Poll If the "Before and After" timeline had continued

[WarpTenLizard]

Season 3's "Before and After" was a...interesting episode. Kes is moving backwards in time, starting at her deathbed. Through her eyes, we saw a possible future that, by the end of the episode, wound up being erased.

Some found that alternate-future intriguing: Chakotay as captain, and Tuvok first officer; the Dweeb promoted, and married with a kid; a happy ending for Kes; Voyager finally is starting to build up a medical staff, and the doctor has a name and hair.

Others found it downright surreal, if not horrifying: Voyager's two most bad@$$ women killed (in the most insultingly cheap way); Seven of Nine and the Borg kids never rescued; Miral Paris never born; Tom married to Tinkerbell; Harry married to his best-friend's two-year-old daughter; the Hedgehog as Chief of Security, and the Doctor with a (pretentious) name and hair.

In this thread, we speculate on what else may have occurred in that future, had it continued.

Some things to consider about this timeline:

• The war between the Borg and Species 8472 is likely raging on, with bad consequences for the galaxy no matter who wins
• Tuvok's gradually progressing mental disease (from "Endgame") is still a grim reality for him
• Seven is probably still a drone; but also still lives as Annika in Unimatrix Zero.
• Linnis Pais likely has a short lifespan like her mother, causing pain to her dweeb husband. Ditto for their son Andrew.
• Is Naomi Wildman growing up with Andrew? Or was she one of the many casualties of the Year of Hell?
• Speaking of the Year of Hell, Annorax is presumably still at large
• Barclay will presumably still create the Pathfinder Project. How is Starfleet going to react to Captain Janeway being dead, and the Maquis leader she vanished trying to capture now captaining her ship?

Let's hear some ideas, people!

 

[Oddish]

Regarding the Unimatrix, I think that it ultimately broke away from the collective, though it might have taken awhile. I think that Voyager ultimately discovers the transwarp hub and chooses to hit it, crippling the Borg. In the confusion, the Unimatrix bunch are able to break free or start a rebellion.

Some found that alternate-future intriguing: Chakotay as captain, and Tuvok first officer; the Dweeb promoted, and married with a kid; a happy ending for Kes; Voyager finally is starting to build up a medical staff, and the doctor has a name and hair.

I don't mind saying I liked the B&A timeline. It reflected a future where the characters grew and changed instead of stagnating. Harry and the Doc got what they should have gotten anyway (a promotion and a name). Neelix found a new tangible purpose as a security officer, and Tuvok and Chakotay took on new responsibilities. And Tom, broken by grief, learned to love again.

Others found it downright surreal, if not horrifying: Voyager's two most bad@$$ women killed (in the most insultingly cheap way); Seven of Nine and the Borg kids never rescued; Miral Paris never born; Tom married to Tinkerbell; Harry married to his best-friend's two-year-old daughter; the Hedgehog as Chief of Security, and the Doctor with a (pretentious) name and hair.

Some of that is true. Losing Janeway and B'Elanna to a console explosion was... urghhh. And I thought the Hedgehog was just a security officer (he said that maybe with the timeline changed he would be chief of security this time around). I'll address Harry/Linnis later, that subject rates a more detailed response. As for the Doc having hair and a pretentious name, that is actually sort of in-character for him, given that he's a bit arrogant.

Some things to consider about this timeline:

* The Borg, 8472, and Annorax remain an issue, it's true. Given the trillions of lives Janeway saved in dealing with all three, I can forgive the things she did wrong.
* Maybe the EMH, with Kes and Linnis's help, can devise a cure for Tuvok. The Ocampa have some unique mind powers of their own.
* We don't know how old Linnis and Andrew will be when they hit morilogium. Maybe their human side will delay it. Even if not, it's a condition Tom and Harry both understood and accepted. And a sad and inevitable aspect of human/Ocampa intermarriage. When Sarek married Amanda, he knew that she would die long before he did. But because he loved her, he accepted this.
* Naomi's fate is impossible to speculate.
* Remember that Chakotay was a 20-year Starfleet officer, and the Maquis were destroyed. I expect that Starfleet would understand that Voyager and her crew were dealing with Janeway's loss the only way they could. And it's kind of accepted as virtual canon that the Maquis will be pardoned when Voyager gets home.

 

[at Quark's]

That Voyager probably would have chosen to avoid the Borg as much as possible. After all, they wouldn't have had the advantage of Seven's 'insider knowledge' giving them a huge tactical advantage compared to the situation where they never had access to that. So, there's no particular reason for that Voyager to ever hit the Borg, or for Unimatrix Zero to contact them.

Even though Seven not joining the crew and Kes staying aboard would necessarily imply the other events of Scorpion never happened, so there might still have been some level of interference between the Borg and Voyager.

 

[Farscape One]

There's another possibility.

They did rescue Seven and we simply never saw her on screen. Or she was rescued but not recoverable in "THE RAVEN", or any number of other instances where she was in danger.

 

[Finn]

Okay. I always believed that in the before and after timeline, Voyager somehow avoided Borg space. Annorax must have done something to change that region Voyager was traveling through, either changing Borg borders, or changed the local powers that affected Voyager's route and perhaps led them to a wormhole, that ended up being butterflied away giving us the version we saw after Before and After.

As for Seven, for all we know, there was no Seven of Nine at first (She could have been destroyed earlier, in that timeline).

 

[Oddish]

If Janeway was never there to stop him, maybe Annorax wiped the Borg from history before Voyager reached them. With no Borg to attack them, 8472 sat happily in their fluidic space and never bothered anyone. And after obliterating the Borg, the Krenim Imperium was three times bigger and more powerful than ever. When Annorax declared his intention to keep messing with things, his crew chucked him out the airlock, set the time ship to self-destruct (with the core offline, so it didn't erase itself, it just exploded), and returned home. All three problems solved.

 

[Finn]

You mean the Voyager we saw in Before and After exists in a timeline where someone else was in command of DS9 (assuming Starfleet still runs it) as Sisko wouldn't have been a broken man and probably would have had a starship command, with Jennifer and Jake at home?

The Prophets wouldn't have been happy with Annorax.

 

[Oddish]

The timelines of "Children of Time", "The Visitor", and probably "Visionary" (since Sisko would probably have still been on the station when it went Pfoom) would have similarly irritated them. And don't even get me started on the Kelvin timeline.

 

[Finn]

What if the Borg encountered the Prophets.... ?

 

[Oddish]

They'd kick the individual cube right up to the heat death of the universe. No danger to the timeline, and the cube can't hurt anyone else there.

They wouldn't mess with the Borg as a whole because "the Sisko is necessary."

 

[Finn]

Unless that borg cube would have assimilated a future "Adolf Hitler" in the Gamma Quadrant and sent an invasion fleet through the wormhole (remember, the Sisko had to convince them to get rid of that Dominion fleet...)..

 

[Oddish]

Unless that borg cube would have assimilated a future "Adolf Hitler" in the Gamma Quadrant and sent an invasion fleet through the wormhole (remember, the Sisko had to convince them to get rid of that Dominion fleet...)..

Kicking said fleet to the Head Death of the Universe would solve that problem. That's probably where they left that Dominion fleet. The two could keep each other company. Or just try to kill each other. Wouldn't matter in the general scheme of things.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Seven will be saved the same way, before, after and in all possible timelines by the one, the only Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Star Trek Voyager - Holding Out For A Hero - YouTube