Plot
The Federation starship Enterprise is sent to the inhospitable planet Nervala IV to retrieve data from a Federation research base that was abandoned about eight years earlier due to the onset of a disruption field that prevented transporter use. Commander Riker is chosen to lead the team, having been part of the rescue team that helped to evacuate the base; Riker notes that during that mission he was the last person to be beamed out to the Potemkin, where he was then serving.
Using a break in the disruption field, the away team beams down and discovers a man who appears exactly like Riker. He says that he is Riker, and has been living alone on the base for eight years ever since the Potemkin was unable to transport him back aboard (and so he must have been presumed lost). He is a Starfleet lieutenant, Cdr. Riker's rank before he was promoted as a result of this mission.
Returning to the Enterprise, Dr. Crusher determines that this person is truly a second Riker; Chief Engineer La Forge postulates that years before, when Riker was being beamed off the planet, the Potemkin had split the transporter beam to cut through the distortions, but one beam was reflected back to the base, so that Riker materialized in both places.
Cdr. Riker suggests that Lt. Riker join them on a second attempt to recover the data. At the base, their personality styles conflict, and the attempt ends in failure when Lt. Riker refuses to follow Cdr. Riker's orders. Cdr. Data postulates that the two men are resentful towards each other due to the loss of their sense of uniqueness.
As they work out a third attempt to recover the data, Lt. Riker tries to learn about what he has missed, and attempts to rekindle his previous relationship with Ship's Counselor Deanna Troi. Troi is initially hesitant but then considers it a second chance after her former relationship with Cdr. Riker waned. They enjoy their time together; and Lt. Riker suggests leaving the Enterprise together for a new posting. Troi tells him she will have to think about it.
For their third attempt, Captain Picard selects Lt. Riker's plan over Cdr. Riker's, leaving Cdr. Riker further upset. The plan to get the data is successful, but on the way out, a walkway collapses, threatening Lt. Riker's life. Though Lt. Riker tells Cdr. Riker to leave him be, Cdr. Riker saves his double, and both safely return to the Enterprise.
The two Rikers reconcile their differences; Lt. Riker states that he has been given a new assignment, and plans to take on his middle name "Thomas" to distinguish himself from William. As a parting gift, Cdr. Riker gives his double his treasured trombone, noting that it belongs equally to him. Troi also tells Lt. Riker that she will be staying on the Enterprise, but thanks him for the time they had.
Read more about this topic: Second Chances (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)