Starship Mine
episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (S6 E18)
"Starship Mine" is the 144th episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the 18th episode of the sixth season. The episode marked an early appearance of actor Tim Russ in the Star Trek canon prior to his being cast as Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager, and same for Patricia Tallman, later starring as Lyta Alexander on Babylon 5.
Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet crew of the Federation starship Enterprise-D. In this episode, while the Enterprise is evacuated for hazardous maintenance, Captain Picard must, alone, contend with thieves posing as a work crew aboard the ship. The plot has been noted for its similarity to the 1988 action film Die Hard.
Plot
The Federation starship Enterprise is docked at the Remmler Array to be decontaminated through the use of a baryon sweep, harmless to the inorganic materials of the ship but deadly to living beings. The ship is evacuated to the array's base and its systems shut down in preparation for the sweep. Captain Picard and the rest of the senior staff are invited by the base's commanding officer, Commander Calvin Hutchinson, to a cocktail party, but Picard foresees that he will be cornered by Hutchinson's "small talk" during the event. He returns to the Enterprise to retrieve his saddle to go riding instead, but on leaving finds an array technician working with the ship's panels. Picard tries to find out what the technician is doing, but he is attacked instead; Picard gains the upper hand and knocks the technician out.
Meanwhile, at the cocktail party, Enterprise Chief Engineer La Forge detects strange readings coming from one of the centerpieces with his VISOR. Before he can investigate, the other array staff members draw hidden weapons (the source of the readings) and take the partygoers hostage, injuring La Forge and killing Hutchinson.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Starship Mine” as episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (S6 E18). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7602421. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Starship Mine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.