In the NextGen guide, Phil is right that Rasmussen says "Lev" when talking to Geordi. I guess they thought it wasn't noticeable enough to redo the scene.

Does Max Headroom know Levar Burton outside NextGen or what?

It's a "cute" episode, but the basis of it doesn't really make any sense. How can anyone possibly believe Rasmussen's foolish claim? He is a historian from the future, who wishes to observe, but make no impact on the past. Well, from the very moment he shows up he begins impacting people: his very presence changes the past through valuable choices that are made. People who would have proceeded without question suddenly wonder why a historian from the future is present and have second thoughts, perhaps making different choices. It's much to risky of a way for any kind of historian to "feel the moment" to be practicable.

Also, I wonder why nobody seems particullarly worried that a 26th century time pod has just been dumped into the middle of the 22nd century. Talk about changing the past ...

So this Rasmussen is really an inventor from the 22nd century. Maybe he'll appear in an episode of the new series ENTERPRISE which will be set in the 22nd century.

This is not one of my favorite eps, so I may be a bit rusty on some details, but I never really cared for the "science" aspect of it. I mean, they drill these strategic holes and have a global atmospheric effect in what seems like seconds! It could take days for impending cloud cover to reach you from another state, but in this ep it takes mere moments for the release of the CO2 to have a planet wide effect. I'm not buying it...

Throughout the show Rasmussen shows amazement about the size of the ship, but he's pretending to be a historian from the future. Shouldn't Picard and the others be shocked to think that they don't have blueprints of the Enterprise or even surviving Galaxy Class ships in some future museum?

About some planetquakes, Geordi says, "If we were on Earth, I would say they were 8 on the Richter scale." Why would the Richter Scale change just because they were on another planet? Wouldn't an 8.0 quake be an 8.0 quake whether you were on Earth, Penthara IV, or even Mars?

If Picard were really worried about the safety of the colonists, then why not try to evacuate them before trying the dangerous procedure? And even if there are too many people to put on the Enterprise, shouldn't a colony have ships, just in case of an emergency? (Or is there some kind of Federation policy that colonies are not allowed to have spaceships? Perhaps the Starfleet Captain's Union insisted on this policy so that starship Captains can impress women by saving some planet from one disaster or another?)

At one point, Rasmussen walks out of Sick Bay with the medical device...and nobody stops him. He only asked to LOOK at it. Not TAKE it! Shouldn't SOMEONE say, "Hey, that device stays here"? or AT LEAST take it away from him before he exits?

Obviously, Crusher didn't mind that he take a better look at it in the privacy of his quarters, perhaps when writing his "reports." She got it for him, and he did show it to her when the sickbay door closed on him as Crusher was looking right at him.

Rasmussen says that Beethoven was blind. I think he meant deaf.

I believe he said BACH was blind- which is true (although he was only blind for the last few years of his life)

There's a supposedly cute moment where Data has 'good news' and 'bad news', and Rasmussen wonders which Picard will want first.

Picard chooses to hear the good news first. That was lucky, because the bad news makes absolutely no sense without hearing the good news first.

I was saddened to hear that Paul Winfield, who played Dathon, died a few days ago. It got me thinking of ST:NG again. I haven't collected all the DVDs yet, so I don't have season 5, or I would have watched "Darmok" again. But I remember that Rasmussen at one point says "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel" and I only just started wondering if he was using it semantically correctly to mean "we understand each other after struggle" or what I seem to remember, just as a kind of historical name-dropping. I guess it'll have to wait till I get season 5.

??? Rasmussen never said that...

I know that Dathon's first officer said that after reading Dathon's logs, I believe... but as far as I know, it's never been mentioned outside the episode "Darmok."

I think andi is confusing a line where I think Rasmussen refers to the events in this episode as Picard (or the Enterprise) at Penthara Four.

I just watched the episode, and I did not hear Rasmussen say "Lev" or "Lef" or anything sounding like it in the mentioned scene.

It's "In my office" that he says... the words are slurred together so it sounds a bit like it might be "Lev" followed by an intake of breath.

