Line #6 Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E18Allegiance


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tng_allegiance.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:There is an imposter among us...[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E6LonelyAmongUs Again!]]]]
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4	'''Original air date:''' March 26, 1990
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6	Captain Picard is relaxing in his quarters when suddenly a monolith structure appears over him and teleports him away. On the bridge of the ''Enterprise'', an energy spike in Picard's quarters alerts the crew, but when a security arrives, they discover Picard still in his room. He's been replaced by a doppelganger!
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8	The real Picard arrives in a holding cell with two other people: Starfleet engineering cadet Mitena Haro and pacifist philosopher Kova Tholl. Soon a fourth prisoner arrives, the savage Esoqq of Chalna. Picard quickly takes charge and assesses their situation. Tholl has been there the longest and has never seen their captors. A security panel on the only door is booby trapped to prevent interference. A station in the center of the room dispenses discs of synthesized food. All attempts to find some common connection between the four captives fail.
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10	On the ''Enterprise'', the doppelganger Picard assumes command of the ship, abandoning their current mission to examine a pulsar star. He tells Riker that he cannot divulge why he will be doing things and asks for Riker's indulgence as well as the crew's. Riker assures him that he has everyone's absolute confidence. Later, the fake Picard asks Troi to let him know if the morale of the crew starts to drop. He also gets an unprompted physical, which he passes with perfect marks. Crusher remarks about how unusual it is for him to volunteer for a check-up, and Picard answers by asking her out on a date.
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12	In the holding cell, the captives discover that Esoqq cannot eat the food provided. They have only three or four days before he either starves to death or [[ImAHumanitarian eats one of them]]. Against the advice of Tholl, Picard has Haro tamper with the security panel of the door. The four captives all work together to open the door, but behind it is a solid blank wall. The other three captives degenerate into infighting, accusing each other of being spies for their captors.
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14	On the ship, Picard's unusually gregarious personality and nonsensical orders are starting to raise suspicions. The bridge crew gather in private to discuss whether to relieve him of command. When the ship arrives at the pulsar, Picard orders the ship to fly directly into it, even though their shields will only be able to provide a few minutes of protection. Riker has finally had enough and relieves Picard of command. The rest of the bridge crew follow Riker's lead and pilot the ship out of the star.
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16	In the holding cell, Picard has finally figured out what's going on. He deduces that the four captives are in a rat's maze designed to test their response to authority. Picard is a natural leader, Haro a natural follower, Tholl a natural opportunist and Esoqq a natural anarchist. Further, he states that Haro knows classified information unavailable to a Starfleet cadet, so she must be an impostor. Haro transforms into three aliens who reveal that they have indeed been studying how other lifeforms resolve conflict because their species is a HiveMind and never have any disputes. The aliens agree to return their captives to their homes now that the experiment cannot continue.
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18	The real Picard arrives on the bridge with one of the aliens, who breaks the disguise of the doppelganger. As the aliens blather on about future experiments they might run on other lifeforms, Picard and the rest of the bridge crew exchange glances and set up a forcefield around the aliens, trapping them. The aliens begin freaking out, and Picard lectures them about how wrong it is to capture and imprison other species. Now that they've had a taste of their own medicine, Picard releases them and warns them that the Federation is now hip to their game, so they better not try any more shenanigans.
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20	With the aliens gone and Picard restored to his position, the ship prepares to head out. Crusher arrives on the bridge and gives Picard a saucy look. The nonplussed captain wonders just what his doppelganger got up to while he was gone and then orders the ship to head out.
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22	----
23	!!Tropes featured in "Allegiance":
24	* AgonyBeam: In the cell, the characters are hit with one when they tamper with the door controls.
25	* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The Lonka pulsar is said to be 4.356 solar masses. In the real world, neutron stars (of which pulsars are a type) are limited to around 2.17 solar masses.
26	* BloodKnight: Esoqq of Chalna is even more savage than a Klingon. He kills whoever tries to oppose him and will happily eat other sentient beings when he is hungry. His [[PlanetOfHats entire race is this way]].
27	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The reason everyone was abducted was because their captors are intensely curious about the concept of leadership and authority because they are all exactly alike and communicate telepathically, thus they had never encountered the idea of one being having authority over others before. But it's clear, [[LaserGuidedKarma when Picard gives them a taste of their own medicine]], that he doesn't entirely buy their alleged Blue and Orange Morality, and maybe they're just jerks.
