Nerve‑Bonded Microbe: Diagnosis and Dispatch
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Pulaski activates the wall display and delivers a precise diagnosis: an unknown microorganism, neither bacteria nor virus, has invaded Riker’s nervous system, pinpointing the leg entry site.
Pulaski scans and maps the organism along the sciatic nerve; Picard presses for removal, Pulaski rules out surgery, and Riker notes the transporter biofilters can’t extract it as his leg remains numb.
Picard demands a prognosis and Pulaski lands the blow: the infection will reach the brain and could kill Riker; he absorbs it without flinching.
Picard pivots to action, pressing how to help; Pulaski says she needs the organism’s composition, he concludes they need a sample, and he hits the com panel to send Data and La Forge to the surface.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Controlled professional urgency — outwardly calm and clinical while internally racing to find any actionable lead.
Pulaski performs the examination and leads the diagnostic readout: she activates the wall panel, highlights the entry point, scans Riker's leg, pronounces surgical and transporter limitations, and demands a sample to identify the organism.
- • Diagnose the organism's composition and behavior precisely
- • Secure a biological sample that could permit targeted treatment
- • Communicate medical limitations to command so correct decisions are made
- • Accurate, material data is necessary before any effective therapy can be attempted
- • Standard surgical and transporter protocols cannot solve problems that fuse at molecular level
- • Command needs precise facts to authorize risky retrieval operations
Controlled concern — maintains command poise while privately absorbing the gravity of a potentially fatal prognosis.
Picard enters, listens closely to Pulaski's assessment, asks pragmatic questions about removal options, and immediately converts the medical need into a command directive to retrieve a planetary sample, issuing orders over the com panel.
- • Enable Pulaski to get the sample she needs as quickly as possible
- • Protect the ship and crew by taking decisive, protocol-driven action
- • Provide reassurance through decisive leadership to stabilize moral and operational response
- • Command must convert medical crises into concrete operational steps
- • Expert medical judgment should guide tactical decisions
- • Swift retrieval of external material may be the only way to save a crew member
Neutral, focused readiness — lacks affective reaction but implies operational preparedness to carry out orders.
Data is named by Picard as a team member to beam down for a sample; he is invoked as the logical, procedural instrument for the retrieval mission and implied to be ready to execute command orders.
- • Follow Picard's orders to retrieve biological sample
- • Collect data and specimen in a methodical, low-risk manner
- • Support medical team by providing objective, replicable measurement
- • Orders from command should be executed efficiently
- • Empirical sampling is the appropriate next step to resolve medical uncertainty
- • Risk can be managed through procedural discipline and proper equipment
Resigned courage — uses humor and steady presence to mask worry and to hold the scene's morale together.
Riker lies on the center table, endures the technical explanation with stoicism and brittle humor, and offers the diagnostic clue about transporter biofilters; he is physically affected but emotionally composed.
- • Understand the threat to his own life and neural function
- • Reassure command and medical staff by maintaining composure
- • Provide any useful information (e.g., about the biofilters) to help diagnosis
- • He must remain composed for the crew's sake
- • Full medical facts should be laid out plainly even if the prognosis is dire
- • His condition is a problem to be solved collectively rather than privately endured
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Picard taps the com panel to issue an order to the bridge/away-team; it functions as the procedural conduit that converts Pulaski's medical need into an immediate tactical response and authorizes the planetary retrieval.
The wall-mounted diagnostic display projects an animated rendering of Riker's body, highlights the leg puncture and the course of the infected sciatic nerve, and visually confirms Pulaski's spoken diagnosis — making the microscopic invasion narratively visible and persuasive to command.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Enterprise Sickbay is the clinical theater where diagnosis, prognosis, and command intersect: it houses the patient, diagnostic displays, scanners, and communication panels. The room compresses medical intimacy and institutional procedure, forcing a life-or-death biological mystery into a confined, procedural space.
The Enterprise's orbit above Surata Four is invoked as the contextual staging ground that enables a beam-down retrieval; it frames the crisis by putting the ship in direct operational relationship to the planet that may hold the sample and the origin of the infection.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Transporter biohazard alert propels Pulaski's precise diagnosis of a novel nervous-system organism."
"Transporter biohazard alert propels Pulaski's precise diagnosis of a novel nervous-system organism."
"Early Picard–Riker banter is echoed when Picard plays along with Riker’s post‑op ‘I’m Captain Picard’ gag."
"Early Picard–Riker banter is echoed when Picard plays along with Riker’s post‑op ‘I’m Captain Picard’ gag."
"Picard's order to get a sample leads Data and Geordi to isolate the hostile vine."
"Picard's order to get a sample leads Data and Geordi to isolate the hostile vine."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"PULASKI: "The commander's nervous system has been invaded by an unknown microorganism. Not a bacteria, not a virus -- but with elements of both.""
"PULASKI: "The microbes have infected the great sciatic nerve... they're multiplying at an incredible rate.""
"PICARD: "Mister Data, Mister La Forge -- prepare to beam down to the planet.""