Making sense of 'Night Terrors'

[Mojochi]

^You're losing me again, Dude. In order for it to have been less than the days recorded in the log, the sleep deprived crew would've had to hack & reset Data's chronometer. He wouldn't be letting that discrepancy just go on, & it literally took the stealth abductors from Schisms to pull off that stunt, in their isolated fish tank thingy. Even the Clues Jerkies couldn't manage that.

Nah... We just have to accept that this Tyken's Rift took them 10 days to identify, which is reasonable if everyone was becoming incompotent. Data is not infallible, & in a chain of command, relies on other's doing their jobs to process things someimes. If he'd gotten bad info from others, it might've stimied his progress too.

 

[Timo]

You appear to be placing a lot of faith in somebody you call "not infallible"...

The flesh and blood heroes are losing some sleep. But machines all around them are faring much worse. It would be pretty natural to assume Data's utter incompetence here also happens for a reason!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Not infallible means not a perfect being. For his mechanized chonometer to be off by multiple days, he'd be legit malfunctioning as badly as the crew are by the end

For a guy running the ship by himself toward the end, It's not required to place a whole a lot of faith to say he likely knows what day of the week it is lol

 

[Laughing Dragon]

Didn't Data pretty much take control of the ship at the end. He ordered Picard to bed and flew the ship on his own. He actually had a lot to do with turning the whole situation around, I thought. Or am I thinking of a different episode.

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[Timo]

Not infallible means not a perfect being. For his mechanized chonometer to be off by multiple days, he'd be legit malfunctioning as badly as the crew are by the end.

Which I think is a pretty good out from the oddities of the episode. It's just that when Data breaks down, he doesn't start to stammer: he merely slows down to human levels of performance, failing to keep track of the time or to point out the obvious.

Although we could also argue Data is up and running, yet has spent the past week carefully and patiently explaining things to our heroes, over and over, and has learned that pointing out the fact that they are talking the same nonsense for the tenth day straight will only cause anguish. Essentially, he's the caretaker of a floating home for the elderly and Altzheimerish.

Still, Data failing to save the ship in the ten days supposedly allocated is such incredibly bad performance out of him that we'd better think he is being affected by the rift to a significant degree after all. "Night Terrors" comes after "Clues" where Data alone was holding the fort against a theoretically adversarial crew, or major, formative solo performances such as "The Most Toys" or "Brothers": this is a Data who can operate on his own, under normal circumstances. And here we have abnormal ones...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Although we could also argue Data is up and running, yet has spent the past week carefully and patiently explaining things to our heroes, over and over, and has learned that pointing out the fact that they are talking the same nonsense for the tenth day straight will only cause anguish. Essentially, he's the caretaker of a floating home for the elderly and Altzheimerish

This was basically my point. Having to help others in their jobs could slow his individual performance, & having to rely on their data to conduct his part of the work, could've sent his individual research in faulty directions, because in truth, he doesn't usually work individually. He's a member of a team, & the team is falling apart around him

That's going to stimie the overall efforts, regardless of his personal gifts imho

 

[JesterFace]

Didn't Data pretty much take control of the ship at the end. He ordered Picard to bed and flew the ship on his own. He actually had a lot to do with turning the whole situation around, I thought. Or am I thinking of a different episode.

Data did order Picard to bed but after they got out of the rift. Do I remember correctly, in their attempt to get out Data controlled the situation on the bridge.

 

[Oddish]

Pretty sure Picard made Data acting captain, because his judgment was impaired. His last act as such was to order Picard to bed. Presumably, all other nonessential crew received the same order.

I'll bet they had some REALLY wild dreams after that. It's like me, the night I stop taking Nyquil... I think that stuff reduces REM sleep, so the first night I go without, my subconscious goes nuts. Multiply that by 12 days... yikes.

 

[Laughing Dragon]

Data did order Picard to bed but after they got out of the rift. Do I remember correctly, in their attempt to get out Data controlled the situation on the bridge.

Yes.

 

[Mojochi]

I'll bet they had some REALLY wild dreams after that. It's like me, the night I stop taking Nyquil... I think that stuff reduces REM sleep, so the first night I go without, my subconscious goes nuts. Multiply that by 12 days... yikes.

Nyquil (Not Dayquil) has sedatives in it, so yeah, decreases neurotransmission. REM sleep is a period of increased brain activity. Sedatives will certainly reduce that

 

[Oddish]

Only good thing about having a cold... the night's sleep you get.