Scenes from last episode: The sound of organ music, combined with
the weezing noises of an oversized coolant system emanates from the
speakers.
Worf: Captain, we have encountered the Borg.
Reiker: [to Lt. Yarn] Did you find him?
Lt. Yarn: No sir, he appears to have to gone over to the Borg.
Worf: He is a Borg!
Beverly: Wait! Maybe I get him back from fullscreen. I might be
able to disable caps lock.
Worf: Riker, the borg are opening a smtp connection.
Reiker: On screen!
Picard appears wearing a JoePa Tee-Shirt, carrying a copy of
Buy-The-Book.
Picard: You will buy books at full retail! We will double your
tuition! Academic standards are irrelavent! You will
not use skateboards! You will not steal milk crates!
Obey or we will terminate your accounts!
Reiker: [turning to Worf] Fire alt.flame postings.
Now, for the conclusion of "The Worst of College Town
Beurocracy": (Insert neat promo-sounds here) Central Pennsylvania,
the boring frontier. Our mission: To seek good times, to find a
quiet restful atmosphere, and a real groovy arts festival. To go,
(without getting a citation), where no student has gone before.
Pause for dramatic tension. The Borg ship leaves, cut to
commercial.
COMMERCIAL:
"Secret Computer Geek Confessions! The stories that have to be
told!"
(Insert picture of nerd working on a car alarm.)
Nerd: I didn't mean to get everybody angry at me! I posted
nasty flames because I thought everyone knew I was
joking! I'm really not a yuppie, please forgive me!
(Insert picture of twit sitting next to a NeXT machine)
Twit: Listen, so I'm a nerd. So what! Ok. I pick my nose.
Big Deal! Any guy who says he doesn't is lying!
(Insert person whose facial features are electronically distorted
to protect identity.)
ACA official: I sit all day, I do my job, and there's never
anything to do. So I forged all the BIFF postings!
Please, please, forgive me!
Shocking stories noone with a life really cares about hearing!
Just dial 1-900-GET-ALIF. 10 CPU seconds the first minute, 1 CPU
second each additional minute. Students, get your system
administrator's permission before you call.
Back to the show, Reicher is talking to Admiral:
Admiral: It's a terrible shame about Captain Puckard. He was the
greatest programmer in the fleet. He knew gnu software
inside/out. We'll miss him.
Reicher: So he's to be considered dead?
Admiral: If you were stuck in FULLSCREAM mode permnamently, I'd
consider you dead. It's a terrible shame. Commander
Reicher, I promote you to SysAdmin of the Enterprise.
Reicher: Thank you Admiral. Reicher out.
The bridge...
Worf: Do you think we could design phasors to transmit ascii
characters in modulated waves that could give BorgNet
sysadmin headaches?
Data: I think so sir.
Reicher steps in.
Wesley: We're coming up on UNIXNET.UNIX.NET sir. We seem to be
approaching several destroyed structures.
Reicher: Parking Lot 80, Student parking in Beaver, student
parking on the streets, all destroyed by the Borg. When
will it stop?
Troy: [in disgust] And all to either make space for the
BorgAdmins, or "to improve the appearence of the
universe."
Ed. Note: No, we are not making this up! Parking on the streets
really was outlawed because "Streetsulook better without
cars parked on them!!!"
COMMERCIAL:
(Cue in Saxaphone music... zoom in on "Easiel", wearing her white
dress. (And approximately 1/2 a gallon of red lipstick.))
Easiel: Don't have a life? Need a friend? Someone to talk to?
There are five easy steps to making a "friend." 1) finger
my name and get my UID. 2) type man (9-OH!-9-OH!)
netwrite 3) now TYPE netwrite UID 4) Now *HELP* me with
my programming project!
OH! and number five: Don't forget my UID!
10 men competing the first minute, 50 men competing each additional
minute. Morons only.
BACK TO THE SHOW.
Meeting room of the Enterprise:
Lut. Yarn: Captain, I have an idea to get Picard back.
Instead of trying to fight our way in, why don't we
just get the writers to be open-minded to the point
of ridiculousness?
Datum: She has a point sir. In the original Star Trek, they
were many incidents in which Kirk and Spock, and probably
the rest of the crew, shouldn't have survived. But
through implausible plot twists, they always made it back
alive.
Reicher: But that was filmed back in 60's. People don't go for
implausable plot twists anymore. That won't work in this
series.
Weasely: Excuse me sir, but may I point out how we cured Dr.
Pulaski of the aging disease, by using the transporter to
return her DNA structure to normal? Also, how that
arrogant entity Q always goes away when we whup him,
rather than smearing our sorry atoms all over the galaxy?
Reicher: You have a good point. Do you think it can work?
