29th Century Federation vs. Galactic Empire(Split)

[Eframepilot]

Unless those observers happen to be operating from temporal-shielded buildings and installations, which they appear to do, which means that they can be dragged along the alternate timelines just like the traveller.

So every single observer has been temporally shielded? So they have never purposely gone back 10 minutes into the past to make a deliberate change to see what would happen without their shielding? And these are masters of time travel that we are talking about. They care about preserving the timeline. They should know! They can actually do experiments! We can't. We can just make silly theories based on the very, very limited amount of what we've seen. And guess what? We've never seen an actual separately existing timeline. We have seen evidence that previous timelines cease to exist: the shockwaves in "Year of Hell", the predestination paradox of "Time and Again" vanishing when Janeway broke the loop (her personal history should have continued if she just generated another timeline). There is nothing that the theory of multiple existing timelines can explain that the theory of a single changing timeline can't.

Why not? The problems were already there, Palpatine just helped things along, but ineviditabley the Seperatists would make themselves known, and any number of things could happen. Good or bad.

The Separatists would never have made a move without the Sith pushing them along. And why is Empire the inevitable outcome? The problems could be resolved any number of ways. Bail Antilles of Alderaan might have been elected and been a strong but honest Supreme Chancellor. Hell, the Republic could degenerate into civil war for centuries. Not the Federation's problem.

How will they know his itenerary?

Check the news on Naboo. Pick a time period when he is first campaigning for the Senate.

Where he lives?

He'd probably be in Theed.

What he'll do?

Die, when the city is obliterated from orbit.

If it's the right Palpatine?

So there are a lot of Senator Palpatines from Naboo who later became S.C. and Emperor, huh? He's a public figure! Easy to follow.

These take many many many questions and tons of research, they can't simply give them a name and say "hop to it", that's naive.

They can trace his history easily. His positions are a matter of political public record. He is a very important person in galactic politics!

And it's still a cop-out anyway.

Well if you concede the argument, just say so.

[Eframepilot]

Oh yes, and I like how you think the 29th century Federation will suddenly grow the balls to be able and willing to perform acts of temporal genocide just in case they might get what they want, even though all they've ever done is try to STOP temporal changes, whether they think it's a solid timeline or not.

Who cares if they have the balls to do it? The point is that they COULD do it if they want to. And if the Empire invades and overruns the 29th century, then you can bet some nut like Braxton will pull a stunt like temporal genocide to save the galaxy. It's not like anything they do to screw with SW history will affect Trek history.

[tharkûn]

Terrible comparison. The Empire would never have to fight a battle against the Federation on Federation terms because of their astonishing speed advantage. It would allow any ship that was in trouble to escape, and it would allow reinforcements from the Empire to move much more quickly than those of the Federation.

The 29th century Federation would never have to fight a battle against the Empire on Imperial terms because of their astonishing speed advantage (be able to literally arrive before they left). It would allow any ship that was in trouble to escape, and it would allow reinforcements from the 29th century Federation to move much more quickly than those of the Empire.

It is not considered a good thing in war when you are on the defensive, or when you are on the offensive and are trying to destroy your enemy's ability to fight. The point is that the Empire can attack whenever and however it likes. The Federation can only match by moving their fleets to defend a few planets or important locations. They cannot hope to win a war of maneuvering with the Empire. Was the Iraqi inability to engage in a decisive battle with Coalition forces a "good thing" in the Gulf War? Only if you're in the Coalition. Morally it is generally considered better than war, but if the other side pushes too far then sometimes war is inevitable and correct.
It considered a good thing in war to WIN with minimal casualties, what constitutes a win is open for debate, but your goal in war is to win and your secondary goal is to do so with as few casualties on your side as possible.

The point is that the 29th century Federation can attack whenever and however it likes. The Empire cannot match by moving their fleets to defend a few planets or important locations due to the fun of time travel. They cannot hope to win a war of maneuvering with the 29th Century Federation.

Also, why doesn't the Federation ever use this ability for something like SAVING THE COLONY. Clearly they don't give a damn about people's lives in the future. Also note how Daniels was more concerned with the monument than the people.
Because you have this little thing about UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECTS. Why don't modern states use biological warfare? Because it has a good chance of coming back to bite you in the ass. If you don't know ... don't screw it unless absolutely necessary.

Incorrect, nuclear weapons are a valid part of "the fight." They are not a method of avoiding it, but a by-product of the fight.
BS. The moment a nuclear war goes off the war is over. Suppose the USSR hadn't developed SLBM technology for 20 years. In the interim the USA builds a bigass nuclear sub fleet. One day the US preempts with SLBM's and hammers all the Russian nukes before they can be launched. War over fight avoided. The whole battle is avoided because the Russians have nothing left to fight with. Likewise with time travel. Setting off a time travel bomb means the enemy has nothing left to fight with.

Demonstrate that the 29th century, NON-EXISTENT UFP has the ability to use time travel to combat the Empire. Wah-wah-wah, you can't do it, so you are whining that we called it a cop-out (which it is), without actually showing that it would be successful.
Well let's see we've seen them alter the past to change events in the present and the future (i.e. when they recruit 7 of 9) and we see them go back in time and bomb Voyager (same episode). We see them send people back in time and bring them forward. Instead sending a person (like 7 of 9) forward ... send a photon torp or an old fashioned fusion bomb.

Demonstrate that they have this ability. You use this tactic of thinking of something they could do if they had a very advanced method of time travel, but then you can never provide any evidence, whatsoever, that they can actually pull this off.
We've seen them transport people into the future. There is not all that much difference between a human and a fusion explosive. Its all basic chemistry. They have the ability to move objects forward and backward in time. All I'm saying is move around some deuterium (helium-3 whatever) instead of water and sugar.

This is getting old. Why haven't they done this, already, if they can? Where is the evidence that this is remotely within their ability to perform.
What makes you think they haven't? Again we've seen them transport a lump of mostly water into the future, transporting things like torps, fuel, etc. should not be hard either.

Oh, good. The non-existent Federation is engaging the Empire in a battle it cannot hope to win.

So let's see you have the "non-existant" Federation which is able to travel faster than the empire, spans a whole galaxy like the Empire, can "retreat" its ships forward or backward into time if a problem arises, and can send their scouts out to destroy whole solar systems.

How exactly can they not hope to win? All of the major imperial advantages are gone (speed and industrial capacity) the advantage in firepower might still exist (dubious if we scale up the one man shuttled that was at least equally gunned with voyager to a size like the E-D, haven't done the numbers yet). But its relatively worthless as the 29th century federation does have the ability to bypass the sheilding by sending explosives through time so as to come out inside the sheilds.

It's actually pretty clear that the majority of time-travel incidents in ST have multiple universes.
Look mommy an unsubstaniated claim. Not only is no specific example given, but no criteria for how we would know its an alternate universe as compared to a changed single universe are not given.

