Is "Yesterday's Enterprise" the proper timeline?

[F. King Daniel]

Is the timeline from "Yesterday's Enterprise" the original/proper one? Here's the sequence of events, as I see it: The Enterprise-C is battling Romulans at Nerendra III and disappears into a mysterious time rift. 22 years later she emerges. Picard sends them back to the Nerendra III battle (along with Tasha), creating the TNG timeline we know.

Only...why do we have the "timeline shift" at the beginning, if the TNG timeline didn't exist/hadn't been created until the end of the episode? Why does Guinan think everything's "wrong", when it should be the regular TNG timeline that's the altered one? It doesn't make sense as a predestination paradox (there shouldn't have been the shift at the start), and it doesn't quite work as an altered timeline (Guinan).

I know, Star Trek time travel's never made much sense, and I'm sure this has come up a billion times before .

 

[Shatnertage]

I actually hadn't thought about it from that perspective. How about this for a fix: the E-D's subspace oscillations somehow created the time rift and sucked the E-C through, changing the timeline. In the original timeline, the E-C stays on and fights without a rift being opened at all. At the start of the episode the alternate timeline's created, then reset.

That kind of makes sense to me right now, but this stuff makes my head hurt.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I actually hadn't thought about it from that perspective. How about this for a fix: the E-D's subspace oscillations somehow created the time rift and sucked the E-C through, changing the timeline. In the original timeline, the E-C stays on and fights without a rift being opened at all. At the start of the episode the alternate timeline's created, then reset.

That kind of makes sense to me right now, but this stuff makes my head hurt.

That would make sense . If the rift were created in the future, and it altered the past it would account for just about everyting.

IIRC in the episode they put the creation of the rift down to a "torpedo explosion" (or something like that) during the battle in the past. I guess they could be mistaken - they were fighting for their lives at the time .

The E-D couldn't have created thd rift, though - they were sent to investigate it at the start of the episode. Maybe someone had a Red Matter accident, then did a runner.

 

[JarodRussell]

It is a predestination paradox, because from the perspective of the "right" timeline (or more from Guinan's perspective) the Enterprise-C entered the rift and immediately came back. It always did.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It is a predestination paradox, because from the perspective of the "right" timeline (or more from Guinan's perspective) the Enterprise-C entered the rift and immediately came back. It always did.

But if it was a predestination paradox the timeline shouldn't have changed when the Enterprise-C came through the rift. If they "always" went back again/already had done so 22 years earlier the other universe would never have been created in the first place, and Tasha wouldn't be alive to go back with them.

For Sela to be alive in the TNG universe, Tasha has to be there 22 years earlier. Thus the "Yesterdays Enterprise" timeline must predate the TNG one.

 

[JarodRussell]

It is a predestination paradox, because from the perspective of the "right" timeline (or more from Guinan's perspective) the Enterprise-C entered the rift and immediately came back. It always did.

But if it was a predestination paradox the timeline shouldn't have changed when the Enterprise-C came through the rift. If they "always" went back again/already had done so 22 years earlier the other universe would never have been created in the first place, and Tasha wouldn't be alive to go back with them.

For Sela to be alive in the TNG universe, Tasha has to be there 22 years earlier. Thus the "Yesterdays Enterprise" timeline must predate the TNG one.

But that's the thing, it's all part of the deal. And that's the weird thing about a temporal paradox. Yesterday's Enterprise timeline "predates" the other one, but only to re-establish the other one.

 

[Mojochi]

Who's to say what's proper, but is it the same time line that existed from 2344 onward? No. It's why it is such a great idea for an episode. Star Trek has never done that. The 2366 that we see at the beginning of that episode is nevermore. It was altered because of the events that occurred to the 1701C, events like Tasha Yar showing up on its bridge, & ultimately birthing a child in this new time line.

Picard minimized the damage, by sending the 1701C back, which eliminates the Klingon war, but it doesn't mean we've been reset back to what it was, & Sela is evidence to that fact. Very bold stuff, for Star Trek writers, who had always been relegated to resetting everything.

