Paul Stubbs Doctor Paul Stubbs was a male Human astrophysicist in the 24th century . He devoted his entire life ' s work to the study of a neutron star / red giant star system in the Kavis Alpha sector . The neutron star was remarkable for the fact that it sucked up matter from the red giant , which exploded every 196 year s . Stubbs achieved a great deal of success in his early life , and was dubbed a " wunderkind " . Instead of seeing this as an honor , he believed it was a burden and that he would continually need to top his own accomplishments in order to live up to the expectations of others . Stubbs was also a baseball aficionado , and preferred to recreate games in his imagination , rather than on the holodeck . He used knowledge of statistics to predict the outcome of games played by the great athletes of the 20th and 21st centuries . Stubbs ' s mother was a formidable woman and a great critic . She wrote an unauthorized biography of Stubbs . He claimed to love her dearly , but also would not have wanted to be on the same ship with her , as Wesley Crusher was with his mother . Stubbs had built a special probe , referred to as " The Egg , " to monitor the 2366 explosion . The probe was the result of twenty years ' worth of research and Stubbs placed a significant amount of his own self - worth on the success of the mission , especially with the pressure he felt to top his earlier successes . In 2366 , the was assigned to carry the " Egg " to the Kavis Alpha sector in order for it to be deployed and monitor the explosion . Shortly before the experiment was to begin , however , the " Enterprise " - D was plagued by a series of system malfunctions , caused by a group of nanite s Wesley Crusher had allowed to interact and develop sentience . He suffered minor injuries when the " Enterprise " - D was nearly hurled into the path of the stellar matter being pulled from the red giant . Stubbs was adamant that the " Enterprise " - D launch the " Egg , " and believed Captain Picard should place the success of the mission over the safety of the ship and crew , so much so that he would rather have died than leave without any data . When it was learned that the nanites were the source of the problem , Stubbs wanted to destroy them rather than attempt to communicate . He equated them to no more than a virus , and irradiated the computer core with gamma radiation against Captain Picard ' s orders . The nanites reacted badly to the attack , and began to target vital " Enterprise " - D systems such as the life support system . He inadvertently proved that the nanites were intelligent life , but was still obsessed with his experiment and advocated their extermination . Picard confined him to his quarters as he had no legal recourse against Stubbs . Stubbs was promptly attacked by the nanites , who electrocuted and nearly killed him . At the same time , Data succeeded in learning the language of the nanite civilization , and allowed them to use his body as a mouthpiece to interact with the " Enterprise " - D crew . Stubbs apologized to the nanites and asked for forgiveness , promising to use his influence to secure the nanites their own planet if they assisted in repairing the computers in time to launch the " egg " . The nanites agreed , and the experiment was a success . ( )