Keith Alan Morgan: About some planetquakes, Geordi says, "If we were on Earth, I would say they were 8 on the Richter scale." Why would the Richter Scale change just because they were on another planet? Wouldn't an 8.0 quake be an 8.0 quake whether you were on Earth, Penthara IV, or even Mars?
Luigi Novi: Why? How are points along the Richter scale calibrated? Are they done so in a manner that would be universal among interstellar races? Given the number of different races in the Federation, is it possible that the Federation has adopted a different one from the one Earth scientists use?

KAM: If Picard were really worried about the safety of the colonists, then why not try to evacuate them before trying the dangerous procedure? And even if there are too many people to put on the Enterprise, shouldn't a colony have ships, just in case of an emergency? (Or is there some kind of Federation policy that colonies are not allowed to have spaceships? Perhaps the Starfleet Captain's Union insisted on this policy so that starship Captains can impress women by saving some planet from one disaster or another?)
Luigi Novi: Maybe the hangar were the all evac ships were kept just happened to be right over the epicenter of that 8.5 earthquake, and collapsed?

Seriously, though, you’re right, and moreover, since the dust cloud was caused by an asteroid impacting on one of the planet’s continents, they should’ve had enough time to either detect and deflect the asteroid, or evacuate the planet.

Rodney Hrvatin: I believe he said BACH was blind…
Luigi Novi: Along with Homer, Milton and Monet.

(One of the four pieces Data was listening to in his quarters in Act 3 was Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Second Movement, Molto Vivace, which is where Charles may have gotten confused.

---Note:
According to the Internet Movie Database, the role of Rasmussen was originally to be played by Robin Williams, who was encouraged to seek a Trek role by his friend Whoopi Goldberg, but had to drop out because of schedule conflicts.

