Why was Guinan on the Enterprise in Yesterday's Enterprise?

[Unicron]

She didn't need to explain to Picard that the timeline was FUBAR and he needed to send the C back to fix it. Picard is smart enough to figure out for himself that sending the C back might have been a way to alter history for the better, without previous knowledge that an alternate history may have happened.

Based on what? The only reason Picard had any motivation that the C's arrival in the future had FUBARed things was Guinan, and even then it took a lot of convincing to bring him around. He even asks her point blank why he should accept that the alternate history, even if grim, isn't the correct one and why he should make a decision that would almost definitely kill another crew. I don't think Picard or anyone else would have noticed the changes without Guinan's presence, and that's not a criticism of their intelligence. They needed an outsider's perspective to recognize them, because the changes made them incapable of doing so.

Yar is a brave enough woman to volunteer for the probable suicide mission all by herself, without Guinan's mystical "you should be dead" crapola. It would have been a much better character moment for her to say "Yessir, I know I won't be coming back, but I am the right person for this job, period."

Which she does, in a somewhat more meaningful way in my view, because she knows from Guinan that her death can count for something vs. being an empty act of brutality in the proper timeline. That's what gives the "you should be dead" part meaning.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wonder why they didn't have Worf as the commander of the Klingon fleet ("Federation ship Enterprise, surrender and prepare to be boarded...") in the alternate timeline.

 

[I am not Spock]

Um, they needed her there, otherwise the timeline couldn't be fixed?

 

[I am not Spock]

Why is Wesley there? Is the war going so poorly that the Feds are recruiting teenagers? And Riker really should have his own command.

The Nitpickers Guide said that the Ent D should have looked more like the USS Defiant in this timeline. Why the big, comfortable Galaxy Class?

(I know, I know. Budgets)

 

[D Man]

Why wouldn't it all change immediately? That makes as much sense as how it slowly changes or sometimes there's a "wave" of time that changes whatever it hits. We don't know what shape/form time is in.

What I meant is that for the sake of the episode, Guinan only notices that things are Somehow Wrong seconds after the Ent-C appears, but actually at that moment she and all the other characters would have now lived in this alternate universe for 20+ years. Wouldn't she have noticed something was up way back when the war with the Klingons first started? I admit it's a pretty dumb thing to nitpick and I certainly don't hold it against the episode, but it's interesting to ponder nonetheless.

 

[Anwar]

I wonder why they didn't have Worf as the commander of the Klingon fleet ("Federation ship Enterprise, surrender and prepare to be boarded...") in the alternate timeline.

They toyed with that idea in the original script, but dropped it.

I remember Berman saying that if he had known they'd be making TNG movies back then, they'd have kept this script for one of them.

 

[Forbin]

She didn't need to explain to Picard that the timeline was FUBAR and he needed to send the C back to fix it. Picard is smart enough to figure out for himself that sending the C back might have been a way to alter history for the better, without previous knowledge that an alternate history may have happened.

Based on what? The only reason Picard had any motivation that the C's arrival in the future had FUBARed things was Guinan, and even then it took a lot of convincing to bring him around. He even asks her point blank why he should accept that the alternate history, even if grim, isn't the correct one and why he should make a decision that would almost definitely kill another crew. I don't think Picard or anyone else would have noticed the changes without Guinan's presence, and that's not a criticism of their intelligence. They needed an outsider's perspective to recognize them, because the changes made them incapable of doing so.

As written, sure. But Picard is supposed to be smarter than to need a mystic voodoo soothsayer to tell him what's going on. I feel he was perfectly capable of seeing the meaning of the C's absence at Khitomer, and how sending her back could have changed history for the better. And he and Garret were both good enough commanders to know, once the alternative had been realized, what had to be done.

 

[Unicron]

We might just agree to disagree then, since I don't really see it as "voodoo mysticism" so to speak. Guinan even hinted that part of her perspective had been altered, even though she also felt things were wrong. The C's presence at Khitomer was clearly stated (by YE Riker) to be unknown in the alternate history, so I'm not sure how Picard would have been able to come to the best conclusion.

