Time travel is a legitimate tactic.

[Admiral Mercury]

Guardian of Forever: Seen in "City on the Edge of Forever". Not large enough for a starship, with a lower range limit of at least a few millenia. It cycles through a list of "permissible" destinations, generated through some unknown algorithm. Doctor McCoy inadvertently used it to go back to the 20th century.

This description of the Guardian is extremely misleading. Namely, this is only the information that can be gleaned from City on the Edge of Forever, which is not the only canon work in which the guardian appeared. The TAS episode Yesteryear is considered canon and from it we get a lot more details about the guardian. It does not merely cycle through a selection of dates, it can be told specific times and locations. Also we learn that the Federation didn't just "forget" about it, but had an active program of using it for research. Also in this episode, Kirk mentions that he went back "to the dawn of Orion civilization". Human civilization goes back at least to 10,000 BC. If the Orions are anything like humans (which a lot of Trek races are) then that would give the Guardian of Forever an upper limit of 12,200 years. And sure, the Guardian isn't big enough for a starship, but it is the perfect size for a Photon Torpedo!

We know that the Federation is fine with using time travel when it will save the Federation, like in ST4.

Next up: the whole "many worlds" interpretation of the ST universe is a case of reaching in the extreme. It's going too far to say that the existence of multiple universes in Star Trek means that time travel is somehow governed by the many worlds theory. Time travel is well understood by the Federation in Star Trek. Officers both know how to and can do it (ST4), so it's likely that the nature of time travel would be known. If it was a many worlds situation, why do none of the characters ever act like it is? Why is there no solemn and dramatic "I'm not really back home" moment for characters when they arrive back to their starting universe? In a show as melodramatic as Star Trek something like that would happen. Would Kira want to go back in time to find out the truth about her mother if she knew she was just going back in time to meet someone who was a very good approximation of her mother? No. Would there have been so much hand wringing in Children of Time if the crew thought they couldn't go back home anyway? No. The characters don't act as if they have the knowledge they surely must have.

The final nail in the many-worlds coffin: You might say something like "The Federation may have some knowledge of how time travel works, but they don't really know how it works" at which point I say "Mwahaha you've activated my trap card!". The actions of the crew of the USS Relativity do not jive with the many-worlds theory and you can't say they don't understand time travel. Strange that Mr. Wong left out the episode Relativity from his time travel discussion. Could it be because it shits on his theories? Probably.

At this point the only recourse for a star wars fan is to say that "time travel is a last best hope" or "it's an admission of failure" blah blah. Nope. Time travel is as legitimate a weapon for the Federation as the Star Destroyer is for the Empire. There's a Q quote about dealing with more than just the mundane and learning the real secrets of the universe. I can't be arsed to look it up, but it really applies here. For all the industry and raw power of the Empire, they don't have even the slightest understanding of one of the most fundamental aspects of the universe.

Federation: Nailed it.

[Srelex]

1. When the Federation does resort to time travel, they always make sure to preserve the timeline. Kirk, Sisko, Archer...whenever they went back, they never immediately went to the UN, declared themselves visitors from the future, and set up Earth to defend itself against the Xindi, Borg, Romulans, etc...

2. The Feddies never employed it against the Borg or the Dominion, even when millions of lives were at stake. Well, you could point to FC in regards to the Borg, but even then they did their best to preserve events. If the Feds really considered time travel as a practical course against such major threats like that, you'd think that even some Section 31 maverick would try it.

3. The 2009 movie seems to suggest that parallel timelines created by time travel are, in fact, occurrences in the Trekverse. Naturally, there are probably examples to the contrary, but then we simply have to agree that the precise mechanics of timeline alteration in Trek are contradictory.

[chitoryu12]

For all the industry and raw power of the Empire, they don't have even the slightest understanding of one of the most fundamental aspects of the universe.

....one of the most fundamental aspects of the universe is time travel?

Answer me this: if time travel was an immediate answer to all of their problems and a legitimate tactic that could be easily implemented, why did nobody just jump back in time whenever something went wrong and fix it all? Why did they not pop over to the Guardian of Forever and have it send all of their photon torpedoes back in time so they're sitting in the enemy leader's bedroom?

If time travel could solve all of their problems, they could perform it flawlessly, the many worlds theory was false, and they were willing to use it, why didn't they use it more often?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Guardian of Forever: Seen in "City on the Edge of Forever". Not large enough for a starship, with a lower range limit of at least a few millenia. It cycles through a list of "permissible" destinations, generated through some unknown algorithm. Doctor McCoy inadvertently used it to go back to the 20th century.

