The Enterprise finds a crashed escape pod in an unexplored system, with one critically injured passenger. Bev manages to stabilize him on the planet (with Geordi's help) enough to beam him aboard. Before leaving orbit, they find evidence that there was a larger ship in orbit, which was completely destroyed. While Data gets to work on the one small piece of equipment they salvaged from the wreck, Bev finds her patient will live, but she can't take credit for it.

Apparently, his recuperative powers are incredible, and even more interestingly, even his healthy cells are mutating in some way. A couple of days later, "John Doe" awakes, but cannot remember who he is.

Weeks later, he's almost completely recovered, though still unaware of who he is. Strangely, he's occasionally experiencing bouts of severe pain which seem linked to his mutating cells. Furthermore, he's also emitting sporadic energy bursts which are linked to the cells. Although his energy bursts are uncontrollable (and possibly harmful), he finds a few days later that he can heal injuries (starting with O'Brien's dislocated shoulder).

The next day, Geordi manages to figure out that the capsule they found is a biochemical storage medium, and manages to find it's a star-chart leading to John's home. By now, however, John's memory has returned just enough for him to realize he cannot go home yet. When, a day or two later, a vessel moves to intercept them at Warp 9.72, John says he must get off the Enterprise. He tries to steal a shuttle, and accidentally kills Worf (but then manages to heal him, miraculously), but is stopped. When questioned, he says he's becoming dangerous.

The vessel arrives, shields up, and the captain (who is clearly of John's race) claims to be of the planet Zalkon, and wants John returned to him as a dangerous criminal, to face his death sentence. The Zalkonians give Picard two hours to return John, who cannot confirm or deny the accusations, but claims to know there's more at stake than simply his life.

After some discussion, Picard refuses to turn John over without more information about what he has done. When he mentions John's ability to heal injuries and reverse death, the captain (Sunad) denounces them as "corrupted", and triggers a device on his ship, which renders the entire Enterprise crew unable to breathe. Fortunately, John still can, and heals everyone in one bright flash. His memory restored, he plucks Sunad from his bridge to the Enterprise and explains that he is the next stage in Zalkonian evolution- others like him were killed as a threat to the "natural order". Now that he has evolved until he is impervious to harm, he says, nothing can stop him from proclaiming the goodness of the transfiguration. He sends Sunad and his ship packing, bids Bev (with whom he's become quite good friends) a touching farewell, and departs.

Highlight Listing:

"Transfigurations." The Enterprise rescues a mysterious humanoid whose remarkable powers affect the entire crew.

Advertising Headline:

HUMANOID SHOCKER! The Enterprise is stunned by the incredible powers of a mysterious humanoid!

TV log listing:

Crew stunned by powerful humanoid!/STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

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: November 09, 2010