Time Travel Mechanics In Star Trek

[Junghalli]

Something I've always wondered about in discussions of all that fucking around with the timeline that happens in Star Trek. Say you accept the multiverse explanation, that is every time somebody goes back in time and creates a time paradox the universe splits in two, one where the timeline changes and one where it remains intact.
So, how does this splitting up of the universe happen? Is it instantaneous or does it propogate at the speed of light? Even more fun, if the universe fission does propogate at c what happens when the human consequences of that fission use warp drive to travel beyond the fission bubble? Say, for instance, that ST:FC changed the timeline. What happens when people in the changed timeline start sending out warp ships? Do they run into warp ships from the original timeline? Do they drag the boundary of the fission bubble with them as they move?

[Batman]

Why, pray tell, would that 'fission' of yours travel at lightspeed?
Not that the reasoning makes sense in the first place.
By that line of thought, if I somehow blow up, say, Pluto, people travelling away from our solar system faster than c get to live in a universe where Pluto still exists.

[Junghalli]

Why, pray tell, would that 'fission' of yours travel at lightspeed?

Because as far as we know everything moves at or below c (even a ship at warp, but the spacetime around it is distorted). Well, everything except subspace waves, whatever the heck they are.

Not that the reasoning makes sense in the first place.
By that line of thought, if I somehow blow up, say, Pluto, people travelling away from our solar system faster than c get to live in a universe where Pluto still exists.

Interesting way of looking at it. With the multiverse explanation for time paradoxes there are two timelines, one that is untouched and one that is changed. Which means that the universe must fission, yes? So would this fission be instantaneous or does it cross space at a finite speed? Cause I was thinking if the latter is true it might explain Daniels' seemingly nonsensical statement in ENT that it took time for the change in the timeline to reach him.

[Patrick Degan]

Actually, it is likely more a case that when a time-traveler subjectively makes a change in an arbitrary past time-zone, the present he returns to is the one which had always evolved from that event. It isn't a case of alternate timelines "fissioning" off the main one as much as the traveler shifting through alternate realities which have always existed.

[Batman]

Why, pray tell, would that 'fission' of yours travel at lightspeed?

Because as far as we know everything moves at or below c (even a ship at warp, but the spacetime around it is distorted). Well, everything except subspace waves, whatever the heck they are.

And a shitload of other technobabble stuff. You can't argue the c limit in a universe that canonically has FTL. BTW, your 'spacetime is distorted' explanation is IIRC not canon.

Not that the reasoning makes sense in the first place.
By that line of thought, if I somehow blow up, say, Pluto, people travelling away from our solar system faster than c get to live in a universe where Pluto still exists.

Interesting way of looking at it. With the multiverse explanation for time paradoxes there are two timelines, one that is untouched and one that is changed. Which means that the universe must fission, yes?

Essentially, yes.

So would this fission be instantaneous or does it cross space at a finite speed? Cause I was thinking if the latter is true it might explain Daniels' seemingly nonsensical statement in ENT that it took time for the change in the timeline to reach him.

I find this much easier explained by Daniels either having no clue or talking out of his arse, what with it being ENT.

[Chmee]

The Trek techbabble explanation: the change in the timeline is propagated through the change in quantum states of all particles in the universe, wrought by 'quantum entanglement'

21st century Trek rule -- when you can't explain it, it's the result of mysterious 'quantum' forces.

[Batman]

Actually, it is likely more a case that when a time-traveler subjectively makes a change in an arbitrary past time-zone, the present he returns to is the one which had always evolved from that event. It isn't a case of alternate timelines "fissioning" off the main one as much as the traveler shifting through alternate realities which have always existed.

As evidenced by-what,exactly?

[Spacebeard]

Cause I was thinking if the latter is true it might explain Daniels' seemingly nonsensical statement in ENT that it took time for the change in the timeline to reach him.

The idea of timeline changes taking time to propagate reminds me of Presto Studios' "Journeyman Project" games, where once someone has altered the past you have a limited amount of time to reach a time machine and escape into the past before the "temporal wavefront" reaches the present. It's all bullshit, of course, because it seems no matter how you try to rationalize it, it requires that there be an objective "time" that exists independently of the "timeline". City on the Edge of Forever, First Contact, and the quotation above from Enterprise seem to support the notion that Trek time travel operates in this manner as well, but I'll be damned if there's any way to make sense of it.

[Patrick Degan]

Actually, it is likely more a case that when a time-traveler subjectively makes a change in an arbitrary past time-zone, the present he returns to is the one which had always evolved from that event. It isn't a case of alternate timelines "fissioning" off the main one as much as the traveler shifting through alternate realities which have always existed.

As evidenced by-what, exactly?

For a start, "City On The Edge Of Forever".

[Batman]

Actually, it is likely more a case that when a time-traveler subjectively makes a change in an arbitrary past time-zone, the present he returns to is the one which had always evolved from that event. It isn't a case of alternate timelines "fissioning" off the main one as much as the traveler shifting through alternate realities which have always existed.

As evidenced by-what, exactly?

For a start, "City On The Edge Of Forever".

Much as I dislike the idea, I cannot deny that this at the very least indicates Trek time travel can work that way.
Did I ever mention I HATE time travel stories?

[Junghalli]

And a shitload of other technobabble stuff. You can't argue the c limit in a universe that canonically has FTL.

Isn't the general rule that the laws of physics are presumed to be the same in an SF universe as in real life and any seemingly impossible technology of that universe is presumed to exploit aspects of physics that we just don't know about today?

I find this much easier explained by Daniels either having no clue or talking out of his arse, what with it being ENT.

