Preservers and the Aegis
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The Aegis, according to the books and comics about them, are a group that monitors the timeline and protects it from alteration by other agencies. That seems to suggest that they're players in the Temporal Cold War. But I can't see any connection between that and the Preservers' mission of transplanting endangered populations to other worlds. I gather that the Shatnerverse novels elaborated on the Preservers in some way that went far beyond that, but that's just one of numerous contradictory theories that have been offered about the Preservers in the lit.
Anyway, it's a huge galaxy with gazillions of species and cultures. Purely from a probabilistic standpoint, it's vanishingly unlikely that any two given groups or entities that bear a superficial resemblance to one another are actually related. (I make an exception in the case of the Temporal Cold War, because by its very nature it's widespread and creates overlap among its participants.)
Anyway, it's a huge galaxy with gazillions of species and cultures. Purely from a probabilistic standpoint, it's vanishingly unlikely that any two given groups or entities that bear a superficial resemblance to one another are actually related. (I make an exception in the case of the Temporal Cold War, because by its very nature it's widespread and creates overlap among its participants.)
The Temporal Cold War is nonsensical crap.
^^Actually, regardless of the flaws in its execution, the idea of a Temporal Cold War makes a lot of sense if you think about it. I mean, if time travel and historical alteration is possible, then there are going to be groups that try to change history to suit their own agendas, and other groups that are going to try to stop them. And with all of time to play in, it's logical that the conflicts between these different groups would overlap and converge as alliances were made -- not unlike how the large-scale conflicts with Imperial Japan in Asia and the Pacific overlapped with the large-scale conflicts with the expansionist Axis in Europe and Africa and merged into a single World War. It's also plausible that these factions' efforts would tend to cluster around key historical periods such as the years leading up to the founding of the Federation. If anything, I'd say the existence of a TCW or something like it is downright inevitable.
Besides, the concept for the Aegis as I described it in my previous post was conceived by Howard Weinstein in a DC comic-book storyline fully ten years before Enterprise premiered. So negative opinions about ENT are somewhat beside the point here.
Besides, the concept for the Aegis as I described it in my previous post was conceived by Howard Weinstein in a DC comic-book storyline fully ten years before Enterprise premiered. So negative opinions about ENT are somewhat beside the point here.
No, it can explain a lot! Including even those tiny, annoying bits of discontinuity from novel to novel and episode to episode. I'm surprised that someone who has weathered lots of criticism on this bbs, about liking the Shatnerverse, would be so critical of a fascinating element of the Star Trek tapestry.
If time travel is possible, then some of those who can access it will attempt to alter the future or the past. And then others will attempt to stop them.
But then, maybe I've already read the next Shatnerverse novel and have time traveled to prevent its publication. Mwah ha ha.
I'd have to agree that the Temporal Cold War was a fascinating premise with a lot of untapped potential. I didn't care for how it was handled on ENT, but the premise is a good one that I wouldn't mind seeing picked up and expanded on.
Well it makes sense that if time travel is available, it will be used as a weapon against your enemies by some. Sure, the smart ones will realize its dangerous, unpredictable and risky, but where a weapon exists, someone will want to use it.
The Temporal Cold War is silly, IMHO.
Warning: Heavy sarcasm ahead: Oh sure, it's the TCW that's at fault for every continuity error or creative difference in every moment of screen and/or lit Trek ever...uh huh. Heck, why have there be coherent story in any episode or novel? Just a random stream of words resultant from countless trips through time.
The TCW doesn't make sense because there's an infinite number of enemies in the infinite multiverse to go through time to infinite points to destroy infinite key persons/places/things in infinite ways. Send one photon torpedo back to any time during the billions of years Earth was forming and everything changes. No Kirk, Enterprise, Federation or anything else as their enemies want it.
