Year of Hell - Something a miss

[Praxius]

I did a scan in the first couple of pages and did a search for Year of Hell to see if there were any recent threads about this, but I didn't see any, so here we go:

I just watched the two-part Year of Hell episodes last night, which I guess would have been the third or fourth time I seen them and something occurred to me last night at the end.

The ship that wiped whatever it targeted out of complete existence & time was destroyed by the same process it applied to whatever it targeted when it's core exploded..... which of course not only wiped the ship out of time and existence, but everybody on board the ship as well..... so why was Annorax perfectly fine and still existing at the end?

Sure it was a nice little happy ending for everybody and seemed to have corrected the original problems he created 200 years before, but with everything else they explained in the two episodes, this nugget just doesn't seem to make sense.

And even if it could be explained logically why he survived somehow..... he was over 200 years old, so was what they showed a flashback or did he just not age and/or die in the last 200 years?

 

[Anwar]

That last scene was supposed to have been set 200 years ago, before he built the Timeship and started this whole mess by tampering with time. It wasn't supposed to be in the present.

Also the way I understood it since it was the temporal core of the ship that was erased before anything else, the resulting "restored" timeline was one where he never built the Temporal Core that was the heart of the ship. So it was the core that got erased, not everyone on the ship.

 

[Praxius]

That last scene was supposed to have been set 200 years ago, before he built the Timeship and started this whole mess by tampering with time. It wasn't supposed to be in the present.

Also the way I understood it since it was the temporal core of the ship that was erased before anything else, the resulting "restored" timeline was one where he never built the Temporal Core that was the heart of the ship. So it was the core that got erased, not everyone on the ship.

I suppose that makes sense..... but besides them not exactly noting it was 200 years ago (they noted the days when everything occurred, ie: Day 1, etc.) Wouldn't there be a problem with him making the ship all over again?

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

In fact, there is every indication that scenario might still happen. When he leaves the table, we can see he's working on his computations on the padd he had in his hand.

 

[exodus]

In fact, there is every indication that scenario might still happen. When he leaves the table, we can see he's working on his computations on the padd he had in his hand.

Yep. I think it also plays into the idea that Annorax had, that Time was playing games with him in the fact that even though he joined his wife that day, he was still tampering with forces beyond his control. It's a metaphor for time not being anyones bitch, so too speak.

So yes Praxius, I believe time will punish Annorax again if he builds the ship again.............but it's destine to happen.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Which kind of begs the question...

Why isn't Voyager then stuck in a time loop along with Annorax?

 

[Praxius]

Which kind of begs the question...

Why isn't Voyager then stuck in a time loop along with Annorax?

Exactly..... if he built the ship again and started it all over again, then Voyager would still get chewed to crap for a year, Janeway would still get burnt to a crisp, Tuvok would still be blind and Voyager would again end up ramming the ship, starting it all over again.... and technically, that'd be the end of the saga for the Voyager crew.

Then again, another thought just came to mind which could explain what the heck actually happened and why it didn't repeat:

With Anwar's suggestion that only the core of the ship was destroyed before anything else or anyone else on the ship, it would have been destroyed entirely through all existence, time, etc..... thus Annorax wasn't working on the ship at his desk, because any and all concepts of the main thing that made the ship what it was, ie: it's core, no longer existed in any sense of the form, including in his own mind.

He could have been working on some other type of weapon or device, but probably nothing on the level of devastation as his previous work.... thus the time line was changed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

the crew were in a state of temporal grace while they were outside of time. The ship was moored to the present making changes to the same "now" relatively speaking over and over again allowing for some "drift" which is how the story was allowed to play out. the crew subjectively spent 200 years firing their weapon at the same year of hell. the year of hell is were they came from, what they were fucking with, and what they went back to after it all went balls up.

There was no flashback.

ANNORAX: You surprise me, Obrist, After so many years you still perceive time through conventional eyes. Never is a word that has no meaning here. As long as we stay on this vessel, protected from space-time, we have all eternity to accomplish our mission.
OBRIST: Of course, sir.

Have you seen the last episode of stargate SG1? They let their ship be blown up to jumpstart their timedrive rewinding time unexploding the ship making it not matter at all that they were possibly briefly dead during the initial explosion.

(back to Star trek)

The Krenim Core was removed from time before everything else was which had noting to do with these people being born? That's a weak answer, but that would only mean that the materials used to make the core would have been removed from time and not the devious genius or political need which propelled it's invention.

We found out in season 5s infinite regress that Borg assimilated the Krenim which means that it's Picards (and Archer too!) fault for allowing the Borg to upgrade themselves in the past redefining the size and quality of Borg space in the present that the krenim possibly barely exist in the present to be such a threat.

 

[Anwar]

If the core was erased, then that means it would never have existed at all. Including in Annorax's mind (after all, wouldn't the unique energy patterns and stuff it gave off also be erased? Then the whole thing wouldn't work). So those equations he was working on at his desk either never were completed (he realized this time around it was a bad idea?), or just were wrong this timeline around.

I always assumed that Annorax meant that the Timeship just kept them from aging, like some kind of living stasis. Outside the ship 200 years had passed by, but after his wife went out he just lost it and forced the others to just go along with tampering with time. In other words, their hopes of going back to their loved ones was really hopeless but they were doing it for the sake of their people as a whole.

 

[DonIago]

I always assumed that Annorax's going with his wife is as explicit a statement as we're going to get that, while the idea of the temporal core may exist, Annorax never fully develops it, or never activates it, or it doesn't work as it did in the original timeline.

 

[exodus]

Which kind of begs the question...

Why isn't Voyager then stuck in a time loop along with Annorax?