Everyone Hates History 101 (Fall Semester)
In the opening scene of Act 1, Rasmussen tells Picard he specializes in 22nd to 24th century history, referring to this period as “early interstellar history.” Wouldn’t early interstellar history, even from a terracentric viewpoint, have begun with Zephram Cochrane’s first warp flight and his meeting with the Vulcans in ST First Contact in the mid 21st century? Even though this episode was made several years before that movie, the date of Cochrane’s first warp flight was already conjectured to have been in 2061, according to the first edition of Star Trek Chronology, given the information revealed in the episode Metamorphosis(TOS). Since Rasmussen is from the 22nd century, he should know this.
Why do I get the feeling that the guy who sent visas to the 9/11 terrorists sometime after 9/11 was an ancestor of Picard’s?
At the end of the second scene of Act 1, after Rasmussen leaves the Observation Lounge, the crew discuss the question of whether his story is true, and Picard mentions that he has examined his credentials, and that they seem to be in order. Just how exactly would someone from the 24th century be able to examine the credentials of someone from the 26th? If someone from the 26th managed to manufacture some credentials claiming that he was from the 26th, or even if someone from the 22nd, for that matter, as Rasmussen is, how would someone from the 24th be able to tell the difference between real ones and forged ones?
Add basic etiquette to the list of things Rasmussen doesn’t know
Rasmussen enters Data’s quarters without chiming first or asking for permission to enter in Act 3.
Everyone Hates History 101 (Spring Semester)
Prior to the explicit confirmation in ST First Contact of 2063 as the exact date of the first warp flight by a human, it was conjectured to have been in 2061 by Star Trek Chronology, given the information in Metamorphosis(TOS) that Zefram Cochrane disappeared 150 years prior to that episode, and was 87 at the time of his disappearance. The updated Chronology contains the revised 2063 date established in the film. But in Ten Forward, when Rasmussen asks Riker what he thinks is the most important example of progress in the last 200 years, Riker says the warp coil. Now it would have been possible for the warp coil to have been a development that improved existing warp drive, long after warp drive was first invented, but Riker then continues by saying that before there was warp drive, humans were confined to a single sector of the galaxy. This added comment means that the warp coil was/is an essential part of basic warp drive, and that there was no warp drive until the warp coil was invented. But that would mean that the coil would have to have been invented in or prior to 2063, which was 300 years prior to this episode, not 200.
Dr. Soong: “Turn that d@mn noise down!”
Data: “Aw, c’mon, Dad, this is the best part of the songs! All four of ‘em!”
Dr. Soong: “I don’t care! It’s just four pieces of noise, and I can’t hear myself think!”
Data: “Well, maybe I should just soundproof my room!”
Dr. Soong: “Well maybe you SHOULD!”
In Suddenly Human, Jono was playing loud music in Picard’s quarters, but Picard could just barely hear it outside the door. Then in Clues, Worf, right outside Troi’s quarters, hears her scream. Then in Night Terrors, we and Picard can clearly hear someone knock on his ready room door. In this episode, however, Data is playing four loud pieces of music, but Rasmussen doesn’t hear it at all until he opens the door.
Wow, I’ve heard of “sour grapes,” but sweet grapes?
When Picard begins to speak to Rasmussen toward the end of the episode, Rasmussen says to him, “You’re not suggesting I tell you the outcome of your efforts?”, and Picard says, “Oh no. I’m not. Everything that Starfleet stands for everything that I have ever believed in tells me I cannot ask you that, but, at the same time...” Picard goes on and on, his preliminary answer to Rasmussen’s question being “no,” as quoted above, implying that he is instead interested in something else that Rasmussen may have to give, but when it comes down to it, the outcome of his efforts is exactly what Picard wants Rasmussen to tell him. Why did he start off with “No, no..”, then? In addition, I found Picard’s declaration to Rasmussen on the bridge at the end of Act 4, after Rasmussen refuses his request, of why he’s glad Rasmussen refused, to be totally empty. He just got done practically begging Rasmussen to give him a peak at the immediate future, is embittered when Rasmussen refuses, and now decides that the refusal is a “gift” after all.
Everyone Hates History (Summer Make-up Course)
This is really grungy nitpicking, but while trying to convince Rasmussen to give him information on the future, Picard mentions the old “what if one of the colonists’ children become the next Hitler” argument so prevalent in time travel stories, and says that it has been an argument ever since the first wormholes were discovered. Well, much earlier than that. Wormholes were first postulated by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1915, and to date, have not been actually discovered yet. The paradox argument, on the other hand dates back to the birth of modern science fiction, particularly time travel science fiction. The first modern time travel story was The Clock that Went Backwards, by Edward Page Mitchell, published in 1881 in The New York Sun (14 years before H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, mind you), and was also the first time travel paradox story. So the paradox argument goes back a lot farther than the “discovery” of wormholes.
They’re eating less carbs
In the closing scene of Act 3, Data describes to Picard the plan to save the colony by saying that the Enterprise’s shields would absorb the planet’s atmospheric plasma that the phasers change the dust particles into, and redirect it into space. The Enterprise’s shields normally form an elliptical bubble around the ship, but when the Enterprise absorbs the plasma, the plasma stays very close to the ship’s hull, taking not an elliptical shape, but hugging the ship, forming a tight contour around it. Why aren’t the shields round in that shot?
Hey, Enterprise. Why so blue?
During the Enterprise’s successful restoration of the planet’s atmosphere at the end of the episode, blue gas envelopes the Enterprise. Strangely, there’s a blue light effect inside the Enterprise as well, on the bridge. Why is this?
Hell, they could’ve stuck it inside a Domino’s Pizza box, and it still would’ve taken half an hour
The atmospheric effect covers the entire planet in mere seconds? I don’t think so.
(Aside from how to use the holodeck to create a Counsellor Troi fantasy)
The crew notice the missing items Rasmussen stole, and want to search his time pod. Did Rasmussen not discover the replicators? Could he not ask for technical schematics on the items? And why even bother with stealing them? Couldn’t he just ask for access to the computer library, and obtain all the knowledge he wanted? Hell, he could’ve even asked for some of the artifacts, and Picard might very well have given them to him, since he said earlier in the show that Rasmussen’s credentials appeared authentic. Okay, so nobody knows their history, their etiquette, their science fiction, or how to use replicators? Is there anyone on this ship that knows anything?
Then again, I did find it odd that there was a photo pinned to the wall inside the timepod of a big burly guy with the words “Rasmussen is my bi+ch” on it…
After Rasmussen’s stolen phaser fails to work at the end of the episode in the timeship, Data makes a veiled threat to him, saying he assumes Rasmussen’s hand will open the door whether he is conscious or not. Why would he need his hand? It’s one thing for a door to be keyed to an authorized person’s hand upon entrance, but shouldn’t anyone be able to exit the ship from inside once they’re inside? You need a certain key to open the door to a house or car, but if you’re inside, you don’t need it to exit. The door simply opens from the inside. Hotel rooms that require that new punch-card key to open the door do not require it for exiting. The only things that I can think of that operate like this are safes and prison cells.
Yeah, but he fired it at a visiting Wesley Crusher, so no one really minded
When Data orders Rasmussen out of the time pod at the end of Act 5, the thief grumbles that the weapon was working yesterday. How did he test it? Did he ask the computer to analyze it? Did he fire it? If he did, wouldn’t the alarms have gone off?
Unfortunately, the NRA had it banned after this episode on the grounds that it interfered with a person’s 2nd Ammendment right to use a phaser
Also, if the crew have the ability to deactivate phasers remotely, why don’t they use this capability more often? Even if it doesn’t work on a larger scale with entire ships, why not use it in close-quarters person to person skirmishes, as in episodes like The Vengeance Factor or The Siege of AR-558(DS9) or Unity(VOY)?
A Matter of Time(r)
Why was the time pod set on a timer? Was this intended to be ironic? Couldn’t it simply be turned on and off when desired? Or was it set by its true owner to foil the exact type of theft of it that occurred in this episode, and Rasmussen simply didn’t spend enough time examining the pod to figure out how to shut it off? And on that subject, given how computers on sensitive areas of ships like the Enterprise require user codes to gain access to them, as explained at the end of the episode Hero Worship, how could Rasmussen successfully steal the pod? Shouldn’t its owner simply have programmed it not to work if it scanned anyone other than him inside?
A Matter of More Time
At the end of the episode, the door to the timeship closes right after Data and Rasmussen enter it, but remains open for 1 minute, 18 seconds after Rasmussen and Data step out of it afterwards.
Eenie, meenie, minee, moe…
Why did Rasmussen pick the Enterprise-D? Even back when this episode first aired, long before Generations and ST First Contact, when I originally wrote this nit, I wondered, why not the Enterprise-E, or the F, or the Z? Did he lay out a horizontal diagram showing all the starships Enterprise up to the 27th century, and simply pick the one in the middle?