28	* BluffTheImpostor: Picard [[CallBack brings up the incident on Mintaka III]] from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E4WhoWatchesTheWatchers Who Watches the Watchers]]", and when Haro responds he then mentions an outbreak of plague on Cor Caroli V that she expresses familiarity with. Later, he exposes "Haro" as an imposter because while it was possible (though unlikely) for her to be familiar with Mintaka III, the plague on Cor Caroli V was classified by Starfleet and no mere cadet would be aware of it.
29	* BottleEpisode: Written, along with "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E16TheOffspring The Offspring]]," to counteract the budget overruns incurred by "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E15YesterdaysEnterprise Yesterday's Enterprise]]." A largely character-driven episode carried by Creator/PatrickStewart's acting as both the real and false Captains, and with only one new set (the very small and simple cell), the episode came in under budget and ahead of schedule.
30	* CallBack: Haro mentions the ''Enterprise's'' [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E4WhoWatchesTheWatchers mission to Mintaka III]].
31	* LesCollaborateurs: Kova Tholl is from a race of cowards who are happy to be slaves to whoever invade them in order to survive--his planet has been invaded and conquered ''six times''. Likewise, Tholl himself will switch allegiances at the drop of a hat to support whoever he thinks is in control of the situation.
32	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
33	** Cadet Haro is the only Bolian in the franchise to be shown to have hair. The design was apparently not yet formalized (though this can still justified, an episode of ''[=DS9=]'' established that some Bolians wear hairpieces to look attractive to other species). Which accidentally becomes FridgeBrilliance, in that Haro is not who she claims to be.
34	** Additionally, Haro is a Starfleet cadet whose uniform is a predominantly-black suit with the shoulders indicating which division she serves in, which would resemble the uniforms later featured on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. TNG's fifth season episodes "The Game" and "The First Duty" show that all Starfleet cadets wear black uniforms with red shoulders, regardless of which division they serve in. Since Haro isn't who she seems, it's unclear if she was actually wearing the Starfleet Academy uniform used at the time.
35	* EveryoneHasStandards: Esoqq is the most violent of the four captives and is even willing to kill and eat the other captives if he begins to get hungry, but he is nonetheless perturbed that somebody would imprison a child like Cadet Haro.
36	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The traitor has "two faces"--as a Bolian, "Cadet Haro" has an anatomical ridge dividing her face in half.
37	* GetOut: Picard tells the aliens that they now know of their race, and they know how to imprison them.
38	-->'''Picard''': Bear that in mind. Now get off my ship.
39	* HandSignals: Picard uses a subtle nod to start a chain of orders relayed solely by hand signal and eye contact to imprison the aliens.
40	* HiveMind: The alien captors operate like this, as every member of their race is a carbon copy sharing a constant telepathic exchange with the others. This is why the concept of leadership among other sentient races puzzles them.
41	* {{Homage}}: Picard tries to demonstrate intelligence to the captors by signaling the first six prime numbers, which is taken from ''{{Literature/Contact}}''.
42	* ImAHumanitarian: When Esoqq is revealed to be incapable of digesting the food units in the prison, he presents an acute threat when he threatens to eat the others (starting with Tholl) if he begins to starve.
43	* KidnappedForExperimentation: Picard eventually deduces that he and the others were kidnapped for this reason. He's right, of course.
44	* MoralMyopia: The aliens claim to have had no idea that what they were doing might have been wrong by the standards of other races, but they seem to understand the situation enough that it was more about not caring what anyone else thought, rather than honestly thinking it through and believing it to be OK.
45	* MovingTheGoalposts: Every time the captives make headway in their attempt to escape the cell, another obstacle is thrown right at them, sending them back to square one. It's one of the things that helps Picard deduce that they are not simply prisoners, but test subjects in an experiment.
46	* TheMutiny: The ''Enterprise'' crew relieve the fake Picard from his command when he gives them a senseless order to destroy the ship. The real Picard is returned to the bridge before any fallout from their actions can occur.
47	* NoNameGiven: The alien captors are never named.
48	* NondescriptNastyNutritious: Becomes a small, but important plot point. While in the holding cell with Haro and Tholl, Tholl has already found a translucent fluorescent pink disk of a gelatin-like substance, in a food dispenser in the center of the room. It's implied that neither Tholl nor Picard seem to like its taste. When another, Essoq, is abducted, it's found that he does not like the taste either (which he reacts vocally to), and implied, cannot eat. Unfortunately, he has his eyes set on Tholl [[ImAHumanitarian as a meal]], and is getting hungrier by the hour...
