Deception Becomes Assault — Riker Ensnared
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Tasha and Data rush to the inert Riker, scan the energy field with tricorders, and—under Picard’s barrage—admit they don’t know if he’s alive.
Storm-lit assailants reveal whip-like weapons and lash out with an electro-plasmic WAVE that fells Geordi and Data and finally drops Riker into unconsciousness.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Predatory and assertive — confident in the effectiveness of the group's weapons and intent on neutralizing intruders.
Backlit by lightning, the leader commands presence, snaps a whip-like weapon that generates a rippling electro-plasmic wave which sweeps the away team, incapacitating Geordi and Data and delivering a final blow that knocks Riker unconscious.
- • Repel or incapacitate intruders immediately and decisively.
- • Use area-effect weaponry to ensure multiple targets are disabled simultaneously.
- • Surprise and electrical weapons are effective against Starfleet physiology and equipment.
- • Group coordination and aggression will secure the encounter's outcome.
Controlled urgency — tightly held alarm that prioritizes practical action over panic.
Tasha immediately reacts to the moving weapon, directs attention to its approach, fires on the hovering device destroying it, then moves in with Data to examine Riker's encasement with a tricorder while communicating status to the Enterprise.
- • Neutralize the immediate weapon threat to the away team.
- • Assess Commander Riker's condition quickly and relay accurate status to the bridge.
- • Preserve remaining crew and maintain protocol under duress.
- • Immediate kinetic response can eliminate the weapon threat.
- • Rapid medical assessment is essential to triage and save the commander.
- • Chain-of-command requires reporting to the captain even amid crisis.
Clinically curious and focused, shifting to uncertainty when sensors return ambiguous results, then abruptly incapacitated and silenced.
Data approaches Riker's energy encasement, runs tricorder scans, reports that Riker is encased and that life-status is 'unknown', attempts objective diagnosis, then is struck by an electro-plasmic wave and falls unconscious.
- • Gather accurate diagnostic data about the energy field and Riker's vital signs.
- • Provide precise information to Picard and to Tasha to inform medical response.
- • Sensors and tricorders can reveal causation and status.
- • Objective measurement is the fastest path to an effective remedy.
Alert, combative and then rapidly shifted to confusion and vulnerability — prideful command gives way to disoriented fear as physical control is lost.
Riker confronts the projected Rice, identifies the projection as a deception, orders the away team to beam up, is struck by the hovering weapon's beam, stiffens as an energy field forms around him, fights briefly and then collapses unconscious.
- • Expose the apparent deception and force a reaction that will reveal the threat.
- • Protect his team by ordering an immediate beam-up and minimizing exposure.
- • Resist incapacitation and maintain consciousness to continue command.
- • What appears to be a familiar officer should be a reliable interlocutor.
- • Command protocols (beam-up) will preserve crew safety.
- • Deception signals a tactical threat that must be confronted directly.
Caught off-guard and abruptly incapacitated — surprise and powerlessness replace operational readiness.
Geordi is present with the away team on the planet surface, is collateral to the deception and, after the humanoid leader unleashes the electro-plasmic wave, is struck and rendered unconscious alongside Data and Riker.
- • Support the away-team mission and assist where needed.
- • Stay within transporter/evacuation protocols to enable quick extraction if necessary.
- • Team procedures and command presence will keep the landing party safe.
- • Sensors and the transporter will provide a timely escape when required.
Not a true emotional subject—appears confused as a programmed façade, serving an agenda rather than genuine feeling.
The Rice persona speaks and reacts faintly, then the image abruptly disappears, revealing that the 'captain' was a projected simulacrum used as a lure before peeling away to expose a hovering weapon.
- • Function as a convincing lure to draw the away team into close proximity.
- • Mask the true hostile mechanism until it can strike.
- • Appearances of authority will lower defenses.
- • Subterfuge is an effective tactic to isolate and immobilize intruders.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Braided, whip-like weapons are brandished by the small humanoids; when the leader snaps one, it channels charged electra-plasmic energy that manifests as a wide, incapacitating wave — the whips serve as both physical tools and the focal point for the area attack.
The compact hovering tactical emitter peels away from the Rice projection, moves several meters, then fires a beam that generates a constricting energy field around Commander Riker; it acts as the primary trap that converts social contact into physical captivity until Tasha shoots and destroys it.
The electro-plasmic wave is the area-effect discharge produced by the whip weapons; it arcs across the forest floor, collapses muscular control in its targets, and knocks Geordi and Data unconscious while ultimately hammering Riker into collapse.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The ruined weapons installation / planet surface functions as the ambush site where a simulated ally peels away into built weaponry; its terrain and stormy conditions facilitate concealment, backlighting of attackers, and conversion of a parley into a battlefield.
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
"RIKER: "You don't, because you don't even exist. You're a fake -- an image of the original! Aren't you?... Answer me!""
"DATA: "Commander Riker has been encased in some kind of energy field.""
"PICARD'S COM VOICE: "Is he alive?""