This season-ending cliffhanger finds the Enterprise called back to Earth because of artifacts discovered in a cavern. Most of the artifacts are from 19th century Earth except for one - the remains of Data's head apparently left there sometime in the past where Data was destroyed. The crew finds traces of Triallic Waves in the cavern and traces them back to Devidia Two where they find yet another cave - this one inhabited by beings who are slightly out of phase with our universe. Data assists Geordi in building a Sub-Space distorter to align the synchronic distortion. As Data uses the distorter, the beings inhabiting the area use a temporal distorter and Data is caught in the waves and sent to Earth in the late 19th century.
Seizoen 6
The Enterprise is sent to search for a research vessel that had been exploring a strange plasma cloud and lost contact with the Federation. Because of ionization in the cloud, the Enterprise is forced to link their transporter to the research vessel's in order to be able to transport to that ship to investigate the disappearance of its crew. Lt. Barclay turns out to be afraid of transporters but is finally convinced that there is "nothing to be afraid of" in the transporter. On his return voyage from the research vessel however, Barclay sees strange things floating in the beam along with him and one apparently bites him on his arm. He then begins acting rather strangely (even for him) as the crew of the Enterprise continue their investigation into the mystery of the research ship and its missing crew.
The freighter an mediator is travelling on is attacked. This mediator is to settle a peace between two people on the same world who are fighting and threatening Federation shipping routes. This mediator, it is discovered, uses people to "dump" his unwanted emotions onto so that he may remain unincumbered. After his current "receptacle" dies he goes for Deanna and establishes a link with her. She starts showing unusual behaviour and is ageing at an incredible speed. She is taken to sickbay and worried, Dr Crusher does an autopsy on the previous "receptacle" and finds out all about what is happening to their bodies, a side effect of having all those emotions dumped on them. Picard tries to persuade him to stop using her but he refuses. The peace is succesfully attained and Crusher kills Troi so the mediator would break his link with her. He attempts to form a link with her, but Troi is resussitated at a vulnerable point in the linkage and the mediator dies.
The Enterprise discovers a Dyson Sphere and are even more surprised when they find a transport ship, the USS Jenolan, crashed on the surface. They beam over to investigate and find someone still inside the transporter pattern buffer. They rematerialise him and it turns out to be "Scotty". The Enterprise conducts scans of the Sphere and Geordi and Scotty go to the Jenolan to try to get the computers working. The Enterprise discovers a communications antenna and a hatch, but when they try to hail the antenna, they are pulled inside by an automatic piloting beam. The tractor beam interferes with the ships power systems and overloads most of them and they only just manage to put themselves in orbit of the star using maneouvering thrusters. They discover the star is very active which is why the sphere is uninhabited. Scotty and Geordi get the engines on the Jenolan back up and running and use it to hold the hatch open so the Enterprise can escape. Scotty is given one of the Enterprise's shuttlecraft and he leaves to explore the galaxy.
- When Scotty and Geordi are beamed from the Jenolan to the Enterprise, the Jenolan's shields are still up to hold the space door open.
- It was impossible to use the original old bridge of the old Enterprise. The captainschair and the consoles were build by a Star Trek fan and the rest had to be re-constructed.
After Riker's complaints of fatigue, Geordi's VISOR causing him problems, and Worf feeling unusually jumpy, it becomes apparent that an external influence is responsible. Counselor Troi investigates and finds that several crew members have complained of similar symptoms stemming from unsettling dreams. Gradually, using a holodeck recreation of the dream environment programmed by those suffering the unusual effects, a mysterious string of experiments conducted by aliens from within the physical domain of subspace is discovered. As more incidents occur, with the crew powerless to stop them, the experiments become more deadly. Riker, who has been frequently experimented upon by the aliens, volunteers to take part in an experiment of the crew's own to see if the instrusions can be halted.
