Tried to shoot it. Couldn't get close enough. Ended up in the past and grabbed whales. Saved Earth.How did the Confederation deal with the Whale Probe?
Spoilers Time travel issues S2
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Time's Arrow was one of those "need to explain" episodes that addressed the deep relationship between Picard and Guinan. So of course it slaps you in the face if, in their first meeting after the 1890s, Guinan treats Picard as a complete stranger. There should have been a throw-away line about the time travel, but so be it...
I'm probably missing something. I thought Picard and company arrived in 2024 a few days *before* the big event that causes the divergence in time. If so , aren't they still in the timeline that leads to the Federation (and Guinan's original history) *until* this "big event" (that didn't happen originally) is allowed to occur and changes things moving forward?
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yeah but the timeline already changed to the confederation one (ie this is the “main” timeline now), even though the big event hasn’t occurred yet, it will happen if nothing is altered. So they have to alter the big event to change the timeline back to the federation.
Cross-posted from Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher", quoting instead the similar post in this thread, as this is specifically on topic here:
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That's untrue, by which I mean the following.
In "The City on the Edge of Forever," we have no demonstration of any kind that option #A ever occurred. We witness option #C, and Spock deduces that option #B occurred, relative to the landing party on the Guardian's planet, after McCoy went through and before Kirk and Spock went through.
As for option #A? Whether it ever occurred is entirely supposition. It's assumed by some fans that it happened, but the on-screen events are perfectly compatible with the premise that fixing the timeline means not only saving Edith, but in fact restoring option #C.
In addition, if we take what the Guardian says at the end, "All is as it was before," as being literally true with the emphasis on the word all, then the time travelers went back originally, and there was never any option #A.
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To elaborate a little more, option #A might have happened, had the Guardian been figurative when it said "All is as it was before," or had the Guardian been thinking of the broad strokes, or had it been thinking of the events that mattered to bring about the TOS future.
But the point I'm making is that option #A was not shown to be part of how time travel worked in "The City on the Edge of Forever."
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That's untrue, by which I mean the following.
In "The City on the Edge of Forever," we have no demonstration of any kind that option #A ever occurred. We witness option #C, and Spock deduces that option #B occurred, relative to the landing party on the Guardian's planet, after McCoy went through and before Kirk and Spock went through.
As for option #A? Whether it ever occurred is entirely supposition. It's assumed by some fans that it happened, but the on-screen events are perfectly compatible with the premise that fixing the timeline means not only saving Edith, but in fact restoring option #C.
In addition, if we take what the Guardian says at the end, "All is as it was before," as being literally true with the emphasis on the word all, then the time travelers went back originally, and there was never any option #A.
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To elaborate a little more, option #A might have happened, had the Guardian been figurative when it said "All is as it was before," or had the Guardian been thinking of the broad strokes, or had it been thinking of the events that mattered to bring about the TOS future.
But the point I'm making is that option #A was not shown to be part of how time travel worked in "The City on the Edge of Forever."
I get it in a way but it's till confuses me. It makes more sense to me that the unaltered (Federation) timeline and the confederation timeline runs parallel to eachother until the big event happens or doesn't happen.
Similar to Doc Brown's chalkboard illustration in Back to the Future Part 2. He represented both "futures" with one horizontal line. And then a new line splintering away at the point where it changed and the 2 futures diverged.
Presumably, the original, "correct" timeline is the federation one. We shouldn't see any evidence of the confederation timeline until the big event occurs. Otherwise that signals to me that the big event /confederation timeline was the original one and the timeline where the big event never occurred is the altered one. The point of time Picard and company are in already assumes the big event will happen before it actually does. That seems to be the "default"
It makes more sense to me Guinan recognizes Picard (from Times Arrow). Picard tells Guinan that if this big event that never should of happened happens in a few days, THEN the Future will be altered and then suddenly it would trickle back to them never ever meeting eachother
In my mind that makes more sense. Maybe I'm just not too good in understanding time travel dynamics
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You can think if it in terms of parallel timelines if it's easier. But essentially:
- Federation timeline, previously primary timeline
- Confederation timeline, the current primary timeline
I think it makes sense that Guinan doesn't remember Picard. They travelled back from a future where the timeline was already 'broken', and the USS Enterprise-D never even existed. I can live with that.
