- For other uses, see Hannah.
- See Bates for other articles with titles that contain, either by relationship or by coincidence, this character's surname.
Hannah Bates was a genetically-engineered Human from the socially-isolated Genome colony on Moab IV. Hannah, herself, was bred to be one of the best scientific minds of her generation, and became an expert on biosphere homeostasis, their top astrophysicist, and a talented theoretical physicist. Hannah, like the rest of her people, was a believer in the colony's founders teachings, believing it was the best way to live in the "perfect world".
All this changed in 2368, when the colony found a stellar core fragment from a collapsed neutron star approaching the planet. Hannah recognized the fragment's effects on the planet could easily destroy the colony, and began working on designs for a multiphasic tractor beam to deflect it, but found her solutions hampered by lack of a power supply powerful enough to use the beam.
Thankfully, the nearby USS Enterprise-D arrived to assist the colonists, and the ship's chief engineer, Geordi La Forge, was paired up by the colony's leader, Aaron Conor, with Hannah to find an alternative solution to evacuation. During their work, Hannah showed La Forge her tractor beam designs, and upon hearing of their ship's advanced warp matter-antimatter reaction systems, believed that, combining her theories with their equipment, that the fragment could be deflected. However, La Forge needed her assistance in setting it up, meaning she would have to leave the colony.
Over the next three days, Hannah and La Forge worked tirelessly in finding a way to make the beam powerful enough to move the fragment, but not overload the ship's primary power conduits. One evening in engineering, La Forge, tired, removed his VISOR, exposing his blindness to Hannah. They engaged in a small, yet philosophical, discussion wherein Hannah confessed that Geordi would never have existed in the colony due to his being a person with a disability. Geordi gently responds that it is not up to anyone to make that sort of choice because, disability or not Geordi can still contribute to his society and make a difference. During their discussion, Hannah asked how the VISOR technology worked, and as La Forge began explaining, he suddenly realized the same method the VISOR uses to prevent sensory overload (that by using concentrated information pulses) could be applied to the beam, making it functional just enough to move the fragment.
The plan worked (albeit narrowly due to imminent life-support failure), and combined with deflector shield systems placed on the colony by Federation engineering crews, the colony was effectively saved.
Hannah realized she couldn't go back to her semi-primitive lifestyle, not after seeing how much more advanced mankind had become outside their society, and exposure to technology aboard the Enterprise was too tempting to abandon. Desperate to prolong contact with the outside world, Hannah secretly began flooding the colony's artificial biosphere with toxic fumes from the planet's surface, claiming to Conor and Captain Jean-Luc Picard that the enhancements to the biosphere were not enough and the earthquakes had created cracks in the protective surface, meaning they would most likely have to evacuate despite their efforts. While trying to "solve the problem" before evacuation, Hannah kept up the ruse until La Forge, who's VISOR had exposed the truth, confronted her with fabricating the evidence and convinced her to abandon her efforts. Hannah justified what she attempted by the fact that she couldn't live in the colony any longer, not being tempted to see the galaxy, and immediately demanded asylum aboard the ship as a way to leave the colony.
Knowing Hannah was the first of many, Conor and Picard, who refused to deny them passage, planned to return to Moab IV in six months time to pick up those who wished to leave, in the mean time the other colonists would pressure Hannah and the others to stay. Hannah, however, saw through their plan and pursued her goal with her loyalists and was granted asylum.
In the end, Hannah and twenty-two others left Genome Colony, though Conor said Hannah was welcome back to her "home" anytime she wanted. Hannah is unlikely to take up this offer, as it is most likely she is exploring the Alpha Quadrant. (TNG episode: "The Masterpiece Society")
External link[]
- Hannah Bates article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.