Think of a SF character who is involved with time travel.
Screw it. It's a Doctor Who reference.
No Tiimeships?
- Thread starter ED-209
- Start date
Screw it. It's a Doctor Who reference.
Fixed points in time cannot be changed.
Our job as tie-in authors is to write books consistent with the current screen canon, even if they contradict or supersede books we wrote in the past. If I were, perchance, asked to write a DTI-related work again, I'd probably pretty much have to start from scratch continuity-wise, at least where anything from 2381 onward is concerned. Unless some kind of alternate-timeline handwave could be invoked. As I said, though, I think it's unlikely to happen.
Ships effectively "Teleporting" in the middle of space to appear elsewhere via the DASH Drive/Spore Drive, even if the limit is based on the number of "Spore Cannisters" you have ready to go, is a artificial limit of some sort.
So it can be worked around as needed.
I understand the principle and the execution. I just find the utilization odd. I don't really have a better way to explain such a feeling beyond that descriptor.
I'm not the one that introduced it into the ST mainline canon, I just work with the tools that I have and try to balance it.
I get that. And watch the show...
Well yeah, I've been following the shows just like you have.
You've seen me post in the ST.DSC / ST.PIC / ST.LDS forums.
Yes, indeed.
Time travel could prevent a lot of things. But it's better for the story if they don't.
Booker mentioned that all temporal technology was banned after the Temporal Wars.
The Burn on the other hand happened right after that point... it may have been a final 'assault' by one of the parties who decided that this ban would be perfect to launch an attack against the Federation (no resistance or ability/technology to counter it).
Not sure if they will 'undo' The Burn using time travel... probably not as 'The Burn' strikes me as something that won't be undone.
As for whether the Temporal Prime Directive still exists... probably. Starfleet would likely be adamant about preventing temporal incursions... or at the very least employ a purely defensive posture like they did during the 24th century before they had easy access to time travel technology (although they technically had it since TOS era when Enterprise-A did a slingshot around the sun) - if an accident occurs, they'd probably have to go back to prevent that accident from causing massive damage... in other words, no active time travelling... but mainly 'avoid at all costs, and if an accident occurs, fix it' attitude.
The Burn on the other hand happened right after that point... it may have been a final 'assault' by one of the parties who decided that this ban would be perfect to launch an attack against the Federation (no resistance or ability/technology to counter it).
Not sure if they will 'undo' The Burn using time travel... probably not as 'The Burn' strikes me as something that won't be undone.
As for whether the Temporal Prime Directive still exists... probably. Starfleet would likely be adamant about preventing temporal incursions... or at the very least employ a purely defensive posture like they did during the 24th century before they had easy access to time travel technology (although they technically had it since TOS era when Enterprise-A did a slingshot around the sun) - if an accident occurs, they'd probably have to go back to prevent that accident from causing massive damage... in other words, no active time travelling... but mainly 'avoid at all costs, and if an accident occurs, fix it' attitude.
Last edited:
I doubt it. Given that we only got that one throwaway line about it, I don't think it's a major plot point -- I think it's the writers telling us it won't be a major plot point, that they just wanted to rule out time travel as a possibility and move on.
Also, we have no basis at all for assuming the Burn happened "right after." It wasn't specified when the Temporal Wars happened, just sometime before the Burn and probably after Daniels's time. And the Burn was somewhere between 100 and 120 years before 3188. We don't know exactly when in the 31st century Daniels came from, so there could've been decades between the two events.
The writers didn't want to hint at a connection between time travel and the Burn. They just wanted to explain why time travel hadn't been used to undo it already -- because all the time machines were already gone.
I only proposed it as a possibility... not a 'for sure thing'.
'Right after' was just a line on my part to illustrate a certain passage of time... less than 50 years.
Booker mentioned the Burn happened between 100 to 120 years ago.
Earth said that Starfleet and the Federation hadn't been on Earth in over 100 years.
3188 - 120 = 3068
- 20 year gap - roughly the time when the Burn happened.
3188 - 100 = 3088
Daniels said he was from 'approximately' 900 years in the future from NX-01's time frame (2151)... which would put him in the year: 3051 (give or take a year or few).
Also, because they were Temporal wars, they occurred all over the timeline in various periods... but since Daniels was still from the 31st century and time may not have passed in the same way for him as it did for NX-01 crew (he could have experienced all his interactions with NX-01 crew in a span of a month or few from his perspective).
But Daniels also mentioned the Temporal wars are 'ending' in Enterprise Season 4 early beginning.. so I'd imagine the Temporal Wars ended in between the years 3051 - 3054.
So, 'right after' would be an accurate description even if it was a few decades since we're using big numbers.
There may not be a connection between time travel and the Burn at all (in a sense that one wasn't responsible for the other).
I merely posited a possibility that the cause of the Burn could be related to a time travel faction as an attack that took advantage of the Temporal technology ban... or it could be a simple attack non time travel related... or it could have been an accident or just a natural disaster.
I would prefer this.
As accident would make sense if someone was experimenting with Dilithium everywhere in an attempt to regrow it for example to create a steady supply for everyone... but something went wrong, and instead it all went kaboom.
Or, as natural disasters go, an anomalous subspace event perhaps which happened to have badly affected dilithium from 'overuse'.
Maybe too much was mined without allowing nature regrow it, and as such, an imbalance was created from too much used dilithium (or something to that effect)... and with all that energy seeping into subspace, it caused a chain reaction in all local supplies of Dilithium... first causing it to go inert and then to explode.
Now, 'everywhere' is a very broad term... as I mentioned before, writers have a bad habit in Trek having the characters saying 'the galaxy' but only meaning 'the Federation'.
We still don't know whether it was only inside Federation all dilithium went kaboom... or if it was indeed Galaxy wide event.
I am thinking there was a significant subspace impact by the Burn across the galaxy. But I will be curious to see the long term impact.
You can posit anything as a possibility in the abstract. I just think it's very unlikely that the writers of the actual show have any such thing in mind.
It wouldn't be the first time in Trek someone decided to take advantage of peace talks or a ban to further their own agenda.
ST: VI (the undiscovered country) comes to mind.
ST: VOY (the Trabe took advantage of peace talks between themselves, Voy and Kazon to try and murder all the Kazon leaders in one place).
The Khitomer Accords gave Romulans a massive tactical advantage over the Federation by allowing them the use of cloaking technology (whereas the Federation explicitly cannot use it)... but we know the Federation can sometimes bend over backwards to broker peace/stability.
Mind you, the writers of Discovery are different (obviously)... so there's no guarantee they would implement that type of thinking.
