Spoilers Temporal Wars aftermath (Disco spoilers)

HUGE DISCOVERY SPOILERS. NOT KIDDING.

Discovery S03E01 jumps Michael Burnham (and in E02, the USS Discovery) to the year 3188, where dilithium is scarce and the Federation has "mostly collapsed". And the new character Cleveland Book references "The Temporal Wars", saying that afterwards all time travel technology was destroyed and banned.

Presumably that happens after the timeline reset at the end of "Storm Front" part 2? Daniels' future era was around 3051, shortly before The Burn (where most of the dilithium in the galaxy exploded, along with the ships using it) which was circa 3060.

Perhaps we can guesstimate the Temporal Wars as occuring around the 27th (Voyager time cop era) to the 30th (ENT and Daniels) centuries, with a major front in the 22nd century (ENT).

I thought ENT fans might get a kick out of it. I did. They finally learned their lesson and stopped screwing up the timeline.

 

That's all good, but what's keeping someone from doing a lap around the sun? The dilithium shortage?

 

Well, that ought to do the trick.

But how can a temporal war have an aftermath, when "after" is not even defined? The parties we heard of were fighting from outside the timeframe of the battlefield. The stumpy arm of the law wouldn't be able to reach them without doing time travel, which would simply mean that the temporal wars would continue, with renewed vigor and increased reach as the sides would attempt to outflank each other.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Perhaps they have some kind of temporal shielding, preventing time cops from moving further forward than year 3051. They continue their battles in the centuries before in perpetuity but from the POV of people in DSC S3, their present is and always will be the end result of said wars.

I kinda stole that from the DTI novels.

 

Annorax was still working last we saw...

 

Like in the case of Section 31, I have a feeling, that the producers just heard the word, found it cool and tried to put it into the dialogue while not knowing, what it exactly meant. I'm not even sure, if they know, that there was anyone called Daniels, who declared, that the TCW is over.

 

I think you've just described every Easter Egg in Star Trek since the Abrams movie. Ever since Delta Vega got moved to within sight of Vulcan, and Scotty having lost Archer's prized beagle in a transporter experiment.

It's ironic Lower Decks, a show where the only purpose of a mention is essentially to poke fun, also happens to be the only place where the implications of references are actually thought through, beyond the surface joke.

 

I just attribute it to the modern day definition of warfare. The Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are "over", but there's still thousands of US troops stationed in those countries. The Temporal Cold War (and the Hot Wars) were just "police actions" by the 31st century Time Cops trying to stop transdimensional beings (Sphere-Builders) from mucking things up, or some silly downtimers (Future Guy, the Space Nazis) from thinking they were in charge of the timeline. Once they took care of these Transcendant Bin Ladens, they just sit back in their comfy chairs and make sure no one in their own time can undo their hard work as Time Masters.

That's probably why they Burned most of the dilithium.

 

But we know that this time, he won't succeed. Annorax's time-ship did a temporal incursion on itself, creating a new timeline in which it will never be built.

So even though we saw Annorax still working on his calculations, we know that in this new timeline, he'll never finish them.

 

I appreciated the reference - I wouldn't be surprised if the Temporal (Cold) War was brought up again, and is connected to the Burn.

 

Watch the show, these people know their Trek lore in great detail.

 

Some kind of thingy of Tilly or someone mentioning President Archer mentioning a temporal cold war, most not believing him.

 

It's interesting, the same charges about Discovery not adhering to canon enough or the creators knowing enough about it were said about Enterprise back in the day.

 

I watch, but I'm not entirely your opinion, sorry. There are some parts of the Trek Universe, I see, that they made their homework, yeah, but especially when it comes to ENT (and DS9), I just see some namedropping, that doesn't really fit in. Of course, I haven't seen the whole season yet and it would be wonderful, if Odo's idea became true, but after three seasons with disappointing finales, it's just a small hope for me.

From the same people? I don't think so...But I really like your idea about the Burn. It would be cool, if 'Future Guy' found a way into DSC's season 3.

 

I suppose that probably would just be a case of using the correct wording/grammar, as found in Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations by dr. Dan Streetmentioner. (Hoping that this wouldn't be one of those cases they didn't even bother to print out anymore in the more recent editions).

But I had the very same question when rewatching Storm Front, where Daniels declared the TCW to be 'over'. Other than the desire of the producers to end it, I couldn't think of a solid in-universe reason why it would suddenly be over at that point. A time travelling faction wouldn't necessarily be disarmed by the death of its leader in one particular timeline and could even reverse that. (and there were several other factions, too; why should they have stopped fighting?)

 

Death of a leader probably won't cut it, no. So possibly careful and comprehensive genocide is the answer? Time travel certainly allows for "comprehensive", and for getting it right o the sixteenth try if the first ones don't suffice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yes. It's just that even that would become exceptionally difficult if the opposing party, also capable of time travel, would be aware of what you're attempting to do.

Also, I don't think we see any evidence of such a genocide happening on the Na'Kuhl in the episode.

 

I'm just glad all the criminals abided by the ban.

 

I have to say, it's pretty cool there's something new to talk Enterprise related!

 

The question I have is if time travel was banned, who's around to actually enforce it? While I don't know if this will play into the new season at all, part of me feels like it was just a throwaway line to basically reinforce the idea that the crew is, indeed, now permanently moored there. Because you know that the audience was asking that exact question.