(Original source: "Creating The Next Generation" by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, Boxtree Publishing 1994, ISBN 0-7522-0843-8.)
8. "THE BATTLE"
Plot Summary:
This original draft outline, written by Larry Forrester, titled "Ghost Ship", is dated
April 16th, 1987.
The
Enterprise is maintaining a patrol of the territoral line between Federation space and the area under the control of the Ferengi Alliance. A Ferengi warship stares at them from the other side. On the bridge, Data fills Picard in on the other vessel, including identifying its captain as Daimon Bok. The name of course means nothing to Picard.
We cut to the Ferengi ship, where a similar conversation is taking place. The crew, in particular first officer Kazago, are astonished when Bok decides to open communications with the Federation starship. Over on
Enterprise, Riker advises Picard to be careful of a trap, but Picard accepts the hail. Bok then introduces a feed from another location, whereupon we are shown the starship
USS Stargazer, Picard's former command, adrift but salvagable.
Picard fills Riker in on his history on the
Stargazer. He desperately wants to go over and see the ship himself, but Riker won't let the captain be put into danger until he is absolutely certain it is safe. Picard tells Will that he had been forced to abandon
Stargazer after a battle (which he won) with a Ferengi warship a decade ago.
On the Ferengi vessel, Bok is looking over a machine called a 'trauma recall unit', a device that projects a beam into the mind of another and draws out secret guilts and fears. Kazago discusses Picard with Bok, and they look at the captain's "brain chart", obtained from the memory banks of the
Stargazer. Kazago warns Bok against using the trauma recall unit, saying the device has been banned. Bok dismisses him. During the conversation, it is clear that Kazago has serious doubts about Bok, having observed an unhealthy obsession his Daimon has with Jean Luc Picard, but Kazago does his duty and obeys.
The first thing the away team discover aboard
Stargazer is that her memory banks have been completely emptied of content. Not just that they've been accessed, but clean of any information whatsoever. The ship is badly damaged but has been repaired with some Ferengi engineering. Data theorises this might have been necessary to get the ship into servicable condition to bring it to the border. Over on
Enterprise, Picard is trying to sleep, but suffers from severe migrane. He goes through a flashback to the traumatic events of
Stargazer's battle with the Ferengi, then collapses. In sickbay, Deanna declares she feels a 'profound sense of hatred' that has enveloped the captain. At this moment, Picard suddenly awakens in a cold sweat.
The away team is back on the
Enterprise, and, tasking Data with researching Daimon Bok, Riker visits the captain in his quarters. Learning of the captain's flashbacks, he quizzes Picard further about the exact details of that final battle with the Ferengi, with Picard remembering the enemy ship making a suicide attack which was only averted with some quick tactical thinking by Picard. The captain has no idea why the memory seems to be resurfacing as acutely in his mind as it has. He feels no guilt over the incident. He again asks Riker if he may visit the
Stargazer, and while Riker doesn't say no, he does advise against it.
Over on the Ferengi ship, Kazago is having a meeting with another of the Ferengi crew, the chief medical officer. He is disturbed about Bok's apparent obsession with Picard, and says that although he loves Bok 'like a father', they discuss the possibility that they may need to relieve Bok of command. The medic claims he has no authority to force Bok to undertake a physchological test, but he will ask the Daimon if he will willingly submit to one. Otherwise there is nothing else he can do unless Kazago can bring him further proof.
Aboard
Enterprise, Picard seems completely out of it. On the bridge, he refers to Geordi using the name of his former
Stargazer helmsman, and then realises his mistake and is deeply troubled by it. Data has finished his research on the Daimon, but has found nothing in the records to indicate a prior link between Daimon Bok and Picard.
