Holodeck Reconstruction — The Fatal Pulse
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard connects Apgar's desperation for rewards to his decision to turn the converter into a weapon, suggesting he intended to kill Riker.
Picard simulates Apgar's plan to kill Riker, showing how the energy pulse reflected off the transporter beam and caused the explosion.
Geordi prepares a final demonstration to prove their hypothesis, aligning the Holodeck simulator with the planet's discharge cycle.
The holographic simulation runs, recreating the fatal energy pulse striking Riker's transporter beam and reflecting back to destroy the lab.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Detached professionalism — focused on technical procedure rather than courtroom drama.
O'Brien is heard only via comms; his procedural voice acknowledges a transport engagement, which is the crucial timed external trigger in the simulation.
- • Follow transport protocol and confirm beam engagement.
- • Provide accurate transporter status for the simulation's timing.
- • Transporter operations are precise and their logs are reliable.
- • His role is to perform procedure, not to adjudicate guilt.
Measured defensiveness — committed to his evidence and jurisdiction, reluctant to yield without incontrovertible proof.
Krag watches the demonstration with restrained skepticism, interjects to protect the Tanugan prosecutorial position, and challenges Picard when he asserts the shot was fired from Riker's position.
- • Confirm jurisdictional claims and maintain momentum for extradition unless incontrovertible counter-evidence appears.
- • Test Picard's hypothesis thoroughly before conceding.
- • Physical evidence and playback timelines are the correct basis for adjudicating responsibility.
- • The Enterprise has a vested interest in protecting its officer, which must be interrogated.
Denial and hurt — struggles to reconcile affectionate memories with implications of greed and murder.
Manua appears as holographic testimony in multiple program runs; she reacts defensively when Picard frames Apgar's motives and watches the staged demonstration, visibly unsettled by the changing narrative about her husband.
- • Defend her husband's memory and resist suggestions of malice.
- • Understand the demonstration's implications for her husband's intent.
- • Her husband was loving and driven, not malicious.
- • Starfleet's reconstruction may be incomplete or biased against Apgar.
Holographic urgency and calculation — the recorded Apgar alternates between plausible scientist and a man cornered by motive and fear.
Apgar appears only as holographic playback — defensive then earnest in different programs; in the live simulation his hologram activates a panel that triggers the generator, an action that becomes the pivotal causal clue.
- • (As reconstructed) Activate the generator at a critical moment to cover tracks or advance a plan.
- • Preserve his work and secure rewards/power for his research.
- • His work is valuable and worth concealing/exaggerating for personal gain.
- • Deception might protect his experiment from premature interference.
Uneasy realization — moves from confusion to reluctant recognition as the demonstration clarifies the mechanic she witnessed.
Tayna's hologram is replayed and then frozen at the moment she realizes Apgar touched a panel; in live testimony she identifies the panel activation as 'activating the generator on the planet.'
- • Accurately recount what she witnessed in her deposition.
- • Comply with the investigation while protecting herself from implication.
- • Her testimony matters and can reveal operational details.
- • She may not understand the larger technical ramifications of what she saw.
Controlled determination — outwardly calm but personally invested in protecting his officer and in exposing truth through procedure.
Picard orchestrates the Holodeck runs, narrates the shifting programs, freezes and plays holograms to frame motive and sequence; he directly challenges Krag and reframes competing testimonies into a causal demonstration.
- • Demonstrate a single, physical cause that exonerates Riker.
- • Use institutional procedure (the Holodeck) to shift the burden of proof and force Krag into concession.
- • Evidence, properly reconstructed, will reveal the true sequence of events.
- • Protecting a trusted officer requires rigor, not emotional argument.
Unease and guardedness — disoriented by the replayed contradictions and anxious about how the demonstration will affect his fate.
Riker's holographic testimony is replayed and then placed into the running simulation; he appears confused and passive as the reenactment procedurally tests the sequence that allegedly implicated him.
- • Allow the demonstration to proceed while minimizing self-incrimination.
- • Trust command (Picard) and the process to clear his name.
- • The Holodeck reconstructions will be impartial and illuminate the truth.
- • He is innocent and that evidence will eventually vindicate him.
Even-tempered and quietly confident — understands the emotional stakes and supports Picard's procedural approach.
Troi stands among the observers as an empathic presence, calm and confirmatory; she provides a stabilizing, human context to the cold forensic demonstration.
- • Provide psychological steadiness for Riker and other witnesses.
- • Ensure the demonstration doesn't become needlessly cruel or accusatory.
- • Emotional support helps subjects withstand adversarial inquiry.
- • The truth should be revealed but with attention to human costs.
Clinical concentration with an undercurrent of loyalty-driven urgency — keen to prove the physics and vindicate the crew.
Geordi configures and verbalizes the technical setup, instructs the computer to load 'La Forge One' and times the simulated discharge; he explains mirror-coil behavior and links the generator's periodic discharge to the explosion.
- • Recreate and time the energy discharge in the Holodeck to prove the reflection hypothesis.
- • Translate technical data into a demonstrable sequence understandable to non-engineers (Picard, Krag, Manua).
- • Accurate simulation can reproduce causal physical effects for forensic proof.
- • Technical explanation will persuade even skeptical investigators if shown directly.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The transporter console/effect (simulated within the Holodeck) serves as the reflective surface the Krieger Wave pulse strikes; the demonstration times the transport beam to show the pulse reflecting back into the reactor and triggering the explosion.
The Krieger Wave converter—recreated as a holodeck facsimile—functions as the pivot of the demonstration: it converts harmless planetary discharges into focused Krieger Waves by virtue of reflective coils and mirror elements, and is shown firing a pulse that interacts with the transporter effect to cause the explosion.
Discosilium (dicosilium) is cited by Geordi as circumstantial evidence of Apgar's attempt to enlarge reflective coils; it functions narratively to establish motive and technical plausibility for the converter's enhanced reflective power.
The station reactor core is the catastrophic victim in the demonstration: the reflected energy returns past Apgar to the reactor, causing the simulated overload and explosion that explains the real-world destruction.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Holodeck Observation Gallery is the elevated vantage where Picard, Krag, Riker and other observers watch the demonstration; it provides a protected viewpoint from which the political, emotional and evidentiary stakes are publicly contested.
The Space Station Living Room set—summoned inside the Holodeck—serves as the forensic stage for each deposition and the core space where holograms enact conflicting witness accounts; it is repeatedly frozen, replayed and re-positioned to expose contradictions and to stage the final timed demonstration.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Krag's damning holographic evidence of Riker firing a phaser is later revealed to be a misinterpretation of Apgar's backfired weapon."
"Krag's damning holographic evidence of Riker firing a phaser is later revealed to be a misinterpretation of Apgar's backfired weapon."
"Krag's damning holographic evidence of Riker firing a phaser is later revealed to be a misinterpretation of Apgar's backfired weapon."
"Picard's explanation of Apgar's desperate ambition contrasts with Riker's return to normal duty, showing how the ordeal has affected both men differently."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"PICARD: But isn't it remarkable that with all the witnesses, all the different points of view of the events aboard the space station... that we've never seen what really happened at all?"
"GEORDI: From right here. In the Holodeck."
"GEORDI: When you get down to basics, the converter is nothing more than a complex series of mirrors and reflective coils. The energy from the field generator on the planet simply reflects off elements in the convertor which turns it into highly focused Krieger Waves..."