Naming the Dead — Picard on the Comms
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Riker’s communicator crackles to life with Picard’s voice—shattering the silence of the suite and reuniting the trapped crew with the outside world, pivoting the scene from personal tragedy to urgent mission.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Composed but urgent; focused on regaining situational awareness and ensuring the team's safety even as he seeks factual confirmation.
Picard participates remotely via communicator, reestablishing contact with the away team and implicitly converting Riker's private discovery into a reportable, operational problem requiring higher‑level coordination.
- • Reestablish clear communications with the away team.
- • Gather immediate factual data about the discovery to direct the Enterprise's response.
- • Coordinate retrieval, analysis, and potential rescue actions from orbit.
- • Command must be informed to make prudent tactical and ethical decisions.
- • No crew member should be left unaccounted for without investigation.
- • Information from the field enables decisions about abandonment, containment, or recovery.
Objectively neutral and focused; operates as the team's forensic instrument without visible affect but with full procedural thoroughness.
Data conducts sensor scans, announces absence of life, classifies the remains as human/male and dates time of death to 283 years; he retrieves the pale-blue suit from the closet and presents it as evidentiary material.
- • Collect and report accurate biometric and temporal data about the corpse.
- • Recover physical artifacts that will contextualize the death (suit, flag, name).
- • Provide commanders with reliable information to enable next steps.
- • Objective measurement advances understanding more reliably than speculation.
- • Material evidence (clothing, insignia) can be correlated with historical records to establish identity and timeline.
- • The sterile mise‑en‑scène explains anomalous preservation and must be documented.
Uneasy and on-guard; he processes the scene with disciplined restraint and an undercurrent of revulsion at the artificialization of human death.
Worf moves to the window and forcefully pulls back the heavy drapes to reveal the blinding neon cowgirl sign; he asks a practical question about the 'Las Vegas' illusion and responds with terse, pragmatic commentary.
- • Assess the suite's exterior and any environmental threats or deceptions.
- • Clarify the nature of the illusion to aid investigative framing.
- • Protect the team by exposing hidden visual information (opening drapes).
- • Environmental cues (what's outside the window) can reveal intent or danger in this constructed space.
- • Physical action (yanking drapes) is the fastest way to remove uncertainty.
- • Theatrical trappings can conceal hostile or misleading conditions.
Quietly grief-struck and solemn; his professional composure slips into private mourning before duty reasserts itself when the com intervenes.
Riker physically removes the covers to expose a skeletal body, inspects the recovered suit, reads the embroidered name aloud, offers a quiet benediction and then answers his communicator when Picard calls.
- • Identify the deceased and gather evidence to explain the hotel's anomalies.
- • Acknowledge the humanity of the discovered victim and preserve crew morale.
- • Reestablish command communications and report findings to Picard.
- • Physical artifacts and names provide the best path to truth in an otherwise artificial environment.
- • Even in hostile or absurd circumstances the dead deserve respect and the living must bear witness.
- • As acting leader on site he must both investigate and answer to command.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Data retrieves the pale-blue one-piece spacesuit from a closet and presents it as physical evidence linking the skeletal remains to an identity. The suit's embroidered name and stitched American flag convert an anonymous corpse into 'Colonel S. Richey', anchoring the team's investigation with a human identifier.
The heavy drapes are physically yanked aside by Worf, revealing the blinding neon cowgirl sign and exposing the illusionary exterior. The drapes function as concealment that, when removed, converts ambiguity into a startling visual clue about the hotel's fabricated surroundings.
Riker's communicator, silent or previously unreliable, suddenly comes alive and carries Picard's voice; the device abruptly shifts the scene from private mourning to operational exchange, forcing Riker to transition into an outward, reportive role.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The 'Las Vegas' illusion is exposed via the suite window: a blinding neon cowgirl sign that bathes the room in performative light. It operates as an external set-piece, a seductive, disorienting façade that reframes the suite's stagy interior as part of a larger manufactured tableau.
Richey's suite functions as the event's discovery chamber: a retro, garish hotel room that masks a mummified human within its staged trappings. The suite channels the team's shock into forensic action and becomes the immediate moral hinge where artificial decor yields real human consequence.
The Royale as a location frames the entire discovery — a sealed, theatrical hotel that preserves and stages human remains as set pieces. In this event the hotel functions less as backdrop and more as an antagonistic environment whose design creates the mystery the away team must solve.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Picard’s unanswered question—‘Why is this of interest?’—after Riker reports becoming trapped in a 20th-century hotel—returns as Riker’s own interrogation of the hotel's purpose in Richey’s suite: it’s the same question asked from both sides of the void."
"Picard’s unanswered question—‘Why is this of interest?’—after Riker reports becoming trapped in a 20th-century hotel—returns as Riker’s own interrogation of the hotel's purpose in Richey’s suite: it’s the same question asked from both sides of the void."
