10 Incredible Times Star Trek Ensigns Saved The Day

The Season Two episode Pen Pals of Star Trek: The Next Generation is a bit of an anomaly. It is strange not least for the (creepy!) long-distance communications between Data and a young child (Sarjenka) from a pre-warp planet, Drema IV, which is facing catastrophe. The ramifications for the Prime Directive most certainly shouldn’t have been the only consideration when judging Data’s behaviour.

Still, Data’s actions have consequences, and it’s up to a group of ensigns to sort things out for Sarjenka. Whilst the senior staff are comforting themselves with the luxury of philosophical debate, only ever self-serving in this instance, Ensigns Hildebrant, Davies, and Alans, led by Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher, are doing the hard work to discover the cause of the planetary breakups in the Selcundi Drema sector.

Struggling at first in his position of authority, Wesley manages to rally his team of ensigns behind him. When he finally summons the courage to order an 'ico-spectrogram' test, it is this that leads to the discovery of the cause of the planetary instabilities – funky interactions with dilithium in the planets’ crust essentially. The ensigns are then able to use this information to develop a solution to the problem – fire some modified probe-torpedoes at it – which returns geological stability to Sarjenka’s previously doomed homeworld and saves the lives of every inhabitant.