How are points along the Richter scale calibrated?
Been a long time since I read an explanation on it, but I thought it measured the force of the quake.

is it possible that the Federation has adopted a different one from the one Earth scientists use?
Sure, but why would Geordie use the archaic Richter scale reference then? If Starfleet has adopted an alien system, let's call it the Gelnob Scale, then Geordie should give the number of the quake on the Gelnob Scale since that's what the crew would be familiar with. The fact that nobody questions Geordie's use of Richter indicates that they are familiar with it.
If somebody asked you how far away something use would you use a measurement they would understand or would you be a wise guy and give them a measurement in some archaic system that very few people would understand.

Why did he start off with “No, no..”, then?
Because he was lying, duh. He wanted the information, then pretended he didn't want it.

I found Picard’s declaration to Rasmussen on the bridge at the end of Act 4, after Rasmussen refuses his request, of why he’s glad Rasmussen refused, to be totally empty.
On the other hand maybe Picard did realize that knowing the outcome would have limited his choices & the avenues he needed to explore.
If you know what a test is going to be about you only study those things you think will be asked. If you don't know what a test is about you study a lot more &, possibly, learn more.

So the paradox argument goes back a lot farther than the “discovery” of wormholes.
Aren't wormholes found in apples? ;-)

if the crew have the ability to deactivate phasers remotely, why don’t they use this capability more often? Even if it doesn’t work on a larger scale with entire ships, why not use it in close-quarters person to person skirmishes, as in episodes like The Vengeance Factor or The Siege of AR-558(DS9) or Unity(VOY)?
I got the feeling that the crew could only shut off phasers from the ship, maybe Starfleet. IIRC the 3 episodes you mentioned the bad guys used alien weapons.
However I beleive The Hunted did feature the antagonist using stolen ship weapons.

