“First Contact” is episode fifteen of season four of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Someone is being wheeled into an operating room in an alien hospital. The doctors and nurses can’t find organs in the right places, and his hands and feet are wrong. One asked what the person is. It’s Commander Riker, with some facial prosthetics.
Riker comes around and asks what happened. He’s told he had a severe injury but will be alright. The last thing he remembers is being caught in the riots when the police moved in. Riker is asked his name, and he gives a fake one and a fake address on another continent. He has no family. The man asking the questions, the hospital administrator, Dr Berel, asks Riker about his cranial implants. Riker states they are cosmetic surgery to correct a birth defect. And his feet and hands are defects too. Riker can understand their confusion; his personal physician is better acquainted with them. He’d feel more comfortable under her care. She’s called Crusher. But she’s taking a sabbatical. Berel is leaving when he says there’s one other thing, pulling out a phasor and asking what it is. A present for a neighbour’s child. Riker asks if anything else was found. A piece of jewellery; a metal pin. No.
The doctors do not believe that Riker is Malcorian, but Berel wants it checked out anyway and Riker kept under guard. Another doctor is worried that they have attracted creatures from outer space with all their recent spaceflights. Turns out, he’s right.
Elsewhere, the planet’s Chancellor, Durken, is being briefed on the warp flight experiments by a Mirasta Yale. The minister of internal security, Krola, is worried about the speed of things. Chancellor Durken says they will proceed with the experiment, then slow down. Later, Yale is in her lab when Captain Picard and Troi beam in. They explain that they’ve been monitoring the Malcorians, as they do for any society about to initiate warp travel for the first time. They prefer to do it like this than random meetings in space and the scientific community generally accepts things more easily. It’s not a joke and they can prove it. By beaming her up to the Enterprise to show her around the ship.
They explain to Yale that they try to learn as much as possible about a species before first contact, and they’ve been monitoring Malcorian broadcasts for some time. This isn’t enough, so there have been teams of specialists on the surface too, modified to blend in and operating for several years. The most hazardous aspect of these missions is insufficient information. Yale understands, but warns that not everyone on the planet would accept this. Picard explains that Riker is missing; he was sent down to coordinate with the observation teams. Now he’s disappeared. Can Yale help? They need to find Riker before someone realises what he is.
Yale states that this could complicate things. Malcorians believe they are the supreme lifeform and their world is the centre of the universe. This would change their entire understanding, and some would not want that change. She recommends Picard not discuss the surveillance teams with the Chancellor. He would assign Krola to it, and Krola would believe them to be a great threat and use Riker to prove this.
The secret is already getting out at the medical facility and Berel heads to see Riker. They cannot confirm anything Riker told them. And people believe he’s from another planet. This could become dangerous. For Riker.
The Chancellor is working in his office when he’s told that Yale is there with someone to see him. He agrees to send her in and she enters. With Captain Picard. Durken is taken to see the Enterprise as well.
Even though things seem to be going well, some of the Malcorians, especially Krola, are essentially paranoid about aliens – though being paranoid is probably part of a security minister’s job description. However, Krola’s paranoia is dangerous. For one thing, if he was right about the threat the Federation posed, doing things that would antagonise them seems rather foolish.