Observations in TNG: "The Battle"

This is the first appearance of Picard's crew quarters. The set features a number of book shelves. Whenever the set was redressed as guest quarters for high-ranking guests, Picard's Shakespeare books and his sextant are present. Most of the furniture would also be present in all later appearances of Picard's quarters. The large starbase painting created by Rick Sternbach is also seen for the first time. The desk would change a little over the course of the series.
Picard's Shakespeare Books

The four light columns (two flanking each door) only appear in Picard's quarters in this episode and in "Angel One". Two were re-used in the lounge already in "The Neutral Zone" (and later in "The Outrageous Okona") and the other two permanently became part of Ten Forward in the second season.

Data reviews Picard's last log entries on the Stargazer, which consist of five pages of graphics and text.

The graphic of the Maxia Zeta star system was slightly modified and appeared again as a graphic of an unnamed star system in "Datalore", the Mira system in "Conspiracy" and the Tau Cygna system in "The Ensigns of Command".

We can now read the transcripts of Picard's log entries:

Page 1: "USS Stargazer on routine survey mission into the Maxia Zeta star system. Initial scans indicate twelve planets, none habitable. The third and fourth are in Maxia Zeta's habitable zone, and may therefore be candidates for terraforming. Our science teams are preparing for a full survey and sensor scan."

Page 2: "We have found an unidentified spacecraft near one of the moons of Maxia Zeta IV. Indications are that the craft may have been launched from that moon although our scans have indicated no launch complex or other support facility. We are attempting to hail the craft but as yet, there have been no replies."

Page 3: "We are under attack by an unidentified starcraft. Repeated attempts to warn it off have failed. I fear that we have no choice but to defend ourselves."

In TNG-R, page 4 features a new graphic. The text at the bottom was also changed, as the originally displayed text ("We are forced to abandon our starship. May she find her way without us.") isn't discovered and mentioned by Data until a little later in this scene.

The new text on page 4 is: "Proceeding at warp 3.4. Chief engineer reports nominal completion of maintenance on #2 impulse reactor a full day ahead of schedule. I have therefore ordered a full power test to the entire system in hopes of recertifying the reactor before next week. It will be good to have impulse back to full capacity."

Oddly, in the original version of this episode, the area on the fifth and last page of the USS Stargazer's captain's log, normally occupied by a graphic, was instead filled with the text on the left half of the log page, only mirror-inverted.

Mike Okuda: "The mirrored text was because our visual effects team felt that the graphic I had provided wasn't busy enough."

This mistake on page 5 was corrected for TNG-R and a new graphic is seen here, instead.

The text on page 5 (formerly also on page 4) is: "We are forced to abandon our starship. May she find her way without us."

Mike Okuda: "For the remaster, I didn't want to repeat the mirroring because it would be much more obvious in HD, so I added graphic elements to honor their judgement."

The transparent Ferengi interface was achieved in a similar way as the three Vulcan computer screens Spock uses during his memory test at the beginning of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". In the text commentary to the film, Mike Okuda explains how this effect was created:

"Spock's 'transparent' computer screens were ingeniously created with ordinary video monitors that faced upward. Carefully positioned clear plastic sheets reflected the images, making them appear to be magically projected onto transparent computer screens."

The hole at the center of the Ferengi console, where the video monitor projecting the image of the Ferengi interface was hidden, can clearly be seen in this shot. A similar technique was seen only once more, namely in the TNG Season 1 episode "We'll Always Have Paris", in the Café des Artistes.

If we compare the inside of the medical case in "Lonely Among Us" and "The Battle", we can see that only the hypo, the 20th century thermometer and one scanner (yellow button) have been carried over, the rest is new and everything has been rearranged.

Note the stone plate with fossils next to Picard, indicating an interest in paleontology. It already appeared in his ready room in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Haven".

Rick Sternbach: "The neural pads were made from pieces of styrene plastic sheet with bits from different model kits, pretty common science fiction prop technique. As the series progressed, a lot of these sorts of props got outfitted with blinking or cycling LEDs."

The origin of the tractor beam was moved down to the bottom of the secondary hull where it belongs.

Also, note that he numbers on the doors of the two port shuttlebays (6+7) in the main hull of the USS Stargazer can be seen.