Picard goes on and on, his preliminary answer to Rasmussen’s question being “no,” as quoted above, implying that he is instead interested in something else that Rasmussen may have to give, but when it comes down to it, the outcome of his efforts is exactly what Picard wants Rasmussen to tell him.

That's as in "No, don't tell me... unless you REALLY want to (wink wink)..."

Good points, Keith. I'm going to include your Richter scale nit with the heading: I’d give it a 7.9 on the Fake Futurism Bullsh*t Dialogue Scale, and the one about evacuating the colonists with the heading: Maybe the hangar were the all evac ships were kept just happened to be right over the epicenter of that 8.5 earthquake, and collapsed?

As for The Hunted, they couldn't track Danar, and he wouldn't sit still, so maybe that's why they couldn't do that with him. When Worf found his phaser on overload in the turbolift, I supposed he could've ordered it deactivated, but didn't want to wait for someone to scan for it and press some buttons when he was standing right there, so he decided to deactivate it himself.

Everyone Hates History (Summer Make-up Course)

Yes the idea of paradox has been around a lot longer than that but Picard said that "every first year philosophy student has been asked that since the first wormholes were discovered." Before the discovery of wormholes the idea of a time paradox was only theoretical and used in sci-fi stories; and probably mentioned for a minute in more than one philosophy class but after the discovery of wormholes it was a real concern that would be commenly put to philosophy students.

Why did Rasmussen pick the Enterprise-D? Even back when this episode first aired, long before Generations and ST First Contact, when I originally wrote this nit, I wondered, why not the Enterprise-E, or the F, or the Z? Did he lay out a horizontal diagram showing all the starships Enterprise up to the 27th century, and simply pick the one in the middle?

Or for that matter, why not the Enterprise J ;)

Thanks, Brian. I missed that precise quote. However, since you put the statement in quotes, I should point out that what he actually said was, “every first year philosophy student has been asked that question since the earliest wormholes were discovered.”

I decided to look up Edward Page Mitchell in some of my SF Reference books.

Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1995) doesn't mention Mr. Mitchell or his story. They do mention time travel stories existed before Wells, but that most of it was not very remarkable until The Time Machine.

The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1996) also doesn't mention Mitchell.

Grolier Science Fiction: The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1995) did have an entry on him & did comment that his stories may have influenced Wells & others, but doesn't go into any talk about the story. Under the Time Paradox entry they mention F. Antsey's The Time Bargain aka Tourmalin's Time Cheques (1891) as the earliest form of Time Paradox story.

Although thinking about it one could argue that an earlier time paradox story is Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843). Scrooge sees a future he doesn't like & works to change it. ;-)

Luigi - As for The Hunted, they couldn't track Danar
But if he had one of the ship's phasers couldn't the computer track it & shut it off like it did when it deactivated the phaser in Rasmussen's ship here?
If an invisible man was holding a visible gun...

Well, they've never stated whether they could track phasers. Phaser fire, yeah, I assume they can, but I don't recall any mention of lojacking phasers.

And were you joking about A Christmas Carol? How is changing your future a paradox?

I was half joking.

If the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Be did show Scrooge his actual future & if Scrooge successfully changed it then the future he was shown would never happen therefore he could not have been shown it.

Course it would probably help to explain my point of view on time.

How is changing your future a paradox?
Same way changing your past is.

When you introduce the possibility of time travel then What Was, What Is & What Will Be are simply matters of perspective. We think we can change the future because it "hasn't happened yet", but to a time traveler it has happened & nothing can change it.

Of course if we accept the idea that we can change our future, then we can also change our past because our past is someone else's future.

The idea that we can change our future, but not our past is ridiculous when you bring time travel into it because any moment in time is the past to some people, but the future to others.

Does that make my POV clearer?

