Both "patrol" time normatively, seeking to make "corrections." In doing so, isn't the Dept. of Temporal Investigations also guilty of erasing people, families, technologies, even cultures from history?
The Krenim do not patrol time. A Krenim Imperium from one version of time invented the technology to do something they didn't completely understand, and destroyed themselves. One ship survived hovering outside time "for 200 years" with no connection to any other new version of the Krenim Imperium that might now exist inside time.
I think the difference is their goals. The DTI tries to ensure that there are no changes to significant events in their known historical records. The Krenim however, are willing to change known history to benefit themselves.
In a sense, the Krenim are trying to do a similar thing with regard to changes. They are trying to correct for a mistake they made and are trying to restore their timeline. It's just that the Kremin don't care who they erase in the process of restoring their own timeline. DTI is, at least, less prejudicial in globally preferring the "prime" timeline. At any rate, goals aside, doesn't the DTI have to own up to similarly troubling effects?
The difference is, the DTI does not actually travel in time. They only investigate incidents, they don't do any altering of their own. The Krenim do nothing BUT alter the timeline.
Another important thing they do is when they find "stuff" from the future, they stick it in a vault and don't let it out until that "stuff" is temporally homogenized. Annorax also keeps trophies.
Not really. The Kremin made a mistake which was part of their timeline, they tried to undo that mistkae. That's not quite the same as ensuring that the timeline isn't changed.
I think the OP is actually thinking of the Temporal Integrity Commission, the 29th century time cops from "Future's End" and "Relativity", rather than the 24th century DTI paper-pushers from "Trials and Tribble-ations" As far as I know, only Annorax was altering the timeline with his massive ship and obsession with his wife. The advanced Krenim merely used their temporal torpedoes to slice through shields like they weren't there.
I wonder if Annorax ever tried to Join any shadow of the Krenim Imperium he had once belonged to? This would be like that savage Mirror Kirk from Mirror Mirror kicking down the door to the Federation Council and he's screaming that they are wrong and have no right exist and need to submit to demolishment to make way fro something superior on his word alone.
^ It seemed that Annorax would never have been satisfied until the entire Imperium was restored. Ironically, this was only achieved by the destruction of his own ship (performing a 'temporal incursion' on itself, assuring that in the new timeline, it would never be built). I wonder if Annorax would have done this on purpose if he'd known it would work... That being said, I find it likely that the Krenim eventually become members of the Federation, and their time-travel technology is what enables the Temporal Integrity Commission to form.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuude. All he cared about was the wife. If the wife was restored and 2 percent of the empire, he would have stopped. ... There's this long con I heard about which seems clever. You pick a hundred people that seem to be gamblers, then write a letter where you claim to be a psychic who can see the future, or something vague to that effect that's less actionable. You post to half of them the results of the next big sports game. Half of them are told that team A will win, and the other half is told that team B will win. Of the 25 that win, the next week you tell half of them that the next big sports game will be won by team A, and and the other half that team B will win. Of the 12 that win, you do the same. Of the 6 that win you do the same So there's three people left, and you tell them than for 10 grand you will tell them next 5 weeks winners. So for the price of 200 stamps, and a bit of time, you get $30,000. I think that this is what happened with Annorax. The weapon didn't create a new reality, it created an infinite number of mirror realities, but our story only decided to follow the distinct outcomes, of all the infinite realities that did eventuate, where the wife did not come back from oblivion, and no other Annorax or Annoraxes invented and deployed another weapon.
So many uses for that weapon ship...maybe to fix the damage from the Borg in the novels one day. Even better, having other ships shield themselves from the effect of the timeline shift. If the 2009 JJ prise had the weapon ship strike Narada and shield itself, you might have it meet the prime TOS Enterprise. I think Annorax's ship would be the one thing to make me brave enough to confront Cthulhu.
If Spock was prophalatically protected from the temporal editing to the timeline because he was outside of time when everything changed, then every time traveler that ever time traveled would also be as protected when they were also outside time, as they left the old Timeline when it still existed, landing sqaurely in this "nu" one. Dozens of Enterprises and dozens of Kirks form the original time line would be popping up all over time and space wondering what the hell happened to their universe.
It would be interesting to discuss the ethics of the Dept of Temporal Investigations. They've basically taken upon themselves to decide that the 'True timeline' is the one that would have happened if nobody ever travelled through time. Meaning they're assigning full value to one set of lives and lifetimes and no value to others. But they didn't reset Timeless so apparently they like Voyager better than other people, so they aren't just picking the 'Natural' timeline. So basically they're playing God.
Timeless resulted in Voyager continuing their voyage home so they had no reason to intervene. I see no real distinction between Annorax and the Federation temporal police. They're both just looking after themselves and their interests But where are the Krenim future police, the Romulan, the Cardassian, the Devoran etc etc.....surely they've all got future guardians protecting their past....and surely this would lead to contradictory goals (and conflict)
From Relativity. From Timeless. The DTI from Deep Space Nine is a 24th century institution. The two versions of a 29th century Temporal Integrity Commission from Voyager in Future's End were both 29th century institution, it's unclear if the USS Relativity was form either of those timelines despite it's dedication plaque listing it as a member of the temporal Integrity Commission. The MANY unnamed 31st century Time Cop factions from Enterprise all pretending to be the same guy, are many mirror crosstime 31st institutions.
The TIC did have to deal with that. Captain Braxton refers to the events of that episode as "the temporal inversion in the Takara sector" - the TIC had to clean up the mess that Harry et al. caused.
What mess did they cause.....and what did Braxton have to do to clean it up? Harry and Chakotay succeeded in restoring the timeline (they did the TIC's job for them) old Harry even sent a little message to young Harry at the end....even Janeway had a little peak at it) so i'm not sure how Braxton can claim they cleaned that up when... 1 - nothing needed to be cleaned up and 2 - if something did get cleaned up then why was old Harry still able to send a message to young Harry (not cleaned up very well i'd say) Lets not forget, Braxton is suffering from temporal psychosis so he doesn't actually know his arse from his elbow....he' so messed up, he cant' even count "(1)Thirty years of exile on twentieth century Earth. (2)The temporal inversion in the Takara sector! Three violations that I had to repair."
Actually the real question is did he clean up Timeless before the episode started because it was a fantastic, possibly explosive clusterfuck before he smoothed off the edges and what we saw was what was permitted by the integrity commission, or did Braxton clean up Timeless AFTER Timeless and none of what we saw happened as we saw it, if it happened at all.