- Riker begins to question reality when he finds himself in an alien insane asylum and faces the prospect his life on the Enterprise has been a delusion.
- Riker is gravely affected by a local's death on a covert mission on Tilonus IV, where civil strife has created total mayhem and endangers Federation colonists. From then on, he has a frustrating series of conflicting sensations, unable to tell whether his mind is running wild aboard the Enterprise getting into a crazy character in a play, or undergoing reflection therapy, a voluntary alternative to irreparable surgical synaptic reconstruction, in a Tilonian mental ward.—KGF Vissers
- Riker was playing the role of a mad man in Beverly's play "Frame of Mind". Suddenly he starts feeling that everybody on the ship is staring at him or blaming him for something. He is very uneasy.
Riker is gravely affected by a local's death on a covert mission on Tilonus IV, where civil strife has created total mayhem and endangers Federation colonists. Riker was transported undercover to rescue the colonists.
From then on, he has a frustrating series of conflicting sensations, unable to tell whether his mind is running wild aboard the Enterprise getting into a crazy character in a play, or undergoing reflection therapy, a voluntary alternative to irreparable surgical synaptic reconstruction, in a Tilonian mental ward. In the mental ward, Riker cannot even remember his own name. At times he thinks that he is being treated as a mental patient on Tilonus by Dr Syrus (David Selburg), but at other times he thinks that he is on the Enterprise, going about his normal job, but with people staring at him and him feeling uneasy. At the mental ward, he is let out into common areas from time to time and allowed to interact with other inmates.
Riker is approached by inmate Jaya (Susanna Thompson) who says she is a Starfleet officer herself from the Yorktown and there are a dozen like them at this facility. She alleges that the Tilonians are trying to harvest Neurochemicals from their brains. Jaya says that she has made a communicator and that there are 3 ships in orbit. Mavek (Gary Werntz) is the attendant at the facility and says Riker stabbed a local 9 times, before he was brought to the mental facility. Riker attacks Mavek and is given a sedative and he wakes up on the Enterprise, in his bed. Now which is real, and which is a dream?
Riker performs Beverly's play on the Enterprise and again can't decide whether he is on the ship or on Tilonus. He attacks a crew member Lt Suna (Andrew Prine) who looks like a person he saw in the Tilonus mental institute. Beverly checks him out and he has no sign of drugs or anything else wrong with him.
Just when things are back to normal, he is back in his Tilonus cell again. Dr Syrus offers him a choice of reflection therapy (interacting with holographs of memories of his own) to determine what happened, or brain surgery to alter his neural pathways. Riker chooses the therapy, but is even more confused when each holograph of his memory tells him that he is still on the Enterprise and that he should not give in.
On Tilonus, he is visited by Beverly, who tells him that something happened on Tilonus and they are being told that Riker killed someone. The hospital administrator Suna is denying that Riker even exists at the hospital. She has come to meet Riker posing as a health official and assures to get him out.
That night Data and Worf arrive to rescue Riker and take him to the Enterprise. Beverly treats his head wound, but it's still bleeding (even though it was supposed to have been treated by Beverly). Riker realizes that this isn't real either. He takes Worf's phaser and shoots himself and finds himself in the mental facility. He shoots Mavek with the phaser and the image shatters to reveal that he is in Beverly's play. He shoots again and wakes up on a table, with a Neuro drain connected to his forehead operated by Suna.
Riker uses his communicator to call the Enterprise and beams out before Suna can do anything. Riker was abducted by Suna, 2 days after he beamed down to the surface. Suna was using a Neuro-somatic technique to get strategic information out of Riker
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content