I feel dizzy now.
-

-
Seriously, though, I get what you're saying, but I don't see how any of this qualifies as a paradox. A temporal paradox is something that appears to be self-contradictory. The "going back to kill your father" being an obvious and oft-used example. I don't see how being shown a future that would never happen is a paradox, because there's no self-contradiction. All future time periods we've seen, after all, are possible futures from our perspective; they may happen, or they may not.

About the ship Rasmusen picked. It was just a whim. He just picked to one he liked the best. It happened to be the Ent-D. Perhaps he just liked saying "PENTHARA FOUR" and "Geordi stayed below!" full of melodrama.

LUIGI NOVI wrote:

After Rasmussen’s stolen phaser fails to work at the end of the episode in the timeship, Data makes a veiled threat to him, saying he assumes Rasmussen’s hand will open the door whether he is conscious or not. Why would he need his hand? It’s one thing for a door to be keyed to an authorized person’s hand upon entrance, but shouldn’t anyone be able to exit the ship from inside once they’re inside? You need a certain key to open the door to a house or car, but if you’re inside, you don’t need it to exit. The door simply opens from the inside. Hotel rooms that require that new punch-card key to open the door do not require it for exiting. The only things that I can think of that operate like this are safes and prison cells.

It's been a while since I've seen this one, but I think Rasmussen had locked the door on the inside in order to trap Data. I wouldn't be surprised at the capability of the pod to be locked in that way; maybe it was designed to be able to trap potential thieves inside.

It would not have been a bad idea to trap him in there, but there was no indication that he locked it from the inside. Besides, there's no resaon for Data, an android to have assumed this rather than establish it. And how could it be designed to trap thieves inside? If that were the case, it would've made to be inoperable by the thief.

A temporal paradox is something that appears to be self-contradictory.
Well, Time Paradox is the only term I've heard so that's what I used.

Would Time Disruption or Time Alteration be a better term to use?

I don't recall any mention of lojacking phasers.
Well IIRC Data says the computer did detect & shut off the phaser which indicates that it could track phasers if need be.

Also given incidents in Conscience Of The King, possibly Star Trek VI & the revelation about Jameson supplying weapons to Karidian in Too Short A Season one would think Starfleet might decide to get a little proactive on these sorts of things.

The Chief, in the Guides, talked about Rasmussen not being able to backwards-engineer his stolen technology when he returned to the twenty-second century.

Above, other people have made the point that Rasmussen could have gone even further forward in time to get even more advanced technology.

What if Rasmussen worked out the time period which compromised between technological advancement and technology that he'd be able to understand and reverse-engineer when he was back in Archer's time? The man is an inventor, after all, if a failed one. Presumably he'd be able to work this out using the pod's data banks.

Rasmussen didn't have to stick to his guns and frustrate Picard with no answer as to what happens, especially since he was actually from the past and didn't need to care. All Rasmussen had to say was, "History records you (Picard) as going ahead with Laforge's plan. I won't tell you how it turns out, but that is the course of action you took." Rasmussen gets off the hook by not telling Picard the wrong thing, just the choice, right or wrong.

Since Rasmussen is from Archer's time, it's too bad Enterprise has been cancelled, because I would have liked to see a prequel, showing how he came across the time pod and escaped Archer only to encounter Picard.

Hmm. An eccntric time traveller with numerous quirks and all the answers. Sounds like a certain Time Lord may have influenced the basis of this story!

Enterprise did feature a time traveller in a pod that was (guess what?) bigger on the inside than the outside...

Maybe someone already said this (I just scanned the previous posts, as I'm too lazy to read them now.) Robin Williams was originally cast as Rasmussen, but had to drop out, due to the ubiquitous "scheduling conflicts."

It's no wonder the phaser didn't work when that Jersey criminal with bad hair tried to shoot Data, he was pressing the button to increase beam intensity, as it appeared to me anyway. Also, we learn that in ST:VI a phaser on stun at close range can still kill, but the Raz-man ensures that Data will not be harmed.

In the teaser, Rasmussen says he's from "the late 26th Century", and that he's come back "nearly 300 years". To my mind, just over 200 years (TNG takes place in the mid 24th Century) is not "nearly 300 years".

