what?! what kind of internet poster are you?! lack of knowledge should never stop you from arguing your point!!
DTI: Why is Kirk considered the worst violator?
- Thread starter Gotham Central
- Start date
Guys,
Here is why I think that Kirk is the biggest violator of time. He was captain during a time frame when interaction with time travel was NOT something to be avoided but was sought out. Back in the TOS/Movie time frame, time travel is something new and it is being explored and played with, as Christopher showed in his Forgetten History novel.
But as time wore on, it became apparant how dangerous time travel was and how one small misstep could have huge ramifications. Look at the recent Myriad novel that shows how history was changed when Spock was killed as a child and someone else was in his role as XO of the Enteprrise. How different the galaxy was shaped by one man's absence.
The fact that there is an entire department of the government (with counterparts in other society governments), classes taught at the academy and its own Prime Directive shows that Time Travel is not uncommon. However, filmed Canon has shown that it is VERY rarely caused by the crew themselves and is more often than not caused by some outside influence which most likely cannot be duplicated.
Here is why I think that Kirk is the biggest violator of time. He was captain during a time frame when interaction with time travel was NOT something to be avoided but was sought out. Back in the TOS/Movie time frame, time travel is something new and it is being explored and played with, as Christopher showed in his Forgetten History novel.
But as time wore on, it became apparant how dangerous time travel was and how one small misstep could have huge ramifications. Look at the recent Myriad novel that shows how history was changed when Spock was killed as a child and someone else was in his role as XO of the Enteprrise. How different the galaxy was shaped by one man's absence.
The fact that there is an entire department of the government (with counterparts in other society governments), classes taught at the academy and its own Prime Directive shows that Time Travel is not uncommon. However, filmed Canon has shown that it is VERY rarely caused by the crew themselves and is more often than not caused by some outside influence which most likely cannot be duplicated.
The angle I took is that time travel (accidental or intentional) is more likely to succeed if you have an advanced, powerful, extremely sturdy starship to protect you from the stressed. Which allows having Starfleet crews encounter time travel on a relatively frequent basis while still preserving the common-sense notion that it isn't something just anyone could pull off on a whim.
No they crashed because they dropped out of Time Warp in range of the Probe's power drain effect. Hence why the sound the probe makes was then heard in the background.
"Those scissors work because of the left scissor -- the right one has nothing to do with it!"
And no ship ever made a slingshot maneuver without it being a perilous, ship-damaging ride.
I still don't understand why anyone would want to think that slingshot effects are easy. If they are, why hasn't anyone ever used them since TOS? Why isn't every idiot with a warp ship constantly going back in time to fix a failed relationship or win the lottery and turning the timeline into utter chaos? It is infinitely preferable to treat slingshots as rare and difficult, and real physics provides a very solid justification for that conclusion, as does the canonical evidence in "Tomorrow is Yesterday."
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Exactly. I mean, if the slingshot maneuver were easy and safe, history would be in flux every year at Pledge Week.
We saw the slingshot maneuver three times.
The first was accidental. The ship was still operational. We were not told of any casualties. There were no technical problems that kept them from using the maneuver to slingshot back to the present (theirs, not ours)
The second time we're simply told about it but there is no mention of any problems, damage or injuries. They again return to the present.
The third time they're not in a large starship but a much smaller, apparently older ship. No special preparations are required other than Spock making calculations. We see the crew as they travel backwards in time and, while there are unusual images (dreams? Memories of things that haven't happened yet?) the ship arrives in the past in good condition except for the dilithium crystals decrystalising. Scotty says the problem is because they are Klingon crystals.
The solution is to subject them to high energy photons. i.e. - gamma rays. Which is odd since gamma rays are the byproduct of matter/anti-matter annihilation.
It's not that people want to make the slingshot maneuver easy. It's that it's been portrayed as relatively easy in it's appearances. No special preparations at all the first time but that led to a random location in the time stream. Getting home was a matter of making some calculations.
[Engineering]
SCOTT: Pulling away from the sun weakened them, sir. They may blow apart if I reverse.
[Bridge]
KIRK: No choice, Mister Scott.