This description of the Guardian is extremely misleading. Namely, this is only the information that can be gleaned from City on the Edge of Forever, which is not the only canon work in which the guardian appeared. The TAS episode Yesteryear is considered canon <snip>

False- TAS is not considered canon- Roddenberry himself said that if he had known there would be more live-action Star Trek in the future, the animated series would have been far more logical and "canonable," or he might not have produced the animated series at all. Further, according to Voyages of Imagination, the Animated Series was officially removed from canon at Gene Roddenberry's request in 1988.

I can't be arsed to look it up

You're going to really fit in here then

[Admiral Mercury]

False- TAS is not considered canon- Roddenberry himself said that if he had known there would be more live-action Star Trek in the future, the animated series would have been far more logical and "canonable," or he might not have produced the animated series at all. Further, according to Voyages of Imagination, the Animated Series was officially removed from canon at Gene Roddenberry's request in 1988.

From Memory Alpha:

Although Michael and Denise Okuda originally decided that the animated series would not be canonical, they also stipulated that this episode is the only exception, stating their reasoning as "partly because it is reinforced by material in 'Unification, Part I' [sic] and 'Journey to Babel', but also because of Fontana's pivotal role in developing the background for the Spock character in the original Star Trek series." (Star Trek Chronology, 1st ed., p. 30) It is not only the Okudas who accept the events of this episode to be canonical; many other production staffers also do. (Star Trek Monthly issue 6, p. 22, et al.) Even Gene Roddenberry reportedly regarded the episode as canon. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 37)

3. The 2009 movie seems to suggest that parallel timelines created by time travel are, in fact, occurrences in the Trekverse. Naturally, there are probably examples to the contrary, but then we simply have to agree that the precise mechanics of timeline alteration in Trek are contradictory.

The 2009 movie is more an example of traveling both in time and universes and not just creating a new timeline from the point of entry. The USS Kelvin was more technologically advanced than the TOS Constitution-class, therefore that universe was already much different than the one seen in the shows. The 2009 universe had to be the result of the Narada entering a completely different universe, rather than the Narada going back and creating a parallel timeline.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Next up: the whole "many worlds" interpretation of the ST universe is a case of reaching in the extreme. It's going too far to say that the existence of multiple universes in Star Trek means that time travel is somehow governed by the many worlds theory. Time travel is well understood by the Federation in Star Trek. Officers both know how to and can do it (ST4), so it's likely that the nature of time travel would be known. If it was a many worlds situation, why do none of the characters ever act like it is? Why is there no solemn and dramatic "I'm not really back home" moment for characters when they arrive back to their starting universe? In a show as melodramatic as Star Trek something like that would happen. Would Kira want to go back in time to find out the truth about her mother if she knew she was just going back in time to meet someone who was a very good approximation of her mother? No. Would there have been so much hand wringing in Children of Time if the crew thought they couldn't go back home anyway? No. The characters don't act as if they have the knowledge they surely must have.

The final nail in the many-worlds coffin: You might say something like "The Federation may have some knowledge of how time travel works, but they don't really know how it works" at which point I say "Mwahaha you've activated my trap card!".

If you dispute the many-worlds interpretation, then care to explain the following:

"City on the Edge of Forever": When Doctor McCoy jumped through the time portal, the other crewmembers on the planet's surface perceived the sudden disappearance of the entire Federation. Supposedly, he changed the past so that the Federation was never created. But that is impossible because the other crewmen still existed. They still had memories of the Federation. They still had Federation uniforms and Federation weapons. The "many worlds" theory neatly explains this problem: McCoy and all of the people on the planet's surface were all transported into a timeline (or parallel universe, whichever you prefer) in which the Federation never existed. The original timeline is not destroyed, thus explaining why they still remember its history, but they can no longer perceive it or return to it. When Kirk and Spock jumped back to "fix the damage", they caused everyone to jump into another timeline, in which the Federation was founded again, but with slightly different events surrounding Edith Keeler's death. This is not the same as "going home", but as far as they're concerned, it's good enough.