So? The non-existent Federation has a weapon that does it absolutely no good. Even with this weapon they have no chance against the Empire.
Right despite being faster, able to use their damn fighters to kill solar systems, etc.

I really cannot follow what you are trying to say, here. We know that the universe is closed.
Really care to provide a peer reviewed cite that states that definatively.

We know about local curvatures of the universe, and from those we can extrapolate the curvature of all of space from that.
Let's suppose the galaxy is the surface of a 3D sphere nested in 4 spatial dimensions. It's radius is 50,000 lightyears. In order to measure the curvative we'd have to make angle measurements more accurate than the width of protons for angles as going from the Oort cloud to Sol and back to know its a bloody *sphere* and not a euclidean cube.

So? We cannot extrapolate any advanced weapons that the future "Federation" will have, because their technological improvement appears so limited from TOS to DS9 and Voyager.
We have seen seen their technological development. The ability to go back in time. The ability to destroy solar systems with a single ship. The ability to bring masses forward in time and backward. We've even seen people who can exist multiple places in one time. Not to mention other fun things like what seem to be personal phase cloaks, more powerful phasers (whose NDF reaction is *not* stopped by dense metal), etc.

I'm not extrapolating, I'm talking about observed abilities we've seen in Voy and Ent (well I haven't seen all of Ent because it sucks ass, but anyways).

Time travel over with a ship how? You assume that they can easily go back thousands of years, and then you create another tactic based on this assumption. Prove that ST has the capability of doing this.
It was witnessed on screen. A 29th century time ship went back to 1997. Did you miss this episode or something? This was also the same timeship that had a transporter able to beam through Voyager's sheilds (also witnessed on screen).


Jedi have already survived such blasts (ref. I, Jedi). In any case, you are inventing another tactic without any evidence of its viability.

Never read I jedi. And I'm not inventing a tactic. Its real simple. Timeship comes out of the sky over Naboo (you know the end of TPM when Palpy is on the ground), fires off a nice fusion bomb, leaves. Palpy = dead.

Okie dokey. So nuking the planet (note the assumed viability and capability of this) would not disrupt anything, even though Naboo is the capital of the sector? Are you saying that the OR or the Empire totally ignores planets under its jurisdiction? Provide an example of this. They seem to respond quite quickly to problems on their planets, sometimes even sending an entire Sector Fleet to deal with issues on a particular world.
Sigh let's review shall we? The original premise is the 29th century fed's against the TESB empire. Now without the Emporer there will be no empire. So instead of fighting the TESB empire the 29th century feddies send a ship back in time of the empire's founding. Like all good politician's Palpy had picture taken of him at the Naboo victory march. The timeship then goes back to Naboo at that time and waltzes into Naboo with a large fusion bomb (say something akin to Tzar Bomba) and drops it.

This is not that hard of concept. Palpy's past is a matter of historical record. He represents Naboo, a backwater planet with minimal defenses, you find a dated picture of him visiting there, go back in time, and nuke his ass. You then leave. The empire is never born and because you used "primitive fusion" the attack can't be traced.

How will they know his itenerary? Where he lives? What he'll do? If it's the right Palpatine?
These take many many many questions and tons of research, they can't simply give them a name and say "hop to it", that's naive.
Where was Teddy Roosevelt at 1:00 on July, 1 1898? In Cuba on a place called Kettle Hill (San Juan).

It really isn't that hard to find where a leader was at some time (i.e. where GWB goes when he's on vacation in Texas), just send an operative to the local library.

Oh yes, and I like how you think the 29th century Federation will suddenly grow the balls to be able and willing to perform acts of temporal genocide just in case they might get what they want, even though all they've ever done is try to STOP temporal changes, whether they think it's a solid timeline or not.
Well let's see they try kill everyone on Voyager after Earth goes up in flames. After the first DS shot (assuming the imps get that far) it goes with precedent.

[TheDarkling]

I had another thought.

The Feds cuold out produce the Imps with ease, how you ask? (actually you didnt but you will listen anyway).

Create a million holograms give them materials to build ship yeards and ships then send them back about 1 Billion years, they spend the next few 100 years building ships and send they all into the future the moment they left.

This way all the Feds need do is mine (whatever has to be mined) and the ships are produced in seconds (from the 29th Feds perspective).

Not that I think they would need to since the29th Feds are at least equal to the Imps if not far far ahead.

[Evil Jerk]

So every single observer has been temporally shielded?

They'd have to be, one way or the other.

So they have never purposely gone back 10 minutes into the past to make a deliberate change to see what would happen without their shielding? And these are masters of time travel that we are talking about. They care about preserving the timeline. They should know! They can actually do experiments! We can't. We can just make silly theories based on the very, very limited amount of what we've seen.

The Feds never "check". They just do it. They don't experment, they don't question it. They are idiots.

And guess what? We've never seen an actual separately existing timeline. We have seen evidence that previous timelines cease to exist: the shockwaves in "Year of Hell",

Show a new timeline being created from the point of origin of the change.

the predestination paradox of "Time and Again" vanishing when Janeway broke the loop (her personal history should have continued if she just generated another timeline).

Who's to say it didn't? We only see the new universe with a new Janeway, the old one is probably still on the planet in that universe, since Voyager never contacted the planet, they'll never know.

There is nothing that the theory of multiple existing timelines can explain that the theory of a single changing timeline can't.

Explain Braxton. Explain future Alexander. Explain all those who's universes should cease to exist under a single timeline but don't.

The Separatists would never have made a move without the Sith pushing them along. And why is Empire the inevitable outcome? The problems could be resolved any number of ways. Bail Antilles of Alderaan might have been elected and been a strong but honest Supreme Chancellor. Hell, the Republic could degenerate into civil war for centuries. Not the Federation's problem.

Or it could turn into an uber-Empire, YOU CAN'T PREDICT IT, IT'S TOO RISKY.

Check the news on Naboo.

Fed Time Assassin: What's Naboo?

Pick a time period when he is first campaigning for the Senate.

Fed Time Assassin: When this Palpatine get power? How did he get power? What's the Senate? Where's the Senate?

He'd probably be in Theed.

Fed Time Assassin: What's a Theed?

Die, when the city is obliterated from orbit.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

So there are a lot of Senator Palpatines from Naboo who later became S.C. and Emperor, huh? He's a public figure! Easy to follow.

And they will learn all of this before being steamrolled how?

They can trace his history easily. His positions are a matter of political public record. He is a very important person in galactic politics!

In STAR WARS GALACTIC POLITICS.
Not Star Trek galactic politics, not Federation galactic politics, he's a total unknown to them.

Well if you concede the argument, just say so.

I don't, I'm pointing out that this is a moot point since it'll affect nothing.

Who cares if they have the balls to do it? The point is that they COULD do it if they want to. And if the Empire invades and overruns the 29th century, then you can bet some nut like Braxton will pull a stunt like temporal genocide to save the galaxy. It's not like anything they do to screw with SW history will affect Trek history.

