Should there be a "Temporal Cold War"-angle to SNW?

[Timofnine]

Coming back to the original premise of this thread - the SNW season 1 finale actually did it!

Granted - it wasn't Future guy. It was future-Pike and the monks of Boreth playing the whole "protecting vs. changing the timeline"-thing. And let's not even get into DIS' time crystals.

But - It managed to get the main point across: The future isn't fixed yet!
It can still be changed. Future-Pike can live, and present Pike can "die" at any moment. The stakes are real, he's not "safe" by having seen the future through time travel. Anything can happen. It's just that this future timeline is what's supposed to happen, and needs to be protected.

Which is a bit of a retcon from how it was presented on DIS (where it was pretty much "inescapable")
But that's a change I can absolutely live with, and which is much better for the series as a whole, as it means Pike has to be careful and can die at any time as much as anyone else on the show (with the additional stake that that would royally screw up the "good" future timeline).

So, well done SNW! You got the point across, and still managed to surprise on how it's time travel story was done.
Also no Daniels, Future guy or Sulibans, for anyone who was fearing that

No, you are wrong. Pike has to accept his fate. In any situation where Pike is saved from his terrible fate, Spock takes his place and suffers instead. It’s some kind of galactic karma. The Klingon’s on Borath have researched this thoroughly and it is their only conclusion that Pike must allow his fate, thus allowing Spock to live and fulfil his galactic role. Pike’s accident is a fixed point in time, it *has* to happen in all eventualities in order to prevent horrible things from happening on a galactic level. Pike is ‘doomed’ to save the galaxy through his sacrifice in all timelines. This is made clear in the episode. If the writers come up with a solution to this corner that they have written Pike in to then I am ‘all ears’ as I don’t want this fate just as much you don’t. But if it is on screen then it must be somewhat ‘canon’.

 

[Rahul]

Yeah, I think they resolved that in a way that's made pretty much everyone happy. I'm definitely glad that it's proven that the monks were wrong and the magic time crystals don't determine your fate, much the opposite in fact. It's not a retcon really, just additional information that changes our understanding. Though I suppose Discovery already hinted at it when the other time crystal visions ultimately didn't come true.

Agreed. BTW something I already learned on TNG - I absolutely love the tim-travel stories that aren't "traditional" time travels, but more playing with the concept of time-travel. It's paradoxes, the loops, the "what-if's".

This finale had quite a bit of an auro of a Q-time travel episode of TNG playing with consequences.

 

[Rahul]

No, you are wrong. Pike has to accept his fate. In any situation where Pike is saved from his terrible fate, Spock takes his place and suffers instead. It’s some kind of galactic karma. The Klingon’s on Borath have researched this thoroughly and it is their only conclusion that Pike must allow his fate, thus allowing Spock to live and fulfil his galactic role. Pike’s accident is a fixed point in time, it *has* to happen in all eventualities in order to prevent horrible things from happening on a galactic level. Pike is ‘doomed’ to save the galaxy through his sacrifice in all timelines. This is made clear in the episode. If the writers come up with a solution to this corner that they have written Pike in to then I am ‘all ears’ as I don’t want this fate just as much you don’t. But if it is on screen then it must be somewhat ‘canon’.

Sorry, you might need to re-watch and pay a bit more attention this time.
Pike SHOULD accept it's fate. But he absolutely does'nt have to - there's no "fixed point in time" - proven by the fact that we actually, directly see a timeline where he doesn't!
And the universe doesn't end - hell, they even mention many, many timelines. He just chooses the one with his fate, as he feels this is supposedly the "right" one.

 

[Timofnine]

Sorry, I actually think you might need to re-watch and pay a bit more attention this time.
Pike SHOULD accept it's fate. But he absolutely does'nt have to - there's no "fixed point in time" - proven by the fact that we actually, directly see a timeline where he doesn't!
And the universe doesn't end - hell, they even mention many, many timelines. He just chooses the one with his fate, as he feels this is supposedly the "right" one.

Okay, I will rewatch it. I only saw it once. I am also willing to consider your view point as we only have the perspective of the Klingon Monk’s of Borath in relation to future events, we need at least a second impartial temporal perspective on this matter as the Klingon’s could have an agenda as part of their historical rumblings with the Romulan’s. Maybe the Klingon’s are trying to manipulate Pike, humanity and future/past relations with the Romulan’s in a negative way via the time crystal which they obtained? We all know that there is a bit of bad blood between the Klingon’s and the Romulan’s and we have to assume that both of these species are involved in the Temporal Cold War to some extent in the far future? If this entire episode is a result of Klingon misinformation, misdirection and duplicity then it brings a whole new perspective to the Temporal Cold War. There could be a serious danger that this war could start to get ‘hot’. I could imagine an *actual* time war getting *really* messy and complicated. Are time crystals ‘communicators/transmuters’ left throughout history as part of the temporal Cold War? I wonder which other factions possess them? I think we need a bit more background on time crystals as the writers are using them a bit *too* freely as a convenient plot point. It could be a bit like the Doctor Who serial ‘The Keys to Time’ season 16.