Worf notes that Lt. Haggerl had just returned to Deck 9, Section 17, yet, seconds later, Dr. Crusher wants a device brought to Deck 9, Section 19.
Student intern Amanda Rogers is transferred to the Enterprise to get a sample of Starfleet duty. An accident occurs in engineering which almost forces Geordi to blow the warp core out of the ship, but Amanda astonishingly reverses the impending catastrophe. Shortly afterward, Q arrives and informs the crew that Amanda is a fledgling Q whose powers, just emerging, are beginning to concern the Q Continuum. The crew is left with no choice but to allow Q to tutor Amanda on matters of the responsibilities involved with possessing godlike powers, since, obviously, none of them have any knowledge on the subject. But it gradually becomes apparent that Q, and his fellow occupants of the Continuum, may not have a benevolent fate in store for the confused Amanda.
A shuttlecraft bringing Picard, Guinan, Ensign Ro and Keiko collides with an energy disturbance, necessitating an emergency rescue via transporter. But the energy field disrupts transport, and the passengers from the shuttle arrive as children, though their minds are unaffected. They find it difficult to adjust - Picard worries about his lack of command presence, Ro despises being relieved of duty, and O'Brien can't cope with Keiko's sudden reversion to youth. Guinan, however, seems to be enjoying herself. The ship continues on a course to respond to a distress call from a science team. On arrival at the site, the Enterprise is attacked by two Klingon ships which have been taken over by Ferengi. The Ferengi board the Enterprise and begin beaming the crew off to serve, along with the captured science team, as slave laborers. The Ferengi refuse any compromise, but Captain Picard and the other "youngsters" may be able to salvage the situation.
A scheduled maintenance layover allows the crew to indulge in some leisure activities, much to the dismay of Worf, who, without any duties to use as an excuse, must oblige Alexander by joining him for a wild west adventure on the holodeck with Troi. Meanwhile, Data and Geordi experience a malfunction during a test of Data's ability to interface with the ship's main computer, though they do not initially realize the extent of the malfunction. Shipwide computer errors occur, ranging from Spot's cat food being dispensed from every food slot, to images of Data replacing Worf's holodeck nemesis and kidnapping Alexander to hold the boy for a ransom. By the time Geordi begins effecting repairs, Worf is committed to a shootout with a holodeck villain who has Data's agility and precision.
The Enterprise arrives at Tyrus 7A to observe a new experimental method of mining, the particle fountain, which uses a stream of high-density particles to extract and lift planet-based ore from an orbiting station. A malfunction occurs while Geordi is visiting the station, and Dr. Farallon, the ambitious head of the particle fountain project, introduces her other innovation, a small repair robot called an exo-comp, which is able to correct the problem almost instantly. Later, while Data is visiting the station, another accident happens and Data notices an exo-comp exhibiting a will to survive. Data hypothesizes that the exo-comps are living beings with their own intelligence, and possibly the beginnings of sentience. But when he asked to prove that the exo-comps are alive, one of them appears to fail a test on the Enterprise, but has actually realized that it is being tested, and is therefore intelligent and alive, though Dr. Farallon refuses to acknowledge the exo-comps' status. A crisis strands Picard and Geordi on the station, endangered by rising radiation levels, and Farallon proposes a solution which would amount to a suicide mission for the exo-comps. When the crew prepares to implement the solution and save Picard and Geordi, Data stands in the way of the rescue operation to protect the exo-comps' rights.
Near the border of Cardassian space, Picard is unexpectedly reassigned by Starfleet. There are indications that the Cardassians are mobilizing for war with the Federation. Picard, Dr. Crusher and Worf get ready for a mission they can't speak about to anyone. Captain Jellico, now in command of the Enterprise, doesn't score any points with the crew in his unusual demands that the ship be made combat ready. En route to Celtris III Picard tells Worf and Dr. Crusher that the Cardassians may be perfecting a nearly invincible new form of biological warfare. Meanwhile at the border, Jellico begins talks with Cardassian representatives which confuse them and the Enterprise's officers. On Celtris III, Picard's team find themselves in a trap. Crusher and a wounded Worf escape a Cardassian ambush, but Picard is captured and taken to Gul Madred, who has alarming foreknowledge of their attempt to gather intelligence. And the interrogation of Picard begins...