Deanna: It has to, Sir. Patrick Stewart has publicly announced
that the Picard character will have a much more active
role this season. Let's face it - he can't be killed in
this episode. He has to come back.
Reicher: Jordo, do you think you can work up something thourougly
implausible?
Jordo: It's worth a shot, Sir. I can always channel the
transporter through the warp engines, then deflect the
beam around a black hole which should send it through a
time warp, thereby hitting the Borg vessel 4 hours ago,
when their shields were down. We can also create
minature cloaking devices for the away team, so the borg
can't see them. Meanwhile, we'll seperate the saucer
section from from the main drive, because we haven't done
that since the series pilot. That should keep them
confused enough that they won't notice it when we grab
Picard. Deanna can then use her betazoid capabilities to
form a vulcan mind meld with him, and with him distracted
we can beam them back around the black hole to a time in
the future. We'll then relink the ship, and when the
Borg think we're running away, we'll actually be moving
so that the ship's sickbay is in the exact location that
the transporter beam will hit. They'll never know what
hit them. (takes a deep breath) How does that sound?
Reicher: It sounded great. Would you mind running through it
again?
Jordi: Let's see. First, I channel the transporter...
Reicher: Never mind! Just do it.
(insert F/X here. Naturally, the plan works.)
Later, in sickbay...
Crusher: Captain - all these Borg impliments... We were wrong
about their purpose. They don't join him to the Borg
conciousness. Their main purpose is to cut him off from
reality.
Datum: That's the key, Sir. We haven't been able to beat the
Borg collective conciousness becasue there IS no Borg
conciousness. They are a bureaucracy of administrators
who have a very poor concept of what's really going on in
the world around them, and make official decisions based
mostly on personal whims. Reality and facts don't phase
them, because they can't SEE reality. Their only real
connection is in the implimentation stage - once a
decision is made, it gets carried out by all.
Jordo: That would explain why they still use single-mainframe
technology, even though network systems have been proven
better. They simply can't see it.
Later, in Data's lab...
Datum: Now, all I have to do is link him through the transporter
to my own positronic brain...
Data and O'Brien throw a mess of switches, then Data hooks a
pair of jumper cables to his ears and plugs them into a socket.
F/X: Smoke comes out of Data's ears and nostrils and he falls
over.
CUT TO COMMERCIAL
COMMERCIAL
This is your Positronic Brain. (shows egg)
This is 220 Volts. (hot greasy frying pan)
This is your Positronic Brain on 220 volts.
(*Crack* plop-fsssssssss...)
Any questions?
"Partnership for a Voltage Free Universe."
BACK TO SHOW...
Data's lab where Data has just hooked into the BorgNet
conciousness.
Data: [Addressing Head Borg] Surely you must see what's
going on under you...
Price Gordon: [the head borg] Campaign for Borg state. We are
getting lots of money to hire more borgs. We need
to hire more borgs to continue the campaign.
Data: [Communicating through BorgNet] Yes, but why don't
you retire so that a new committee could form to
find a replacement for you thereby making even more
Borgs?
Price Gordon: Yes, that is good even for an inferior droid such
as yourself. I shall appoint a replacement head
borg that understands the meaning of borg state
philosophy: profit.
SCENE: Borg ship command headquarters. The new head Borg walks
up. It's obviously a modified Ferengi.
Cratibis: I shall lead borg state to higher levels of profit.
Lucutis realizes what's going on and tries to use his IBM
Plotter pen arm to destroy his data-switch connection to BorgNet.
Data stops him by disabling his caps-lock key.
Captain Puckard: Buy the Book. Buy the Book.
Troi: That's not Lucitis. That's really Captain Puckard!
Data: I think he wants me to insert sub-commands to Borg
Beurocracy to waste money on surplus unsellable Joe
Paterno Auto-Biographies.
Jordo: We can even insert a command for them to buy up all the
marked down autographed editions!
SysAdmin Reicher: Make it so.
Much beeping and ethernet traffic as the blinking lights on
the side of Data's console go on and off...
Jordi: It's working! Joe Paterno's Auto-Biography is putting
the Borg administration to sleep!
Worf: SysAdmin. The Borg ship is regenerating beurocracy as
money pours into the Borg Bookstore on overpriced
products. Bankruptcy of this Borg Branch Campus and loss
of it's Alumni will occur any moment now.
Data: SysAdmin Reicher, the Borg ship could be useful for
study. We could possibly retrain them to do useful
things, like train the Borg Cops to solve real crimes
instead of issue parking tickets.
SysAdmin Reicher: Nahhhhh. Screw 'em.
Borg ship blows up as it loses it's land grant. The
Enterprise disconnects just in time. Later, in Captain Puckard's
study...
Reicher: How much do you remember, sir?
Puckard: 10 PRINT 'HELLO' 20 GOTO 10