‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Retro Recap – ‘Contagion’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

One particular thing that is truly fascinating about our modern world, is how much we’ve managed to learn and understand when it comes to older civilizations. Because record keeping has its gaps when you venture further back from modern society, which means it falls to the work of archeologists and historians to piece together exactly what life was like for mankind thousands of years ago and that work has yielded some fascinating results. For we now know how older societies used to function, and what mattered most to the people of that era, and that gives us incredible insight into the human condition and it reminds us how far we’ve come as a species, during our short time on this tiny blue rock that we call home.
​
But as our technology continues to advance and we eventually venture into the stars, one has to wonder, if our current methods of archeology will yield the same results when we encounter remnants of ancient alien civilizations. Because we know nothing of their base social structure or what is remotely meaningful to them and that could yield some interesting facts and some unexpected dangers. And it just so happens that the next episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation takes the time to examine this in a supremely intense manner. For ‘Contagion’ sees the crew of the Enterprise dig deep into the nature and wonder of a long-gone alien civilization, and what they uncover is quite confusing and dangerous for certain.

In fact, the discovery of the Iconian home world by Captain Donald Varley of the U.S.S. Yamato, turns out to be quite deadly. Because a strange probe from that mysterious world infected the systems of the Yamato with a computer virus, one that eventually caused a massive failure in the safety systems of the warp core, leading to a loss of all hands. And unfortunately for Captain Picard and his crew, downloading her logs infects the 1701-D’s mainframe as well, causing similar problems. Making it a race against time to figure out how to purge the virus before the Enterprise suffers the same horrific fate and while that alone makes this episode worth the audience’s while since it is intense and entertaining through and through, it’s the minutiae that makes this episode stand out as an important and influential episode for certain. 

Because this is the first introduction of the Iconians into Star Trek canon, and these mysterious and ancient aliens would go on to cause more inadvertent trouble down the line with their technology. Since Captain Benjamin Sisko and the intrepid crew of the U.S.S. Defiant would deal with another gateway during Deep Space Nine’s run and of course, these ancient aliens ended up becoming quite the villainous fixture in later seasons in Star Trek Online. So, it is quite awesome to revisit the genesis point of this particular species and as an added bonus, this particular tale also accomplishes something quite important for the crew of the Enterprise as well. Because this tale also helps us to understand just how talented and brave and resourceful this crew really is, which is important when serving aboard a ship named Enterprise and it is quite nice to see them come together in this story. Since it provides the audience with a subtle reassurance that this crew can handle anything that comes their way and boy… do some big challenges lie ahead. 

But before we get ahead of ourselves, it is also important to point out that this story really does serve as a warning for the lucky folks who are going to poke around Mars and other planets in ten or twenty years and beyond. In that, be humble in what you discover and be careful and patient. Because impatience and arrogance in this tale, led to outright disaster and if life in general has taught us one important lesson; it is to observe and absorb before making any big decisions when presented with something new. And if Captain Varley had stuck with that notion, the Yamato might still be in service in 2365. In the end however, this was just a fun and intense ride. One that featured a lot of cool moments and great one liners and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a good ol’ fashioned, entertaining sci-fi story and it would seem that for a little bit here, that’s exactly what we are going to get from TNG. Especially when one considers that the next episode in this season involves a stop at an intergalactic casino. Until next time.

---