Time Travel Shenanigans (Split from Aly's ICS thread)

[JodoForce]

Prove that the Federation can travel back far enough to actually have a chance of victory- i.e. no limits fallacy.

Seeing as there is no known limit on distance that can be traveled, this is a meaningless argument.

Sure there is. If Voyager had no fuel limits it would have been travelling at warp 9 the whole time, would it not?

[Alyeska]

Well, if you say that the changes happen in the same timeline, when are they supposed to notice?

Let's see. Somebody messes up something in 19xx. One moment in 20xx everything is as normal, the next moment everything is screwed up because of the change. WHY? Shouldn't things be changed such that everyone born after the 19xx event would see things develop according to the new timeline for their whole lives?

The 'temporal shield'--it would probably have to protect the shipyard that built it in the first place, since it probably wouldn't be there in the changed timeline! How does this protection happen? Does the shipyard spring up out of nowhere when it's due to start building the ship in the original timeline??

That is not how the Temporal shield works. It works by protecting the item or pepole within from any changes in the time line. They interact with the "Now" but they remain outside of any time changes. We don't know how exactly it works, but we know that it does work and that the ship is completely protected from any changes in the past while the universe around them changes.

[Alyeska]

Prove that the Federation can travel back far enough to actually have a chance of victory- i.e. no limits fallacy.

Seeing as there is no known limit on distance that can be traveled, this is a meaningless argument.

Sure there is. If Voyager had no fuel limits it would have been travelling at warp 9 the whole time, would it not?

What we have seen about time travel indicates that fuel and energy are not the primary concerns. Think about it as dialing a phone. You need extra precision, extra digits for long distance calls.

[Vympel]

Seeing as there is no known limit on distance that can be traveled, this is a meaningless argument.

Why are we assuming that time travel is infinitely powerful? Why are we assuming it has no limits? Why are we assuming that you can go back to ANY time?

Some would say its being absurd, maybe even unfair.

I would call it a concession. People know what you mean when you say Wars vs Trek; they're not talking about having Trek ships slingshot around the sun to go back in time xxx number of years so they can somehow attain victory against a basically completely unknown bunch of forces.

Thing is, in an all out war the only important thing is victory. I have no doubt that any side facing total annihilation would use every resource at its grasp.

They didn't try it in the Dominion War though did they?

[Alyeska]

Seeing as there is no known limit on distance that can be traveled, this is a meaningless argument.

Why are we assuming that time travel is infinitely powerful? Why are we assuming it has no limits? Why are we assuming that you can go back to ANY time?

Because we have yet to see power as a limitation to time travel.

Some would say its being absurd, maybe even unfair.

I would call it a concession. People know what you mean when you say Wars vs Trek; they're not talking about having Trek ships slingshot around the sun to go back in time xxx number of years so they can somehow attain victory against a basically completely unknown bunch of forces.

In that case all super weapons would have to be left out. You call it a concession, I call it a concession from the Warsies when they admit there is nothing they can do to stop the Feds in this instance. Thing is most VS debates don't allow super weapons anyway. This particular dicussion isn't really so much about the Trek vs Wars debates, this is just a time travel discussion.

Thing is, in an all out war the only important thing is victory. I have no doubt that any side facing total annihilation would use every resource at its grasp.

They didn't try it in the Dominion War though did they?

The Federation while in a rather bad war, was never really on the brink of total annihilation by the Dominion. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if Section 31 elements kept the time travel option from being used because they had the virus option going instead.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Because we have yet to see power as a limitation to time travel.

From the main website:

"When we look through the list, we find that once we eliminate small-scale techniques and outside intervention, the only viable method of Federation time travel is the slingshot effect. This creates serious constraints. The slingshot effect places great strain on a starship, and long-range use of this technique has never been observed (or even attempted). The process consumes fuel at an undetermined rate. It places an undetermined stress on the ship. Given these problems, how can the Trekkies insist that there are no limits to the duration of time travel using the slingshot? How long must we suffer Trekkies who insist on assuming that every process is limitless and free unless proven otherwise?" Mr. Wong.

In that case all super weapons would have to be left out. You call it a concession, I call it a concession from the Warsies when they admit there is nothing they can do to stop the Feds in this instance.

Given that the Feds can magically go back to ANY point in time, no matter what distance, and erase mistakes. It begs the question of why it hasn't been done before, given all the times numerous Federation lives could've been saved if they had done so. The best answer is that they CAN'T go back to any point in time otherwise they would have. And you have no evidence to the contrary.

The Federation while in a rather bad war, was never really on the brink of total annihilation by the Dominion.

Only tens of thousands of Starfleet officers died, and hundreds of ships destroyed! There's hardly a need to go back and erase that mistake!

Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if Section 31 elements kept the time travel option from being used because they had the virus option going instead.

Pointless speculation. There is no evidence to suggest this at all.

[SirNitram]

That is not how the Temporal shield works. It works by protecting the item or pepole within from any changes in the time line. They interact with the "Now" but they remain outside of any time changes. We don't know how exactly it works, but we know that it does work and that the ship is completely protected from any changes in the past while the universe around them changes.

