Walter Pierce in Troi's hallucination
His personnel file.
Lieutenant junior grade Walter J. Pierce was a Starfleet engineer, a specialist in linear warp containment systems. Born on Epsilon Indi II, he was the son of Anita and Ambrose Pierce. He went to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. He had been the recipient of numerous decorations, including the Okuda Award in subspace research, the Jalhal Award for warp field engineering, and the Extended Tour Ribbon (with cluster). His service record included tours on USS Chicago and USS Suleiman before he began work at Utopia Planitia constructing the USS Enterprise-D. He served as assistant team leader installing engineering power conduits, and the warp engine local control systems.
In 2363, he murdered his girlfriend Marla Finn and her lover in a jealous rage and then killed himself by jumping into the plasma stream of the Enterprise-D.
Walter was part Betazoid, and this left empathic traces in the nacelle tube bulkhead. These traces affected others and one crew member, Daniel Kwan, killed himself. While investigating his death, Deanna Troi was affected also but was saved at the last moment by Lieutenant Worf.
Troi perceived numerous details about Pierce's life through his illusory personnel file when she detected his empathic memory traces. (TNG: "Eye of the Beholder")
- Walter Pierce was played by Mark Rolston. His personnel file seen onscreen listed many details of his life, but many of the dates were fabricated by Troi's hallucination, as he was revealed to have died years earlier in the episode's climactic sequence.