The Final Diagnosis
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
TROI watches Pulaski put Riva through tests and names what she sees: Riva is very frightened, his lifelong control shattered. The moment pins his vulnerability at the story's emotional center.
PULASKI delivers a definitive medical verdict: because Riva never had hearing, his brain cannot accept auditory information and there is no immediate medical solution. Troi's question—'Which means?' collapses into bleak clinical clarity.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Neutral clinical demeanor masking subtle compassion
Pulaski delivers her diagnosis with clinical detachment, shaking her head as she explains the neurological impossibility of intervention. Her unadorned phrasing ('cannot accept auditory information') carries the weight of medical finality.
- • Deliver irreversible diagnosis with factual clarity
- • Manage Troi's expectations for alternative solutions
- • False hope is medically unethical
- • Starfleet technology has inherent limitations
Professionally composed but internally distressed by Riva's suffering
Troi stands as empathic witness to Riva's collapse, her clinical observation ('He's very frightened') revealing profound psychological insight into his destabilization. She physically observes Pulaski's tests while mentally tracking Riva's emotional freefall.
- • Assess Riva's capacity to withstand the psychological impact
- • Identify alternative support systems (Geordi) for immediate solutions
- • Riva's vulnerability threatens the mediation mission's success
- • Technological dependency creates existential fragility
Raw despair beneath crumbling professional façade
Riva endures Pulaski's diagnostic procedures with mounting dread, his face collapsing into despair as she concludes his deafness is neurologically permanent. His entire body language shifts from dignified mediator to a man confronting his worst fear—irrelevance.
- • Seek any possible medical reconsideration
- • Hide the full extent of his panic from observers
- • His value derives entirely from technological mediation
- • Physical limitation equals professional annihilation
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Sickbay's sterile environment heightens the emotional brutality of Pulaski's diagnosis, its antiseptic white surfaces reflecting Riva's clinical condemnation. The space becomes an existential courtroom where Starfleet's medical prowess admits defeat.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Pulaski's medical verdict that Riva's brain cannot process auditory input directly produces Riva's visible collapse into despair in Sickbay."
"Pulaski's medical verdict that Riva's brain cannot process auditory input directly produces Riva's visible collapse into despair in Sickbay."
"Troi's pivot from clinical helplessness to practical action leads the crew (and the story) to Engineering, where Geordi begins hands-on work to diagnose the device and comfort Riva by trying to fix the problem."
"Troi's pivot from clinical helplessness to practical action leads the crew (and the story) to Engineering, where Geordi begins hands-on work to diagnose the device and comfort Riva by trying to fix the problem."
"Troi's pivot from clinical helplessness to practical action leads the crew (and the story) to Engineering, where Geordi begins hands-on work to diagnose the device and comfort Riva by trying to fix the problem."
Key Dialogue
"TROI: He's very frightened. All his life he's been in control. For once, he doesn't have the answers."
"PULASKI: Since Riva has never had hearing, his brain cannot accept auditory information."
"PULASKI: There is no immediate medical solution available."