First Con-tact (episode)

When a mentor from Dal's past persuades him to use their Federation cover for personal gain, they quickly discover Starfleet has protocols for a reason.
== Summary ==
===Teaser===
The crew has been on edge since Gwyn uncovered what happened to the original crew but has been unable to glean anything more. While is obsessing over the recordings of Chakotay, the crew has left messes around the ship and found a new "welcome distraction" to play with: the transporter. After beaming a piece of pie around the ship gets boring, the crew volunteers Murf as a live test subject, only for him to be sent to the wrong side of the bridge window. Fortunately, he is unharmed due to his apparent indestructibility and is beamed safely back aboard.
===Act I===
After safely rematerializing Murf back in the ship, Janeway calls the crew to the bridge to answer a distress call. On-screen, a hooded figure talks about having orphans aboard her ship who are stricken with the phage, which Dal immediately recognizes as the con of his adoptive mother, DaiMon Nandi, a Ferengi. She drops the illusion by disabling her holo-emitters and welcomes Dal and his friends aboard the Damsel.
Nandi claims to have searched for Dal for "years" and never forgave herself for losing him. She even kept his room under the engine just as it was. Gwyn realizes that all of the stories Dal told her – including seeing the Window of Dreams – must've been experienced from here. Among various odds and ends stored the Damsels cargo hold (including a horga'hn), Jankom notices Nandi's Klingon cloaking device, which Gwyn then identifies. The Ferengi is impressed by Gwyn's ability to read Klingon.
=== Act II ===
Nandi tells the crew she has a deal for them: she will give them the cloaking device – which is useless to her since it requires chimerium, a substance she doesn't have but the Protostar does – in exchange for a remalite crystal located on a nearby planet. Hologram Janeway points out this planet falls under the Prime Directive since they've never encountered alien life. Dal is reluctant to act against Hologram Janeway's advice until Nandi confesses that she needs the crystal to pay a hefty debt incurred at dabo.
The crew, accompanied by Nandi, beam down to the planet and are surprised to find it deserted, even though tricorders register lifeforms all around them. Suddenly, the sand around them starts to dance and whirl around them. Gwyn realizes that the crystals within the sand are the lifeforms, and that they are using harmonics to communicate with them. Once she finds a way to talk to them, the sand settles down and opens a passage for them into a cavern.  The crew discovers that the aliens, whom Rok-Tahk dubs the Cymari, use sound waves, created by the crystals within the cavern, in order to shape matter. Nandi presents the aliens with a gift – a Ferengi spit pan – and asks for one in return. The aliens offer a beautiful song which leaves the crew in awe.  Unfortunately, Nandi is unimpressed and steals some crystals from the cavern and runs off. Guilt-ridden, Dal and the crew chase after Nandi in order to retrieve the crystals.
=== Act III ===
Dal catches  up with Nandi and in the course of their argument, she admits that she didn't "lose" Dal, as she claimed earlier, she sold him to the Diviner. After a struggle, Nandi, now with only one crystal left, beams up to her ship which is now equipped with a cloaking device and chimerium which she stole from the Protostar. Fortunately, Dal snuck a combadge on the crystal during the fight and the crew was able to beam it back to the planet.
Though they succeeded in making things right, Hologram Janeway berates Dal, saying that because of their actions, the aliens' first encounter with off-worlders was a negative one, which will lead them to be distrustful of outsiders.
Nandi, back on her ship, learns from her new partner Pik-Pox that the Diviner has a bounty out on the Protostar crew.
==Log entries==
* Captain's log, USS Protostar
==Memorable quotes==
"It's Murder Planet all over again!"
: - Zero
"How could Nandi do that to me? I was like a son to her."
"And I was my father's daughter. But here we are."
"I'm sorry, I-I… because of me, we lost the cloaking device and the chimerium."
"But you learned who your true friends are. The ones willing to go along with you no matter how foolish it seems. Never take that for granted. I wish I could tell you it'll stop hurting, but I don't know that yet."