They pulled a fast one, imo, because many people never realized that from this point on, we are in another time line

 

[DanCPA]

I don't think they realized it until they decided to introduce Sela!

 

[Whill]

KingDaniel is on the right track. If you adhere to the way the story is presented (which is supported by our out-of-universe understanding of the Alternate-Guinan's dialogue), they there would have to be three timelines. There had to exist an original timeline that lead to Alternate-Tasha first going back in time in the first place. So that would be the one at the beginning of the episode (in which Alternate-Tasha had not been in 2344), then there was the alternate "Klingon War" timeline, then the third one in which the alternate Tasha had appeared in 2344 and takes part in the battle (and later gives birth to Sela). And you can't just say the timeline was "reset" because in the end, Alternate-Tasha went back and changed history by being in a battle she was not originally in, and having a daughter that did not originally exist.

This is why this episode doesn't quite make sense the way it is presented with us merely assuming the meaning of Guinan's dialogue based on the audience's omnipotent third person point of view. There were not really three timelines. There were only two. And this isn't predestination paradox time travel. In those stories the timeline is never changed because the time travellers become/always were a part of history. Alternate-Tasha couldn't have always been back in that battle in 2344 or we wouldn't have seen two different timelines. In predestination time travel there is only ever one timeline, and this episode clearly had two.

This is a quote from a post where I cited this episode as a reference for a discussion about time travel/continuity in a thread in the Enterprise forum.

A great example of where the timeline is intentionally drastically change for the better is TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” But to fully understand this from a logical perspective, we have to think a little outside the box from how the story was presented to us.

So by this episode, we’ve watched a couple seasons of this show featuring the ongoing adventures of Enterprise-D in the 2360s. Until this episode, we had no knowledge of the Enterprise-C and the Battle of Narendra III. Our Enterprise comes upon a temporal anomaly, and suddenly everything changes to an “alternate” timeline. The Enterprise-C comes through a temporal anomaly. The alternate Tasha Yar (whom I’ll affectionately refer to as “Alt-Tasha”) goes back in time with the Enterprise-C and that seems to “restore” the normal timeline of the series.

Now let’s look at the timeline in more chronological fashion. In 2344, the Battle of Narendra III occurs and the Enterprise-C is blasted into the future. The Enterprise disappears from the battle and reappears in 2366 of the dark timeline in which the Federation is losing a war with the Klingons. Despite the order of appearance, this is really the original timeline that occurred without (backwards) time travel. Then Alt-Tasha goes back with the Enterprise-C to 2244 and alters the timeline. The Enterprise-C is destroyed this time but the Klingons are inspired to continue the peace process. The timeline leading to the TNG series is actually the altered one. It’s only considered “restored” for the viewers. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is actually an origin story for the timeline that we had already been watching for a couple seasons.

The only real “paradox” is that in the original timeline how Alt-Guinan suddenly felt like everything was wrong and stated the way things “should” be, when in actuality they had never been like that… yet. Even though Alt-Guinan had known Alt-Tasha for a while, she suddenly felt that Alt-Tasha “should” be dead and that she “died” a meaningless death in the timeline that “should” exist, when actually that timeline hadn’t been created until the Enterprise-C was sent back to 2344 to create it. Both Guinans seems to exhibit an extra-normal perception of the space-time continuum, having intuitions about alternate timelines. So for us, the viewers, we intuitively understand what Alt-Guinan refers to when she says “should,” but from a chronological point of view, the new timeline was newly created because of her perception about the way things “should” be. It would stand to reason that both Guinans’ perceptions are enhanced by proximity to temporal anomalies such as the one that took the Enterprise-C from 2344 to 2366, and perhaps she didn’t consciously realize that she was just perceiving a possible timeline that was better than the one she was in, thus urging Alt-Picard to send the Enterprise-C back to 2344 to create better timeline.

I loved “Yesterday’s Enterprise” because I hated Tasha’s meaningless death in “Skin of Evil.” Alt-Tasha was willing to sacrifice her life heroically for her death to be meaningful, and ironically the resulting new and better timeline was one in which the other version of her would die a meaningless death. (Of course Alt-Tasha’s meaningful death was robbed when they established that she had survived in the new timeline to spawn Sela - but that’s another story.)

So from the beginning of TNG series, what we actually see is the "altered" timeline created by the Enterprise-C leaving 2344 and entering 2366 of the original dark "Klingon War" timeline, Alt-Guinan urging Alt-Picard to return the Enterprise-C to the past, Alt-Tasha going back with Enterprise-C, and fighting valiantly enough to inspire the Klingons to continue pursuing peace with the Federation so there is no new war between them. We just didn't know the events that lead to the creation of that timeline until this episode, the "origin story" of that timeline. (Sela was a part of the timeline shown in the series all along although she wasn't revealed until after this episode.) The "alternate timeline" was really the original timeline - it only retroactively becomes the "alternate" timeline after it is replaced by a new one.

I think it is extremely appropriate that this origin story revolves around the previous Enterprise because it is the sequence of events that leads to the adventures of the Enterprise-D in TNG as we know it.

If anyone is interested in reading my entire "essay" concerning time travel in Star Trek, here is a link to it.

 

[Vanyel]

I hate temporal mechanics.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCPIrs90eg[/yt]

 

[Roberta Lincoln]

When I first saw this episode, I thought, "Wow- so cool - it explains everything!!"

Then, when I started thinking about it, I got completely confused.

Now, I just try to sit back and watch whenever an episode with time travel comes on without trying to really figure it out!

 

[Pauln6]

It is a predestination paradox, because from the perspective of the "right" timeline (or more from Guinan's perspective) the Enterprise-C entered the rift and immediately came back. It always did.

But if it was a predestination paradox the timeline shouldn't have changed when the Enterprise-C came through the rift. If they "always" went back again/already had done so 22 years earlier the other universe would never have been created in the first place, and Tasha wouldn't be alive to go back with them.

For Sela to be alive in the TNG universe, Tasha has to be there 22 years earlier. Thus the "Yesterdays Enterprise" timeline must predate the TNG one.

To a certain extent, Trek painted itself into a corner. If each shift is an alternate timeline, should any of us or any of the characters care if matters are reset? For every planet Vulcan that is destroyed there could be a Romulus that is saved and if this sort of time travel was easily possible, why wouldn't we see time travellers from all local cultures interfering all over the place for their own self interests like the Krenim - there are billions of years worth of future time travellers who can come back from any point in the future to any point in the past.

If, which is my preferred explanation, one time stream exists all at once exactly as observed by the Prophets, then a ship coming through from the past wouldn't change the time stream going forward because that's both what it was always going to do and what it always had done. Obviously that doesn't much help them tell a story like Yesterday's Enterprise, although Time's Arrow worked pretty well.

Speaking of the Prophets - are they aware of every moment of every alternate time stream all at once or are there alternate versions for every branch?

Star Trek is so confused over the time travel issue, just about the only thing that is certain is that this is a great episode and it was certainly Tasha's finest hour.

 

[JarodRussell]

Until Trek 2009, Star Trek was actually quite consistent with time travel. From City on the Edge of Forever to First Contact, Year of Hell, Endgame or the various Enterprise time travel episodes, with predestination loops and unaffected observers watching the future changing and stuff...

The funny thing is, except for background information by one of the writers, on screen (and hence canon) Trek 2009 has the same kind of time travel that First Contact/CotEoF/Yesterday's Enterprise has. Only that Spock doesn't push the reset button this time. There's nothing in this movie that actually carved it in stone that the Prime future is not overwritten. Nero and Spock are unaffected from the alterations just like the Borg and the Enterprise in FC, or McCoy, Kirk & Spock in CotEoF.

The Prophet's don't seem to care for alternate universes either, it's all one single timeline.

