Deadline Revealed — Orders to Prepare and Parley
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Riker and Picard clash with the cold math—transporters are useless, and shuttles would take weeks, leaving them desperate for time.
Picard orders Data to prepare the colonists for evacuation while demanding Worf contact the unyielding Sheliak, setting two desperate plans in motion.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Calm, resolute — clinical factuality with no rhetorical embellishment, but aware of the moral implications of his data.
Data reports the colony population succinctly over ship comms, acknowledges Picard's evacuation order, and functions as the factual pivot that forces command to change course.
- • Provide accurate, verifiable information to command.
- • Follow Picard's orders to prepare the colonists for evacuation.
- • Accurate data enables sound decision-making.
- • Obedience to Starfleet command and duty to protect lives justify direct action.
Vulnerable and anxious — uncertain about leadership and the prospect of abandonment or forced departure.
The colonists are the silent referent of the entire exchange: their number is reported, their fate becomes the operational constraint, and their presence at the landing site creates moral urgency.
- • Survive the Sheliak deadline, either by staying or by being evacuated.
- • Receive clear guidance about safety and the colony's future.
- • Their lives matter and warrant Federation protection.
- • Local leadership and external aid will determine survival outcomes.
Apprehensive and worried — personal fear for friends and family, searching for reassurance from Federation officers.
Haritath waits at the shuttle landing site with Kentor while Data finishes communications, anxiously representing the colonists' presence and vulnerability as command debates evacuation feasibility.
- • Hear clear instructions and assurance from Data and Starfleet.
- • Protect and shepherd community members toward safety if evacuation is ordered.
- • Federation officers can provide guidance and aid.
- • The colony's survival depends on external help and timely decisions.
Apprehensive but composed — anxious about the threat yet ready to help organize if needed.
Kentor stands with Haritath at the landing site, waiting for Data's communications and likely weighing the implications of an evacuation order for the community he influences.
- • Assess the colony's options and readiness for possible evacuation.
- • Provide calm leadership to influence other colonists toward survival.
- • Community cohesion is essential in crisis.
- • Practical decisions must be made quickly to avoid catastrophe.
Urgent and pragmatic — a steady surface urgency that prioritizes human life over diplomatic face-saving.
Picard receives the population report, immediately recalibrates strategy from legal negotiation to humanitarian contingency and issues parallel orders to prepare the colonists and contact the Sheliak.
- • Buy time to prevent the colony's annihilation.
- • Coordinate Enterprise resources to facilitate evacuation while preserving legal leverage.
- • Lives are paramount and demand immediate protective action.
- • Starfleet duty requires both diplomacy and decisive operational orders.
Grimly pragmatic — acknowledging bleak arithmetic without dramatics, focused on facts and limits.
Worf rapidly computes evacuation duration on his console, reports that shuttles would require four weeks plus, and cautions that contacting the Sheliak will take time due to distance.
- • Provide accurate evacuation timelines to inform command decisions.
- • Reestablish contact with the Sheliak to seek more time or leeway.
- • Hard numbers drive feasible plans; emotional courage won't change logistics.
- • Timely communication with the Sheliak is necessary to alter the countdown.
Concerned and focused — pressing the practical implications of the data to force rapid command decisions.
Riker delivers the hard temporal constraint — three days without transporters — translating Data's statistic into an operational impossibility and raising alarm on the bridge.
- • Ensure command understands the logistical timeline realistically.
- • Protect the colonists by prompting immediate contingency measures.
- • Operational timelines must drive tactical decisions.
- • Failure to state constraints candidly endangers lives.
Alarmed and mobilized — anxiety about scale paired with professional focus on implementing orders.
The bridge crew react with alarm to Data's population figure, process diagnostic readouts, and obey orders as bridge tension escalates from procedural diplomacy to emergency operations.
- • Provide accurate sensor and logistical support for evacuation planning.
- • Execute command orders efficiently to maximize survival chances.
- • Collective bridge action is required to manage mass-evacuation logistics.
- • Immediate, coordinated measures can mitigate worst outcomes if implemented swiftly.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
A diagnostic/console resource (represented on the bridge) is used by Worf to compute evacuation timelines — the numerical engine that translates Data's population figure into the four‑week shuttle projection.
The Enterprise shuttlecraft are referenced as the only available physical means to move colonists without transporters; Worf calculates their aggregate capacity and the timeline needed if shuttles were the sole method.
The shipboard com line carries Data's population report to the bridge and relays Picard's evacuation order; it is the immediate communications lifeline connecting the planet's landing site and Enterprise command in real time.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Enterprise main bridge is the scene's nerve center: diplomatic data, tactical calculations, and moral decisions collide here as officers receive Data's census and convert it into urgent orders and contingency plans.
The Enterprise's orbit around Tau Cygna Five frames the crisis: the ship holds a tactical perch while the viewscreen displays the Sheliak ultimatum that imposes the deadline forcing evacuation calculations.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"DATA: "Approximately fifteen thousand.""
"RIKER: "We've only got three days. Without working transporters, we couldn't have them out in time.""
"PICARD: "Then we need more time. Mister Data, prepare the colonists for an evacuation.""