Synopsis: While Captain Riker, Commander Musiker, and Worf are sent to Daystrom Station to look for answers, the crew of the U.S.S. Titan proceed to the Fleet Museum seeking an ally.
This episode gives an illustration of masking—a term the neurodiverse community uses to describe trying to get by in a neurotypical world undetected as neurodivergent.
In “The Bounty,” on the Shrike, Captain Vadic continues with her plan to wreak vengeance on the Federation on Frontier Day. Meanwhile aboard the U.S.S. Titan, Dr. Beverly Crusher informs Admiral Jean-Luc Picard that their son, Jack Crusher, has inherited Irumodic Syndrome from him, and that this explains the visions that Crusher is experiencing. The Titan travels to Daystrom Station where Captain William T. Riker, Commander Raffaela Musiker, and Worf go to try to ascertain what the Changelings took from there. Titan leaves them there while the ship travels to the Fleet Museum, where Picard tries to enlist the assistance of Commodore Geordi La Forge. While this is going on Sidney La Forge and Crusher take the cloaking device from the H.M.S. Bounty, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey that Captain James Tiberius Kirk and members of his crew return to Earth with two humpbacked whales in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Nimoy, 1984). Using the cloaking device, the Titan is able to return to Daystrom Station undetected to retrieve her crewmembers there. Musiker and Worf return with a deactivated Data. When the body of Data—which now also contains bits of Lore, B4, and Lal, is reactivated, he is able to tell the crew of the Titan that what the Changelings took from Daystrom Station was Picard’s body. However, Riker is not retrieved from Daystrom Station, he has been captured by Vadic, who has also captured Commander Deanna Troi.
In this episode, Titan’s use of a cloaking device to pass unseen by other vessels can be analogized to how a neurodivergent individual masks, or tries to go about life undetected by neurotypical individuals in a neurotypical society. Much as a cloaking device takes up so much of a ship’s energy that it must be disengaged for a vessel to use weapons, masking also uses a lot of a neurodivergent individual’s energy. How much easier it is to move around in space without having to be cloaked, but to be able to be seen for who you are.
Reference:
Nimoy, L. (Director). (1986). Star trek IV: The voyage home [Film]. Paramount Pictures.
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