Treat Them as Living — The First Awakening
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
The staff quickly eliminates practical options — they cannot return the humans to their ship nor refreeze them — and Picard orders Security, calling for Worf to report, shifting the problem from medical triage to controlled stewardship.
Beverly awakens the first frozen woman with a hypospray; the woman scans the alien surroundings, collapses back into unconsciousness, Worf enters sickbay, and Picard issues a terse, ironic greeting: 'Welcome to the twenty-fourth century.'
Beverly hyposprays the first patient awake as Worf enters; the woman takes in the impossible sights and promptly faints, and Picard punctuates the shock with a dry welcome to the twenty-fourth century.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Emotionally neutral in tone but concerned in content; focused on preservation and procedural correctness.
Asserts he beamed the frozen occupants aboard from a deteriorating vehicle, requests permission to leave the bridge, and proceeds to Sickbay to report and assist; provides the factual basis that triggers the medical response.
- • Ensure the physical safety of the frozen occupants
- • Provide accurate technical information to command and medical staff
- • Assist medical personnel in the care and transfer of patients
- • Preserving life when possible is the correct technical and moral choice
- • Abandoning deteriorating human cargo would be unethical
- • Objective facts should guide command decisions
Concerned and perplexed on the surface; compassionate duty-driven resolve beneath, balancing medical ethics and ship protocol.
Enters Sickbay, interrogates Beverly for facts, calls Data to Sickbay via the com panel, synthesizes options, issues the binding ethical ruling to treat the recovered as living human beings, and orders Security to stand by before revival.
- • Establish an ethically defensible policy for handling the revived individuals
- • Ensure crew safety and institutional control during the awakening
- • Gather facts about origin and condition before irreversible actions are taken
- • The Enterprise must uphold moral responsibilities toward conscious life
- • Command must mediate between curiosity and institutional risk
- • Medical revival carries social and security consequences requiring controlled procedure
Professional, quietly alert; focused on maintaining order and readiness to respond to threats or panic.
Receives Picard's order to report to Sickbay and enters to provide a visible security presence at the moment Beverly awakens the first patient; his arrival immediately raises the stakes of the scene and offers protective reassurance.
- • Secure Sickbay perimeter and protect staff and patients
- • Provide a calming and authoritative presence during an unpredictable awakening
- • Respond rapidly to any security or medical emergency
- • Crew safety and ship security are primary responsibilities
- • Visible security reduces risk during volatile social encounters
- • Preparedness prevents escalation
Neutral and efficient; comfortable delegating authority to Data while maintaining operational continuity.
Sits on the bridge, grants Data permission to leave when requested, fulfilling procedural chain-of-command and enabling the transfer of vital personnel to Sickbay; otherwise not present during revival but instrumental in bridge-to-sickbay flow.
- • Maintain bridge operations while allowing urgent assistance elsewhere
- • Support Data's initiative to aid the frozen occupants
- • Balance operational readiness with emergent humanitarian needs
- • Trained officers should be trusted to act in emergency situations
- • The bridge must remain functional even when crew assist other departments
Anxious but resolute; driven by medical urgency and a protective instinct toward vulnerable patients.
Explains that Data beamed three frozen people aboard, describes their medical conditions, defends her decision to thaw them to prevent further deterioration, maintains them sedated, and uses a hypospray to wake the first patient while answering Picard's practical and moral questions.
- • Stabilize and triage the thawed patients
- • Wake and assess the patients as soon as safely possible
- • Secure necessary support (security) to protect staff and patients during revival
- • Medical professionals must act to preserve life when possible
- • Leaving dying people in failing crypts would be unconscionable
- • Revival must be accompanied by safeguards given the unknown cultural shock
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The turbolift voice-control interface is used implicitly when Data departs the bridge for Sickbay, marking the physical movement of personnel between command and medical spaces and facilitating rapid response.
Beverly uses the handheld hypospray to administer a stimulant to the first patient's neck, the precise medical instrument that transitions the woman from sedation to consciousness and thereby triggers the emotional and security consequences of revival.
The Enterprise guest lounge com panel (here used as a bridge-to-Sickbay communications control) is touched by Picard to summon Data and coordinate responses; it functions as the technological means by which command presence and institutional decisions are enacted across locations.
The frost-lined glass-covered crypts are described as falling apart in the recovering vessel; they provide forensic evidence that the occupants were cryonically preserved after death and explain the urgency that led to revival.
Clinical linens cover the three recovered patients, concealing their faces until Beverly prepares to awaken them; the removal or displacement of sheets signals transition from passive care to active medical and ethical engagement.
The crippled shuttlecraft containing the cryonics capsule is referenced as the origin of the rescued people; its deteriorating condition motivates Data's decision to beam the occupants aboard and Beverly's decision to thaw them, making it a silent but decisive catalyst.
Three Sickbay medical tables serve as the staging platforms where the thawed cryonics subjects lie sedated and covered; they are the immediate physical locus of triage, monitoring, and the eventual revival attempt, framing the clinical intimacy of the scene.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Main Bridge provides the origin of command actions and communications: Picard summons Data from his station, and the bridge's operational tempo frames the urgency and procedural decision-making that lead to Sickbay intervention.
Sickbay functions as the intimate medical theater where thawed cryonics patients are triaged, sedated, and revived; it hosts the ethical confrontation between command and medicine and becomes the stage for a culturally disorienting first contact with twenty‑fourth century life.
Science Station Two is mentioned as Data's post on the bridge; his presence there is the immediate launching point for him to request permission to leave and report to Sickbay, linking scientific observation to hands‑on medical rescue.
The derelict cryogenic crypts (the failing environment where the patients were found) are referenced as the cause of urgency that compelled Data to beam the occupants aboard and Beverly to thaw them; they are the off-stage catalyst for the entire scene.
Sickbay functions as the intimate medical theater where thawed cryonics patients are triaged, sedated, and revived; it hosts the ethical confrontation between command and medicine and becomes the stage for a culturally disorienting first contact with twenty‑fourth century life.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The preservation of a living subject in the derelict directly precipitates Beverly's decision to thaw and medically attend to the recovered person aboard Sickbay."
"The preservation of a living subject in the derelict directly precipitates Beverly's decision to thaw and medically attend to the recovered person aboard Sickbay."
"Early evidence of failed crypt seals foreshadows Beverly's justification for thawing the bodies."
"Early evidence of failed crypt seals foreshadows Beverly's justification for thawing the bodies."
"Beverly’s absence from the briefing foreshadows the Sickbay revelation of revived 20th-century patients."
"Beverly’s absence from the briefing foreshadows the Sickbay revelation of revived 20th-century patients."
"Beverly’s absence from the briefing foreshadows the Sickbay revelation of revived 20th-century patients."
"Picard's commitment to treat the revived as living persons leads to arranging compassionate transfer off-ship."
"Picard's commitment to treat the revived as living persons leads to arranging compassionate transfer off-ship."
"Picard's commitment to treat the revived as living persons leads to arranging compassionate transfer off-ship."
Key Dialogue
"BEVERLY: "Well, he did and they were frozen. I thawed them.""
"DATA: "I could not leave them there, Captain. The condition of the vehicle was deteriorating.""
"PICARD: "They are alive now, so we have to treat them as living human beings.""