Do you think other people have tried sling-shotting around the sun but failed?

[The Rock]

We've seen the "sling shot around the sun" attempt to time travel three different times in Trek (the most recent one in Picard).

Do you think other starship crews in whatever faction (Starfleet, Klingons, Romulans, etc.) have tried time traveling this way only to fail miserably? And has there ever been any Trek book or comic that talked about that?

I would like to think that in the actual Trek universe, it had only been done successfully just three times and those three times were the ones we saw.

 

[Qonundrum]

Ironically, the one thing Trek needs credit for is for devising other ways to successfully engage time travel other than redoing the slingshot effect all the time*... of course, by 1997 fans were rightly griping that the show invented so many new ways to do it that it got stale too...

But non-Federation species? I'm sure they tried at some point, and - when upon realizing they failed - nobody asked if they had any graham crackers and marshmallows handy... Well, not quite - Memory Alpha* states that Cardassians, Bajorans**, Klingons, and others had as well...


* so many, many ways. Over FORTY in fact: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Time_travel

** such as the "Orb of Time"(tm) that also propelled ships half across the quadrant for reasons of plot mechanics too

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Maybe other species wouldn't try it 'cuz they heard what happens when warp 10 is achieved. Along those lines, shall we theorize that close proximity to the sun provides protection against post-trip salamander tendencies?

 

[at Quark's]

Why would humans be the only species around that has Kirks, Janeways and Picards running around, trying to do such things (or even just running accidentally into such phenomena)?

 

[Tosk]

Kirk mentions it like it's the most mundane thing in Assignment Earth.

"Captain's log. Oh yeah, so we traveled back in time again, NBD..."

 

[Oddish]

Well, shooting around a roiling 850,000-mile wide fusion-powered furnace at warp nine point whatever isn't exactly a safe activity...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Proper use of the slingshot maneuver requires absolutely precise calculations (Spock in ST IV, the Borg Queen in PIC). You couldn't just have any random schmuck try it, because they would probably be destroyed in the attempt - or best case, they couldn't possibly know where/when they'd end up.

So that's why the maneuver is not in constant use. It's just too difficult.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

@The Rock

There's a spoiler in your first paragraph and even if I don't open the thread, I can read that spoiler just by hovering my pointer over the thread title in the main forum.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wasn't there a bit in a DS9 episode where either Worf or Martok say that the Klingon Empire has attempted to dispatch temporal assault teams to retroactively wipe out their enemies? Supposedly this has been tried several times, but with no results - the assault teams simply vanished and were never heard from again.

Was this in an episode, or one of @Christopher's DTI novels? Thinking it may be the latter, actually.

 

[Oddish]

Well, if you could figure out when and where the first Jem'Hadar were created, and flatten the lab with a salvo of photon torpedoes while they were still in the initial growth stages, you'd solve a lot of problems. From what I hear, Cardassia wasn't the Dominion's first foray into genocide.

 

[at Quark's]

Proper use of the slingshot maneuver requires absolutely precise calculations (Spock in ST IV, the Borg Queen in PIC). You couldn't just have any random schmuck try it, because they would probably be destroyed in the attempt - or best case, they couldn't possibly know where/when they'd end up.

So that's why the maneuver is not in constant use. It's just too difficult.

And even if it weren't actually true, it's still what I would want people to believe if I were one of the people in power, or those representing them. Trying to discourage those 'random schmucks' from attempting to change the past, since that in itself is dangerous enough.

 

[1001001]

@The Rock

There's a spoiler in your first paragraph and even if I don't open the thread, I can read that spoiler just by hovering my pointer over the thread title in the main forum.

The fact that they travel to the past, along with footage of the slingshot, are shown in the official trailer for Season 2. I don’t think we can count that as a spoiler, although we should be careful about any further disclosures.

And please, let @Nyotarules and I handle these things.

Thanks

 

[Richard S. Ta]

The fact that they travel to the past, along with footage of the slingshot, are shown in the official trailer for Season 2. I don’t think we can count that as a spoiler, although we should be careful about any further disclosures.

And please, let @Nyotarules and I handle these things.

Thanks

Fair. I knew the time-travel, not the slingshot. Shame I had to find out this way, but fair enough.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In one of the DS9 Millennium novels, they talk about a fleet of Klingon ships slingshotting back in time to conquer the galaxy and assume they either perished in the attempt or branched off an alternate timeline.

 

[BillJ]

I'm sure the Sun of the 24th century is orbited by tons of crispy fried humans. Most of which attempted the slingshot maneuver whenever they felt one of the shows they watched got too "woke".

 

[fireproof78]

Do you think other starship crews in whatever faction (Starfleet, Klingons, Romulans, etc.) have tried time traveling this way only to fail miserably?

Yes, I do. And I figure eventually it wouldn't be worth it to keep flinging resources at failed attempts or lack of results.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Klingons, probably. Its been proven to work with a BoP after all.

Romulans, maybe. If the BoP is based off of Starfleet design, it could be done

Borg, no. The Borg are too advanced to try it, as seen in First Contact.

It should also be noted that its only been seen done with Earth sun, a type-G star. It never been seen done with a red giant, or hypergiant, or binary/trinary stars. Its not certain if the size of star or number of stars makes a difference in the attempt or the outcome of the attempt.

 

[Oddish]

Problem is, it's a star. Which means you don't see the remnants of those who failed, they're just... pffffft, reduced to ionized plasma.

Stars are actually very good at disposing of things you don't want, which made the dilemma in "The Child" kind of ridiculous; all the Enterprise needed to do was find a star, beam the offending plasma plague into it, and zoom off with the other 511 specimens (and a reprieved Ian Andrew) still safely aboard.

 

[Imaus]

We've seen the "sling shot around the sun" attempt to time travel three different times in Trek (the most recent one in Picard).

Do you think other starship crews in whatever faction (Starfleet, Klingons, Romulans, etc.) have tried time traveling this way only to fail miserably? And has there ever been any Trek book or comic that talked about that?

I would like to think that in the actual Trek universe, it had only been done successfully just three times and those three times were the ones we saw.

I mean the implication is that it's terribly risky. A Connie could do it, but a Connie is a 180 year summation of warp technology specifically designed for long, scientific missions. The gist I got from TVH is that it takes a experiened pilot and a beefy ship with good deflectors or at least a hull that can resist skimming the surface of a G class star to pull it off, ontop of intense calculations in trajectory to even get close to where you want to go.

Spock probably didn't choose the exact date they landed at, for example, but just ballparked a guess to somewhere in the 20th century and they'll go from there....

With the Department of Temporal Investigations around, I wouldn't be surprised if other starfleet ships tried or even did it, though yea those three are the only canon ones so far.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Do you think other people have tried sling-shotting around the sun but failed?