Swiss-Cheese Transporter: Teremi‑Thoron Revelation
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Riker pressures the team to solve the problem despite mounting technical obstacles.
Geordi acknowledges the complexity of the challenge with grim enthusiasm.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Tense and pragmatic—focused on concrete steps but worried about the complication's effect on the mission timeline.
O'Brien works hands-on at the transporter console, explains recent recalibration attempts to Riker, assists with physical tests, and expresses immediate concern about the newfound complication.
- • implement and test transporter recalibrations
- • keep the diagnostic process moving under time pressure
- • ensure any viable fix is executed reliably to support evacuation
- • Hands-on recalibration is the path to restoring transporter function.
- • Time pressure makes each failed test more consequential for lives depending on evacuation.
- • Clear, honest communication with command is required even if the news is bad.
Confident in his technical assessment but anxious about the operational consequences and the need to prove his idea under pressure.
Wesley assists at consoles, proposes teremi-thorons as the culprit, explains their destructive effect on transporter patterns, and pushes for additional experimental approaches while trying to remain confident.
- • identify the exotic particle causing the failures
- • suggest viable experiments or settings to mitigate the effect
- • contribute credible, actionable information to the engineering team
- • Teremi-thorons can explain the pattern of damage seen in test rematerializations.
- • His theoretical knowledge is operationally useful and should be heeded.
- • Further experiments are necessary and worthwhile despite the increasing urgency.
Urgent, terse—publicly authoritative, privately anxious about mission failure and the lives depending on engineering success.
Riker enters, inspects the mutilated test object, presses the engineers for progress, and reframes the situation with a terse command reminder that functioning transporters are needed for an imminent evacuation.
- • ascertain whether transporters can be made operational in time
- • impose a sense of urgency on engineering efforts
- • translate technical status into command decisions about evacuation
- • Operational transporters are essential to the evacuation plan.
- • Engineering must produce results quickly; delays imperil lives.
- • He should not be bogged down in theory—he needs reliable status to act.
Focused and wryly grim—intellectually stimulated by the puzzle but aware of the grave operational implications.
Geordi carefully examines and lifts a mutilated test object, notes a suspicious residue, links the anomaly to a nearby pulsar, and verbally hypothesizes teremi-thoron interference while remaining technically engaged and grimly wry.
- • diagnose the physical cause of the transporter failures
- • identify salvageable fixes or workarounds for the transporter
- • communicate findings clearly to command to shape operational decisions
- • The transporter failure is caused by an external, physical interference (not mere malfunction).
- • Technical ingenuity and methodical diagnostics can reveal a fix even for exotic phenomena.
- • Clear technical information is necessary for command to make evacuation decisions.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
O'Brien's transporter console is the operational center for the experiment: technicians manipulate settings there, run transport tests, and monitor diagnostics. It is the focal technological object whose failure precipitates the crisis and whose restoration is the event's practical objective.
The pulsar functions as a suspected causal factor invoked by Geordi to explain the residue and shredded rematerialization. It operates as an off-screen environmental antagonist that introduces uncontrollable external interference into engineering problems.
The removed transporter room wall access panels frame the improvised repair environment; their presence signals active fieldwork, giving engineers access to wiring and serving as visual evidence of extensive hands-on diagnostics in progress.
The suspicious residue adheres to the mutilated test sample and is explicitly observed by Geordi as an anomalous contaminant. It functions as an evidentiary trace linking the physical damage to an external energetic cause and shifts the discussion from mechanical failure to exotic-particle interference.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The cramped transporter room is the physical stage for this discovery: stripped panels, scattered tools, a toolbox, and six staged test objects create a field-workshop feel. The room concentrates technical expertise and becomes the site where a theoretical hazard (teremi-thorons) manifests as concrete, material damage.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Wesley's identification of teremi-thorons as the transporter problem leads to Geordi's eventual (if impractical) solution."
"Wesley's identification of teremi-thorons as the transporter problem leads to Geordi's eventual (if impractical) solution."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"RIKER: What the hell is that?"
"GEORDI: There's some really interesting residue . . . reminds me of -- There's that damn pulsar in the neighborhood."
"WESLEY: Teremi-thorons."