When Riker calls Picard over to see the phaser drill pattern vs. the volcanos, Picard takes the long way around. Does "You need to see this" mean take a slower route? Why doesn't Picard just walk between the command station and navigation? Instead, he goes around behind tactical.

Just checked the NexGen guides. Phil caught my first nit, but not my second.

When Rasmussen asks Data to kill the music, Data orders the computer to "eliminate" each individual program. I would think the word "eliminate" would mean the computer would delete the program from its memory. I would think that Data would want the program to just stop running, not erase it.

One of the stolen items in the Time Ship was Geordi's VISOR....where did he get it? The last time we saw the VISOR, it was on Geordi's face!

(Or does Geordi have an "extra" VISOR?)

I thought that Geordi actually changed VISOR's once during the series because they had upgraded it. So maybe the one of the ship is the older version that he kept for sentimental reasons.

At the convention, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes said that Robin Williams was scheduled to play Berlingoff Rasmussen. However, due to scheduling conflicts, Matt Frewer was chosen instead.

Hrm, I think Frewer might actually have been the better choice. Better "mad scientist/con-man" vibe.

>>>By LUIGI NOVI on Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 10:59 pm:
Hey, Enterprise. Why so blue?
During the Enterprise’s successful restoration of the planet’s atmosphere at the end of the episode, blue gas envelopes the Enterprise. Strangely, there’s a blue light effect inside the Enterprise as well, on the bridge. Why is this? <<<

There is a transparent dome right on the top of the bridge that the light could shine through. We see this clearly in Generations after the ship crashes - Riker looks up to see it smashed.

>>>By inblackestnight on Saturday, February 11, 2006 - 2:48 pm:

It's no wonder the phaser didn't work when that Jersey criminal with bad hair tried to shoot Data, he was pressing the button to increase beam intensity, as it appeared to me anyway. Also, we learn that in ST:VI a phaser on stun at close range can still kill, but the Raz-man ensures that Data will not be harmed.<<<

Ras was quite correct, and more to the point would have had a rather nasty surprise had the phaser not been deactivated. In Brothers Worf is asked to check the ships computer - if he can get access to it - to get the correct phaser setting to stun Data. The implication is that a standard stun setting has little or no effect on Data.

Thoughts/anti-nits; Its possible that Ras picked the Enterprise D because the Federation at this time became aware that time travelers from the future sometimes came calling. If so this information may have (and probably would be) kept on a need to know basis. We know from Voyager that Starfleet Captains have access to hidden Omega files that contain information that are top secret but which they may need to know and act on. It is posible that if the Federation became aware of travellers from the future they could have left hidden films in their data-bases that could only be activated several hundred years in the future. These files mahy give a code that such travellers could use to confirm they are from the future.

This would answer two nits;

Ras Picked the Enterprise D because this may be the first Enterprise that carries the files, hence it is the earliest Enterprise on which he could convince the Captain he really is from the future. Going to far into the future may pose problems, in so far that the technology may be far to advanced for him to understand and copy.

When Picard talks about checking his credentials, what he meant was that Ras gave him a code that could only have been activated a few hundred years in the future.

(Yes, I know thats thin, but not as thin as the plot as it stands)

Actually, they knew about time travellings from the future going back to Archer's time (hello Daniels).

Light coming through that one narrow dome would not envelope the entire bridge.

How come nobody found any reference to a twenty-second inventor named Berlinghoff Rasmussen, who mysteriously disappeared when none of his inventons worked? I can only assume he somehow managed to wipe all information about himself from the records before leaving in the time pod.

They did seem terribly trusting of him. Maybe they didnt look him up until after they captured him, at which point the official history says he disapeared so they figure it was meant to happen.


I do question however why they are so trusting, at one point Picard said something to the order of "his credentials check out". That stopped me, I wondered what credentials? Did Rasmussen have a time traveler's badge? If he did, this would hardly count as a credential because it would be impossible to check. I think Picard was just a little more wooed by the idea of a historian checking him out that he threw caution to the wind.