Star Trek The Next Generation
S3E15
· Yesterday's Enterprise

Turbolift Confession: Tasha's Fear for Castillo

In the cramped privacy of the turbolift Tasha Yar suddenly admits a fragile attachment to a young officer from the Enterprise‑C and the fear that sending that ship back will doom him. Data observes clinically, offering temporal uncertainty and hypothetical permutations rather than comfort. The exchange crystallizes the mission's personal cost — Tasha's dread and tenderness — and underscores Data's role as an outside observer who can analyze but cannot inhabit the human emotions he witnesses. Her quiet exit leaves the emotional weight unresolved, foreshadowing a sacrifice to come.

Plot Beats

The narrative micro-steps within this event

4

Tasha's distraction unsettles Data, leading him to question her uncharacteristic hesitation in the turbolift.

concern to curiosity ['turbolift']

Tasha confesses her growing attachment to Castillo, revealing her fear for his fate if the Enterprise-C returns to its doomed past.

hesitation to vulnerability ['turbolift']

Data's logical response about temporal uncertainty magnifies Tasha's existential dread about changing timelines.

uncertainty to existential anxiety ['turbolift']

Tasha exits with uncharacteristic hesitation, leaving Data to process her human emotional complexity.

connection to isolation ['turbolift']

Who Was There

Characters present in this moment

2
Tasha Yar
Lieutenant (Chief of Security)
 primary

Surface professionalism fractured by private anxiety and tenderness; she shows fear for another's life coupled with quiet resignation.

Tasha enters the turbolift visibly troubled, admits a growing affection for an Enterprise‑C officer, expresses worry about his fate, asks Data a personal question about alternate timelines, then pauses and exits to Deck Six, leaving her fear unassuaged.

Goals in this moment
  • • To briefly unburden herself of personal anguish about the Enterprise‑C officer.
  • • To gauge whether alternate timelines would alter her life—seeking perspective or consolation.
  • • To maintain composure and continue performing duty despite emotional distraction.
Active beliefs
  • • That personal attachments are fragile in wartime and may require sacrifice.
  • • That outcomes of the temporal mission will determine whether personal losses are visible or erased.
  • • That confiding to a logical, unemotional colleague (Data) may be safer than exposing vulnerability to others.
Character traits
vulnerable tender guarded dutiful
Follow Tasha Yar's journey
Data
Second Officer
 primary

Calm, detached, and curious; maintains procedural equanimity while recognizing the human weight of Tasha's disclosure without feeling it.

Data stands with professional stillness, notices Tasha's distraction, asks clarifying questions, translates her expression into an objective observation, provides a temporal-probability response about the other timeline, and refrains from offering emotional consolation.

Goals in this moment
  • • To gather accurate information about crew dispositions and destinations.
  • • To offer logically grounded perspectives about the temporal uncertainty affecting outcomes.
  • • To perform his duty as an officer by observing and reporting rather than consoling.
Active beliefs
  • • That objective analysis is the appropriate response to uncertainty.
  • • That temporal mechanics create outcomes which may render current suffering unknowable.
  • • That expressing empathy is outside his functional programming, so he prioritizes information over comfort.
Character traits
clinical observant precise incapable-of-emotional-experience
Follow Data's journey

Objects Involved

Significant items in this scene

1
USS Enterprise-D — Captain's Ready Room Turbolift Doors

The Captain's Ready Room turbolift doors provide the physical punctuation of the confession: they open to admit the two officers, frame Tasha's pause in the doorway, and finally close after she exits, sealing the private exchange and symbolically leaving her worry behind the metal seam.

Before: Doors are open to allow Data and Tasha …
After: Doors close after Tasha exits to Deck Six, …
Before: Doors are open to allow Data and Tasha to enter the turbolift car; hydraulics quiet and functioning.
After: Doors close after Tasha exits to Deck Six, returning the turbolift to transit mode and physically separating Tasha's private fear from the bridge.

Location Details

Places and their significance in this event

3
Enterprise Turbolift

The Enterprise turbolift car is the cramped, semi-private setting that allows a candid exchange between officers. Its transit function compresses time and forces intimacy, making a quick confession possible between duty-bound movements.

Atmosphere Confined, quietly tense, with a charged hush that encourages brief truths.
Function Meeting place for a private, incidental confession and transitional conduit between duty stations.
Symbolism Represents liminal space between public duty and private feeling—where institutional motion momentarily yields to personal …
Access Open to ship personnel in transit; not restricted but affords ephemeral privacy due to briefness …
Narrow metal car that compresses the two characters together. Soft mechanical hum of the turbolift and the quiet of recycled air underscoring intimacy. Indicator lights and a small control panel (implied) that mark destinations.
Main Engineering

Engineering is named as Data's initial destination and as a possible shared duty station; it functions briefly as a practical warp point in the dialogue that contrasts operational routine with the emotionally fraught subject Tasha raises.

Atmosphere Invoked as a busy, technical hub elsewhere on the ship, giving the conversation an undercurrent …
Function Mentioned destination that underscores the tension between professional obligations and personal distraction.
Symbolism Hints at the institutional machinery of the ship that continues regardless of individual emotional crises.
Access Restricted to engineering and authorized personnel in normal operations, though not enforced in dialogue.
The word 'Engineering' spoken aloud anchors the scene in shipboard logistics. Implied distant sounds and activity contrast with the turbolift's quiet.
Deck Six

Deck Six functions as the immediate destination and point of egress for Tasha; it is the practical route she takes to remove herself from the emotionally charged exchange and continue her duties.

Atmosphere Muted, businesslike corridor implied; the doorway offers a momentary refuge from the turbolift's intimacy.
Function Egress point and brief sanctuary where Tasha can carry her private concern forward alone.
Symbolism Represents the return to everyday duty and the compartmentalization of personal fear.
Access Standard internal access for crew; not specially restricted in this scene.
A narrow corridor with humming ventilation and buzzing fluorescent panels implied in the script's earlier descriptions of Deck Six. The threshold where Tasha pauses—lighting and doorway create a brief, charged tableau.

Narrative Connections

How this event relates to others in the story

No narrative connections mapped yet

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Key Dialogue

"TASHA: "I was just thinking... a lot of things... I've been working with one of the officers from the Enterprise-C... he's nice, you know? I like him. I'm worried about what's going to happen to him.""
"DATA: "We may never know what happens, Tasha. If they succeed, we will not even realize any of these events occurred.""
"DATA: "The possibilities are too numerous even for me to calculate, Tasha.""