"Star Trek First Contact": When the Borg jumped into the past, the crew of the Enterprise perceived the disappearance of the Federation's entire history. This is impossible because they still exist, and they still retain all of their memories, equipment, history files, etc. Data suggests that they were somehow "shielded from the changes in the timeline", but he doesn't even attempt an explanation of how this is possible. The "many worlds" theory provided a neater explanation: they were dragged into a new timeline by the Borg sphere's "temporal wake", and when they stayed in the wake long enough to perform a similar jump, they ended up in yet another timeline. In this new timeline, they tried to "fix" events so that they unfolded more or less as they remembered (albeit with an orbital bombardment of Cochrane's launch facility which didn't occur in their original history). Note that the "many worlds" theory also explains the biggest conundrum of STFC: why the Borg fought their way to Earth before performing the time-jump, instead of making the jump from the safety of their own territory. The answer is that a time-jump would move the travellers to a divergent timeline but it would have no effect on the original timeline. Therefore, it would do the Collective no good. You might ask why they performed the jump at all if this is the case, but the Queen's attack had failed and she was facing imminent destruction. A jump into a divergent timeline would not change history in her original timeline, but she may have found the prospect preferable to simply being destroyed by one of Picard's quantum torpedoes.

"Yesterday's Enterprise": History seems to change when the Enterprise-C appears two decades away from where it was supposed to be destroyed in battle. But the original timeline is not gone, and in the new timeline, Guinan can actually perceive that the Enterprise-C belongs to a timeline other than her own (she can even perceive some of the history of that timeline). This perception manifests itself as a disquieting sensation that something is "wrong", but that's an oversimplification. After all, how can a timeline be "wrong?" With countless timelines in existence as seen in "Parallels", why would one be more "right" or "wrong" than another? A better explanation is that Guinan perceived enough of the Enterprise-C's original timeline to know that she thought it was better than the one she was currently in. We jumped to a divergent timeline when the Enterprise-C arrived and we jumped to another divergent timeline when it departed.

Although the "many worlds" theory may have been discredited in real life, it seems to be the only way to explain Star Trek time travel as we've seen it on the show. It explains causality paradoxes in "City on the Edge of Forever" and STFC, and it also explains why time travel is not being used to solve problems, because it means that time travel doesn't really change anything. It only moves the traveller into an alternate universe where events unfold more to his liking. An interesting consequence of this explanation is that we've really been following a group of characters as they move from timeline to timeline, so we haven't stayed in a single universe throughout the series run of Star Trek.

The actions of the crew of the USS Relativity do not jive with the many-worlds theory and you can't say they don't understand time travel. Strange that Mr. Wong left out the episode Relativity from his time travel discussion. Could it be because it shits on his theories? Probably

Did you even read this part-

Voyager episodes in which the writers' abuse of time travel finally reached the "ludicrous" stage, making TNG seem downright reasonable by comparison.

All that shows is that as far as time travel goes, ST is more self-contradictory than anything else.

[Srelex]

The 2009 movie is more an example of traveling both in time and universes and not just creating a new timeline from the point of entry. The USS Kelvin was more technologically advanced than the TOS Constitution-class, therefore that universe was already much different than the one seen in the shows. The 2009 universe had to be the result of the Narada entering a completely different universe, rather than the Narada going back and creating a parallel timeline.

Other than a difference in size, there's nothing to suggest how more advanced or primitive the Kelvin was compared to the Constitution-class. That they had fancier monitor displays means nothing when the NX had similar stuff eighty years prior.

[Darth Tedious]

Just for the sake of argument, let's go with this theory that time travel is totally SOP for the Federation.
How would that in any way guarantee an insta-win against the Wars-verse?
If the UFP was (by act of Q) force-substituted into the GFFA, there is no promise of assured victory.

What actual strategy would the UFP be using to 'nail it'?

Rather than making silly claims like "Time travel = UFP pwns", explain how they would actually use time travel to their advantage in a versus scenario.
People may take you more seriously if you talk strategy instead of simply saying "Gotcha!"


PS ??? What is the demonstrated upper limit of UFP time travel? I've not seen them go more than a few hundred years back.

[Admiral Mercury]

"City on the Edge of Forever"

The analysis of what happens in City doesn't take into account all canon sources involving the Guardian. In Yesteryear (which is canon) the only people not effected by the changing of the timeline where Kirk and Spock, the other people on the planet were effected. This vastly different outcome is likely a result of the Guardian itself. It, being a super powerful time manipulation machine/being, likely has some effect on the local timespace continuum.

"Star Trek First Contact"

The answer to why the crew of the Enterprise wasn't effected by the Borg going back in time is obviously because it was in the Borg Sphere's temporal wake. It's likely that had they left that they would have been effect as they returned to the normal timeline. As for the "why don't the Borg just go back in time and assimilate everyone in the past" question, the answer is inherent in the nature of the Borg.

