Did the Iconians win? No. I don't see a failure here.
Not only did the Iconians not lose but changing history had nothing to do with their "defeat." And the only person who tried to maintain the bad idea on Ancient Iconia failed completely and also became the source of her own and her people's misery.
How did you play through all that and still think the game was on the side of temporal manipulation?
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There is no simpler way to put this than: no, it wasn't.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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Well, to borrow from another canon: fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to assassinate Hitler? No. Fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to save Abraham Lincoln? No. Same reason.
Could someone go back and hoist George and Gracie into the future? Apparently yes, because their whereabouts were not particularly important or well-known--or, from the perspective of the 29th century, that's how it played out, so there you have it.
In the STO (and indeed, the entire Star Trek universe), the 25th century our characters inhabit is already someone else's past, just as the 16th century is our past. (And one of many--a certain Klingon ambassador could tell you stories about alternate timelines.) In the timeline we (or Noye, or Worf) inhabit, once the quantum mechanical probability wave collapses, that's how it is, no arguments allowed. In our proper timeline (go as the Guardian of Forever about it, I suppose; one could theorize that there's a potential energy calculation that can be run for a time-line, and that the "proper" time-line is the one that follows a consistently lowest potential energy profile), the Na'kuhl's star was destroyed, and there's no putting it back. Subsequent events in the timeline leading to the 29th century depend on that event, perhaps even with any other time-travel episodes you'd care to remember. Only a tautology works here: it has to be because it has to be. (That's temporal mechanics for you, right?)
The larger question is that of free will: if these events had to have happened (or must happen at some point in the future), where is everyone's free will in all this? Noye doesn't have a choice--he must do these things because the future demands that he do them. (Although Walker seems confused by the sequence of events, which is a paradox by definition.)
Oddly enough, the question of free will is currently being debated as a consequence of the meaning of quantum entanglement and intepretations of Bell's Inequality. Either all this stuff is random (as in inherently unpredictable, not whatever the kids mean by "random" these days), or there's no such thing as free will. Given that the 29th century is watching what happens in the 25th, one has to lean toward that latter interpretation.
Might want to listen to their dialogue again. "Drowning in oceans of blood" etc. doesn't exactly mean they wanted to be best pals.
That was just T'ket and you may want to pay more attention to what every other iconian says, what they do throughout the arc, and what you can logically infer from those actions.
They're not exterminating us. They're conquering to build a galactic dominion which (and here's the key point) won't threaten them with another great catastrophe. That's their core motivation. The Iconians are reacting to the circumstances of their original downfall, which involves plenty of revenge but with a point just shy of "kill everyone." They still got to kill lots of people, but that's not really what they were after (just a nice bonus for one of them :P).
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Hmm... I don't want to dismiss the work of the devs or the writers in this case. I'm very happy that STO is going the direction of advancing the storyline. Still, people in here have brought up some valid points in respect to what seems like a problem with the temporal prime directive or at least its motives.
Anyone ever read Assimov's End of Eternity? Good book and I think STO should borrow to better explain some of the premise behind the Temporal Prime Directive. Not to spoil too move for anyone who hasn't read the book, but it turns out that the larger problem is that by changing the timeline so that everything is safer for humanity (or I guess the galaxy in this case), it doesn't allow for much in the way of evolution and creates a complacency that kills off the very thing that was meant to be protected. I think that should be the muse behind the Temporal Prime Directive is that by ensuring that the timeline isn't nixed in the past for one reason or another, we ensure that hardship occurs. Only through hardship do we better ourselves and get to a stronger future for the most of us.
Well, to borrow from another canon: fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to assassinate Hitler? No. Fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to save Abraham Lincoln? No. Same reason.
(...)
That didn't even make sense in Dr. Who. I'd appreciate we don't go there
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The devs hands are tied by what was established in the shows. Any new additions to canon (Say, exploring the space galactic west of the Alpha Quadrant with new lifeforms and new civilizations) would have most of you guys going apedookie because you just want a TNG simulator.
As for the claim of the OP: They obviously forgot Divide et Imperia. And the Tribble mission. And the entire Pah Wraith storyline. This was a serviceable set up for the next expansion/ story line.
The devs hands are tied by what was established in the shows. Any new additions to canon (Say, exploring the space galactic west of the Alpha Quadrant with new lifeforms and new civilizations) would have most of you guys going apedookie because you just want a TNG simulator.
