*Note: This is the final blog of a three part series, explaining my theory of how time travel may be responsible for many of Star Trek’s continuity mistakes. If you haven’t already, please read the first two parts before continuing. Part 1 or Part 2 Also keep in mind that I don’t really think any writers had these ideas in mind when the series was produced– this is only an exercise in fun speculation.

Now you’ve read my somewhat philosophical hypothesis that the Star Trek universe in the third timeline tries to balance itself out in order to look more or less the same as previous timelines, despite new changes due to time travel tampering. The question then is, just how drastically would the future look, post-Enterprise? In other words, how would this affect the episodes of TNG, DS9 or Voyager you’ve no doubt watched recently if you’re still reading this blog series? I speculate, as I mentioned last week, that things would work out fairly similarly but there would be differences spotted by the keen eye of a fan advanced in his or her knowledge of Star Trek.

Here are the few clues I believe Trek canon gives us for what the Temporal Cold War and the third timeline ultimately change about later continuity.

In Enterprise’s final episode “These Are the Voyages,” Riker uses a historical holodeck program of Archer’s crew on the NX-01 to help him make the very difficult decision to tell Starfleet his secret about Admiral Pressman and the phasing cloak technology, as seen in “The Pegasus” from TNG’s final season. The footage of Riker and Troi on the Enterprise D in this episode are presented as scenes that actually occur in TNG canon but that we weren’t privy to when given “The Pegasus.” If Enterprise hadn’t created an alternate timeline, this footage would certainly help to establish that people in the 24th century did indeed know of Archer and that he came up in conversation as frequently as Zefram Cochrane. However, this being the only time we see anyone mention Archer out of hundreds of episodes in that century, I highly doubt this is the case. Instead, I submit that “These Are the Voyages” actually takes place in the third timeline, as altered by the events in Enterprise. The idea is that “The Pegasus” happens exactly the way it does in the previous timeline, except Riker comes to his decision with the help of holograms on the NX-01.

By the same token, I think it’s likely that Star Trek: Nemesis is also part of the third timeline, for a number of reasons. First of all, when we see scenes of Romulans in a three-part arc in Enterprise’s fourth season, there are some Remans standing in the background. This is certainly a great way for the writers to keep with the continuity of previously-produced Star Trek. However, Remans are only ever seen in those episodes and in Nemesis. This isn’t necessarily a continuity problem, but I find it interesting that Remans would only be shown on-screen one time sequentially after Enterprise, and two hundred years later. It’s mentioned in Nemesis that Remans were used as shock troops during the Dominion War, yet we never saw one in DS9. It’s possible Remans were extinct, didn’t exist, or were for whatever reason not known about in previous timelines, but that the Temporal Cold War changed something to make them more prominent in the third timeline.

Secondly, a Soong-type android, B-4, is found by the crew of the Enterprise in Nemesis. It’s odd that no one, not even Data or Picard, mentions Lore. They don’t even consider the possibility that B-4 could somehow be Lore, even though he was supposedly destroyed in “Descent.” If you think that would be a stretch, stranger things have happened in Star Trek. Heck, he could have been a Mirror Universe version of Data, for all Picard knew. Again, not a continuity problem really, but it raised my eyebrow. Maybe the events with Arik Soong in Enterpirse’s final season happened differently in previous timelines, so the way Noonien Soong built his androids, and even the order in which he built them, is altered in the third timeline.

This should be obvious to all who know their TNG, but Picard was NOT bald at the academy. We see a flashback of him with hair in “Tapestry.” There is a picture of him in Nemesis, played by Tom Hardy (Shinzon) at about the same age, and he’s bald. Was this a part of his rebellion during his academy days, but only in the third timeline? Did the (nervous cough) Temporal Cold War alter history such that Picard decided to shave his head??

Finally, DS9 must have ended somewhat differently in the third timeline. It seems clear in Nemesis that Worf is once again the Enterprise’s security chief. It’s like he never left! But this is inconsistent with “What You Leave Behind,” DS9’s final episode, where Worf takes the position of Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire. Somehow I don’t think his honor would have been satisfied to give this post up so quickly. Perhaps, for whatever reason, he wasn’t offered that position in the third timeline. I suppose it’s possible he wasn’t even on DS9 in that timeline, but there’s really no other evidence to support that idea and I think that would have been a more significant change than the fate of the universe would have allowed.

To conclude this series, I’d like to address future versions of Starfleet that have attempted to preserve the timeline through time travel. Both the 29th century’s Timefleet (as seen in Voyager) and Enterprise’s 31st century equivalent have existed to keep Janeway, factions of the Temporal Cold War, and others from altering the timeline. So are those organizations completely incompetent? How could a second or third timeline even happen if they weren’t just horrible at their jobs?

The 29th century time-ship, Relativity.

The most plausible explanation is that both organizations come into being differently in the second timeline than in the third. Remember that since the first timeline starts over in 2373 during First Contact, they wouldn’t have even come to be in the first timeline. Thus, both the 29th and 31st century versions of Starfleet are trying to preserve their own respective timelines. They may be able to monitor the timeline for small changes, but if the whole timeline is altered to the point where they’re altered along with it, they wouldn’t even realize anything needed to be changed.

This would explain why Crewman Daniels is trying to preserve things in Enterprise (like Archer being part of the Federation Charter and the war between the Federation and the Sphere Builders in the 26th century) that don’t seem to mesh with later canon. I think Crewman Daniels is trying to preserve not the second timeline as we knew it before Enterprise, but some variation of the third. When Archer and Daniels prevent a Temporal Cold War faction from helping the Nazis to win WWII, they stop yet another timeline from taking over. So the one they do preserve is probably very close to the one Daniels was familiar with.

And I may be way off base here with accepted time travel theories, but the fact that the 31st century Starfleet is trying preserve a different timeline than the 29th version may explain why they never run into each other on missions (unless they do and we just don’t know about it). I can’t help but think, however, that this would lead both factions to create more problems than they solve. In fact, Daniels often seems to make mistakes and it’s possible that he and his people are more than a little responsible for the Temporal Cold War itself.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series, and as always, I encourage new arguments and new ideas. This is a project I’ve spent a long time on and I’m happy to finally share it with fellow Trek fans. Pass it on to any other die-hard Trekkies and Trekkers you might know!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan