Early in the show after Riker heads toward the turbolift, he points at Worf. The camera pans and then Worf points, presumably at an officer who will replace Worf at his station. If you pay attention, you can actually see a shadow appear on the wall which suggests that in fact Worf's replacement promptly took the station. But unless this person RAN into position as the camera panned, Worf was pointing at empty space when he gestured! Now that I've noticed it I'll never be able to watch this scene again without it looking odd.

Well, who do you think is president of his fan club?

Does it seem strange to anyone else that Picard is able to spit out all that information on Freeman Dyson and his Dyson Sphere on a moment's notice? The theory is 500 years old by the time of the show and in present time Dyson's theories aren't even well known. Even if he's supposed to be a "reniassance man", it seems strange Picard could rattle off all that old information. I think the scene would have been much more believeable if Data recited all that information ... possibly after some prodding from Picard's "vague recollections" of seeing some old theory if the writers absolutely had to work that angle in.

She was never any good at sychronized swimming either...

When first locating the Jenolin on the surface of the Dyson Sphere, Picard orders the Enterprise into a sychronous orbit above the position of the Jenolin. Yet, when the title shot appears a few moments later, the Enterprise is zipping by the sphere clearly not in sychronous orbit with any point on the surface. It seems unlikely that Picard would change the orbit of the ship while the away team was still on the Jenolin ... so what happened to the sychronous orbit?

... but maybe that was because I forgot to fill the pool with water.

And in a related note, does the Dyson Sphere even rotate? The very first external shot of the Enterprise approaching the sphere seems to indicate that the sphere does rotate very slowly. However, every other external shot indicates that the sphere is not rotating. So, if the sphere doesn't actually rotate ... wouldn't a sychronous orbit be on the impossible side?

Why would we have that around? If they all die, we all move up in rank.

When first discovering the Jenolin, Data remarks that life support is functioning at minimal levels. Yet, the away team beams in with no special environmental equipment. The ship *crashed* 75 years ago, life support is (somehow) at minimal levels and you're not even going to carry a backup supply of oxygen? I guess the Enterprise can perform an emergency beam-out if anything happens ... but still the lack of even the most basic precautionary equipment seems wrong given the circumstances.

He had to learn how to be the dweeb at the party sometime.

Umm ... what exactly is Data doing when Scotty enters Ten Forward? He's sitting by himself, staring intently into an empty corner of Ten Forward. With the super-cool Dyson Sphere out the window and the incredible chance to talk engineering and history with Scotty, is staring at an empty corner of the bar really the best thing Data could find to do?

It's mine! Mine, mine, MINE!!

Regarding all the questions about Scotty's holodeck request (at least half the posts in Part 1 :P), Scotty begins the request by saying "The android at the bar told me you could show me my old ship". This already narrows the query down to 11 ships (as Scotty later reveals). It also immediately eliminates any possibility of the NX-01 or the space shuttle or the aircraft carrier being shown since Scotty clearly never served on any of those. It also makes sense that the computer now assumes he wants to see a Federation ship, since presumably that's all Scotty has served on.

Then, when he states he wants to see the bridge of the Enterprise that should have narrowed the choices down to just two (maybe three): the original, (maybe the refitted original that pops up in the movies?), and the Enterprise-A. Oddly enough, at this point the computer announces that there are five ships with that name and asks for the registry.

And about the choice of the look of the bridge, we have to take it with a grain of salt and assume that the bridge of the Enterprise never changes as dramatically as the sets do. For example, the bridge of the Enterprise-A changes drastically from the end of STIV to the start of STV, but we don't believe that after the training cruise the engineers completely re-designed the entire bridge, moved/added turbolifts etc etc.

Someone give the Klingon an abacus or something

After being dragged into the Dyson Sphere and managing an orbit around the star, Worf remarks that the shields are only at 23% and falling. A few scenes later, Worf remarks that the shields are holding, but are "down another 15%".

Down ANOTHER 15%? That kinda implies they already lost 15% somewhere before and would put them at ... -7%, not the best shield status to have.

No wonder the bridge designers put Tactical as far away from Picard as they could.

At the end of this episode, it's Picard who is suddenly trigger-happy instead of Worf. The Enterprise must destroy the Jenolin to get it out of the way so they can escape. Picard gives the order to fire torpedos and destroy the ship. The Jenolin goes up in a puff of smoke and the doors start closing. FIFTEEN seconds later at full impulse, the Enterprise finally arrives at the door.

Couldn't our good captain have waited a little longer to fire and made the exit easier? Of course, maybe he wanted to give Ensign Ragar a chance to make up for her poor sychronous orbit by letting her do some acrobatic spins to get them out.

Ryan: Does it seem strange to anyone else that Picard is able to spit out all that information on Freeman Dyson and his Dyson Sphere on a moment's notice?
Luigi Novi: All people know an obscure or trivial fact or two. The success of trivia games and trivia books is predicated on it. For a literate intellectual with varied interests like Picard, he no doubt has a boatload of them. Since a Dyson Sphere is a part of astronomy/astrophysics, which pertains to Picard, then it's not unreasonable for him to be familiar with it. He could've read it somewhere.

Ryan: Umm ... what exactly is Data doing when Scotty enters Ten Forward?
Luigi Novi: He could be studying human behavior. It's possible that the Enterprise is either still conducting sensor sweeps of the Sphere's surface, or has completed doing so, and Data is studying them in his head.

