"The Loss" is the 84th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The tenth episode of the fourth season.

Overview[link]

In this episode, the USS Enterprise becomes trapped within a field of two-dimensional lifeforms, while Counselor Troi struggles with the sudden unexpected loss of her telepathic abilities.

Plot[link]

Traveling through deep space, the Enterprise stops to investigate an odd phenomenon that appears like phantom images. Meanwhile, ship's counselor Deanna Troi experiences disorientation as her empathic abilities suddenly cease to work.

They discover they cannot resume course as the Enterprise is caught up in a group of two-dimensional lifeforms.

Without her powers, Troi suffers a tremendous sense of loss, and goes through several classic psychological stages including denial, fear and anger. Ultimately, despite the reassurances of her friends, she resigns as ship's counselor, believing that without her empathic abilities, she cannot perform her duties.

Commander Data and Commander Riker realize the two-dimensional creatures are heading for a cosmic string, with the Enterprise in tow, and once they reach the string the ship would be torn apart. Realizing Deanna's loss and the ship's predicament are somehow linked, Captain Picard pleads with her to try and communicate with the strange creatures.

After attempting to warn the creatures of the danger posed by the cosmic string, Troi posits that they are seeking out the cosmic string in much the way a moth is drawn to a flame. Working from this hypothesis, Data simulates the vibration of a cosmic string at a position well behind the Enterprise. The simulations causes the creatures to briefly reverse their course allowing the Enterprise to break free.

Freed from the two-dimensional creature's influence, Troi's empathic ability is restored. She discovers that her powers were never lost, but were instead overwhelmed by the two-dimensional creatures' strong emotions. Troi returns to her old job with a renewed confidence.

References[link]

• Star Trek The Next Generation DVD set, volume 4, disc 3, selection 2.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Loss

• The Loss at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Loss" at TV.com
• The Loss at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• The Loss at StarTrek.com

Look up loss or lose in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Loss may refer to:

• A negative difference between retail price and cost of production
  • Loss leader a deliberate commercial loss made in the expectation of recouping it by profitable sales of other lines
• An event in which the team or individual in question did not win
• Loss (baseball), a pitching statistic in baseball
• Attenuation, a reduction in amplitude and intensity of a signal
• In telecommunications, loss is a decrease in signal in a communications system:
  • Angular misalignment loss, power loss caused by the deviation from optimum angular alignment
  • Bridging loss, the loss that results when an impedance is connected across a transmission line
  • Coupling loss, the loss that occurs when energy is transferred from one circuit, optical device, or medium to another
  • Insertion loss, the decrease in transmitted signal power resulting from the insertion of a device in a transmission line or optical fiber
  • Path loss, the attenuation undergone by an electromagnetic wave in transit from a transmitter to a receiver
    • Free-space path loss, the loss in signal strength that would result if all influences were sufficiently removed having no effect on its propagation
  • Return loss, the ratio of the amplitude of the reflected wave to the amplitude of the incident wave
• Round-trip loss in laser physics refers to energy lost due to scattering or absorption
• Loss function, in statistics, a function representing the cost associated with an event

Arts[link]

• Loss (film), a 2008 film by Maris Martinsons
• Joe Loss (1909–1990), founder of The Joe Loss Orchestra
• Loss (Mull Historical Society album), 2001
• Loss (Bass Communion album), 2006
• Loss (comics), a mutant comic book character
• Lord Loss (character), the Demon Lord from Darren Shan's 10 book series The Demonata
• "The Loss", a 1990 fourth-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
• "LOSE" or "L.O.S.E.", the abbreviation of League of Super Evil

See also[link]

• Stop loss (disambiguation)
• Grief, an emotional response to loss
• Animal loss, grief over the loss of an animal
• The Pirate Bay LOSS Low Orbit Server Stations modern radio transmitters over 100Mbit/s per node up to 50 km away in the sky

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.