 

[Rahul]

Okay, I will rewatch it. I only saw it once. I am also willing to consider your view point as we only have the perspective of the Klingon Monk’s of Borath in relation to future events, we need at least a second impartial temporal perspective on this matter as the Klingon’s could have an agenda as part of their historical rumblings with the Romulan’s. Maybe the Klingon’s are trying to manipulate Pike, humanity and future/past relations with the Romulan’s in a negative way via the time crystal which they obtained? We all know that there is a bit of bad blood between the Klingon’s and the Romulan’s and we have to assume that both of these species are involved in the Temporal Cold War to some extent in the far future? If this entire episode is a result of Klingon misinformation, misdirection and duplicity then it brings a whole new perspective to the Temporal Cold War. There could be a serious danger that this war could start to get ‘hot’. I could imagine an *actual* time war getting *really* messy and complicated. Are time crystals ‘communicators/transmuters’ left throughout history as part of the temporal Cold War? I wonder which other factions possess them? I think we need a bit more background on time crystals as the writers are using them a bit *too* freely as a convenient plot point. It could be a bit like the Doctor Who serial ‘The Keys to Time’ season 16.

The whole "TWC" is kind of a mess (as if time travel stories alone weren't already).

But from what I've gathered (and that goes from VOY's timeship Relativity to what I know from DIS) there's basically two sides:
One that sees the timestream as sacrosanct and to protect it (That would be the Federation, the Q, Daniels, The monks of Boreth, the red angel, the prophets) & another, that isn't actually one single fraction, but MANY - who want to use time travel to their advantage (Annorax & the Krenim, the sphere builders, the Borg, Future Guy, ENTs blue Nazi aliens, Control). Though we don't really know which ones are powerful fractions, and which ones just rogue individuals (like Quark at area 51).
Funnily enough I'll put the Klingons (at least from Boreth) squarely in the "good guy" category here, and "Endgame"-Janeway in the other one.

 

[Phoenix219]

I vote yes, just because I have a different explanation for the Temporal Cold War.

In my mind, everything after the movie First Contact is in an altered timeline. Picard and company THINK they fixed everything by stopping the Borg, but left the entire timeline polluted beyond repair.

In that instance, a future Time Ship is protected from the Federation-less future that formed, and instantly went into action on an entire series of adventures to fix the timeline. This included saving the (now named Enterprise, previously unimportant nameless ship) from destruction early in Season 1 of ENT, thereby repurposing Archer and sending him to unintentionally right what once went wrong, putting him into position to bring the founding members of the Federation together after FC butterflies had derailed the entire thing. Maybe Future Guy is a Future Daniels, manipulating his younger self. Many possibilities in play, but the crux of it all is, while bandaging up and redirecting the time stream, an unintentional side effect became the introduction of more advanced technology. With the Borg Drone, and Daniel's quarters full of tech, things were changed and required the timeline to have continual nudging to keep the major players on track. Section 31 may have played a role, or may have been a side effect of all the new advance tech. All changes and things people could complain about can be explained by this.

 

[The Wormhole]

Maybe Future Guy is a Future Daniels,

How did that ever become a theory? Daniels is from the 31st century, while Future Guy is from the 28th. Future Guy can not be a future Daniels, given he's from three hundred years in Daniels's past.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Daniels is a time traveller, his future self could operate from 300 years in his own past just fine. I'm still not keen on the theory though.

 

[FederationHistorian]

How did that ever become a theory? Daniels is from the 31st century, while Future Guy is from the 28th. Future Guy can not be a future Daniels, given he's from three hundred years in Daniels's past.

It depends on whether or not you believe that Daniels is telling the truth about his origins to begin with.

Its been established that no one can tell the difference if Future Guy is communicating from the 28th century or the 31st in the ENT S2 premiere.

Its entirely possible that Daniels has been trolling Archer and the Suliban Cabal all along, and playing multiple sides against each other in the Temporal Wars.

 

[Phoenix219]

It depends on whether or not you believe that Daniels is telling the truth about his origins to begin with.

Its been established that no one can tell the difference if Future Guy is communicating from the 28th century or the 31st in the ENT S2 premiere.

Its entirely possible that Daniels has been trolling Archer and the Suliban Cabal all along, and playing multiple sides against each other in the Temporal Wars.

I'm still convinced in my own headcanon, that the war is over the founding of the Federation, and that the "bad guys" are trying to preserve their Federation-less world that First Contact created, and the "good guys" are a protected Time Ship from the original timeline that had all of Federation History in its memory banks. IMO, that would be a fanstastic show and crew to follow, from the Time Ship's perspective.