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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Sorry if i misspelled the plural to Paradox. Anyway, I love to study different Temporal collisions in Star Trek, one of my favorites is the whole First Contact paradox. Riker tells Cochran the saying "Don't be a great man just be a man, and let history make its own judgements". Riker got this saying from Cochran, who got it from Riker when Riker traveled back to 2063. Where did the phrase originate?

Please post any other paradoxes, im working on filling in a list of every paradox in Star Trek.

- Wes

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Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

"Parallax" and "Time and Again", Voyager's second and third episodes, respectively, rack quite high on the Paradox List.

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Give me examples, I don't have enough tapes for all of the shows.. hehehe.

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Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

Okay.

"Parallax": Crew enters anomaly to save distressed ship on event horizon. Ship was Voyager because they were trapped when they responded to their own distress call. B'Elanna and Janeway implement plan and get ship out.

"Time and Again": Janeway and Paris sucked back in time one day when ship investigates weird shockwave caused by massive explosion on nearby planet. Janeway and Paris fiddle aeround a little, but it's eventually the rescue attempt by Torres, Chakotay, Tuvok, etc. that sets off this explosion. Janeway stops rescue attempt in the past and nothing ever happens.

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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")

Posted by Gray on :

It's impossible to count how many episodes have had Paradox's. Every other episode has to do with time travel, etc.

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Thanks for the input.... Another paradox is the episode "Relativity" in the entire episode was a paradox because on 8 occasions, effect preceded cause (my favorite paradox type). They stopped the cause so the effect shouldnt of happened, then how did they know to stop the cause?

Messes with the brain doesnt it?

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Causality is pretty much a one trick pony anyway.

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Gray, out of the near 110+ episodes of Voyager, only 14 of them involved time travel. I would love it if the did it more often... i love time travel. As for Next Generation, i only count 7 actuall time travel events. That excludes alt. timelines. As for DS9, I think there was only a few...

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Posted by Gray on :

I disagree, Time travel is second only to 'unknown spatial anomolies'. Time travel shouldn't be made that easy to do. I dont think time travel should happen if you just throw a few 'chroniton particles' into space...

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

I like time travel. But it always seems to me to come out to a pre-destination paradox in my opinion or a headache to figure out. After reading Bernd's pages on it the latter happened.

You go back in time to change something. You succeed. From that point history that event you changed will have never happened. You therefore have no reason to go back in time. If you never went back in time, then the original timeline would occur and you would then end up going back in time.

I pretty much have to agree with Captain Janeway on this one. They make for nice stories. But analyzing it is almost pointless.

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Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :

*Begin just kidding mode*

What's this? A thread on temporal paradoxes? And I wasn't invited? The Master of All Time wasn't invited?!?! And chronitons are being dumped on?!?!

Fine, I'll leave you all to your little debate. I have far more important temporal mechanics problems to deal with anyway, such as eradicating Daylight Savings Time and programming a VCR clock.

*End just kidding mode*

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Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

*invites Krenim*

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Garak: Great, now we aren't just talking about causality loops; you've gone and created one! *L*

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Wes: Good point about the Cochrane quote. I should include it in my huge compilation of time travel paradoxes. We already speculated if the term "Warp core" might have originated from a paradox.

BTW: In my article I'm talking about "predestination", and not of a "predestination paradox". This is because if we assume that everything is predestined, there is a time loop (the past influences the future and vice versa) but a grandfather paradox, for instance, is prevented. This is a matter of definition, of course, you might also say that predestination itself is a paradox, another kind than the grandfather paradox.

Predestination occurs in the following episodes:
TOS: "Assignment Earth" (mainly consistent)
TNG: "Time's Arrow" (mainly consistent)
DS9: "Children of Time" (totally inconsistent)
VOY: "Parallax" (the black hole featured here is nonsense, but the time travel is somewhat consistent)
VOY: "Time and Again" (largely inconsistent)

I may have missed a couple of episodes, but in most time travels the past was definitely changed and therefore nothing was predestined.

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Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

What about Star Trek 4? You see the window blown out at Starfleet Command just after they get Kirk's message, then later it's revealed to be the wake of the crashing BoP that's caused the turbulence. . ?

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well I think DS9's time travel eps are the best - you can't beat "Past Tense", "Visionary", or "Children of Time" - they ALL have an immense underlying theme - that TNG and Voy time eps don't

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

The First One, thats a good one!! An event triggering a cause! I love it!!!

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Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

Er... need I mention that "The Visitor" is a highly thematic DS9 time travel episode?

TSN: You're welcome.

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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

What about the TNG episode 'Cause and Effect'? Is that time traveling or a time-loop??

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Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

A "causality loop" -- or so Brannon Braga told us in the episode.

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Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")

Posted by Gray on :

Oh man, you guys are FREAKIN' me out.. hehe. Time travel is really pointless to try and analyze, since it's all just theory anyway.

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Time Travel is a theoy, but in the Star Trek universe its been proven possible. Here's another one: Let's say you go though a wormwhole, but by doing so, the other end, which has a temproal displacement if minus 5 seconds and is about a foot to the left of the original one, knocks you away from enterning it in the first place, what happens then? I love that one.

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

"Cause and Effect" was actually a time loop, the events happened over and over untill they change it and knocked them selfs out. A paradox did not form. It would form if they sent the message BACK in time. If they knocked themeself out because of the message, but as a result, they never sent the message. Where did the message orignate.

I think my brain is getting full... to ... many... paradoxes...
-Wes

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Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Bernd, How is "Assignment Earth" inconsistent? I might be thinking about a diffrent episode, but isn't this the one where they interupt a NASA launch? Where's the Paradox in this episode?

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Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Last week / Now / Next Thursday, I will post/ posted / am posting an exclamation of how much I love / will love / loved temporal paradoxes.

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

I look forward to / am looking / have read your exclamation First of Two.

lol.

Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Who was that replying too?

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Janeway: "Dimissed"
Neelix: [stands there dumbfounded] "b..but.."
Janeway: "That's Starfleet for get out"

Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Oh.... im gonna be glad / am glad / was glad that my topic made 2 pages!...

If I go back in time and stop myself from going back in time, the universe implodes. Ouch.

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Janeway: "Dimissed"
Neelix: [stands there dumbfounded] "b..but.."
Janeway: "That's Starfleet for get out"

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Cause and Effect: There is a bit of a paradox, since the loop was broken because of the information "3" that Data has stored/stores/will store from the future fate of the Enterprise.

Assignment Earth: The episode itself is consistent, while it is inconsistent that here predestination applies, while other episodes (e.g. "The City on the Edge of Forever") change history several times.