On the Ferengi ship, the chief medical officer tells Kazago that Bok has refused a medical. There is nothing else that can be done. On the bridge, Daimon Bok tells his first officer to watch out for the
Enterprise breaking the border. Kazago forms the opinion that his captain might be using the trauma recall unit to make Picard break the treaty, so that Bok would have justification for firing on the
Enterprise. He says privately to another Ferengi officer that if he does not act, then surely integalactic war with the Federation will result, something Kazago is eager to prevent. To this end, he makes contact with Commander Riker, without the knowledge of Daimon Bok. In this discussion, witnessed by Deanna Troi, Kazago speaks cryptically (just in case Bok is listening in),
hinting to Riker that the
Stargazer is a "Trojan horse", and saying that crossing the border would be an act of war. There is some back and forth between the two first officers, as Riker intuitively figures out what Bok is
really telling him between the lines, and Bok does the same with Riker's similarly coded responses. A sense of mutal respect builds between the two. As communication closes, Deanna offers that she senses only sincerity from Kazago.
Picard is taking respite on the holodeck, in a country setting. He is joined unannounced by Beverly and Wesley. The boy has been fascinated by the
Stargazer, given his father's connection to the ship, and asks many questions. Picard answers them as best he can, but Beverly notices that he avoids mentioning the final battle. After Wes leaves, Beverly sits beside the captain, and they air their feelings about Jack Crusher and the
Stargazer. Picard is startled to notice that although the final battle has been weighing heavily on his mind, he hadn't reacted to his associations between Jack's death and his old ship. There might be a significance, why is it that memory's of the final battle are so intense in his mind, over-riding any other memories? This prompts Beverly, who suddenly recalls vaguely a banned device that could do exactly that (the trauma recall unit)...
Daimon Bok confronts Kazago. He is angry that his first officer has contacted Riker, and he relieves Kazago of his duties, confining him to quarters. Back on the
Enterprise, Picard has another bad flashback. This time he absently dresses himself and goes to the bridge, where he opens contact with Bok. He asks a 'barrage of questions' about Bok's motivations and why he's brought the
Stargazer here. Bok declares innocence, saying he is giving the ship back to Picard as an act of goodwill. the commincation ends, and Picard asks Riker if maybe this isn't really the
Stargazer, could it be a trick, could it be simply designed to resemble the old ship? Riker notes the Ferengi technology aboard
Stargazer and says anything is possible. He knows what Picard is thinking and tells him he should not beam over. Picard accepts this, leaves the bridge, and immediately heads to the transporter room, disobeying his first officers recommendation.
With Picard on the
Stargazer, and Damon Bok using the Ferengi technology aboard
Stargazer to put a block on the
Enterprise's transporter locking onto their captain, Riker attempts to contact the Ferengi ship. He takes the hard decision to breach the border. As Bok uses the trauma recall unit to further confuse Picard on the
Stargazer. Picard hears Bok's voice in his head, telling him that the Ferengi ship he destroyed a decade ago was "under a flag of truce", and that her Daimon had been Bok's son. Kazago has been lurking, and has overheard this exchange. He runs to the Ferengi chief medical officer and enlists his help. Picard sinks deeper into the flashback, and Picard sees the approaching
Enterprise on the screen as the Ferengi vessel from all those years before. As
Stargazer powers up, Riker makes contact with the captain, and tries to talk him down. Beverly joins this conversation, and the sound of her voice (and her reminder to him of Jack) almost helps to rouse the captain from his dazed course of action...
Kazago and the medical officer barge into Bok's quarters and place him under arrest, citing a 'emergency situation' as his authority to do so. Bok isn't bothered; he says he has placed an explosive device on the
Stargazer, so in any case he will have his vengenace on Picard. Kazago opens contact with
Enterprise, quickly explaining that Bok has been relieved of duty and telling Riker about the explosive. As they figure out together how to unjam the transporter, Captain Picard is only barely retrieved from the
Stargazer before it explodes.
Riker expresses his sincere appreciation to the Ferengi first officer. Kazago accepts this praise, and returns it, further saying that the
Enterprise's breach of the border will
not be reported to the Ferengi command. With the crisis over, and a sense of peace between the two people's, the ships head their seperate ways.
