History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale

* YourDoorWasOpen: When Riker, Data and Worf find Col. Richey's room in The Royale, the door is unlocked. While hotel guests normally lock their rooms while they sleep (Richey died in bed), would have known that the patrons are literary characters and there would be no one who would want to rob his room.

* TheGhost: The woman over whom the bellhop and gangster are feuding in the casino story never makes an appearance.

* WeWillAllBeHistoryBuffsInTheFuture: The away team finds an old astronaut's spacesuit that has the United States flag on it with 52 stars. It is Riker who instantly tells the years when that number of stars was in use, even though Data is accompanying him. The reason is that Riker was born and raised in the United States, so he probably got US history classes at school.

* FridgeLogic: When Riker, Data and Worf find Col. Richey's room in The Royale, the door is unlocked. While hotel guests normally lock their rooms while they sleep (Richey died in bed), he knows that the patrons are literary characters and there would be no one who would want to rob his room.

* BrainlessBeauty: One of the denizens of the casino is an attractive, squeaky-voiced and rather dim young woman who can't seem to handle playing blackjack on her own. Texas is clearly smitten with her.

* WritersCannotDoMath: A very subtle example. It's a minor plot point when a woman isn't sure whether to hit or stay in blackjack; the man hitting on her advises her to hit, but Data states that the odds favor staying. However, with a hard 13 against dealer's 10, hitting is the mathematically favored move.

* FridgeLogic: When Riker, Data and Worf find Col. Richey's room in The Royale, the door is unlocked. While hotel guests normally lock their rooms while they sleep (Richey died in bed), he knows that the patrons are literary characters and ther would be no one who would want to rob his room.

* FailedFutureForecast: Picard says that UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem has gone unproven for 800 years. IRL, Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles came out with his own proof five years after the episode aired, leading the franchise to {{Retcon}} this in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E25Facets Facets]]", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Wiles.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: The aliens honestly wanted to give the poor guy a place where he'd live out his life happily, and it's just bad luck that all they had to go on was a hack novel.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: Picard says that UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem has gone unproven for 800 years. IRL, Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles came out with his own proof five years after the episode aired, leading the franchise to {{Retcon}} this in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E25Facets Facets]]", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Wiles.

* IdiotBall: This is essentially a HolodeckMalfunction episode, which makes Riker, Data and Worf's confusion about their environment a little surprising. Since this kind of {{LARP}} is a popular form of entertainment in their time, it's odd that it took them so long to figure out what was going on. Or rather, trying to figure out not ''what'' it is, but ''why'' it's there (which they don't learn until later).

* FixingTheGame: Data uses his strength to "reload" the dice at the craps table in their favor.

The ''Enterprise'' is investigating an unexplored planet way out in the back woods of the galaxy, where the Klingons have reported seeing the remains of a vessel floating around. Picard and Riker muse on UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem before the ship beams over a piece of the debris from the planet’s atmosphere to find that it is puzzlingly marked with the NASA emblem from the mid-21st century.

In another crazy twist, even though the planet is basically an ice cube covered by poison gas, Wesley locates a building on the surface surrounded by breathable air. Having nowhere else to look for clues, Riker, Worf, and Data beam down to it to see if they can figure out just what the hell is going on. They find nothing but a revolving door in the middle of nowhere, and walk through it to find themselves suddenly inside a glitzy, 20th century hotel casino. The people around them don’t show any life signs, and they act as though they’re in some cheesy crime novel. Worf quickly makes the reasonable guess that they’re simulations, but Data says that’s not it. Riker's amused by the whole thing until he realizes that they're stuck inside the fake casino.

Eventually they find the long-decayed remains of one of the astronauts from the ship they found in one of the hotel rooms, and in his bedside table they find a novel titled ''Hotel Royale'' as well as a journal with only one entry. The journal explains that the astronauts' ship encountered an alien life form that accidentally contaminated the ship and killed his shipmates and then, in an attempt to make amends, built a place for him to live based on the book he’d had with him. He laments that the book was awful enough that his being trapped in it makes him [[FateWorseThanDeath pray for death]].

* IdiotBall:
** This is essentially a HolodeckMalfunction episode, which makes Riker, Data and Worf's confusion about their environment a little surprising. Since this kind of {{LARP}} is a popular form of entertainment in their time, it's odd that it took them so long to figure out what was going on. Or rather, trying to figure out not ''what'' it is, but ''why'' it's there (which they don't learn until later).
** Plus a couple you can blame on production issues[[note]]The episode took a huge budget cut before filming started[[/note]]: the team's attempt to go back outside is done by simply having the actors make a complete circle in the revolving door, making it look like they just can't figure out where to get off, when their reactions + context imply it's because the hotel won't let them leave, not until the 'story' is concluded. And Data states the astronaut's body is still in good condition when the props department delivered a ''skeleton'', though he did state that in meaning of the lack of 'more advanced' decomposition, rather than 'good in general'.

