How do you isolate a timeline? *minor DTI spoilers*

[F. King Daniel]

I was re-reading Future Guy's reveal at the end of Watching the Clock, and something jumped out at me, on page 466:

"Improve it?" Daniels snarled. "One of your experiments in the twenty-fifth century led to a cataclysm that tore the Federation in half and left much of the quadrant impassable to warp travel! It sparked a new Romulan war that lasted for decades! If we hadn't been able to isolate that timeline..."

How does one isolate a timeline? Do the 30th century time cops have a technological means of preventing a newly-made history from merging with and overwriting the old? Or was it intended to mean that a mission to repair the damage was undertaken?

 

[zarkon]

by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow

 

[Christopher]

I have no idea what the answer is. I threw that in as an in-joke nod to the cancelled Final Frontier animated series, and the "isolated timeline" was basically a reference to the project being aborted. And it was one of the numerous things about the uptime agencies that I deliberately chose not to explain, because there should be some mystery about them and their methods. You know me -- as a rule, I love to explain the heck out of things. But DTI:WTC was a book where I felt that intentional mystery was more appropriate for certain aspects of the tale.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Thank you! That's what I suspected, but I wanted to be sure. It gave me this terrific mental image of a gigantic machine wired up to a tuning fork

 

[Christopher]

But it only works if you include a sonic screwdriver...

 

[rahullak]

To isolate a timeline, you need to set the frequency dial on the machine to the exact quantum frequency of the parallel timeline. Then hit the red button.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

I've always wondered what would happen if I hit the mauve button instead.

 

[E-DUB]

As long as you don't cross the streams you should be fine.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Or was it intended to mean that a mission to repair the damage was undertaken?

That's probably it. Just like Braxton complained about having to clean up the mess after Voyager (i.e. "Timeless").

 

[Christopher]

No, I intentionally said "isolate" rather than "collapse" to imply that the timeline was somehow sequestered so that it could continue without affecting the main timeline sheaf it was branched off from. Sort of a nod to the animated-series developers to suggest that their series idea still "happened" somewhere even though it was "isolated" by never getting produced.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

No, I intentionally said "isolate" rather than "collapse" to imply that the timeline was somehow sequestered so that it could continue without affecting the main timeline sheaf it was branched off from.

Like the Abramsverse?

 

[Christopher]

Similar, but not identical. And of course it's just an in-joke, so I didn't work it out in any detail.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Although didn't you put a line into one of the DTI novels which said that the Abramsverse will indeed eventually reintegrate with the prime timeline - but many eons into the future?

 

[Christopher]

Although didn't you put a line into one of the DTI novels which said that the Abramsverse will indeed eventually reintegrate with the prime timeline - but many eons into the future?

I did not specify the Abramsverse at that point. I was speaking of the overall flow of timelines in general, of which there are many. Obviously I never said anything explicit about the Abramsverse itself in my DTI novels, since nobody in the Prime universe is aware of its existence.

 

[FreddyE]

But it only works if you include a sonic screwdriver...

And Run! Don´t forget the running!