Corralled Authority: Livestock, Lines, and a Private Challenge
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard pivots to pragmatic control, ordering O'Brien to beam everyone to Cargo Hold Seven and route arrivals there; Danilo rallies his people back onto 'the infernal machine' as Riker smooths the message.
As the platform fills, Danilo sweeps Picard into the corridor with a pointed call for a talk, with Worf shadowing—order gives way to a brewing one-on-one clash.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Mildly amused and pragmatic—focused on expedient solutions rather than rhetoric.
Arrives in the second wave among the Bringloidi, pushes through the crowd toward Picard, exchanges a sotto voce line advising against argument, and helps shepherd the refugees onto the platform.
- • Assist in rapid evacuation and minimize time wasted on dispute.
- • Support Picard's decision-making by offering practical backup.
- • Operational efficiency is the priority during an evacuation.
- • Personal arguments can be sidelined in favor of immediate action.
Defiant and fiercely protective—prideful, willing to risk protocol to defend his people's cultural necessities and provoke a reaction to assert dignity.
Directs his people and animals on the transporter platform, defends the necessity of livestock, pockets his flask when challenged, deliberately adopts a provocative tone toward Worf and Picard, bellows commands to his community and ultimately propels Picard into the corridor for a private confrontation.
- • Ensure his people's animals are not separated or abandoned.
- • Force Picard to acknowledge the cultural necessity of the livestock and negotiate on his terms.
- • Livestock are indispensable to the Bringloidi's survival and dignity.
- • Direct, personal challenge is a legitimate means to secure respect and decision-making.
Flustered but dutiful—annoyed by personal discomfort and logistical mess but committed to executing orders.
Caught at his transporter console amid a barnyard stampede, he is addressed by Danilo and ordered by Picard; he accepts the command to beam the refugees and livestock to Cargo Hold Seven while visibly flustered by animals (a goat sniffing his pants) and environmental mess.
- • Execute Picard's beam orders safely despite contamination and confusion.
- • Contain contamination and prevent damage to transporter systems.
- • Transporter systems must be used pragmatically to solve immediate evacuation problems.
- • Starfleet procedure should minimize ship contamination and preserve equipment integrity.
Externally controlled but irritated—annoyance and urgency thinly masked by a need to preserve ship integrity and chain of command.
Picard arrives with Worf, takes immediate command amid sensory chaos, issues curt orders to O'Brien to beam refugees and livestock to Cargo Hold Seven, refuses Danilo's offered 'service', and is physically propelled into the corridor by Danilo.
- • Restore order aboard the Enterprise quickly.
- • Protect ship infrastructure and crew from biological/logistical contamination.
- • The Enterprise must maintain sanitary, operational standards above cultural sentiment in an emergency.
- • Command decisions should be efficient and unencumbered by sentimental appeals.
Guarded irritation—pride wounded by flippant disrespect toward his captain; ready to enforce order if provoked.
Follows Picard into the Transporter Room, reacts viscerally to the chicken, presses against the corridor wall to avoid chaos, growls at Danilo's insolence, and then follows when Picard is shoved into the corridor.
- • Safeguard the captain and maintain security protocol.
- • Contain potential threats from unpredictable refugees and animals.
- • Disrespect toward command is unacceptable and must be silently deterred.
- • Situations with unpredictable animals pose immediate security risks.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The animal lead transmits the animal's pulls and pushes into human hands—handlers tug to steady livestock on the slick platform, and it becomes a physical vector of the scene's tension when animals lurch near crew.
Crates of chickens are carried and spilled across the transporter pad, their feathers and straw intensifying sensory disorder; they are both cargo and cultural payload that crew resist but ultimately must move to the cargo hold.
Feathers are scattered across the pad, drifting in the transporter hum; they visually signify the collision of pastoral life and starship order, clogging seams and amplifying the mess crew must contain.
A small piglet squeals and wriggles among the crowd, increasing the sensory chaos and providing an emotional focus for the Bringloidi who insist on keeping animals with them for survival and morale.
Danilo's palm-sized flask functions as a tactile punctuation: he inspects it when confronted, then pockets it deliberately—a small symbol of personal ritual and defiance that humanizes him amid chaos.
A goat on a lead sniffs Chief O'Brien's pants and startles crew, functioning as comic relief and a concrete example of contamination and practical difficulty that forces Picard's decision to move the animals off the pad.
The transporter platform is the physical locus of the stampede: phase coils hum beneath straw and feathers as refugees and livestock overflow its surface, converting a technical staging pad into an improvised threshold between ship and makeshift refuge.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Transporter Room Three is the cramped, humming chamber overwhelmed by barnyard sounds and detritus. It becomes a battlefield of logistics where Starfleet procedure collides with the Bringloidi's cultural imperatives and sparks a personal confrontation between Picard and Danilo.
Cargo Hold Seven is named as the pragmatic containment solution—an aft hold to receive refugees and livestock away from primary ship systems—offering a temporary refuge that preserves transporter integrity at the cost of cultural displacement.
The transporter platform functions as the immediate staging island where refugees disembark and animals create operational hazards; it's the pivot point for the beam to Cargo Hold Seven and the visual focal point of the disruption.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
No narrative connections mapped yet
This event is currently isolated in the narrative graph
Key Dialogue
"PICARD: "What the devil is going on here?!""
"DANILO: "Captain, this damn livestock has fed our children, been company to the old and sick and playmates to the young... ...I couldn't leave them to die. Besides, how can we rebuild without our animals?""
"PICARD: "Alright. Chief O'Brien, kindly transport this group to Cargo Hold Seven, and the remaining refugees on the planet should go directly into the hold so we can stop dirtying my ship.""