 

[Pauln6]

Until Trek 2009, Star Trek was actually quite consistent with time travel. From City on the Edge of Forever to First Contact, Year of Hell, Endgame or the various Enterprise time travel episodes, with predestination loops and unaffected observers watching the future changing and stuff...

The funny thing is, except for background information by one of the writers, on screen (and hence canon) Trek 2009 has the same kind of time travel that First Contact/CotEoF/Yesterday's Enterprise has. Only that Spock doesn't push the reset button this time. There's nothing in this movie that actually carved it in stone that the Prime future is not overwritten. Nero and Spock are unaffected from the alterations just like the Borg and the Enterprise in FC, or McCoy, Kirk & Spock in CotEoF.

The Prophet's don't seem to care for alternate universes either, it's all one single timeline.

Which means there is no such thing as canon...? Who knows how many ripples were produced by the Borg's trip to Earth or what changes Sisko brought about by impersonating Gabriel Bell (?). None of the episodes of Trek we've seen might have happened in the way we've seen them...

What's worse, which alterations take precedence? The Borg went back before Nero but to an earlier date...? So Nero is overwriting their overwritten time stream from the moment of his arrival? What about the temporal cold war, they travelled back after Nero but to a time before, so presumably they will overwrite his initial changes. But wait, does that mean that the time stream in Star Trek XI has already ceased to exist...? Why wouldn't they adjust the time stream before Nero's arrival to prevent the destruction of Vulcan? Why isn't there an exploding head icon?

See this type of time travel is a real pain.

 

[JarodRussell]

Until Trek 2009, Star Trek was actually quite consistent with time travel. From City on the Edge of Forever to First Contact, Year of Hell, Endgame or the various Enterprise time travel episodes, with predestination loops and unaffected observers watching the future changing and stuff...

The funny thing is, except for background information by one of the writers, on screen (and hence canon) Trek 2009 has the same kind of time travel that First Contact/CotEoF/Yesterday's Enterprise has. Only that Spock doesn't push the reset button this time. There's nothing in this movie that actually carved it in stone that the Prime future is not overwritten. Nero and Spock are unaffected from the alterations just like the Borg and the Enterprise in FC, or McCoy, Kirk & Spock in CotEoF.

The Prophet's don't seem to care for alternate universes either, it's all one single timeline.

Which means there is no such thing as canon...? Who knows how many ripples were produced by the Borg's trip to Earth or what changes Sisko brought about by impersonating Gabriel Bell (?). None of the episodes of Trek we've seen might have happened in the way we've seen them...

The way I see it, the photo of Gabriel Bell always looked like Sisko in the historical databases (because it's like with Data's head in Time's Arrow), and the Borg have always been involved in Cochrane's first warpflight.

 

[Pauln6]

Until Trek 2009, Star Trek was actually quite consistent with time travel. From City on the Edge of Forever to First Contact, Year of Hell, Endgame or the various Enterprise time travel episodes, with predestination loops and unaffected observers watching the future changing and stuff...

The funny thing is, except for background information by one of the writers, on screen (and hence canon) Trek 2009 has the same kind of time travel that First Contact/CotEoF/Yesterday's Enterprise has. Only that Spock doesn't push the reset button this time. There's nothing in this movie that actually carved it in stone that the Prime future is not overwritten. Nero and Spock are unaffected from the alterations just like the Borg and the Enterprise in FC, or McCoy, Kirk & Spock in CotEoF.

The Prophet's don't seem to care for alternate universes either, it's all one single timeline.

Which means there is no such thing as canon...? Who knows how many ripples were produced by the Borg's trip to Earth or what changes Sisko brought about by impersonating Gabriel Bell (?). None of the episodes of Trek we've seen might have happened in the way we've seen them...

The way I see it, the photo of Gabriel Bell always looked like Sisko in the historical databases (because it's like with Data's head in Time's Arrow), and the Borg have always been involved in Cochrane's first warpflight.

Except they show his picture and I think it changes after Sisko goes back?

