"The Vulcan Trilogy" Line-by-Line!

[Vanyel]

There is evidence of some sort of disaster aboard the Enterprise, severe enough that the Captain ordered all hands to abandon ship. I have isolated 3 segments of this recording that are crucial.

 

[Admiral Shran]

A highly localised distortion of the space-time continuum.

 

[Vanyel]

Collision course. Impact in 36 seconds.

 

[Admiral Shran]

All hands, abandon ship! Repeat, all hands abandon....

 

[Vanyel]

Worf refers to a distortion. If this were a temporal distortion and if we were close enough to it, it’s possible that a large enough explosion could have ruptured the space timer continuum. We collided, exploded then got caught in this repeating loop of time.

 

[Admiral Shran]

If you're right, perhaps we could escape the loop by avoiding the collision.

 

[Vanyel]

That’s our guess.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Maybe we should reverse course.

 

[Vanyel]

For all we know reversing course may be what leads us into the crash.

 

[Admiral Shran]

No. We can't afford to start second guessing ourselves. We'll stay on this course until we have reason to change it. But let's do everything we can to avoid the collision.

 

[Vanyel]

Captain, we might not be able to figure out how to avoid this accident until it’s too late. And if the loop begins again we’ll forget everything we learned this time around.

 

[Admiral Shran]

What do you suggest?

 

[Vanyel]

If we do find a way to avoid this collision we should try to send that information into the next loop.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Is that possible?

 

[Vanyel]

We have seen that echoes, or after images from previous loops appear as distortions in the Dekyon field. We may be able to send a deliberate echo into the next loop.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Like a message in a bottle.

 

[Vanyel]

Exactly. We could enhance a Dekyon emission to create a specific pattern and send ourselves a message. Not a long one, probably only a few characters. Maybe one word.

 

[Admiral Shran]

How do we know we'll pick up that word the next time through?

 

[Vanyel]

If the Dekyon emission is modulated correctly it will set up resonances in my positronic sub processors. I will receive the information on what you would call a subconscious level.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Now there's the catch. We have no way of knowing how this information will be perceived by Data. It might be like a posthypnotic suggestion.