Using Time Travel to Prevent Voyager from Going to the DQ

[Ro_Laren]

Last night I was thinking about all of the opportunities that the crew of Voyager had to not end up in the Delta Quadrant by taking advantage of different time travel opportunities they had:

Eye of the Needle- They could have had the Romulan warn Starfleet to not send Voyager on their mission to go after the Maquis (and likewise Tuvok the spy could have prevented the Maquis ship from ending up there too). Yes, the Romulan did die before Voyager went to the DQ, but the Voyager crew could have asked that he give Starfleet the message 10 yrs earlier or said by the way, can you change your will so that whoever is in charge of your estate would send the message? However, when given the opportunity Voyager decided not to prevent the circumstances which led to them being stranded. The reason that Chakotay gave was because they had already made too big of an impact on the Quadrant.

Relativity- Seven travels back in time and ends up on Voyager before it goes on its voyage after the Maquis ship. She could have told them not to go after, but that would have led to her never being freed from the Collective.

Shattered- Chakotay goes back in time to a point where Voyager is on its mission to capture the Maquis ship, but hasn't caught up with them yet. As Chakotay and Janeway go around trying to fix the "shattered" ship Janeway learns that she will end up in the DQ. They have a conversation about Voyager's fate and Chakotay says that he doesn't want Janeway to prevent them from going to the DQ. I can't remember the exact conversation, but isn't the reason he gives because the Maquis have changed and everyone on the ship has grown to be a better person??

Endgame- Admiral Janeway goes back in time to a point seven years after Voyager first ended up in the DQ. She wanted to get them back sooner via the Borg Nexus in order to bring Voyager back home before Seven and over 20 other crewman die. But she could have gone further back in time and prevented Voyager from ever going into the DQ.

Can anyone else think of any examples?? The crew of Voyager certainly had a lot of opportunities to prevent being stranded in the DQ!!!

 

[Deks]

There were too many things happening in the DQ that Voyager was a part of and which could have resulted in a catastrophe if the crew did not get involved.
Species 8472 comes to mind for example.

BUT ... let's think of it from another perspective ...
If Voyager wasn't stranded in the DQ, is it possible that some of the catastrophes could have been solved by someone else ?

Species 8472 is the most prevalent factor here I think.
No one else was there to witness the battle, and it's possible that no one would try to negotiate with the Borg, because most of the species would never even consider it given the nature of the Borg.
Janeway was able to do so because she had a bargaining chip (information on how to battle the 8472 on a cellular level).
And let's not forget the doctor was able to get that information because Voyager found a wrecked Borg cube some time before that in the Nekrit expanse and a corpse (which they brought back to the ship for studying ... and in turn allowed the doctor to replicate the nanoprobes himself).

I agree that Voyager upset many things in the DQ, but the crew did just as much to prevent things that could have affected things on a galactic/if not larger scale.

The Krenim also come to mind ... particularly Annorax.
Also, if Voyager hadn't intervened, then the Kazon could have gotten the Array and become far more powerful as a result, and also become a much larger threat to not just the Ocampa, but the rest of the quadrant.
The Caretakers technology was extremely advanced after all.

I'm sure there are many more examples, but they don't come to mind right now.

 

[kimc]

Eye of the Needle- They could have had the Romulan warn Starfleet to not send Voyager on their mission to go after the Maquis (and likewise Tuvok the spy could have prevented the Maquis ship from ending up there too). Yes, the Romulan did die before Voyager went to the DQ, but the Voyager crew could have asked that he give Starfleet the message 10 yrs earlier or said by the way, can you change your will so that whoever is in charge of your estate would send the message? However, when given the opportunity Voyager decided not to prevent the circumstances which led to them being stranded. The reason that Chakotay gave was because they had already made too big of an impact on the Quadrant.

Chakotay would be correct. Besides, it would have been a pretty short-run show if they had done that.

 

[Mrs Paris]

if they had used time travel to never get to the Delta Quadrant then

• The Kazon might have gotten to the ocampa or might have gotten access to the arrayK
• Kes would probably have been killed while held captive by the Kazon
• Neelix would probably still be scavaging garbage
• Tom would still be in prison
• Chakotya, B'Elanna and the rest of the maquis on Voyager would either be dead or in prison
• Seven would still be a drone
• Tom and B'Elanna wouldn't have gotten together
• Species 8472 would have invaded the AQ (remember the whole "your galaxy will be purged" thing)
• The Doctor would have been another run of the mill EMHs mining dilithium
• Lewis Zimmerman would be dead
• Annorax would still be messing with alien species history

 

[backstept]

Dairy Queen!


now on topic: I think if they used Time Travel to prevent Voyager from going to the Delta Quadrant [Dairy Queen] it would have been the worst Reset Button Ever [no smoothies]

 

[AlboOfBorg]

Relativity- Seven travels back in time and ends up on Voyager before it goes on its voyage after the Maquis ship. She could have told them not to go after, but that would have led to her never being freed from the Collective.