Braxton's a psycho, his methods are stupid, any old Sith would see him coming a mile away.

[Evil Jerk]

The 29th century Federation would never have to fight a battle against the Empire on Imperial terms because of their astonishing speed advantage (be able to literally arrive before they left). It would allow any ship that was in trouble to escape, and it would allow reinforcements from the 29th century Federation to move much more quickly than those of the Empire.

Time travel cop-out. Sorry, doesn't work.

It considered a good thing in war to WIN with minimal casualties, what constitutes a win is open for debate, but your goal in war is to win and your secondary goal is to do so with as few casualties on your side as possible.

The point is that the 29th century Federation can attack whenever and however it likes. The Empire cannot match by moving their fleets to defend a few planets or important locations due to the fun of time travel. They cannot hope to win a war of maneuvering with the 29th Century Federation.

Yes they can, because they would be unaffected.
Though it might have the unintended effect of amusing Imperial officers as they witness Fed ships dissapearing, never to return.

Because you have this little thing about UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECTS. Why don't modern states use biological warfare? Because it has a good chance of coming back to bite you in the ass. If you don't know ... don't screw it unless absolutely necessary.

Except that colony was supposed to not be destroyed, so they weren't affected before, why would they be affected again?

BS. The moment a nuclear war goes off the war is over. Suppose the USSR hadn't developed SLBM technology for 20 years. In the interim the USA builds a bigass nuclear sub fleet. One day the US preempts with SLBM's and hammers all the Russian nukes before they can be launched. War over fight avoided. The whole battle is avoided because the Russians have nothing left to fight with. Likewise with time travel. Setting off a time travel bomb means the enemy has nothing left to fight with.

Except, it'll just affect another universe, and you've just wasted time and effort on a stupid bomb.

Well let's see we've seen them alter the past to change events in the present and the future (i.e. when they recruit 7 of 9) and we see them go back in time and bomb Voyager (same episode). We see them send people back in time and bring them forward. Instead sending a person (like 7 of 9) forward ... send a photon torp or an old fashioned fusion bomb.

First, prove that they can do that.
Second, prove that they would do that, as ALL of their time exploits have been to PREVENT time changes.

So let's see you have the "non-existant" Federation which is able to travel faster than the empire, spans a whole galaxy like the Empire, can "retreat" its ships forward or backward into time if a problem arises, and can send their scouts out to destroy whole solar systems.

Prove that they travel faster without time travel.
Prove they span the whole galaxy.
Prove that they can destroy solar systems without time travel.

How exactly can they not hope to win? All of the major imperial advantages are gone (speed and industrial capacity) the advantage in firepower might still exist (dubious if we scale up the one man shuttled that was at least equally gunned with voyager to a size like the E-D, haven't done the numbers yet). But its relatively worthless as the 29th century federation does have the ability to bypass the sheilding by sending explosives through time so as to come out inside the sheilds.

This is sounding like a god damn Trekkie wank fest, get over it, it won't work.

Look mommy an unsubstaniated claim. Not only is no specific example given, but no criteria for how we would know its an alternate universe as compared to a changed single universe are not given.

Numerous examples have been given, people like you ignore every single one of them.

Right despite being faster, able to use their damn fighters to kill solar systems, etc.

With time travel. Keep your cop-outs coming.

We have seen seen their technological development. The ability to go back in time. The ability to destroy solar systems with a single ship.

Unintentionally. With time travel.

Never read I jedi. And I'm not inventing a tactic. Its real simple. Timeship comes out of the sky over Naboo (you know the end of TPM when Palpy is on the ground), fires off a nice fusion bomb, leaves. Palpy = dead.

How do they know who Palpy is? Why would they commit genocide?

Sigh let's review shall we? The original premise is the 29th century fed's against the TESB empire. Now without the Emporer there will be no empire. So instead of fighting the TESB empire the 29th century feddies send a ship back in time of the empire's founding. Like all good politician's Palpy had picture taken of him at the Naboo victory march. The timeship then goes back to Naboo at that time and waltzes into Naboo with a large fusion bomb (say something akin to Tzar Bomba) and drops it.

Where will they get this picture? How do they know where it is?
Where's Naboo? What's Naboo? Where on Naboo was it taken? When?

Where was Teddy Roosevelt at 1:00 on July, 1 1898? In Cuba on a place called Kettle Hill (San Juan).

Now ask a person from another galaxy to find out where he was then, before he can be tracked by a Sith and killed.

It really isn't that hard to find where a leader was at some time (i.e. where GWB goes when he's on vacation in Texas), just send an operative to the local library.

Where's the local library? What language is it in? Are the personal files of the EVIL EMPEROR available to just anybody? How long will it take?

Well let's see they try kill everyone on Voyager after Earth goes up in flames. After the first DS shot (assuming the imps get that far) it goes with precedent.

Braxton. One man. Lunatic. More examples please.

[Evil Jerk]

I had another thought.

The Feds cuold out produce the Imps with ease, how you ask? (actually you didnt but you will listen anyway).

Create a million holograms give them materials to build ship yeards and ships then send them back about 1 Billion years, they spend the next few 100 years building ships and send they all into the future the moment they left.

This way all the Feds need do is mine (whatever has to be mined) and the ships are produced in seconds (from the 29th Feds perspective).

This isn't Bill & Ted, it won't happen and you know it.

Not that I think they would need to since the29th Feds are at least equal to the Imps if not far far ahead.

Yeah right. All I see is ships with weapons not that much more advanced than the 24th century, over reliant on time travel and totally baseless claims of them dominating the galaxy.
Prove that they have the industrial base equivalent of the Empire.
Prove that their pretty little ships could dent an ISD's sensor assemvbly.

[TheDarkling]

Everything you say is absed upon the assumption that time travel operates on the multiple timeline theory.

Lets look at the evidence against this theory.
Every single SF character.
A Romulan scientist.
A Klingon Spy.
The Borg.
People who have mastered time travel.
People who mastered time travel 300 years ago.
The Molly incident.
Voyagers temporal shield and the wave effect.
The Defiant Colony incident.


Now the evidence for (as my understanding goes)
Because I say so.

If you have more evidence list it in the above form (short statement) and explain beneath, since its time (pun ) this was resolved.

[Eframepilot]

So every single observer has been temporally shielded?

They'd have to be, one way or the other.

But can you prove they have been?

So they have never purposely gone back 10 minutes into the past to make a deliberate change to see what would happen without their shielding? And these are masters of time travel that we are talking about. They care about preserving the timeline. They should know! They can actually do experiments! We can't. We can just make silly theories based on the very, very limited amount of what we've seen.

The Feds never "check". They just do it. They don't experment, they don't question it. They are idiots.

