Schisms (episode)

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"Schisms"
TNG, Episode 6x05 Production number: 40276-231 First aired: 19 October 1992
←	130th of 176 produced in TNG	→
←	130th of 176 released in TNG	→
	{{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 176 released in TNG Remastered
←	238th of 727 released in all	→

Teleplay By Brannon Braga Story By Jean Louise Matthias & Ron Wilkerson Directed By Robert Wiemer
46154.2 (2369)
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You may be looking for the comic series Romulans: Schism.

Enterprise crew members report that they go to sleep but wake up exhausted; a mysterious subspace pocket forms inside a cargo bay.

[edit] Summary

"Captain's log, stardate 46154.2. The USS Enterprise-D has entered the Amargosa Diaspora, an unusually dense globular cluster. We are faced with the daunting task of charting this vast region."

William T. Riker is having trouble sleeping. He is late to his shift, as Geordi La Forge tells him how he is attempting to speed up the process. He just listens, and struggles to pay attention.

Later that afternoon, Data reads some of his poetry. The rhyme and meter are perfect, but there is no emotional content to it. Riker is very obviously tired, falling asleep twice.

Riker talks to Doctor Crusher, and explaining how he has been on edge all day, and almost swatting away her scanning device on the medical tricorder. She finds nothing wrong with him, and suggests a warm milk toddy.

La Forge gets the sensor array working, but there is a power grid overload in Cargo Bay 4, the location where they were routing power to amplify the sensors. When the damage control teams arrive, they find nothing but people working. La Forge concludes that it was a glitch in the internal sensors.

The next day rolls around, just as Riker seems to have gone to bed. Several other people are yawning or acting strangely. While Worf is getting a haircut, the way the barber's scissors come at his face cause him to react strongly. He doesn't even know why.

La Forge is trying to diagnose the sensor problem back in the cargo bay. He can't find it, so at Riker's suggestion, he just disables the modifications. As he is about to run a structural integrity scan, his VISOR cuts out, making him dizzy. After another strange feeling, he goes to sickbay, leaving Data to continue the diagnosis.

Doctor Crusher finds that there is a bacterial infection around Geordi's neural inputs, interrupting the data stream, but it doesn't match anything in the medical database. She runs an additional scan to check that there are no other signs of infection.

When La Forge returns, Data indicates he thought La Forge just left. He finds his internal chronometer off by more than 90 minutes. La Forge decides to have the cargo bay examined; his VISOR, a sensor glitch, and now Data's chronometer are not a coincidence.

On the bridge, Riker is about to make a course correction for an inexperienced Ensign, when he suddenly has an odd reaction to the console. He gets out of the chair, resumes his seat, and decides that Astrometrics won't get their better angle.

Later, La Forge and Data detect a subspace particle emission within Cargo Bay 4. They examine it, and conclude that this is a subspace rift, and on the other side is something that is so deep into subspace, it shouldn't exist in this universe.

Riker explains to Counselor Deanna Troi that he suddenly felt trapped sitting in front of the console on the bridge, and she tells him he is the third person to mention having a fear response provoked by an object. When she gets everyone together, including Worf and La Forge, they all start to realize they are remembering the same thing. They all begin to describe a vague, but consistent, picture.

They all go into the holodeck, and begin to reconstruct it. Everything was dark, there were clicking sounds, and they were laying on a table, with a bright light above it, and a scissor-like device on the end of a swing arm hanging above them. As the pieces are physically created, more and more of the image returns. Within minutes, they have most of the scene reconstructed, and they all conclude that they have been in that room before.

Data, after completing his self-diagnostic, concludes he was not aboard the Enterprise for the lost time in the cargo bay. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard asks the computer if anyone is missing, it identifies two crewmen who have been gone almost since 2300 hours. He decides to locate the source of the tetryon emissions to find the missing crew members.

When the crew members who remembered the table are examined by the doctor, she finds strange things, such as Riker's arm having been surgically removed and then reattached, almost invisibly.

La Forge's analysis of the cargo bay soon finds the tetryon emissions have intensified and coalesced, the beginning of a spatial rupture. They decide to put a subspace containment field around it in case it expands.

