Fifteen Thousand: The Evacuation Reckoning
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Data informs Picard the colonists lack historical records, emphasizing their focus on survival over history.
Data reveals the staggering number of colonists—fifteen thousand—forcing the crew to confront the logistical nightmare ahead.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Uncertain and at risk — their safety is now the pivot of command decisions though they remain physically distant from the bridge.
The Colonists are the unseen mass whose presence (fifteen thousand) reshapes the scene from treaty argument to humanitarian crisis; they are referenced as vulnerable people who must be readied for evacuation.
- • Survive the immediate Sheliak-enforced deadline.
- • Rely on local leaders and Starfleet guidance to navigate evacuation.
- • Daily survival once trumped historical record-keeping, explaining gaps in documentation.
- • Their fate depends on outside help and internal cooperation.
Apprehensive and tentative — worried about the safety of neighbors and the practicality of evacuation plans.
Haritath waits at the shuttle landing site while Data communicates, positioned as a patient but apprehensive intermediary between the colony and Starfleet, silently absorbing the new urgency of evacuation orders.
- • Understand the scope and timeline of the evacuation to relay to fellow colonists.
- • Support local leaders in organizing a practical response.
- • Community survival depends on clear guidance and preparation.
- • Past hardships shape the colony's cautious relationship to external authority.
Concerned but mobilized — ready to shift from deliberation to action for the colony's sake.
Kentor stands alongside Haritath at the landing site, attentive to Data's transmission and absorbing Picard's order to prepare colonists, positioned to translate orders into on-the-ground organization.
- • Help implement Data's instructions among the colonists.
- • Use local credibility to calm fears and organize evacuation logistics.
- • Collective action can save lives if leaders act decisively.
- • Respect for tradition must yield to pragmatic measures in mortal danger.
Gravely urgent — controlled but morally activated, feeling the weight of responsibility for thousands of lives.
Picard absorbs Data's population report, quickly reframes the situation from diplomatic to humanitarian, and issues direct, high-stakes orders: prepare the colonists and reestablish contact with the Sheliak.
- • Buy time and resources to enable evacuation.
- • Coordinate shipboard resources and diplomatic channels to avert catastrophe.
- • Human life must be prioritized over procedural niceties.
- • Command decisions should convert moral imperatives into concrete orders immediately.
Calmly resolute — emotionally neutral on surface but determined to follow Starfleet orders and protect lives via methodical action.
Data transmits intelligence from planet-side, states cultural context about missing records, and delivers a stark population figure; he acknowledges Picard's order and commits to preparing colonists over the com line.
- • Convey accurate population and contextual information to command.
- • Execute Picard's order to ready the colonists for evacuation.
- • Providing precise data is essential for saving lives.
- • Duty to follow Starfleet command and protocol will best protect the colonists.
Pragmatically grim — focused on mechanical truth, aware of limits but not given to dramatics.
Worf calculates shuttle evacuation time at his console and relays that even with all shuttlecraft loaded to capacity, the evacuation would take four weeks and four days; later he conveys the Sheliak home world's distance and consequent delay.
- • Provide accurate, objective evacuation timelines to inform command decisions.
- • Initiate contact with the Sheliak as ordered to seek diplomatic breathing room.
- • Hard numbers must guide operational plans.
- • Timely, accurate sensor and logistical data are essential to save lives.
Concerned and focused — conveying hard facts without panic, attempting to force rapid strategic reassessment.
Riker reports a critical constraint: with transporters offline, evacuation windows collapse to a three-day timeframe, delivering a terse, alarming reality-check to Picard and the bridge crew.
- • Make command aware of realistic evacuation limitations.
- • Prompt immediate reallocation of resources or alternate planning.
- • Technical constraints determine feasible timelines.
- • Clear facts compel decisive action from command.
Alarmed and resolute — concerned about logistical impossibility but committed to implementing orders.
The Enterprise bridge crew reacts audibly and visually to the population figure, shifting from analytic duty to alarmed coordination; consoles light and officers exchange rapid assessments under Picard's orders.
- • Support command in converting the revelation into an operational plan.
- • Execute calculations and prepare systems to aid evacuation efforts.
- • Collective crew competence can mitigate worst-case outcomes.
- • Clear information and chain-of-command are essential during crises.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Worf uses a diagnostic/consoles to compute shuttle loading and evacuation time, producing the critical four-week figure that conflicts with Riker's transporter-limited timeline. The console serves as the operational calculator that forces the bridge to confront logistical reality.
The Enterprise shuttlecraft are referenced as the fallback evacuation mechanism: Worf's calculation assumes loading all shuttlecraft to capacity, and their limited throughput defines the four-week evacuation estimate, casting shuttles as vital but insufficient life-lines.
The shipboard com line transmits Data's planet-side report to the bridge and carries Picard's orders back to Data. It functions as the immediate life-line linking command decisions to the colonists and is the instrument through which Data acknowledges the evacuation directive.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Main Bridge functions as the command crucible where Data's planetary report is processed, timelines are contested, and Picard issues life-saving orders; it is the operational nerve center converting intelligence into directives under moral pressure.
The Enterprise's orbital perch around Tau Cygna Five provides observational distance and a strategic vantage; it is implicitly where shuttle operations and communications are coordinated while the ship negotiates diplomatic contact with the Sheliak.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"DATA: "My local informant does not know. In the early days survival on Tau Cygna Five was more important than history.""
"PICARD: "Understood. How many are there?" DATA: "Approximately fifteen thousand.""
"RIKER: "We've only got three days. Without working transporters, we couldn't have them out in time." WORF: "Loading all the Enterprise shuttlecraft to capacity -- evacuation would take four weeks, four days.""