The Engineering Devil’s Bargain
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Geordi outlines the modules' full atmospheric controls and the staggering logistics—he must replicate the unit 512 times—and warns that building them will force power diversion from the warp engines to the replicator.
Command resolves the tactical trade-offs: Picard presses for duration on impulse power, Geordi concedes a few hours, Riker demands maximum warp power at departure, Geordi assures him, then exits; Picard schedules relief at 0300 and Riker departs, leaving mission logistics set.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Focused satisfaction tempered by the weight of knowing his brilliant solution comes at the cost of their mobility and safety
Engineering authority blooms fresh as he gestures across the holographic blueprint garden, each module a poisonous flower of containment. His voice carries the confidence of a man who has finally stepped into the uniform he was born to wear, translating death into architecture.
- • Present technically sound containment solution
- • Establish his credibility as new chief engineer
- • Engineering solutions exist for every biological threat
- • Power allocation is merely another variable to solve
Grave resignation layered over strategic calculation, privately calculating how many lives each hour of drift might cost
Standing over his desk, Picard's fingers drum a silent funeral march as he absorbs the mathematical certainty of their paralysis. His shoulders settle into the weight of command as he accepts the sacrifice—trading warp signatures for coffin counts, navigator's dreams for undertaker's math.
- • Maintain containment of plague specimens at any cost
- • Preserve both mission and crew despite power paradox
- • The mathematics of plague containment supersede the mathematics of speed
- • Leadership requires absorbing the weight of necessary sacrifices
Eager confidence masking underlying tension about their vulnerability during impulse flight
Fresh from completing plague transfer protocol, Riker steps into the ready room with coiled readiness barely contained. His eyes flick between the schematics and his captain's face, already calculating tactical advantage while his voice shapes both reassurance and demand.
- • Secure future warp power restoration
- • Maintain tactical readiness
- • Promise of future speed outweighs current paralysis
- • Starfleet protocol includes bargaining for operational capacity
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The ship's miracle machine becomes death's midwife, now tasked with birthing 512 identical coffins from pure energy. Its hunger will draw plasma directly from the warp core's heart like a mechanical vampire, siphoning the fire that normally propels them between stars.
Manifested as twelve silver holographic ghosts dancing above Picard's desk, each module appears as a perfect coffin reduced to mathematical essence. These feet-on-chest visions of death's architecture detail twelve unique containment micro-climates that will multiply into a graveyard-fleet of 512 identical cages.
The ship's mighty cathedral hearts—these twin Titans of folded space—must fall silent. Their antimatter pulses will fade to ember while replicators steal their life's breath, leaving Enterprise adrift between stars at the mercy of Newton's patient clock.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The amber-lit ready room functions as a laboratory of impossible choices, where command decisions become mathematical equations balancing death against paralysis. Here, the ship's highest authority absorbs the cost of security while its most brilliant mind translates plague into architecture.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Geordi's outline of replication and power trade-offs directly prompts command-level negotiation and the formal decision about impulse/warp power allocation."
"Geordi's technical briefing and insistence on a purpose-built containment enclosure leads to the physical construction of the containment area in Cargo Deck Five."
"Geordi's technical briefing and insistence on a purpose-built containment enclosure leads to the physical construction of the containment area in Cargo Deck Five."
"Geordi's outline of replication and power trade-offs directly prompts command-level negotiation and the formal decision about impulse/warp power allocation."
Key Dialogue
"Geordi: 'Now, I have to go and replicate this five hundred and twelve times. This will mean it will be necessary to divert power from the warp engines to the replicator.'"
"Riker: 'When we leave 'aucdet Nine - I'm going to want all the power you can slam into those warp engines.'"
"Picard: 'I will relieve you at zero three zero zero.'"