What the Borg value above all else is technology. They largely assimilate planets and cultures that are highly developed. Species that aren't technologically advanced don't interest the Borg. The Kazon, for example, were not viewed as being fit for assimilation. The Borg going back in time to assimilate the federation/klingons/whatever, would only serve to get the Borg more drones. Sure, the Borg want more drones, but they can evidently produce them without a need for assimilation (Borg infants in Q Who). It wouldn't serve to further the Borg's goal of gaining technology.

Why did the Borg Queen then decide to go back in time? Maybe to save herself, though this is unlikely. Probably because she also wanted Locutus back, which was a goal of hers up until she thought she had data.

"Yesterday's Enterprise"

This reading is only valid if Guinan was human and experienced time like humans. She's an alien, evidently one with abilities humans don't have. It's perfectly within her ability to be able to say that something is wrong with the way things are based on some alien sense of intuition, rather than believing that one timeline is better than another.

Did you even read this part-

I did, and it's just a blanket statement asserted as fact without any corroborating evidence. He doesn't explain why Voyager time travel is so ludicrous but TNG/TOS/Movies/etc. isn't. And it's an odd coincidence that Voyager time travel completely refutes the many worlds theory. In the episode Relativity, the crew of the USS Relativity chase a criminal through time. In a many worlds universe, you would never chase someone through time as you could never hope to catch them. The people on the Relativity have a greater understanding of time travel, they would have to know whether the universe was many worlds or not.

Other than a difference in size, there's nothing to suggest how more advanced or primitive the Kelvin was compared to the Constitution-class. That they had fancier monitor displays means nothing when the NX had similar stuff eighty years prior.

There are other reasons to suspect that it's a completely different universe.

1. The star dates are a completely different format than what we've seen in every other show.
2. It's unlikely that the Kelvin would have been able to complete whatever its mission in space was, and then return to earth in time for Kirk's mom to give birth to him in Iowa.

What actual strategy would the UFP be using to 'nail it'?

I think it would be something like this:
"Guardian of Forever! Invading fleet's largest ship, main reactor, the moment it entered the galaxy"
slide a photon torpedo in there and bam! The empire is out a Death Star/Super Star Destroyer. Continue from there with a cache of Photon torpedoes, targeting the larger ships, and that's pretty much all you'd have to do. From your perspective at the Guardian the process would take several hours or even days, but from the perspective of the Empire a large proportion of their most powerful ships would all explode simultaneously upon entering the galaxy. And that's not including any smaller ships caught in the blasts. Suddenly the Imperial fleet is down it's most powerful ships, lost 100,000s of men, including many admirals and other high ranking officers. They would have to be insane to continue on with their invasion after that.

[Srelex]

I think it would be something like this:
"Guardian of Forever! Invading fleet's largest ship, main reactor, the moment it entered the galaxy"
slide a photon torpedo in there and bam! The empire is out a Death Star/Super Star Destroyer. Continue from there with a cache of Photon torpedoes, targeting the larger ships, and that's pretty much all you'd have to do. From your perspective at the Guardian the process would take several hours or even days, but from the perspective of the Empire a large proportion of their most powerful ships would all explode simultaneously upon entering the galaxy. And that's not including any smaller ships caught in the blasts. Suddenly the Imperial fleet is down it's most powerful ships, lost 100,000s of men, including many admirals and other high ranking officers. They would have to be insane to continue on with their invasion after that.

So why didn't they do that to the Borg cubes that barged into Federation space, instead of bleeding ships at Wolf 359? Or do that to the various Dominion fleets that entered the AQ?

[Darth Tedious]

I have 3 questions about this idea:

1) Why does it even require time travel?

What you're actually suggesting here is "Beam PTs into their reactors"
This shouldn't require time travel.

Past-tense Trek don't know about the invasion (it hasn't happened yet)
Present-tense Trek don't need time travel to attempt your idea (the invasion is now, you don't require time travel to get to now.)
Future-tense Trek don't need to go back to win the conflict, unless they already lost (which would bring us back to time travel = tacit admission of defeat)


Anyhow, on this idea of beaming PTs into enemy ships:

2) Has this ever been attempted in Trek, ever?

I certainly don't recall ever seeing this tactic used by any faction, ever, against any other faction. Surely if this was a viable tactic, it would get used from time to time?
But we never see ships getting insta-fucked by internal explosions the moment their shields go down.
The only instance I can think of where PTs were set off inside a ship were the funky transphasic ones from "Endgame". And they weren't beamed there.

This question also applies to the general use of time-travel as a strategy in war, as Srelex already pointed out.

