Spoilers Time Travel Troubles

[Search4]

So I have really enjoyed Discovery S2. Just rewatched the season end and enjoyed it.

But - we have time travel troubles. I can grasp time loops but - but - not information out of the ether.

Fact: Mom did not create the red signals. Burnham did.

Fact: a red signal led them to the asteroid where they found Jett and the Hiawatha.

Fact: no one knew the Hiawatha was there before they went.

Fact: a month or three later Burnham sent the signal back at the original time.

So - no one ever knew where Hiawatha was but Burnham did because of Burnham’s signal. The information to go there (and some of the other places) literally comes from nowhere.

Mom didn’t know. She actually wasn’t there.
Spock learned of it from the signals.
Burnham learned of it from - Burnham. How, exactly? Be specific. It’s never shown or hinted at.

The others:

Mom knew of Terralysium - ok - but didn’t set the signals. Burnham could get that location from mom and her suit data. That works.

Kaminar: mom wasn’t there so it’s also a problem.

Boreth: mom wasn’t there so it’s also a problem.

No wonder Spock went nuts over this - it actually doesn’t make sense as presented unless someone else had the info and is feeding Discovery.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Careful or you'll go all cross-eyed.

 

[BillJ]

...

Best to just not think about it.

 

[Lundberg]

remember in voyagers second episode when they investigated something timey after receiving a distress call from a ship stuck in it and got stuck themselves then sent a distress call only to realize they received their own distress call hours before actually sending it? yeah its like that.

 

[Galaxy]

So - no one ever knew where Hiawatha was but Burnham did because of Burnham’s signal. The information to go there (and some of the other places) literally comes from nowhere.


Kaminar: mom wasn’t there so it’s also a problem.

Boreth: mom wasn’t there so it’s also a problem.

Those are all examples of predestination paradoxes. The only way for Discovery to see the signal is if Burnham goes back in time. She teaches herself the location in effect.

 

[Alan Roi]

remember in voyagers second episode when they investigated something timey after receiving a distress call from a ship stuck in it and got stuck themselves then sent a distress call only to realize they received their own distress call hours before actually sending it? yeah its like that.

Also when Data sent the transmissions to the next loop in Cause in Effect, which was sorta into the past technically.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie. He takes it back in time, gives it to Jane Seymour, who keeps it and gives it to him later on.

The watch itself is a closed loop, uncreated. It comes from nowhere.

 

[Alan Roi]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie. He takes it back in time, gives it to Jane Seymour, who keeps it and gives it to him later on.

The watch itself is a closed loop, uncreated. It comes from nowhere.

Or of course the main character of Predestination. If you want to challenge yourself futher, read the original novella, "All you Zombies" or the much crazier "The Man Who Folded Himself" by Tribbles writer David Gerrold. man...

 

[SolarisOne]

I don't see a problem with any of it. This stuff was very tame, compared to--say--Series Six of Doctor Who.

 

[Alan Roi]

I don't see a problem with any of it. This stuff was very tame, compared to--say--Series Six of Doctor Who.

Or my favorite, Mawdren Undead from '83..

 

[The Librarian]

It's not that different than what Picard experiences in "All Good Things", where the entire thing is a big predestination paradox. In this case it looks like we're seeing the end result of an iterated time loop.

ETA: While not Trek, "Agents of SHIELD" spent last season dealing with a similar situation, where it turned out they were looking at the results of an unknown number of repeated loops, with each one providing a bit more information and preparation, until a seemingly unwinnable situation was solvable.

 

[Greg Cox]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie. He takes it back in time, gives it to Jane Seymour, who keeps it and gives it to him later on.

The watch itself is a closed loop, uncreated. It comes from nowhere.

Something similar happens in "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers, where a scholar goes back in time and ends up writing (from memory) a famous 18th century poem he learned in college. Like the pocket watch, the poem is a paradox that seemingly comes from nowhere.

Great book, btw.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Mom was creating new branches or overwriting time. CHANGES WERE BEING MADE.

Daughter was in a predestination loop.

 

[MvRojo]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie. He takes it back in time, gives it to Jane Seymour, who keeps it and gives it to him later on.

The watch itself is a closed loop, uncreated. It comes from nowhere.

Or like the glasses McCoy gives Kirk in TWOK, which Kirk sells in TVH, so that in the future McCoy can get them for Kirk.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie.

Nope, that was Susan French.

Now, if you had said Elise and Richard....

 

[Saul]

Kinda like Somewhere in Time, where Jane Seymour gives Chris Reeve the pocket watch in the beginning of the movie. He takes it back in time, gives it to Jane Seymour, who keeps it and gives it to him later on.

The watch itself is a closed loop, uncreated. It comes from nowhere.

Or like the glasses McCoy gives Kirk in TWOK, which Kirk sells in TVH, so that in the future McCoy can get them for Kirk.

Which would make the watch and glasses impossibly old. It is more likely both were new when bought and when sent back in time they were not reused in some kind of infinity loop. The watch was most likely bought for resemblance to the original and thus unknowingly became the original.

 

[ITDUDE]

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/timetravel-dis.htm (yeah yeah, but the write up is pretty accurate, factually speaking)

But it invokes the ontological paradox: Matter or knowledge may come to existence from nothing. The occurrence of the ontological paradox is obvious because Michael Burnham couldn't be aware of the Hiawatha with Jett Reno inside the asteroid field before her own signal led her to this place. She couldn't know that her mother saved the people from WWIII and transferred them to Terralysium before her own signal showed up at the planet. She couldn't anticipate that the Kelpiens would "evolve" before it happened and I doubt she was aware of the time crystals on Boreth before the ship actually visited the planet. Also, she neither knew that Po had devised a way to recrystallize dilithium nor that she had been aboard Discovery before (Tilly evidently didn't tell Michael). The five examples of the ontological paradox in the story arc are rather "mild" ones. In its ultimate consequence, the Red Angel may just as well have given a superweapon to defeat Control to Michael Burnham, without the need to ever build that weapon!

Best not to think to closely about it.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Maybe this explanation will help you:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Fact: Mom did not create the red signals. Burnham did.

Fact: a red signal led them to the asteroid where they found Jett and the Hiawatha.

Fact: no one knew the Hiawatha was there before they went.

Fact: a month or three later Burnham sent the signal back at the original time.

So - no one ever knew where Hiawatha was but Burnham did because of Burnham’s signal. The information to go there (and some of the other places) literally comes from nowhere.

Um, it comes from when Discovery went to the asteroid?

I'm not following your issue with this case.

 

[ED-209]

Bootstrap paradox.