Let him be a mystery
Has the Temporal age become Trek's best mystery time period?
- Thread starter Quantum21
- Start date
He probably will stay a mystery. I'm not expecting them to reveal anything in the four episodes they have left...
... crap, and now that I just said that...
... crap, and now that I just said that...
I think SNW made things even more confusing. We now know the Romulans took part in the war, and used advanced AI to do so. That means that the Romulans had to have fought after Picard, when AI presumably became accepted in their culture again, yet before whenever they reunified with the Vulcans and joined the Federation.
So did the Romulans join immediately after the Temporal wars and just before the Burn? That means they weren't in the Federation very long, nor reunified with Vulcan very long as of Discovery. Or were they part of the Fed far before that, in which case why would they be fighting against the Fed during the temporal wars?
So did the Romulans join immediately after the Temporal wars and just before the Burn? That means they weren't in the Federation very long, nor reunified with Vulcan very long as of Discovery. Or were they part of the Fed far before that, in which case why would they be fighting against the Fed during the temporal wars?
It could be a renegade faction of Romulans.
I think it's likely there would have been a faction of Romulan purists or something that were opposed to unification and so participated in the temporal wars to prevent it.
Even in the 32nd century there are still Romulan insurgents fighting Vulcans on Ni'var.
Might be something of a "deal with the devil". They needed to be in the Temporal Wars, but they needed AI to do it. So... their version of Temporal Agents got access to it.
Or Romulans from an alternate timeline. One could expect a Time War would either start with or devolve into mutually-exclusive timelines going back to avert versions of history that wouldn't result in their preferred version of reality (for instance, like in the novel This is How You Lose the Time War). There were already two different timelines represented in the episode, the Romulan agent could've been from a third. Well, she was definitely from a third, since La'an was apparently from a 21st-century-Khan timeline.
I think we can safely assume that the Zhat Vash's complicity in the loss of life from the Romulan Supernova over fears of AI pretty much killed any AI fear in Romulan culture. So basically Sera came from anytime after Picard, but before Romulans joined the Federation (unless as another poster said, they're a splinter group of Romulans)
I just had a bizarre idea on how the Jonathan Archer as Future Guy could've worked. Much like how Rassilon was resurrected for the Time War in Dr. Who, the Temporal War combatants could've pulled President Jonathan Archer into the future as he's their best source of info regarding the Temporal Wars (having made reports about them in the 22nd century), and then he goes all out and takes part as Future Guy.
Presumably the Archer in Enterprise and Future Guy Archer have slightly different histories, otherwise Future Guy would just be getting a bizarre sense of deja vu inflicting on his past self incidents he would remember from being younger. I propose that Enterprise Archer and Future Guy Archer come from timelines where their Eugenics Wars happened respectively in the 20th century and 21st century, or vice versa.
True, although we were a decent clip away from by PIC S1 and it's obviously still a thing, although I could give that most Romulans didn't actually KNOW about this until after the events of PIC S1.
I would counter it's also possible too that it's not even as extreme as that. With the Romulans being in rough shape after Hobus, they may simply no longer have had the privilege to choose to not use AI and the Romulan Free State just dropped all the bans. The Tal Shiar/Zhat Vash still tried to do what they could, but they probably had little authority over the Free State proper (at least on paper).
Makes as much sense as anything.
There is the fact that Silik actually SAVES NX-01 in its first year... it's a detail often forgotten/ignored, but Silik actively saves NX-01 from being destroyed and informs Archer that the ship was "supposed" to have been destroyed. Granted, he's Silik... he may not be telling the truth, or may not have been given the correct information, but still.
I could see an alternate-timeline Archer trying to pull strings. Oddly enough, it seems like most of the time, the intervention of FutureGuy actually seems to move the pin towards the creation of the Federation.
If we use the STO idea of the Temporal Agents, perhaps Alt-Timeline Archer "died", therefore he could be recruited as an agent. Daniels probably isn't aware of his identity and while having similar goals, are actually still adversaries, trying to direct the timeline to a certain point...
If NX-01 was supposed to have been destroyed in its first year, than I doubt that there would have been a Frontier Day and a massive loss of life on that day in Picard. That's the clearest sign that NX-01's survival could have had catastrophic effects on the galaxy, and the forces trying to destroy NX-01 may actually have been trying to prevent the Frontier Day catastrophe, hedging bets that the Federation would still exist anyway without NX-01 (and in fact we may take the room of all the ships named Enterprise missing NX-01 in the Motion Picture as proof that there exists a Fed timeline with an early destruction of NX-01, although you think they'd still put a picture there to honor the ship no matter how short its lifespan).