Lt. Hagler returns to the Enterprise shortly after that. When Dr. Crusher examines him, she finds his blood turning into a liquid polymer. Commander Riker states at the end of the episode that Lt. Hagler has died.

At the next staff meeting, La Forge tells them that the subspace containment field isn't working. There is no way to beam the affected sections into space. La Forge also explains that the only way to close the rupture is with a coherent graviton pulse, but that has to be done at the source, and finding the specific subspace domain where the abducting aliens dwell within the infinite number of domains which exist is almost impossible. The captain suggests a homing device, and Riker offers to have it on him the next time he is taken. This will allow them to track him through subspace. The captain also tells Dr. Crusher to give Riker a neuro-stimulant to counteract the effects of the sedative the aliens have been administering.

When the aliens take him through a rift which forms in his quarters, Riker is awake and very afraid. La Forge has trouble finding Riker in subspace, but locks onto him as the rupture in the cargo bay continues to widen.

When the field then fluctuates, they are forced to begin the graviton pulse. The aliens attempt to counteract it, La Forge starts adding a random shift to the frequency, but it doesn't work. He is forced to channel all of the graviton energy into a single burst, which does work.

As Riker sees the gate begin to disappear he grabs the Ensign and jumps through the rift moments before it collapses, shooting an alien on the way out. The other aliens are able to send something unknown through also, possibly a probe of sorts.

"Captain's log, stardate 46191.2. The tetryon emissions in Cargo Bay 4 have ceased, and there have been no further indications of alien intrusions. All Enterprise crew members are safe and accounted for, but we are still left with some unanswered questions."

Data and La Forge examine the tricorder readings and conclude that these solanogen-based creatures had created a pocket of 'normal' universe within their subspatial domain, allowing them to examine and experiment on their victims taken from the Enterprise. They'd been attempting to establish a pocket of their subspace realm inside the ship's cargo bay. La Forge hypothesizes that they discovered the ship due to his modified sensor signal. Captain Picard decides that Starfleet will be notified not to perform that modification on other vessels in the future. While the alien intent behind the abduction and experimentation was unclear, Riker believes that the motivation behind them was beyond mere curiosity.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature."

- Data, reciting his poem "Ode to Spot"

"Your hesitation suggests you are trying to protect my feelings. However, since I have none, I would prefer you to be honest."

- Data, asking for feedback on his poetry

"I've been in this room before."
"We've all been here before."

- La Forge and Riker

"Whoever it was that sent that thing was more than simply curious..."

- Riker

"Have you dreamed about scissors recently?"

- Troi

[edit] Background Information

Although hardly the first Trek episode in which characters have been abducted by aliens, "Schisms" marks Trek's first foray into the phenomenon of alien abduction in the popular sense.
A schism is a split or division. As such, the title refers to the splits in subspace that allow the aliens to abduct crewmembers.
Director Robert Wiemer, Brannon Braga, and Michael Piller were all disappointed at the look of the aliens, and decided not to bring them back, despite the open ending. Braga stated, "I felt they looked like monks – fish monks – and monks aren't terrifying." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
The stellar formations of the Amargosa Diaspora seen at the beginning of the episode turned up again later in the season to represent the Borgolis Nebula.
This is the final appearance of the Bolian barber Mot (although Picard would later masquerade as Mot in "Starship Mine"), as well as conn officer Sariel Rager.
The versatility of the main biobed in sickbay is seen in this episode. Riker is seen putting his arm on top of a retractable transparent scanner sheet while sitting on the bed. A scan of his forearm is then seen on a viewscreen, showing that it was severed by the aliens.
This episode introduces Data's poem "Ode to Spot."

[edit] Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 66, 17 May 1993.
As part of the TNG Season 6 DVD collection.

[edit] Links and references

Previous episode:
"Relics"

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 6

Next episode:
"True Q"

Schisms (episode)

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

Contents

[edit] Summary

[edit] Memorable Quotes

[edit] Background Information

[edit] Video and DVD releases

[edit] Links and references

[edit] Guest Stars

[edit] Co-Stars

[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars

[edit] Stunt double

[edit] References

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