The Visitor

[JirinPanthosa]

A thought just occurred to me about The Visitor.

Now, it’s standard in Trek for nobody to worry too much that they are radically changing the timeline.

But the woman Jake was explaining it all to, he basically told her “I am going to change the timeline starting from decades before your birth.” Implying “If I do this, due to butterfly effect it’s very likely you will never have existed.”

This doesn’t bother her at all?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The butterfly effect is overinterpreted in fiction. She'll exist, be she'll have read dozens of Jake Sisko novels.

 

[BigDaveX]

To paraphrase what Q said in Tapestry, a few details of Jake's life changing won't wipe out the Federation or cause galaxies to explode. He's not that important.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The butterfly effect is overinterpreted in fiction. She'll exist, be she'll have read dozens of Jake Sisko novels.

It changed the entire course of the Dominion War. In the Visitor timeline, the Klingons took over the station and apparently prevented the war from heating up. Every world was affected by the war, and she was born 20 years after it. Maybe one of her parents died in the war! Maybe Jadzia introduced her parents.

And frankly, no it's not overly interpreted. Maybe it won't fundamentally change who somebody is a year down the line, but the rippling effect of people leaving the house five minutes earlier and not happening to run into the person who will define their lives for the next decade. It adds up. You can argue there's a 'Tide of history' so things would be basically the same, but not for individuals on an individual level.

In Tapestry, Q magicked nothing important to be changed. And no, Jake's not the important one. The guy he scienced back into existence was.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

In the Visitor timeline, the Klingons took over the station and apparently prevented the war from heating up.

Probably because Founder-Martok took complete control.

 

[kkt]

Melanie wasn't in Starfleet and probably had no introduction to temporal mechanics. She probably just didn't think about possible effects on the timeline if Jake succeeded.

 

[Tosk]

Who says her timeline was erased anyway? Sometimes Trek goes alternate instead of rewrite.

 

[UnknownSample]

Who says her timeline was erased anyway? Sometimes Trek goes alternate instead of rewrite.

If Jake changes his past life, that changes the lives of anyone he's with and much besides. If you're getting into time splinter "universes", that's not generally how things work in Trek. Maybe just Parallels and the Abramsverse, if even those. Fans read that into things too often.

 

[Tosk]

that's not generally how things work in Trek

Generally. You cited two examples that show it is sometimes otherwise. Picard also jumps to alternate timelines in All Good Things, and O'Brien from an alternate timeline took over for "our" O'Brien in Visionary.

 

[UnknownSample]

Generally. You cited two examples that show it is sometimes otherwise. Picard also jumps to alternate timelines in All Good Things, and O'Brien from an alternate timeline took over for "our" O'Brien in Visionary.

I think a lot of these are standard changing-the-past one-timeline scenarios. There's one and only one timeline at any given moment, though you can go back and rewrite it. Then the single timeline is different but there's still only one.
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The O'Brien thing can give the impression of multiple realities, but really, the same old single timeline is being erased and rewritten differently. Same with Picard. The anti-time thing changed the single timeline retroactively. Backwards. Then the awful way that went led Q and Picard to work to erase and rewrite the single timeline yet again.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Generally. You cited two examples that show it is sometimes otherwise. Picard also jumps to alternate timelines in All Good Things, and O'Brien from an alternate timeline took over for "our" O'Brien in Visionary.

I'm pretty sure that's the episode where O'Brien says to O'Brien, "I hate temporal mechanics." That about sums it up.

 

[Tosk]

I think a lot of these are standard changing-the-past one-timeline scenarios. There's one and only one timeline at any given moment, though you can go back and rewrite it. Then the single timeline is different but there's still only one.
========
The O'Brien thing can give the impression of multiple realities, but really, the same old single timeline is being erased and rewritten differently. Same with Picard. The anti-time thing changed the single timeline retroactively. Backwards. Then the awful way that went led Q and Picard to work to erase and rewrite the single timeline yet again.

You can argue the two additional examples (I disagree, but that's no biggie) but the two you originally referenced remain as examples of alternate co-existing timelines.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The simplest explanation is that what elder Jake tells us is not canonical. It is a placeholder in the story because the producers were not going to trust a rookie writer with the narrative for this season or the next. I don't think that any other explanation is really necessary.

If an in-universe explanation is necessary, the Founders who infiltrated then Federation and the Klingon Empire were never exposed by the Sisko. Founder Martok may have taken over the Klingon Empire. The takeover of the wormhole put Bajor under Klingon tutelage, ending its independence. There is not mention of how far the Klingon-Cardassian War went. A Founder may have replaced Leighton, thus infiltrating Federation government. The bond that linked the Sisko to Jake had something to do with subspace, meaning that writers could pick and choose what effect returning to the accident had on the timeline. Garak's daughter remembers the conversation with Jake but fails to perceive the changes to history that have happened.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Picard also jumps to alternate timelines in All Good Things

Does he? Or it it simply a Q illusion? Riker's "future" in Future Imperfect was an illusion, why not Q, in both AGT and Tapestry?

 

[Tosk]

Maybe every adventure they ever went on were all Q illusions!

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Who says her timeline was erased anyway? Sometimes Trek goes alternate instead of rewrite.

Only when it's the prime timeline that would have been erased by it not being 'Alternate', and fan rage is at stake.

Anyway I guess you could argue Jeremy Bearimy. That's pretty much how Trek time travel has always worked.

 

[Tosk]

Only when it's the prime timeline that would have been erased by it not being 'Alternate', and fan rage is at stake.

TNG established ongoing alternate timelines well before señor JJ.

 

[Qonundrum]

If she listens to some strange bloke assertively say that by killing himself all will be well and shedoesn't bat an eyelid or call 911 or anything out of concern for his emotional well being... the episode was a little too by the numbers and multiple viewings quickly reveal plot holes. Yes, it's an emotional masterpiece. with a good premise. But it's not DS9's finest hour.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

TNG established ongoing alternate timelines well before señor JJ.

You mean parallel universes? Before Trek 09, all the alternate timelines are implied to have been fully erased the moment they are prevented.

Except that anything that came back in time from a timeline that was erased sticks around.

 

[Tosk]

Before Trek 09, all the alternate timelines are implied to have been fully erased the moment they are prevented.

Parallels says otherwise. There are multiple causes and results of Trek time travel, depending on the needs of the individual story.