Considering that it's the first time they've attempted a controlled trip through time it's not surprising that they needed to learn a few things. There's no mention of the engines buckling in the later two instances.
The second trip is simply historical research. Hardly the sort of thing that you'd choose to do for a second trip. You'd think that there would have been a few test flights back first, perhaps a few months or years. Apollo 1 wasn't meant to land on the moon after all. There were specific steps that each flight sought to take, gradually leading up to he landing. If they're already to the point of doing time travel for strictly research reasons it would appear the they have worked out the bugs fairly quickly in the 18 months to two years since the first trip.
There may be very few situations where time travel is actually a predestination paradox. There may be any number of people who do attempt to travel back to try and win the lottery. Those people end up in a new universe (a'la Trek09). SInce they don't come back people would just assume that it didn't work and that they failed. There could be millions of universes existing simply because people time travelled when they weren't supposed to. Our heroes have just been the predestination paradoxes that we've seen. They could be any number of others that we haven't. After all, it's a big universe Mr. Scott.
The first was accidental. The ship was still operational. We were not told of any casualties. There were no technical problems that kept them from using the maneuver to slingshot back to the present (theirs, not ours)
The second time we're simply told about it but there is no mention of any problems, damage or injuries. They again return to the present.
The third time they're not in a large starship but a much smaller, apparently older ship. No special preparations are required other than Spock making calculations. We see the crew as they travel backwards in time and, while there are unusual images (dreams? Memories of things that haven't happened yet?) the ship arrives in the past in good condition except for the dilithium crystals decrystalising. Scotty says the problem is because they are Klingon crystals.
The solution is to subject them to high energy photons. i.e. - gamma rays. Which is odd since gamma rays are the byproduct of matter/anti-matter annihilation.
It's not that people want to make the slingshot maneuver easy. It's that it's been portrayed as relatively easy in it's appearances. No special preparations at all the first time but that led to a random location in the time stream. Getting home was a matter of making some calculations.
[Engineering]
SCOTT: Pulling away from the sun weakened them, sir. They may blow apart if I reverse.
[Bridge]
KIRK: No choice, Mister Scott.
Considering that it's the first time they've attempted a controlled trip through time it's not surprising that they needed to learn a few things. There's no mention of the engines buckling in the later two instances.
The second trip is simply historical research. Hardly the sort of thing that you'd choose to do for a second trip. You'd think that there would have been a few test flights back first, perhaps a few months or years. Apollo 1 wasn't meant to land on the moon after all. There were specific steps that each flight sought to take, gradually leading up to he landing. If they're already to the point of doing time travel for strictly research reasons it would appear the they have worked out the bugs fairly quickly in the 18 months to two years since the first trip.
There may be very few situations where time travel is actually a predestination paradox. There may be any number of people who do attempt to travel back to try and win the lottery. Those people end up in a new universe (a'la Trek09). SInce they don't come back people would just assume that it didn't work and that they failed. There could be millions of universes existing simply because people time travelled when they weren't supposed to. Our heroes have just been the predestination paradoxes that we've seen. They could be any number of others that we haven't. After all, it's a big universe Mr. Scott.
Again, all of this is explained in Forgotten History. You're making assumptions that have already been addressed, and you're getting them wrong. Why don't you read the book, and then if you have issues with Christopher's conclusions, discuss them at that time! Right now, you're simply criticizing his ideas without even knowing what they are!
I don't think that anyone wants them to be easy or safe.
But the explanation from Forgotten History doesn't really work within the framework we've seen for time travel in the Trek universe.
You point to Tomorrow is Yesterday as an example. In the episode, the ship isn't so badly damaged that they can't repair it in a time where they have no facilities and this is after an unplanned slingshot. Four hours is the repair estimate from Scott.
Maybe it's the way Starfleet is presented in the book that's the problem...
I just found it hard to believe that they couldn't figure out and replicate the experiment. And seemed to consistently leave out the new intermix formula used at PSI 2000. It just seems like they couldn't make it work but had never used another ship to attempt to replicate the first time travel incident.