And finally:
3) How much damage, exactly, is a PT meant to do inside a hypermatter reactor?
Photorps use simple matter/antimatter annihilation to do their stuff.
The inside of a hypermatter reactor is built to withstand hypermatter annihilation, which is far more energetic than M/AM (remember, hypermatter pisses all over E=mc^2).
If the PT is beamed before detonation, it will very likely be destroyed upon materialisation by the HM reactions happening around it.
If the PT is beamed during detonation, it will perhaps marginally reduce the HM reactor's output for a fraction of a second (by virtue of M/AM being a weaker reaction than M/HM), if it has any effect at all.

[Srelex]

Oh and--

There are other reasons to suspect that it's a completely different universe.

1. The star dates are a completely different format than what we've seen in every other show.
2. It's unlikely that the Kelvin would have been able to complete whatever its mission in space was, and then return to earth in time for Kirk's mom to give birth to him in Iowa.

1. Stardates given as conventional dating was actually done in Enterprise. Presumably the butterflies from the Kelvin incident kept it this way.
2. We don't know when Kelvin was diverted or how long it took to get to the black hole.

[Admiral Mercury]

I have 3 questions about this idea:

1) Why does it even require time travel?

What you're actually suggesting here is "Beam PTs into their reactors"
This shouldn't require time travel.

Past-tense Trek don't know about the invasion (it hasn't happened yet)
Present-tense Trek don't need time travel to attempt your idea (the invasion is now, you don't require time travel to get to now.)
Future-tense Trek don't need to go back to win the conflict, unless they already lost (which would bring us back to time travel = tacit admission of defeat)

Your views of past present and future are rather simplistic. Saying the invasion is now is meaningless. Things in the present do not all happen simultaneously. The operation at the Guardian could commence an hour into the invasion and send the torpedoes back to the millisecond the invasion began. This goes to show just how silly your devotion to the Imperial victory is, that you apparently think the Empire can win within a matter of Plank Time.

Anyhow, on this idea of beaming PTs into enemy ships:

It's not "beaming PTs onto enemy ships" though it bares some resemblance to it. It's a nuanced difference. For instance with the Guardian you don't have to worry about things like shields, armor, or even being withing close proximity with your enemy.

2) Has this ever been attempted in Trek, ever?

Yes. Beaming a PT onto an enemy ship to destroy has been observed in Trek. It's done to a Borg probe ship at the beginning of Dark Frontier.

But that aside, it doesn't matter that something hasn't been shown to happen for it to be possible. This goes for both sides in the debate. No one argues that since the Empire has never been shown to invade another galaxy that the Empire is somehow less capable of doing so. What matters is that the factions have the means and the opportunity to take an action for it to be possible. The Federation has the means and opportunity to use the Guardian offensively, and since they are okay with using time travel to save the federation, they would have no problem using it.

3) How much damage, exactly, is a PT meant to do inside a hypermatter reactor?
Photorps use simple matter/antimatter annihilation to do their stuff.
The inside of a hypermatter reactor is built to withstand hypermatter annihilation, which is far more energetic than M/AM (remember, hypermatter pisses all over E=mc^2).
If the PT is beamed before detonation, it will very likely be destroyed upon materialisation by the HM reactions happening around it.
If the PT is beamed during detonation, it will perhaps marginally reduce the HM reactor's output for a fraction of a second (by virtue of M/AM being a weaker reaction than M/HM), if it has any effect at all.

I should have been more specific. What I meant was something more along the lines of "pretty much anything with proximity to the reactor, or having to do with the running of the reactor". The reactors in Star Wars are prone to massive, catastrophic chain reactions at the slightest disturbance (Star Wars Episodes 1, 4, and 6). So yeah. A Photon/Quantum Torpedo detonating withing close enough proximity to the reactor (not the reaction itself) would likely cause a massive chain reaction like the ones seen in Episodes 1, 4, and 6.

Or do that to the various Dominion fleets that entered the AQ?

There was so much politicking involved with the Dominion War and Section 31. It's likely that Section 31 preferred their solution of "kill all the founders" to any time travel scheme. The Dominion War wasn't really all that bad as long as the Dominion's reinforcements could be kept on the other side of the Galaxy. and since they were kept on the other side of the galaxy for the entirety of the war, there was likely no reason to go with the more drastic time travel plan.

