The Burn and Time Travel Ban are incompatible
- Thread starter Fateor
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We aren't talking about someone preventing the Burn.
We are talking about someone pulling a Kirk and traveling back in time to steal Dilithium.
Gallifreyn Sky Trenches?
That's a weird roundabout solution versus finding more dilithium, especially as the dilithium went inert and only exploded in the antimatter reactors working at the time.
They aren't necessarily incompatible but I could see selective enforcement. Many (perhaps even most) countries have regulations regarding intellectual property, but one doesn't have too look far to find individuals and websites that actively thwart those rules. Someone could say that copying movies or music is "banned," but that doesn't mean its hard to find. I would assume time travel is the same. Officially, after the Temporal Wars, the technology was suppressed/destroyed by most remaining groups in power. The average person may think of the tech as all destroyed, but there would probably still be some floating around for an industrious person to find.
Regarding governments like the Federation or groups like the Andorian/Orion Syndicate using time travel, I can also see two reasons why they wouldn't. 1. For any groups retaining a fair amount of power, it may be in their interest to avoid using tech (or allowing tech to be used) which could threaten the status quo. 2. Perhaps something happened in the Temporal Cold war was bad enough to scare most groups, however scattered, into compliance.
Regarding governments like the Federation or groups like the Andorian/Orion Syndicate using time travel, I can also see two reasons why they wouldn't. 1. For any groups retaining a fair amount of power, it may be in their interest to avoid using tech (or allowing tech to be used) which could threaten the status quo. 2. Perhaps something happened in the Temporal Cold war was bad enough to scare most groups, however scattered, into compliance.
One thing that's gone through my mind is: what's to stop someone from having stable enough dilithium for their warp drive to power a slingshot around a sun? You don't need time travel "technology", unless they've rendered every sun around every system inert.
They need ships.
I was wondering about that as well. For me, it might be a matter of being able to do it safely. As McCoy notes if success time warp; if not fried. So, there is a risk to making that maneuver that not everyone may be willing to take on.
And, my other thought was how much change could be effected. Rasmussen was a small town crook whose machinations didn't amount to much. Even larger organizations may struggle to effect any real change.
Maybe a "up Time" "Time Cops" but yeah, a bit to much "hand waivem" going on on that subject..
Just like the positronic ban.. didn't stop Not Brian Brophy from doing it.. So I don't know..
Just like the positronic ban.. didn't stop Not Brian Brophy from doing it.. So I don't know..
Unfortunately, time travel necessitates a lot of hand wavium as to why it isn't used to deal with huge problems again.
By that criteria all warp capable ships should be dismantled.
It would seem plausible that enforcing is a matter of the big guns. After all, that's how it always works: a dozen nations decide it's time to stop fighting, so there's much less artillery fire than in the preceding decade, and if A chooses to fire a barrage, B through Z agree on raining death on A till he ceases and desists, in an action that is not "war" because A stands no chance whatsoever and doesn't get an opportunity to fight. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of handguns get discharged in robberies, murders and feuds, but this is not "war", either, and if it does threaten to grow into one, the pitiful wielders of the handguns get crushed, too.
Rather than a ban on time travel being "enforced", time fighting might be on hiatus because all participants have enough temporal firepower to stop it if it starts happening, and a mutual interest in crushing the competition in detail rather than in a free-for-all because that one didn't work out the last time, either. Meanwhile, they do not worry about individual time travelers meddling, because the old war machine can be directed at those easily enough: the single meddler stands no chance against the time armies, which remain in the hands of folks who currently see more benefit in crushing meddling attempts than in performing those.
Basically, it's also like a ban against immigration: a couple of hundred folks per month might well make it even against the opposition of a currently idled army, but if they try to bring their tanks along with them, they all die. More turns out to be less.
