29th Century Federation vs. Galactic Empire(Split)

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-09-19 05:35pm

Alyeska wrote:If time travel created alternate realities only, then in VGR Relativity it would have been pointless to go back in time to save Voyager.

The pointless-ness of the trip doesn't make time travel possible

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-09-19 05:40pm

When ships fight for other timelines entirely(E-E, alternate E-D, Original Defiant), I don't see much reason to think that Braxton must be acting in self preservation. I also remind you, Braxton isn't the most stable man of all time. He's the one who lay the bomb, and if I recall Future's End right, he goes nuts, or at least sufficient nuts that he becomes a legendary street bum. This throws his credibility into question.

He is also the one speaking of timelines, in Future's End.

As for being shielded from the grandfather paradox, the only way one could actually do that is by making your ship, essentially, a tiny, selfcontained timeline.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-09-19 05:40pm

Slartibartfast wrote:
Alyeska wrote:If time travel created alternate realities only, then in VGR Relativity it would have been pointless to go back in time to save Voyager.
The pointless-ness of the trip doesn't make time travel possible

What you just said makes no sense. I was referring to the defense of Voyager being pointless if time travel creates different time lines. You said that it being pointless means that time travel is not possible. Even the most off the wall ideas behind ST time travel can not deny the fact that they are traveling through time, if even through alternate realities. Your claim that time travel is impossible is clearly false.

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-19 05:55pm

What happened is the 29th century Federation detected a time change. Voyager was supposed to survive and make it back to the Federation, they knew this. Except Voyager suddenly blew up, and they detected that someone from the future had caused this. They investigate, they loose Voyager at least once during the episode, but eventually they find out how it happened. The 29th Century Federation officers indicated that the death of Voyager would cause bad changes to the future, their future. The time ship had observed the changes while itself remaining unchanged. It sent people back in time to prevent Voyager from being destroyed and the future was restored. Why did the Time ship itself not get affected by the change? It had temporal shields that allowed it to avoid the grand father paradox. The time ship saw time as it started, time as it was altered, and time as it was fixed. If the time lines diverge when the past is altered, such monitoring of the time lines would be pointless because you have no worry about the past being altered. The fact that they DO worry about the past changing, and that they have safe guards to prevent this is CLEAR evidence that the time line can be static.

I believe that these anomalies, chronoton particles, temporal shield or whatever they call their technobabble saviours of the week shift them around the various timelines should they abruptly change under their feet, but that they are simply unaware of this.
The Feds have a long history of misinterpreting information and rapidly slapping labels onto what they don't understand, it may be the same here.

If they have temporal shields, they THINK a solid timeline is changing when they are being shifted. If they don't have temporal shields, they'll never be aware of it because they'll stay where they are.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » 2002-09-19 08:13pm

Evil Jerk wrote:
What happened is the 29th century Federation detected a time change. Voyager was supposed to survive and make it back to the Federation, they knew this. Except Voyager suddenly blew up, and they detected that someone from the future had caused this. They investigate, they loose Voyager at least once during the episode, but eventually they find out how it happened. The 29th Century Federation officers indicated that the death of Voyager would cause bad changes to the future, their future. The time ship had observed the changes while itself remaining unchanged. It sent people back in time to prevent Voyager from being destroyed and the future was restored. Why did the Time ship itself not get affected by the change? It had temporal shields that allowed it to avoid the grand father paradox. The time ship saw time as it started, time as it was altered, and time as it was fixed. If the time lines diverge when the past is altered, such monitoring of the time lines would be pointless because you have no worry about the past being altered. The fact that they DO worry about the past changing, and that they have safe guards to prevent this is CLEAR evidence that the time line can be static.
I believe that these anomalies, chronoton particles, temporal shield or whatever they call their technobabble saviours of the week shift them around the various timelines should they abruptly change under their feet, but that they are simply unaware of this.
The Feds have a long history of misinterpreting information and rapidly slapping labels onto what they don't understand, it may be the same here.

If they have temporal shields, they THINK a solid timeline is changing when they are being shifted. If they don't have temporal shields, they'll never be aware of it because they'll stay where they are.

