how did burlinghoff rassmussen know about the enterprise d?

do you think the real historian he stole the time ship from had it's location and details in the ships memory banks?

 

Yes, the odds of Rasmussen going to the future to a random point in interstellar space and time and crossing with the flagship of Starfleet within three hundred kilometres (says the script) by pure chance are astronomically low. So it is highly likely that either the pod had already been pre-programmed by its real owner before he met Rasmussen, or the pod had the info in its databanks and Rasmussen targeted the ent-D, as you say.

 

And he probably chose the middle of S5 purpose and when to a time when the Romulan, Klingon, Borg, and Cardassian conflicts were calm, Wes was gone, and they got the new tricorders and phasers

 

^ had I been the 22nd century thief, I wouldn't have gone to the flagship, though. If you go with the intention to steal future tech, why go to the flagship to steal some tech from an environment that contains a lot of classified information and therefore should have been highly guarded (ok, we as viewers know it wasn't), when you can just as easily go a few decades further into the future to an everyday location and steal the same, or even more advanced tech, declassified by then? So that makes it also more likely that the pod wasn't programmed by him, but by the real owner in advance.

 

It seems unlikely "Rasmussen" (whose real name we don't know, he stole that one from the time pod owner) had much control over "his" time pod, yeah. He could access the transporter, but apparently he couldn't aim (so he bullshitted himself through it with the "step aside, please" bit); he could no doubt access the database, but perhaps not to the extent he would have liked to (so he had to bullshit himself through not really knowing what would happen with the planet); he could read the timer on the pod that would trigger the next time hop, but couldn't reset it.

"Rasmussen's" control would no doubt improve with time. So since he did so miserably even towards the end, his popping up right next to the E-D must have been something preset by the real Rasmussen. Our options there vary, then.

- Perhaps Rasmussen told "Rasmussen" where the pod was about to go, after which "Rasmussen" coshed Rasmussen in the head with a tri-isophasic frammistat and scooted?
- Perhaps "Rasmussen" pointed a hand laser at Rasmussen and told him to set the pod to a lucrative target where "Rasmussen" could grab some high tech - high from the 22nd century point of view, but low enough from Rasmussen's that the true time traveler would have the exact right idea about the worth of that tech? (And perhaps Rasmussen chose the E-D knowing that this would be the undoing of the villain?)
- Perhaps "Rasmussen" just stole the pod when Rasmussen looked the other way, not knowing where he would end up?

Timo Saloniemi

 

...are we *still* not talking about how Voyager ripped off this episode?

 

I always assumed he'd gone further into the future before. If you're going klepto, go during a crisis where everyone is going to be distracted but you know you won't be in danger.

 

?

 

Go on. Voyager is a spin-off of TNG, and took its references to observant time travelers from the future to its natural extension: that of an agency dedicated to patrolling the timeline (the USS Relativity and its Starfleet time cops). The time travel tropes seen in "A Matter of Time" and "Future's End" are way older than either show, but are natural and expected of any civilization that can manipulate time. Enterprise takes this to a further extreme by going even further into the future and featuring enormous changes to the timestream and introducing the Temporal Cold War.

 

^ I figure that it's incidents like these with such 26th century historians that apparently didn't take enough precautions against their stuff being stolen that eventually lead to the establishment of the temporal integrity commission somewhere in or before the 29th century. The 26th century could therefore have been 'the wild west' era of time travel, before it became regulated.

 

It sort of seems natural for Gabrielle Burnham to personify Time after having experienced it firsthand. With all the time travel going on, history must be the sum total of human(oid) efforts to tamper and counter-tamper with it, rather than any "natural" phenomenon. It thus has every excuse to perfectly reflect human frailties and desires - in other words, to be actively savage just like Burnham postulates.

Individual time travel incidents won't count for much there. They all happened, save for those that subsequently unhappened. In the end, they won't affect the big picture, because they are the big picture. Whatever a time villain does in the 26th century or a timecop organization in the 29th gets blended into the total effect of time travel from Big Bang to Big Whimper, which on the balance favors things like survival.

Was this original Rasmussen a cop or a robber, or something in between? "Rasmussen" was an out-and-out villain, but did he rob a fellow criminal who also pretended to be a legitimate researcher? Rasmussen's time pod was programmed to visit a dying planet: perhaps Rasmussen intended to rob it clean, a few weeks before the E-D was slated to arrive there, and had studied the E-D for the purpose of avoiding or defeating her if something went wrong. And "Rasmussen" said it had taken him a few weeks to get the hang of the time pod: perhaps this is why he ran into our TNG heroes when the original time thief was specifically planning not to? That is, Rasmussen's time coordinates were relative rather than absolute, and "Rasmussen" pressing the button weeks late meant arrival weeks late.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Sure, why not? It would come in very useful for a time travelling historian.

