Captain Pike returns to the Majalis system for the first time in 10 years. Almost immediately, the Enterprise is called into action: a shuttlecraft is under attack by a warship. Pike uses a warning shot to scare the attackers away — or at least intends to; Cadet Uhura is on the Security rotation this week, and what was meant to be Only a Flesh Wound turns out to be a One-Hit Kill when the enemy ship changes course unexpectedly. Whatever the case, the assailants are dealt with, and Enterprise beams aboard the occupants of the shuttlecraft: a child, a man and a woman, who takes one look at the captain and blurts out, "Lt. Pike?" Even Number One recognizes the Unresolved Sexual Tension.
The woman, Alora, is the president of Majalis and is escorting the child, who is only called the First Servant, back to the planet. He's The Chosen One and will embody the Majalan motto of "Science, Service and Sacrifice" — which, apparently, is why someone was trying to steal him. Alora writes off the attackers, from a nearby planet, as being inconsequential... but La'an, investigating the downed warship, discovers a neural inhibitor helmet, as well as a coin which certifies the bearer as being one of the First Servant's Praetorian Guard. Something is corrupt within Alora's administration. Pike helps her root out the traitor, and, overnight, takes a moment to resolve the sexual tension.
The First Servant and his father, Elder Gamal, remain in Sickbay. Gamal is a doctor, though ever since his son was chosen (by lottery) he has had only one patient. He and the First Servant declare M'Benga's technology as primitive; the First Servant is equipped with quantum bio-implants, far beyond the Federation's Technology Levels. M'Benga asks if such technology could be used to treat other diseases — say, a Delicate and Sickly 11-year-old daughter with cygnokemia he happens to be storing in a pattern buffer — but Elder Gamal rebuffs him, saying that Majalis does not share its technology with outsiders. Of course, he's curt with everyone, including his son, so his gruffness might not mean much.
La'an brings a cache of data chips from the downed warship to Uhura, which she confiscated illegally, and asks her to translate them off the record. Uhura does more than that: she uses the linguistics and syntax to discover that the warship's home port, a colony called Prospect VII, is an offshoot of Majalis. She's also instrumental in unraveling the next plot: Elder Gamal insists on beaming himself and the First Servant down to the planet, only to have them beamed off Enterprise — by someone else — and Gamal himself returned alone. The new warship can't escape the Enterprise's Tractor Beam, but prepares to engage warp in a suicidal run-or-die maneuver. Pike turns off the tractor beam, but it's too late... the ship explodes. Uhura's thorough skepticism helps Pike discover that Gamal was in on the plot, having engineered the death of his son... who is, actually, still alive and in hiding down on Deck 17, where he was stored after having had his Death Faked For Him. This is of some relief to Alora; when the First Servant was believed dead, she declared this The End of the World as We Know It for Majalis, though she declined to explain why that might be so.
The First Servant realizes that he's late for the ascension ceremony and demands he be beamed down; he has a planet to lead and/or save. Pike accompanies him, whilst Number One interrogates Gamal. The formerly distant father breaks down, now a broken Papa Wolf who has failed to save his son. Meanwhile, Pike is invited into the ascension chamber, where he discovers the truth: Majalis, a land of Floating Continents, is Powered by a Forsaken Child... and the First Servant is to take over that role, replacing the former First Servant whose desiccated corpse is being wheeled out. Pike attempts to intervene, but is knocked out by a guard; the First Servant is plugged in, and Majalis stays in the sky.
Afterwards, Alora admits that the Majalans have no idea why their elders built a child-eating machine to keep the place safe, and that her people have struggled with no success to find an alternative, but that in the meanwhile they venerate the child's sacrifice for The Needs of the Many. Nonetheless, Pike subscribes to the "One Heroic Sacrifice is one too many" school of thought, and departs Majalis for the second time in deep, uncomfortable thought. Meanwhile, Elder Gamal decides to leave for the colony on Prospect VII, founded by The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas; they couldn't help him save this one, but maybe he can help them save the next. Before he goes, he teaches Dr. M'Benga some techniques for treating Rukiya.
Tropes:
- And I Must Scream: Implied to be the fate of the First Servant, since he is plugged into a giant computer for an indefinite amount of time before his body can take no more and dies. If the state of his predecessor is anything to go by, they don't seem to age beyond childhood, though whether that's simply them being burned up quickly or an effect of the machine is up for debate.
