Original air date: February 3, 1992
The Enterprise must save a closed human colony that practices eugenics to predetermine everyone's role despite the resistance of the colonists themselves.
A fragment from a neutron star threatens to cause massive geological upheaval on the planet Moab IV as it passes by. To the crew's surprise, the planet is occupied by an unknown colony of humans. They ignore the ship until Picard warns them of the impending danger, at which point he's answered by the colony's leader, Aaron Conor, who invites an away team to the colony to discuss matters.
The colony turns out to be an idyllic society living in a small biosphere. Conor explains that they practice strict isolation and eugenics so that every member is genetically prefect and excels at their intended function. They are all leery of outside influence and contamination. Conor recognizes the danger of the star fragment but insists on finding a solution other than evacuation, wanting to preserve his perfect society at all costs.
The colony allows its top scientist Hannah Bates to beam aboard the Enterprise to help Geordi come up with a solution. Geordi is offended by the notion of a society that would have aborted him for the imperfection of his blindness but puts it aside to work with Bates. Meanwhile, Troi gets to know Conor, who explains the benefits of being bred for your vocation and knowing exactly what your true calling is. When Troi discusses his perspective with Picard, the captain dismisses it, saying that uncertainty and discovery are part of being human.
Troi's relationship with Conor progresses to the point that Troi realizes she could fall in love with him, but their relationship is doomed because the colony would never accept her Betazoid genetics. She also recognizes that she's influencing his behavior. When Bates and Geordi announce that they need fifty Starfleet crewmen to enter the colony to help with their efforts, Conor reluctantly agrees to this massive violation of their strictures.
Bates and Geordi use a modified tractor beam to move the star fragment out of danger, ironically basing their design on Geordi's VISOR technology. The plan succeeds, but Bates announces that the colony's biosphere has been cracked, requiring them to evacuate after all. Geordi confronts her, saying that he cannot detect this breach, and she admits that she faked it. Working with Starfleet's technology, far more advanced than her own, has caused her to doubt the value of her colony's isolation. She requests asylum on the ship and says that others who wish to leave should also be granted the opportunity.
Because each member plays a necessary role in the colony, any departure would cause serious damage to the whole. The departure of Bates and others would thus create an existential threat to the colony itself. Picard is caught between respecting the wishes of individuals and trying to minimize damage to the society they tried to save. Picard, Bates and Conor address the issue in a public forum, where Conor suggests waiting six months to prevent hasty decisions, but Bates refuses. Conor finally agrees to allow any colonists who wish it to leave, saying that they will always be welcome back. Troi apologizes for the damage her visit has caused, but Conor admits that he loves Troi and would do it all again.
The ship leaves with 23 colonists, and Picard states that this sort of circumstance is exactly what the Prime Directive strives to avoid, even though it doesn't technically apply in this case because the colonists are human. He notes that, good intentions or not, his ship's arrival may have been just as destructive as the star fragment.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Bittersweet Ending: The crew saves the colony from destruction, but their interference causes a number of colonists to depart and could put the rest of the society in dire straits. Picard wonders if they've been as destructive as the fragment would have been in the long run.
- Broken Pedestal: Hannah was quite happy on the colony, but she notes how what she's seen on the Enterprise far eclipses anything that she, someone bred to be a perfect scientist, ever considered. Other members of the colony also opt to leave because they're curious about what the galaxy is like.
- Bury Your Disabled: Discussed. Geordi mentions that on Genome colony, he'd have been aborted as just a zygote due to the colonists terminating those with detectable disabilities before birth.
- Call-Back: Geordi says that the Enterprise can move a small moon with its Tractor Beam. They tried just that two years ago and might've succeeded had the Calamarain not interfered.
- The Chains of Commanding: Conor chafes over doing what is needed for his people and abiding by their most sacred beliefs, especially when his feelings for Troi develop. In the end, he would rather none of the colonists leave, but he would especially prefer that Picard be the one to deny them since that would be so much easier. Picard notes that only Conor can make a decision affecting his own colony. Ultimately, Conor decides to let people depart and try to hold things together in the meantime.
- Chekhov's Gun: While working with Hannah, Geordi takes his VISOR off for a much needed break. This leads to a discussion about he would've fared in the colony's society and how the VISOR works. It's through the course of this that Geordi figures out the solution to the problem. Later, the VISOR is also how Geordi realizes that Hannah is faking a biosphere breach.Hannah: The damn thing doesn't miss much, does it?
- Commander Contrarian: Martin Benbeck, who argues against anything that might affect the balance of the colony—though, as Aaron Conor admits, he is doing his job.