: - Dal and Gwyn
==Background information==
===Title===
* The title was announced by StarTrek.com on . It was initially revealed as "First Con-tact" and was presented as such on the Paramount+ episode menu, however the original title card itself read "First Contact" without a hyphen. Creators Dan and Kevin Hageman tweeted that the title card was an error and "the fix is on the way" , and to their credit a corrected title card was uploaded to Crave on , and later updated on Paramount+.
* This episode marks the fourth time that the phrase "first contact" is used in the title of a Star Trek installment, the first three being , and .
===Production===
* Excluding the premiere episode, , this is the first episode to feature a teaser scene before the title sequence.
* Though initially credited for their roles in this episode, Robert Beltran and Melissa Villasenor's names were later removed from the episode's end credits.
===Continuity===
* Dal is revealed to have been raised by a Ferengi woman, Nandi, who was the third Ferengi female (after and Ishka) to appear on Star Trek, and the first identified as DaiMon. She was also the first Ferengi directly encountered in the Delta Quadrant since .
* Grand Nagus Zek granted Ferengi females the right to wear clothes with an amendment to the Ferengi Bill of Opportunities in 2374, which was meant to act like a snowball effect for females to be able to acquire material goods, profit to buy the goods, and becoming part of the workforce so they could accrue profit, as seen in .
* This episode marks the first appearance of a marauder (first introduced in ) since , and the second Alpha Quadrant starship (since the abandoned Klingon Bird-of-Prey in ) directly encountered by the Protostar crew. 
* A lirpa, a horga'hn, and a Klingon cloaking device are among the items found aboard Nandi's ship. She also carried with her a Klingon disruptor.
* Three previously known Rules of Acquisition were recited in this episode: #1 (originally from ), #21 (originally from ), and #208 (originally from ).
* A reference is again made to the Window of Dreams (last referenced in ), as well as the Phage (last mentioned in ).
* The text of the first two sections of the General Order 1 is taken from the reference book Star Trek: Federation - The First 150 Years (p. 108).
* The crew has designated Gwyn as the communications officer.
===Production history===
* : Premiere on Paramount+
* : Broadcast premiere on 
==Links and references==
===Cast===
* Rylee Alazraqui as Rok-Tahk
* Dee Bradley Baker as Murf
* Brett Gray as Dal
* Angus Imrie as Zero
* Ella Purnell as Gwyn
* Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog
* John Noble as The Diviner 
* Jimmi Simpson as 
;And
* Kate Mulgrew as Hologram Janeway
* Robert Beltran as Captain Chakotay 
* Grey Griffin as Nandi
* Melissa Villasenor as Nandi/Frail Woman 
;Characters with unidentified voices
* Pik-Pox
=== Background characters ===
* Unnamed Cymari
=== References ===
alien; body; bread; chimerium; civilization; combadge; cloaking device; communications officer; Cymari; Cymari homeworld; cymatic ability; cymatic transmutation (aka acoustic terra-molding); cymatics; dabo table; DaiMon; Damsel; "develop-lution"; diplomatic exchange; distress signal; ; electricity; energy; engine; evolution; face; Federation; Ferengi; Ferengi language; first contact; frequency; friend; friendship; General Order 1; gift; gravity boot; ground; hair; harmonic; harmonic resonance; holo-emitter; horga'hn; hover; kidnapping; Klingonese; Klingon disruptor; laughter; lifeform; lirpa; loaf; lobeling; lobes; mathematics; matter; mayday; metal; meter; mine; money; motive; mouth; Murder Planet; orphan; outer space; pain; parsec; partner; Phage; pie; ; planet; power source; precious metal; Prime Directive; profit; remalite crystal; REV-12; room; Rules of Acquisition; sand; sector; shield; Skeralyx system; song; sound wave; species; spit pan; star; Starfleet; Starfleet Command; Starfleet uniform; story; teleportation machine; test subject; thought; tone; trade; translator; transporter; transporter room; tricorder; tube grub; wall; warp core; Window of Dreams; year
==== Console references ====
analysis; impulse engine control; level; live data; lock mech; offset; radar scanner; short range sensor; target; tracking; window; wireframe
=== External links ===
* 
* 
de:Erstkontakt (PRO)
es:First Con-tact
fr:First Con-tact (épisode)