Temporal shields prevent timeline changes from changing the ship. If there are alternatye realities they would not be affected. Why are the temporal shields necessary? In "Year of Hell," temporal shields were said to protect Voyager and the Time Ship from being affected by the changes that erasing objects from history caused. Voyager would be unaffected if it created a new timeline, but they were until they got temporal shields.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2002-09-19 08:26pm

Here's a fun timetravel paradox:

The defiant goes through some type of technobabble feild. They arrive at a planet which is inhabited by their descendants. Their descendants try to trick them to ensure they will go back in time (otherwise the descendants will cease to exist). Eventually Sisko et al decide to go back in time to preserve their descendants. They up not doing so and all their descendants cease to exist.

Now here is the rub. If time travel merely spins off a new future whenever the past is altered ... why did the descendants no longer exist? I mean the point of divergence should have been when the "original" Defiant entered the past and eventually crash landed. However the changes occured due to *NON-ACTION* on the part of the Defiant crew and the effects propgated *backwards* through time.

Did the Defiant suddenly spin off a new universe by doing nothing? This incident is a major reason why I'm not comfortable with the standard interpretation that whenever an observer finds themselves in a new universe they were dragged there by the time traveller. If the universe has already diverged ... then doing nothing should not alter reality (assuming that "standard causes" only have effects in the future) because it was a Defiant from a a completely different reality that created the colony in the first place.

Well anyway that's my take. The Defiant initially went back in time, founded a colony; then the 2nd time around they do nothing and the present alters. The ship which founded the colony was from a different reality entirely so the actions of the one shown in "Children of Time" should not have had *any* effect on the inhabitants of the colony if we buy the usual theory.

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-19 08:37pm

Shadow wrote:Temporal shields prevent timeline changes from changing the ship. If there are alternatye realities they would not be affected. Why are the temporal shields necessary? In "Year of Hell," temporal shields were said to protect Voyager and the Time Ship from being affected by the changes that erasing objects from history caused. Voyager would be unaffected if it created a new timeline, but they were until they got temporal shields.

They are NOT necessary, that's my point, without them you'd never experience any changes, but with them you can be dragged into a new universe when it's formed.

tharkûn wrote:Here's a fun timetravel paradox:

The defiant goes through some type of technobabble feild. They arrive at a planet which is inhabited by their descendants. Their descendants try to trick them to ensure they will go back in time (otherwise the descendants will cease to exist). Eventually Sisko et al decide to go back in time to preserve their descendants. They up not doing so and all their descendants cease to exist.

Now here is the rub. If time travel merely spins off a new future whenever the past is altered ... why did the descendants no longer exist? I mean the point of divergence should have been when the "original" Defiant entered the past and eventually crash landed. However the changes occured due to *NON-ACTION* on the part of the Defiant crew and the effects propgated *backwards* through time.

Did the Defiant suddenly spin off a new universe by doing nothing? This incident is a major reason why I'm not comfortable with the standard interpretation that whenever an observer finds themselves in a new universe they were dragged there by the time traveller. If the universe has already diverged ... then doing nothing should not alter reality (assuming that "standard causes" only have effects in the future) because it was a Defiant from a a completely different reality that created the colony in the first place.

Well anyway that's my take. The Defiant initially went back in time, founded a colony; then the 2nd time around they do nothing and the present alters. The ship which founded the colony was from a different reality entirely so the actions of the one shown in "Children of Time" should not have had *any* effect on the inhabitants of the colony if we buy the usual theory.

The Defiant was not from a different reality, it was thrust into a different one when Odo changed it so that it didn't crash.

If that were a solid timeline, then you get a Grandfather Paradox, future Odo exists on the planet because the Defiant crashed, yet he's the one who prevents it from crashing but how can he if the Defiant never crashed?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2002-09-19 09:49pm

I'm just going to respond to the Killing Palpatine bit:

It won't do a damn bit of good.
I'm totally ignoring Character shields here too. The simple fact is that over the milenia the Sith have set things up to the point where Palpatine happens to be the Sith Lord who rules. It is not like he alone did it. This plan is the result of hundreds of years of planning and work. He was simply present when it came to fruitation. Let's say you kill palpatine as a baby. Ok, his Master simply picks a new apprentice and that guy becomes Emperor when the overthrow occurs. Kill Palpy as an adult, but before he is in the senate: Good luck, he's a sith lord. And that means he has all the little goodies that goes along with it when it comes to avoiding getting killed or being exposed. Kill Palpatine when he is a senator: Again, good luck. And even then, Maul takes over and his apprentice will do it. All you did is delay the Empire, you didn't eliminate it. Same deal with Dooku.