I would also like to point out that I'm being sporting with this analysis. Just as easily a simple away team could fire their phasers into the Guardian and have it cycle through the invading ships bridges, killing every captain, admiral and high ranking officer in the fleet. Just sayin'

[EnterpriseSovereign]

"City on the Edge of Forever"

The analysis of what happens in City doesn't take into account all canon sources involving the Guardian. In Yesteryear (which is canon) the only people not effected by the changing of the timeline where Kirk and Spock, the other people on the planet were effected. This vastly different outcome is likely a result of the Guardian itself. It, being a super powerful time manipulation machine/being, likely has some effect on the local timespace continuum.

Deus Ex Machina, anyone?

"Star Trek First Contact"

The answer to why the crew of the Enterprise wasn't effected by the Borg going back in time is obviously because it was in the Borg Sphere's temporal wake. It's likely that had they left that they would have been effect as they returned to the normal timeline.

A rewording of the original explanation, but not bothering to address the many-worlds aspect.

As for the "why don't the Borg just go back in time and assimilate everyone in the past" question, the answer is inherent in the nature of the Borg.
What the Borg value above all else is technology. They largely assimilate planets and cultures that are highly developed. Species that aren't technologically advanced don't interest the Borg. The Kazon, for example, were not viewed as being fit for assimilation. The Borg going back in time to assimilate the federation/klingons/whatever, would only serve to get the Borg more drones. Sure, the Borg want more drones, but they can evidently produce them without a need for assimilation (Borg infants in Q Who). It wouldn't serve to further the Borg's goal of gaining technology.

No-one's asking that, the question is why did the Queen go back in time, and is answered below:

The Queen's attack had failed and she was facing imminent destruction. A jump into a divergent timeline would not change history in her original timeline, but she may have found the prospect preferable to simply being destroyed by one of Picard's quantum torpedoes.

"Yesterday's Enterprise"

This reading is only valid if Guinan was human and experienced time like humans. She's an alien, evidently one with abilities humans don't have. It's perfectly within her ability to be able to say that something is wrong with the way things are based on some alien sense of intuition, rather than believing that one timeline is better than another.

The fact that she's El-Aurian is irrelevant, it does nothing to change the fact that many-worlds still holds up. All told, you have done nothing to disprove the many-worlds explanation.

Did you even read this part-

I did, and it's just a blanket statement asserted as fact without any corroborating evidence. He doesn't explain why Voyager time travel is so ludicrous but TNG/TOS/Movies/etc. isn't. And it's an odd coincidence that Voyager time travel completely refutes the many worlds theory. In the episode Relativity, the crew of the USS Relativity chase a criminal through time. In a many worlds universe, you would never chase someone through time as you could never hope to catch them. The people on the Relativity have a greater understanding of time travel, they would have to know whether the universe was many worlds or not.

"without any corroborating evidence"- What, do episodes suddenly not count as evidence now? Have you even watched the likes of "Future's end"?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

2) Has this ever been attempted in Trek, ever?

Yes. Beaming a PT onto an enemy ship to destroy has been observed in Trek. It's done to a Borg probe ship at the beginning of Dark Frontier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bkw69E_C4g
Which was done after knocking out the shields and transporting from close range. Notice that this hasn't been attempted before or since.

But that aside, it doesn't matter that something hasn't been shown to happen for it to be possible. This goes for both sides in the debate. No one argues that since the Empire has never been shown to invade another galaxy that the Empire is somehow less capable of doing so. What matters is that the factions have the means and the opportunity to take an action for it to be possible. The Federation has the means and opportunity to use the Guardian offensively, and since they are okay with using time travel to save the federation, they would have no problem using it.

This part I love, by that logic then, everything is possible As for the rest, never mind that the Federation has never actually used it in this manner, clearly there must have been some reason they didn't or could not use it this way.

I should have been more specific. What I meant was something more along the lines of "pretty much anything with proximity to the reactor, or having to do with the running of the reactor". The reactors in Star Wars are prone to massive, catastrophic chain reactions at the slightest disturbance (Star Wars Episodes 1, 4, and 6). So yeah. A Photon/Quantum Torpedo detonating withing close enough proximity to the reactor (not the reaction itself) would likely cause a massive chain reaction like the ones seen in Episodes 1, 4, and 6.

If by slightest disturbance you mean firing proton torpedoes into the reactor from inside the hangar, then sure

Or do that to the various Dominion fleets that entered the AQ?

There was so much politicking involved with the Dominion War and Section 31. It's likely that Section 31 preferred their solution of "kill all the founders" to any time travel scheme.

So you're suggesting that they avoided time travel for polictical reasons???

In other words, Section 31 preferred to sit back and let millions die while they let the virus do its work.

