Year of Hell

[Guy Gardener]

Voyager was temporally inert yes.

Any one who has met the Borg and doesn't think they are a threat is an idiot.

Besides, he Borg are not a civilization per say, they're a virus. An infestation.

It's almost guilt free to exterminate them to the last.

besides it's pretty clear that the Borg were not temporally inert.

What that meant for Annorax could have had a few consequences if some manifestation of their time travel technology left them as unaffected by Annorax as Janeway, but they were so far away that how they adapted or ignored the effects of the weapon didn't bother Annorax.

Exodus, that's about as simply as I can say that Annorax's weapon changes everything everywhere always.

 

[exodus]

Exodus, that's about as simply as I can say that Annorax's weapon changes everything everywhere always.

I'm sorry but I think you're over exaggerating again.

 

[Gary7]

While your arguments sound very persuasive Guy, there is one factor that I feel isn't properly considered--energy propagation. This ship fires a beam into a locale that affects time. It appears to require a tremendous amount of energy to operate. The effects depicted in the show are wave forms that ripple through space. The movement is observable. This means it is slower than the speed of light. Thus... there is no conceivable way that the Krenim ship could cause time changes throughout the galaxy. Given the time required for it to propagate, certainly it would dissipate before long. This isn't some kind of radio wave--it's far more powerful. It also affects a certain region scope that is not sufficiently defined in the episode. Because of this ambiguity, it's not possible to really argue the extent of it intelligibly. Suffice it to say, it is a localized region of some extent.

I don't know what Krenim lifespans are, but if they're journeying around for 200 elapsed years of time changing history, one has to wonder how much longer Annorax would have lived to see his wife if he'd found the right point to restore her. Time is elapsing on board... I don't see how they could be immune to aging, unless there is some kind of side effect to their DNA every time the weapon is used.

One big flaw I think is that Annorax doesn't examine what influences his wife to go to that colony that is attacked. Make a small incursion of some sort that would influence her otherwise, and she lives. Somehow her existence depends upon the presence of the attackers, as wiping out that species doesn't restore the timeline properly.

 

[Finn]

My point was that I never got the impression that the effects of the Krenim weapon were geographically constricted.

I kinda figured it was when the crew of Voyager didn't notice other ships changing size and configuration until they got to that region and started seeing shock waves.

They didn't notice until Seven got the frequency of those weapons. I'd say those shockwaves were happening all the time. Once it passed, nobody remembers it.

 

[The_Baroness]

The shockwave is a special effect. It's just there to illustrate what's happening, I wouldn't take it literally!

It's like when they show sounds in space. It'd never happen as depicted, but they can't show nothing.

Time, is time. It isn't restricted to a small pocket of the galaxy.

If you erase something from history, then it never existed, anywhere, ever. It's not like as soon as they cleared Krenim space, all the erased races would suddenly 'have existed here, they just never existed, over there'

 

[Pauln6]

The wider effect of the Krenim weapon is likely to be minimal given how vast space is but there should be no doubt that it could potentially affect the entire universe.

Example: Krenim weapon wipes out Harry Kim, who would have saved Spock's life in 5 years time. Spock dies so he isn't around to prevent a supernova that threatens the universe. Universe is destroyed. Reboot is kinda lifeless. Franchise stagnates.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Th energy required to remove something from time may have been a complicated expression, but Annorax didn't move everything in the universe to cope with the absence of a little bit of matter, the universe did that all by itself rushing to fill the vacuum like when you take a thimble of water out of the bottom of the ocean or a litre of honey out of the bottom of a wheel barrow of honey. Nature Abhors a vacuum.

If a tree in a forest falls and no one is there to see it, is Bambi's mother squashed dead beneath it any less dead?

It's collateral.

It's like when you shoot someone through the face. It's not the smoking hole in their head that kills them, it's the bodies inability to adapt to send blood and impulses through alternative routes circumventing around the freshly driven hole.

The universe is smarter than a bullet ridden body.

 

[exodus]

My point was that I never got the impression that the effects of the Krenim weapon were geographically constricted.

I kinda figured it was when the crew of Voyager didn't notice other ships changing size and configuration until they got to that region and started seeing shock waves.

They didn't notice until Seven got the frequency of those weapons. I'd say those shockwaves were happening all the time. Once it passed, nobody remembers it.

We also saw the shockwave dissipate just after it passed Voyager. We also saw the Time ship at the start of the ep. erase the civilization from "Virtuoso". So it doesn't seen like time is effected beyond the dissipation of the shockwave IMO based upon what we've seen ourselves.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Plus, after the Krenim timeship eradicates the Garenor, Annorax orders that the shockwave be tracked, so they can monitor all changes as they occur.

 

[Guy Gardener]

it's running. I'm watching it right now.

Seven just invented tech that could check the location of every star in the galaxy in relation to every other star in the galaxy and we're supposed to think "region" implies a single grid co-ordinate? Maybe the Krenim are better with "time" than they are with "space"?

Their ability to measure/gage the effects of their temporal weapon is not infinite just like you can't see half way around the world with binoculars (unless you're in orbit or close to space.). Maybe they're selfish and don't bother looking to far past the limits of their empire, or the limits of their technology to observe space might not exceed much past the limits of their empire.