The fall of the Republic is coming and the rule of the Sith is inevitable.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2002-09-19 10:01pm

Allow me to clarify some terms:
Original Defiant (OD): the Defiant which crash lands on the planet before the episodes starts. When they explore the planet it's uninhabited.

Current Defiant(OD): the Defiant which finds the planet inhabited and does not travel back in time.

Original timeline: the one inhabited by the OD before it goes back in time

Current timeline: the one the CD inhabits. Note up until the arrival of the OD in the past this is *identical* to the original timeline.

Final timeline: the one resulting from the defiant not going back in time but still having met their descendants.

The Defiant was not from a different reality, it was thrust into a different one when Odo changed it so that it didn't crash.

Yes it is. The OD comes from a universe where the planet was uninhabited. The CD comes from a universe where the planet is inhabited. It is *irrelevant* what the CD does because the OD will still exist in the original timeline and will still go back in time to the bifrication point where the two timelines split and will still found the colony. If we spawn a new timeline every time we jump into the past and the original remains intact ... then the actions of the CD are utterly irrelevant.

If that were a solid timeline, then you get a Grandfather Paradox, future Odo exists on the planet because the Defiant crashed, yet he's the one who prevents it from crashing but how can he if the Defiant never crashed?
I'm told the answer to that involves multidimensional time. I haven't a clue how it works. Note I'm not saying that there is a solid timeline, only that the stock answer does not sound right to me.

it was thrust into a different one when Odo changed it so that it didn't crash.
WHY? They didn't do anything. The ship which founded the colony *WASN'T THEM*. Can ST ships spin out new realities while effectively sitting on their asses?

If I'm formatting this write the timelines should look something like this:

future
| CD OD
| \ /
| \ /
| \ /
| \ /
| B
| |
| |
| |
| |
past

Now no matter what the hell the CD does the OD still exists to go back to the bifraction point B (and always will). Old Odo can save Kira and nobody should cease to exist ... by doing nothing (not interacting with the trechnobabble or whatevery) the CD should be able to go on its merry way. The alternative is the CD creating a whole damn new universe for no apparant reason.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2002-09-20 01:29am

Alyeska wrote: That was not time travel. There is a difference between alternate universes and alternate time lines. That episode also firmly established it is possible to determine who comes from what universe. If Time travel were nothing but universe hopping, they would have realized that a long time ago and not bothered attempting to change the past or save the past.

Sorry but I disagree. The episode establishes that every event that can occur does occur. Therefore there is a universe one in which time travel happened, and another in which it did not. The "multiple universes" thing is actually multiple timelines, with different chains of events. Sure with some special technobabbular device they could figure out if one person was in the timeline and didnt belong. But I highly doubt that everyone is tested for this, and most people probably wouldn't even know to test if the changes were only sublte. Hell, Worf didnt figure it out until he'd changed lives like 4 times.

Of course this isn't the only evidence for multiple timeline theory. Just look at Yesterday's Enterprise.

PICARD: In fact, they could conceivably create a third time line.

We now know that they did in fact create a third time line. One where Sela is born and becomes a very high ranking Romulan official. This episode also establishes that TNG is not in fact one time line, but glimpses of at least 3. The "original", the alternate with the Klingon war, and the alternate with Sela.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-09-20 04:03am

tharkûn wrote:Did the Defiant suddenly spin off a new universe by doing nothing?

Actually, if you check again your episode, you will notice that the Defiant didn't "do nothing". They actually went thru the motions, because they decided it was for the greater good that they created a planet filled with their little spawn. But for some unknown reason, the ship went thru the anomaly and nothing happened.

I don't remember the beginning, but I think they simply arrived at the planet with the (tecnhobabble) anomaly, but didn't go thru it just yet. Everyone in that planet was already there, because the supposed time-travel didn't happen yet.