The Dominion War wasn't really all that bad as long as the Dominion's reinforcements could be kept on the other side of the Galaxy. and since they were kept on the other side of the galaxy for the entirety of the war, there was likely no reason to go with the more drastic time travel plan.

This just gets better and better, clearly you haven't watched enough DS9 or you would know that the Alpha Quadrant faced defeat even without Dominion reinforcements.

You're claiming the war after Operation Return "wasn't really all that bad"- someone clearly forgot to tell the inhabitants of Betazed this when the Dominion invaded, or the residents of San Francisco when the Breen started shooting. The Second Battle of Chin'toka "wasn't really all that bad"... oh wait, it was arguably the worst defeat suffered by the Allies throughout the war.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, Admiral Mercury, you base your argument on the assumption that the Guardian of Forever will actually cooperate with this scheme. It is clearly an advanced and apparently sentient machine. Have you considered it may refuse to functionas you woudl like it to? It's very name "Guardian of Forever" implies it acts to protect time rather than alter it.

Also, the idea of simply "lulz shoot a phaser through the Guardian to kill all the officers" assumes phaers will actually fire through said time portal, which has never been shown, conjectured or even dreamt of except by lunatic fanboys like you.

Finally, surely the Federations first goal would be to establish peaceful contact with a new species? Not "Oh, unknown ships appeared in our space an hour ago and blew up a starship. Quick! Let's go back and change history rather than talking to them." You give Trekkies a bad name you fucking idiot.

[chitoryu12]

If your reason for the Federation not simply using time travel as a deus ex machina over and over to solve all of their problems is "Politics," what makes you automatically assume that they'll turn to it to destroy invading Imperials instead of politicking more?

How do you solve the problem of the Imperials' massive speed and firepower allowing them to rapidly fly to the biggest and most important Federation planets and bombard them with enough energy to slag the surface of the planet before any defending Federation forces are able to locate the Guardian of Forever or engage in a convenient slingshot?

Why do you assume the Guardian of Forever will even be WILLING to help them, when its name and actions both show that it acts to preserve the timeline as best as possible rather than letting some random guys in spandex throw photon torpedoes through it so they can win a war easier?

Your entire argument is based on every single one of these assumptions falling perfectly into place. It assumes that the Guardian of Forever (with no precedent, and indeed heavy implications of the exact OPPOSITE) will be willing to let the Federation use it as a convenient method to win the war, that the Imperials' ability to cross the Alpha Quadrant in hours and carry enough firepower to blow apart any resistance it faces will not factor in at all, and that the Federation (who you yourself said didn't resort to time travel and let millions die and a war drag on because of political interference) will immediately send captains to the Guardian and slingshotting around the sun to solve all of their problems.

In short, get your head out of your ass.

[Admiral Mercury]

So you're suggesting that they avoided time travel for polictical reasons???

In other words, Section 31 preferred to sit back and let millions die while they let the virus do its work.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Think about it.

The Dominion War is the best thing ever from the perspective of Section 31. The AQ powers essentially couldn't have lost the war, as with the death of the founders the would have dealt a blow to Vorta morale as to make them totally ineffectual, they wouldn't be able to properly administer the white, and the Jem'Hedar would just die out. The remaining Dominion allies (Cardassians, Breen) would have sued for peace in the wake of most of their forces going berserk and dying. After the war the Federation is standing tall and looking pretty. The Klingons have been critically weakened, they have a mole high up within the Romulan government, and a brand new fleet of Defiant-class warships. Arguably one of the most powerful and capable ships in the alpha quadrant.

Also, Admiral Mercury, you base your argument on the assumption that the Guardian of Forever will actually cooperate with this scheme.

The Guardian of Forever has never not co-operated, even when the timeline was altered. In City on the Edge of Forever, The Guardian doesn't care that time has been changed when McCoy goes back in time. Nor does he care about how Kirk and Company don't set the timeline back exactly as it was. Edith dies as per the timeline, but so does a random homeless person. He's killed by McCoy's phaser. The timeline was thus de facto changed. The Guardian also didn't have a problem with the Federation using it to go back in time for research even when that research resulted in the change in timeline. The desire to keep the timeline intact has always been of the people and not the Guardian.

Have you considered it may refuse to functionas you woudl like it to?

It's never refused requests before. From the perspective of a super intelligent, super powerful being like the Guardian the request to go to specific points in time to do research and the request to go to specific points in time to do war must be equally mundane.

It's very name "Guardian of Forever" implies it acts to protect time rather than alter it.

