Elementary, Dear Enterprise: Starfleet's Detective Tales

In ' "," Beckett Mariner and Ensign Olly conducted an investigation into an apparent murder while the U.S.S. Cerritos hosted a delicate peace conference between two photonic species, the Orbs and the Cubes.

Though the supposed victim turned out to be very much alive, the same could not be said for those who succumbed to tragic fates on missions involving the U.S.S. Enterprise-D in .

Let's look back on the occasions in which Captain Jean-Luc Picard's crew turned into homicide detectives and solved some curious cases…

An Engineer's End in ""

While trying to solve unexplained malfunctions that had been plaguing the Enterprise-D, assistant chief engineer Singh was killed at his post. The warring Antican and Selay delegations being transported aboard the vessel became the prime suspects, but they were soon deemed to be too consumed with plotting against one another to pull off the murder.

Even as Data channeled the legendary Sherlock Holmes, the list of potential suspects gradually grew smaller until a shocking truth came to light. The culprit proved to be a sentient energy being that had been carried away as the Enterprise-D passed a nearby energy cloud. Trapped within the ship's circuits, the entity tried to communicate with the crew, an effort which led to Singh's accidental death.

A Holodeck Homicide in ""

We could never reflect on perplexing mysteries without diving into this article's episodic namesake, as Data and Geordi La Forge's fascination with a Sherlock Holmes holoprogram prompted Dr. Pulaski to challenge the android's crime-solving abilities.

In order to craft a unique case for Data to crack, the holodeck accidentally bestowed the program's version of with consciousness. Moriarty kidnapped Pulaski, but as Data and La Forge followed their trail, the two came across a murdered holodeck character. With a Holmesian eye for detail, Data deduced that the man had been garroted by his common-law wife, who had stood up to his abusive behavior. With that crime settled, Data and La Forge moved on to search for a far more nefarious foe…

The Acts of Acamar in ""

Although an Acamarian's death appeared to be caused by natural causes, Dr. Crusher uncovered an artificially-engineered microvirus that had stopped his heart. A database search of similar murders revealed that one of the Acamarian's ancestors had been killed by the same microvirus over 50 years before.

Commander William T. Riker realized an Acamarian blood feud was at play, though he had not been prepared to see Yuta — an Acamarian guest of the Enterprise-D who he had expressed affection toward — in an image with the elder victim. Riker confronted her, learning that her cells had been transformed to slow the aging process so that she could continue to hunt down her family's rivals. Consumed by revenge, Yuta tried to slay her final target, and a reluctant Riker was forced to kill her in order to save a life.

An Infatuating Investigation in ""

A routine check in at a research station turned into an explosive encounter, as the facility's unexpected destruction resulted in Dr. Nel Apgar's death. Commander Riker was accused of murder, and the local authorities developed a holographic re-creation of the lab.

The events played out from Riker's perspective, portraying Apgar's wife Manua as someone who angered her husband by flirting with Riker. The holoprogram then retold the ordeal from Manua's point of view, indicating that the commander had propositioned her. Fortunately, Captain Picard's own inquiry found that Apgar had lied about his experiments. Fearing the Federation was onto his deception, Apgar sought to murder Riker as he transported away, but the energy pulse reflected off the beam and struck the nearby reactor. Apgar had inadvertently orchestrated his own murder!

The Klingon Quandaries in ""

This multi-part puzzle began when K'mpec, the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, requested Captain Picard's assistance in determining whether Gowron or Duras had been poisoning him. The ritual of determining K'mpec's successor began upon his death, but an explosion rocked the proceedings and killed two additional Klingons. Bomb debris indicated the device had been Romulan, a faction which Picard and Worf knew had associated with the Duras family in the past.

When Ambassador K'Ehleyr unearthed this connection for herself, Duras attacked her in her quarters. As Dr. Crusher's analysis verified that the bomb had been implanted in the Duras soldier who had died, a mortally wounded K'Ehleyr implicated Duras as her murderer. Worf avenged K'Ehleyr by confronting Duras, whose own demise closed the book on the series of deaths he had set in motion.

