Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S6E16 "Starship Mine"

• Why didn't Picard yell at the ceiling to tell the computer to cancel its planned shutdown instead of frantically trying to use the transporter?
  • Timing. The Remmler Array was going to start the baryon sweep on schedule whether the computer systems were shut off or not, and presumably it's a bad idea to start sweeping an active computer system with a wave of irradiated plasma. It wouldn't be enough to pause the shutdown of the Enterprise systems; he'd have to contact the Array and get them to pause the sweep as well. He simply didn't have enough time. Or possibly enough presence of mind; he was in full fight-or-flight mode, after all.
• If we are going by the idea that Trilithium Resin is a byproduct of warp cores, shouldn't all warp cores (or at least all Federation warp cores, including civilian ones) have the substance readily available (including on the escape ship) for use as an explosive? So shouldn't have the terrorists just collected it from their own engines?
  • It's not just a question of availability; it's a question of volume. The Enterprise is a massive, top-of-the-line Federation vessel. The amount of trilithium resin they could harvest in one go would make it worth the effort. A smaller civilian engine would produce far less byproduct, and the resin is so unstable that just squirreling it away until you hoard enough to sell would be impractical and dangerous. It was a "Big Score" opportunity that Kelsey couldn't pass up.
  • It also may be a question of quality. Starfleet ships and their what is essentially military-grade warp cores may produce much more powerful trilithium resin than smaller civilian craft. Remember, the Enterprise can cruise in excess of warp nine for semi-sustained periods, while civilian ships seem to stick to around warp five or six.
• A more interesting question is just how much byproduct the Enterprise warp core produces, that they thought they could steal a sizeable amount and not have anyone notice; presumably removing the trilithium waste is also a regular maintenance procedure, and there's probably a reasonable expectation of the amount of product to expect. Maybe they figured they'd be long gone by the time anyone figured it out, so it didn't matter.
• At the end of the episode, Picard calls the Arkaria base in his comm badge and asks them to turn off the baryon sweep. If he could contact them, why didn't he attemp to do so earlier?
  • It could be that Picard simply didn't know he could with the type of communicator Kelsey's crew was using. He only started trying to raise the Arkaria base out of sheer desperation when the sweep caught up with him; he probably wasn't sure if it would work.
  • It's also possible that Picard figured out that for Kelsey's plan to fully work, she would need someone on the inside down on Arkaria base. Picard probably figured out that the administrator likely couldn't be trusted with not giving away his location if he contacted the base directly.
  • It could also be that Picard needed the baryon sweep as an active threat to use against the terrorists/thieves. If he couldn't stop them from stealing this highly volatile and powerful explosive substance, then the sweep would. He only requested the sweep be cancelled once all Kelsey's team were either dead or otherwise unable to be dealt with by him or the sweep.
• Why bother taking hostages on the surface at all? Were it not Picard, wouldn't the bad guys have stolen their payload from the Enterprise and warped safely away long before anyone realized that they were there?
  • Taking hostages on the surface was never the plan. Troi makes a point of noting Orton's emotional state, and deduces that his part in the heist has gone off the rails. Whatever Orton's original purpose for having some hidden weapons in the reception hall had been, it was out the window the moment LaForge noticed them. Shooting LaForge and Hutchinson was a reaction of blind panic, and after that there was no going back. Taking the rest of the crew hostage was a Plan B that was thought up in the spur of the moment. Orton didn't have any idea what to do next other than just keep everyone under control and wait for the getaway ship.
    • To refine the original question, why have Orton involved at all, much less with weapons at his disposal? What exactly was his part in the plan?
    • Most likely, Orton was Kelsey's "Inside Man." As a station administrator he could get her crew aboard the Enterprise disguised as a maintenance team. As to why he had weapons, again, we just don't know. Whatever he originally planned to do with them was out the window the minute LaForge found them.
    • The bad guys on the ship have no excuse. They should have just shot Picard. Instead, they waste time and personnel trying to capture, guard, and recapture him. Their refusal to just shoot him leads to the failure of their heist and all their deaths. The leader would much rather shoot her own people who are trying to help her.
• Saddles are usually made of leather; Picard's appears to also have sheepskin. Both of these are organic substances. Assuming Picard's saddle is not some synthetic material (and why would it be, considering he makes such a laborious point about its authenticity), shouldn't it have been destroyed by the baryon sweep?
  • Maybe it's only living, unaltered organic material. Sheepskin and leather go through a lot of processing and chemical treatments, so they're hardly organic anymore.
    • That would also explain why it doesn't also dissolve the tactical console and various other wooden furniture around the ship — which background material suggests is real wood.
  • As I recall, the Baryon sweep was noted to be lethal but not necessarily destructive. For all we know there's a couple of perfectly preserved corpses lying around at the end of the episode.

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