- At Least I Admit It: Alora tries to defend her society by pointing out that every civilization, including the Federation itself, is willing to tolerate some suffering for the greater good, and that the Majalans make a point of acknowledging that suffering rather than bury it under the rug. Pike doesn't buy it.
- Bittersweet Ending: Pike is unable to save the First Servant from "ascending" — i.e., being mind-jacked into the computer core that maintains the Floating Continent that makes up Majalis. All he can do is report it to Starfleet and the Federation, but even then there's nothing that can be done since it's not a Federation member planet. However, Elder Gamal expresses hope that he and the Prospect VII colonists might be able to save the next First Servant. He also meets with Dr. M'Benga and provides the theory for a treatment for his daughter's illness, the first step towards finding a cure.
- Boom Stick: The spear used as a ceremonial weapon by the Praetorian Guard can also shoot blasts of energy that can disintegrate a person.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Pike imitates La'an when reminding Uhura of her first security lesson."A Rigelian tiger pounces with no warning."
- Child Prodigy: The First Servant seems to know more about subspace technology than Spock.
- The Chosen One: Harshly Deconstructed and Played for Horror, as the First Servant is chosen to be jacked into the system that powers Majalis, draining the poor kid into a desiccated husk.
- Continuity Nod: The warship explodes when it attempts to go to warp while held in a tractor beam. In Star Trek: Lower Decks, the Solvang was destroyed in a similar fashion when it attempted to warp away while a grapple was attached to one of the nacelles.
- Contrived Coincidence: Enterprise happens to be assigned to the Majalan sector at the same time the dissidents are attempting to rescue the First Servant.
- Crapsaccharine World: Majalis (or, at least, the floating city) really does look like a beautiful paradise. Too bad about the whole Powered by a Forsaken Child thing.
- Creative Sterility: In terms of pure math, science and medicine, the Majalans can make Starfleet officers feel infantile. But it seems their entire society is built on Lost Technology from some Precursors and they have given up on trying to modify or improve upon it, tragically in the case of needing to plug children into the system to keep it working. And for all their knowledge, they seemingly can't apply it to create anything that runs independent of their colony, as Majalan starships are pathetic compared to the Enterprise and they can't colonize other worlds at a similar level of technology.
- Cultural Posturing: The people of Majalis like to present themselves as more advanced and capable than the rest of the galaxy, to the point they dislike even interacting with outsiders, and their medical and communications technology indeed far outstrips even that of the Federation. But for all their blustering, and whatever the state of their other technology, they don't understand the Powered by a Forsaken Child device at all; their society is kept from disaster by relics of their forebears they've long since forgotten how to control, replicate, or modify.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The dissident ship may as well be firing spitballs at Enterprise, for all the damage they do (or, rather, don't do). It's then completely disabled by a glancing blow from a single phaser shot at minimum power, and Uhura wasn't even trying to hit them.
- Death Faked for You: Gamal helps the dissidents beam himself and the First Servant off the ship, only to then beam himself back while covertly hiding the First Servant in the lower decks while having the dissident ship explode in an apparent suicide run. It only fails because the child is able to jury-rig a subspace beacon that Spock, based on an earlier conversation, is able to track.
- Death World: Majalis itself is uninhabitable, a mostly molten rock that could never support life. The Majalan settlement hovers above the clouds, where the air is breathable. Prospect VII is a downplayed example; it's a marginally habitable Class-L planet with a difficult climate and chemical makeup.
- Defector from Decadence: The Prospect VII colonists aren't from a different alien species, and aren't attacking the First Servant's retinue to hold him for ransom or for any other venal reason: they're Majalans who can't stomach a luxurious lifestyle that's Powered by a Forsaken Child, and they're trying to rescue him.
- Downer Ending: Hoo boy. The First Servant is jacked into the computer that sustains Majalis, despite Pike's attempt to save him. Any chance of a relationship between Majalis and The Federation is gone, along with any chance of Pike and Rukiya benefitting from their medical science.
- Fatal Flaw: Unfortunately, even the Prospect VII colonists, despite leaving their culture for principled reasons, haven't shaken off the Majalan distrust and distaste for outsiders. In multiple ship engagements with the Enterprise, they repeatedly refuse hails and will not explain themselves, which results in their deaths and the foiling of their mission to save the First Servant.
