“Sub Rosa” is episode fourteen of season seven of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Dr Crusher, Troi and Captain Picard are at the funeral of the doctor’s grandmother. As the mourners file past the coffin, one man throws a flower and then looks at the doctor. She speaks to Troi afterwards; the flower was one of her grandmother’s favourites. It was a very personal gesture and he gave her a remarkable look. The doctor asks Troi if she wants to come to the house with her.
The captain speaks to the colony’s governor, Maturin, after the ceremony. Caldos is one of the oldest terraforming projects of the Federation and Maturin would appreciate a starship engineer taking at their now-old systems. The captain agrees and says it feels as if he’s in the Scottish Highlands. Maturin explains that the cornerstone of every building came from Scotland. The captain comments that Maturin, who isn’t human, is obviously not Scottish himself, so what drew him. The culture and heritage. He visited Glamis Castle as a boy and when he looked at the Highlands it felt like he’d come home.
Dr Crusher is with Troi at her Nana’s house. They talk about the family – Nana raised the doctor – and a lamp that has been in the Howard family for generations. The doctor lights the candle and Troi suggests she take it with her. Troi leaves and the doctor finds a journal and heads upstairs with it. A man comes in and blows out the candle. The doctor hears and comes down. The man, Ned Quint, knows who she is as he took care of her grandmother’s house and affairs. He wants to get rid of the candle as it brings misery and bad luck. It’s cursed the doctor’s family for generations. The doctor refuses and Ned says he washes his hands of it.
In engineering, Data is speaking to Maturin when Geordi says there are fluctuations in the colony’s weather control. It looks like there’s a storm forming, though such aren’t expected at this time of year. They’ll look into it.
Dr Crusher has returned to the ship and is walking with the captain. It seems her grandmother had a lover in his 30s. Even though she was 100. They met just after her great grandmother’s death. The doctor thinks she saw the man at the funeral. Her Nana never mentioned him and she had a life the doctor never knew about. In her quarters, the doctor falls asleep reading the journal. The unlit candle flickers and something moves the doctor’s bedcovering and clothes. A voice says her name and she bolts awake. She tells Troi the next day about the dream she had. Which apparently was extremely physical and arousing. Her grandmother wrote detailed descriptions of her experiences with the man, Ronin.
The doctor heads down to her grandmother’s grave and finds Ned there. She apologies; she now knows what he meant to her Nana. Ned recommends she doesn’t stay in the house. It’s haunted. Don’t light the candle either; it brings the ghost as it’s his home. Now he’s wandering and angry and is bringing the storms. Don’t light the candle or they’ll be burying another Howard. The storm is bringing green lightning.
Worf reports the storm on the bridge. The captain contacts Data in engineering who says the problem is spreading through the planet’s control grid. Geordi suggests a power transfer from the Enterprise to give the weather control system enough power to stabilise the storm.
The doctor returns to the house to take shelter and finds it full of flowers. She hears a sound and, when she looks in a mirror, sees a man behind her. But not when she turns. A voice says he came to her whilst she was asleep. He loves her, just as he loved her grandmother. Yes, he’s Ronin.
Ronin is claiming that he’s an 800-year-old ghost from Glasgow. The planet is being affected by a strange storm and this feeds back to the Enterprise. Dr Crusher’s experience with Ronin is looking strangely addictive; at one point it looks like she’s desperate for a fix. Whatever Ronin is, it looks like he’s certainly not healthy to be around. The episode is somewhat notorious.