Disclaimer: I have not yet read the book.
Remember that the prophets live outside of linear time, and they (likely) have influence over people's orb experiences. It's clear the Orb of Time does actually send people and things into the past (as opposed to just giving them visions of the past).
Given that, I tend to believe the prophets will only actually send people back in situations where the prophets know "beforehand" that those particular trips won't result in changes to the timeline.
That's why we never saw Quark visit the orb of time with last week's Lissepian Lottery numbers tucked into his back pocket. I don't think the Prophets would have allowed that type of trip. Or maybe they would have, if Quark would subsequently have had a series of misadventures that ultimately led to him failing to win the lottery anyway.
To put it into terms we've heard the DTI use, I have a tendency to believe that all temporal displacements caused by the Orb of Time would naturally be "predestination" paradoxes. It wouldn't be capable of anything else, and thus it would be safe to let tourists use it.
Remember that the prophets live outside of linear time, and they (likely) have influence over people's orb experiences. It's clear the Orb of Time does actually send people and things into the past (as opposed to just giving them visions of the past).
Given that, I tend to believe the prophets will only actually send people back in situations where the prophets know "beforehand" that those particular trips won't result in changes to the timeline.
That's why we never saw Quark visit the orb of time with last week's Lissepian Lottery numbers tucked into his back pocket. I don't think the Prophets would have allowed that type of trip. Or maybe they would have, if Quark would subsequently have had a series of misadventures that ultimately led to him failing to win the lottery anyway.
To put it into terms we've heard the DTI use, I have a tendency to believe that all temporal displacements caused by the Orb of Time would naturally be "predestination" paradoxes. It wouldn't be capable of anything else, and thus it would be safe to let tourists use it.
Remember, we have seen the orbs refusing to respond to certain people in certain situations. People have opened arks and looked at orbs from time to time without them going off, and there was that scene in season 7 where the orb very pointedly refused to trigger an experience for Winn. Also Bajorans do seem to treat orb experiences as rare and precious, despite the fact that the Orbs are (apparently) accessible to anyone who wants to make the trip to the temple(s) where they are kept. Perhaps in the vast majority of cases, people don't experience anything when they look upon an orb. Our characters were simply special.
As I said earlier, if you travel to the past and return to your same present then it's a predestination paradox. If you create a new universe as we saw in the latest movie then you weren't predestined to do so. The Orb of Time simply works for one and not the other - i.e. it is unable to create a new universe.
I imagine that the orbs don't actually have any innate powers. Rather, they simply channel different aspects of the Prophets themselves. Think of them as being a 4-D projection of a 5, 6 or 7-D being. The orbs may just be how the Prophets appear in our limited frame of reference.
A far simpler reason that this does not happen is probably because few people know of this capability. It seems reasonable to conclude that Starfleet immediately classified the information. Given what happened with Gary 7 on the second trip through time and the fact that they nearly changed history, its equally reasonable that Starfleet put a stop to that experiment as well. The fact that Voyager, during "Future's End," never considers a simple slingshot to go home suggests that Janeway may not be aware of that ability. The fact that NO ONE mentions it, suggest that it is not common knowledge even in Starfleet.
FWIW (and, different continuity, I know), there was a Federation-run seminar for "temporally displaced persons" in one of the Shatnerverse novels. Thousands attended. Kirk was shocked. It was very amusing.
Wouldn't the reason be something as simple as, The writers of DSN in which that line appeared where just paying their respects to TOS?
Onscreen evidence seems to indicate that Kirk was one of the key figures from that era of the Federation. In much the same way we look back on signifigant people today, do you think for example the RN has forgotten about Admiral Nelson?
Even one of the DTI Investigators in the DSN, as much as said that he would have wanted to meet him as well. Despite his record.
Onscreen evidence seems to indicate that Kirk was one of the key figures from that era of the Federation. In much the same way we look back on signifigant people today, do you think for example the RN has forgotten about Admiral Nelson?
Even one of the DTI Investigators in the DSN, as much as said that he would have wanted to meet him as well. Despite his record.