When it comes to temporal anything, what I'm more interested in is how and why is "effect" isn't affected by "cause." ...And the dozens of other weird breakthroughs in Temporal Mechanics cadets learn about at the Academy that to us make as much sense as the Heisenberg Compensators.
Warning: Heavy sarcasm ahead: Oh sure, it's the TCW that's at fault for every continuity error or creative difference in every moment of screen and/or lit Trek ever...uh huh. Heck, why have there be coherent story in any episode or novel? Just a random stream of words resultant from countless trips through time.
The TCW doesn't make sense because there's an infinite number of enemies in the infinite multiverse to go through time to infinite points to destroy infinite key persons/places/things in infinite ways. Send one photon torpedo back to any time during the billions of years Earth was forming and everything changes. No Kirk, Enterprise, Federation or anything else as their enemies want it.
When it comes to temporal anything, what I'm more interested in is how and why is "effect" isn't affected by "cause." ...And the dozens of other weird breakthroughs in Temporal Mechanics cadets learn about at the Academy that to us make as much sense as the Heisenberg Compensators.
On DS9, didn't Worf once say that the Klingons used to dispatch temporal assault teams to travel back and prevent their enemies from ever existing?
Plecostomus
Commodore
I don't think so.
Enterprise never once claimed that the Temporal Cold War was the explanation for any continuity error or difference in interpretation, and never once claimed that ENT was in a different or altered timeline from the other Trek series. That's just something a number of fans chose to believe, or expected the show to claim at some point. It's always important not to confuse what fans believe about the shows with what's actually in the shows.
That's arguably true, but by the same token, the ubiquity of time travel and history alteration in previous Trek series doesn't make sense for the exact same reason. So it's not a fault of the TCW concept specifically, it's a fault of the general concept of history-changing time travel.
Indeed, given the pre-existing concept of history-changing time travel, I'd say a Temporal Cold War or something like it is absolutely necessary and inevitable. If the timeline can be changed, then there absolutely has to be someone safeguarding it and combating those trying to change it.
I may be deviating a bit here, but when Section 31 first showed up on DS9, the thought crossed my mind that they might have some connection to Gary Seven's mysterious organization, later known as The Aegis. I'm not sure a connection with the Preservers ever occurred to me. On the other hand, when "The Chase" aired, I immediately thought that there might be a connection between that race and the Preservers.
I hope I'm not the only one who would like to see more of Gary Seven, and though it may seem cheesy on the surface, perhaps some conflict/rivalry/connection between The Aegis and Section 31 could emerge. I'm not sure about any TCW or Preservers angle.
Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to mention how much I enjoyed the Eugenics War + To Reign in Hell books. It took me a while to get around to reading them (I only read them about a year ago) but I enjoyed all three of them more than I expected to for some reason. Great stuff.
I hope I'm not the only one who would like to see more of Gary Seven, and though it may seem cheesy on the surface, perhaps some conflict/rivalry/connection between The Aegis and Section 31 could emerge. I'm not sure about any TCW or Preservers angle.
Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to mention how much I enjoyed the Eugenics War + To Reign in Hell books. It took me a while to get around to reading them (I only read them about a year ago) but I enjoyed all three of them more than I expected to for some reason. Great stuff.
I wasn't claiming ENT did - but you occasionally see some fans doing so and was throwing in my two cents.
Regarding the TCW itself or temporal incursions overall, they're always done so shottily by the superadvanced humans/aliens that it just leaves you wondering how these people developed such advanced tech, even by Trek standards, in the first place.
In comparison, look at a movie like Primer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/) and remember how much easier it was to suspend your disbelief.
But that doesn't mean the TCW itself is silly, which is what you said. It just means that some fans' interpretation of it is.
I remember now - it was a DS9 novel, The War of the Prophets, where Worf mentions the temporal assault teams.
Maybe you're thinking of, in that book, Janeway's Federation/Borg alliance and their attack on Forever World in the hope of using the Guardian to go back in time and prevent the Bajoran Ascendency from ever forming?
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
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