Close-up shots of the Starfleet HQ banquet were live mealworms. The actors really ate chow mein.
This episode marks the first appearance of a Bolian, the blue-skinned race named after Star Trek veteran director Cliff Bole.
When Data is commenting on the orders he has just read, the computer interrupts him by saying "Thank you, sir. I comprehend." This is the only time in all of Star Trek when a Federation computer speaks in the first-person ("I"). The non-canon reference work 'Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual' explains this by stating that the Enterprise-D computer was one of the most advanced ever constructed and was self-aware. It is also one of the few times the computer has expressed "frustration" with its user, as more often the frustration is the other way around. This frustration toward Data is often expressed by humans, usually Captain Picard, when Data proceeds to give much more information than is required.
Gene Roddenberry originated the idea for the episode in a single-sentence proposal entitled "The Assassins". Robert Sabaroff expanded this idea to thirty pages, but his version was seen as too expensive. Tracy Tormé was then given the job of rewriting it, but some producers thought the new version was too dark until Roddenberry saw it and endorsed the new version.
Michael Berryman (Captain Rixx) enjoyed his Bolian makeup so much, he wore it home after his scenes wrapped filming.