- Floating Continent: Majalis is a barren planet, and the actual settlement is a series of floating structures above the clouds.
- Friends with Benefits: Implied between Pike and Marie Batel, given that he cheerfully jumps into bed with Alora.
- Gunship Rescue: Enterprise easily disables the warship attacking the First Servant's shuttle.
- Hyperspeed Escape: Averted, when another warship is able to (apparently) capture the First Servant and try to escape, the Enterprise uses a tractor beam to stop them. However, they refuse to surrender and keep fighting the tractor beam, eventually jumping to warp in a desperate attempt to escape. The warship explodes before Enterprise can disengage the tractor beam.
- Hypocrite: Alora compares Majalis to other worlds where some suffer while others live in abundance and says the only difference is "we don't look away". However, Majalis goes to great lengths to deify the First Servant so as to lessen the horror of what they're being asked to do, and the First Servant (based on his reaction to his predecessor) clearly doesn't fully comprehend the fate he's been indoctrinated into accepting, his response that he does so "with joy and gratitude" obviously parroting what he's been told to say. On top of that, the chamber is hidden away from the general public and most aren't allowed to see it. The Majalans may on some level accept what they're doing is monstrous, but clearly put a lot of effort into living in denial.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Inverted as Uhura accidentally lands a direct phaser hit on the warship when she was just supposed to graze it. She apologizes as the warship had taken aim at the Enterprise and moved directly into the phaser beam in the moments between her confirming the target and firing.
- Internal Reveal: Pike tells Alora about his future accident.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Alora is played by Lindy Booth, who costarred with Rebecca Romijn in The Librarians.
- Kill the Cutie: The episode makes the First Servant a likable kid, whose worst quality is that he can be a bit Innocently Insensitive from time to time about the advanced technology of his society (and even then, he goes out of his way to be kind and friendly with Spock and Rukiya, in contrast to his father and most of the other Majalans) so it's all the more devastating when it's revealed what the "sacrifice" portion of his world's motto means.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Judging by the First Servant's quiet "Oh my God" when he sees the corpse of his predecessor being carried out of the chamber, it's implied that nobody told him what the ascension ceremony really entails.
- Lost Technology: The core of Majalis requires a living mind to function, and the Majalans don't understand why their ancestors designed it that way, nor have they been able to find a suitable substitute over the centuries.
- My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: When Pike threatens to tell the Federation and Starfleet what happened on Majalas, Alora just about gloats that her world is not part of the Federation and thus they have no jurisdiction.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Pike and his crew have no way of knowing that their efforts to save the First Servant end up dooming him to a Fate Worse than Death.
- No Name Given: The First Servant's name is never spoken. Given that Servants are chosen at birth, it's possible he doesn't have one.
- Noodle Incident: Pike's Captain's Log mentions that, the last time he was in the Majalan system, he almost got fried by a pulsar.
- No-Sell: The attack ship from the nearby colony inflicts almost no damage to Enterprise, on the order of .02% shield reduction with each hit.
- Oh, Crap!: The First Servant whispers "Oh my God..." when he sees the body of his predecessor being carried away. He's also terrified when he's jacked into the machine.
- Papa Wolf: The First Servant's personal physician is also his father, and he orchestrated the kidnapping attempts in order to save the boy from his fate.
- Parental Neglect: Gamal comes across as distant and snappish with his son, and at first this seems to hold resentment over being forced into his kid's shadow. The Reveal is that he loves his son deeply but cannot allow himself to bond with a child who is scheduled to die.
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: Lampshaded by Una, who cannot believe that communications and transporters can't reach Pike when they have just gotten important information about what's going on on the planet's surface. Of course, this is because the planet has a dampening field up designed to block both.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- For all their heroic efforts to save the First Servant, none of the Majalan dissidents thought to tell Pike or any of the Enterprise crew about his gruesome destiny. As a result, they come off as sinisterly conspiring to kidnap a child. Had the initial ship they encountered responded to hails and explained the reason for their aggression, Pike would at the very least have been forced to consider their position. And had Gamal simply applied for asylum and explained why after being picked up, he'd be in the clear. Ultimately, Gamal and the dissidents are still products of Majalis; a suspicious and insular people. That hasn't necessarily changed just because they're rejecting the idea of a utopia built on human sacrifice.