Spacetime shockwave constructed of temporal energy.

They notice the shockwave approaching BUT in the new manifestation of the timeline (in the first changeover we observe on film) but they do not seem to remember the shockwave after it has past because if the Zaal home world was never there then it was never destroyed and there could never have been a temporal shockwave or even a regular shockwave when it wasn't removed form time because ti was never there to be removed.

5 thousand parsecs. A parsec is a measurement of length not area. something about one side of an imaginary triangle. 3.26 light years. 16.3 thousand light years. I assume that "5 thousand parsecs" is it's largest axis?

Annorax actually says that it is impossible to count all the stars in the "cosmos" but fuck it, that's exactly (well, one galaxy's worth, but cosmos means universe.) what Seven did in the teaser when she invented Stellarmetrics.

Why didn't Tuvok have those secondary eyelids like Spock had in the Flying jefllyfish episode?

May 20th, Janeway's birthday. Do we celebrate that?

Oh. Beltran looks good with a bit of a beard.

In Tuvok's mind, he is thinking that Neelix's eyes are perfectly compatable with his own (tuvix, remember) and it wouldn't be so bad to pluck out the vile jelly and... Corpses everywhere. Denora Pel taught them a thing or two about interspecies tissue rejection.

200 star systems.

Annorax didn't know who Janeway was, maybe he was being Coy, or maybe his subordinates wrote him reports he didn't need to read, but that hardly qualifies him as a man of scope interested in the shape of space beyond the single spacial grid the Krenim are obsessing on.

Harry's description of the weapon is that it "pushes" matter out of space time more so than actually destroying it. But then "what" can exist outside spacetime except Annorax?

Episode two is beginning.

How stupid is chuckles. It's par for the course that he bends over for his captor. But if they "restored" Voyager, all they would be doing is creating a new Voyager that never entered Krenim space which already had a Tom and Chukcles on board, was he planning on doubling up? Was he going to be XO or a circus attraction the other Tom and Chakotay poke with a stick, unless the changing of time wouldn't present any dopplegangers as long as the ship is temporally shielded and Voyager was holding point even if it violates continuity that everything else in the universe had acted as if A Voyager indigenous to that time had been mucking about.

The comet. All life within 50 light years would have been destroyed along with it, 4 billion years ago. Space and time, they can attack matter Voyager encountered 8 months prior. Maybe they don't completely suck after all?

Is there something gay going on between Chakotay and Annorax? There's all this mood lighting while they're looking into each other's eyes talking about big picture stuff. But the episode would make a lot more sense if there were some bedroom scenes.

Can Kim grow facial hair? maybe puberty is still a while off for him?

 

[Ian_Burow]

Year of Hell is temporally complicated, but I think its easiest just to think in terms of timelines replacing one another as they are created and destroyed.

In response to the questions about Voyager's encountering the Krenim temporal waves: it is extremely unlikely that, even if the waves had reached that far towards the galactic rim (10,000+ light years), anything would have changed as a result. The waves were targeted towards a single species - the Zahl, for example - and removed them from history. As the wave propagates into space, any interaction between the Zahl and another species is removed as well, and the other species is altered as a result of not having that interaction. Barring any kind of transwarp, quantum slipstream, or similar capability the Zahl might have possessed, there is an incredibly slim chance that Zahl interacted with any species encountered by Voyager in Seasons 1-3, simply because of the distance between them. Thus, if the temporal waves had reached the other side of Borg space and moved through regions Voyager had/would be traveling through, the waves would not have altered anything and that portion of space would be unaffected. The closer to you got to Krenim space, the more the race/planet is likely to have been altered due to Annorax's actions.

HOWEVER

This notion likely changes after Kes's gift hurtles the ship to within a few hundred light years of Krenim space. That close to Annorax, I find it likely that some of the races in that region of space had probably interacted with the Krenim, the Zahl, the Alsuran Empire, and any of the unknown number of races Annorax had eliminated over the past two hundred years. It's my opinion that Voyager remained in the one, unchanged timeline (except for the slight incursion in "Time and Again") at least until Kes threw the ship forward. After that point, there is no telling how many temporal waves affected Voyager until she reached Krenim territory. The crew, naturally, would be unaware of those effects until Seven of Nine creates temporal shields, and even then, my interpretation is that the senior staff does not remember any timeline changes BEFORE the temporal shields are in place. Any changes that take place AFTER the shields are online are remembered and experienced, but nothing led me to believe that they could remember any previous timelines.

I have a headache now.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kes knew how to make temporal shields, because she knew the torpedo's frequency and she knew that the Krenim were destined to kill Kathryn Janeway in their first attack and she made a full report to Tuvok about all of this.

What is a seven letter word for incompetent?

 

[The_Baroness]

Year of Hell is temporally complicated, but I think its easiest just to think in terms of timelines replacing one another as they are created and destroyed.