49	-->'''Tholl:''' It's edible, but I wouldn't call it food.\
50	''[Picard takes a bite of the substance]''\
51	'''Picard:''' ''[inquisitively]'' Mmmm... ''[he puts it down on the dispenser's counter]''
52	::and later...:
53	-->''[Essoq hesitantly and slowly takes a gelatin disk from the food dispenser and sniffs it]''\
54	'''Essoq:''' What is this?\
55	'''Picard:''' Food.\
56	'''Essoq:''' The ''only'' food?\
57	'''Picard:''' It would seem so.\
58	''[Essoq licks the disk, then suddenly grimaces in disgust and throws it down on the floor]''\
59	'''Essoq:''' '''''POISON!!!'''''
60	* OutOfCharacterAlert: The doppelganger Picard is suspiciously gregarious, dropping by the bridge crew's poker game, volunteering for a physical ahead of schedule, and hitting on Crusher. When he arrives in Ten-Forward smiling and waving to the crew, leading a toast and then singing a drinking song, the crew are finally ready to say that something is wrong. Picard also keeps asking questions about whether the crew accepts him as their leader. He basically gets caught because he's ''too'' interested in fitting in.
61	* PlanetOfHats: Tholl's people are all collaborators who will instantly surrender to anyone threatening aggression. Esoqq's people are all anarchists who reject the very concepts of law and authority. Tholl and Esoqq were chosen for the experiment because they are perfect examples of their species' respective hats.
62	* ProperlyParanoid: Tholl suspects that one of them might be one of their abductors. He's right. Cadet Mitena Haro is one of the aliens in disguise.
63	* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Esoqq's homeworld Chalna seems to love combat as much as the Klingons but without the Klingons' sense of honor and respect for authority. His society is basically a lawless dog-eat-dog world where the strongest rule by killing all their enemies.
64	* PsychoPartyMember: Downplayed with Esoqq. He's a violent BloodKnight and presents an actual threat to the others when it becomes clear that he'll eventually resort to cannibalism to prevent starvation, but he can be reasoned with and contributes to their mutual escape.
65	* SenselessSacrifice: Discussed by Riker when he confronts the fake Picard over his order to move the ship closer and closer to a dangerous pulsar. The crew is willing to put their lives on the line for their captain, but they won't do it for no apparent reason or purpose.
66	* ScrewYouElves: Picard is unaccepting of his abductors' apology, [[LaserGuidedKarma as he gives them a taste of their own medicine]].
67	-->'''Alien 1:''' We were merely curious. We meant no harm.\
68	'''Alien 2:''' We did not, after all, injure you in any way.\
69	'''Picard:''' Imprisonment ''is'' an injury, regardless of how it's justified. And now that you've had a taste of captivity, perhaps you'll reconsider the morality of inflicting it upon others. In any event, we now know of your race and we know how to imprison you. Bear that in mind. ''[{{beat}}]'' Now get off my ship.
70	* TheSocialDarwinist: DeconstructedTrope with Esoqq's world, which seems to [[PlanetOfHats run entirely off this concept]]. The result of a society composed solely of warriors who constantly kill their weaker competitors is a violent anarchy. No one recognizes any sort of authority or group interest, with the only de facto rule being MightMakesRight.
71	* StockFootage: A brief reaction shot of Worf on the bridge seeing Picard's doppelgänger change into its true appearance is a stock shot taken from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E3TheSurvivors The Survivors]]", as he is wearing the earlier version of the Starfleet uniform that debuted in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E1Evolution Evolution]]" and was seen in several early episodes of the third season.
72	* SuicideMission: The fake Picard tests the obedience of the ''Enterprise'' crew to its commander by ordering them to fly very near to a Pulsar star, which would destroy the ship. Subverted when the bridge crew mutinies because the captain refuses to tell them why the mission is so essential as to make their lives forfeit.
73	* TickingClock: The fact that Esoqq cannot eat the food means the captives have to try to escape rather than just wait for their captors to show themselves.
74	* UnwittingTestSubject: The plot is driven by the characters' lack of knowledge of what the purpose of their imprisonment is, which turns out to be because they're part of an experiment. When Picard figures this out, the aliens abort the experiment simply because it would otherwise taint the result.
75	* WeAreStrugglingTogether: It is very apparent that without Picard, the other captives would have killed each other sooner or later, due to their extremely different attitudes and personalities.
76	* YouAllMeetInACell: Four people are abducted and placed in a cell for unknown reasons by captors who don't reveal themselves, and must figure a way out.
77	* YouWereTryingTooHard: The Picard doppelganger does everything he can to fit in and ingratiate himself with the crew. This makes the crew very uneasy, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness as the real Picard is rather detached and standoffish]]. (This may have been intentional, though, as he's implied to be testing the extent of the crew's obedience to Picard.)

Context Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E18Allegiance