Like I said, it never has acted to protect time, and it's foolish to speculate so much based on the name alone. The name also implies that it has no upper or lower limit to where or when it can send things. Though I get the feeling that if I were to argue something like, sending PTs back to a time in the SW galaxy where humans were at a much earlier point in their evolution (something millions of years before Australopithecus) and thus killing off humanity and leaving no chance of the empire forming, that would be completely dismissed as impossible.

[Darth Tedious]

It's actually no more or less plausible than your current suggestion.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So according to you, Section 31 was quite content to let the war continue? The same war that Bashir and co would eventually lead (even after the federation retook DS9) to a total defeat and nine hundred billion dead..

And yet....they are willing to travel back and change time when a fictional Imperial invasions...results in a total Federation defeat but probably lesscasualties? Thank goodness you don't work in strategic plannign anywhere, we'd have WW3 by monday week. "Yes, it'll be a bit bad for us but we'll totally be the best power after the dust settles!"

And here's a final nail in your arguments coffin. The 31st century Feds have their Temporal Accords and act to protect them. Since you are trying to actively change the timeline, they may well decide to stop your retarded ass.

And you didn't adress the point about phasers working when fired through the Guardian.

[Channel72]

Let's face it, the writing is just too contradictory to make much sense out of it. Star Trek IV is really the archetypal example of what Admiral Mercury is claiming the Federation should be routinely doing when faced with an existential threat. There's also an episode of TOS where the Enterprise travels back to the 1960s, and it seems to be a routine exploratory mission (suggesting time travel is commonplace). On the other hand, apart from STIV, time travel is rarely employed to solve a problem or reverse an undesirable political situation, so there must be some serious drawback. We can also ask why the Dominion, or other hostile powers who are much less scrupulous than the Federation, doesn't just employ time travel (using the slingshot method) to go back and wipe out Earth in the past to remove the Federation as an important power.

The "many worlds" interpretation is the best that fans can come up with to harmonize all of this. It admittedly doesn't gel with the way the characters behave, but it's better than just simply assuming everyone in the Federation came down with collective amnesia after Wolf 359 or throughout the Dominion War. Whatever reason routinely prevents the Federation from employing time travel as a military strategy will probably apply to any versus scenario.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If Trek has a one-timeline universe, then I would people are afraid of either a) paradoxes occurring, which is bad or b) not knowing the consequences of timeline alteration.

FOr instance, let us suppose the Klingons at the time of Undiscovered Country go back and blast Earth to rubble in the 18th century. This means no Coalition to fight the Romulan War which means the Kligons have just replaced on powerful adversary with another powerful one that has a lot less scruples.

Or suppose that Dukat's gran plan in Tears of the Prophets is to erase humans from history. THe wormhole is never discovered and they can never ally with the Dominion. THe Klingons, no longer held in check by Federation power, are free to invade Cardassia with bad results for Dukat and his fellows.

I submit that time travel is not used as a regular tactic because Starfleet is aware it may well (perhaps even probably) make things worse for them. We have a perfect example of the slighrest change being detrimental in Yesterday's Enterprise.

[Channel72]

Yeah, but time travel could be used to reverse short-term military losses without much risk of substantially altering the present on a galactic scale. For example, after Wolf 359, the Enterprise could travel back in time and warn the fleet not to bother engaging the Borg - or at least to try a different strategy.

[Darth Tedious]

We never got a reason from Mercury as to why the Federation didn't use time travel to reduce their losses at Wolf 359.
Maybe Section 31 thought they should do nothing because the UFP was somehow better off after losing all those ships?
I really don't see how inventing the Defiant justifies not using time travel- they could have just as easily handed blueprints over to it while in the past, giving themselves the benefit of the war without the massive loss of life...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Trouble is, even short-term time travel in a single-timeline universe can cause nasty paradoxes. The very fact that we do not see the Federation use short-range time travel to help win wars suggests that there are consequences, probably negative and possibly serious, to doing so.

The Temporal Prime Directive also comes to mind, you should make every effort to preserve the timeline. Going back and changing the outcome of a battle violates that.

EDIT: Also, even in the darkest hours of the Dominion War, when DS9 was occupied and the enemy running rampant on every front, not one single officer even mentions going back to improve the situation. This is in the period where defeat is a very real threat and Starfleet is taking heavy losses on all fronts. AS I said above, the war is predicted (after a little divine intervention in the Federation's favour) to end in total defeat and truly horrific casualties. And yet, no one menions time travel. Not even the totally inscrupulous Section 31.