Eighty-Five Microvolts — Tasha Flatlines
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
They escalate to eighty-five microvolts and repeat the stimulation, but movement collapses to nothing. Beverly meets Picard’s eye and pronounces it—“She’s gone,” and even Picard’s protest can’t pull her back.
Beverly codes the life-support clamshell and the wall display flatlines to zero. The officers absorb the finality in stunned silence.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Anxious and impatient externally, internally absorbing shock and the weight of command as hope collapses into grief.
Captain Picard enters, requests status, steps aside to watch in silence and anxiety, hopes for recovery, and reacts with stunned disbelief when Beverly pronounces the patient dead.
- • Obtain an honest clinical appraisal of the patient's condition.
- • Support the medical team while representing command responsibility.
- • Medical truth should be sought directly and respected.
- • As captain, remaining present conveys support to both patient and crew.
Professionally tense and anxious; subordinating individual fear to rapid protocol following and hands‑on support.
Nurse and medical team assist: they attach the clamshell, help clip the stimulator onto the patient's head, administer the ordered norepinephrine injection, punch in programming changes and comply with rising microvolt commands, reacting with focused urgency to Beverly's orders.
- • Execute physician orders exactly and quickly to maximize chance of success.
- • Maintain patient on full support and respond to changing parameters without delay.
- • Following precise medical protocol is the best chance to save a life.
- • Team coordination and immediate compliance with orders are essential in resuscitation.
Externally restrained and observant; internally processing empirical evidence and its human consequences with contained solemnity.
Data stands by the diagnostic readouts alongside Picard and Riker, methodically observing changes in neuronal indicators, registering depolarization and later the absence of movement, and processing the clinical finality of death with restrained presence.
- • Monitor diagnostic readouts accurately to inform medical decisions.
- • Provide steady, factual observation to support command and medical staff.
- • Objective data should guide clinical decisions.
- • Presence at bedside aids in integrating technical and human factors.
Shifting from hopeful and urgent encouragement to stunned, private grief when the technical measures fail.
Commander Riker watches anxiously with Picard and Data; he offers an encouraging reminder of past rescues, reads small hopeful signs when indicators improve, then experiences visible devastation when stimulation finally fails and death is declared.
- • Encourage and support the medical team to maximize the patient's chance of survival.
- • Look for any sign of recovery to anchor hope for the crew.
- • Personal appeals and belief in the team's competence can influence outcomes.
- • Every possible medical action is worth attempting for a crewmember.
Controlled, professional exterior masking a driven desperation — calm under pressure but haunted by the narrowing options and impending loss.
Dr. Beverly Crusher leads the resuscitation: she fastens the neural stimulator over the patient's head, punches programming keys, hits the start button, orders drugs, raises stimulation to eighty‑five microvolts and finally pronounces death while coding the life‑support clamshell.
- • Restore independent brain activity by any available neurostimulatory means.
- • Stabilize life functions and buy time for further intervention.
- • Technical intervention can reverse catastrophic neural failure if applied aggressively and correctly.
- • Medical responsibility requires exhausting all options before conceding death.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The experimental neural stimulator is clipped onto the bed and slipped over the patient's head, acting as the primary active device for attempted cortical and reticular stimulation; Beverly programs it, nurses activate and it is used as the escalation tool up to eighty‑five microvolts before activity ceases.
The Sickbay neurostimulation start button is depressed to initiate each programmed stimulation attempt; its click and the console chime mark the moment current is delivered and attempts are made to elicit neural response.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Enterprise Sickbay functions as the focused arena for this medical escalation: clinicians converge around a single operating bed, diagnostic consoles and a large wall screen display erratic life signs; the space compresses clinical procedure, command presence and finality into an intimate, high‑stakes medical crucible.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"PICARD: "Status, Doctor?""
"RIKER: "You've saved people before. You can save her.""
"BEVERLY: "She's gone.""