The Naked Time time travel

[StarshipTitanic]

At the end of the episode, they discovered how to time travel and it was alluded that they might use the same tactic again. Did they? And what episode did they learn about the warping around the sun trick from ST IV in?

[Patrick Degan]

At the end of the episode, they discovered how to time travel and it was alluded that they might use the same tactic again. Did they? And what episode did they learn about the warping around the sun trick from ST IV in?

They never used the antimatter-implosion method in the series again.

The Slingshot-Breakaway manoeuver was discovered by accident by the Enterprise when the ship nearly fell into the gravity well of a black hole and they put the warp drive into full-power reverse to escape it, with the effect that the ship was catapulted back into time and wound up at Earth in 1966. Spock worked out the method to duplicate the manoeuver to return to their own time ("Tomorrow Is Yesterday"). Later, the Slingshot-Breakaway method was deliberately employed to send the Enterprise back to observe Earth at a critical period during the year 1968, which is when they encounter Gary Seven, an Earth human who is acting as the agent of an advanced civilisation unknown even to the Federation and assigned to frighten Earth out of its superpower arms race ("Assignment Earth"). Years later of course is when Admiral Kirk and his then-renegade crew will employ the S-B time travel method to retrieve humpback whales from the late 20th century to solve the crisis with the alien probe in ST4.

[Drooling Iguana]

It's been a long time since I've seen "Assignment Earth", but I don't remember it ever being stated that Gary Seven was an Earth human, and I remember it being strongly implied that he wasn't.

[DarkSilver]

Gary Seven was raised off of Earth by the advanced alien race, along with all of his family. The aliens had abducted humans from the past, and "trained" them to be used on Earth.

I think it's how it went. been awhile since I saw Assignment Earth myself.

I think it was meant to have it's own spinoff series, following Gary Seven's exploits (Oddly enough, entilted Assignment: Earth"

[Stofsk]

It's been a long time since I've seen "Assignment Earth", but I don't remember it ever being stated that Gary Seven was an Earth human, and I remember it being strongly implied that he wasn't.

He was human, just an exceptional one. He could resist Spock's stupid 'nerve pinch' attack, to the point of clobbering him when the pointy-eared one tried it. He is no doubt enhanced in some fashion by the alien civilisation that first kidnapped his ancestors, and then sent him on his mission.

One of the most interesting episodes of ST, and we never hear about it ever again. Hell, they couldn't even keep time travel consistent. In TOS we get three instances of the 'slingshot-breakaway factor' being used, two instances of a 'Time portal by alien intelligence' being used, and in TNG+ we get "OMG chronoton particles are too high! We're going back in time!"

And an interesting tidbit I read years ago: apparently the episodes "The Naked Time" and "Tommorow is Yesterday" were to be a pseudo two-parter. At the end of the former they were supposed to go back in time far enough so that in the next episode they'd be in orbit of Earth in the 1960s. Obviously this didn't pan out, for reasons I'm not sure about.

[Patrick Degan]

And an interesting tidbit I read years ago: apparently the episodes "The Naked Time" and "Tommorow is Yesterday" were to be a pseudo two-parter. At the end of the former they were supposed to go back in time far enough so that in the next episode they'd be in orbit of Earth in the 1960s. Obviously this didn't pan out, for reasons I'm not sure about.

I believe it was due to some sort of dispute arising between Gene Roddenberry and John D.F. Black, the scriptwriter of "The Naked Time" and the series' first story editor. Whatever the nature of the dustup, it led to Black walking off the series and I think he might have pulled whatever rights there might have been to a sequel to his script, so whatever references might have been included in Dorothy Fontana's script of course had to be excised. Steven Carabatsos took over as story editor after Black's departure.

[Petrosjko]

I think it was meant to have it's own spinoff series, following Gary Seven's exploits (Oddly enough, entilted Assignment: Earth"

Indeed it was. The writing was on the wall for Star Trek at that point, and Assignment Earth was Roddenberry's concept for a new show. It failed abysmally in that regard, and was critiqued as being both a poor episode and a poor pilot.

[Stofsk]

Critiqued by whom? I consider it to be a fun episode and one of ST's many annoying loose ties that the writers forget to tighten. As a potential pilot for a new show it fails abysmally. As a ST episode it was fun at least.

[Petrosjko]

Critiqued by whom? I consider it to be a fun episode and one of ST's many annoying loose ties that the writers forget to tighten. As a potential pilot for a new show it fails abysmally. As a ST episode it was fun at least.

The studio brass, according to Herb Solow.

Personally, I considered it to be about an average episode. Better than Spock's Brain, worse than Balance of Terror. And yeah, it did jack-all to promote a new series based on Gary Seven, though I did find the character concept intriguing.

[Elheru Aran]

So this usage of the "slingshot-breakaway" method seems to raise a rather interesting question... what if the Federation uses the same method to monitor history? I seem to recall this because there's some fanfiction out there dealing with a Federation Department of Temporal something; apparently these agents go back and forth in time, generally using the Guardian of Forever (although their methods may also include the slingshot-breakaway manuveur), in order to ensue that proper history occurs when it's supposed to....

[brianeyci]

Alyeska does a good job of explaining time travel,

Actualy Time Travel has worked before. If time travel didn't work and all your doing was hopping between dimenssions this would already have been discovered a long time ago. Trek already has the ability to detect which multi-verse your from.

The while First Contact, ENT Regeneration, Q-Who is a perfect example of a single time line with time travel interferance.

The Borg send a Cube to Earth because they recieve a message sent 200 years in the past. The message was sent because a Cube attempted to go to Earth. In this instance time travel is possible but changing the timeline is impossible because time is happening simultaneously. Whatever you try and do is irrelevent because time has happened and will happen again. This was even explained in the Voyager episode Relativity. The Borg attempted to go back in time and as a consequence the Enterprise-E went back in time to prevent them. Apparently limited understanding of how to time travel means that changing time can't happen. Once you understand you need more knowledge you stop attempting to travel in time and the same thing still happens. At that level of understanding time is written out and can't be changed by people with a similar level of understanding. What happens happens because it is written.

However things do appear to change in the 29th century Federation. They do fear change in the time line and even developed shields that are designed to isolate them from time and protect them from changes in the past.

Apparently Time travel tech in Trek is very complex. Some times its dimension travel, some times its the real deal but they are merely fullfiling time as its destined to happen, and some times its the real deal with real intereference, but only if your from a really advanced part of Trek.

All of this means 24th century Feds can't do jack. If they are loosing the war and attempt to use time travel they will fail because they were destined to loose the war.

Slingshot method seems to be the most primitive form of time travel, and is probably pre-destined meaning its not really time travel.

Brian