As for the claim of the OP: They obviously forgot Divide et Imperia. And the Tribble mission. And the entire Pah Wraith storyline. This was a serviceable set up for the next expansion/ story line.
Hey! I liked the tribble mission. The others sucked badly and Divide et Imperia was absolutely awful. Comparisons to that are may as well invoke Hitler.
Honestly OP, whether we're morally obligated to fix the star or not, we couldn't achieve it anyway. For the 29th century, this event has already happened, and therefore it's destined to happen... that means no matter what we do, it will happen. If we do nothing, it happens; if we decide to fix the star anyway, temporal agents will go back and convince us otherwise (physically prevent us, if necessary), and it still happens.
^That is the reality brought about by temporal mechanics - if we could save the star and keep the timeline perfectly intact, we would. We cannot... we don't like it (I imagine no one does), but we cannot do both.
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Knowing what we know, we can't go back in time and stop Noye before he becomes an issue? We can't go back and erase those logs so he never gets a chance to read them? Knowing what we know, we can't go back in time to prevent the Borg from (very, very conveniently) knocking out our temporal shielding and stop Noye's wife from ever disappearing?
Have to admit though that not being able to stop Noye is one of the few things that DOES make sense about the episode's plot.
And this making sense is conveniently provided by the plot device from Star Trek Voyager - aka Temporal Shielding.
Now that Noye is on Annorax inside it's Temporal Shield - NOTHING we do in the past would influence his current actions: we could kill him as a baby, but the vengeful adult Noye on Annorax will still be there, we could blow up the Annorax, when it is still being built, but Noye's Annorax inside its temporal shield will stay intact. The Temporal Shileding basically allows objects and living beings, that have no past and no future, exist. So until this particular Noye, which is leading the whole conspirancy, is taken out of the temporal shield - he will continue with his plan. Basically, we need to pull a Janeway from Year from Hell (maybe, not the same method, though).
I did not realize until reading this thread that Doris Day understood Temporal Mechanics. Her song Que Sera, Sera (Whatever will be, will be) hits it right on the head.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Why is anyone under the impression that the UT could reverse the problem with the star? Was that what we did with the first one? I can't remember. Maybe we need the devs to clarify some things for us, cause maybe the Nakhul star was too far gone and we couldn't do anything, which is why it came up. Besides, didn't they tell us to GTFO? Prime Directive is pretty clear on situations like that.
I never felt like I had done anything wrong in these missions. At least not intentionally. The one where we wiped out the guy's wife's race, that sucked. Bad. But it was not intentional and my character definitely felt the weight of that for a whole 5 seconds before the timeline changed.
Never felt like I did anything intentionally bad, and yes I did feel sorry for the Nakhul, never felt responsible though.
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Frankly I just don't see it. It was out of our hands. What are we supposed to do about it?
I think there just needs to be more dialogue options. I was really, really against the use of the temporal weapon (it's a genocide gun, and oh, look what happened when we used it) in the first place, and I was barely given a choice of expressing my feelings on the matter. Even if what I say is ignored and the future guys do it anyways, at least I had the chance to express my outrage at it.
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Frankly I just don't see it. It was out of our hands. What are we supposed to do about it?
Simple. When the Tox is in our hands after we recover it from the Tholians, we fly back and reignite the Na'khul star. If they complain, we say "look if you really want us to we can snuff it back out for you" but I highly doubt they'll complain too much about us cleaning up our mess and saving billions of their lives. THEN we go bury it on Risa.
I don't see why this is so difficult to grasp?
I hope they add that just for you. And when you get there and it's been too long and the UH cannot reverse it, how mad will you be?
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Hate to say it but if the Guardian is the keeper of the timeline and "has always been and will always be" and can tell which time lines are correct, and can send people back to fix time, we never had "free will". Actually kinda surprised no one remembered but Guinan realized a timeline had changed in that TNG episode so other beings can tell what is the correct timeline.
So either the time cops will keep things the was they are or someone else will. We don't get a say (and that has noting to do with that fact that we have to play Cryptic game in Cryptic timeline with Cryptic long term plan/story line) so embrace your future.
But if you need the idea of freewill than the fixed points in time is your best for making your own decision up to those points in time when the outcomes are out of your control.
By the way I thought is was stupid that we didn't at least attempt to fix the star (even if Kal sabotage it without our knowledge to continue the timeline) when we had the Tox Uthat. Honestly for that he could said it's broke and I need to return to the future to fix it then went back in time and buried himself.
If you need a justified reason to do anything in this game just think it's one of Q's test to see if humanity is worthy of existing.
