"Conspiracy" is the twenty-fifth and penultimate episode of the first season of the syndicated American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, originally aired on May 9, 1988, in the United States.

The premise was conceived by the show's creator Gene Roddenberry in a single sentence overview titled "The Assassins", being expanded into a thirty-page story by Robert Sabaroff.

There were concerns by producers that some of the effects were too graphic, but after a viewing by a staff member's son, they decided to broadcast it uncut.

After witnessing the admirals' bizarre behavior and discussion of a "superior life form" Dr. Crusher discovers that a bug-like parasite has wrapped its tendrils around the stem of Quinn's brain and is controlling him.

[5] A mold of Paul Newman's face was filled with raw meat and then blown up to create the effect used when Picard and Riker fire on Remmick but Rick Berman and Peter Lauritson were concerned that it was too graphic.

Dan Curry invited his six-year-old son to watch the episode in order to test how children would react to it; the boy reportedly liked it so much that he suggested the creation of a Remmick action figure whose head would blow up by pressing a button.

[4] Several props and effects seen in the episode were reproduced from the Star Trek movies, including the shots of Earth and Spacedock One and the painting used of Starfleet Command.

[7] Although the parasites never re-appeared in a Star Trek series, they are found in the Deep Space Nine relaunch novels, where they are revealed to be mutated Trill symbionts.

Club, thought that while "Conspiracy" was a "hard episode to forget", it was not quite as good as he remembered and did not quite "fit" with the rest of the season.

[12] He gave the episode an overall grade of B, writing, "fingers crossed that next time we encounter a danger this sinister, the writers know how to handle it".

[12] "Conspiracy" was included as an honorable mention in a list of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Mike Antonucci of the San Jose Mercury News.

[14] In 2012, David Brown of Radio Times called "Conspiracy" "a definite high point" in the first season and included it on a list of The Next Generation's greatest moments.

[10] Wired ranked "Conspiracy" as one of the best of The Next Generation in a 2012 review of the series' "sci-fi optimism", and they noted the creative plot involving a threat to the Federation.

[16] In 2019, Ars Technica noted that the episode made them feel like the Enterprise-D was operating in a larger universe, the stop-motion special effects sequence and the legacy of a secret conspiracy in Starfleet.

[22] In 2020, GameSpot noted this episode as one of the most bizarre moments of the series, the startlingly graphic explosion and melting of a parasitic alien and host.

[24] The episode was later included on the Star Trek: The Next Generation season one DVD box set, released in March 2002.