 

[Cyke101]

Why is Wesley there? Is the war going so poorly that the Feds are recruiting teenagers? And Riker really should have his own command.

No idea about Wesley, but clearly the plot gods needed Riker for that rather kick-ass death scene (no idea how THAT could logically happen either, but hey, it was neat)

The Nitpickers Guide said that the Ent D should have looked more like the USS Defiant in this timeline. Why the big, comfortable Galaxy Class?

(I know, I know. Budgets)

For all we know, the Galaxy might have been in the design stages before the war started. In the present day, it takes a couple decades for any vehicle in the design stage to realization.

But yeah, there would be plenty of time to make the Galaxy look a ton more different, too. Perhaps more heavily armed and shielded, like a Galaxy/Defiant hybrid.

Other than that though, since that's just a theory, I largely agree with that particular nit. After Phil Farrand pointed out that nit, we had new ship designs in First Contact, DS9 and Voyager, often credited as being aesthetically and functionally different as a response to the Borg threat only a few years earlier. If the encounter in Q Who could force such a response in design, surely a massive war with the Klingons would force Starfleet to make even more drastic design changes.

 

[Anwar]

Well, the Galaxy-class vessels seen in the Dominion War kicked butt as much as the Defiant and the post-Borg vessels and they all still looked the same.

 

[flemm]

The C's presence at Khitomer was clearly stated (by YE Riker) to be unknown in the alternate history, so I'm not sure how Picard would have been able to come to the best conclusion.

Well, they now have the presence of the C, combined with information from Captain Garret and others, so I think the script could easily have accounted for the decision without Guinan persuading Picard. "One ship won't make a difference here, but maybe back there it can make a difference." Picard, RIker, Garret and co. could come to that conclusion on their own.

Harder to reconcile and revise would be your other point concerning Tasha. She would certainly be brave enough to sacrifice herself without Guinan's perspective, but her motivation would not be the same. It would just be run-of-the-mill noble sacrifice, without the wrinkle of her trying to make up for her "meaningless death" in the other timeline.

It's really for Tasha that Guinan is needed in the story, as written. I get the feeling that when this episode was originally conceived, Tasha's reappearance among the crew was seen as the main point of interest, and the fact that she was being given a "better death," so to speak, than she was originally given when she left the show.

In fact I think the story ended up being strong enough that it didn't need to work so hard to emphasize Tasha's death "mulligan," and could have let the viewers do some infering on this point themselves. This would have meant substantial rewrites of the script, of course.

 

[Unicron]

Those are valid points, though with AH scenarios it's always a matter of perspective. While Captain Garrett's account would certainly be different, the events she experienced seemed to have been minimized by the changes caused. I'd also wonder whether Picard would have assumed that their noble deaths would have been the ideal solution, relatively speaking, as opposed to the view that the C would have had to win the battle to affect history positively.

I do think Picard's decision to send the C back was partially motivated by the impending defeat of the Federation in the new timeline, and the fact that she couldn't really have made much of a military difference.

 

[nx1701g]

I wonder why they didn't have Worf as the commander of the Klingon fleet ("Federation ship Enterprise, surrender and prepare to be boarded...") in the alternate timeline.

I recall reading, I think it was in the companion, that they'd considered doing that.

 

[Anwar]

It's in the script as well, the voice of the Klingon captain that ordered them to surrender was possibly going to be Worfs'.

 

[Bones2]

I wonder why they didn't have Worf as the commander of the Klingon fleet ("Federation ship Enterprise, surrender and prepare to be boarded...") in the alternate timeline.

It'd make the galaxy feel even smaller.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Now you're picking up on why I think sci-fi really needs to cut waaaaay back on all the time travel stories. There's a reason there is a paradox associated with time travel, and unless people can do something really interesting with the whole concept I think time travel has about been done.