1) We are present for the Tholian destruction of the Na'kuhl star, failing to prevent the use of the Tox Uthat in time. We then defeat the Tholians and secure the TU, and... we go and bury the bloody thing? I fully expected that we would get a chance to repair the star and to not do so is completely unacceptable on every moral level. I only cooperated as long as I did because I expected people who wear the uniform of future Starfleet to conduct themselves like Starfleet and clean up their own messes. By the time I realized the truth it was too late, I was no longer in the right timeframe to do anything and the TU was lost to me as was the expertise to use it since Kal Dano was dead.
Your morals are not universal, also the timeline was supposed to develop that way, things like the destruction of the Na'kuhl star prompted the creation of the time accords, Mr. 29th century stated that timelines without temporal accords tend to go downhill.
2) Now, we're expected to be ok with the signing of this treaty which has at it's core the refusal to undo the aforementioned temporal incursion (the whole thing was caused by Kal Dano coming back with the TU to save the Lukari, after all which is a temporal interference in and of itself)? And worse, we're supposed to fire on, destroy the vessels of, and kill the personnel of the Na'kuhl who are fighting to restore their homeworld against the people who screwed them over and refuse to fix it? We're on the wrong side. We would do the EXACT same thing if we were in the position the Na'kuhl are in and in fact they did everything they should to be considered morally justified. They TRIED to ask nicely, they tried to be diplomatic and work within the system and were flatly denied. Only after exhausting peaceful methods did they resort to force of arms, and they have every right to defend their world and their civilization. They have every reason to consider the temporal agency their declared enemy in a war they didn't start --they were minding their own business when things they had no part in came knocking on their door bearing the gift of destruction. They are innocent victims. It is morally wrong to side against them and do them additional harm.
They attacked a civilian delegation, to me that means I can get rid of them with extreme prejudice, plus they are idiots, saving their homeworld would mean they'll cease to exist, and losing a homeworld does not mean they cannot thrive, look at the romulans.
They asked nicely, they tried to be diplomatic, that doesn't mean they are right, it's like attempting to rob a bank after being denied a loan.
This, I submit, is far worse because rather than simply a few dozen innocent doctors and scientists we are talking about the destruction of an inhabited star system with all the deaths, trauma, cultural disruption, and other horrible effects on billions of innocent people PLUS the murder of starship crews and persons fighting against these horrific injustices. I for one won't do it. I aborted the mission and will drop it from my queue. I won't have my character take part in these crimes. I'm here to play Starfleet officers, not war criminals. That uniform stands for something, and Gene Roddenberry would be spinning in his grave to see the things done by people claiming to carry the banner of Starfleet. My character may not be granted a choice by the gameplay railroad, but I do. I won't be part of it.
Someone in the writing staff needs to get an education on Starfleet ethics or another job writing for a different setting where those ethics are not a core part of the IP.
21st century human ethics are not the same as 29th century pan-galactic time traveling multispecies ethics, you have to consider the fate of a whole galaxy over the fate of a single planet, I'm sorry but the Na'kuhl do not have any moral nor logic high ground here, they are just morons who think they know better and think their civilization matters more than an entire galactic alliance 2 centuries more advanced.
They are just a bunch of idiots, they've lost their homeworld, they were not the first ones, but their culture and species can live on, the Romulans decided that finding a new homeworld, gather the remaining Romulans and starting again was the right thing to do, meanwhile the Na'kuhl kept complaining instead of following the Romulan example, now they are refugees, they kept looking at the past instead of securing the future.
That makes the Temporal police the VILLAINS and we as Starfleet officers are morally obligated to defy them and fight them if necessary to protect the innocent. As I said from the getgo, we're on the wrong side and the story forces us to be on the wrong side. The only moral path is to rebel against the future authority because real lives in our present outweigh theoretical lives in one possible future. If THEY get to choose the future, WE have no free will in our present. That is unacceptable.
The problem with this 'unacceptable' logic is thus: changing the event of the dying star would alter the fates of many races throughout the galaxy - which would be ten times worse than letting tragedy befall one innocent race. We've seen from the tail end of the Iconian War arc that even the tiniest differences make entirely different timelines, and this is no different. It's an example of "the needs of the many", horrible and tragic that it is... the Na'kuhl will suffer, but the timeline is preserved, and that (unfortunately) overtakes the fate of one race. If we could preserve both, we would, but we cannot, and it is ultimately the lesser of two evils
Plus even if we decided to fight, can you honestly say that the 25th century has the means to actively win against the entire 29th century's tech? We could correct 'supposed wrongs' a million times and they'd correct it a million times, as is their job - they oversee the timeline, because for them, events have already happened, creating their present- they did not decide that events happen these ways; they simply maintain that events do happen as they did (and this isn't just a 'supposed' future, but one that physically exists, due to those same temporal police). Imo, those are not the actions of villains at all.