"Data’s confirmation that every person in the lobby lacks life signs leads Riker to viscerally realize the hotel is a monument built for a dead man—transforming a technical finding into a moral and emotional horror, the story’s thematic spine."
"Texas’s crude, exaggerated physicality—emphasized as a non-human entity without DNA—foreshadows and parallels the final revelation that the hotel’s inhabitants are literary constructs: his presence makes Richey’s death feel even more tragically absurd."
"Detection of human DNA in room 727 directly triggers Riker and Data’s investigation, leading to the discovery of Colonel Richey—making the entire hotel’s existence suddenly less about alien artifice and more about tragic, well-intentioned cruelty."
"Data detecting no life signs in Richey’s suite makes Riker’s violent yanking back of the sheet exponentially more shocking—turning a cold, logical observation into a visceral, traumatic revelation of death."
"Data’s confirmation that every person in the lobby lacks life signs leads Riker to viscerally realize the hotel is a monument built for a dead man—transforming a technical finding into a moral and emotional horror, the story’s thematic spine."
"Data detecting no life signs in Richey’s suite makes Riker’s violent yanking back of the sheet exponentially more shocking—turning a cold, logical observation into a visceral, traumatic revelation of death."
"Data’s confirmation that every person in the lobby lacks life signs leads Riker to viscerally realize the hotel is a monument built for a dead man—transforming a technical finding into a moral and emotional horror, the story’s thematic spine."
"Data’s scathing analysis of the novel’s clichés is mirrored by Riker’s observation that the hotel is 'window dressing for a dead man'—both reveal that the architecture of narrative can become a monument to misunderstanding and profound loneliness."
"The discovery of the Air Force insignia (a symbol of lost terrestrial power) parallels the discovery of Colonel Richey’s space suit (another faded symbol of human exploration)—both represent humanity’s overreach and forgotten fragments that haunt the cosmos."
"Riker’s salute to the skeleton parallels Picard’s contemplation of Fermat’s Theorem: both are acts of reverence for lost human genius—here, not mathematical, but existential—and both speak to Starfleet’s reverence for the individual, even when deceased."
"Riker’s salute to the skeleton parallels Picard’s contemplation of Fermat’s Theorem: both are acts of reverence for lost human genius—here, not mathematical, but existential—and both speak to Starfleet’s reverence for the individual, even when deceased."
"Data’s scathing analysis of the novel’s clichés is mirrored by Riker’s observation that the hotel is 'window dressing for a dead man'—both reveal that the architecture of narrative can become a monument to misunderstanding and profound loneliness."
"The discovery of the Air Force insignia (a symbol of lost terrestrial power) parallels the discovery of Colonel Richey’s space suit (another faded symbol of human exploration)—both represent humanity’s overreach and forgotten fragments that haunt the cosmos."
"Data detecting no life signs in Richey’s suite makes Riker’s violent yanking back of the sheet exponentially more shocking—turning a cold, logical observation into a visceral, traumatic revelation of death."
"Data detecting no life signs in Richey’s suite makes Riker’s violent yanking back of the sheet exponentially more shocking—turning a cold, logical observation into a visceral, traumatic revelation of death."
"Riker’s communicator crackling with Picard’s voice reconnects the away team with the outside world and prompts his urgent request for data on Richey—leading directly to Wesley’s discovery of the Charybdis and validating the novel’s connection to reality."
"Riker’s communicator crackling with Picard’s voice reconnects the away team with the outside world and prompts his urgent request for data on Richey—leading directly to Wesley’s discovery of the Charybdis and validating the novel’s connection to reality."
"Riker’s silent salute to Richey—the moment of profound empathy—triggers the retrieval of the novel and diary, escalating the mystery from personal tragedy to cosmic revelation."
"Riker’s silent salute to Richey—the moment of profound empathy—triggers the retrieval of the novel and diary, escalating the mystery from personal tragedy to cosmic revelation."
"Riker’s salute to Richey is followed by Picard’s unanswered question within the same scene—the emotional apex of empathy is immediately undercut by communication collapse, deepening the isolation and thematic weight."
"Riker’s salute to Richey is followed by Picard’s unanswered question within the same scene—the emotional apex of empathy is immediately undercut by communication collapse, deepening the isolation and thematic weight."
"Riker’s salute to the skeleton parallels Picard’s contemplation of Fermat’s Theorem: both are acts of reverence for lost human genius—here, not mathematical, but existential—and both speak to Starfleet’s reverence for the individual, even when deceased."
"Riker’s salute to the skeleton parallels Picard’s contemplation of Fermat’s Theorem: both are acts of reverence for lost human genius—here, not mathematical, but existential—and both speak to Starfleet’s reverence for the individual, even when deceased."
Key Dialogue
"DATA: My reading is intensifying."
"DATA: He has been dead for two hundred eighty-three years. The lack of any advanced decomposition is attributable to the sterile environment."
"PICARD'S COM VOICE: Picard to Riker."