Two‑Second Gambit
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard owns a grave miscalculation and faces a ticking dilemma: the Enterprise buckles under Ferengi fire while forty officers remain stranded on the Hathaway. The three-ship standoff locks the stakes and compresses the decision window.
Picard opens the floor; Burke reports limited photon torpedoes, and Kolrami shoves the ruthless option—declare the Hathaway expendable—tightening the moral vise.
Riker comes onscreen and backs Kolrami’s calculus, urging Picard to save the Enterprise even if it costs the Hathaway—self-sacrifice sharpened into command clarity.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Hostile and confident in his tactical advantage, creating urgency aboard the Enterprise through implied imminent attack.
Bractor is referenced as the Ferengi commander closing on the ships; his approaching presence functions as the external time constraint and existential threat that compresses decision time and forces immediate action from the Enterprise crew.
- • seize or destroy the Hathaway for profit or advantage
- • force the Enterprise into capitulation or tactical error
- • exploit any hesitation to press attack
- • use intimidation to achieve strategic gain
- • Ferengi force and opportunism will achieve objectives
- • intimidation shortens opponents' decision cycles
- • the Federation will make concessions under pressure
- • pressure yields material gain when sustained
Alert and businesslike, with an undercurrent of anxiety appropriate to immediate tactical danger.
Burke reports tactical status — advising that a limited number of photon torpedoes can be launched — and alerts the bridge to Commander Riker's incoming hail, functioning as a concise conduit of battlefield information.
- • keep command informed of available weapons and contacts
- • maintain bridge situational awareness
- • ensure that communications and tactical channels remain open
- • support the chain of command with timely, accurate reports
- • clear, factual reporting is critical during crises
- • weapons and sensors are finite and must be accounted for
- • following orders and relaying information saves lives
- • maintaining procedural discipline steadies command decisions
Clinically indifferent and confident until surprised; shifts to astonishment and cognitive dissonance when presented with unexpected data.
Kolrami delivers a blunt strategic assessment — declaring the Hathaway expendable — then visibly recoils when Riker claims a brief warp capability, moving from clinical disdain to stunned disbelief.
- • advocate for what he considers the rational strategic choice
- • test Starfleet command under pressure
- • maintain intellectual superiority in tactical debate
- • expose what he perceives as Starfleet folly
- • strategic efficiency supersedes sentiment
- • derelict ships rendered warp inactive cannot be salvaged
- • emotion clouds judgment in crisis
- • his assessments are authoritative and should guide decisions
Pressured and rueful about his earlier miscalculation but quickly determined and alert — accepting responsibility while seizing the emergent tactical possibility.
Picard records a rueful supplemental captain's log, solicits suggestions aloud, registers Riker's hail on the Main Viewer, and instantly shifts from regret to rapid problem‑solving — directing that he must consult Data to convert the new information into a plan.
- • preserve the lives of the forty crew aboard the Hathaway
- • protect the Enterprise from capture or destruction
- • convert Riker's revelation into a workable tactical plan
- • delegate technical execution to Data and senior officers
- • Starfleet duty requires protecting lives even under peril
- • creative, principled improvisation can avert moral losses
- • his command decisions must balance principle and pragmatism
- • Data's analytical capacity is essential to resolve technical paradoxes
Clinically attentive and ready to model solutions, with an implied undercurrent of concern about novel, uncertain variables (given later admissions in the episode).
Data is not physically on screen in this excerpt but is explicitly invoked by Picard as the necessary collaborator to translate Riker's revelation into a workable deception or tactical plan, marking him as the analytic engine for the emergent gambit.
- • rapidly analyze Riker's warp claim and its tactical implications
- • develop a deception or maneuver that minimizes casualties
- • supply Picard with precise calculations to execute orders
- • maintain operational integrity while adapting to improvised tactics
- • logical analysis can convert risky options into viable plans
- • obeying orders and supporting command is paramount
- • quantifiable data should drive tactical decisions
- • his computations will be trusted and used by command
Defiant and proud — confident in his crew's ingenuity and willing to gamble the Hathaway to save the flagship and her crew.
Riker hails from the Hathaway, argues the Enterprise must be saved at the expense of his ship, and proudly reveals that his crew has engineered a limited two‑second warp capability, introducing a risky tactical option into the debate.
- • ensure the Enterprise survives the Ferengi attack
- • offer his ship as a tactical tool to buy time
- • protect his own crew within the limits of available risk
- • demonstrate leadership and resourcefulness under pressure
- • a temporary, risky maneuver is preferable to losing the flagship
- • his crew can execute high‑risk technical improvisations
- • command decisions must favor the greater good
- • bold action can alter apparently deterministic outcomes
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Main Viewer switches focus to the Hathaway's bridge to display Riker's hail and expressions, converting remote testimony into immediacy and allowing Picard and the crew to evaluate Riker's claim in real time; it visually mediates the strategic exchange.
Picard's supplemental captain's log is used as an on‑the‑nose narrative device: his V.O. admission of a 'grave miscalculation' frames the moral stakes, tightens the bridge's mood, and exposes internal responsibility while the crew scrambles for options.
The Hathaway's warp drive (previously assumed inoperative) becomes a narrative object when Riker asserts a limited two‑second capability, transforming it from inert wreckage into the critical tactical instrument that makes a risky rescue/deception conceivable.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Ferengi craft is the proximate external threat, closing on both ships and providing the temporal pressure that makes decisive action urgent; its presence catalyzes the debate between sacrifice and cunning.
The USS Hathaway functions as the endangered locus of forty lives and the originating point of Riker's hail; its alleged helplessness creates the moral dilemma, while its unexpected limited propulsion converts it into an active tactical asset within the moment.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"PICARD (V.O.): Captain's log, supplemental. Due to a grave miscalculation on my part, the Enterprise has been subjected to a withering attack by the Ferengi. I find myself with little time to decide the fate of forty of my crew stranded aboard the derelict Hathaway."
"KOLRAMI: I have given you my advice, Captain. The Hathaway is expendable."
"RIKER: We have a limited, two-second warp capability."