Like I've said, this is the reality - we cannot change things in the 25th century because of the 29th century, and by the time we get to that century, we cannot make changes either because it would void our then-present. And free will still exists because we do not know what our actions will do, nor how they lead into the events of the 29th century (merely that they will, somehow, which is not enough to believe our every action is controlled) - not being able to save that sun is regrettable, but it's marginally better than correcting that event and selfishly dooming many other races as a result. But that's my personal opinion on the matter.
Post edited by trek21 on
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Who build the ring arround Khitomer? What is the point of it? It is in space, a space ship got stuck in it, which makes playing the whole mission, bleh ... immersion, anybody? In the future we can build huge structures, from the surface of a planet into space. Spaceships will fly arround them and hit them sometimes, just as the Titanic hit an iceberg. Accidents happen, its a lesson.
That's not Khitomer, it's New Khitomer.
And I have no idea what 29th century technology requires a planet to orbit physical ring. Maybe it's a shout out to that Matt Damon movie from a couple years back...Elysium that was the name.
To be fair, Cryptic isn't exactly good at grasping SPACE, either. Enemies appear, many lightyears away, and run by us to attack Earth. Suddenly, they're already there, and shooting up the place. Somehow, they've gotten there faster than we could drive there through sector space. Now we're there and it's a fake: They're actually somewhere ELSE, and it's already under attack. Somehow, we can get there while the battle still rages, instead of days, weeks, or even months later. Where is the SPACE? Are these places somehow right across the street? We can get to the other side of the galaxy faster than I can go upstairs in my own house. Space is handled no better than time is.
Well the top speed of Undine vessels has never actually been established, they could have transwarp drive.
And the Undine split up after they came out of the Jouret Gateway most went to Qonos.
The real TRIBBLE up in that storyline is why they even needed the gateways. They could've just used Quantum Singularity portals to punch through. And appear like the Iconians. Unless the North West Passage is the only place they can make portals? But then how did they attack us before?
That's hardly good reasoning. There's a difference between a personal emotional disconnect from the motivation which is fine, and an actual factual reason. I don't like time travel on principle, but I get why a jerk like Noye would snap from the revelation.
WE will be the ones to set that straight, most likely by following the principles of Starfleet (and the moral/honor compasses of other powers). ....or at least I hope the writers allow us to redeem ourselves in this fashion in the end.
I don't think so. We'll set it straight, by having Cryptic's version of Starfleet dispatch us and our murderous crews, on another search, and destroy, terminate with extreme prejudice, mission. Then next year Ricossa will pat himself on the back for having released another 'brilliant" story arc, worthy of any Star Trek series.
This is why temporal wars, and time cop story lines should be avoided. Temporal paradox story lines are hit or miss. Good Sci-Fi writers know this, and it's usually the latter, so they try to avoid them. As I've stated before the whole "right" timeline theme is a purely selfish principle, out of line with Starfleet's enlightened, liberal, attitude. Also, in order to have a "right" timeline, you have to imply there is both a start, and finish, to time itself, with some governing authority (a deity?) implementing it's creative vision over such. Apparently, it's the Starfleet time cops, who have taken it upon themselves to be that governing authority.
Oh and on topic:
The whole Iconian storyline has major issues and problems:
According to the whole story arc all major factions have lost thousands of ships, millions, if not billions, of people and it's only Noye and the Na'Kuhl who want to change the present? Come on, where's Section 31? Where are the Romulan survivors who want to get their planet back? Where are the renegade captains in the galaxy?!?
Section 31 has a vested interest in not wrecking the present timeline. Keep in mind they kept a star that is perfect for the slingshot maneuver off starmaps.
Sela already TRIBBLE up. It got get homeworld killed.
And that's all perfectly fine. I can understand your thinking, I just don't agree with it. To me, the motivation of the character - and the entire story arc - falls flat due to time travel.
Knowing what we know, we can't go back in time and stop Noye before he becomes an issue? We can't go back and erase those logs so he never gets a chance to read them? Knowing what we know, we can't go back in time to prevent the Borg from (very, very conveniently) knocking out our temporal shielding and stop Noye's wife from ever disappearing? We can't find a way to save Romulus and defeat the Iconians? This can go on and on.