Does suspension of disbelief allow for that option?

The idea of timeline changes taking time to propagate reminds me of Presto Studios' "Journeyman Project" games, where once someone has altered the past you have a limited amount of time to reach a time machine and escape into the past before the "temporal wavefront" reaches the present. <snip> City on the Edge of Forever, First Contact, and the quotation above from Enterprise seem to support the notion that Trek time travel operates in this manner as well, but I'll be damned if there's any way to make sense of it.

It makes at least some sense if you assume the fissioning of the two timelines spreads (through space) at a finite rate. The downside is that some real bizzare questions start rising when you assume the propogation rate is c and then throw warp drive into the equation. Using a warp drive ship it would theoretically be possible to outrun the fission wave and leave your own timeline. What happens then? If your counterpart in the alternate timeline also took a warp ship past the point of fission could you meet him? When you tried to get back to Earth would you arrive at your Earth or the alternate timeline Earth? If the alternate timeline Earth invented warp drive before your Earth did does that mean that when your Earth starts exploring past the fission point people from ATL Earth will already be out there? Does your warp ship somehow drag the fission wave with it as it travels, ensuring OTL and ATL never overlap? Does the fission wave form some sort of impenetrable barrier that warp ships cannot penetrate?

[Batman]

And a shitload of other technobabble stuff. You can't argue the c limit in a universe that canonically has FTL.

Isn't the general rule that the laws of physics are presumed to be the same in an SF universe as in real life and any seemingly impossible technology of that universe is presumed to exploit aspects of physics that we just don't know about today?

It is. which means FTL travel is entirely possible in the Trekverse.

I find this much easier explained by Daniels either having no clue or talking out of his arse, what with it being ENT.

Does suspension of disbelief allow for that option?

Absolutely.

[Spacebeard]

The idea of timeline changes taking time to propagate reminds me of Presto Studios' "Journeyman Project" games, where once someone has altered the past you have a limited amount of time to reach a time machine and escape into the past before the "temporal wavefront" reaches the present. <snip> City on the Edge of Forever, First Contact, and the quotation above from Enterprise seem to support the notion that Trek time travel operates in this manner as well, but I'll be damned if there's any way to make sense of it.

It makes at least some sense if you assume the fissioning of the two timelines spreads (through space) at a finite rate. The downside is that some real bizzare questions start rising when you assume the propogation rate is c and then throw warp drive into the equation. Using a warp drive ship it would theoretically be possible to outrun the fission wave and leave your own timeline. What happens then? If your counterpart in the alternate timeline also took a warp ship past the point of fission could you meet him? When you tried to get back to Earth would you arrive at your Earth or the alternate timeline Earth? If the alternate timeline Earth invented warp drive before your Earth did does that mean that when your Earth starts exploring past the fission point people from ATL Earth will already be out there? Does your warp ship somehow drag the fission wave with it as it travels, ensuring OTL and ATL never overlap? Does the fission wave form some sort of impenetrable barrier that warp ships cannot penetrate?

I could be wrong, but I believe that in "Future's End", Voyager altered the timeline on Earth in the 1990s, then returned to the Delta Quadrant in the 2370s and experienced the corrected timeline. If I understand your hypothesis correctly, these events are not consistent with it, since the timeline shift propagating at the speed of light would take 70,000 years to reach the Delta Quadrant. Also, your hypothesis sets an upper limit of about 300 light years for the distance between Earth and the Guardian of Forever's planet; since Kirk and Spock noticed the timeline change immediately after McCoy jumped into the Guardian of Forever.

This is giving me a headache. Anyway, the idea is pretty interesting, but I'm not sure that it's consistent with all of Trek's innumerable time travel escapades, unless I'm misinterpreting it.

[Nick Lancaster]

Daniels' explanation is baloney, and it's either that he was talking out of his aft thrusters or deliberately misleading Archer.

If you postulate that time is not FTL, then the wavefront of the 'changed event' will never reach all possible points in the future, so there will always be a future that 'the change hasn't caught up to'.

Of course, Braga would probably explain it as a 'window of opportunity' wherein the change is not permanent ... except that you then have dueling windows. I change A to B, but there's a window where it can be changed back, and you do so, but then there's a window for me to change it back to B ... which means nothing ever really happened unless there's a baseline history being laid down by our initial actions. That is, if I change A to B, there's a window during which it can be reversed, but if you change it back, there's no window because that's the way it really happened in the first place.

However, the notion of a primary timeline goes against the 'multiverse' theory advanced in other threads. (And if there were 'infinite' Worfs, then technically, they would never have solved the problem unless only a finite amount of the infinite Worfs experienced the quantum-shift dilemma.)

[Admiral_K]

Actually, it is likely more a case that when a time-traveler subjectively makes a change in an arbitrary past time-zone, the present he returns to is the one which had always evolved from that event. It isn't a case of alternate timelines "fissioning" off the main one as much as the traveler shifting through alternate realities which have always existed.

As evidenced by-what, exactly?

For a start, "City On The Edge Of Forever".

To further support this, don't forget that in Star Trek the "Many Worlds" theory is established as true by the episode "Parrallels".

You have infinite timelines, meaning tha for even the slightest change you make, there is an alternate reality.

I've long been a proponent that Star Trek "time travel" isn't so much time travel, as it is shifting between these parallel universes. It is the only explanation for the numerous paradoxes demonstrated in Star Trek. "Time Travelers" have no effect whatsoever on their own timeline, but they sure as hell can wreck, or benefit, someone elses.

[Batman]

Not again.
Does this deserve to be locked as threadomancy yet?