Assigning the Witness: Picard Charges Data with the Record
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard tasks Data with maintaining an objective historical record of impending events, valuing android impartiality.
Picard privately questions Data about crew morale, revealing latent guilt about potentially leading them to war.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Grave and businesslike; communicating urgency without panic, emphasizing institutional preparedness.
Admiral Haden appears via the ready-room screen to deliver a grave communique: reinforcements are en route but will not arrive in time, warnings have been sent, and the fleet is on Yellow Alert—framing the moment as a strategic escalation.
- • Inform Captain Picard of the broader Starfleet posture and the risks of escalation.
- • Reassure that reinforcements are moving while making clear the gravity of the situation.
- • Ensure Picard recognizes the policy and alert status that constrain his decisions.
- • Starfleet must be transparent about force posture to commanders in the field.
- • Clear warning of risk helps commanders make accountable decisions.
- • Institutional readiness is necessary even when diplomacy is preferred.
Tired and concerned; externally composed but privately burdened—using formal procedure to steady himself while admitting the weight of command.
Picard listens to Admiral Haden's warning, reacts to the escalation, issues orders for a maximum-scan probe, requests Data keep the official record, and probes Data about crew morale while revealing his private worry and loneliness.
- • Obtain rigorous, objective intelligence on Nelvana Three via a maximum-scan probe.
- • Create an impartial archival record to preserve truth and reduce later ambiguity or blame.
- • Gauge the emotional state of his crew and unburden himself through conversation with Data.
- • Accurate, dispassionate records will protect history and inform future judgment.
- • Leadership requires both procedural action and quiet moral accounting; he cannot fully know crew morale without confession.
- • The stakes of the next twenty-four hours could have long-lasting political and human consequences.
Externally calm and dutiful; emotionally neutral yet attentive to Picard's subtext and needs.
Data enters on Picard's summons, acknowledges the order, begins probe calibrations in principle, accepts the assignment to keep the official record, answers Picard's question about crew morale in an objective, measured manner, then exits when dismissed.
- • Comply precisely with Picard's orders to prepare and calibrate the probe.
- • Maintain an impartial, accurate record of events as requested.
- • Provide factual answers to Picard's queries to support command decisions.
- • An objective record is valuable to history and to command responsibility.
- • Crew morale can be assessed factually and communicated to the captain without emotional interference.
- • Following orders promptly aids the ship's mission and the captain's decision-making.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Picard's Ready Room Door Chime sounds to announce Data's arrival, punctuating the private moment and snapping Picard from listening to Starfleet into command-action. The chime functions as aural punctuation that moves the scene from reception of distant authority to immediate shipboard response.
Picard points to the ready-room chair as an invitation for Data to sit—using the chair as a staging prop that transforms an officious orders session into a private exchange. The chair anchors the scene's intimacy and signals the captain's shift from procedural command to personal confessional tone.
The Class One maximum-scan probe is ordered by Picard as the primary technical response to the Nelvana Three mystery. Data accepts the task and begins calibrations, turning the probe from a potential instrument into the active means of gathering the objective telemetry Picard demands.
The named starship Monitor is referenced in Admiral Haden's communique as en route to provide support. Its mention functions narratively to indicate reinforcements exist but will not affect the immediate tactical window, increasing Picard's sense of isolation in the decision-making moment.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Nelvana Three is the remote surface target Picard demands to be scanned. Its sterile, barren terrain and anomalous sensor silence provide the strategic hook that justifies the probe order and symbolize the unknown that could spark conflict—turning geological emptiness into a tactical and moral dilemma.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Picard's engagement with Shakespeare's themes of leadership and morality in both beats highlights his internal struggle with command decisions."
"Picard's engagement with Shakespeare's themes of leadership and morality in both beats highlights his internal struggle with command decisions."
Key Dialogue
"ADMIRAL HADEN: The Monitor and the Hood are headed in your direction though they will arrive too late to be of assistance. Warnings have gone out to all outposts along the border... as well as several independent vessels in nearby sectors. No one here wants a war, Captain. But we're prepared to take them on if that's what they want. All Federation starships have been placed on Yellow Alert."
"PICARD: Yes. Your clarity of thought, your objectivity... as always... We're very possibly about to go to war, Data. The repercussions of what we do during the next twenty-four hours may be felt for years to come. I'd like you to keep the official record of these events, so we may give history the benefit of a dispassionate view."
"DATA: They are concerned, Captain, of course. But confident. Can you not see that yourself?"