History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E5LoudAsAWhisper

* ReconcileTheBitterFoes: After fifteen centuries of war, the Solari calls for Riva to lead the peace negotiations. [[spoiler:The episode ends with Riva intending to teach both sides his sign language to communicate with him, and hopefully with each other.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Riva, talking about deafness in his family, says "it is similar to the House of Hanover of your planet Earth, all who had haemophilia". However:
** The royal house status goes by male line only; haemophilia, being a recessive X chromosome gene, almost always goes only by female line (but only affects males), the exception being that a male haemophiliac who has children (which was rare until the mid 1900s) pass the gene to all his daughters and none of his sons.[[note]]The above explanation of the genetics of Haemophilia doesn't apply to type C, the rarest type. However, the family tree indicating who had Haemophilia '''does''' match the genetic information above.[[/note]] So haemophilia could not possibly go down a royal house.
** There actually were several haemophiliacs in European royalty. The source was a mutated gene in Queen Victoria, who was from the House of Hanover. It did not affect her; however, it did affect one of her sons (even he wasn't a Hanover), one of the sons of his daughter, and 7 grandsons and great grandsons of Queen Victoria through 2 of her daughters. None of them were from the House of Hanover.

** Queen Victoria wasn't even the first British monarch from the House of Hanover. She came after George I, George II, her grandfather George III, and her uncles George IV and William IV.

The ''Enterprise'' gets orders to transport a mediator named Riva to Solais V to bring an end to a bitter war. Upon meeting him, the crew learns that he is deaf and speaks through three interpreters who communicate with him telepathically. Riva immediately finds himself taken with Counselor Troi and bonds with her over dinner.

* BreakTheHaughty: Okay, it's not like Riva was a dick or anything, but he was pretty overconfident in his abilities to defuse a war (especially considering the warring factions in question had been at it for '''fifteen centuries'''). Either way, once his entire chorus gets wiped out right in front of him, his confidence and cool veneer is completely shattered.

** The royal house status goes by male line only; haemophilia, being a recessive X chromosome gene, almost always goes only by female line (but only affects males), the exception being that a male haemophiliac who has children (which was rare until the mid 1900s) pass the gene to all his daughters and none of his sons.[[note:The above explanation of the genetics of Haemophilia doesn't apply to type C, the rarest type. However, the family tree indicating who had Haemophilia '''does''' match the genetic information above.[[/note]] So haemophilia could not possibly go down a royal house.

** The royal house status goes by male line only; haemophilia, being a recessive X chromosome gene, almost always goes only by female line (but only affects males), the exception being that a male haemophiliac who has children (which was rare until the mid 1900s) pass the gene to all his daughters and none of his sons. So haemophilia could not possibly go down a royal house.

* ReconcileTheBitterFoes: After fifteen centuries of war, the Solari calls for Riva to lead the peace negotiations. [[spoiler: The episode ends with Riva intending to teach both sides his sign language to communicate with him, and hopefully with each other.]]

* [[AliensSpeakingEnglish Aliens Speaking ASL]]: Despite him being from another planet, Riva's sign language is seemingly identical to American Sign Language -- which is understandable, as it's Howie Seago's native language, but doesn't make much sense in-universe. Since the Universal Translator doesn't really work as an explanation,[[labelnote:*]] it ''might'' be designed to work on sign languages, but why translate a language the user doesn't understand into ''another'' one they don't understand?[[/labelnote]] we can only guess that TranslationConvention may be in effect.

* HiveMind: Consisting of only four people. Riva's chorus represent his [[PowerTrio Ego, Superego and Id]], with each speaking Riva's thoughts that most closely correspond to those aspects of his mind. It can also be turned off and on at will--Riva brings only the Id voice to his dinner date with Troi, then dismisses him to communicate alone.

* AbortedArc: One scene features Dr. Pulaski offering to grow new human eyes for Geordi, who leaves saying he'll think about it. This is never brought up again. No reason; they just needed to pad the episode a bit.

* TenMinuteRetirement: Riva's refusal to return to the negotiations.

The ''Enterprise'' gets orders to transport a mediator named Riva to Solais V to bring an end to a bitter war. Upon meeting him, the crew learns that he is deaf, and speaks through three interpreters that communicate with him telepathically. Riva immediately finds himself taken with Counselor Troi and bonds with her over dinner.

Upon reaching Solais V, Riva beams down to settle the dispute with only Riker and Worf as security, reasoning that bringing anyone else will only increase tensions. But only moments after arriving (before they even have the table set up) one of the natives becomes angry and fires at Riva, somehow killing all three of his interpreters with one shot when Riker pulls him out of the way. After beaming out, Riva becomes despondent and loses faith in his ability to mediate a peace. Even after Data learns his sign language he insists that he cannot be an effective mediator without his interpreters.

Counselor Troi tells Riva that she will handle the negotiations herself and asks his advice. He tells her that he didn’t have a secret trick to negotiating, he merely found something in common between the two sides and worked from there. He also says that he liked to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Troi asks why he can’t do that now, and it gives him an idea. He beams down to the planet again to renew the negotiations. When Riker asks him how the natives will understand him without his interpreters, he explains that he intends to begin the negotiations by teaching the natives his sign language. As they learn to communicate with him, they will learn to communicate with each other, giving them common ground to start from. He gives the ''Enterprise'' permission to leave him behind, stating that the peace talks will be a long process, but he believes they will be successful.

* MoodWhiplash: The episode takes a deliberately slow pace in the first half, in order to build up the mystique around Riva and his chorus. The result is that the tragedy that happens in the first negotiation attempt becomes that much more of a shock.

* TheSpeechless: Riva's deafness is hereditary, and having grown up with his chorus, he doesn't speak. In the script it's said he doesn't even know how to read or write either.

* BreakTheHaughty: Okay, it's not like Riva was a dick or anything, but he was pretty overconfident in his abilities to diffuse a war (especially considering the warring factions in question had been at it for '''fifteen centuries'''). Either way, once his entire chorus gets wiped out right in front of him, his confidence and cool veneer is completely shattered.

* FeeFiFauxPas: When meeting Riva, Picard attempts to address the chorus instead of Riva, offending him. He later explains to Riker to treat the chorus as interpreters and thus address Rica directly.

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