Certain themes seem to be popular with writers for the various six Trek series. I imagine that we could predict certain episodes, or sub-plots within episodes, if they were to add a Lilliputian character to the bridge crew of the Enterprise.
Transporter accident: bridge crew reduced to 1/12th scale. "Welcome to my world."
Transporter accident: She becomes 12x scale. "Man, you people have tiny, tiny staterooms."
Bad guys underestimate Lilliputian due to her size, she escapes and manages to release the crew and they recapture the ship.
Bad guys overlook Lilliputian in the away party, she tracks them back, infiltrates the fortress and releases the away team who overcome the bad guys.
Same crew member who kicked ass against professional mercenaries twice is helpless when she gets lost in a cargo bay and has to wait for someone to notice she's missing, find her, rescue her. The director says it was to show her vulnerabilities.
Once every three episodes, station display failures prevent her from using her specially programmed interface, and force her to jump back and forth on a giant display to do her job. Usually within arm's reach of another officer who doesn't appear to be doing much of anything on his station.
She is crucial in a first-contact with a race of beings so small that they don't even recognize the humans as a life form, but were about to open up the warp core for technobabble reasons. She talks them out of it.
She is crucial in a first-contact with a race of giant beings, who are going to exterminate the crew as vermin, but come to understand from her example that there is a wide spectrum in sentient beings in the universe and come to adopt the Federation's basic fondness for the Vulcan philosophy of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC).
As a sub-plot, the engineer will keep trying for an entire season to perfect a robotic or hologramic 'contact suit' that allows the Lilliputian to travel among and interact "normally" with her human and human-sized shipmates. No one on the production crew notices how terribly sizist this is, or how offensive to anyone that isn't human 'normal.' After the fans finally point out how this is poking IDIC one right in the eye, they quietly drop the subplot and no one ever mentions it again, even in episodes where the character could be expected to use such a suit to resolve the plot nearly instantly.
The episode where the Counselor makes a big deal about how the thoughts and emotions of the Lilliputian are 'just the same' to her as anyone else. Which seemingly contradicts the episode where telepathic aliens notice the Lilliputian only because her brain waves are at a drastically different frequency and allow them to communicate with her, thus saving the day. Convention fans spend a great deal of time justifying the two episodes as if they were real, not just written by two different writers during two different seasons.
The Trip to Risa, where casual actions of others that effectively discriminate against the Lilliputian are used as a metaphor to show how wrong discrimination is no matter who is victimized by it, and how it's possible to thoughtlessly discriminate. Fans in general hate this episode for being excessively preachy, even for Trek, although they learn to stop saying so after it wins many accolades from minority groups.
The Empowerment Episode: Fans have noticed that her battle plan usually consists of escaping notice until she can release a 'biggie' to fight the monsters and save the day. Rankling under the internet title of 'the human lockpick,' she demands an episode where she actually faces and defeats opponents. Critics draw many unfortunate comparisons between this episode and the Batman/Green Hornet crossover, where Robin kicked Bruce Lee's ass.
Her opposite from the Mirror Universe wears a tighter, more revealing uniform, and there are implications that she is sexually active with other members of the crew. Afterwards, Real Universe crewmen, and the fans, look at The Lilliputian Lieutenant in a new light. Although a lot of time is spend wondering…."How?"
A transporter accident combines her with another crewman. Her form is imposed on his mass, creating 253 of her. This provides some 252 evil twins...all of whom maintain that they are the 'real' one.
The Packleds overwhelm the ship. Lillitenant convinces them that a transporter accident has made them all giants. She can save them, and all they have to do is step back on the transporter pads. She beams them to holding cells, THEN releases the crew.
The away team is accused of practicing witchcraft and are placed on trial. Lillitenant allows herself to be seen, claims to be the corrupt judge's familiar. Starfleet personnel escape in the confusion of the ensuing riot.
Time travel places the Lillitenant on the first Enterprise. She enlists the aid of the captain's dog, Porthos, to ride to the rescue of the original crew. After Porthos apparently reprograms the airlock to blast the aliens into space, Archer brags about how smart his doggy is. T'Pol thinks she sees a tiny human go by on doggyback but refuses to comment. Because if anyone is going to be 'the delusional one' it is not going to be the only Vulcan on board.
She is possessed by the unshriven soul of an alien sorcerer. The crew gets suspicious when she keeps "forgetting" that she is not five feet tall.
A tribble infestation on a research facility leads to the Lillitenant wrestling her way through a mass of the fuzzy, cute, purring things in order to save the ship. Exposure to a depressed telepath heightens the tension by driving her to constantly reevaluate her decision to join Starfleet and most of her career choices made since. Referred to by fandom as 'the Tickle Me Emo' episode.
A planet with an atmosphere high in helium has the away team talking like the Lillitenant. Her voice is not detectable without reprogramming a tricorder.
An episode makes reference to Lillitenant 's Kobiashi Maru test. Evidently the fake explosions were big enough to blast her across the bridge, she graduated with a cast on her leg.
The Doctor has to make many unusual adjustments to the surgical table to save her life after trauma, discussing abilities and limitations with the Engineer and two people of the Sciences staff. It is never explained why no one thought to address these problems for the first three seasons after she reported aboard, waiting for a life-threatening situation, instead.
The time-travel-to-the-year-of-the-show's-production episode: A temporal technobabble takes the Lilliputian to the 21st century. She discovers that a test of a new weapons system threatens the magically hidden islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Without revealing her existence or Lilliput's location until the proper century, she must convince the scientist in charge of the test to select a new location.
An evil Lilliputian inflicts a devastating attack upon the Enterprise, reducing the crew to mindless minions...except for Lillitenant. She interrupts his plans of interstellar domination and tosses him in the Brig. Not a cell, but into a trashcan in the Brig.
A time-travel portal opens and the descendants of several crew members appear. Lillitenant 's great-great-granddaughter stands 6 foot tall. She says 'The Doctor found a cure for the Lilliputian condition! All our race has been restored!" Since most of 'their' race considers themselves as restored as they want to be, she suspiciously monitors the behavior of the visitors. Thus, she foils the Ferrengi plot.
Lillitenant 's mother visits, wanting to see how her girl lives. At the same time, a Romulan diplomatic mission is hosted on the Enterprise. Yet another Romulan race is revealed, as tiny Lilliputian-sized Vulcanoids attempt to kidnap Lillitenant . They get mom instead. Lillitenant defeats the kidnappers, foils their insidious plot to destabilize the diplomatic mission and actual progress is made towards peace. Mom leaves, more proud than scared.
Q decides that she needs to have a new perspective. She wakes on a colony planet, the size of a Brobdingragian. While her new size helps in the resolution of a threat to the colony, it also affects her relationships with her superior officers. "C'mere, shorty," pretty well sums up her new attitude.
She crash lands on a planet with a civilization of tiny life forms. They worship her as a goddess. She's torn between leaving them to their beliefs (As mandated by the Prime Directive) and attempting to correct any changes made to their culture by her interaction (As mandated by the Prime Directive). A scientist among the Tinies adapts her DNA to theirs, advancing the entire race along to the next stage of evolution. They transform to energy in a blinding light, just before an away team beams down and the CO steps on the empty city.
Oh! How could I forget the Holodeck episode? Okay, holodeck program goes berserk and threatens all life on board. Turns out the Lilliputian software company that developed the program (Micromicrosoft, of course) has a subroutine that puts little tunnels through the backdrops, allowing Lillitenant to crawl around inside Data's fantasy to solve the puzzle, finish the program and save all life on board.
There must be a 'Terrans on Trial' episode: Aliens monitoring old Earth TV programs feel it is unlikely that there is only one sentient life form on Earth as depicted in the programs. They show up, ready to kick ass, and the presence of Lillitenant saves the day. Fandom responds by saying: Yeah, I loved the fourth movie...
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