from the console and the room shudders as steam hisses from the walls; the gateway displays the Enterprise bridge, offering a fleeting promise of rescue while an unseen countdown presses the space toward catastrophe.
Picard lunges for the aperture, then the view snaps away— the gate now shows the Romulan cruiser's bridge— and he freezes, torn between seizing escape and the knowledge that stepping through may carry fatal consequences.
Picard steels himself and plunges through the portal as the globe shatters, committing to a desperate, irreversible act amid the control room's collapse.
A computerized litany intones — "Kandar qetar, Kandar jet, kandar piqe, kandar..." — the relentless, alien cadence serving as the control room's countdown and amplifying the scene's ritualized menace.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
No emotion — coldly procedural, producing psychological pressure through cadence rather than affect.
The Iconian Computer Voice intones a relentless, metrically precise countdown in an alien tongue, providing the scene's auditory metronome, escalating urgency and imposing a do-or-die tempo on Picard's decision.
- • Continue and complete the programmed launch/countdown sequence without regard for present occupants.
- • Execute its archival/operational directive to activate the gateway mechanism.
- • The system's prime directive is to complete its sequence; external interference is anomaly, not determinant.
- • Preservation of sequence integrity is paramount, regardless of current biological stakeholders.
Resolute determination undercut by fear—public calm with inner urgency and the heavy weight of potential geopolitical consequences.
Picard dashes across a shaking chamber toward the active gateway, pauses when the destination flickers between two bridges, and then forces himself through the unstable portal as the globe disintegrates, converting doubt into decisive, sacrificial action.
- • Prevent Iconian gateway technology from being seized or used by the Romulans.
- • Stop the activation/launch sequence before it can project or replicate dangerous access across civilizations.
- • If the Romulans gain Iconian gateway access it will endanger the Enterprise and wider peace.
- • Personal action and sacrifice are warranted to protect crew, Federation interests, and to deny a greater harm.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The central control console emits sparks and is violently overloaded, its failures signaling system-wide collapse and creating immediate physical hazard that drives characters to act and prevents safe, deliberative solutions.
The control room walls vent steam and shudder, contributing to the collapsing environment that forces compressed decision-making and physically restricts safe operation and retreat.
The Iconian Gateway Globe projects the portal image and governs the aperture's stability; it serves as both interface and fail-safe, and it physically shatters at the climactic instant, rendering the gateway unstable and marking the technological loss that follows Picard's leap.
One of the silver Iconian gateways alternates its projected destination between the Enterprise and the Romulan bridge, presenting Picard with two divergent futures and functioning narratively as the literal choice point between alliance and enemy possession.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Iconian Control Room is the scene's crucible: a collapsing, ancient technology hub where physical danger and moral stakes intersect, forcing Picard into immediate action that will shape diplomatic and tactical outcomes.
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
Key Dialogue
"COMPUTER VOICE: "Kandar qetar, Kandar jet, kandar piqe, kandar...""