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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

O.K. For a while now I've been trying to resolve the descrepancy of when, where and how Picard and Guinan met for the first time.

Of course, temporally speaking, they first met in the 19th century on Earth in Time's Arrow". But, I'm talking about when they first met during the "natural' course of time.

In one of the early Guinan eps, she tells Wesley (ack) that she never knew the Captain before she came on board the Ent D. However, in Best of Both Worlds, she tells Riker that she and Picard have this special bond. I believe Picard also calls her an old friend. I've also heard references to the time she was on the Stargazer with Picard.

Now it's posible that the special bond is one sided at first because Guinan knows Picard from the past. But there seems to be all this evidence that Guinan and Picard have known each otherfor a while before she comes aboard the Enterprise. But that would mean that Guinan lied to Wesley (ack).

Personally, I think the writer's made her so vague that they wrote themselves into a box when it was time to reveal more about her. For instance, by Generations, it seems to be common knowledge that she is an El-Aurian whereas in the second season, no body had any idea where she was from.

Anyone have a resolution to this?

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

Also to add to your list early on Geordi was asking Guinan for her advice on women and she told him that she likes bald men because a bald man (Picard?) helped her once when she was hurt. It was an amazing tie-in with "Time's Arrow" especially since that episode was a couple of seasons away at the time.

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"...and if frogs could fly; well we'd still have this problem, but wouldn't it be cool?" - Drew Carey
Federation Starship Datalink - Starship site of the new millennium.

Posted by KXZ (Member # 119) on :

I guess this may just be one of those time paradoxes that are hard to explain. It may be a good thing she did not tell Wesley the truth because then he would probably fiddle with time and make a really big mess. Guinan is just someone who people on the show don't ask questions about because it seems that it doesn't matter.

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All hands, abandon ship! All hand, abandon...
BOOM!

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I'm not so sure that no one knew where Guinan was from, at least in the sense of "Oh yeah, she's one of those mysterious El-Aurian refugees who never talk about their homeworld."

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"20th Century, go to sleep."
--
R.E.M.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Of course, we might slap some "hindsight logic" onto Guinan's strange behavior. Perhaps Guinan first met Picard during the time-travel trip to San Frrancisco, and was trying to protect Wesley from the dangerous knowledge of this trip? After all, timeline tampering and timeline pollution are a rather strict no-no for (non-Kirk) UFP citizens.

It would tie in... The Bald Man would be Picard, and the Special Bond would either be the "Time's Arrow" one Guinan can't speak of explicitly because of the need to keep time travel a secret, or the "Generations" one which involves the Nexus and nonlinear time and other things that also must be kept secret.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Well, all that explains why Guinan is close to Picard, but it doesn't explain why Picard is close to Guinan. SOMETHING had to happen to both of them between the past events in Time's Arrow and the second season of TNG. By the time Picard goes back in Time's Arrow, he is already close enough to her to risk his life for her and has apparently known her for more years than just the few that she has been on the Enterprise.

And I agree that the Bald Man reference was an incredible tie in. I think that one of the things that TPTB had decided on at that point was that Picard had gotten Guinan out of a jam some time prior to his Enterprise command. Unfortunatly, they had not decided this when she told Wesley she didn't know Picard before coming aboard,

I think the Encyclopedia mentions her being aboard the Stargazer. If that's true, Picard would have known her for almost 2 decades by the time he got command of the Enterprise.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

I recall reading in one of the Strange New Worlds anthologies a story about Guinan making a pont of meeting Picard when the Stargazer came to a nearby starbase. It is likely they had a close friendship over the decades between then and the E-D. She, of course, having the foreknowledge of the events from "Time's Arrow". As I recall there was a scene in Part 2 of that story where Picard just comes into Ten-Forward at the end and exchanges a knowing look with Guinan. He was now getting a new spin on the whole of his history with her.

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"You don't need eyes to see; you need VISION"
- Faithless / Reverence

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Yes, I caught that 'knowing look' too. It's like "So that's why you came up to me that day. You seemed to know who I was and now I know why!"

But there's still that line to Wesley (ack) when she tells him that she didn't know him before she came on board the E D. She wouldn't really have been protecting the time line by telling that she knew him aboard the Stargazer.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :

And what about the events in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and another episode where Guinan refers to "YE"? That has something to do with this too probably.

Oh, and how is it possible that the Borg have assimilated or destroyed Guinan's homeworld (probably assimilated, so they should inhabit it now) but didn't encounter the Federation for another 80 years? (Assuming, of course, that Guinan's world is close to Fed. space - the Feds obviously already had come into contact with the El-Aurians in the 23d century).
I also find it curious that a given (canon) fact, namely the line where Guinan says "... by an alien race that my people know as the Borg..." in "Q who" isn't used until years later in ST:G.

BTW, are the E-A's so advanced that they had mastered interstellar travel when "we" were still using horses and carriages (since Guinan was on Earth in the 19th century)? This has never been worked out further either.

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"Cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of Evil"

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Well, Guinan said that her people had been in "this part of space" refering to the area 2000 light years away where Q flung the Enterprise and where they first encountered the Borg. So it's possible that the El-Aurian homeworld is quite a ways away.

I doubt that the events of Yesterday's Enterprise had anything to do with Picard and Guinan's relationship since it is independant of their meeting and seemed to take Guinan by surprise. The only reason she has this "extra temporal" sense is from being ripped out of the Nexus.

How exactly do you think they could develop the El-Aurian's interstellar capabilities? They had them, the Borg came, now they're scattered about the galaxy. I mean I'm sure that there are stories to tell about all the worlds they've visited in their past, but I don't know exactly how this could be developed as such.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

I have always assumed that the Al-Arien homeworld was closer to Borg space then Federation. The question is how did they end up in the Alpha Quadrent after the Borg attacked? Perhaps they had Transwarp, and their last three ships were destroyed by the Nexus, with the 47 suvivers being the last of the A-A, with maybe a few more off planet when the Borg came.

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Fool of a Took, throw yourself in next time!!
Gandalf

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Actually, I believe the two ships carrying the refugees were Federation ships. One was named the Lakul (I don't know what it means) but the other was named the Robert Fox, who I believe was a Federation ambassador during TOS.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Even if we do not wish to trust the UFP-style NFT registries and the name Robert Fox,since those were only visible in a screen readout that cannot be read on the screen

, we can argue that the ships were not coming from El-Aurus. After all, Guinan was not in her home planet when the Borg struck. Probably a bunch of El-Aurian tourists received news that their distant homeworld had been assimilated, so the stopped the nearest passing ships and yelled "We are refugees from a distant war! Take us someplace safe!".

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

That makes sense to me Timo. That fact that the UFP didn't know about the Borg until the TNG era suggests that they didn't really know what was going on with the El-Aurians. The fact that they were refugees could simply have been info carried in a transmission the Ent B received or in the Lakul's transponder signal.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by TerraZ on :

They never got to flesh out Q's previous encounter with Guinan either. He certainly didn't didn't seem to like her, so I wonder what actually happened between them... Has anyone ever read a story about that, either in a book or even a fanfic (those are sometimes better than the real thing) ?

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-If you ask me, I think continuity is highly overrated...
*Brannon Braga*

-Where were you when the brains were handed out?
*Sonic the Hedgehog*

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

That's right! I forgot that she and Q had an encounter. That ep also brought out that she did not always go by the name Guinan. Hmmmm. Perhaps Q was interested in her because of her duel existance in real time as well as within the Nexus...

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

I never understood the Guinan/Q relationship and I wish they had fleshed it out. I've always wondered why an all powerfull being with god-like powers would fear her. In the novel "Q-Squared" he even told Trelane not to mess with Guinan.

I would love for them to reveal that she isn't what she seems at all.

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"...and if frogs could fly; well we'd still have this problem, but wouldn't it be cool?" - Drew Carey
Federation Starship Datalink - Starship site of the new millennium.

Posted by KXZ (Member # 119) on :

Maybe Guinan is like Picard's living guaridan angel, in a sense, but he has no knowledge that she is there to protect him.

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"You're right. They wouldn't be able to see anything but the top of your head. The glare could blind them."
-B'Ellana Torres, Virtuoso

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Methinks they'd better explain this in the next movie...

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You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend far too much time reading this sort of trash.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Even if there is another movie, I doubt that they'll mention it. I would be surprised if Guinan were even there at all.

As for her name change, she's apparently visited quite a few places. Perhaps Q met her on some planet where "Guinan" wouldn't have been an appropriate name, so she changed it. Or, better yet... Maybe, since she used the name Guinan on Earth in the 19th century, she started using it again when she met Picard. That way, when the events of "Time's Arrow" happened (which she already knew about), Data wouldn't find her using a different name on Earth (or possibly not find her because of the different name).

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Col. Maybourne: "Teal'c... It's good to see you well."
Teal'c: "In my culture, I would be well within my rights to dismember you."
-Stargate SG-1: "Touchstone"

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Is there any evidence that Guinan is even on the Enterprise E? Given the apparent lack of families and the fact that they were at war when the ship was launched, I would say she's not. Although, she was aboard during the Klingon War in the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise".

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore