Has this fan fiction been written?

[alpha_leonis]

I wonder if any story along these lines has ever been written by any professional (or even amateur) Star Trek author? Or is there any in-universe reason why it wouldn't work? I'm too involved with my own writing and educational projects to tackle it myself, but I'd sure to love to read it.

Voyager's "Eye of the Needle" introduced us to the concept of a wormhole that passes not only through space, but also through time -- letting the Voyager crew interact in "real time" with a Romulan from 20 years in their past.

To my knowledge, DS9's wormhole was never presented as crossing anything but space. Both the Alpha and Gamma ends of the Wormhole are supposed to exist in the same time frame. But what if that wasn't true? How would they know? After all, the Prophets inside exist across all times, and are not native to any one specific time.

What if, perhaps sometime after Voyager comes home with knowledge of the Borg transwarp conduits (or other technologies like slipstream which operate faster than "traditional" warp) -- somebody decides to apply that technology to take a straight-line trip to the Gamma end of the wormhole, without using the wormhole itself. What if they discover one of the following:

A. The Dominion has long since disappeared, and the dominant species (Founders, Vorta, Jem'Hadar) have either become extinct or moved on

Or even more interesting:

B. The Dominion hasn't even formed yet in "our" present -- That traveler has the possibility of taking action to prevent the Dominion from even forming in the first place.

The second option is especially intriguing. If the Dominion never forms, then they would not be able to cross the galaxy and come back in time to meet up (and start a war) with the Federation.

Thoughts?

 

[Stadi]

Starfleet would have known if the wormhole bent time as well as space; their sensors would have detected an anomalous configuration of the galaxy's stars that don't match with current records. Love the idea, but if there was a time displacement for ships traveling through the wormhole, any ship with a half-competent science officer could have figured out that something was amiss temporally.

 

[alpha_leonis]

Starfleet would have known if the wormhole bent time as well as space; their sensors would have detected an anomalous configuration of the galaxy's stars that don't match with current records.

Would they, though? If the only other choices are to observe from a distance, or rely on records from a 22nd-century probe (which is how Sisko even knew of Idran in the first place) -- would they know necessarily that the stellar positions are off by a century or two from where they should be, over a 70,000 light-year distance? In my mind it doesn't seem like nearly as much of an oversight as, say, missing an entire planet in the Ceti Alpha system and letting Khan escape exile based on your mistake.

The original probe that discovered Idran probably only took a snapshot as it was passing through. So Sisko (and his computer system) may only have known its general position and configuration from the probe's 200-year-old records (the probe's mission was to chart a whole swath of galactic real estate, not to focus on any single star system, let alone an uninhabited one). It may not have stuck around long enough to also track the system's trajectory, so that information may not have been included in whatever data the probe sent back. And it may not have been possible, even with 24th-century technology, to observe configuration changes in the Gamma Quadrant from 70,000 light years away (at least not down to the level of individual stars.) I could easily see a situation that whatever configuration they observed at the time of the Wormhole's discovery, would be assumed to be "present" configuration at the same time frame as the Alpha end. Doesn't have to be that way, though.

 

[Nebusj]

Would they, though? If the only other choices are to observe from a distance, or rely on records from a 22nd-century probe (which is how Sisko even knew of Idran in the first place) -- would they know necessarily that the stellar positions are off by a century or two from where they should be, over a 70,000 light-year distance?

Stellar positions could easily be in error, particularly given the world-wrecking forces tossed around in the Trek universe. But they're not the only sources of dating to rely on. For example, pulsars change their frequency as they age, and we can already detect some pulsars in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. It may easily not be noticed right away, but surely among the first scientific probes would be one meant to determine the difference in time between the different ends of the wormhole, unless there were strong reasons in pure theory to think that wormholes that connect different times [1] were impossible.

