Calculated Interval: The Ticking Clock
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Geordi and Wesley analyze mysterious radiation damage while Data reports on the unknown origin of the highly focused energy bursts.
Data reveals the critical timing pattern: Enterprise radiation bursts and the station explosion follow precise, related intervals.
The team calculates the next expected radiation event as Riker's fate hangs in the balance.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Determined and focused—confident in his technical contribution and anxious to prove its utility.
Wesley highlights the unexplained 0.0014 second variance in Data's timing, offering hands-on help and signaling youthful forensic initiative to refine the predictive model.
- • Clarify the small variance to improve predictive accuracy.
- • Assist engineering to locate the source before the next predicted event.
- • Small timing variances can reveal hidden mechanisms or manipulations.
- • Active technical problem-solving can avert disaster and vindicate accused colleagues.
Authoritative and pragmatic; measured resolve masking the personal risk to his command and crew loyalty.
Picard listens to Data's analysis, then issues firm operational orders: protect vital areas and withdraw from orbit if the source isn't found—using the timing as leverage to force decisive action.
- • Protect the ship and crew by ordering concrete precautions.
- • Create operational leverage (threat of withdrawal) to compel a swift resolution.
- • Command responsibility requires decisive action under threat.
- • Imposing clear consequences will sharpen investigative focus and protect the Enterprise.
Clinically objective; focused on data integrity while aware of the weight of his findings.
Data succinctly reports the forensic timing analysis, quantifying intervals and acknowledging the absence of definitive causal proof while steering command toward prediction-based precautions.
- • Communicate the measured timing pattern accurately to command.
- • Preserve epistemic caution—avoid overstating causation without evidence.
- • Precise measurements can unlock causal hypotheses.
- • Command needs actionable, time-based metrics to make operational decisions.
Anxious and apprehensive—stoic on the surface but internally aware of imminent danger to reputation and survival.
Riker listens visibly to the implications of Data's timing and Picard's orders; his reaction is a private acknowledgment that the pattern turns suspicion into an immediate threat to his life and career.
- • Rely on colleagues to find and neutralize the source before the predicted event.
- • Maintain professional composure to avoid compromising legal or operational standing.
- • If a causative mechanism is found and neutralized, his innocence/position stands a better chance.
- • Command actions (like withdrawal) could protect him physically but leave political consequences unresolved.
Alert and pragmatic—focused on actionable steps to protect patients and crew.
Beverly listens to the data, pragmatically suggests that prediction is possible if the measurements hold, and anchors the group's reasoning in practical, medical/operational terms.
- • Ensure Sickbay and patients are shielded from predicted radiation.
- • Support command with medically informed risk assessments to guide precautions.
- • Predictability of events can be converted into protective procedures.
- • Medical readiness is an immediate, necessary counterpart to engineering solutions.
Concerned and urgent — engineering alarm tempered by professional control.
Geordi physically examines the basketball-sized melted spot with tricorders, voices the practical danger to critical systems and frames the technical urgency that justifies Picard's hardline orders.
- • Identify the nature and risk of the radiation to ship systems.
- • Communicate concrete risks to command so protective measures are prioritized.
- • Radiation at critical systems is existentially dangerous to the ship.
- • Empirical, on-site measurement (tricorders, inspection) is necessary to verify threats.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Sickbay is the physical site where the team convenes, tricorders are read, and the timing analysis is delivered to command. It functions as both medical workspace and ad-hoc briefing room, turning patient care space into a command node under threat.
Apgar Science Station is the exploded site whose timing relative to shipboard bursts provides the critical comparative pattern; its destruction anchors the analytic link between the bursts and catastrophic outcomes.
Deck Thirty-Nine is referenced as the site previously penetrated by the same radiation; its mention supplies forensic continuity and a concrete example of internal ship damage that raises the stakes.
The Enterprise's orbit around Tau Cygna V functions as the strategic context—Picard threatens to leave orbit, using the ship's position as leverage and a literal option to escape imminent planetary/station risk.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The unexplained radiation bursts on the Enterprise lead Data to discover their connection to the station explosion's timing."
"The unexplained radiation bursts on the Enterprise lead Data to discover their connection to the station explosion's timing."
Key Dialogue
"DATA: The two radiation events aboard the Enterprise occurred five hours, twenty minutes and three seconds apart. The science station exploded yesterday at almost exactly four times that interval."
"GEORDI: We expect it in just over five hours."
"PICARD: Take every precaution you can to protect the ship's vital areas... if you haven't identified the source before the time interval is up, we will leave orbit. If you perceive any further danger, advise me immediately."