Removed this as trope pages are not the place for natter and/or fridge logic.
- Which leads to a massive case of Fridge Logic: all it takes is the Enterprise to go to a starbase for regular maintenance and realizing their clocks don't match up for the cycle to begin all over again.
- Not positive, but pretty sure the episode techno-babbled its way out of that by saying the Negative Space Wedgie of the day was capable of displacing the ship through both time and space. As such, the clocks being out of sync didn't mean anything; evidence that they had been active for a missing day was the key.
- Not to mention why once the Captain contradicted his previous order (which did not include a "No Matter How Much I Beg" Clause), Data didn't simply reveal the truth. Especially because he knew doing so would prevent the crew from facing the very danger they had sought to avoid by his keeping the existence of the hostile aliens a secret.
- Because "There is a thing I can't tell you, but please don't go in that sector of the space and don't ask why" is not going to work on Picard.
- Which leads to a massive case of Fridge Logic: all it takes is the Enterprise to go to a starbase for regular maintenance and realizing their clocks don't match up for the cycle to begin all over again.
This type of agreement, where a person tries to bind the actions of their future self, is called a Ulysses Contract. It is named Ulysses after the part in the Odyssey where they are about to row/sail past the sirens whose songs are so enchanting that sailors will become mad and jump into the see and try to swim to them, encountering the deaths on the rocks in the sea near the sirens - or dying in some other form.
Ulysses/Odysseus wants to hear the music, but not come to harm, so he has his men tie him up and makes them agree to prevent him from getting loose and from redirecting the ship. Meanwhile, he has his men plug their own ears with wax so that they will not be affected by the Siren's song.
http://www.bryanbraun.com/2012/11/11/ulysses-contract
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact
Edited by ileanadu"Example 3" in the trope description doesn't make any sense. Can anyone clarify it?
Can't remember the name of the book but I remember a scene where some people who were in the bodies of monsters because they visited a planet with transformation technology have to get their human bodies back in a hurry and don't have time to go back to the planet so they use their own transformation machine to turn themselves back into humans but unfortunately their transformation machine is not as advanced so the transformation will be extremely painful, so they have to warn the kids that are helping them not to turn off the machine no matter how much they beg for the pain to stop. The kids seriously consider turning off the machine when they see their new friends begging for the pain to stop and worry that the machine is not working right but they remember the warning and let the process finish. It was a pretty creepy scene for a kid's book.
Edited by legendaryweredragon