Spoilers Time Travel Troubles

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Voyager: Timeless

HARRY: Wait a second. If I sent a message from the future and changed the past, then that future would no longer exist, right? So, how could I have sent the message in the first place? Am I making any sense?

CAPTAIN JANEWAY: My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple. Don't even try.

 

[Awesome Possum]

“Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache.”

 

[Phoenix219]

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.

I don't believe in predestination paradoxes. I figure in 1986 there are now two glasses of different ages in existence, until they get back, at which point they would have to track down the fate of the (now only) glasses that were both given to and given away by Kirk, created at sometime prior to 1986 before the timeline was contaminated.

If they were really part of a loop they would get older and older each time they were cycled to and from Kirk, and be impossible to date properly, until they decintigrated due to eona of age.

 

[serabine]

With something like this I always think of a spiral that ends in a loop, like the spring in a ballpoint pen, if that makes sense.

Like, there was an original event (an original set of signals, an original poem, an original watch) that lead into the loop (maybe originally even with a different context), but thanks to time travel shenanigans it becomes superseded by a time loop where stuff seems to come from nowhere. It's a holdover from the first time events started looping.

Anyway:

:

 

[Search4]

One of the principles of physics is you can’t lose information and it’s actually an issue with black hole theories. In this case we are getting information from nowhere. Literally. Same problem and yes, call it a paradox,
but no, don’t call it good writing.

 

[Pauln6]

Voyager had another example where Kes is exposed to temporal torpedoes and ends up living backwards for a while, taking the trouble to provide specifications to help them fight the Kremin when they eventually encounter them.

Then Kes leaves the ship BEFORE they encounter the Kremin and so is never exposed to the temporal energy so cannot travel back to warn them. That must be why Janeway completely forgot Kes' Intel. I can't believe that they didn't keep Kes around long enough to close (or open?) the loop, even if they just asked Jennifer Lien to appear as a guest star. Pretty bad fail IMO .

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

One of the principles of physics is you can’t lose information and it’s actually an issue with black hole theories. In this case we are getting information from nowhere. Literally. Same problem and yes, call it a paradox,
but no, don’t call it good writing.

Sure, but that kind of paradox is not unheard of in Star Trek. Whether or not it obeys the principles of physics is a different issue entirely.

TOS: Assignment Earth -

SPOCK: Correction, Mister Seven. It appears we did not interfere. The Enterprise was part of what was supposed to happen on this day in 1968.
KIRK: Our record tapes show, although not generally revealed, that on this date, a malfunctioning suborbital warhead was exploded exactly one hundred and four miles above the Earth.
GARY SEVEN: So everything happened the way it was supposed to.​

The implication was that Kirk and Spock, et al. went back and blew up the warhead, but even before they went back to do so, their history showed that warhead had already mysteriously blown up exactly the same way.

This is very similar to the red bursts existing before we saw Burnham go back to make them exist.


And as I mentioned in a post above on the Voyager episode Timeless:

HARRY: Wait a second. If I sent a message from the future and changed the past, then that future would no longer exist, right? So, how could I have sent the message in the first place? Am I making any sense?
JANEWAY: My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple. Don't even try.​

The paradox there is that Harry got a real physical video message from a version of Harry that will not ever exist.


And then there's the magical ability in TNG: Cause and Effect for "echos" of the previous time loops to exist so Picard and crew could analyze them and figure out how to save themselves. The only reason for those time echos to exist is that the plot called for them. Still, a fantastically good TNG episode.


There are problems with the writing of DSC, but their handling of specific time travel issues and paradoxes is not one of those writing problems.

 

[SolarisOne]

If you were going with an even semi-plausible form of time travel, every instance of travel to the "past" (in quotes, because your "past" is always some distant observer's present or future) would cause the timeline to bifurcate, without exception. That's the only way to avoid paradoxes.

 

[Search4]

The issue with the red bursts is they existed before the whole sequence began - Starfleet knew of them and Spock predicted them months before Burnham sent hers. Spock could get them from a mindmeld from a future "mom" or Burnham - but Starfleet saw them with standard equipment also before they were sent. That's not the same burst, IMHO it must be an earlier burst (pre the season starting) designed to capture attention, possibly sent after the events we see. OK i'm ok with them sending the signal-bursts after the season is over, back in time to gain attention.

The core problem I have is that there's info in the bursts no one can readily get. And wouldn't know is essential. For example picking up Reno. If there are countless time travel incursions and one of them finds Reno and the Hiawatha and that's essential - fine. Or changing Kaminar so they can show up in fighters - what, no one else could be asked to show up to help?

But none of that was started by Mom by her admission or even makes sense; its all info we would never know without a series of time incursions to find the right possibilities to win. Which Mom indicated she had tried but which had not yet been successful.

 

[Pauln6]

The issue with the red bursts is they existed before the whole sequence began - Starfleet knew of them and Spock predicted them months before Burnham sent hers. Spock could get them from a mindmeld from a future "mom" or Burnham - but Starfleet saw them with standard equipment also before they were sent. That's not the same burst, IMHO it must be an earlier burst (pre the season starting) designed to capture attention, possibly sent after the events we see. OK i'm ok with them sending the signal-bursts after the season is over, back in time to gain attention.

The core problem I have is that there's info in the bursts no one can readily get. And wouldn't know is essential. For example picking up Reno. If there are countless time travel incursions and one of them finds Reno and the Hiawatha and that's essential - fine. Or changing Kaminar so they can show up in fighters - what, no one else could be asked to show up to help?

But none of that was started by Mom by her admission or even makes sense; its all info we would never know without a series of time incursions to find the right possibilities to win. Which Mom indicated she had tried but which had not yet been successful.

Your mistake is believing that time is linear. It isn't; that's just how most humanoids perceive it. The Bajoran Prophets experience time all at once , so it's perfectly possible to send signals back in time to close a temporal loop while experiencing them 'before' they've been sent.

 

[Phoenix219]

I like the concept of rewriting like on a tape ... The previous version physically existed, and the artifact of change acts as a lynchpin to the old reality, and actions physically happened because they DID happen in a previous iteration/layer, but it no longer exists or is accessible as the events were rewritten. No paradox necessary, and the traveler retains knowledge as he physically experienced them in real time even post rewrite.

 

[Delta Vega]

Once upon a time. . . . .life was so easy