Humpty Dumpty is a fictional cautionary tale from Earth in the form of a children's nursey rhyme. The tale, originally a riddle, seems to stress the irreversibility of events and cautions against the Human inability to correct past mistakes.
- Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
- Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
- All the king's horses and all the king's men
- Couldn't put Humpty together again.
The origins of the rhyme are not totally known but over the centuries Humpty Dumpty has come to be pictured as an egg that is cracked and broken in the fall. Paul Stubbs's "egg", a custom probe built by him, drew ironic comparison to Humpty Dumpty when the USS Enterprise-D was violently shaken as a result of an attack on its main computer core in 2366. (TNG: "Evolution")