They kinda were.
Kes saw "YOH" in "Before & After"
When Seven joined, they still by fast had to go through it.
So Voyager role in YOH was inevitable.
So for a while there, they were stuck in it because there wasn't a future without Voyager entering Krenium space.

It's why Kes' warning wouldn't matter, they were going to have to go thru it anyway......it was only a matter of time.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I doubt the weapon is so subtle as to erase "ideas".

But the planets geology would have been fundamentally altered from where ever they got the components of the weapon that entire worlds could have been unusable as it were before the chance.

Chosing to show interest in his wife was just bitterfly effect because of all the other massive changes to the time line because of their fiddling.

 

[exodus]

If the core was erased, then that means it would never have existed at all. Including in Annorax's mind (after all, wouldn't the unique energy patterns and stuff it gave off also be erased? Then the whole thing wouldn't work). So those equations he was working on at his desk either never were completed (he realized this time around it was a bad idea?), or just were wrong this timeline around.

I think it's like Terminator.
Everytime John Conner sends something back to stop Skynet from existing, he's creating the idea for Skynet by exposing people to it's technology.

Even if the core is erased, including Annorax's mind. The idea of the mathematical equasion still exists, so eventually it will still lead to the creation of the core. Annorax might not be the one that created the equasion but rather the one that perfected it.

 

[Anwar]

Well, that's the problem with something that erases something from time (retcon gun?), we have no idea just how comprehensive the erasure is. When a person is erased, does that mean that his/her parents were just kept from having sex for a few minutes, was the sperm itself erased, was the father sterilized somehow so no replacement offspring existed either?

Probably for the best they left it as they did in the show, any deeper explanation of how the erasure happened was bound to have holes in it.

 

[exodus]

Well, that's the problem with something that erases something from time (retcon gun?), we have no idea just how comprehensive the erasure is. When a person is erased, does that mean that his/her parents were just kept from having sex for a few minutes, was the sperm itself erased, was the father sterilized somehow so no replacement offspring existed either?

Anwar I swear, you are too freakin' funny!!!

However, I do agree with Guy and Benny Russell in the fact that you can't erase an idea.

 

[Anwar]

Well, somehow the temporal erasure backfire caused Annorax to simply think the idea through moreso than he did and come to the conclusion that it was simply too uncontrollable and thus he never did build the Time-Weapon this timeline around.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Did it?

You can't be sure that that is why he got to live happily ever after and there were not other external influences fluffing the continuum.

There was a Fringe just like this earlier in the year. This science Guy could not go back far enough in time to see his dead wife. Kept mucking up,and having to conted with the present.

 

[Praxius]

.... The Krenim Core was removed from time before everything else was which had noting to do with these people being born? That's a weak answer, but that would only mean that the materials used to make the core would have been removed from time and not the devious genius or political need which propelled it's invention.

The political need and genius of creating it is itself a form of existence.... if they wiped out an entire planet of people from time & space by just targeting them on a planet and shooting them with the ship, then logically the comet or whatever that originally produced the life on the planet that wasn't targeted/wiped from existence would just repeat it's past actions and that civilization would simply just begin to grow again, undisturbed...... this didn't seem to be a problem, because as it seemed to me in their explanations, whiping those people out on the planet with their weapon not only wiped them from the planet and space, through time.... but it would have also wiped whatever trace elements of them on said comet as well. (See the example on the show where Chakotay destroyed the comet that changed their course)

Memory and our thoughts are mere electrical signals interpreted in our brains, therefore it is possible to assume that the core's wiping from total existence would have also affected the original thoughts and concepts of creating such a device in the original person who created it.

That's not to say that someone else may not create a similar ship.... but the path in which Annorax created the ship will never occur..... thus the original time line in those two episodes no longer happens.

We found out in season 5s infinite regress that Borg assimilated the Krenim which means that it's Picards (and Archer too!) fault for allowing the Borg to upgrade themselves in the past redefining the size and quality of Borg space in the present that the krenim possibly barely exist in the present to be such a threat.

It's been a while since I saw that episode but will be coming to it soon enough.... until then I can not comment on the above, since my memory is hazy..... but it would seem to me that if they were assimilated by the borg in this time line, then that was originally meant to be.... afterall they're not that far away from Borg territory and they no longer have the time ship which protected Annorax and his crew from the destruction of his own species by his own actions..... because he wiped out his own civilization to a pre-warp society, there was nobody of interest for the borg to assimilate in the first place..... but since now they exist and still dabbled with time and other odd forms of technology, the Borg found them suitable for adding to their collective.... thus assimilated.

 

[exodus]

Well, somehow the temporal erasure backfire caused Annorax to simply think the idea through moreso than he did and come to the conclusion that it was simply too uncontrollable and thus he never did build the Time-Weapon this timeline around.

...but isn't the theme of "YOH" obsession?

Janeway, Chakotay & Annorax all display it.
So no, I don't think Annorax can stop.
He can put it aside for awhile but the fact that he's still working on the calculations at the end of the ep. still, shows he's not having second thoughts. At least too me he's not.


Also, if the equation exists. What's to stop someone else from doing it?
Wasn't it a military funded weapon?
Didn't he build it to use it in a war?





BTW, did anybody notice the planet being erased at the start of "YOH" is the sameone shown in "Virtuoso"?

 

[Pauln6]

My own view is that they should have kept Jennifer Lien on as a recurring guest star, built up her powers gradually over about 4 episiodes spread out prior to YOH and then allowed her memories of the events to save Voyager. So her powers could expand further when she's exposed to the Chroniton particles again and it would be Kes who blows up to restore things, using her powers to adjust time and protect Voyager.

At least it would take care of the paradox that Kes warned Voyager about the Krenim even though she never met them.... I would have liked the over-arching plot of YOH to be spread over 4-6 episodes as well.