The Nth Degree (TNG episode)
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Nth Degree is a episode.
The Enterprise is sent to investigate the shutdown of the Argus Array, a deep-space telescope and subspace antenna. In a shuttlepod Geordi LaForge and Reginald Barclay investigate, and discover an alien probe in the vicinity. It fires a pulse which disables the shuttlecraft and knocks out Lt. Barclay. They return to the Enterprise, where Barclay regains consciousness. Meanwhile, the probe begins to chase the Enterprise. It is found that Barclay's intelligence has dramatically increased, when he uses his knowledge to reinforce the shields to resist the explosion of the probe (which they were forced to destroy at extremely close range). Doctor Crusher tells him that he may well be the smartest man ever, and Reg casually agrees that he is.
The array continues to deteriorate. If it is allowed to explode, invaluable scientific data will be lost. The Enterprise crew attempt to shut the array's reactor down to effect repairs, but they estimate it will take weeks or even months to reconstruct the array's systems. Reg casually mentions that he can have everything up and running in two days; Geordi is amazed and alarmed at this but promises to assist. However, the array quickly starts to go critical again; the computer on board the Enterprise is too slow to keep up so it cannot shut down the reactor. Reg goes to the holodeck to attempt to control the reactors; he is forced to build a new control system from scratch, which involves hooking his own brain into the ship's systems. Barclay safely arranges for the array's shutdown, but by this point he is completely integrated into the Enterprise computer.
Realising that Barclay cannot be 'downloaded' back into his body - since he and the computer are now virtually inseparable - the crew must consider the real possibility of killing him in order to regain control. Unfortunately, Barclay has overheard this, and prevents all the crew's attempts to shut him down. He modifies the ship to create a 'subspace inversion', to 'jump' them a greater distance than warp could take them. Data, who is at ops when this happens remarks that it is a progressive phase distortion, doubling in intensity every six seconds. They arrive near to the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where contact is made by the Cytherians - an advanced alien race, whose representative appears on the bridge and remarks aloud on the Enterprise crew, expressing amazement (and an almost childlike sense of wonder) that they have 'bipedal locomotion' and a 'hierarchical collective command structure'. When Captain Picard demands to know why they are here, the Cytherian replies that his race's goals are the same as those of the Enterprise crew, except that instead of visiting other races, the indigenous peoples draw the other races to them, since studying something in rapidly changing environments is almost as "pure" as studying them in their natural environs.
Reg, now fully restored to his normal human self, arrives on the bridge to explain. The Cytherians are explorers, but they never actually leave their homeworld; they bring other races to them. The probe which disabled the Argus Array (and, later, Reg and Geordi's shuttle) was attempting to re-write key systems to bring those 'entities' to Cytherian space. The probe was successful in reprogramming Reg's mind, making him intelligent enough to take over the Enterprise with the stated goal of bringing the entire crew to Cytheria. An exchange of information is made, and the Enterprise is jumped back to its last position, with Reg Barclay restored to his own body. Although deprived of his enhanced intelligence he is left with a brilliant chess mind, and improved self-confidence (he makes a romantic advance to Counsellor Troi).
Episode writer Joe Menosky has suggested that the creature in who is imprisoned in the center of the galaxy is actually a renegade Cytherian.
| Preceded by: "Identity Crisis" | Followed by: "Q-Pid" |
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