While exploring a previously unmapped solar system, the Enterprise investigates reports of debris orbiting an exceptionally nasty planet. When they beam a fragment aboard, they're shocked to find a NASA symbol on it. They detect one building down planetside, with breathable air smack in the middle of a vicious storm system. Riker, Data and Worf beam down.

They find only an antique revolving door. When they go through, they find themselves in "The Hotel Royale", a hotel and gambling casino, and are welcomed by the desk clerk as three foreign gentlemen (expected, of course). Communications with the ship are lost, and Geordi and Wes begin working on finding a frequency that will work. Data, meanwhile, finds that none of the figures they see around them are emitting life signs.

While Geordi and Wes continue their work, Data learns how to play blackjack from Texas, one of the gamblers, and wins easily. Riker, becoming less amused, assembles Data and Worf and the three try to leave, only to find they cannot. The revolving door takes them back where they started, and no other exits can be found. (The walls are also phaser-resistant.) Riker confronts the desk clerk again, who doesn't seem to realize he's not on Earth, and is not at all helpful. Then, Data detects signs of human DNA, and they go upstairs to investigate.

They find the remains of Steven Richey, pilot of the Charybdis, a ship launched in the mid-21st century. From his diary, they discover that his ship was seized by aliens, and all aboard but him were killed. Out of guilt, the aliens made him this locale in which to live, basing their ideas of a human lifestyle out of "The Hotel Royale", a badly written novel one of the crew had with them. Picard manages to get through to them, and the ship gets to work looking through the novel for possible ways out.

After a climactic scene from the novel in which the bellboy is killed by the gangster Mickey D. over a woman named Rita, Picard finds out that the novel ends by three foreign gentlemen buying out the hotel. Data starts playing craps, and after correcting the faulty dice, easily wins the $12.3 million needed to buy the hotel. The team buys out the hotel and leaves-with no injuries, but no answers.

Highlight Listing:

"The Royale" - Investigating the discovery of a piece of metal bearing a United States Air Force insignia, the Away Team finds itself trapped in the world of "The Hotel Royale", a novel come to life.

Advertising Headline:

GAMBLING WITH THEIR LIVES! The crew is caught in the grip of an alien game.

TV log listing:

Alien game turns deadly on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.

Operation SNAFU

The surface temperature of the planet is less than absolute zero by six degrees Celsius. Also, after they beam the piece of the ship out of orbit, O'Brien and Riker pick it up with their bare hands (coming from space, it should have been close to zero Kelvin itself). Plus, after beaming down, they then scan the atmosphere to see if it's safe to breathe. (V)

Technical design, graphic design, interactive features, HTML & CGI programming by Andrew Tong. || All materials Copyright © 1987-1995 by their respective authors. || Document created: January 28, 1995 || Last Modified: July 12, 1999