Repellent Frequency Test — Pulaski Reprograms the Stimulator
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Troi and Pulaski lock the treatment angle: if some endorphins attract the organisms, others could repel them.
Pulaski acts on the insight—she drives the device controls, changes the differential current pattern, and activates the machine to test the new strategy.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Non‑emotional biological responsiveness — functionally 'reactive' to endorphin signatures, increasing proliferation when fed attractive signals.
The endorphin‑sensitive organism is the targeted antagonist: its growth is described as tied to memory‑generated chemicals and is implicitly the biological system Pulaski's reprogramming aims to repel or suppress.
- • To proliferate within the host's nervous system.
- • To exploit neurochemical patterns produced by the host's memories to accelerate growth.
- • The organism 'expects' and benefits from certain neurochemical patterns (inferred behavior).
- • Altering those chemical signals will change its growth dynamics and can be used against it.
Determined and focused with an undercurrent of controlled urgency — clinical composure masking worry for the patient and acceptance of ethical risk.
Pulaski moves decisively from the monitor to Troi's side, voices a hypothesis tying organism activity to endorphins, rapidly manipulates the stimulator controls and activates the device — taking immediate, experimental clinical action.
- • To test the endorphin‑based hypothesis by changing the stimulator's differential current pattern.
- • To arrest or repel the organism's growth before it reaches Riker's brain.
- • To convert diagnostic insight into an actionable treatment that can save the patient.
- • The organism's proliferation is driven by neurochemical/endophinic signals rather than factual content.
- • Active alteration of neural stimulation can alter the organism's behavior and therefore the patient's prognosis.
- • Taking experimental medical risk is justified when standard protocols cannot stop the infection.
Not directly observed in the scene — implicitly passive and at risk, his personal memories and emotions are being used as a treatment vector.
Riker is the unconscious/compromised patient whose memory‑driven emotional chemistry is the variable under manipulation; his neural state is being probed and altered without his conscious input as clinicians attempt to halt the organism.
- • To survive the infection (implicit patient goal).
- • To have the medical team successfully arrest the organism before neural damage occurs.
- • Implicit trust in the Enterprise medical staff to take necessary action.
- • No belief-driven agency in this moment due to compromised state; nevertheless his prior choices and memories are central to treatment.
Concerned and intensely focused — professionally calm while personally invested in Riker's survival.
Troi synthesizes clinical observation with empathic insight, reframing the problem as emotion‑driven; she stands at Pulaski's side and supplies the conceptual key (endorphins) that enables the experimental intervention.
- • To clarify that emotional chemistry, not content, is driving the organism's response.
- • To guide Pulaski toward a treatment strategy that manipulates those neurochemical signals.
- • To protect Riker by ensuring the chosen intervention is informed by empathic understanding.
- • Emotions produce distinct neurochemical signatures (endorphins) that the organism can detect.
- • Psychological and medical approaches must be integrated to treat this infection.
- • Informing clinicians of the emotional dynamics will improve the chance of patient survival.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The compact stimulator device (represented by the canonical, jury‑rigged apparatus) is physically manipulated by Pulaski: she alters its differential current pattern via the controls and activates it, turning it from a diagnostic tool into an experimental countermeasure aimed directly at the organism's neurochemical sensitivities.
The Sickbay Vital Signs Monitor Array anchors the clinical reading that provokes Pulaski's line of thought; she moves from the monitor to Troi's side after interpreting its data, so the array functions as diagnostic stimulus and ongoing status relay while the experiment proceeds.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Enterprise Sickbay is the clinical arena where diagnosis becomes experiment: its compact, antiseptic geometry focuses attention on a single life; the space contains monitors, consoles and the stimulator, enabling rapid procedural improvisation and heightening the scene's ethical stakes.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The spike in microbial growth triggers Pulaski and Troi to link the change to Riker’s memories."
"Hypothesis that some endorphins repel the organisms leads to adjusting the stimulator’s current pattern."
"Hypothesis that some endorphins repel the organisms leads to adjusting the stimulator’s current pattern."
"The new strategy immediately drives Riker into grief-laden memories, starting with Tasha’s death."
"The new strategy immediately drives Riker into grief-laden memories, starting with Tasha’s death."
Key Dialogue
"Pulaski: "Now we know the organism's growth rate is related to the memories he's experiencing.""
"Troi: "Or the emotions they produce.""
"Pulaski: "I'm going to change the differential current pattern and see what happens.""