It sounds to me that some Defiant from an alternate timeline had crashed and the timeline they were in WAS "created" from that event (alternate realities aren't really "created", as I believe, they existed there all along) so it's quite possible that by going thru that anomaly now, they traveled to an alternate timeline where they DIDN'T crash into a planet in the past.

Yeah, it's a headache but since it's all from a certain point of view, there's no way to check if they are in a different timeline or if the past changed.

(unless there's some -technobabble- particle that can be detected by tricorders to see "how the universe works", which would be kinda strange)

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2002-09-20 10:46am

Actually, if you check again your episode, you will notice that the Defiant didn't "do nothing". They actually went thru the motions, because they decided it was for the greater good that they created a planet filled with their little spawn. But for some unknown reason, the ship went thru the anomaly and nothing happened.
Umm no. The point is the old Odo reprogrammed the ship so it wouldn't go through the anomaly. The Defiant veers off course and doesn't cross the anomaly. Hence they create a new timeline by doing nothing (if we except your theory).

It sounds to me that some Defiant from an alternate timeline had crashed and the timeline they were in WAS "created" from that event (alternate realities aren't really "created", as I believe, they existed there all along) so it's quite possible that by going thru that anomaly now, they traveled to an alternate timeline where they DIDN'T crash into a planet in the past.
Look the OD, as I call it, populated the planet. The CD is from a different timeline and even if it goes back in time there is no garuntee they will generate an identical colony (i.e. Obrien and the chick he eventually hooks up with have sex a month earlier and its a boy instead of a girl). Whatever the CD does is IRRELEVANT to the existance of the planet. The older Odo reprograms the ship NOT to go through the anomoly and the present changes.

In short you have the CD going to an alternate timeline for the hell of it. Even when they avoid the technobabble which causes timetravel they end up in another universe.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-20 11:27am

I have to agree with tharkûn the many timelines theory doesnt cover all the examples of what we have seen in trek.

It would also make all tame travel pointless - why send the Ent-C back if it wont alter the Bad future and since the good future already exists (since we have been watching it for a few years) theres no point.

I would guess at a combo of alternate Universes (not timelines - its a subtle difference but important - since oft cited example of Worf seeing the many timelines isnt that at all but an example of simple alternate universe's based upon the duality of desicision (i.e in one universe Worf decides to Join starfleet and in another he doesnt) this isnt a new timeline in the sense that he was created by time travel, thus the destinction.) and time travel that denies paradox's (I have never seen the problem with the grandfather paraox myself but there you go).

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2002-09-20 12:51pm

In regards to the original topic, one can still do fun things with time travel besides just going back in time and killing people.

Take for instance a relatively simple scenario. The ISD Imperator comes across the USS Relativity and wants to kill it. The Relativity has this nice option of transporting two torps into the future on the predicted course of the ISD. One for where the bridge tower will be and another where the main reactor will be. Even megatonne warheads will clear out the bridge and possibly cause the main reactor to blow (or at least go offline).

Time travel would allow you to circumvent convential sheilding and the transporter's weakness against sheilding.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-09-20 01:29pm

tharkûn wrote:...there is no garuntee they will generate an identical colony (i.e. Obrien and the chick he eventually hooks up with have sex a month earlier and its a boy instead of a girl).

That's nitpicking, and basically voids every single movie/show where there was any amount of time travel. Sci-Fi time-travel needs _major_ tampering with the past to alter anything at all. But I agree that if time-travel was a reality, the simple act of grabbing a spoon and placing it ten cm away could potentially alter the past greatly.

Even having sex on a different day (hour? second?) would produce a different baby.

Whatever the CD does is IRRELEVANT to the existance of the planet. The older Odo reprograms the ship NOT to go through the anomoly and the present changes.

I don't remember the Odo sabotage part. Why did he do it? Because he lost Kyra or something? I thought they simply passed thru the anomaly without any effect...

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2002-09-20 02:55pm

Ok the whole time travel argument is utterly rediculous. Grandfather Paradox dictates that there MUST be multiple timelines, examplified by the "multiple universes". Otherwise space-time itself would break down completely anytime something is changed in the past that would not have been changed had it not occured in the first place i.e. You can't go back and shoot your grandfather while he was a boy because you would cease to exist thus you could not go back and kill him.

