Yesterday's Enterprise blooper??

[Tiberius]

I think bot the original time line and the war time line both ended with Tasha going with the Enterprise C. That formed a new 3rd time line nearly identical to the original.

But Tasha didn't exist in the original timeline to go to the E-C.

Right, she did not exist in the original time line. Now since she goes back in time from the War time line, she ended the original and war time line.

In the 3rd timeline she does exist, in 2 places simultaneously. Kind of like Marty McFly in BTTF2. He's at 2 different places at the dance, he created a new time line again nearly identical to the one he created in BTTF1.

The 3rd time line has War time line Tasha giving birth and dieing by execution some 20 odd years before 3rd time line Tasha dies at the hands of Armus. And because she died on Romulus, she does not effect the events that we saw. All the events in the 3rd new time line are nearly identical to those in the original, except for Tasha existing in the past of that time line.

Actually, I was refering to your statement, "I think bot the original time line and the war time line both ended with Tasha going with the Enterprise C."

Tasha couldn't have gone back to the Enterprise C in the original timeline, as she'd been killed several years earlier.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

1. Original.
2. War.
3. Original but with Tasha from War timeline now living in the past.

There is no difference between 1 and 3.

 

[Timo]

There's no particular requirement for the two to be identical, though. There could be dozens of ways the E-C could return to the past and make enough of a difference that a timeline resembling either 1 or 3 would be the result. In some, Yar might go back; in others, perhaps LaForge would, or Guinan, or then nobody from the future.

The thing is, timeline 2 comes out of nowhere - it would only come to be if the E-C failed to return through the time anomaly, but no such failure is established yet when timeline 2 suddenly becomes the focus of our attention. Timeline 2 is not the result of any action taken or omission made in timeline 1. Basically, the camera just moves to a parallel universe for a while to show what has "always" happened there (the cowardly retreat of the E-C, and the big war the Feds lose), then moves back to the regular universe to show what has "always" happened there (some anomaly hiccups, our heroes go "Huh?"). But timeline 3 sort of directly results from the actions taken in timeline 2, which makes it very suspect to being different from timeline 1 that for its part was unrelated to timeline 2.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pavonis]

... Also, contrast this to "The Neutral Zone," where it was stated that the Federation had zero contact with the Romulans for 70 years...

Having just watched "The Neutral Zone", I have to point out that it was no direct contact, and it was over the last 53 years, not 70 years.

The destruction of the Enterprise-C wouldn't count as a contact with the Romulans, since Captain Garrett and her crew didn't return from the encounter. The Klingons let the Federation know of the ship's fate, so there was no direct contact between the Romulans and the Federation there.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Like I said, if - some time before this episode took place - someone had asked about what happened to the Enterprise-C, they would have found that it was destroyed in battle with Romulans at Narendra Three. And Tasha was on the ship. She came from a timeline that is now invalid, yes. But she was still there. There was never a timeline where she was not (except for the 'war future'). It's a classic paradox.

There are two, and only two, timelines in this episode. One was the war alternate timeline that existed for most of the episode. The other is the 'real' timeline, where there was no war. That's it. Timo is correct - Tasha came from 'out of nowhere', as it were. Apart from interrogating her and the ship's other survivors, no one would have any knowledge of that alternate timeline. But it still happened.