Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E5 "Loud As a Whisper"

• The crew of the Enterprise is quite surprised to learn Riva is deaf despite having been tasked with escorting him. Did they not do any research on the person they were escorting, or even know it beforehand as Riva is apparently famous?
  • Picard notes after meeting Riva that their briefing on him was missing quite a lot. They apparently only know about Riva's accomplishments and nothing about the man himself. His participation in the negotiations was a stipulation of the warring factions, not the Federation, so presumably the Federation have not dealt with him before. Worf is the only one who recognizes his name, and he knows nothing about the man personally.
    • But it's specifically mentioned that "Riva negotiated several treaties between the Klingons and the Federation." It's a classic bit of shoehorning — the characters are inexplicable uninformed about Riva to allow a bunch of expository dialogue to happen.