If this conference is the one alluded to by Sir John in Chapter 1-5 , it is a drastic time distortion, since Sir John left Costaguana only 18 months before. Of course, the chief engineer might be referring to some previous conference. However, in Chapter 2-8 Nostromo also refers to Sir John's visit as being years before, speaking on the same night as the chief engineer here.

These distortions serve to expose the first-person narrator's fallibility. In the context of the night of Separatism, they also serve to reinforce the message that linear time itself is a casualty of the breakdown of society and the loss of the organizing illusion.