And it would have been confusing as hell to new viewers. Yes, those count as well. 'Time's Arrow' was not a 'BOBW' moment, it didn't have that magnitude or impact to Trek lore, I think it was wise to just ignore it and consider it 'never happened in this timeline'.
And it would have been confusing as hell to new viewers. Yes, those count as well. 'Time's Arrow' was not a 'BOBW' moment, it didn't have that magnitude or impact to Trek lore, I think it was wise to just ignore it and consider it 'never happened in this timeline'.
I'm willing to accept that "Time's Arrow" hasn't happened in this timeline, at least so far, because the Confederation future is still in play. If "Time's Arrow" had happened, then that would indicate that Picard's future was going to happen for sure. But there's still a choice. Picard and his crew were inserted into this timeline from outside of it, apparently by Q,* and they came back into the past not from their own time but from the Confederation's time.
* - I say apparently, because it seems he's lost his snap....
* - I say apparently, because it seems he's lost his snap....
If Gary 7 was a time Traveler, then World War Three Starts Prematurely in the 1960s.
Of Course they probably sent a different Supervisor or a doppelganger of Gary 7... Of course, of course, if Gary was from the Future he wouldn't have been sent back to fix Earth if nothing bad happens.
Of Course they probably sent a different Supervisor or a doppelganger of Gary 7... Of course, of course, if Gary was from the Future he wouldn't have been sent back to fix Earth if nothing bad happens.
Has anyone here seen the series 12 MONKEYS? It was a superb show.
That show could really confuse you, yet it ended up working because pretty much everything got explained.
Terry Matalas was the lead writer for much of its run, and it looks like he brought a couple people from there with him, like Travis Fickett.
Matalas did a great job with 12 MONKEYS, so I'm going to trust him on this one that it will all make sense by the end of the season.
That show could really confuse you, yet it ended up working because pretty much everything got explained.
Terry Matalas was the lead writer for much of its run, and it looks like he brought a couple people from there with him, like Travis Fickett.
Matalas did a great job with 12 MONKEYS, so I'm going to trust him on this one that it will all make sense by the end of the season.
Indeed. It sounds to me like he might have intentionally ignored Time's Arrow, but he definitely remembered it.
A possible explanation from the novels, which in the Myriad Universes series dealt with the alternate timeline as presented in TAS Yesteryear where Spock was killed as a child and an Andorian became the Enterprise's science officer.How did the Confederation deal with the Whale Probe?
Anyway, since it was Spock who made the whale connection in TVH and suggested going back in time to retrieve whales, that means no one in this timeline makes this connection. So when the Probe showed up it spent a few days tearing Earth's ecosystem apart until it finally left of its own accord. Just as in the movie, all the Starfleet ships and stations disabled by it are miraculously brought back online when the Probe left though this time leaving an environmentally damaged Earth. The damage was repairable however, though in this story they don't get to repair it since Earth is then attacked by a Klingon conquering force taking advantage of the Federation's weakened state.
Anyway, in the Confederation timeline, Earth likely just had to wait out the Probe to decide to return of its own accord. Their fascist and intentionally a military Starfleet like had already done a better job suppressing the surrounding threats meaning there likely weren't any large enough enemy forces who would be so bold as to head to Earth in the immediate aftermath of the Probe's attack, at which point either the Confederation repaired the damage or just accepted it as a drop in the bucket compared to the damage already done from centuries of not giving a damn about Earth's environment.
well it’s time travel so it’s really all made up at the end of the day. The problem with one line splitting into 2 is that it creates a paradox when someone from one of the two possible futures goes back in time to when it was a single line. If the Confederation timeline is what ends up happening, then the Federation timeline can’t be real and nothing can come from it.