[1] It's really, really hard to come up with a perfectly coherent idea of ``the same time'' for distant locations; that's practically the insight that defines relativity. On the other hand, Enterprise made a lot of fuss about time travel having been proved impossible, when relativity plus faster-than-light anything gives you time travel right away. So it's at least consistent with that to suppose that relativity as we understand it is a poor descriptor of physics in the Trek universe, which we kind of knew already.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's an interesting idea. I'm sure if somebody wanted to write it they could come up with a psuedoscience explanation for why nobody figured it out.

Only there's one little issue, Odo and Laas. They did not travel through the wormhole.

 

[Tosk]

Only there's one little issue, Odo and Laas. They did not travel through the wormhole.

Didn't they? From memory, the show strongly implies that's exactly what happened to Odo at least. He was found in the Denorios Belt, where the wormhole was eventually discovered. He also "came home" a few hundred years earlier than the Link expected him to.

 

[intrinsical]

Regarding the use of wormholes as a time travel conduit, it was used in Star Trek Online for one of the episode missions. Basically, the fleet of Jem'Hadar ships that vanished in "Sacrifice of Angels" popped out of the wormhole 30 years later. The Prophets had shifted them into the future.

 

[alpha_leonis]

In fact, I might write this story after all (not to publish or sell, just for my own personal "what-if" exploration.) Yes, I'm openly trolling for ideas:

Suppose my second assumption was true, that the Gamma-Quadrant end of the wormhole is shifted in time (say) 500 years in the future relative to the Alpha end. Perhaps the traveller is a veteran of the Dominion War who has learned somehow of the time discrepancy -- she uses faster-than-warp technology to take the long way around, specifically to interfere with the future (as understood from the Gamma end, otherwise known as the past from the Alpha perspective.)

Perhaps this traveler locates and destroys the Founders' home planet. The Founders may not have even built up the dominion yet -- they have not yet cultivated any relationship with the Vorta, Jem'Hadar, or other subjugated species; their existence is peaceful and self-contained at this point in time. In fact, even Odo and his exploring brethren have not even been sent out yet.

Since this is not your traditional version of time travel -- the traveller who destroyed the Founders' homeworld was not, herself, travelling through time -- what would the general consequences be? Would the Alpha end rearrange itself to accommodate the fact that the past they remember never happened after all? Or would they continue moving forward with memories of a history that will not be shared by the Gamma end, and they'd just have to live with a galactic-level paradox?

Paradox #1: Adult Odo exists back in the Alpha Quadrant, yet baby-Odo hasn't been sent out, and perhaps hasn't even been "born" (whatever you call their equivalent) yet. What happens to Adult Odo?

Paradox #2: Starfleet, the Klingons, the Romulans and the Cardassians all have thousands of soldier veterans of the Dominion War. Thousands more from all four groups were killed in the conflict. Cardassia Prime was pretty much leveled in retaliation for their turning coat in the conflict -- which as it turns out, never happened, since the Dominion never existed in the first place and never came back through the Wormhole.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Only there's one little issue, Odo and Laas. They did not travel through the wormhole.

Didn't they? From memory, the show strongly implies that's exactly what happened to Odo at least. He was found in the Denorios Belt, where the wormhole was eventually discovered. He also "came home" a few hundred years earlier than the Link expected him to.

I think you're right there about Odo, but it's also said that the infant changelings were sent out in multiple different directions, so if Odo went through the wormhole, that doesn't explain Laas or the infant changeling who absorbed into Odo. It's not confirmed where Laas was found but the infant changeling certainly did not emerge through the wormhole.

Maybe the traveler's attempt to destroy the changeling home world is what convinced the changelings that if they don't control all solids the solids will destroy them. Predestination paradox!

 

[Tosk]

...that doesn't explain Laas or the infant changeling who absorbed into Odo. It's not confirmed where Laas was found but the infant changeling certainly did not emerge through the wormhole.

The infant changeling was found and sold to Quark. We don't know where it was originally, but seeing as ships go to the Gamma quadrant all the time, there's no reason to believe it had to have been found in the Alpha Q.