- Pike is so smitten with Alora that he fails to ask some very basic questions on how Majalis's society works, what is the real function of the First Servant and why are the dissidents so determined to stop the First Servant from ascending. (Later on he tries to ask some questions, but she smoothly deflects them, and he fails to press the issue before it's too late.)
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Majalis's central computer core requires the living neural network of a child to continue running. The modern day Majalans don't know why their ancestors decided on this method, and have tried for centuries to find a work-around or an alternate solution, to no avail.
- Praetorian Guard: Several Mooks are introduced as the guards for the First Servant, and one of them, with his badge of office defaced, turns out to be in on the scheme to try to kidnap the First Servant. It turns out this is because he feels that doing what he's supposed to do is betraying his oath, and he wants to prevent the Human Sacrifice that First Servants undergo.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Alora got the First Servant to where he needed to be and her world is saved, but she's ruined her relationship with Pike and most likely will have the Federation look down on (if not positively despise) them.
- Sarcasm-Blind: When Uhura comes to the bridge, La'an asks if she enjoyed her break. Uhura says that she did. Rule #2 of Security: there are no breaks.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Pike is quite disgusted with Alora when she tells him that she might feel different about her world's way of life, grabbing his communicator and brusquely telling Number One to beam him up.
- Shout-Out: It may or may not be intentional, but the way the Majalan computer core works strongly resembles the Golden Throne from Warhammer 40,000.note
- Spanner in the Works: The Majalan dissidents' attempts to save the First Servant are done in by two things:
- The first is Uhura, who is able to piece together the plan using data chips that La'an illegally retrieved. La'an is quite impressed, given that she followed a security rule that La'an hadn't told her yet: leave no stone unturned.
- The other is the First Servant himself, who is Locked Out of the Loop and thus ends up building a makeshift subspace beacon, which Spock picks up.
- Tempting Fate: After Pike mentions his run-in with a pulsar in his Captain's Log, he expects this mission to be "a lot quieter". Then comes a Standard Starship Scuffle, and things go further south from there.
- Terminally Dependent Society: Majalan technology is completely dependent on having a child as the Wetware CPU to operate it. The Majalan dissidents have technologically regressed because they simply can't recreate any of their advanced technology without that living component.
- Title Drop: Gamal says to Chapel and M'Benga, "On Majalis, we have a saying, 'Let the tree that grows from the roots of sacrifice lift us where suffering cannot reach.'"
- Town with a Dark Secret: Majalis is a seeming paradise with technology superior to the Federation, but all that is dependent on using children to keep their technology running.
- Used Future: In stark contrast to the clean and spotless aesthetic of the rest of the Majalan civilization, the uploading machine for the First Servant is covered in what can be interpreted as either rust or organic residue. Implicitly, this is because they don't like thinking about it too much and don't clean it often, for all their big talk about constantly honoring the First Servant's sacrifice.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: The Majalans aren't blind to the horrors of the system they live in, but see one child as an acceptable sacrifice for the prosperity of the many.
- Villain Has a Point: While Pike and Alora are arguing about the Majalan way of life, Alora points out that people also suffer in the Federation, and others look away from it; at least in Majalis the suffering is limited to one person, and everyone is aware of it and honours the sacrifice. Whether or not the point is fair (the Federation doesn't depend on the suffering of a forsaken minority for its existence), it does leave Pike disturbed into silence.
- Wham Shot: Pike pulls the sheet off a small body in the ascension chamber, revealing the desiccated corpse of a child.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The story sticks quite closely to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, in concept if not theme. Omelas is a thought experiment about a utopia whose paradise hinges on the endless suffering of a small child, with the ones that walk away being those who rejected the idea that a better world had to be built on the suffering of others. The Majalans feed children into their technology for their continued prosperity, and Prospect VII is an entire colony that refused to live by it.
- The Worf Barrage: Heroic inversion. The first sign that the Dissident ship isn't much of a threat to the Enterprise is the absolutely pathetic Scratch Damage it did to the grand dame's shields. And then they keep on futilely plinking her before Uhura's accidental bullseye shot.
- Would Hurt a Child: The whole Majalan civilization is built on hurting one child, so the rest are free of suffering.
- You Are Too Late: Pike tries to rescue the First Servant from being plugged in, but he's outnumbered and is knocked out in the attempt. When he comes to, he's told that even if he did fight his way back to the ascension chamber, removing the child would result in his death. Which he takes at face value.