Ryan: Then, when he states he wants to see the bridge of the Enterprise that should have narrowed the choices down to just two (maybe three): the original, (maybe the refitted original that pops up in the movies?), and the Enterprise-A. Oddly enough, at this point the computer announces that there are five ships with that name and asks for the registry
Luigi Novi: Because the first request for his ship, and the second was for "the Enterprise". I'm guessing that you're saying the computer should've used some type of reasoning to combine the two pieces of data, but maybe it can't do that or something. Thus, when he asked to see "the Enterprise", the computer regarded it as a new unspecified request, rather than a qualification added to the prior one? (I dunno, are there instances in which the computer narrows a request down by combining info from successive statements in a line of statements ? Maybe I just can't think of one now.)

Ryan: Does it seem strange to anyone else that Picard is able to spit out all that information on Freeman Dyson and his Dyson Sphere on a moment's notice?
Luigi Novi: All people know an obscure or trivial fact or two. The success of trivia games and trivia books is predicated on it. For a literate intellectual with varied interests like Picard, he no doubt has a boatload of them. Since a Dyson Sphere is a part of astronomy/astrophysics, which pertains to Picard, then it's not unreasonable for him to be familiar with it. He could've read it somewhere.

Don't forget we don't know what topics are in the 24th century version of popular science. For all we know, Picard could have gotten his info from an article he read recently.

Sure; there's no telling what esoteric bits of information an individual might know, or where he or she learned them. This board has people from all walks of life, and we all know what a Dyson sphere is... ;-)

Has anyone yet pointed out Data's "It is green" line is a repeat of Scotty's line in TOS "By Any Other Name"?

I believe Phil did in the book.

He did indeed.

Sorry, but I've got an internet in front of me here, not some "book" or a "Phil" that people keep mentioning. I just watch the show. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

"Phil" would be the owner and creator of this site.
The "book" would be the one Phil authored, "The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers, Vol. II"
See it here:
http://www.nitcentral.com/shamplug/ngii.htm

Down ANOTHER 15%?

I took this to mean it was down fifteen percent from its previous level.

When the Enterprise goes into the Dyson sphere, clouds float over the entrance. To keep the air from being blown out into space shouldn't the sides of the entrance be higher than the atmosphere?

Yes, or TPTB should have added some sort of forcefield effect as the ship entered.

Why wasn't the Jenolan pulled inside the sphere like Enterprise?

Didn't Scotty say that something exploded on the Jenolen? It didn't have anything to do with the sphere, I thought.


What would be the purpose of having such a gigantic ocean inside this sphere?

this is rubbish

The episode? The acting? Care to elaborate?

I thinking he or she or it was saying that nitpicking is rubbish.

What would be the purpose of having such a gigantic ocean inside this sphere?

All kinds of stuff. Perhaps quality of life, perhaps an underwater species helped build the thing. Perhaps to create a planet's entire ocean ecosystem.

If they think nitpicking is 'rubbish' then why are they here?

As to why the Jenolen wasn't pulled inside but crashed according to the novel of this epsiode the comm beacon stuff that pulls the enterprise inside had knocked out the drive controls causing the ship to crash into the sphere. And coincidentally killing everyone but Scotty and hapless redshirt on the bridge thereby forcing the miricle save.

This is one of those Trek episodes which had so many intriguing plots going on that it really should have been a two-parter.

re: Synthehol. I don't remember the exact line, but it's something like "it simulates the taste of alcohol"... My response to Scotty's response is that it obviously doesn't simulate it very well. Surely if it's that bad, no-one would drink it. I would have thought the entire point is that you can't tell the difference.

"Finding Scotty alive after all these years would be a big thing. Historians, especially ones specializing in engineering, would want to meet him. People wanting to learn about the historical events surrounding Captain Kirk might want to know what happened from the perspective of someone who was there."

Spock and McCoy are still alive and kicking at this time, so its not impossible that other members of the Original Enterprise crew are still around. Besides, even Data would be able to figure out that if you bring someone 75 years forward in time instantly (from their prospective) and then start asking them about what to you is history is not going help them adjust.

Picard at one point orders reverse thrusters. Given the details about thrusters in the Tech guide - Basically they are advanced rocket engines - I'd like to know exactly how they can work in reverse without venting into the hull.

I figured that meant firing the thrusters on the front of the ship to provide force in the opposite direction.

There's also Captain Bateson and the entire crew of the Bozeman from Cause and Effect. Interestingly, a Trek comic book had Bateson being introduced to Scotty in order for Scotty to help him adjust to the 24th century.

So the Enterprise achieves a low orbit around the sun once pulled inside by using its thrusters.. Why not increase the altitude of that orbit a little once the ship has achieved orbit? Wouldn't that lower the intensity of the radiation that Worf says is draining the shields and allow them to avoid having to get radiation-shots by Dr. Crusher.

This episode is almost always chosen for fan favorite marathons. Including the 1994 marathon of faves that ran the week "All Good Things" ran, and up to and including yesterday's Sci-Fi channel marathon. And, this episode deserves it; it's one of my favorites. But, "Unification" is never included. Maybe the latter is not a fan favorite, but I think that one's a good episode in its own right. Other opinions on that matter would be appreciated.

In a recent run of this episode on Heroes and Icons, I noticed that the planet on the Enterprise bridge hologram was changed, from a static shot to one that adds motion to the planet and starfield.

There is NO way the Federation wouldn't know about the existence of the Dyson sphere. I mean, WE, TODAY, would know about it's existence if it existed in our universe. Dyson spheres cannot be hidden, they have a star's energy output in infrared, yet emit no visible light and are without the dense dust clouds that normaly accompany such infrared sources. Our infrared surveys would easily pick them up, and so would the far more advanced instruments available to the federation.

Since he was mentioned in this episode, I want to note that physicist Freeman Dyson passed away on February 28, 2020 at the age of 96.

The Dyson Sphere was revisited in a novel. Never read it though.