Object
Riker's Childhood Photos (including Fish Photo)
A small stack of faded 20th-century-style photographic prints and loose album pages: grainy color and muted sepia, soft-cornered, with handwritten dates on some backs. One image captures a wide-smiling young Will Riker kneeling beside an oversized catch, the fish filling the frame and glinting wetly; other prints show family gatherings and childhood milestones. Riker thumbs through them in his quarters, tapping the fish photo with a thumb and pausing as memory tightens his face. Worf watches; the photos sit on the table between them, physical catalysts for a private, painful admission.
2 appearances
Purpose
To preserve personal and family memories as tactile keepsakes and visual records of Riker's childhood.
Significance
Functions as the emotional trigger and symbolic clue that exposes a formative wound: the fish photo prompts Riker to admit that his father stole the defining childhood triumph. The images drive his private reckoning about ambition, identity, and the desire to leave the Enterprise, thereby raising the episode's personal stakes.
Appearances in the Narrative
When this object appears and how it's used