How It Differs From The Broadcast Version: As with the Ferengi's previous appearance, in the draft version of "The Last Outpost", the structure of "Ghost Ship" is remarkably close to the episode as broadcast (which was retitled "The Battle"). And as with the draft version of "The Last Outpost", the general differences are a matter of emphasis. The most immediate difference is that "Ghost Ship" provides many more moments aboard the Ferengi vessel, showing the Ferengi crew and building a sense of Kazago's honor, and Bok's madness for revenge. Edward Gross and Mark Altman comment in the book that the overall effect is not unlike the TOS episode "Balance Of Terror", where the script took the opportunity to show what is happening on the Romulan ship and drew deliberate parallels between the commander of the vessel and Captain Kirk (just as "Ghost Ship" builds a parallel between Riker and Kazago). The finished episode contains only the barest amount of this, most of the scenes aboard the Ferengi ship having been cut. Other differences are relatively minor: there is no mention of 'The Picard Maneuver', nor execution of it in the finale. An opportunity is taken by the use of the
Stargazer to bring a sense of the Picard/Beverly/Jack thing to the fore. Otherwise, the story is fairly similar to what we eventually got, it just has a few little tweaks here and there. One intriguing thing I will note is that the exact nature of the earlier battle between the
Stargazer and the Ferengi ship is left much more ambiguous than in the broadcast version: Picard is said to have perceived the earlier Ferengi ship's actions as a "suicide run", whereas Bok declares (apparently in all seriousness) that the other vessel was under a flag of peace, and the underlying feeling, left unspoken, is that perhaps Picard *did* make a mistake by engaging the Ferengi in battle, his military training having overtaken his better judgement. The episode as broadcast in fact makes it much clearer that Bok is lying through his pointed teeth. Also, in this draft outline the Ferengi first officer has misgivings about the political ramifications of what Bok is doing, which is his motivation for removing his Daimon from command, whereas in the broadcast version the first officer's misgivings seem mostly related to Bok giving the
Stargazer away as a gift (rather than, for example, asking for something in return).
My Take: I've got a lot of time for the broadcast version of "The Battle", I actually think it's one of the first season's unqualified successes.
"Ghost Ship" is likewise a strong storyline, most of which made it fully intact into the final version. One thing I do admire about "Ghost Ship" is that it goes that one step further to try and explore the Ferengi culture (who were still being touted as the new ongoing nemesis of the Federation at this time), with the shipboard scenes on the Ferengi ship allowing us some insight into how their military works. In the characters we also get the feeling of
depth, and like the draft version of "The Last Outpost", there's a much greater sense of the Ferengi being treated 'seriously'. It is a pity that these scenes were removed from the final version, as they would have given further insight into the Ferengi, but in this case the storyline in the broadcast version just about survives their absence.
I was not speaking literally, merely saying that the "crystalline tree" sounds a lot like the CE and that the design might have been reused even, similarly to the theoretical design of the reptilian people in the draft of "Code of Honour" and the televised version of "Lonely among us" Like Dave Cockrum said "nothing creative ever goes to waste." but can be re-used somewhere else. 
Black's second draft, which I alluded to, basically follows the above outline, but tightens everything up -- instead of the initial scouting mission taking place on screen, it happens before the episode takes place (just as in the broadcast version), and the connection to Kirk's Enterprise was (wisely) dropped from the second draft as well. Tenson the Redshirt still dies, but in this case he does so while saving Wesley from the cops. The ending of Draft #2 saw the Enterprise crew not involving themselves in the war on Llarof, and ended on the downbeat note of Reneg being killed by Trebor for his treason. "Perhaps they'd risk being legally executed for dropping a piece of paper on the sidewalk," muses Picard "to live without fear of being raped or robbed or murdered in their sleep. In any case Number One, they have a right to their own system of justice."
The family connection to Picard is kind of interesting though, and could definitely have been made something of. 