Timo Saloniemi
Rather than a ban on time travel being "enforced", time fighting might be on hiatus because all participants have enough temporal firepower to stop it if it starts happening, and a mutual interest in crushing the competition in detail rather than in a free-for-all because that one didn't work out the last time, either. Meanwhile, they do not worry about individual time travelers meddling, because the old war machine can be directed at those easily enough: the single meddler stands no chance against the time armies, which remain in the hands of folks who currently see more benefit in crushing meddling attempts than in performing those.
Basically, it's also like a ban against immigration: a couple of hundred folks per month might well make it even against the opposition of a currently idled army, but if they try to bring their tanks along with them, they all die. More turns out to be less.
Timo Saloniemi
So the solution the the Dilithiun shortage is to go back in time and steal all the Dilithium??????
You have to remember that there wasn't a ban on time travel in Discoveries era because time travel had not been exploited or very well known yet.
So theoretically a species discovering the the U.S.S. Discovery was from Earth's past and that her destruction was a lie, could take the data about the U.S.S. Discovery in the 32nd century back to the old Discovery era and give the data to various factions such as the Romulans, Breen and Tholians of the time to affect the future along the TOS time line, thus creating an entirely new alternate timeline where the Burn might never have happened.
So theoretically a species discovering the the U.S.S. Discovery was from Earth's past and that her destruction was a lie, could take the data about the U.S.S. Discovery in the 32nd century back to the old Discovery era and give the data to various factions such as the Romulans, Breen and Tholians of the time to affect the future along the TOS time line, thus creating an entirely new alternate timeline where the Burn might never have happened.
Dismantling the spore drive does not mean dismantling the Discovery.
Starfleet rebuild the primary and secondary hull of the Discovery in 3 weeks. Shipbuilding doesn't seem to be a problem in the 32nd century.
Why put so much emphasis on pointing out to the audience that time travel technology is banned, but don't bring the issue up at all with the spore drive?
Another example that the writers didn't think things through. Like the synth ban.
Actual dialogue from the show suggests that shipbuilding from scratch IS a problem. Admiral vance has said on a number of occasions that he doesn't have enough ships to address the various issues all over the quadrant. Add to this that the Federation is hesitant to engage a bunch of petty thugs like the emerald chain despite their encroachment into federation territory. If starfleet could pump out brand new ships every 3 weeks Osyraa would have been dealt with long ago. Its clear that starfleet can only maintain and upgrade the fleet it has
Because time travel is not an integral part of the Spore Drive... its an accidental byproduct at best.
Can you modify it to travel through time though? Probably... but it would be no different than modifying existing Warp engines to perform a Time Warp (and we see Warp technology being used still).
The Federation timeship AEON however had the ability to generate a temporal rift which originated in the Alpha Quadrant but had an opening in the Delta Quadrant (about 70 000 Ly's away).
You could argue that you could simply remove the time travel component from the rift technology and just create an instant passage between two points in space (without leaving your time).
Time travel happens at virtually every point.
With time rifts, they're basically breaches in space and time. Warp drive manipulates space-time as do most FTL technologies.
The time rift has 'time bending properties' in the sense it takes you seconds to reach your destination... a shortcut if you will... but if you just remove the time travelling component so it basically acts as a shortcut in space without allowing for time travel... then you basically have a safe method of FTL that's no longer bound by the Temporal Accords... and yet this technology is not in use in the 32nd century.
First of all, what needs to be thought through? I'm not sure what kind of time travel you are saying the spore drive and other FTL drives (like warp drive) actually do, but in their basic operations they are not doing the kind of time travel being banned.
Secondly, welcome to Star Trek. We've had 55 years of the writers not thinking things through. I've been watching Star Trek for a very large chunk of that time, and I just try enjoy the story being told without doing a detailed dissection of the logic. If logical consistency bothered me that much, I would have stopped being a fan long ago.
Personally, I've always found it fun to reconcile some of the apparent logical inconsistencies or apparent contradictions the show presents by making things up in my own head.
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