Paul Stubbs

Doctor Paul Stubbs was an astrophysicist who 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 years.

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.

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. This was a further motivation for him to ensure the success of the "Egg" experiment.

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 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.

In 2366, the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) 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 nanites 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. 

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