Argyle Lieutenant Commander Argyle was one of the chief engineer s aboard the in 2364 . He oversaw Kosinski ' s warp drive experiment in main engineering . ( ) That same year , he supervised the reassembly of Lore , Data ' s android ' brother ' , in sickbay . He spoke with a slight Scottish accent . ( ) Argyle continued to work in Main Engineering in 2367 . After upgrades to the subspace phase coil s , Sarah MacDougal , a duty engineer and a third shift supervisor , noted in her final analysis a minor phase variation in tertiary harmonics . Argyle recommended the continued use of test instrumentation for monitoring phase shifts . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Argyle was played by actor Biff Yeager . Argyle appeared to have replaced Sarah MacDougal as the go - to Chief Engineer character , as she was not seen , heard , or mentioned after . However , Argyle was not long - lived either , as he himself disappeared to have his niche filled by Lieutenant , who first appeared in . Commander William T . Riker explained Argyle ' s role on the ship by claiming that he ( as First Officer ) was the supervisor to maintenance of the ship ' s engines . He went on to say that he was guided by " one of our chief engineers : Lieutenant Commander Argyle , in this case . " In reviewing " Where No One Has Gone Before " as part of " Memories of the Future , Volume 1 " , Wil Wheaton ( noting that his memory of the event may not be entirely accurate ) recalled hearing that Argyle would have been considered as a possible permanent chief engineer for the " Enterprise " - D if the viewers requested . However , when producers began receiving letters encouraging that choice " before " the episode had aired , and some fans complained that they had been solicited by direct mailings to write in on the subject , this reportedly led to them changing their mind . ( " Memories of the Future , Volume 1 " , p . 63 ) Robert Justman once implied that Argyle helped differentiate the then - new from , commenting , " " He was very good . I liked him a lot . And he was a different character than Scotty . " " In the novelization of " " , Captain Picard ordered maximum acceleration of the " Enterprise " s warp engines to escape from Q . Argyle had reported to Data that maximum acceleration could only be maintained at extreme risk . For the remaster ed edition of , the original okudagram for the engineering logs was replaced by a new graphic . Argyle was mentioned in this new graphic ; however , his position in the ranking of engineers was not mentioned . Apocrypha . Argyle has appeared or been mentioned in non - canon releases , such as Pocket TNG novels " Ghost Ship " , " The Peacekeepers " , " Power Hungry " , " Metamorphosis " , and " Vendetta " . In the novel " The Buried Age " and the short story " Meet with Triumph and Disaster " in " The Sky ' s the Limit " , he had alternated the assignment of Chief Engineer with Sarah MacDougal during construction of The Enterprise , under the command of Thomas Halloway . According to the comic book " Suspect " , his first name was " Terence " and he was murdered around 2369 or 2370 . However , according to the novel " The Buried Age " , his first name was " Michael " and the short story " Making a Difference " says he was killed aboard the during the Borg incursion of 2373 . He was killed a third time ( a second time involving the Borg ) during a raid on Earth in " The Worst of Both Worlds " , and was killed a fourth time by decapitation by Klingons in an alternate reality from the novel " Q & A " .