Armed with these revelations, Riker figures out that people can leave the hotel when the book says they’re supposed to, and comes up with the idea of playing along with the story. He, Worf, and Data take the roles of the foreign investors who buy the hotel at the end of the novel and then leave. Data [[FixingTheGame adjusts the craps dice]] to his favor and breaks the bank. Once the away team have "bought" the casino, they are allowed to leave, and they safely return to the ship. Riker admits that they're leaving the planet with more questions than they started. Picard tells him that like Fermat’s Last Theorem, it’s a puzzle that might never be solved. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiles%27s_proof_of_Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem See, about that...]])

Once again, the ''Enterprise'' is set to work investigating an unexplored planet way out in the back woods of the galaxy, where the Klingons have reported seeing the remains of a vessel floating around. After Picard and Riker ramble a bit about UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem and how it has still never been proved ([[ScienceMarchesOn whoops...]]), they beam over a piece of the debris from the planet’s atmosphere, to find that it is puzzlingly marked with the NASA emblem from the mid-21st century.

In another crazy twist, even though the planet is basically an ice cube covered by poison gas, Wesley locates a building on the surface surrounded by breathable air. Having nowhere else to look for clues, Riker, Worf, and Data beam down to it to see if they can figure out just what the hell is going on. They find nothing but a revolving door in the middle of nowhere, and (since they don’t have any movies in the 24th century to show them why this might be a bad idea) walk through it to find themselves suddenly inside a glitzy hotel casino. The people around them don’t show any life signs and they act as though they’re in some cheesy gangster novel. Worf quickly makes the reasonable guess that they’re simulations, but Data says that’s not it. And finally, of course, they find that they can’t get back out again now that they’re inside.

Eventually they find the long-decayed remains of one of the astronauts from the ship they found in one of the hotel rooms, and in his bedside table they find a novel titled ''Hotel Royale'' as well as a journal with only one entry. The journal explains that the astronauts' ship encountered an alien life form which accidentally contaminated the ship and killed his shipmates and then, in an attempt to make amends, built a place for him to live based on the book he’d had with him. He laments that the book was awful enough that his being trapped in it makes him [[FateWorseThanDeath pray for death]].

Armed with these revelations, Riker figures out that people can leave the hotel when the book says they’re supposed to, and comes up with the idea of playing along with the story. He, Worf, and Data take the roles of the foreign investors who buy the hotel at the end of the novel, and have a go at the craps table to raise the necessary funds (but that’s really just an excuse to let Data break character and have a little fun acting like a high roller). The scheme proves successful and the team is beamed safely back aboard the ''Enterprise''. As the episode closes out, Riker points out that [[LampshadeHanging none of what just happened made any sense whatsoever]], and Picard tells him that like Fermat’s Last Theorem, it’s a puzzle that might never be solved. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiles%27s_proof_of_Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem See, about that...]])

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The planet is stated to have an average surface temperature of −291°C. This is colder than Absolute Zero (−273°C), which is physically impossible especially since Pluto can only reach temperatures of minus 369 degrees Fahrenheit.

** This is compounded by adding a bunch of Star Trek cliches on top of it, like SufficientlyAdvancedAliens or a plot that amounts to another holodeck malfunction. All the main cast acts exactly the way you expect them to as well (Data taking things literally, Worf worrying about dying without honor, etc).

* {{Railroading}}: The away team can't leave the hotel by normal means, and their phasers do nothing to the walls. Picard skips to the end of the book and reads that the casino is eventually bought out by "foreign investors", which means the only way for Riker, Data and Worf to escape is to win enough money to "break the bank".

* StylisticSuck: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]. The acting and dialogue of the denizens of The Royale is pretty hack and clichéd, but then, they live inside a hacky, clichéd novel.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: Picard says that UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem has gone unproven for 800 years. IRL, Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles [[ScienceMarchesOn came out with his own proof five years after the episode aired]], leading the franchise to {{Retcon}} this in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E25Facets Facets]]", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Wiles.

** This is essentially a HolodeckMalfunction episode, which makes Riker, Data and Worf's confusion about their environment a little surprising. Since this kind of {{LARP}} is a popular form of entertainment in their time, it's odd that it took them so long to figure out what was going on. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Or rather, trying to figure out not ''what'' it is, but ''why'' it's there (which they don't learn until later).]]

* AlanSmithee: The episode was originally pitched and written by Tracey Tormé. Maurice Hurley did a major rewrite on it, which Tormé felt hurt the episode so much that he used "Keith Mills" as a pseudonym. [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E19Manhunt This would not be the last time that Tormé would object in such a way to a Hurley rewrite.]]