In response to the questions about Voyager's encountering the Krenim temporal waves: it is extremely unlikely that, even if the waves had reached that far towards the galactic rim (10,000+ light years), anything would have changed as a result. The waves were targeted towards a single species - the Zahl, for example - and removed them from history. As the wave propagates into space, any interaction between the Zahl and another species is removed as well, and the other species is altered as a result of not having that interaction. Barring any kind of transwarp, quantum slipstream, or similar capability the Zahl might have possessed, there is an incredibly slim chance that Zahl interacted with any species encountered by Voyager in Seasons 1-3, simply because of the distance between them..

Not necessarily.

Maybe, centuries ago, a zahl travelled as far as any zahl had travelled before and met a new race. And gives them warp drive. this race carries his new piece of tech to the far side of his territory and does the same, repeat this over the years and eventually some dude who got warp off a guy, who got warp off a guy who got warp off a guy comes across some wibbly shape changing aliens who take warp from him and form the Dominion.

Annorax deletes the Zahl, the dominion never acheive warp, no war in the alpha quadrant.

Unlikely maybe, but possible.

 

[Ian_Burow]

Guy -

Plot hole, much? I'm not sure how this is reconciled, though I suppose that one could surmise that one of Annorax's incursions removed "Before and After" from Voyager's timeline... though that's a little farfetched IMO.

The Baron -

Point granted. It's definitely within the realm of possiblity, just highly unlikely.

 

[Lord Manitou]

Annorax had a good thing going for him before Voyager's arrival. His weapon involved the limits of the Krenim Emperium and this was 5000 parsecs or 16250 light years. An area of that diameter measures the thickness of the galaxy involving 1000s of stars and 10000s of lesser stars. In an area so vast Voyager couldn't escape.
It is hard to believe with a device so powerful Annorax could make one mistake after another. First with the race that couldn't innoculate a Krenim disease and then making many major incursions and he finally lost his way. He is portrayed as an escapist when he told Ebrist- 'as long as we stay on this vessel, you are protected from space-time. We have all eternity to accomplish our mission.'
Janeway did the only right thing by keeping crew together until the last moment- and, when possible, using the remains of the ship to counter-attack.

 

[2 of 10]

I suppose to answer my original question, I'm wondering if the episode implies that it's always supposed to be the year 2373 for Annorax and his crew. No matter how many centuries they remian on the weapon ship, it will always be 2373 outside. It would have to be that way because how can they know what the future timeline is supposed to be like? If it was 200 years later from their launch date, their entire culture would look alien to them.

Since Annorax and his crew had been on their mission for 200 years, the universe outside their ship should be 2373. But since they exist in some kind of temporal flux, it's still 2173 to them.

But there is something else that I don't understand: They had been manipulating the timeline for 200 years, then Voyager pushes the big reset button ... and in the end everything is how we remember it (except for Before And After of course) ... how is that possible? Everything Voyager had encountered until now was supposed to be a result of the timeline incursions, right? Now that the timeline has been reset to how it was supposed to evolve for the past 200 years, it should be radically different!

As you climb further and further out on a thinning branch, your options become a bit limited. By that time, it was time
for the big wrap up of this Ep, you only had a few options. Neither one would have held up under the scrutiny of the posters on this site. My suggestion, is just suspend belief and do go with the flow of this Ep.

With the destruction of the Time Ship, Everything Annorax
had done over the past 200 years would proabably have
done some serious damage to the DQ...Also, surprised that the Borg never found the technology on the time ship worth
trying to assimlate...any thoughts???

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Borg assimilated... Seven assimilated a Krenim temporal scientist, who may or may not have been Annorax who Janeway found "delightful" during the course of Infinite Regress.

 

[Lord Manitou]

Well my posts are always close to the facts. In praise of Voyager and Star Trek. If you, the same as everybody else, can't put together your thang right, that's your problem. The reason the timeship was workable is pure speculation and the fact that it was allowed to work is doubtful. I can believe it was all incinerated at the end- in praise of Janeway.

 

[Gary7]

One big hole for me is this: Time moves forward and things develop a certain way. Then the Krenim come along and make a temporal incursion to remove something. What about the reverse? If you make a mistake and find that the calculations missed something, why not go back step and try again? When they had 98% of the Krenim Imperium restored, that would've been a great benchmark to work from. It just seems so ridiculous that they would keep making linear changes, one after the other.

We do know that a change is reversible. When the Krenim time ship is destroyed, the temporal shockwave eliminates everything they ever did, because the ship no longer exists!

Anyway, there was such major pulling on the strings of plausibility with this one, that it's really hard to make solid arguments one way or the other. I'm thinking that Ian is right, a temporal shockwave focused on a certain adjustment only causes changes to anything related to the change. Once you're far enough away from the source, the changes are negligible. So even if the time ripples continued onward forever, they wouldn't be harmful to anyone in the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma quadrants.

Putting all of the holes aside, I still like the 2-part episode. It was very entertaining to see how the crew would manage with Voyager so badly destroyed. And refreshing to see it back to normal at the very end.

 

[DonIago]

The Krenim weapon didn't have a "Back button". They couldn't reverse the changes they made; restore the civilizations that they had wiped from the timeline. As you noted, the only option it seemed they had in that regard was to wipe the weapon itself from the timeline and "Undo All".