Wrong Exit — Two Hundred Light-Years Off Course
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Geordi and Data confirm their monitors are functioning normally post-exit, but immediately question their location.
Arridor rebuffs Geordi's concern with disdain, emphasizing their competitive rather than cooperative relationship.
Data reveals the shocking miscalculation—they are not in the Gamma Quadrant but the Delta Quadrant, 200 light years off course.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Dismissive and guarded; places commercial posture and autonomy above cooperative safety signalling.
Speaking from inside the Ferengi pod, Arridor answers Geordi's hail with a curt refusal of assistance, framing his vessel as a competitor and terminating the communication in a dismissive manner.
- • Assert Ferengi independence and avoid any obligation or perceived indebtedness to the Federation
- • Protect Ferengi commercial advantage and control over their vessel and data
- • Accepting assistance could impose obligations or undermine Ferengi advantage
- • Competitive posturing is strategically preferable to appearing weak or needy
Clinically composed with an undercurrent of curiosity; conveys urgency through facts rather than emotional language.
Running diagnostics and parsing telemetry, Data calmly reports monitors functioning, then precisely identifies that the shuttle's coordinates place it nearly two hundred light‑years from the expected Gamma Quadrant exit and confirms rising gravitational acceleration.
- • Determine exact coordinates and reconcile discrepancy between Barzan probe telemetry and current readings
- • Provide objective data to the bridge crew so command can make informed tactical and diplomatic decisions
- • Empirical sensor data is the correct basis for evaluating anomalous events
- • Clear, unemotional reporting will best enable appropriate responses from command
Focused and professional, with rising concern; outwardly calm but internally alert to escalating danger and the diplomatic implications.
Piloting the Enterprise shuttle through the wormhole while monitoring instruments via his improvised VISOR/tricorder, hailing the Ferengi pod, and shifting from procedural calm to concerned focus as particle activity and gravimetric readings spike.
- • Confirm the shuttle's and nearby vessel's physical safety after transit
- • Diagnose and report the navigational anomaly to inform Enterprise command and prompt rescue or corrective action
- • Maintain control of the shuttle and avoid immediate hazards posed by the wormhole
- • Reliable sensor data and his VISOR are trustworthy tools for immediate assessment
- • The Ferengi are unlikely to cooperate without benefit, so Federation assistance cannot be assumed
- • Any unexpected readings require accurate, prompt reporting to headquarters
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Ferengi pod follows the shuttle through the wormhole and surfaces nearby as an independent craft; its refusal to accept hails and assistance turns a technical anomaly into an immediate political complication.
The Barzan probe functions as the evidentiary baseline for where the wormhole exit should be; Data cites its telemetry to demonstrate the magnitude of the navigational mismatch, making the probe the narrative reference point for the crisis.
Geordi's improvised VISOR/tricorder is actively used to scan the wormhole exit; it detects subatomic fluctuations (meson and lepton activity) that trigger alarm and propel further diagnostic checks.
Shuttle diagnostic monitors supply the telemetry Data references: they report that monitors are 'functioning normally' then show escalating meson/lepton flux and rising gravitational acceleration, turning sensor language into operational imperative.
The Enterprise shuttle is the primary platform for the transit: it physically emerges from the wormhole, carries the crew who observe and report the anomaly, and hosts the diagnostic consoles that convert a navigational success into an operational emergency.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Barzan wormhole is the invisible conduit that appears to misroute vessels; its behavior—disgorging craft into wrong coordinates and emitting increasing particle flux—becomes the proximate antagonist that endangers crews and instantiates the political stakes.
Sector Three-Five-Five-Six provides the precise coordinate that quantifies the error; declaring these numbers moves the problem from vague anomaly to concrete operational task and potential diplomatic bombshell.
The Gamma Quadrant is invoked as the expected destination per Barzan probe telemetry; its absence in reality turns it into a rhetorical and political touchstone that highlights the gravity of the misrouting.
The terminus is referenced as the directional origin funneling accretion matter into the wormhole; the detected inflow from the terminus provides the first sensor cue that the wormhole's stability is changing.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Data and Geordi's discovery of the wormhole's instability is later confirmed, rendering it worthless."
Key Dialogue
"ARRIDOR: Our condition is no concern of yours, Enterprise shuttle. We are competitors in this venture, not partners. Ferengi pod, out."
"DATA: We are not where we are supposed to be."
"DATA: According to the Barzan probe, we should be in the Gamma Quadrant... but the readings clearly indicate we are nearly two hundred light years away. In sector three-five-five-six of the Delta Quadrant."