 

It's a balance thing, though. If "Rasmussen" can dig up all sorts of detailed data from the banks, he has zero need to go raid the E-D for future tech. So the E-D specs must be particularly easily accessible for a klutz who cannot extract anything else useful out of the pod.

The pod did materialize close to the E-D, and its movements appeared preprogrammed, down to and including its destined departure date which "Rasmussen" then missed. So apparently the original mission had related to the E-D somehow. But appearing 300 kilometers off the bow of Picard's ship is neither particularly stealthy nor particularly friendly. Another case of "Rasmussen" fumbling it, or clue to the nature of the originally intended mission?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Maybe it's a predestination paradox.

Maybe 26th century Rasmussen was a descendent of 22nd century "Rasmussen" and 24th Century Mary, after "Rasmussen" got out of jail. 26th century Rasmussen then went back in time to allow 22th century "Rasmussen" to travel forward to the 24th century.

 

What sort of specs "Rasmussen" really has is open to debate anyway. He can read the name of the ship off the saucer easily enough, when the time comes for that. Perhaps not fifty kilometers away, if he can't properly operate the pod's visiscope thingamabob. But it's noteworthy that he doesn't initially mention either Picard's name or the name of his starship. Just the "1701D" bit that's the first thing he can read off either the hull, or off one of Picard's displays in his Ready Room.

"Rasmussen" is likely to be a skilled cold reader by profession, and he can create the impression of giving when he's exclusively taking. It's apparently hours into his visit aboard the E-D before he actually first shows any command of detail and terminology, such as Picard's name (which he probably could read off his Ready Room door or something early on anyway) or the word "starship" or anything like that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

"Rasmussen" knew Data was an android, and believed he was the first fairly early on.

P.S. I don't see anything to indicate the character played by Matt Frewer wasn't legitimately called Berlinghoff Rasmussen, and the "poor fellow" he acquired the pod from wasn't John Smith

 

Yep, nothing in the episode stated that Rasmussen was the actual pod pilot from the future. He’s only referred to as the ‘fellow’ Rasmussen stole it from.

 

The issue here is that Picard had some sort of "credentials" he could check, and found the visitor genuine by those standards.

If this is the thief's first-ever time hop, as it appears to be, what sort of credentials could he have cooked up? Would he need to borrow those like he borrowed the pod?

Which just goes to show he knew shit. Data isn't really the first of anything when it comes to machine men; that he then corrects the time thief that he's the second of Soong's production lot (that itself being false, Data being unaware of the many preceding Soongians) just allows our "Rasmussen" to perform yet another dodge.

At best, we might surmise that no androids had been built in the early 22nd century yet, something we find consistent with ENT although never explicated. "Rasmussen" would then be within his rights to think that Mudd never built/bought/pilfered any tin men, or that Dr. Mulhall never had any idea of how to build those for Sargon, etc. He'd be dead wrong, but not fatally wrong...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Neither Model T nor subsequent A would make sense. Model T was mass produced, it had various predecessors including the C, N, and an earlier A.

Indeed the original Ford model A had dozens produced, and they produced 500 of the B.

Data believe he was pretty much unique in 2368, with Lore lost in space post Datalore. Data was (one of) the first of his kind. By stating Data was the Model T (which had more than a million produced), Rasmussen was suggesting he became mass produced, which (had Rasmussen been genuine) would have released information about the future - that Soong type androids would somehow be produced by the million.

However as Rasmussen was not genuine, how did he know that Data was one of a kind (or rather one of a pair). Even if he found out Data was an android (which seems tricky information to extract from the crew)

Spoiler: The Picard Show

As it turns out, that's not entirely implausable that Data, Lore, etc were analagous if not to the Model T, but the original model A, with both Synths and the Coppelius androids later mass produced models. We know that Data is considered the progenitor of both groups of androids, so a future historian could well have written a book which refers to Data as being the "model T" of the (now ubiquitous) androids in the 26th century.

 

That would probably be the default assumption. Data is the only one of his kind within sight, aboard a ship of obvious humans and the token Klingon (with whom the time thief is not shown taking any chances yet). And Data is advanced technology from the thief's point of view; he's clearly not familiar with machine men. So when he runs into one, this being the first of at least something is a fairly safe assumption to test: is this thing really worth stealing or not? for the rarity value, or for some other reason? The point is, the thief doesn't really know, so he finds out.

Extracting such is one half of the thief's profession; the other would be taking chances. The stilted behavior and the name may add up to something, or then not. If the thief errs, he can always backpedal, much like here.

Timo Saloniemi