Troi Names Clare's Grief and Turns It Toward Action
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Troi steps into Clare's quarters and announces herself as the ship's counselor, offering a calm presence; Clare greets her with suspicion, assuming Troi was sent merely to 'settle' her. The formal introduction immediately establishes an unequal emotional axis—professional composure against private defensive pain.
Troi names Clare's feeling—profound sadness—and Clare flings back a flippant label ('the local shrink') that masks her pain; Troi's gentle confusion about the term cracks the tension and opens a space for emotional naming. Words shift from sarcastic deflection to a therapist's precise empathy.
Clare delivers a compact, devastating backstory—Donald froze her because he couldn't face living alone—then collapses into uncontrollable grief, turning away and fighting tears. The revelation reframes her present panic as rooted in loss and misguided love, intensifying the scene's emotional stakes.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Not present; emotionally functions as the source of Clare's longing and panic.
Tommy is an offstage subject named by Clare (age eight); his name and partial birth information are offered as the primary data point Troi will use to search records.
- • To be located/reconnected (role assigned by others in the scene)
- • To function as a motivating tether that propels crew action
- • Was born and raised in Secaucus, New Jersey (as asserted by Clare)
- • Exists within searchable civic records of the twentieth century
Calm, empathic and authoritative — compassion overlaying purposeful focus to translate emotion into action.
Troi enters Clare's quarters, listens, names Clare's sadness, then moves to the nearby computer and initiates a formal records search—shifting the exchange from therapy to investigative procedure.
- • Validate Clare's emotional state and contain acute panic
- • Obtain concrete identifiers to locate Clare's children and convert grief into a searchable lead
- • Emotional validation calms patients and enables cooperation
- • Institutional records on the ship and public registries can locate descendants from the twentieth century
Overwhelmed by unresolved grief—panic and alienation undercut any defensive sarcasm; desperate for connection and answers.
Clare alternates sarcasm and blunt confession, reveals Donald's choice to freeze her, then unravels into tears and names her sons and their birthplace and ages, providing the factual details Troi needs.
- • Seek knowledge about the fate of her children
- • Alleviate unbearable loneliness by eliciting help from the ship's crew
- • Her husband froze her to avoid confronting death and emotional pain
- • There must be human records somewhere that can answer what happened to her family
Not present; functions emotionally as a focal point for Clare's sorrow and the crew's emerging search.
Eddie is an offstage subject named by Clare (age five); his identity and birthplace are given and become part of the records query Troi initiates.
- • To be located and accounted for (as implied by Clare's plea)
- • To catalyze ship resources toward family reunification
- • Was born in Secaucus, New Jersey (per Clare's statement)
- • May be traceable through historical birth records
Absent/avoidant by proxy; inferred to be fearful of death and unable to face loss.
Donald is not physically present; he is described by Clare as the husband who arranged for her cryonic preservation and whose avoidance of grief precipitated her present suffering.
- • Avoid confronting the finality of his wife's death (inferred)
- • Preserve some form of his marriage by freezing Clare (inferred)
- • Keeping Clare frozen would prolong the illusion of her presence
- • Choosing preservation was preferable to immediate grief
Impartial and uninflected; serves as an institutional tool rather than an emotional participant.
The Enterprise's computer voice responds to Troi's request with procedural prompts, asking for full names, dates, and places of birth, and standing ready to retrieve records once provided.
- • Obtain complete identifiers to execute an accurate records search
- • Provide system prompts that ensure correct database queries
- • Accurate searches require precise personal data
- • Ship databases and interfaced archives can yield historical records when queried correctly
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Clare's Quarters serves as the intimate, private setting for this therapeutic-inquiry scene: a confined room where Clare's sarcasm can give way to confession and where Troi can quietly operate ship systems without public intrusion, enabling a transition from grief to practical search.
Secaucus is invoked verbally as the birthplace of Clare's sons; it functions as a concrete geographic anchor that turns Clare's grief into searchable civic data (town records, birth certificates) and thus propels the ship's archival inquiry.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Clare's disclosure of her husband and the reason for freezing provokes Troi to run a genealogical search; discovering ten generations of progeny is the direct procedural payoff to emotional confession."
"Troi initiating a records search for Clare's family pays off with the discovery of a living descendant."
"Troi initiating a records search for Clare's family pays off with the discovery of a living descendant."
"Troi initiating a records search for Clare's family pays off with the discovery of a living descendant."
"Troi initiating a records search for Clare's family pays off with the discovery of a living descendant."
"Troi’s initiated records search leads to the scene where she presents Clare’s descendant."
"Troi’s initiated records search leads to the scene where she presents Clare’s descendant."
"Troi’s initiated records search leads to the scene where she presents Clare’s descendant."
"Troi’s initiated records search leads to the scene where she presents Clare’s descendant."
Key Dialogue
"TROI: You are feeling profoundly sad."
"CLARE: I died, but he couldn't face it. So he figured if he had me frozen, then in his mind I wasn't really gone. Crazy, huh? But you have to know Donald."
"TROI: Let's see if we can find out."