The Deadly Delegate in ""

Given the advanced age of Lumerian Ambassador Ves Alkar's mother, her passing did not seem suspicious to the untrained eye. However, Dr. Crusher grew concerned by her inability to find any trace of disease in the woman's body. According to Alkar, Lumerian traditions ruled out an autopsy from being conducted, preventing Crusher from investigating the corpse's high neurotransmitter levels.

When Counselor Troi started to behave violently and out of character, tests showed neurotransmitter readings comparable to those of Alkar's mother. Picard authorized an autopsy of the Lumerian woman, a study which demonstrated that she had only been 30 years old. In reality, she was not the ambassador's mother, as Alkar had actually been channeling his negative emotions into her. Alkar then redirected those thoughts toward Troi, whose own degenerative condition was reversed when the ambassador tried to recruit his next victim.

A Subspace Slasher in ""

Unexplained time gaps and faint memories brought several crew members to the holodeck, where they described their recollections and reconstructed a medical examination table. The group came to the jarring conclusion that someone had removed them from the ship and conducted experiments against their will. An already disturbing enigma soon turned far more lethal, as one kidnapped crew member died upon their return to the Enterprise-D.

The solanogen-based intruders were tracked to a subspace domain, and Commander Riker allowed himself to be taken once again so that he could seal the rupture which connected their realm to his own universe. Though his mission was successful, something — possibly a probe — passed through the rupture and escaped out into the galaxy…

The Case of the Coalescent in ""

The presence of blood belonging to Lieutenant Aquiel Uhnari led Dr. Crusher to presume that the cellular residue on a nearby deck plate constituted the officer's remains, at least until a Klingon ship detected a shuttle she had used to flee the relay station. Uhnari claimed her colleague Lieutenant Rocha had attacked her, though she couldn't recall what happened next.

With Uhnari now considered a suspect, Crusher further analyzed the residue only for the substance to touch her hand and mimic its cellular structure. The doctor proposed that it was a coalescent lifeform, microscopic beings that absorb other organisms to survive, hypothesizing that it had replaced Rocha prior to his most recent assignment. The truth emerged just in time, as the coalescent had been hiding in plain sight in the form of the relay station's dog!

The Doctor Detective in ""

When Jo'Bril perished while testing an experimental metaphasic shield, Dr. Crusher was baffled by the Takaran scientist's internal physiology. Dr. Reyga, the Ferengi who had developed the metaphasic technology, remained adamant that his invention was operational and seemingly took his own life over the incident. Nevertheless, Crusher's relentless pursuit of the facts compelled her to demonstrate that Reyga's shield should have protected Jo'Bril during his test run.

After stealing a shuttle, Crusher faced off with an astonishing stowaway — Jo'Bril! The Takaran disclosed that his species could create the appearance of death, and he intended to make off with the prototype shield and weaponize it. Crusher managed to obtain Jo'Bril’s phaser, but given his unique Takaran physiology, completely disintegrating him proved to be her sole defense against his assault.

A Telepathic Terror in ""

A young officer's suicide brought Counselor Troi to the Enterprise-D's nacelle tube, causing her to endure an elaborate empathic hallucination which nearly drove her to take her own life. Although those events — which included an amorous affair that pushed her into murdering Worf — were not real, a partially telepathic officer named Lieutenant Pierce who had appeared in them had indeed helped build the ship at Utopia Planitia.

Troi surmised that, upon learning of an affair between the other two officers, Pierce killed them both before throwing himself into the plasma stream. No bodies were found at the time, yet Geordi La Forge identified cellular residue imbued with a psionic signature in the nacelle tube. Coming into contact with the imprinted empathic pattern sparked Troi's near-death experience, but the unfortunate side effect shed new light on a long-forgotten tragedy.