As far as the episode Parallells goes... How can you NOT see that each of these other universes is merely an alternate timeline? What do you think an alternate timeline is? It is a chain of events different from those in "your" timeline. These evens are made up of our decisisons, the decisions of others, and random chance. Time travel IS a decision, or an act of random chance therefore doing it merely creates an alternate timeline or "universe".

It all comes down to this. Even if you say the 29th century feds can time travel, what is to stop the "future empire" which has discovered time travel from going back to stop them? I think that is the primary reason why there is a "temporal cold war" mentioned in the Enterprise series.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-20 04:40pm

There never is a fture empire - the Empire is still born even in the movies its is a mere flicker in galatic history.

Now for the Grandfather paradox simple,

The guy comes back in time and kills his Grandfather, hes never born however he is still alive in the past this need nopt lead to a paradox because when the guy went back in time he is essentially severed from it meaning that he leaves the timestream and then become tethered in the past.

The simple answer is that whatever technology brings them back in time seperates them from the future (obvious if you think about it), remember in Trails and Tribblations Julian is worried that when they go back to the future (

) he will never have existed but he isnt worried about not existing now, therefore whatever technology that is employed in time travel seperates the person from their future and anchors them to the past, if the alternate timelines hold true then Jullian need not be worried since he will only return to his time where everything wont be affected by his actions in the past.

Im sorry but alternate futures arent the way it works in trek because if it was they would never try to set the timeline straight since it cant be altered just another created and since the SF people deal with time travel often I think they know more about it than we do.

Our opinions do not override Canon evidence - its that simple.

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-20 07:26pm

The simple answer is that whatever technology brings them back in time seperates them from the future (obvious if you think about it), remember in Trails and Tribblations Julian is worried that when they go back to the future ( ) he will never have existed but he isnt worried about not existing now, therefore whatever technology that is employed in time travel seperates the person from their future and anchors them to the past, if the alternate timelines hold true then Jullian need not be worried since he will only return to his time where everything wont be affected by his actions in the past.

I should point out that *what Julian thinks* isn't really of consequence, since he was also wrong about being his own grandfather

Also, multiple timelines DO affect the traveller, if he changes the past, he will go to the future of that past (you know, like in Back to the Future II) and will not be able to go back to anything resembling home unless he fixes what was different.

Im sorry but alternate futures arent the way it works in trek because if it was they would never try to set the timeline straight since it cant be altered just another created

But they will be trapped in the new timeline, they must set it right if they want to go home

and since the SF people deal with time travel often I think they know more about it than we do.

They also deal with other things often, yet they don't know more about it than we do, i.e. power cores, how to fight a war, biological containment, etc.

At the risk of repeating myself, I say again, Starfleet's buisness is not to know anything, just to declare they know and happily blunder about with things they don't understand.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » 2002-09-20 07:33pm

Evil Jerk wrote: They are NOT necessary, that's my point, without them you'd never experience any changes, but with them you can be dragged into a new universe when it's formed.

The whole universe changed regardless of temporal shields. They only stop the change from affecting the ship using them. They also blocked temporal weapons.

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-20 07:40pm

Shadow wrote:
Evil Jerk wrote: They are NOT necessary, that's my point, without them you'd never experience any changes, but with them you can be dragged into a new universe when it's formed.
The whole universe changed regardless of temporal shields. They only stop the change from affecting the ship using them. They also blocked temporal weapons.

The whole universe changes from our point of view and from the point of view of a ship that is protected, but in reality they're just shifting timelines.

It's all about points of view, taking those incidences alone we might think it's a solid timeline being changed, but with all the other evidence about multiple timelines, rationalising them together is easy.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » 2002-09-20 08:19pm

Evil Jerk wrote:The whole universe changes from our point of view and from the point of view of a ship that is protected, but in reality they're just shifting timelines.

It's all about points of view, taking those incidences alone we might think it's a solid timeline being changed, but with all the other evidence about multiple timelines, rationalising them together is easy.

The universe still changed when Voyager was not using temporal shields.

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-20 08:25pm

Shadow wrote:
Evil Jerk wrote:The whole universe changes from our point of view and from the point of view of a ship that is protected, but in reality they're just shifting timelines.

It's all about points of view, taking those incidences alone we might think it's a solid timeline being changed, but with all the other evidence about multiple timelines, rationalising them together is easy.
The universe still changed when Voyager was not using temporal shields.

