DEANNA TROI Page 2

Ship's Counsellor, and Lieutenant Commander then Commander on USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D and -E

Appears in [#130 Pathfinder] [#144 Life Line] [#152 Inside Man]

Article by ST:M with considerable additional text by Janet. The ST:M article does not cite episode references. The screenshots, which are not the same as the few in ST:M, were done by Janet.

VALUABLE INSIGHTS

Deanna's empathic abilities have also proved extremely valuable in dealing with the many species the Enterprise has encountered, and have helped to avoid unnecessary conflict on many occasions. She regularly takes a seat on the Bridge, next to the Captain, on his lefthand side, and can warn the captain when someone is attempting to deceive him or when an enemy is preparing to attack. Her ability to sense emotions has proved valuable on more than one occasion. For instance, as depicted in [TNG: Night Terrors], when the Enterprise found the missing science ship USS Brittain they discovered the thirty-four crew had murdered each other but Deanna sensed that one had survived, who turned out to be a male Betazoid. Deanna tried to elicit from the traumatised man what had happened.

the crew of the USS Brittain are found murdered, but a traumatised Betazoid survived, [TNG Night Terrors], subtitles by STDVD

Deanna started having the same nightmare over and over.

Deanna has a nightmare and wakes up, shaken, [TNG Night Terrors], subtitles by STDVD

The Enterprise crew realised they had become trapped along with the Brittain in a Tyken's Rift, a rupture in the fabric of space. The only solution was to detonate a large enough explosion but the Enterprise's only possible attempt, via the main deflector, failed.

Data explains about a Tyken's Rift.A rare rupture in the fabric of space, undetectable by most sensors. Named for Bela Tyken, a Melthusian captain who first discovered the phenomenon, the rift effectively drained all energy from any space vehicle unlucky enough to fall into it. When Tyken found his ship trapped in the rift, he was able to escape by generating a massive energy burst using anicium and yurium, overloading the rift and allowing him to escape
[TNG Night Terrors], subtitles by STDVD

The crew began to experience sleep deprivation and waking nightmares. Dr Crusher realised that all the crew except Data (an android) and for some mysterious reason Deanna, were not reaching REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Inability to do so would result in lack of concentration, gradual loss of cognitive abilities, and eventually insanity as had happened to the crew of the USS Brittain. But Deanna worked out that in her dreams the mysterious voices calling out "eyes in the dark" and "one moon circles" in fact formed a telepathic message. It was realised that telepathic aliens had also become snared in the Tyken's Rift and were trying to communicate with the Enterprise through Deanna, just as they had tried to contact the Brittain through the male Betazoid. "Eyes in the dark" meant the twin star system. The aliens wanted the Enterprise should release hydrogen, whose atom is represented as "one moon circles" (diagrammatically, for one electron circles one proton), for the aliens to detonate using another (unknown) chemical. The aliens needed hydrogen to produce an explosion to rupture the rift so that both ships could escape. The aliens were thus using Deanna and her telepathic ability to propose a co-operative way to enable both their ship and the Enterprise to escape, but unfortunately as REM sleep has a different frequency for Betazoids than other species the aliens' use of the frequency had unintentionally inhibited the REM sleep of the others on the Enterprise. Deanna used a technique known as directed dreaming to send a message back to the aliens, and through a combined effort they were able to generate an explosion large enough to free them both from the rift. During the directed dreaming, Deanna briefly saw one of the trapped aliens.

thanks to Deanna's dreamtime telepathic communication with the aliens and realising it as a message, the two trapped ships together generate an explosion large enough to enable them both to escape the Tyken's Rift, [TNG Night Terrors], subtitles by STDVD

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