Cardassian representative Gul Lemec reveals to Jellico that Picard has been captured on Celtris III. Under interrogation by Gul Madred, Picard is tortured in the Cardassians' attempt to find out more about the defenses of Minos Korva, a planet once sought by the Cardassians in their war with the Federation. On the Enterprise, Jellico prepares for all-out war in the event of a collapse of diplomatic relations, but meets with open disapproval from Riker. Jellico relieves Riker of his duties and continues to deny that Picard's mission was ordered by Starfleet, which disqualifies Picard from the terms of the Federation-Cardassian treaty concerning fair treatment of prisoners of war. Picard resists further torture but is pushed to the limits of his endurance while Gul Madred continues to question him about Minos Korva, of which Picard knows nothing. Meanwhile, Jellico confronts the Cardassians and calls their bluff after discovering a flotilla of their warships hiding near Minos Korva. He successfully demands a withdrawal and the release of Picard. Returned to the Enterprise, Picard resumes command, but all is not normal after his experience at the hands of the Cardassians.
As the Enterprise is en route to witness the collision of two gaseous planets, Data and Geordi visit the London of Sherlock Holmes, noticing small program anomalies. Barclay checks the holodeck's programming and unwittingly reactivates a program which had been created and put into storage four years before when Moriarty, in another Holmes program, evolved into Data's ideal adversary. Moriarty demands to talk to Picard. Unknown to the crew, he has been alive and aware in the computer's memory the whole time, and he defies the laws of physics by stepping out of the holodeck and roaming the Enterprise. Moriarty asks that a Countess with whom he fell in love in the course of another holodeck program be brought to life to accompany him, but Picard is reluctant, preferring instead to research just how Moriarty has achieved corporeal existence, and to determine whether or not the professor intends to continue his legendary criminal activities. As it turns out, Moriarty is indeed planning on attempting a swindle of an immense scale - but Picard means to see that Moriarty's scheme is limited to the scale of the holodeck.
When Picard walks into the holodeck he is wearing his open coat with the blue shirt, but he walks out wearing his one-piece red shirt.
The Enterprise crew begins an investigation when the crew of a Federation communications relay station near the Klingon border is discovered to be missing, and there are signs on the station that someone has been killed with a phaser set on high power. Someone has taken the station's shuttle, and records of certain subspace transmissions have been taken. In the course of the investigation, Geordi goes through the logs of Lt. Aquiel Uhnari, searching for clues about what happened on the station. There are signs that she had experienced personality conflicts with the station's senior officer and only other occupant, and her logs mention visits from a belligerent Klingon. The Klingon is located by Picard, and the Klingons reveal that they have found Lt. Uhnari in the station's missing shuttle. Geordi, who has come to "know" Aquiel through her logs, becomes personally involved in the investigation of the apparent murder of her superior officer on the station, but he has a hard time separating his responsibility to solving the mystery from his personal feelings.
Counselor Troi, waking up after being kidnapped from a neuro-psychology seminar, finds herself aboard a Romulan Warbird, posing as a member of Romulan intelligence to participate in a carefully plotted defection attempt by a Vice-Proconsul of the Romulan High Council. With the clandestine guidance of a member of the Romulan crew, Troi plays her role convincingly. In the meantime, a former human defector to Romulus returns to the Federation and arrives on the Enterprise with a message to Picard from Ambassador Spock, who remains in hiding on Romulus assisting defectors and dissidents. The message sends an unwitting Picard to rendezvous with the ship carrying Troi and the defector, an encounter which forces Troi to make a split-second decision to either break with the intricate plans of the defection scheme, or to follow her Romulan confidant into what may be a trap.
