Contagion

TNG Season 2 Epsiode 11
Air Date: March 20th, 1989

Plot

The Enterprise receives a distress call from it's sister ship the USS Yamato in the neutral zone. When they arrive the Yamato has a warp core breach and explodes. It is assumed that part of two Starfleet ships meeting involves a transfer of their ships logs as whatever caused the Yamato to start having malfunctions starts happening on the Enterprise.

The Yamato was in the neutral zone looking for an ancient extinct civilization known as the Iconians which had advanced technology that they didn't want to get into the hands of the Romulans. When they found the planet, a probe was launched that planets a computer virus. The Enterprise finds this planet and Picard, Data and Worf beam down. They learn about the probe and how it works and destroy it before could finish its infection of the Enterprise. They learn through Data getting infected that the way to fix the problem is to shut down the ship and restore the computer from a backup.

Commentary

The Iconinans had a way of travelling where they could create gateways to other planets or ships. It allowed them to rule neighbouring planets as if they were gods, being able to appear out of thin air. Data, Worf and Picard use this to get off Iconina after destroying the probes. While the main target was to destroy the probes, they also wanted to destroy the teleportation device as it would be a powerful weapon in the hands of the Romulans.

Quotes

"Try a splint." - Doctor Pulaski
"Doctor?" - Doctor
"Splint. It's a very ancient concept. You take two flat pieces of wood or plastic, a bandage. The broken limb is kept immobile." - Doctor Pulaski
"That's crazy, that's not practicing medicine." - Doctor
"Oh, yes, it is. It's a time-honored way to practice medicine, with your head and your heart and your hands, so jump to it." - Doctor Pulaski

"Well, Number One, I can see why you want to keep the away missions to yourself. That's where the excitement is. So, what's been happening here? Same old routine, I suppose?" - Picard