*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

*Note: This is the second of a three part series, explaining my theory of how many of Star Trek’s continuity mistakes might be explained by time travel. If you haven’t already, please read Part I before continuing. And please keep in mind that this is an exercise in fun speculation; I don’t really believe any Star Trek writers had these ideas in mind while creating the series.

In Part I, I gave an overview of the second and third timelines, and went into detail about what the second timeline looks like and the changes between it and the first. In this section, I’ll explore the third timeline, especially in relation to continuity problems in Star Trek: Enterprise.

From the beginning of “Broken Bow” (Enterprise’s pilot) it’s obvious that dramatic changes have happened to this timeline. Originally, it was assumed that the show would simply tell the story of Starfleet’s early missions before the creation of the Federation. However, the Temporal Cold War alters how Starfleet operates and when certain things happen. This isn’t just part of my theory– we’re told this on screen in the series. Many references are made to things that weren’t supposed to happen yet by Enterprise’s time (beginning in the year 2151). The Suliban weren’t supposed to be any kind of intergalactic force, but they’re given advancements by a being from the future. Starfleet’s first contact with the Klingons happens in the first episode, a hundred years before it happened in the original canon (“Errand of Mercy” in TOS) only because both species are effected by the Suliban. And dialog between Archer, Admiral Forrest, and Ambassador Soval in the pilot seem to suggest that the NX-01 Enterprise wouldn’t have even been launched so early if not for the Suliban.

So at least Rick Berman and Brannon Brega don’t have these things happen without explaining themselves. However, without an alternate timeline, there’s no way to reconcile these Enterprise episodes with episodes of other series that, chronologically, come after them.

As mentioned in Part I, “Regeneration” (in which Earth scientists find Borg drones frozen in ice) seems to be a direct result of the events from First Contact and a catalyst for most of the other changes in the second timeline. However, we submit that even this episode probably happened differently in the third timeline. In the second timeline, the NX-01 may not have even launched yet (since there were no Suliban around) and so the Borg drones may have been dealt with by someone else, maybe even the Vulcans or Andorians. Archer may not have been involved whatsoever, and there may not have been a Denobulan around to get assimilated, which would explain why a cure was never worked on and used in later encounters with the Borg.

But the largest continuity issue my theory helps solve is the importance of the NX-01. Archer and his crew stop the Xindi from destroying Earth, they put an end to the Temporal Cold War, and Archer is one of the key forces in putting together the Federation charter. It seems strange that neither Archer nor his ship are ever referred to by a character in chronologically later episodes. In fact, Kirk and his crew come up in various conversations and his importance seems to pale in comparison with some of Archer’s accomplishments. The Constitution class Enterprise seems to be considered the first ship with that name, until Star Trek: Enterprise. perhaps there wasn’t an NX-01 in the first and second timelines, or at least it may not have been important enough to ever be referenced. Perhaps it was even destroyed on its first mission.

If this were the case, whether or not Archer even existed would be somewhat irrelevant, because he certainly wouldn’t have been as influential as he is according to Enterprise. Even the design of the NX-01, often criticized by fans for looking too close to a 24th century Akira-class vessel, may be a result of timeline changes due to the Temporal Cold War.

The Temporal Cold War could have a number of repercussions that are impossible to even quantify. It could explain why some of Enterprise’s most crucial races are never seen in later canon during the other two timelines. In the case of the Denobulans and the Xindi, it could be that these races didn’t even exist until they were created by drastic changes in the timeline, or perhaps, like in the case of the Suliban, they simply weren’t known of and weren’t interested in being known of.

And then, of course, there’s all those pesky inconsistencies with the Vulcans. It’s really hard for me to believe that a species that has a taboo against mind melding completely embraces it a hundred years later and also lies to other peoples, saying that it’s been part of their customs for thousands of years. The Vulcans in the original series don’t seem to place women in high positions on starships (regardless of T’Pau being the leader of the entire PLANET), yet T’Pol is a high ranking officer on the NX-01. The Vulcan government in Enterprise is one of the most corrupt we’ve seen in Star Trek, seeming to just use logic as a smoke screen for oppressing melders and committing other underhanded practices. So could the Vulcan race race itself have been manipulated or changed by factions of the Temporal Cold War?

I speculate that if any time travel did occur in the twenty-second century of the other two timelines, they would have been isolated incidents and few people would have known about them. In the third timeline, the crew of the NX-01 and all of Starfleet remember the Temporal Cold War, somehow, even though Archer managed to to end it at its original source. Yet Kirk and his crew, when they experience time travel for the first time, react as though it’s never happened to anyone before. I believe that later in the third timeline, Kirk’s crew would consider Archer’s missions to be legendary, would be quite familiar with time travel, and Kirk would have a hard time living up to the reputation of Jonathan Archer.

In the final season when Manny Coto took over as show runner, he did his best to make the series work with the rest of Trek canon, forgetting this whole time travel thing and trying to get back to the heart of Star Trek. He explained the evolution of the Klingon forehead, set the Vulcans up to embrace mind-melding and he introduced T’Pau, the future leader of Vulcan. He even explained the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars and introduced Section 31. But if the Temporal Cold War changed so much, how can my theory explain these obvious attempts at fixing continuity issues? Well, since the war ends by the fourth season, I think the universe then attempts to balance itself out. Call it fate or some sort of universal constant, but maybe certain things are supposed to play out in the Trek timeline regardless of what smaller things change, and since neither the Borg nor the Temporal Cold War factions succeed in completely altering history to their liking, the universe does its best to happen the way it was meant to.

Okay, that was a stretch. I’m doing the best I can, here.

Even if this were the case, there are obvious differences, because the process of the universe balancing itself out would take a lot of time. The Denobulans, the Suliban, and the Xindi would now have to fit into a universe where they either weren’t important or didn’t exist before. The Vulcans would have to evolve more into the race as they are depicted in the original series, but that process would take longer than a hundred years. And the knowledge of Captain ARcher, the NX-01, the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi Conflict, as I mentioned before, would live on and be legendary. All of this would have a great impact on what the universe would look like later.

Next week, in my final blog in this series, I’ll explain my ideas on how the 24th century might look in the third timeline. Again, feel free to point out any holes in my theory or offer ideas of your own. I really appreciate the feedback I’ve already been given.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

Con’t to Part 3.