It is a gross violation of suspension of belief to assume that the Future Feds, masters of time travel, are so ignorant of its very nature as to miss this completely. Arguing that the Feds don't understand time travel at all, especially when your theory has no evidence, doesn't hold water.

And guess what? We've never seen an actual separately existing timeline. We have seen evidence that previous timelines cease to exist: the shockwaves in "Year of Hell",

Show a new timeline being created from the point of origin of the change.

No, they show a new timeline being created and wiping out the older one. The shockwave erases the old timeline. Even the characters (Annorax, Voy. crew) agree with this. Provide proof that the timeline continues to exist.

the predestination paradox of "Time and Again" vanishing when Janeway broke the loop (her personal history should have continued if she just generated another timeline).

Who's to say it didn't? We only see the new universe with a new Janeway, the old one is probably still on the planet in that universe, since Voyager never contacted the planet, they'll never know.

When Janeway stops the accident, we see a bright flash everywhere and everything vanishes. This would not have happened if the timeline had continued on. In fact, if it had, it would make less sense. There would be the Voyager crew in the "present" on a destroyed planet and Janeway and Paris a few days in the past on a healthy, safe planet. It would create a third timeline! It would NOT create the blinding flash/disappearing effect we OBSERVED.

There is nothing that the theory of multiple existing timelines can explain that the theory of a single changing timeline can't.

Explain Braxton. Explain future Alexander. Explain all those who's universes should cease to exist under a single timeline but don't.

Why should Braxton and future Alexander cease to exist? Their futures have ceased to exist, but they are still in the "past". They still exist in the changed timeline. They have no reason to vanish. There is no reason to postulate an infinite number of unchanged timelines.

The Separatists would never have made a move without the Sith pushing them along. And why is Empire the inevitable outcome? The problems could be resolved any number of ways. Bail Antilles of Alderaan might have been elected and been a strong but honest Supreme Chancellor. Hell, the Republic could degenerate into civil war for centuries. Not the Federation's problem.

Or it could turn into an uber-Empire, YOU CAN'T PREDICT IT, IT'S TOO RISKY.

Check the news on Naboo.

Fed Time Assassin: What's Naboo?

Fed Time Assassin: (goes to public library) Hmm. The Emperor was once a Senator on the planet of Naboo. Where's it located? Ah, here's the coordinates, a matter of public record!

Pick a time period when he is first campaigning for the Senate.

Fed Time Assassin: When this Palpatine get power? How did he get power? What's the Senate? Where's the Senate?

Fed Time Assassin: (smacks self) Silly me! I should go to the local library and look this up! Or I could just ask random people on the street since it's part of commonly known galactic history.

He'd probably be in Theed.

Fed Time Assassin: What's a Theed?

Fed Time Assassin: Oh, it's the capital city of Naboo where Palpatine lived right before he was elected to the Senate.

Die, when the city is obliterated from orbit.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

...said the Fed Time Assassin after blowing up Theed.

So there are a lot of Senator Palpatines from Naboo who later became S.C. and Emperor, huh? He's a public figure! Easy to follow.

And they will learn all of this before being steamrolled how?

It wouldn't matter if they were. It would only take one properly crewed ship, and once the mission was complete, the invasion would never have happened.

They can trace his history easily. His positions are a matter of political public record. He is a very important person in galactic politics!

In STAR WARS GALACTIC POLITICS.
Not Star Trek galactic politics, not Federation galactic politics, he's a total unknown to them.

Fed Time Assassin on any Imperial Planet: Yo, what's the Emperor's name?
Random Twi'lek: Go look it up, fool!
Fed Time Assassin: Oh yeah! Libraries! (smacks self again)

Well if you concede the argument, just say so.

I don't, I'm pointing out that this is a moot point since it'll affect nothing.

No it won't. The multiple unchanging timelines theory is wrong. You haven't given a single good argument for assuming multiple unseen timelines. Sure there's no way to disprove them, but we can't disprove the existence of Santa Claus, Thor, God of Thunder, invisible pink unicorns or the little man in your refrigerator either. Like all of these ideas,
yours is unnecessary, needlessly complicated and in violation of the Law of Parsimony.

Who cares if they have the balls to do it? The point is that they COULD do it if they want to. And if the Empire invades and overruns the 29th century, then you can bet some nut like Braxton will pull a stunt like temporal genocide to save the galaxy. It's not like anything they do to screw with SW history will affect Trek history.

Braxton's a psycho, his methods are stupid, any old Sith would see him coming a mile away.

That's why he'd obliterate Palpatine from orbit. And how would a Sith find some guy looking up galactic history in some library suspicious?

Isard: Your majesty, a web search on Emperor History has set off a red flag in our computer monitoring security system.
Emperor: Holy Holograms, it must be time-traveling assassins from other galaxies I haven't even heard of yet! Quick, send a message to myself in the past to watch out for being blasted to smithereens at any given moment!

Yeah, right.

[Evil Jerk]

Everything you say is absed upon the assumption that time travel operates on the multiple timeline theory.

Lets look at the evidence against this theory.
Every single SF character.

They're idiots.

A Romulan scientist.

Specify

A Klingon Spy.

Specify

The Borg.

See Every single SF character.

People who have mastered time travel.

See Every single SF character.

People who mastered time travel 300 years ago.

Specify.

The Molly incident.

Combination of predestination and alterate timelines.

Voyagers temporal shield and the wave effect.

How does this disprove it.

The Defiant Colony incident.

Already explained.

Now the evidence for (as my understanding goes)
Because I say so.

If you have more evidence list it in the above form (short statement) and explain beneath, since its time (pun ) this was resolved.

"Parallels"
Braxton
Alexander
Janeway and her ubertechnology
Sisko replacing Gabriel Bell

[TheDarkling]

Parallels are alternate universes not alternate timelines - that fits alot better with the minor changes.

Braxton - Specify, you mean when he appears and says "I never experienced that timeline" well im getting relativity at the moment but I can rememebr something about the 29th Feds saying they would prevent the entire Braxton thing from happening, I will go into this more once I have seen he ep since it may not apply.

Why do we see Molly disapear though - she never existed infact Keiko says she most nkow that she would cause her owndestruction (or non existence), or else the scene makes no sense.

No Defiant colony incident hasnt been explained without radom timeline creation for no apparent reason.

The Alexander thing is wierd because Worf says the future has been altered yet also wants to send him back in time so Worf subscribes to both theories at one moment.

Sisko replacing Bell fits with the single timeline (again Sisko had to ensure the timeline was fixed) we also see the Defiant in another universe (Romulan ruled) then it switchs back to ours (this makes no sense since the Defiant should have remained where it was anyway unless that episode created three new timelines).

Janeway and her uber tech?? more info please.

The Romulan scientist was the one Voyager met in their transport across time.

The Klingon was Arne Darvin (Trails and Tribbilations)

The people who mastered time travel 300 years ago are the Feds of the 31st.

This is the an argument I have seen before - the entire ST universe are idiots and know less about their universe than we do, it will take alot to convince me and your theory fits lss well that their theory.

[Evil Jerk]

But can you prove they have been?

By the simple fact that if they weren't protected, they'd never notice any changes, whichever theory you believe.

So they have never purposely gone back 10 minutes into the past to make a deliberate change to see what would happen without their
It is a gross violation of suspension of belief to assume that the Future Feds, masters of time travel, are so ignorant of its very nature as to miss this completely. Arguing that the Feds don't understand time travel at all, especially when your theory has no evidence, doesn't hold water.

I have evidence. Fed conformity, Fed inability to make experminets in controlled envirmoents.
If the Federation Science Council says it is so, it is so, if they say it isn't, well then it isn't. That's just how it is to them, and is backed up by everything.

No, they show a new timeline being created and wiping out the older one. The shockwave erases the old timeline. Even the characters (Annorax, Voy. crew) agree with this. Provide proof that the timeline continues to exist.

It erases the old one from their point of view!
If the old timelines cease to exist, they'd never come back at the end!
Otherwise, you get another grandfather paradox.

When Janeway stops the accident, we see a bright flash everywhere and everything vanishes. This would not have happened if the timeline had continued on. In fact, if it had, it would make less sense. There would be the Voyager crew in the "present" on a destroyed planet and Janeway and Paris a few days in the past on a healthy, safe planet. It would create a third timeline! It would NOT create the blinding flash/disappearing effect we OBSERVED.

The flash was from Janeway closing that portal thing and may also be the transition from our point of view to the new timeline, you can't prove it's anything else.
And it doesn't create a third timeline, it creates 2.
One with Voyager around the destroyed planet missing Janeway and Paris, and another with Voyager nearby an okay planet with another Janeway and Paris on it.

Why should Braxton and future Alexander cease to exist? Their futures have ceased to exist, but they are still in the "past". They still exist in the changed timeline. They have no reason to vanish. There is no reason to postulate an infinite number of unchanged timelines.

Except.. they both went back.

Fed Time Assassin: (goes to public library) Hmm. The Emperor was once a Senator on the planet of Naboo. Where's it located? Ah, here's the coordinates, a matter of public record!

Explain why the evil Emperor's history is avaiable to any bozo that walks in.
Explain that they'll know where these libraries are and know how to read Basic (Universal Translators are NOT omnipotent).

Fed Time Assassin: (smacks self) Silly me! I should go to the local library and look this up! Or I could just ask random people on the street since it's part of commonly known galactic history.

Who to ask? Where to go?
Fed: "Hello, I would like to know about your Emperor"
Stormtrooper: "Hey you! What's with the suspicious questions?!"

Also.. for this to work.. they must snoop around in THE PRESENT DAY EMPIRE. Hello Emperor's wrath..

Fed Time Assassin: Oh, it's the capital city of Naboo where Palpatine lived right before he was elected to the Senate.

I just wonder where he got this free knowledge in a split second. Q?

It wouldn't matter if they were. It would only take one properly crewed ship, and once the mission was complete, the invasion would never have happened.

One ship = nothing to the Empire.
Each ship would have to start from scratch, because if they fail, they don't go back..

Fed Time Assassin on any Imperial Planet: Yo, what's the Emperor's name?
Random Twi'lek: Go look it up, fool!
Fed Time Assassin: Oh yeah! Libraries! (smacks self again)

Since the time assassin is hanging around in the present day Empire researching the Emperor, His Highness foresee's the stupid Feddy plan and has him arrested and vaporized.

No it won't. The multiple unchanging timelines theory is wrong. You haven't given a single good argument for assuming multiple unseen timelines. Sure there's no way to disprove them, but we can't disprove the existence of Santa Claus, Thor, God of Thunder, invisible pink unicorns or the little man in your refrigerator either. Like all of these ideas,
yours is unnecessary, needlessly complicated and in violation of the Law of Parsimony.

No it isn't, you just refuse to accept the obvious.

That's why he'd obliterate Palpatine from orbit. And how would a Sith find some guy looking up galactic history in some library suspicious?

Because an idiot like him would be broadcasting his thoughts, and even if he weren't, the time it would take to research everything would give the Emperor ample time to foresee it and crush them.

[Evil Jerk]

Parallels are alternate universes not alternate timelines - that fits alot better with the minor changes.

But some are major changes.

Braxton - Specify, you mean when he appears and says "I never experienced that timeline" well im getting relativity at the moment but I can rememebr something about the 29th Feds saying they would prevent the entire Braxton thing from happening, I will go into this more once I have seen he ep since it may not apply.

One Braxton never experienced exile on Earth, another (the one from the beginning of the episode) did. They both exist in their own timelines.
In "Relativity", no mention was made of the Braxton who was never on Earth, just the Braxton who had experienced it and would later go mad.
Hence, they both exist in their own timelines.

Why do we see Molly disapear though - she never existed infact Keiko says she most nkow that she would cause her owndestruction (or non existence), or else the scene makes no sense.

From the point of view of us, following the "normal" timeline, of course she'd dissapear!

No Defiant colony incident hasnt been explained without radom timeline creation for no apparent reason.

*Odo* was the reason.

The Alexander thing is wierd because Worf says the future has been altered yet also wants to send him back in time so Worf subscribes to both theories at one moment.

*Worf's* future has been altered, not Alexander's.

Sisko replacing Bell fits with the single timeline (again Sisko had to ensure the timeline was fixed)

No it doesn't. Are you telling me he never noticed that next to Gabriel Bell's bio is a freaking photo of himself before, even though he had researched Bell before?

we also see the Defiant in another universe (Romulan ruled) then it switchs back to ours (this makes no sense since the Defiant should have remained where it was anyway unless that episode created three new timelines).

It shifted timelines because it was protected by [technobabble].

Janeway and her uber tech?? more info please.

Admiral Janeway in "Endgame".

The Romulan scientist was the one Voyager met in their transport across time.

Could possibly be proof of alternate timelines, he was given messages to give to the Federation when the time came, but the Feds in Voyager's universe never got them, but what if they *did* get them in the scientist's universe?
Yes, he died, but what if he left instructions for the messages to be sent, what if he didn't die in the timeline Voyager contacted?

And if you don't believe that, then: Predestination.

The Klingon was Arne Darvin (Trails and Tribbilations)

Either way it would work for him, he would personally gain fame and power by changing the past.

The people who mastered time travel 300 years ago are the Feds of the 31st.

Crewman Daniels.
Nothing more to say.

This is the an argument I have seen before - the entire ST universe are idiots and know less about their universe than we do, it will take alot to convince me and your theory fits lss well that their theory.

That's the way it is if you look at it, they consistentley reach results contrary to what's actually happen, they never experiment or doube-check anything, they are the epitamy of how not to run anything, let alone time travel.

[Eframepilot]

(claims of multiple timelines without proof snipped)

Because you have this little thing about UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECTS. Why don't modern states use biological warfare? Because it has a good chance of coming back to bite you in the ass. If you don't know ... don't screw it unless absolutely necessary.

Except that colony was supposed to not be destroyed, so they weren't affected before, why would they be affected again?

Cynical arguments why the colony was not brought back:

1. Thanks to chaos theory, you never know what might happen if the colony is brought back. It might lead to identical history, or it might lead to the next Khan Noonien Singh being born etc.

2. History has been changed already, all the descendants of the dead colonists don't exist, new people instead of them do exist. Changing history back will eliminate the new people in favor of the old people. Would you kill a baby to bring an old man back to life?

3. Quite frankly, why should they care about the colonists? They all died centuries ago anyway! Their earlier deaths, though tragic, didn't seem to change much except by way of canceling Archer's mission. Which was fixed. So why rock the boat to lengthen the lives of some people who died half a millenium ago?

(snip another claim of "cop-out" w/o proof)

Well let's see we've seen them alter the past to change events in the present and the future (i.e. when they recruit 7 of 9) and we see them go back in time and bomb Voyager (same episode). We see them send people back in time and bring them forward. Instead sending a person (like 7 of 9) forward ... send a photon torp or an old fashioned fusion bomb.

First, prove that they can do that.

I'm actually not sure time travel could be used like that. In "Relativity", Voyager's shields blocked 29th cent. transporters. I'm mainly replying to this to answer your next statement.

Second, prove that they would do that, as ALL of their time exploits have been to PREVENT time changes.

I believe someone in this thread earlier said this:
"The history of warfare has shown that when their backs are to the wall, humans will do anything to stave off defeat or achieve victory. The idea that they restrict themselves to "ethics" (while simultaneously developing genocidal bioweapons) is simply laughable."

Prove that they travel faster without time travel.

Why wouldn't "time travel", used to travel to the present, be viable. Even in your (incorrect) theory. time travel that makes no changes to the past doesn't create a new timeline, rather it is predestined. Travel to the present or future would definitely not make any changes. Keep your theory straight.

Prove they span the whole galaxy.

Actually that too is dubious, from Voy. "Living Witness". 800 years after Voy. someone in the Delta Quadrant hadn't heard of the Federation. But they can easily cross the galaxy ("Future's End", "Relativity" Braxton and Seven beam from Utopia Planitia to the Delta Quadrant), and I believe Q once said they shouldn't be in the Delta Quadrant "for a hundred years."

Prove that they can destroy solar systems without time travel.

Again, prove that the destruction of a solar system in the present or near future wouldn't count as predestination.

Look mommy an unsubstaniated claim. Not only is no specific example given, but no criteria for how we would know its an alternate universe as compared to a changed single universe are not given.

Numerous examples have been given, people like you ignore every single one of them.

What, that people from previous timelines continue to exist? False dilemma. That merely shows that people who have traveled to the past usually continue to exist even after their histories do not, just as in your theory people exist in a new timeline wholly separated from their original timeline.
(snip)

Never read I jedi. And I'm not inventing a tactic. Its real simple. Timeship comes out of the sky over Naboo (you know the end of TPM when Palpy is on the ground), fires off a nice fusion bomb, leaves. Palpy = dead.

How do they know who Palpy is?

Local library of SW planets.

Why would they commit genocide?

"The history of warfare has shown that when their backs are to the wall, humans will do anything to stave off defeat or achieve victory. The idea that they restrict themselves to "ethics" (while simultaneously developing genocidal bioweapons) is simply laughable."

Now ask a person from another galaxy to find out where he was then, before he can be tracked by a Sith and killed.

The Emperor couldn't even sense Luke on the moon of Endor, a few thousand km away. Sith will not be tracking down single spies who are just a little curious about historical information.

It really isn't that hard to find where a leader was at some time (i.e. where GWB goes when he's on vacation in Texas), just send an operative to the local library.

Where's the local library? What language is it in? Are the personal files of the EVIL EMPEROR available to just anybody? How long will it take?

Ask a native. Universal Translator. The personal files aren't, but propaganda will give the basic background for sure. And considering they're time travelers, they have basically as long as they want.

Well let's see they try kill everyone on Voyager after Earth goes up in flames. After the first DS shot (assuming the imps get that far) it goes with precedent.

Braxton. One man. Lunatic. More examples please.

"The history of warfare has shown that when their backs are to the wall, humans will do anything to stave off defeat or achieve victory. The idea that they restrict themselves to "ethics" (while simultaneously developing genocidal bioweapons) is simply laughable."

[Eframepilot]

But can you prove they have been?

By the simple fact that if they weren't protected, they'd never notice any changes, whichever theory you believe.

Okay, you have a point there. The Feds in a timeline that ALWAYS follows the change could never learn of alternate timelines. But our point-of-view follows the change every freaking time one is made. What is more likely: there is only one timeline that gets changed, or there are many timlelines but "God" (the guy filming Trek and Wars) only lets us see the "newest" one?

I have evidence. Fed conformity, Fed inability to make experminets in controlled envirmoents.
If the Federation Science Council says it is so, it is so, if they say it isn't, well then it isn't. That's just how it is to them, and is backed up by everything.

They also figured out how to time travel in the first place, something you and I know net to nothing about. The Feds are not stupid or even rigid; Data and Geordi always mention some radical new theory and apply it in 30 seconds or so. You cannot assume that the Feds are merely stupid, you must assume they are idiot savants to a degree that only divine intervention explains their current state of advancement.

It erases the old one from their point of view!

It also erases it from OUR POV. We have to assume whomever is "filming" the events is actively deceptive. The shockwave appears to erase the previous timeline; there is no reason to assume it does not.

If the old timelines cease to exist, they'd never come back at the end!
Otherwise, you get another grandfather paradox.

They don't come back at the end. The time weapon ship erases its own existence; the final timeline is one where IT never existed. There is no grandfather paradox; there is just one timeline where Annorax never finished work on designing the weaponship.

The flash was from Janeway closing that portal thing and may also be the transition from our point of view to the new timeline, you can't prove it's anything else.
And it doesn't create a third timeline, it creates 2.
One with Voyager around the destroyed planet missing Janeway and Paris, and another with Voyager nearby an okay planet with another Janeway and Paris on it.

The flash also appears in the "present" with Torres and Tuvok as well as with Paris, sitting out on some field quite a distance away from the portal. And why should the transition to a new timeline be a blinding flash? Again, we are left with a deceptive "God". That bastard.

Why should Braxton and future Alexander cease to exist? Their futures have ceased to exist, but they are still in the "past". They still exist in the changed timeline. They have no reason to vanish. There is no reason to postulate an infinite number of unchanged timelines.

Except.. they both went back.

Braxton went back to an altered future where he was merged by Starfleet with his younger counterpart. Yes, they can merge people in the 29th century. It's mentioned in "Relativity", where they talk about merging the 3 Braxtons as well as the two Sevens (and, presumably, the extra Janeway). This is bizarre, but it is actually seen as far back as "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (TOS), where Kirk and Spock merge two 20th century guys with their past/future selves via transporter.

Fed Time Assassin: (goes to public library) Hmm. The Emperor was once a Senator on the planet of Naboo. Where's it located? Ah, here's the coordinates, a matter of public record!

Explain why the evil Emperor's history is avaiable to any bozo that walks in.
Explain that they'll know where these libraries are and know how to read Basic (Universal Translators are NOT omnipotent).

Why would the Emperor hide his background completely? What does he have to worry about?
And given how easily the Federation manages to translate nearly every language, spoken or written, they ever encounter, and that Basic is a standard language adopted for its ease of use and is translatable DIRECTLY to English, if not identical to English if you're anal about observation trumping everything, the burden of proof is on YOU to show that a tricorder wouldn't be able to translate Basic in less than thirty seconds.

Fed Time Assassin: (smacks self) Silly me! I should go to the local library and look this up! Or I could just ask random people on the street since it's part of commonly known galactic history.

Who to ask? Where to go?
Fed: "Hello, I would like to know about your Emperor"
Stormtrooper: "Hey you! What's with the suspicious questions?!"

Also.. for this to work.. they must snoop around in THE PRESENT DAY EMPIRE. Hello Emperor's wrath..

Dammit, there is nothing suspicious about visiting the library and looking for information about the Emperor! God knows Imperial Intelligence (there's an oxymoron) has better things to do, like look for actual Rebels, than hunt down everyone who looks up the Emperor's political history and planet of origin.

Fed Time Assassin: Oh, it's the capital city of Naboo where Palpatine lived right before he was elected to the Senate.

I just wonder where he got this free knowledge in a split second. Q?
[/quote]
Of course he won't know what Theed is... unless he looks it up. Which is the whole point.

One ship = nothing to the Empire.
Each ship would have to start from scratch, because if they fail, they don't go back..

One ship = one ship out of billions of every variety.
One ship = one ship that can go anywhere anytime within the galaxy and a millenium instantly.
One ship = one ship that can destroy solar systems with temporal rifts generated centuries in the past. (Centerpoint Station, eat your heart out.)
And there is no evidence that they have cloaking devices, but hell, why wouldn't they? They DO spy on the past, after all, and the Empire won't be specifically looking for them so why would they be detected?

Since the time assassin is hanging around in the present day Empire researching the Emperor, His Highness foresee's the stupid Feddy plan and has him arrested and vaporized.

Just like he foresaw Chewie and the Ewoks taking over an AT-ST, taking down the shield, and taking out his Death Star.
Just like he foresaw the destruction of the 1st Death Star, and the hiding Obi-Wan and Yoda, and the defection of Lando and rescue of Leia and Luke, and the hiding places of the twins.

And the hiding places of the Rebels, who all were thinking very nasty thoughts about him and had no Force abilities to hide their thoughts.

No, I'm afraid Emperor Palpatine will be quite unsuspecting when the Future Feds arrive. (evil cackle)

No it isn't, you just refuse to accept the obvious.

No YOU refuse to accept the obvious.

Because an idiot like him would be broadcasting his thoughts, and even if he weren't, the time it would take to research everything would give the Emperor ample time to foresee it and crush them.

Yeah, all of half an hour is plenty of time for the Empire to hunt down one guy in a library looking up recent history.

Sorry, but you grossly, grossly overestimate the Emperor's precog abilities. You make him sound like Paul Atreides, when he's barely better than Miss Cleo.

[Eframepilot]

To counter all of your examples of multiple alternate timelines:

"Parallels"

Parallel universes explained in episode by Many Worlds quantum theory. No evidence that they were created by time travel, therefore does not support your claims.

Braxton

29th century Feds can merge different selves into one person. This reconciles existence of 2 Braxtons (they got merged) and also explains why he had temporal psychosis (that was one hell of a gap between his two selves)

Alexander

Proves nothing. Worf states that history has already been changed. Worf is not psychic; this may not be true. Worf may still be killed and Alexander may still go back in time, thus, predestination paradow. Alternatively, history may have been changed, Alexander may have returned to a future where he did not go back in time and thus two Alexanders. Alternatively again, Alexander may have returned to a predestined future that got changed anyway by Picard or Sisko or somebody else later on. We just don't know what happened to Alexander after he returned. For that matter, we don't even know IF he returned! Didn't Worf just say he was "gone"? Maybe he went off to some monastery somewhere with Thomas Riker, Ro Laren, and all the other TNG characters in Limbo.

Anyway, Alexander isn't evidence either way.

Janeway and her ubertechnology

No paradox here. Janeway goes back in time, her timeline is destroyed, she in "past" remains in existence, as does her ubertechnology.

Sisko replacing Gabriel Bell

How is this a violation?
Originally: Sisko is not Gabriel Bell. Photos show Bell.
Sisko goes back in time, replaces Bell. Old timeline destroyed, new one with Sisko=Bell created.
Sisko returns, he is now Bell. He and crew are now only ones in existence who remember old Bell.

We still have the problem that in the "new" timeline, other people may have noticed that Sisko looked like Bell. But that is true anyway with a separate timeline. Though Sisko has no memory of it, people may have been saying to him all his life, "You look a lot like Gabriel Bell." This is true in both theories.

Conclusion: None of your examples prove that time travel creates new timelines w/o destroying the old one. As your theory has no evidence, disagrees with the characters' canon opinions and our observations and is needlessly complex, we disregard it.

[tharkûn]

Rather do a point by point rebuttle of Evil Jerk I'll sum up his arguments in 1 sentence:
Because I said so. Does his theory make *any* predictions for us to check? No. Does his theory explain any problems others don't? Nope he just has an escape clause for the grandfather paradox ... however *any* theory of time travel where the effects of the time traveller do no alter his existance meet this. That's right something like temporal orphange (time traveler's become acuasal when they leave their native time).

Next up how do you have "merge" people from different times?

Next up given that in parrellels we see that the feddies have <technobabble> which *does* allow them to discern between "native" universe and one you get to another way ... don't you think somebody might have used this <technobabble> *once* after a time traveller comes back? In the process of an entire temporal cold war nobody ever did a simple scan the E-D performed in *minutes* and noticed, hell we ain't in Kansas anymore?


In any event there is just one thing about the whole time travel branching the past.

Take this nice idea. Take a crew of volunteers for an unconventional, possible suicide mission. The jump forward in time a billion years and set up shop on a nice planet. Here they begin mass producing fighters, ships, etc. Let that run for as long as you like, and at some point have them send the arms back in time ... to a point *after* they left.

In other words *no* grandfather paradox. In other words no multiple universes. In graphical terms
past ------> point of departure into the future -----> ships from the future come back to kick Imperial ass -----------------------------------------> way in the future the colony which mass produces the ships exists.

