Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Beverly Crusher returns to the Enterprise as chief medical officer, and her son Wesley takes on more responsibility while weighing a future away from the ship. The crew’s cases range from a colony ordered to leave its home to a Romulan confrontation that strands Geordi with an adversary. Data’s personal life changes when he creates Lal, an android child built from his own neural patterns. Starfleet wants to transfer Lal for study, but Picard defends Data’s rights as her parent. Lal then suffers an irreparable cascade failure; Data and an admiral try to save her, and Data preserves her memories in his own neural net.
Worf’s past becomes a larger concern after his brother Kurn arrives and reveals that their father, Mogh, has been accused of betraying the Klingons. The investigation instead implicates Duras’s father, whose exposure could destabilize the High Council. Worf accepts the disgrace attached to his family in order to prevent a civil war, even as the decision costs him his standing among his people. He remains a Starfleet officer, but the dishonor follows him into later encounters with Klingon leaders. A temporal rift brings an earlier Enterprise into a wartime timeline where Tasha is alive. She joins that ship’s return to its doomed battle, restoring the crew’s familiar history.
The season’s final mission begins when the Borg move toward Federation space and Picard is taken aboard their cube. They alter him into Locutus, a spokesman for their collective, and use his knowledge of Starfleet to guide an attack on Earth. With Picard gone, Riker assumes command and brings the Enterprise to confront the cube. The season stops before the battle’s consequences are settled: Riker orders Worf to fire on Picard’s vessel, and the crew’s fate remains unresolved at the season break.