History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E16Masks

Troi is helping a classroom express their feelings through {{sculpture|s}}. Data is sitting in and not quite understanding the assignment. Troi prompts him to sculpt the subject of "music," but Data just sculpts a treble clef. On the bridge, the ship's officers investigate a passing rogue comet that has never been see before. Later, Troi notices that a strange sculpture has appeared in her quarters. When she leaves, a sunburst symbol materializes on it.

* MultiplePersonality: Data, and how. Picard notes Data showed a dozen personalities -- Data responds there were over a ''thousand'' personalities that were inside him.

* DaylightHorror: Masaka causes this, according to most of the personalities that Data channels.
--> '''Ihat:''' Masaka is waking.

[[caption-width-right:350:Data develops [[MultiplePersonality multiple personalities]], the ''Enterprise-D'' develops a weird matter-transference problem, and [[BizarroEpisode the writers develop a reliance on some hella strong cold meds.]]]]

Troi is helping a classroom express their feelings through sculpture. Data is sitting in and not quite understanding the assignment. Troi prompts him to sculpt the subject of "music," but Data just sculpts a treble clef. On the bridge, the ship's officers investigate a passing rogue comet that has never been see before. Later, Troi notices that a strange sculpture has appeared in her quarters. When she leaves, a sunburst symbol materializes on it.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Picard puts on the Korgano mask and talks Masaka into going back to sleep, not through a PatrickStewartSpeech but by invoking their SolarAndLunar dichotomy.

* TakeMeInstead: Picard offers himself to Masaka to spare Ihat. It doesn't work.

* RagnarokProofing: The probe is so old that over the course of ''millions'' of years, it became encrusted with space debris and became a comet.

* RealityWarper: The alien station functions like a gigantic replicator, generating artifacts out of thin air and converting sections of the ''Enterprise'' to fit the theme of the story it is trying to tell. It's noted that's actually using the same technology as the replicators.

Troi is helping a classroom express their feelings through sculpture. Data is sitting in and not quite understanding the assignment. Troi prompts him to sculpt the subject of "music," but Data just sculpts a musical notation. On the bridge, the ship's officers investigate a passing rogue comet that has never been see before. Later, Troi notices that a strange sculpture has appeared in her quarters. When she leaves, a sunburst symbol materializes on it.

Back in class, Data sculpts a mask, saying he was suddenly inspired to create it. Troi notices that it has the same sunburst symbol as the one on her mysterious sculpture. A student interrupts them to point out that his terminal is malfunctioning. More strange symbols are floating around the screen. La Forge notes that the symbols are all over the ship's computer, having been uploaded into it from an outside source. Data notes that he can translate the symbols, including a central sunburst symbol meaning "death." Picard orders that the comet be melted to find out what's inside and discovers an ancient technological device.

Data suspects that the device is a repository of information and believes he may be in contact of it. He suggests they perform a diagnostic of his brain. Meanwhile, more mysterious objects are popping up around the ship. Picard analyses them, deducing them to be ceremonial in nature. He notes the same same sunburst symbol appearing prominently as well as a smaller curved symbol that never seems far behind. In Engineering, Data has his brain scanned, which triggers some sort of reaction. He announces that he feels as if he's "losing his mind." Suddenly, his personality completely changes, and he develops a sunburst symbol on his forehead. Smiling impishly, he announces, "Masaka is waking!"

The crew has Data confined to quarters and discusses what's going on. The ship is slowly changing more and more, its materials being used to slowly transform it into some kind of ancient city. Troi says that Data has the android equivalent of multiple personalities, and Picard believes that he is the key to understanding what's going on and stopping it. Picard visits Data's quarters and speaks to several personalities. Data reiterates that Masaka is coming, and the only one who can put her to sleep is Korgano, but he no longer "chases" her.

All of Data's personalities have been eliminated by Masaka, and he suddenly awakens in the personality of the queen. He dons the clay mask he created earlier, knocks out his guards, and marches to the temple but refuses to speak to any of the ship's officers. La Forge locates Korgano's symbol in the ship's computer. Not knowing what it will do, they activate it, and it produces a mask. Picard dons the mask and speaks with Masaka in the guise of Korgano. Improvising using his archaeological knowledge, Picard urges Masaka to relinquish her ascendant position to him so that she can soon resume the role of the hunter and seize ascendancy from Korgano once again, continuing their eternal cycle. Masaka is convinced and passes out. All of the changes from the mysterious artifact spontaneously reverse. Data has no memory of what happened and asks if he's been dreaming again.

La Forge fixes the ship's computers, and the crew contact Starfleet to send out a team of archaeologists to study the artifact. Data shows Picard the clay mask he created, which did not disappear with the rest of the artifacts. He's since painted it. He tells the captain that there were perhaps thousands of people inside him while under the artifact's sway. Picard tells Data that even if he never becomes fully human, he's experienced something no human could ever rival: being an entire civilization.

When the ''Enterprise'' encounters an ancient data archive floating in space, strange things begin to happen: artifacts start appearing all over the ship, Data starts manifesting other personalities, and soon the ''Enterprise'' herself starts transforming.

In order to save the ''Enterprise'', Picard must insert himself into an alien culture and face down a queen of death.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen[=/=]SinisterSentientSun: Masaka, according to Ihat.

* NoAntagonist: The episode is just a mystery, and there's no ''real'' danger, though there are minor casualties, but they're peripheral and accidental.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The alien probe is in pretty good shape considering it's been drifting through the cosmos for 87 million years (i.e. since the time of the dinosaurs).
* SolarAndLunar: Masaka and Korgano.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: As noted by TNG reviewer Tim Lynch:
-->When Riker and Picard are talking in the ready room about the pedestal with the strange symbol, Picard is holding it in a rather ... well, let's say a rather provocative angle. ;-) Now, I doubt that was intended, and wonder why it stayed in -- but even more striking, halfway through Picard's speech in that same scene Frakes starts smirking like all get out for *no apparent reason*. Rather, there's no apparent reason for Riker to be doing it; Frakes had plenty of reason, and apparently did. If that's the version of the scene that stayed in, I have ''got'' to find a way to see this scene's outtakes. :-)
** It's worth noting that Patrick Stewart conspicuously emphasized the word "[[GagPenis enormous]]" in his line reading; suggesting that he knew ''exactly'' what he was doing.

* RiddleForTheAges: The significance of the various scenes and characters the crew members are forced to play is never explained. At the end of the episode, neither the protagonists nor the viewers can tell whether they are metaphors related to the history of the species that created the data archive, religious parables of that species, or something entirely different.
** To a folklorist, they could easily be ''all'' of the above.

--> '''Ihat:''' Captain, that was a ''cruel'' joke you played. For a moment -- a ''brief'' moment -- I thought that creature ''was'' Masaka.

* MultiplePersonality: Data, and how.

* RealityWarper: The alien station functions like a gigantic replicator, generating artifacts out of thin air and converting sections of the ''Enterprise'' to fit the theme of the story it is trying to tell.