 

[JarodRussell]

Which means there is no such thing as canon...? Who knows how many ripples were produced by the Borg's trip to Earth or what changes Sisko brought about by impersonating Gabriel Bell (?). None of the episodes of Trek we've seen might have happened in the way we've seen them...

The way I see it, the photo of Gabriel Bell always looked like Sisko in the historical databases (because it's like with Data's head in Time's Arrow), and the Borg have always been involved in Cochrane's first warpflight.

Except they show his picture and I think it changes after Sisko goes back?

I don't think this was the case. In a later episode Nog reads about Gabriel Bell and sees Sisko's image, but he just wonders why he looks like Sisko.

 

[Pauln6]

The way I see it, the photo of Gabriel Bell always looked like Sisko in the historical databases (because it's like with Data's head in Time's Arrow), and the Borg have always been involved in Cochrane's first warpflight.

Except they show his picture and I think it changes after Sisko goes back?

I don't think this was the case. In a later episode Nog reads about Gabriel Bell and sees Sisko's image, but he just wonders why he looks like Sisko.

If it had happened in an EARLIER episode, your argument would hold more water. I think they look at a picture of Bell to identify him when they arrive there or something. As I say, AFTER Sisko returned, the photograph had changed. Silly really, especially since the Prophets' understanding of non-linear time was a big part of the overall plot.

 

[JarodRussell]

Except they show his picture and I think it changes after Sisko goes back?

I don't think this was the case. In a later episode Nog reads about Gabriel Bell and sees Sisko's image, but he just wonders why he looks like Sisko.

If it had happened in an EARLIER episode, your argument would hold more water. I think they look at a picture of Bell to identify him when they arrive there or something. As I say, AFTER Sisko returned, the photograph had changed. Silly really, especially since the Prophets' understanding of non-linear time was a big part of the overall plot.

I think you are confusing some episodes here. The Prophet's had nothing to do with the Gabriel Bell thing (I think they did in the Tribbles episode). Sisko & Co were landing there by accident, and accidentally caused Bell's death. They never saw a picture of him until they saw him die.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Has anyone considered that the alternate "timeline" might not be a timeline at all?

My theory is slightly complicated but makes sense and I give my best to explain.

The whole story is just a big cause and effect paradoxon or quantum state reversal or whatever you want to call it.

The cause for every event in the episode was the Enterprise C returning to it's proper time the way it did, with an alternate version of Tasha on board.

Of course the universe recognized Tasha as no longer existent at the point in time alt-Tasha was extracted from.

Since the universe can't just cease to exist because of this paradox the only working effect was a radically altered quantum stae of the universe. Although from the point of view from the universe it probably wasn't that radically altered. A slight shift in statistical propabilities?
This "altered" state of the universe wasn't really altered. It just exists in a time pocket that seems instantaneous from our regular state of the universe.

The reason it exists, HAS to exist, is the Ent-C returning to it's past with alt-Tasha.
No different Quantum state universe, no alt-Tasha. And alt-Tasha has to exist because her daughter exists, has always existed und the timeline as we know it exists in it's general state we're familiar with.

But of course this quantum state time pocket only exists for the exact relative amount of time the Ent-C spends there and experiences exactly the events it needs to, to come back with alt-Tasha.
It comes into being the Ent-C leves the rift and ceases to exist the moment the ship reenters it.
The pocket events are inseperably tied to the Ent-C's existance there.
Imagine the whole universe changing, even if it's only for an unnoticable amount of time, just cause you enter the stage or rather leave the stage.

Now this is probably the biggest mindfuck of all.

The "force" of the whole universe slightly altering its state of existance or rather another statistical propability virtually but not observably existing exactly as it needs to to exist itself, BANG! puts a connection between two points in time and space which the Ent-C must use as a passage to fulfill the ship returning with alt-Tasha.

Now if you accept this, even Guinan's awareness problem fints into this.
Guinan is of course right, because the cause and effects require her to be and make her right at the same time.

Could anybody follow this? If not then that's because I havent slept last night and I'm barely able to think a straight thought anymore.

Pleaese show me my logic'S faults if you finde them.