Think about it this way, would it make sense if Times arrow happened in the federation timeline, but with people coming from the confederation future instead?
I think it’s better to think of the federation and confederation timelines as two separate lines that occupy a similar space up until the big event, at which point they diverge. And when the timeline shifts, the entire timeline shifts, past present and future. This means you move from the federation line to the confederation line even before the big event, but the difference just isn’t very noticeable, and because the timelines are so similar it’s still possible to change the entire timeline back to the Federation one again. This eliminates paradox issues.
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Just wondering how the Star Trek IV Punk apparently could have kept his memory while Guinan doesn't, considering that The Voyage Home most probably also didn't happen like "Time's Arrow" in the changed past.
Or did both The Voyage Home and "Time's Arrow" still happen and Guinan simply forgot meeting Picard before
Also possible as she already might have lived for a really long time at this point and the meeting might not have been as important for her as we thought before, at this point...
Or did both The Voyage Home and "Time's Arrow" still happen and Guinan simply forgot meeting Picard before
Also possible as she already might have lived for a really long time at this point and the meeting might not have been as important for her as we thought before, at this point...
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Just wondering how the Star Trek IV Punk apparently could have kept his memory while Guinan doesn't, considering that The Voyage Home most probably also didn't happen like "Time's Arrow" in the changed past.
Or did both The Voyage Home and "Time's Arrow" still happen and Guinan simply forgot meeting Picard before
She doesn't recognize him at first (or she's acting like she doesn't), but once he tells her his name, it clearly triggers her. Either she does remember who he is, or there's something else going on. But it doesn't explain why Picard doesn't bring up their last meeting, since he still has his original memories despite the timeline changing.
I'm sticking with my headcanon that there are three explanations for why Guinan doesn't remember Picard:
- She does, but chose not to reveal it
- She does, but was ordered not to reveal it (possibly by Ducane or another temporal operative)
- Something happened to her which caused her to forget him
I do NOT buy the party line that this Guinan has never encountered Picard before. As I said, as of 2024 (before the Federation/Confederation divergence), both are possible futures. Therefore, any time travel from the Federation future (such as Picard in "Time's Arrow") still happened. Simple as that.
- She does, but chose not to reveal it
- She does, but was ordered not to reveal it (possibly by Ducane or another temporal operative)
- Something happened to her which caused her to forget him
I do NOT buy the party line that this Guinan has never encountered Picard before. As I said, as of 2024 (before the Federation/Confederation divergence), both are possible futures. Therefore, any time travel from the Federation future (such as Picard in "Time's Arrow") still happened. Simple as that.
What triggered her was when he repeated a line he gave her from the last episode and then he called Af-Kelt/time sickness, even though it's from a future that no longer exists.
Those ghouls from Times Arrow... How much trouble were they? And if 2024 is going to be a locus for a new super disaster, shouldn't they show up and eat the over spill of surplus of no-hopers?
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Well I guess it all depends which "rules" of Time travel you ascribe too. To me , my way of thinking makes more sense based on how Star Trek has handled Time travel in the past.
Yes it does makes sense to me that the people from the either the federation future or Confederation future found Guinan in Times Arrow because that is before the divergence. They both inhabit the same timeline until the "big event " they're making such a big deal out of changes everything. Just the way
I see it.
So everything will be altered in a few days that causes the confederation, but...... everything is already altered......before it gets altered or altered further?
Does this mean the original timeline is lost forever?
Because we are now working with the confederation timeline as the default
As presented, even if Picard and company stops the big event from happening, it follows to me the result is a 3rd new timeline that's stemming from the confederation timeline that's nether (original) Federation or Confederation .
I agree with Mr. Laser beem's interpretation a few posts up. It's not a deal breaker though. The story just loses a bit of verisimilitude for me.
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