Wouldn't Braxton just have gone back and fixed that one anyway?

 

[Deks]

He would.

To shorten things up ... unless another race lost a vessel in the DQ, or another ship went to the Badlands to take Voyagers place, then the Galaxy as we know it in the Trek universe would be fundamentally altered by Species 8472.

 

[Guy Gardener]

the Species 8472 war only happened because the Queens interplexing beacon upgraded the 21st century Borg to have a larger more technically sophisticated empire capable of entering Fluidic space which never would have happened if Starling didn't cannibalize the Aeon to jump start the Computer revolution of the 1970s which never would have happened if Janeway had stayed int he AQ which would have dissolved the continuity leading to that exact future. Note how Captain Chakotay didn't encounter 8472 or pick up Seven because it was set in a previously dominant timeline from before the events of STXIII First Contact?

The events of DS9 state that without first contact, humanity is practically extinct by the 24th century living in barbarism while Alpha Centauri is a Romulan settlement of some description.

 

[Kio]

the Species 8472 war only happened because the Queens interplexing beacon upgraded the 21st century Borg to have a larger more technically sophisticated empire capable of entering Fluidic space which never would have happened if Starling didn't cannibalize the Aeon to jump start the Computer revolution of the 1970s which never would have happened if Janeway had stayed int he AQ which would have dissolved the continuity leading to that exact future.

I don't know if it's just that I've had a couple drinks or if it's because you're made of awesome, but that's the best run-on sentence EVAR! No, I'm not making fun, I love your posts but I have to read them 2 or 3 times to fully get them. Sort of. You're like James Joyce as a sci-fi critic.

I thought the time travel episodes were pretty solid. They didn't leave me wondering why the DQ detour wasn't prevented, though in general I thought humanity might have used time travel to its advantage more often.

 

[B'Elanna]

Voyager had a big impact on the Delta Quadrant, and the Delta Quadrant had a big impact on the Voyager crew. For many members of the crew, what they had on Voyager was much better than what they would be comming home to in the Alpha Quadrant, for example the former Maquis. They were all killed or imprisoned and if they weren't in the Delta Quadrant at the time, Chakotay, B'Elanna, Chell and all the others would also be dead or in prison.

Plus Janeway convinced 8472 not to invade Earth, so if they hadn't been in the Delta Quadrant, they might still be planning to purge the galaxy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They only planned to invade Earth Space because Janeway allied with the Borg. If Janeway hadn't allied with he Borg because she wasn't there, then Species 8472 wouldn't have ever met humanity in any vein enough to retaliate against a "perceived" Borg Ally where none existed.

It's just a question of if we believed they intended to destroy all life in the universe, or it was just hyperbola from a git with more mouth than gumption like the Boothby character suggested that they weren't really serious when they said that, kinda like when McArthur was talking about using atomic bombs to win the Korean War. That didn't go down at all well with the oval office.

The penal colony in New Zealand looks lovely, even if somehow there's a rain forest here that, as a native, I've never heard of, which is exactly where they would have eneded up as Tuvok felled the lot of them single handedly baring they didn't get in a lucky a shot... But his Space Syphilis would have still stormed from one side of the Jean Val to the other till they were all pent up about letting their sisters fall off a cliff carving their emotional states into a useful vacation spot, if they did kill the Vulcan.

It was the cosmic clap which made Tuvok quit Star Fleet wasn't it? Pushing him to play it safe so the virus wouldn't be endangered by the action packed melee of a red shirt on a Star Ship. 10 minutes with that super intelligent STD chipping at their belligerentism and those Cutthroats all would have all become Poets on Risa to never no longer be a handful to no one... Or the plan could have come together perfectly as Tuvok delivered his Judas kiss perfectly orchestrating Janeway's capture of these dastard terrorists.

 

[Guy Gardener]

From what I remember 8472 wanted to wipe all life from the galaxy because of their conflict with the borg, even before they encountered Voyager

All true, but there's information gained after the fact in the subsequent Species 8472 episode In The Flesh where as I said above "they were exaggerating" for effect. The threat of beginning an apocalypse can be just as effective as... that is they were fighting an enemy with a broad emotional spectrum that the Borg can be terrorized.

BOOTHBY: Explain why you attacked our realm, hand in hand with the Borg.
JANEWAY: At the time, we didn't realise the Borg had started the war against you. We forged a temporary alliance with them because we thought you were the threat.
SEVEN: Your galaxy will be purged. Sound familiar?
BULLOCK: We were only trying to defend ourselves.

