Four‑Minute Millisecond Gamble
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard underscores the ruse’s payoff—the Kreechta will read the Hathaway as destroyed—Worf warns the deception is brief, and Riker assigns Worf to stage a follow-up surprise.
Picard locks the plan with a four-minute countdown; Data warns Geordi that a millisecond error will doom the Hathaway, and Geordi accepts the razor-thin margin.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Contemptuous and intellectually smug—enjoys exposing command tensions and doubting their choices.
Kolrami offers a scornful, external critique—predicting the Hathaway will relocate—serving as an intellectual antagonist whose sneer sharpens the crew's need to solve the dilemma rather than argue about theory.
- • Expose weaknesses in Starfleet planning and test command under pressure
- • Position himself as the superior strategist by predicting failure
- • His analytical superiority reveals the futility of Starfleet tactics
- • Provocation will force leaders to reveal their true capabilities
Determined but morally conflicted—willing to accept a morally gray tactic to save lives while visibly uncomfortable delegating the lethal risk.
Picard mediates the moral calculus: he interrupts Kolrami, solicits Riker's buy‑in, refuses to give a direct order but sets a four‑minute countdown and assumes responsibility for the enterprise's deception.
- • Preserve lives aboard the Hathaway and the Enterprise
- • Balance Starfleet ethics with tactical necessity and authorize a plan that will protect the crew
- • Deception can be justified when it preserves lives and prevents capture
- • He must maintain moral command authority even while delegating execution
Measured and cautious — outwardly detached yet insistently precise, implying concern about technical limits beneath his calm delivery.
Data frames the tactical premise and delivers the detailed mechanics of the ruse: four photon torpedoes timed to a millisecond, with the shipboard computer triggering a warp jump. He qualifies the risk clinically and reminds Geordi of the existential stakes.
- • Present an operationally viable plan that minimizes overall casualties
- • Ensure that technical constraints and risks are clearly understood by command
- • Precise timing and computer control can make high‑risk maneuvers feasible
- • Ethical burden of the plan rests with command, while he must supply exacting facts
Sober, fatalistic, and intensely focused—accepts the risk but underscores the potential cost in blunt terms.
Worf bluntly articulates the fatal consequence if timing fails and notes the deception's ephemeral nature; he is given the tactical charge to prepare a surprise for the Ferengi after the ruse buys time.
- • Prepare and execute a follow‑up ambush to exploit the few minutes of deception
- • Ensure that any sacrificial risk achieves concrete tactical advantage
- • Honor and duty require frank acknowledgement of mortal danger
- • Short windows of opportunity must be exploited decisively
Anxious but resolute—he conceals fear behind levity and accepts responsibility for lives under his command.
Riker accepts the risky assignment for the Hathaway, voices wry resignation, and commits his crew to the maneuver and to follow‑on action (preparing a counter‑surprise) despite the mortal risk.
- • Execute the deception successfully to buy time for a counterattack
- • Protect his crew and ensure their survival through decisive action
- • Sometimes risk is the only option to preserve lives
- • Trust in his engineering team and in timing protocols is essential
Apprehensive and candid—uses humor to mask fear, but clearly unsettled by the near‑impossible timing requirement.
Geordi voices technical doubt and emotional unease about the warp jump's reliability, acknowledging the one‑millisecond margin that could mean life or death while tacitly accepting responsibility for making it work.
- • Do everything possible to ensure the warp engines will respond reliably
- • Communicate engineering limitations honestly so command can weigh risk
- • Engineering systems have limits and must be respected
- • The crew's survival depends on his ability to deliver a narrowly timed solution
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Enterprise ship computer (holodeck subroutine entry used here as the timing/control authority) is the trigger mechanism that will execute the warp initiation on the Hathaway a millisecond prior to torpedo detonation; it is the precise timing switch that converts plan into action.
The Hathaway functions as the sacrificial decoy/asset whose apparent destruction is the core of the deception. It is the target of the Enterprise's torpedoes and the ship that must execute the millisecond warp to survive and deceive the enemy.
The Hathaway's warp engines are the critical mechanical system that must respond instantly to the computer trigger; their reliability underpins the entire millisecond gambit and the engineering team's risk calculus.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The observation lounge serves as the enclosed strategic chamber where senior officers convene to weigh moral and tactical consequences. It is the rehearsal space for the plan's language, timing, and moral negotiation before action is authorized.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"DATA: At the captain's signal, we will fire four photon torpedoes directly at the Hathaway. A millisecond before detonation, the computer will trigger your warp jump."
"PICARD: Captain Riker, I can't order you to do this... RIKER: (a beat) What the hell. Nobody said life was safe."
"DATA: Remember, Geordi, if the implementation is off by a millisecond, the Hathaway will not survive. GEORDI: Data, that's the one part of this plan that we're all absolutely sure about."