But I did explain in the book why the Enterprise was uniquely able to withstand the stresses of a slingshot, due to the alterations its engine underwent as a result of the temporal accident in "The Naked Time." A different ship probably wouldn't have survived at all.
You misunderstood.
It's not about just using the intermix formula. It's that the formula introduced permanent changes in the Enterprise's reactor and warp coils that somehow enabled them to generate a protective chroniton field. Starfleet did try to replicate that effect multiple times, even modifying warp coils from the exact same production run as the Enterprise's warp coils (in case it was the result of some specific impurity or parameter variation in that run), but there was still something missing that they couldn't figure out how to replicate. And that's because they didn't have the theory yet. As we saw in Watching the Clock, there were certain aspects of temporal theory that weren't worked out until the latter half of the 24th century. So the T'Viss of 2383 was able to figure out how to modify the Enterprise's engines to get a desired temporal effect because she knew the right mathematics to use, because her era had the theoretical underpinning that would enable her to solve the equations. But the scientists of the 23rd century didn't have that mathematical or theoretical underpinning, so they couldn't crack the mystery.
This is how science often works. It builds on what's been established already, and sometimes the tools to solve a problem just don't exist yet. Einstein's forebears couldn't have figured out General Relativity until they'd had tensor calculus and Reimann's geometry of curved surfaces to work with, and wouldn't even have known that there was a need for a theory of relativity until they got the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Sometimes a problem can't be solved until the right theoretical and mathematical groundwork has been laid.
This is how science often works. It builds on what's been established already, and sometimes the tools to solve a problem just don't exist yet. Einstein's forebears couldn't have figured out General Relativity until they'd had tensor calculus and Reimann's geometry of curved surfaces to work with, and wouldn't even have known that there was a need for a theory of relativity until they got the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Sometimes a problem can't be solved until the right theoretical and mathematical groundwork has been laid.
No, the Orb pretty clearly did send the Defiant back to Space Station K-7.
The simpler explanation is that the Bajorans would never allow Quark access to the Orb in the first place. I'm sure it's kept under tight security. Remember, in "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night," the only reason Kira was allowed to access the Orb of Time is because the Emissary made a special request on her behalf. It's not like just anyone can walk in off the street and use it.
Well, yes, and I established not just in Watching the Clock but as far back as SCE: Aftermath that most time-travel incidents are classified. That is, there are probably some time-travel incidents that the general public is aware of, but for the most part the DTI and Starfleet try to keep too much knowledge of specific incidents from getting out, so that the public thinks it's even more difficult and uncommon than it actually is.
But really, in an open society with freedom of speech, the press, and scientific inquiry, there are limits on how thorough a cover-up can be. If time travel really were simple, then not only would enough people stumble across it that the secret couldn't possibly be kept, but the laws of physics themselves would reveal how easy it was. You can't conceal the fundamental workings of the universe without suppressing scientific inquiry altogether, because all physics is interconnected. So it's a non-starter to propose that time travel is easy but the public is convinced that it's impossible. That would never work except in some brutal tyranny. It's more likely that time travel is difficult and dangerous, and the public knows it's possible but difficult and dangerous, but enough temporal incidents are classified that the public is unaware of how often the theory becomes practice.
Read the book.
It's unlikely that she's unaware of the theory, since we've had the theory since 1974. It would presumably be more a question of whether she believed it was practical for Voyager to make the attempt successfully.
In the Millennium trilogy, it was suggested that the only way to ensure returning to your own timeline is to get back the same way you left, i.e. follow the established "Feynman curve" back to your starting point. Otherwise, you could return to your own time but in a different, altered timeline. So maybe the reason Janeway assumed Braxton's timeship was their only way back was because the timeship was responsible for their displacement in the first place. (Although that isn't quite compatible with "Tomorrow is Yesterday," since the initial slingshot was around the Black Star and the return slingshot was around Sol. Still, they did both involve the Enterprise's engines, so maybe that's the common element. There's also Archer's time journey in "Shockwave," where his return journey was via a different mechanism, but the Suliban's temporal communicator could've been a "beacon" anchoring him to the timeline he wanted.)