Obviously, it's more about the different writers trying to mesh badly fitting stories together but an attempt was made.

 

[B'Elanna]

From what I remember 8472 wanted to wipe all life from the galaxy because of their conflict with the borg, even before they encountered Voyager

 

[kipron]

Hmmm. I could try to make some argument involving Species 8472, the Krenim, Henry Starling, the Equinox and the Ocampa...but I won't.

It's all about Seven, really. Which imho is fair enough.

 

[DanCPA]

It's all about Seven, really. Which imho is fair enough.

What about Joe Carey? And all the others who died on the way home!

 

[kimc]

It's all about Seven, really. Which imho is fair enough.

What about Joe Carey? And all the others who died on the way home!

They're not Seven.

Seriously, this is why I find time travel plots problematic. To quote Janeway: "The future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a big headache."

 

[Guy Gardener]

Then why not travel back in time and save the entire Hanson family? Either from the Borg seconds before the Borg got them, or more safely seconds after they fell off the UFP radar and months before the Borg nabbed them so as to leave the time line relatively in tact from the AQ's perspective, or more dangerously leaving the Hanson's in play inside the Federation boarders by leaving it that they're active temporal ingredients in the immediate history of the Federation and the AQ that things could have gotten unpredictably weird from the 2350s onward?

Are we really going to say that any temporal scouting party sent by Admiral or Captain Janeway would rather not rescue the little girl because it is only the emotionally scarred physically mutilated and mentally raped human being which is their friend they care about, and that saving that child from all those tortures is as good as killing their friend since she would never become the woman they know with out all that aggressive torment?

HOW SELFISH!

In the 70s Dr Who traveled back to the beginning with orders from the Time Lords to murder the first Daleks in their nursery. At the last second, he decided not to because of all the friendships made by people and civilizations teaming up to fight the Dalek threat... Who would have otherwise have been killing each other. The Further back in time Janeway went, as far back as her technology on hand could provide, the easier it would have been to wipe the entire Borg threat to the point that she's Annorax exterminating the species that would day originate the Borg threat but not quite yet.

So really, it was about making sure Chakotay was going to get laid as the primary motivator behind the decision to rescue Seven. Obviously Joe Carey had to die because he was secretly having an affair with Seven and she would never have moved on to the Indian if Joe was still in the picture.

 

[DanCPA]

They're not Seven.

Ok, but Stadi was a hottie too!

 

[Deks]

let's look at it from another perspective ...
I considered the possibility that Janeway might not be that important in the grand scheme of things like Q suggested to Picard in 'Tapestry'.
But we aren't just talking about her.
We are talking about the ship itself.
If Voyager was prevented from going to the D.Q., would SF send another ship to the Badlands in Voyager's place before the Caretaker dies?
Would the Maqui be able to take on the D.Q. on their own?
Doubtful.

If Voyager was prevented and no other ship took on a similar role, then 8472 would have destroyed everything in the galaxy eventually.

Saving Carey was not an option really.
Not unless Janeway was willing to not go retrieve the probe and leave the inhabitants of the planet to die off due to radiation poisoning.

It's quite probable that admiral Janeway picked the moment she did because it was the last turning point in their journey, not to mention 7 of 9 and Tuvok.
Two of the people she was closest with.
She was almost a mother to 7 and was a best friend with Tuvok.
Plus, Janeway was on Voyager with that same crew for 23 years in the first timeline.
No other crew in SF was together for so long (apart from perhaps Kirk and the gang).
That kind of a track record tends to influence humans in a great capacity.
Even after laying out all the things that will happen, Captain Janeway was willing to resume the course to the A.Q. on their own (that was until she found an alternative to which the admiral agreed with).

Also, it's quite possible that no one came to stop admiral Janeway because what she did was part of a predestination paradox ... or because of the Temporal Cold War (no one might have noticed or could have bothered with it ... or further more, they WANTED to leave it like that so the Federation might gain a possible advantage down the line against some other factions in the war).

There are multiple possibilities ... but the 29th century time-police would probably view this as predestination paradox given the fact how a similar thing might have happened in FC.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It wasn't a predestination paradox. That's when future people in the past create the future they came from. A big loop. Admiral Janeway was changing things. The ship got home 16 years early which is a completely undestined event from Admiral Janeway's perspective.

Of course then you get parallel 29th centuries deciding how amicably they can co-operate?

Saving Carey could have been as easy as sending down some one she cared about less to do the same job or even simpler. Blowing up the probe a week before it was within range of that planet?

We still have no idea what happened to Gul Evek's ship or the cloaked Cardassian ship from the Voyager conspiracy.

I'd also be worried about ransom destroying the earth as he led those space beasties back to federation Space.