There you have it. No casuality loops. No new timelines spinning off. A simple, elegant predistination loop with no rewrite of the past.

Same thing with sender torps into the future. Beam a torpedo into the future on the predicted course of an ISD. The torp materializes inside the bridge tower, everyone in the bridge tower is a a pile of goo.

In short even if we do by the idea of a granfather paradox ... time travel still kicks ass. You can go into the future and send things back after your departure date ... now its a *closed* predestination loop, not grandfather-paradox with an open loop.

Or even if you are right here's another wicked little trick ... send the Imps to another timeline. Lock on with temporal transporters (which did work through sheilds) and beam the Emporer (and Vader for good measure) into a new timeline. Now you have the TESB empire without a leader which as seen falls apart into regional conflicts (not to mention the fear factor if you announce in advance that anyone who launches an attack against you will mysteriously dissappear).

[Eframepilot]

Next up how do you have "merge" people from different times?

Is that question for me? I dunno how it's done, but it's referred to in "Relativity". I assume it involves the transporter, as it sounds similar to the bizarre ending of TOS "Tomorrow is Yesterday". An Air Force pilot and security guard are beamed onto their past selves, excising their memories?!?! That was a weird ending. Anyway, the multiple Braxtons and Sevens that accumulate by the end of "Relativity" are combined into single persons in a single timeline.

Next up given that in parrellels we see that the feddies have <technobabble> which *does* allow them to discern between "native" universe and one you get to another way ... don't you think somebody might have used this <technobabble> *once* after a time traveller comes back? In the process of an entire temporal cold war nobody ever did a simple scan the E-D performed in *minutes* and noticed, hell we ain't in Kansas anymore?

Good point. It gets better, though. With all of the time traveling the Enterprise-D has done by "Parallels", Worf is no longer in his original timeline anyway. So the "quantum signature" technobabble must not be affected by time travel to be useful in determining home universe. Therefore time travel must be unrelated to the universe-branching of Parallels!

[SirNitram]

My my my... Eframepilot, you have just proved you know nothing about time travel at all.

'Multiple' people acculumating.. They were the same person, at different intervals! At progressively earlier intervals, I might add. The 'earliest' Seven would live through all that the others had, and then be back on the ship. The concept is 'personal time' as opposed to 'universal time'.

[Eframepilot]

My my my... Eframepilot, you have just proved you know nothing about time travel at all.

'Multiple' people acculumating.. They were the same person, at different intervals! At progressively earlier intervals, I might add. The 'earliest' Seven would live through all that the others had, and then be back on the ship. The concept is 'personal time' as opposed to 'universal time'.

Only in predestination paradoxes. In "Relativity", the Braxtons and Sevens will never go back to relive their past history, because it has changed. Another example is O'Brien in "Visionary". He travels forward a few hours several times and interacts with himself. The first two times he experiences the same events (seeing himself on the Promenade and the riot in Quark's) identically, as if he cannot change time. He is both the arriving O'Brien and the "already-there" O'Brien. The next two times he sees his own death (yes, twice), and he is able to avert it twice. IOW, he is never the dead O'Brien. The final trip he collapses from radiation poisoning and his future counterpart returns, replacing him. Now, if on any trip O'Brien had not returned, there would be a new timeline with two O'Briens in it, one who had jumped forward in time and one who hadn't. These would be two separate persons.

[Eframepilot]

So... anyone have any more arguments in favor of the multiple existing timeline theory, or why the Future Feds couldn't assassinate Senator Palpatine?

[SirNitram]

So... anyone have any more arguments in favor of the multiple existing timeline theory, or why the Future Feds couldn't assassinate Senator Palpatine?

The multiple Braxton's and Seven's in Relativity can only be the result of multiple timelines(The phrase is grandfather paradox, learn it instead of using it mindlessly), Braxton's quote indicates multiple timelines, and other time travel instances suggest it. I repeat what I said earlier: Prove the Future Federation's time travel alters a single timeline.

[TheDarkling]

Check the thread - its been done, theres far more evidence for the single timeline theory than there is against it because time travel relies upon the concept of the single timeline or else the "lets go correct the past" episodes fall flat.

The Grandfather paradox was dealt with on about page 2 or 3 and I have also shown why it need not apply before.

[Eframepilot]

So... anyone have any more arguments in favor of the multiple existing timeline theory, or why the Future Feds couldn't assassinate Senator Palpatine?

The multiple Braxton's and Seven's in Relativity can only be the result of multiple timelines(The phrase is grandfather paradox, learn it instead of using it mindlessly), Braxton's quote indicates multiple timelines, and other time travel instances suggest it. I repeat what I said earlier: Prove the Future Federation's time travel alters a single timeline.

We never argued that the Future Federation's time travel alters a single timeline. Rather, it produces a new timeline, just like your theory, but with one notable difference: the previous timeline ceases to exist. This is not contradicted by the existence of people from previous timelines; they survive in the new timeline for the analogous reason that they are present in the new timeline in your theory.

The multiple people: from different timelines but their timelines no longer exist.

Braxton: "I never experienced that timeline." He says nothing of whether "that timeline" still exists, and his attitude in "Relativity", in which he actively attempts to fix mistakes in the past, strongly suggests that he believes the past CAN be "changed".

Other time travel instances: please provide examples.

Here is a better explanation of the difference between our theories: you believe time travel in Trek is "Dragon Ball Z"-like, while I theorize it is "Back to the Future II"-like. In Dragon Ball Z, Trunks travels back in time to prevent evil androids from destroying his world. He succeeds and creates a timeline where the threat of the androids is neutralized. However, his own timeline still exists, and he returns to his post-apocalyptic future to deal with his version of the androids. In Back to the Future II, old Biff travels back to 1955 and creates a timeline where he becomes a billionaire. Doc Brown and Marty are trapped in this timeline and cannot return to "their" 1985, indeed, there is no evidence that "their" 1985 still exists. If Doc Brown's explanation of time travel was correct, it is clear that "Their" 1985 no longer exists and they can only return by stopping Biff in 1955.

Both DBZ and Back to the Future II escape the Grandfather Paradox by assuming the creation of new timelines; however, in DBZ the old timelines still exist, and in Back to the Future they do not. Given how we have NO direct evidence that previous timelines still exist in Trek, and that all of the characters believe they do not, by the Law of Parsimony we take the simpler theory. "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily", and assuming infinite unseen timelines is major multiplication.

[Eframepilot]

Here's another, simpler analogy (that doesn't reference DBZ, ugh):

A timeline is like a text file. Time travel is like opening it, fooling with its contents, and saving it. Your theory suggests that every time a change is made, the changed version is saved in a new file, producing an old and new file. My theory states that the old file is written over, no longer existing on the hard drive.

Provide proof that the original files are still saved on the hard drive.