If the NX-01 were destroyed in its first year, the Xindi would likely be successful at destroying Earth, meaning there wouldn't be anyone to observe and celebrate Frontier Day.
If the NX-01 was destroyed in "COLD FRONT", the Federation wouldn't form, so there would be no need for the Sphere Builders to have the Xindi destroy Earth.
Earth might still very well be around.
Earth might still very well be around.
Unless you consider that Future Guy's entire goal in Enterprise, at least as far as humanity is concerned is that he wanted to prevent the Xindi from destroying Earth, which nearly all of his actions in Enterprise seem to be aimed towards.
-We can ignore Broken Bow since Future Guy didn't want humans involved there and even says it's too early for their involvement. Indeed, Silik was even willing to let Archer leave the Helix alive later in the episode. True, Silik does attempt to kill Archer when he learns Archer knows about the TCW, but that can be written off as Silik being impulsive and we can assume Future Guy would not have approved of that action.
-Cold Front of course, Future Guy orders the NX-01's destruction to be prevented.
-Shockwave it can be argued that by framing the NX-01 of the colony's destruction he wanted the ship back in the Sol system so that when the Xindi attack they could head into the Expanse in a minimum amount of time needed to save Earth. The fact that he allows them to continue on their mission their innocence is proven could mean that enough of a roadblock was provided so that they would still be near enough to Earth when the Xindi attack to mount an effective response. And indeed, it should be noted, when Daniels pulled Archer out of the 22nd century creating an alternate timeline where Earth becomes an apocalyptic wasteland, Future Guy no longer seems to exist.
-Future Tense can be dismissed as the Suliban weren't interested in the NX-01, but rather the time pod.
-And finally The Expanse, where Future Guy provides Archer with all the necessary intel about the Xindi and the Expanse.
Indeed, after Earth is saved from the Xindi Future Guy doesn't bother with the NX-01 anymore. Unless you count Storm Front, but that's a case of the Alien Nazis posed a threat to him and Archer and his crew were just the most convenient option on hand to utilize.
I think timeline wise there is like a good decade for Romulans to have entered the Temporal Wars, between Nemesis to Star Trek 2009.
My own mind fanon is that Janeway bringing back future tech to the Feds after VOY:Endgame is what starts the temporal arms race.
It heats up around the 26th century (Enterprise J) and ended with those Tox-Uthat aliens in TNG:Captains Holiday.
Daniels from the 31st century were just observing it and intervened after Future Guy started projecting from the 27th and the cold war heated up fast.
That's why Book tells Burnham about the Temporal Wars not the Temporal Cold War.
I think the Romulan time fighters are from post-Picard, after fear of AI was shot down as Zhat Vash delusion. Remember, sera said she used advanced AI to calculate changes in the timeline.
The Romulans presumably would want to prevent the formation of the Fed so that by the time of their supernova, they won't even need the Fed to evacuate Romulus. If the Fed never existed, the Romulans would be the main power and they'd move homeworlds more easily.
That then places the Romulans involvement between Picard and whenever they join the Vulcans and the Fed.
I think you could make a good story that basically explains the Temporal Wars to be resolved by some sort of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" (DC Comics) solution.
The resolution being that all of the "variant" timelines are collapsed into one "best of all possible worlds" timeline which results as part of the peace and prohibitions against time travel. And then BAM! ... "The Burn" happens not long right after.
But one thing that sort of solution would give the 32nd century shows is that, similar to what DC Comics did with their characters after "Crisis," it would allow them to pick and choose which pieces of previous canon they liked and let them diverge in places where they wanted to try something different. All of the previous canon would still exist in the past (Pre-Crisis), but you start everything past the Temporal War as being set in a new place where things may or may not still track (Post-Crisis).
It would open things up for the writers to go in wildly different directions if they had a good idea.
The resolution being that all of the "variant" timelines are collapsed into one "best of all possible worlds" timeline which results as part of the peace and prohibitions against time travel. And then BAM! ... "The Burn" happens not long right after.
But one thing that sort of solution would give the 32nd century shows is that, similar to what DC Comics did with their characters after "Crisis," it would allow them to pick and choose which pieces of previous canon they liked and let them diverge in places where they wanted to try something different. All of the previous canon would still exist in the past (Pre-Crisis), but you start everything past the Temporal War as being set in a new place where things may or may not still track (Post-Crisis).
It would open things up for the writers to go in wildly different directions if they had a good idea.
ChatGPT is a Romulan temporal weapon!
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