Allegiance

Picard is taken from his quarters while he sleeps and wakes in a sealed room with three other captives: Starfleet cadet Mitena Haro, the philosopher Kova Tholl, and Esoqq, a volatile Chalnoth. None of them knows why they are there. Meanwhile an exact double of Picard has taken his place on the Enterprise. The impostor behaves oddly, even leading the senior officers in a song in Ten Forward. In the cell, Picard takes charge, but an escape attempt reveals only a blank wall behind the locked door. Noticing inconsistencies among his fellow prisoners, he works out that the whole situation is an experiment. Their captors, a species with no concept of authority, are studying leadership. Aboard ship, the false Picard orders the Enterprise dangerously close to a pulsar, and Riker and the crew relieve him of command. Picard then traps the aliens in a force field to show them what captivity feels like, before releasing them.