From our point of view.
There wouldn't be much point to the episode if we stayed in the unaffected timeline.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-09-20 08:41pm

TheDarkling wrote:Im sorry but alternate futures arent the way it works in trek because if it was they would never try to set the timeline straight since it cant be altered just another created and since the SF people deal with time travel often I think they know more about it than we do.

They have working rationalizations. It doesn't mean they are correct. Did it ever occur to you that the hundreds of thousands of parallel timelines in TNG may be the result of Federation time travel?

Our opinions do not override Canon evidence - its that simple.

Canon evidence showed at least 385,000 parallel timelines in TNG. It's that simple. The parallel timelines are known to exist. The alternate futures are known to exist (for example, Bell becoming Sisko; the original timeline was never restored; they only created a reasonable facsimile).

Indeed, your own logic contradicts you: you claim that Starfleet knows more about time travel than we do, so they wouldn't do something pointless. Well, it's not pointless to try to get into a timeline which resembles the one you left, particularly when the change seems undesirable to you. But it is pointless to try to win a war by sending a ship into the past, since it won't affect the source timeline. And guess what they don't do in wars, eg- against the Dominion or the Borg; they DON'T SEND SHIPS INTO THE PAST TO WIN THEM. Why not, hmmmm? Could it be that they know something you don't?

It might be beneficial to the ship which does the travelling (hence the appeal for the traveller), but not to those left behind (hence the disincentive for the originating fleet, since they just lost a ship for nothing). Or perhaps you have a better explanation for their failure to employ time travel as a tactic against an enemy force, eh? Some goofy form of ethics which allows them to develop genocidal bioweapons but not alter the timeline, even to reverse a single defeat? Puh-lease.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-09-20 08:43pm

Shadow wrote:The universe still changed when Voyager was not using temporal shields.

If they are not being brought forth with the travelling ship, there is no way for anyone to observe the change. And if the parallel timelines theory is not true, then why did we SEE these parallel timelines in TNG?

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2002-09-20 11:09pm

Darth Wong wrote:They have working rationalizations. It doesn't mean they are correct. Did it ever occur to you that the hundreds of thousands of parallel timelines in TNG may be the result of Federation time travel?

Nah. Most of those parallel universes had minor differences like Worf seeing someone at a party who said they weren't coming. They were all due to the Many Worlds theory of quantum wave function collapse, or at least the common sci-fi misinterpretation of it.

(snip)

But it is pointless to try to win a war by sending a ship into the past, since it won't affect the source timeline. And guess what they don't do in wars, eg- against the Dominion or the Borg; they DON'T SEND SHIPS INTO THE PAST TO WIN THEM. Why not, hmmmm? Could it be that they know something you don't?

Again, nah. Every time we see someone about to try to change time, Starfleet wants to stop them. Starfleet pretty clearly believes that every change in time makes a new timeline that displaces the old one, which ceases to exist. Otherwise Kim and Janeway wouldn't have worried about the Temporal Prime Directive. Hell, there wouldn't be a Temporal Prime Directive! The entire Temporal Cold War arc of Enterprise wouldn't be happening. No one in Trek has ever expressed a view that a previous timeline continues to physically exist after an alternate timeline has been created. ("Parallels" doesn't show alternate timelines made by time travel, just naturally occuring parallel universes. Or at least, so Starfleet believes.)

It might be beneficial to the ship which does the travelling (hence the appeal for the traveller), but not to those left behind (hence the disincentive for the originating fleet, since they just lost a ship for nothing). Or perhaps you have a better explanation for their failure to employ time travel as a tactic against an enemy force, eh? Some goofy form of ethics which allows them to develop genocidal bioweapons but not alter the timeline, even to reverse a single defeat? Puh-lease.

Ethics may be a silly explanation, but it is the best one. Starfleet sees time travel as making changes to the past in every instance of it. Your explanation is less valid.

A word about the 29th century Feds: Even without directly changing time, they own the Empire. They have nearly instantaneous travel to anywhere in the galaxy and can destroy entire systems with unstable spatial rifts. That's mutually assured destruction against the Empire at a minimum.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

29th Century Federation vs. Galactic Empire(Split)

Re: Hmm