After a diplomatic meeting with aliens goes drastically wrong and ends in an exchange of fire, an away team is beamed into sick bay with a dying Picard. As Dr. Crusher tries desperately to resuscitate Picard, a near-death vision begins in Picard's mind...or so he thinks, until Q is revealed to be behind it. Q informs Picard that his artificial heart - which Picard gained after, as a newly-commissioned ensign 30 years before, he instigated a brawl with three huge Nausicaans and got stabbed through the heart - is the cause of his death in the present. Q tempts Picard with the opportunity to change his personal history by depositing Picard's current consciousness in the body of Ensign Picard within a few days of his fateful encounter with the Nausicaans. Picard must weigh the moral implications of changing the past to ensure his present survival against adhering to the tragic dictates of his destiny.
The Enterprise makes a stop at Deep Space 9 to assist the station crew in rebuilding the Bajoran aquaduct system destroyed by the Cardassians when they left the station. Dr. Bashir is caught by Data using the Enterprise computer system to analyze medical equipment discovered in the Gamma quadrant. During their investigation, Data is struck by an energy beam from the equipment causing him to lose consciousness and experience a dormant program installed by his creator that was meant to be activated when Data achieved a certain level of development. Meanwhile, Worf meets an alien, Shrek, in the promenade who convinces Worf that his father did not die at Kitomer but instead is living as a prisoner of the Romulans. Worf travels with Shrek to the prison planet in an attempt to find his father.
- When Data first started painting, you could hear his furious little brush strokes against the canvas (whish whish whish!). But when he stopped painting and stepped back to view his work, you could *still* hear the brush strokes (whish whish whish)!
- During Data's second dream, a stage worker can be seen be seen in a corridor on the left of Doctor Soon.
- After Bashir says "Sweet Dreams", watch as he walks away, he's wearing white sneakers.
Worf is trapped in what was once a Romulan prison camp, and though he is not allowed to leave, he discovers that the Romulan and Klingon occupants of the planet have sacrificed any futures they might have had among their own people to settle down into peaceful co-existence, in some cases producing children. Worf befriends Gi'ral, a Klingon-Romulan girl who seems more fascinated with him. He discovers, through her and a young Klingon boy named Toq, that the children of the colony know little or nothing of either race's heritage. Worf intends to remedy what he perceives as a lack of cultural education, even at the risk of dividing the loyalties of the camp's residents.
The Enterprise stops at the Remler Array for a routine decontamination sweep. The sweep, however, requires the evacuation of the ship, since it will be conducted with a beam that is deadly to living tissue. At a nearby starbase, most of the crew tries to avoid Commander Hutchinson, an interminably boring officer hosting a reception. At the mention of horses on the planet, Picard decides to return to the Enterprise briefly to get his saddle, but while there, he notices that unauthorized modifications have been made by a team posing as starbase technicians. As the sweep begins with the aft end of the ship and moves slowly forward, Picard prepares to beam back to the starbase to warn security, but ship's power is cut off due to the sweep, leaving Picard trapped on the ship with an unknown group of hostiles. Meanwhile, on the starbase, the rest of the Enterprise's officers are taken hostage, and it becomes obvious that there is a well co-ordinated plan underway which involves the Enterprise.
Tim Russ (Lieutenant Tuvok in Voyager) plays Pel Orton.
When he goes to the Enterprise's stellar cartography department to ask why their latest experiment is diverting power from nearly every system on the ship, Picard meets Lt. Commander Daren, a new member of the crew who intrigues him with her honesty and unpredictability. They begin to form a relationship, and Picard worries that the rest of the crew might misinterpret that relationship, interfering with his command. But depending on the outcome of hazardous away team duty on Bersallis III, Picard and Daren may not have long to explore what this new development in their lives means.
