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What is the Temporal Intelligence Agency? Cray part of wrong organization
gbw2318
Member Posts: 126 Arc User
Star Trek canon has established the Department of Temporal Investigations as the Federation's go to agency for all temporal phenomena. Its been established that it's separate from Starfleet - which is why the two agents, Lucsly and Dulmur, were wearing gray civilian suits instead of Starfleet uniforms when they visited DS9 in the episode Trials and Tribble-ations. So what is the Temporal Intelligence Agency that Philip Cray is a part of? And where did it come from all of a sudden?
The very idea of a Temporal Intelligence Agency seems to contradict the Temporal Prime Directive , and would bring down the likes of the future agencies that are home to the USS Relativity in the 29th Century, and the agency Daniels was part of in the 31st Century down on those in the 25th Century messing about in the timeline, rather like the USS Pastak went back to make sure the Enterprise-C made it back into the temporal anomaly in the mission 'Temporal Ambassador'.
The very idea of a Temporal Intelligence Agency seems to contradict the Temporal Prime Directive , and would bring down the likes of the future agencies that are home to the USS Relativity in the 29th Century, and the agency Daniels was part of in the 31st Century down on those in the 25th Century messing about in the timeline, rather like the USS Pastak went back to make sure the Enterprise-C made it back into the temporal anomaly in the mission 'Temporal Ambassador'.
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Cryptic probably needed it because that way they only need 1 set of lines, other than character introduction, for each temporal intelligence NPC.
I would think the Federation would be wary of having Starfleet having its own temporal agency, at least this relatively soon after Janeway and Voyager's insane amount of temporal encounters in the Delta Quadrant and their willingness to keep changing their own future along the way. It also doesn't help that Starfleet deliberately tried a time travel exploration mission in Kirk's day to 1968 and almost ended up causing World War 3 by the well meaning but ultimately foolish attempts to prevent Gary Seven's mission in TOS episode Assignment: Earth. Not to mention their previous blundering in 1969 in Tomorrow is Yesterday. Then Kirk and crew also deliberately brought Dr. Gillian Taylor forward from 1986 when they went back to get a couple of humpback whales in ST IV: The Voyage Home. After all of that, I wouldn't think the Federation civilian government would trust Starfleet with time travel for decades at least, instead relying on the civilian DTI to oversee them.
So it came into existence somewhere between the 24th and the 29th century. While the directive is certainly known since Voyager's time at least, it isn't clear if it is in effect in that time or if its just the future dudes told them of it. Or in other words, do people refer to it because it already exists, or because it exists for the uber-tech time cops from the future who will come stop you*?
* Except of course, when the plot calls for the timeline to be changed.
Regardless, we know that it's in effect for the Temporal Integrity Commission in the 29th Century and they have the capability to monitor the timeline. They're also willing to enforce it with extreme prejudice, as witnessed by their willingness to destroy Voyager when they thought they had come to the 29th Century and created a temporal explosion that destroyed the Sol System, as well as their willingness to arrest somebody's present self for what their future self was going to do.
Could be that the dudes from the 29th (or later) century knows it'll happen, and have to let it happen, because that's what leads up to the temporal prime directive and their organizations?
If it didn't happen, we could face someone from the future coming back, to make sure that it happened, because they believe it's supposed to happen.
Which would make another predestination paradox, with the future temporal guardians causing a temporal issue, because causing that issue is what leads to them preventing issues....
OK, after that last sentence, I'm actually leaning towards Janeway's opinion regarding to time travel: It's too much of a head-ache >_<
I mean take some of the stories from that show and unleash them on Trek, then watch the migraines begin
Retrocausal loops cause headaches for those assigned to oversee the timeline, but they recognize that they have to be allowed to happen or there could be dire consequences to the timeline by creating a paradox that could create another quantum reality that could overwrite the primary timeline, or even fracture space-time throughout entire sectors.
Try to list all the investigation and intelligence agencies that the US, for example, has. You can even limit them to a specific thing, like foreign intelligence.
You'll quickly realize that STO has room for at least another half-dozen agencies doing gods-knows-what to the poor timeline - which isn't really a strict line, more some wibly wobly timey wimey stuff
Pocket Books' novel-verse has established the Poj'huBoq (I could be getting it wrong, doing it from memory) as the Klingon counterpart to the DTI. Given that they've lifted other elements from the novels, it's a shame they didn't do the same here.
What's bothering me is that both STO and the novels use the various Star Trek series and movies as their base and build from there. Throwing this brand new organization in out of nowhere doesn't fit, especially as they themselves had Admiral Quinn mention the DTI before during B'Vat's messing with the Guardian of Forever. Admittedly, in the novels the name of the 31st Century agency that Daniels came from was called the Temporal Intelligence Agency, but that's 600 years in the future from 2410 - and they're civilian, not Starfleet, just like the DTI. And besides, the Temporal Integrity Commission that the USS Relativity was part of in VOY is in the way in the 29th Century, and we know they exist because the USS Pastak came back in 'Temporal Ambassador'. STO isn't keeping to their own history in this case.
If you hire a bureaucrat to streamline processes, then before long said processes will require an additional 2 bureaucrats. The now 3 bureaucrats will then continue their work, and will thus need another 4 bureaucrats, a lawyer and an economist in addition to handle the bureaucratic workload, manage the expenses and interpret the rules they made themselves.
These nine people will then....
And so it begins....