Yesterday's Enterprise Episode question

[Kenbushway]

Yesterday's Enterprise
Season 3
Episode 15
In that episode we see that Enterprise D changes when Enterprise C emerges from the anomaly, Worf is no longer a character and Tasha is back because they never visited the planet where she was killed ( "Skin of Evil" Season 1, Episode 23). My question is wouldn't data have disappeared as well? He would have never been discovered because the federation and Klingon have been in war for many decades.

 

[DonIago]

How does a Federation-Klingon war preclude Data being built/discovered?

 

[Finn]

^It shouldn't. Data's discovery predates the disappearence of the Enterprise C and the Klingon War.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Technically, if the last 20 years have changed there's no reason any of the same people should be on the Enterprise.

And in any mirror universe there's no reason the exact same people should have even been born.

But, tis scifi.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Data may even have been found and joined Starfleet under different curcumstances to the prime-universe. See: Star Trek or the fourth season of Fringe.

 

[Christopher]

Technically, if the last 20 years have changed there's no reason any of the same people should be on the Enterprise.

And in any mirror universe there's no reason the exact same people should have even been born.

But the timeline only diverged 22 years earlier, so that argument would only apply to people under 21 or so (allowing 9 months for gestation). More so for younger people, since the timelines would still be pretty close to start with and diverge gradually.


The main thing that bugged me about "Yesterday's Enterprise" was that the Galaxy class was in use at all. After all, that class of ship was meant to be a peaceful deep-space research vessel, a university village in space loaded with civilian scentists and crewmembers' families (because the ship was meant for really long-term exploration missions of up to 15 years away from home, and few would be willing to leave their families for so long -- although later TNG producers completely ignored this intention). The saucer section was designed to house the civilians and separate to keep them safe when the drive section went into battle. And the Klingon war in the alternate timeline started over a decade before the first Galaxy ships were launched, enough time that there should've been some major redesigns to gear the ship more for combat.

Of course, they didn't have the budget to build a whole new ship miniature or new sets for the episode. But maybe they could've used just the battle section of the 6-foot miniature and shot the bridge scenes in the battle bridge set -- with maybe the sickbay or crew quarters set redressed as a wardroom to take the place of Ten Forward for Guinan's scenes.

 

[Finn]

Data may even have been found and joined Starfleet under different curcumstances to the prime-universe. See: Star Trek or the fourth season of Fringe.

Data joined Starfleet in 2344, the same year as the Narendra III incident. The timeline shouldn't have been altered enough to prevent Data's joining, assuming it happened earlier in the year...

 

[Timo]

But the timeline only diverged 22 years earlier, so that argument would only apply to people under 21 or so (allowing 9 months for gestation). More so for younger people, since the timelines would still be pretty close to start with and diverge gradually.

That'd concern whether these people would be in existence. But the question was whether they would be on the Enterprise. Careers aren't decided by genetics...

Of course, with infinite alternate universes to choose from, we'd rather understandably get to watch the one where the same set of heroes is aboard. Plotwise, it would only be necessary for Guinan and Picard to be aboard, otherwise nobody would notice the need to send the E-C back in time and nobody would listen to the one who notices.

And the Klingon war in the alternate timeline started over a decade before the first Galaxy ships were launched, enough time that there should've been some major redesigns to gear the ship more for combat.

Would the redesigns affect the hull shape, though? Hulls seem sacrosanct in Trek: ships like Voyager apparently won't move properly unless Kazon suicide boats or the holes left by them are patched up. Redesigning the exterior of a starship might be major work, quite possibly not worth doing for that extra 15% of combat agility or whatnot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Data joined Starfleet in 2344, the same year as the Narendra III incident. The timeline shouldn't have been altered enough to prevent Data's joining, assuming it happened earlier in the year...

Or even if it happened later. It's not as if everything would've completely changed the moment Narendra III happened. A lot of things would've continued to go on pretty much the same path for years afterward. After all, it's a very big galaxy. As I was just saying in another thread a little while ago, in a Federation of hundreds of worlds, a conflict could have a devastating effect on the worlds directly involved yet have no impact at all on more distant worlds within the Federation -- much like, say, the disaster of Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast of the US had no direct impact on my life here in the Midwest, except insofar as I was concerned for friends and family who lived in the affected regions.

So a war would have to become really, really huge, on the scope of the Dominion War, in order to affect the entire Federation. It would've probably taken years for the UFP/Klingon conflict in the YE timeline to expand to that degree. So it's plausible that a lot of events would've been unchanged by the altered history for quite some time.

 

[Lance]

I actually once did a fan fiction which was a kind of "episode guide" to how the first three seasons of TNG might have went in the altered 'war with the Klingons' timeline. "Encounter At Farpoint" was all about the Klingons and Federation fighting over the rights to stake a claim to Deneb IV, "The Naked Now" seen the crew under threat from an impending Klingon attack and needing to salvage (or destroy) the USS Tchaikovsky's data logs in order to protect Federation secrets, and so on. Small but significant changes along the way.

If I recall correctly, I had Data being discovered as normal, but the events of "Measure Of A Man" didn't pan out in his favor and Starfleet got the patent to replicate him. So the Data of the altered timeline is literally an object of little value, and multiple Soong androids are used as virtual cannon fodder in the war with the Klingons.

I seem to remember mixing it up a bit RE: "Skin Of Evil". An alternate Deanna was on the Enterprise right up to this episode, but Armus kills her instead of Tasha, thus explaining the lack of her presence in the altered timeline in "Yesterday's Enterprise".

 

[DonIago]

That's pretty cool.

 

[Dukhat]

I remember reading in Phil Farrand's old Nitpicker's Guide how he felt that it would be inconceivable that Riker, Geordi and Data would still be serving with Picard during wartime. I agree with him, but obviously within the confines of the episode's production, that wasn't going to happen.

And I also agree with Christopher that the Enterprise-D of this timeline should have looked radically different. But since they were barely able to even get the budget to built the Ent-C model, there was no way they'd built an alternate Ent-D. But that would have been quite cool

 

[Christopher]

^Hence my suggestion to just use the battle hull of the existing miniature. (Had they started using the non-separating 4-footer by that point? I think so, but I'm fuzzy on the timing. Still, they did haul out the separable 6-footer for "The Best of Both Worlds.")

 

[Anwar]

It would've been kind of cool to have Worf be one of the Klingon Commanders attacking the Enterprise at the end.

 

[Christopher]

It would've been kind of cool to have Worf be one of the Klingon Commanders attacking the Enterprise at the end.

Maybe, yeah. Although it would also have been a hell of a coincidence. I have enough of a problem with Worf just happening to be the Klingon Regent in the Mirror Universe.

 

[Timo]

Well, every instance of Mirror Universe hinges on a cosmic coincidence - and a different one for each instance! But there's nothing wrong as such with a cosmic anomaly that hinges on a cosmic coincidence...

The "middle timeline" in this episode is not a unique one by any means. It's just one out of the infinite number that would have resulted in the E-C being sent back in time and giving birth to the regular TNG timeline. It's also a "lower rank" timeline, one that was predestined to only last for a few decades and culminate in its own nullification. Having it feature dramatically interesting characters is just a nice choice by the camera crew, which could have provided us with the view of just about any such timeline, including ones where completely unknown characters send the E-C back, and ones where the E-C is not sent back and everybody dies.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The main thing that bugged me about "Yesterday's Enterprise" was that the Galaxy class was in use at all.

We have no idea what the full internal structure of the alternate Galaxy was like. Tasha said it was capable of transporting over 6,000 troops. For all we know, the whole ship was completely different on the inside than the version we know. The quarters could all be spartan barracks, with the rest of it turned into weapons testing labs, training grounds, phaser control rooms, etc.

 

[R. Star]

It would've been kind of cool to have Worf be one of the Klingon Commanders attacking the Enterprise at the end.

I always thought that was a missed opportunity.

 

[Christopher]

On second thought, having Worf be one of the attackers in YE would've worked better than having him be the Regent in the DS9 Mirror episodes. There it just felt like a gratuitous way to have everything revolve around the series regulars. But here it would've felt more tragic -- the change in history had turned allies into enemies, with Worf trying to kill people who were his friends in the "right" universe. It would've intensified the stakes, made them more personal and tangible to the viewer.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

change in history had turned allies into enemies, with Worf trying to kill people who were his friends in the "right" universe.

Isn't that basically what Regent Worf was doing in the DS9 episodes? Garak may not have been Worf's friend in the RU, but a lot of those other people are.

Me, I'm wondering what Troi would have been like in the alternate timeline. Perhaps Starfleet would have employed Betazoids to use their telepathy on the offensive, as it were?