Picard's old professor pays a visit to the Enterprise and attempts to convince the captain to leave his post and join him on an expedition to new worlds. The professor claims to be on the verge of a remarkable discovery, but will not share the details with the captain unless the captain joins him. Picard declines, and professor Galen leaves the ship but sends a distress call some time later when his ship is attacked by a strange vessel. Professor Galen is killed in the attack and captain Picard continues following Galen's discovery - something that the Cardassians, the Klingons and the Romulans are all interested in.
Riker's rehearsals for an upcoming play about a man in an insane asylum, not to mention his preparations for an impending undercover mission on a planet divided by warring factions, are punctuated by feelings of paranoia he can't explain, as well as the periodic appearance of an apparently new officer whose presence makes Riker nervous. But after the performance of the play, Riker suddenly finds that he is indeed in an asylum - though even this perception becomes tenuous. Terrified of losing his grip on sanity, Riker starts clawing through layers of illusions in an attempt to get back to reality.
A Ferengi scientist (Rega) has developed a device capable of protecting a ship inside a sun's corona. His theory is not accepted by his fellow scientists at a scientific conference which Beverly Crusher attended. However, Dr. Crusher believes in the theory and wants to give him a chance to prove himself so she invites several scientists to the Enterprise to test the theory. Only a few of all invited attend - Kurak, Jo'Bril, Christopher and T'Pan. In the first test of the device, the pilot of the shuttlecraft, Jo'Bril dies and Dr. Rega and his theory are discredited leading Beverly to an investigation of the failed experiment and Dr. Rega's subsequent mysterious death, that could cost her her career.
Worf journeys to Boreth, where devout Klingons meditate in hope of glimpsing a vision of Kahless, the legendary leader of all Klingons and the originator of their hereditary quest for honor and glory. Worf and many of the others are surprised when Kahless actually appears and announces his intention to return to the imperial throne and put the Klingon Empire back on a path toward honor. Worf is skeptical at first, but when Gowron, the Empire's current leader, demands a genetic test which proves that the new arrival is indeed Kahless, a deep division separating skeptics and those who wish to follow Kahless seems imminent.
Returning to a planet that a Starfleet research party hastily abandoned eight years ago, an away team finds Lt. Will Riker, a copy of Riker created by a transporter anomaly during his participation in the original evacuation. This Riker has never been assigned to the Enterprise, nor has he resolved his relationship with Troi as the 'real' Riker, and his isolation has resulted in a very different personality from the Riker who has served on the Enterprise for six years. His motivations, discipline and judgment differ from his higher-ranking alter-ego, and the two Rikers must stop seeing each other's perceived failings long enough to assist one another in a dangerous salvage mission.
Returning via runabout from a Starfleet conference, Picard, Troi, Geordi and Data encounter strange disturbances in time that seem to have limited physical range. Finally locating the Enterprise, they find her in some kind of exchange of fire with a Romulan warbird, in a zone of time that moves so slowly it appears to be still. Altering escape equipment to allow freedom of movement in the other areas of time, Picard and the others try to determine whether the Enterprise was invaded by Romulans, or if it was simply caught in a rescue attempt gone wrong - and whether or not they can restart the flow of time without bringing events to their inevitably disastrous end.
This cliffhanger finale to the sixth season finds the Enterprise in combat once more with the Borg but, this time, the Borg are different. They have become individuals and have changed their tactics confusing the crew of the Enterprise. When one of the Borg is captured, they discover that the Borg are now lead by someone who has taught them new ideas. Meanwhile, Data is confronted with the emergence of a new experience - emotion. While fighting the Borg, Data gets 'angry' and kills one of the Borg and later admits that he felt 'pleasure' in it. He is very confused by the new experiences and seeks to understand them better. When the captured Borg offers him an explanation, Data helps him escape the ship in a shuttlecraft. When the Enterprise follows, they discover the Borg on a remote planet and discover who is behind the new and deadlier Borg.