Star Trek Murder Mystery Drove The Science Advisor Crazy

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 17 seconds ago

Here’s a fun fact: historically, Star Trek shows have had a scientific consultant whose job it is to keep storytelling grounded in our current knowledge of physics and technology. That doesn’t mean everything you see in these shows is scientifically accurate, of course: as Voltaire so memorably sings, far too many plot points still get resolved through nonsense technobabble, like “[bouncing] a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish.” But the advisor does his best to ensure that most of what we see in shows set in the 24th century jives with the collective scientific knowledge of the 20th and 21st centuries.

As a rule, the scientific advisor isn’t usually heavily involved with plotting an episode. Rather, he gets called in after the fact to supply convincing jargon for scenes of technical exposition. There are exceptions, of course, including the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “A Matter of Perspective.” Scientific consultant David Krieger attended the story conference for this episode because the writers needed to know how the holodeck could accidentally put the ship in danger. He provided the perfect explanation and received an unexpected reward: a new bit of Trek technology was ultimately named after him!

The Holodeck Goes Homicidal

“A Matter of Perspective” is a murder mystery in which Riker is accused of killing a man by deliberately blowing up the space station he was on. Eventually, we find out that the commander didn’t murder this guy; instead, the guy tried to murder Riker, but his radiation waves bounced off the transporter beam and blew up his interstellar laboratory; furthermore, the Enterprise’s holodeck recreation of the scientist’s lab was converting energy from the planet into radiation that endangered the ship. It makes for a fun reveal, especially with Lawyer Picard doing the talking. Still, this story flummoxed the entire writing staff for a simple reason: it required the holodeck to do something impossible.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the holodeck is presented as the ultimate virtual reality simulation. No goggles are needed: thanks to holographic projectors, replicators, and invisible force fields, it can perfectly replicate anyone and anything, letting visitors do whatever they want without leaving the ship. Fortunately, they are designed with safety protocols that keep people from getting killed. But that presented a problem for the TNG writers (all of whom worked on “A Matter of Perspective”) because the episode had the holodeck sending waves of dangerous radiation into the ship. How, then, could it do that when the technology was explicitly designed to keep people safe?

Science Saves The Day

Thanks to this narrative conundrum, “A Matter of Perspective” marked one of the few times that science consultant David Krieger was invited to attend a story conference in person. The writers pitched him their problem, and he came up with a creative solution. Instead of the holodeck serving as a direct source of the damage happening to the Enterprise, it would simply convert harmless energy from the planet into deadly radiation. It did this because the scientist’s lab was secretly designed to do so, and the Enterprise perfectly recreated it in the holodeck. 

It made for a nice little loophole: the holodeck wasn’t intentionally causing harm, and the discovery that the Enterprise is accidentally creating radiation leads to the episode’s climactic reveal. As for the Star Trek: The Next Generation producers and writers, they were proud of the science consultant’s idea. So proud, in fact, that they named the special radiation “Krieger waves” in his honor. Unfortunately, the reception to this episode was mixed; many fans liked it, but TNG writers like Michael Piller, Ira Steven Behr, and Ronald D. Moore absolutely hated it. 

An intensely divisive episode actually named “A Matter of Perspective?” Man, our simulation really is breaking down. Before it gets any worse…computer, end program!