The Sound of Her Voice glossed over a huge tactical advantage

I am probably not the first to consider this, but that L-class planet in The Sound of Her Voice could be massively useful to the right people. It has a way to transmit and receive information from three years in the future. Imagine what someone could do with that.

 

Since the Federation has laws against intentionally changing the timeline, nothing. Indeed, they would make the planet's ability classified to prevent others from knowing about it and taking advantage of things for their own gain.

Also, I can't help but feel walking away from the episode thinking about the missed tactical advantage is somehow missing the point of the episode.

 

It would be a massive liability! I can't help thinking that that planet would quietly disappear from the star maps...

Not at all, it's a time honoured Trek Tradition to introduce a game changing science fiction concept that gets ignored for the sake of some human drama. See also the duplicate Earth in Miri, the Dysonsphere in Relics and many more.

 

I didn't miss the point, just considering another angle.

Imagine if a loose Founder 3 years later had communicated back in time about their loss and how it might be avoided. A Founder wouldn't care about being erased from the timeline; the Link is all that matters.

 

I don't think that would, practically speaking, work.

If a Founder went to the planet right after WYLB, for instance, then they theoretically could transmit data back three years into the past that could change the course of the war.

Except...the Founders already lost the war, so either their information made no difference (predestination paradox), or they created an alternate timeline that has no bearing on them (multiverse).

Hell, maybe a Founder did go to the planet and they created the timeline in which the Founders lost the war.

Wait, I think I got that wrong...information broadcast from the planet is from three years earlier, information broadcast to the planet would be received from three years in the future... But that just means that if a Founder wanted to change the course of the war right after WYLB then they would have needed to have someone on the planet three years earlier to receive their transmission. Or more broadly, you would need to know three years ahead of time that you were going to want to send information into the past.

 

That occurs to me every time I see the episode.


And Voyager got home about 3 years after this. Imagine what they would do if they had known...

 

It's death or nothing.

The time line gets overwritten and you're dead, or the time line diverges and you're still in the shit.

They can already do this with any sun in the galaxy.

 

Unless it's a predestination paradox, and you were meant to give yourself the info all along. And sending a subspace message is easier and safer than time warping around a star.

We've seen any number of occasions where a future sucks so hard that the players don't mind erasing themselves and resetting it. And I'd argue a Founder wouldn't mind sacrificing itself for the Great Link (e.g. changeling Bashir).

 

But in this case they couldn't keep a future from happening unless they had someone on the planet three years before that future happened.

 

Once I knew about that planet, I'd staff it permanently.

 

My thoughts exactly. Any catastrophe can be averted (or at least lessened) with the knowledge of it sent back from 3 years in the future

 

Yes.

The events have to happen (in one timeline), before the information can be sent back to make any changes (creating another timeline).

Losing the war had to happen to start the process.

 

As has already been mentioned, was Starfleet of the mind to do so it would seem they've had the capability of travelling/transmitting information into the past whenever they wish via the slingshot method used in TOS - even in the 2260s the Enterprise travelled into Earth's past for what was portrayed as a reasonably routine historical research mission.

The planet in The Sound Of Her Voice doesn't give Starfleet a capability that it hasn't had for over a century at that point, and a much greater capability in fact that just sending messages back three years.

 

Maybe the fact that nobody's received info from that planet indicates that nobody felt a need to do so, or otherwise was aware of the capability.

 

Really it does. It gives you the ability to send only information, without having to physically travel into the past.

 

It’s a case of four dimensional quantum entanglement.
You cannot have the transmission from the future without having the event a leading up to the message happen.
The only messages they would receive from the future would be meaningless chitchat, a permanent all clear or shit went down, there is a nothing you can do to stop it, save yourself.

 

Well, the people receiving the message could alter their future, but then they'd be creating an alternate timeline, not changing the future for the people who sent the message. Though technically it was the people sending the message into the past who created the alternate timeline.

 

Yes.

Yes.

No, it would be acting on the information that creates a new timeline. If nothing is done, the original timeline would "re-play."

 

Only if you assume the original timeline was a predestination paradox where the people in the past had always been receiving information from the future.

 

Predestination paradoxes are shown to be a thing in the Star Trek timeline.
And if even one time travel travel shenanigan is a time loop, that means it is fundamentally impossible to to alter the timeline any other way.

It's parallel universes, unfortunately for that voice from the future!