- Cult Colony: While their governing philosophy is secular rather than religious, Moab IV otherwise displays all the attributes of this trope. People are eugenically-bred for specific roles and socialized from birth to accept their philosophy as the "perfect" form of human society. Although they came to the planet via warp-capable starship, they do not maintain any space travel technology and have deliberately avoided even communicating with the rest of humanity because their social experiment only works properly if all outside contact is prevented. The arrival of the Enterprise disrupts their delicate system.
- Didn't See That Coming: The ball gets rolling when Riker reports that there's a colony with human lifesigns on Moab IV.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Geordi states that if he had been conceived on Moab IV, he would have been terminated when he was still an embryo due to the colony not tolerating the "imperfection" of his blindness. This parallels the debate over the bioethics of elective abortions due to genetic diseases.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Geordi goes from explaining his blindness to one of the colonists, to realizing that the technology in his VISOR can be reverse-engineered to solve the episode's problem. He also lampshades the irony of technology made to help the blind being the one thing that can save a society that genetically engineer themselves to eradicate disability.
- Failsafe Failure: An interesting biological/sociological case in the colony itself. Every single individual is specifically bred and trained for a particular function. Because illness is basically nonexistent and accidents are rare, there has been no need for much redundancy. Thus the loss of even one person would be disruptive, and losing multiple people potentially catastrophic. Conor compares the whole thing to Humpty Dumpty.
- Fantastic Racism: The Moab IV colonists truly believe themselves to be superior to other humans, lacking any genetic flaws and being perfectly designed for their function in society. That doesn't stop Aaron Conor from falling in love with Troi, however.
- Foreshadowing: Conor agrees to accept help since his people will otherwise be doomed, but he admits he's also curious to actually see the transporter (a device the colonists didn't think was possible) in action. Curiosity about the outside world and what's in it will end up being just as important as the stellar core fragment.
- Informed Attribute: The inhabitants of the Genome colony don't really come across as being at all superior to other humans, and they are definitely a great deal less advanced than the Federation overall. They just seem more culturally hidebound and individually specialized to their jobs, which could be cultural conditioning as much as genetic. This becomes important in the end, as some colonists recognize their closed-off society lags far behind the rest of the galaxy in such ways as technology.
- Irony:
- Geordi's VISOR, a prosthesis for a genetic defect, provides the technological salvation to the colony that aborts any instance of genetic abnormality.
- During the discussion about granting asylum to those who wish to leave the colony, some of the senior staff wonder if they've ultimately done more harm than good this time. When Worf says they saved the colony from destruction, Picard questions if they really did and feels they just brought about the destruction in a different way.
- When telling Geordi why she wants to leave the colony, Hannah talks about how she was bred to be among the colony's scientific elite, yet in less than a week, she's seen an assortment of technology that her people considered impossible. She questions how people who are supposedly perfect never developed such material.
- Loophole Abuse: When Picard starts questioning whether their involvement is detrimental to the colony and that this would normally be a Prime Directive situation, Riker points out that since these people are the descendants of humans from Earth, the Prime Directive does not apply to them. Picard himself notes that whatever he may feel about the issue, legally he is obligated to provide transport to any of the colonists that want to leave even if it causes problems for the society.
- Meaningful Background Event: As Hannah evaluates the supposed biosphere breach, Geordi stays in the background and eyes her suspiciously. He knows she's faking it.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Picard doesn't approve of the genetically engineered breeding one bit, but he and Troi still feel remorse at upsetting the balance of the colony by the end—after all, whether or not they agree with how they live their lives, it's still affecting lives here.
- "Not So Different" Remark: During the debate over people getting to leave the colony, Picard gets hit with one from Hannah.Hannah: Would you ever choose to live aboard a ship in a bottle, Captain? You are in command of a starship. You live to explore the unknown. We ask for that same privilege.
- Planet of Hats/Planetville: The entire colony literally consists of a single hermetically-sealed arcology populated by a small group of humans who have been eugenically bred to fill specific roles in their society.
- Race Against the Clock: The crew have six days to do something about the stellar core fragment or else the colony will be destroyed. They get it done with one day to spare, but that's followed by the problem of some colonists wanting to leave.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Conor wants to hold the colony together, but ultimately, he won't stop Hannah and others from departing. He even says they'll always be welcome here.
- By the same token, Picard is insistent that he cannot deny someone's request for help and that he won't be the bad guy, but he also argues Conor's side of the situation. He implores people to not make any rash decisions based on a few days of superficial sights.