While not only being logically impossible, it's disproven by the show itself: Timeless, for a start. The Temporal Shields only proven capability is to defend against time-based weaponry.

[Alyeska]

That is not how the Temporal shield works. It works by protecting the item or pepole within from any changes in the time line. They interact with the "Now" but they remain outside of any time changes. We don't know how exactly it works, but we know that it does work and that the ship is completely protected from any changes in the past while the universe around them changes.

While not only being logically impossible, it's disproven by the show itself: Timeless, for a start. The Temporal Shields only proven capability is to defend against time-based weaponry.

Oh? All I know from the Relativity episode is that the timeship is protected by somethnig that allowed it to observe Voyager destroyed in the past when it shouldn't have. They were not affected by this change; however, they had to go back and fix it to correct the time line. The ship was protected from changes in the past and every time the past was slightly altered the crew of the time ship remained unaffected.

[SirNitram]

That is not how the Temporal shield works. It works by protecting the item or pepole within from any changes in the time line. They interact with the "Now" but they remain outside of any time changes. We don't know how exactly it works, but we know that it does work and that the ship is completely protected from any changes in the past while the universe around them changes.

While not only being logically impossible, it's disproven by the show itself: Timeless, for a start. The Temporal Shields only proven capability is to defend against time-based weaponry.

Oh? All I know from the Relativity episode is that the timeship is protected by somethnig that allowed it to observe Voyager destroyed in the past when it shouldn't have. They were not affected by this change; however, they had to go back and fix it to correct the time line. The ship was protected from changes in the past and every time the past was slightly altered the crew of the time ship remained unaffected.

I was thinking of the Temporal Shields installed on Voyager during Year Of Hell, myself. In either case, the Relativity's immunity can be explained by them being from another timeline, thus their past is never being altered.

[Alyeska]

I was thinking of the Temporal Shields installed on Voyager during Year Of Hell, myself. In either case, the Relativity's immunity can be explained by them being from another timeline, thus their past is never being altered.

In Year of Hell the temporal shields protected Voyager from changes in the time line. That right there proves that the particular technology being used was for single time line use. In Relativity the 29th century Federation was affected by the time travel, the Relativity was not.

The fact that defenses are set up against time travel use is proof enough that a level of single time line travel is possible. If time travel were always alternate time line jumping, there would be no need to defense against time travel because it could never change your post.

[nightmare]

Well, if we want to fight cheese with cheese..

However natural time dilation for a faster-than-light vessel should actually lengthen the shipboard time, eg. approaching a limit of 60,000 years for an indefinitely fast journey along the galactic radius. A more modest trip, between galactic sectors, would probably take minutes or seconds of external time, but millennia elapse aboard the ship. It seems that in order to keep the crew and passengers alive, all hyperdrive-equipped starships must incorporate a compensatory artificial time-dilation device, akin to the time-suspending "stasis fields" mentioned in novels [Han Solo at Star's End; Rebel Dawn p.4].

At least time-suspending is semi-realistic compared to travelling in time.. black holes and all.

[Shogoki]

Well, by Intinite Universes theory, "Temporal Shielding" is just a way to keep "anchored" to your original universe, or to hop from one universe to another, when the "outside" of the shield is affected, hence, TS is more of a way to BE affected by some change in another universe that represents the past, rather than the whole universe change and create a bunch of unnecesary paradoxes, since it's easier for just one ship to change from one universe to another than to have the whole fricking universe change, Occam's Razor tell us it's most likely the correct answer.

[Eframepilot]

Whoa, deja vu all over again. Alyeska, I've made this exact same argument a couple of times and know how this will end. The Feds, even the 29th and 31st century Feds, are ignoramuses. They delusionally believe that time travel can change the past, when actually it merely creates new universes. This is proven by the existence of the alternate universes in "Parallels", which must be created by time-travel and NOT the "many worlds" theory of QM as the latter theory is crap. Since any theory of a single, changeable past doesn't explain the multiple timelines of "Parallels", the multiple timeline theory is superior and, for the purposes of debate, correct. Never mind that it makes the Feds out to be idiot savants who have less understanding of temporal physics than the denizens of this board. (To those whom I have debated in the past: I do not mean to make a strawman. Please post any corrections to the above argument you feel are necessary.)

Personally I disagree with the above argument on suspension of disbelief grounds. Instead of trying to wrack our brains to create a Grand Unified Time-Travel Theory that tries to explain away all the inconsistencies and paradoxes that crop up, we should just take the presentation of time travel at face value. I am certain that the writers did not intend time travel to be meaningless, and the dramatic tension is destroyed by this theory. But these arguments run opposite to the spirit of StarDestroyer.Net, and I don't expect to convince anyone with them.

[NecronLord]

The Time Lords of Gallifrey show up and tuck your ass nicely into a little self-enclosing time loop, and you get excluded from the timestream for fucking it up too much.

Try again.

Heh. I don't think that's really a valid argument in ST v SW.