We have a time machine which shields us from the passage of time. We literally have forever to run various scenarios that will cause a better outcome for everyone, not just the Federation.
I just don't like the idea of time travel and being able to "fix" things that went wrong. It diminishes the realism that comes from living with the consequences of our actions. Time travel should be used very, very sparingly IMO.
The Annorax Paradox is waiting for you. Annorax took two hundred years doing that. It always failed. Every. Single. Time. What happened happened. And you cannot cheat the universe. When you do, you will pay the price. Or worse someone else will pay the price. It's The Law of Equivalent Exchange writ temporal. There comes a point where you have to accept what happened and move on.
You can't just consider your own internal logic, but the established logic of the universe. Kirk saving Humpback Whales is the only successful time manipulation usage in Star Trek history.
The Alliance had no qualms about using it against the Iconians.
But that's the thing isn't it? It Failed, catastrophically. It was predicted to fail catastrophically with every projection, and in real life it failed in even WORSE ways than we imagined. Instead of just losing Romulus, we still lost Romulus and we lost the Tuterians. The Alliance learned its damn lesson. And even before that resorting to time travel was a desperate act born of a perceived weakness in the Iconians, that they can't time travel while we can.
Well, to be clear it's the villains who are planning on using time travel to fix history, putting them in the same company as the Borg in First contact or Darvin in the DS9 tribble episode. There's unlikely to be any validation of the "we'll just fix it after the fact" mentality.
The Alliance had no qualms about using it against the Iconians.
Or the whales.
Or the Borg.
Or against the Devidians.
The Whales was relatively a relatively benign situation that only affected one world and saved two species from extinction. Also Temporal Investigations hates Kirk. They can't actually stop him due to the paradox that they wouldn't exist without him.
The Borg used time travel against us and we stopped them. Nothing more or less.
The Devidians consistently used time travel against us. In fact attacking into the past where they can't be detected is their primary method of attack.
Yeah, this is what I'm trying to start to wrap my head around:
Who's ultimately making the call as to what timeline is "right"? Not Walker, as he's seeming to parrot the decisions of the "head" of Temporal Instigations...
And are we going to be able to... mess... with this? As others are asking, why can't we go restart the Na'kuhl star, if not for the decisions of this... temporal instigator... that has elected to declare Dano's trip to allow the Tholians to do so as "right" and any attempts to fix this as "wrong"...
We don't know yet. The Federation appears to be part of the Galactic Union, so there are apparently A LOT of species signing on here.
I think a key clue, since we don't know anything close to the whole story yet, is that the Tholians are signors of the Temporal Accords and more aggressive about it. It's possible them attacking the Na'khul was their overzealous idea of an enforcement action.
Why don't the Romulans want to use it to find an better outcome for them? Add to this, who are the Alliance to determine what was the right thing to do with the time travel technology in the first place? What impact did our changes have on eveyone else throughout the universe? Did any races that could have been get wiped from existence? Maybe it was our time to end at the hand of the Iconians. Nothing lasts forever. We're very happy to use this kind of technology to save ourselves, but when it comes to using it to help others, that's a big no no?
I think your memory is slipping.
Doing precisely that is the reason that we first got Romulus assimilated and second, got the Tuterians assimilated and hidden in another dimension. This has already been tried and made things a lot worse.
The Temporal Accords are not just the Alliance. The Alliance just leads to the next evolution in Galactic Government, the Galactic Union. Which I presume has a much wider influence and population base (Cryptic did fail to show all the species we would encounter in the next three hundred years though) hence the word Galactic. Even the Dominion is on board.
The Iconian situation is an interesting study. There appears to be a predestination paradox there. Think about it. If we had not time traveled then Sela wouldn't have killed those Iconians, meaning that the Iconian War would've never taken place. Either the Iconians would've escaped on their own with the World Heart and continued a quiet existence not caring about us, or they would've been trapped on Iconia like the history books say and went extinct. Either way, it wouldn't have been our time to end. And in fact, Hobus wouldn't have happened. As for what initially triggered that change, we'll never know.
The fact that the Temporal Accords are being signed indicates that they've come to the conclusion that they can't predict what changes are going to affect what, so they've decided not to make any changes, and prevent , anyone else from making changes or reverse them. A decision you're railing against.
[quote="letsfadeaway;12839108"
From what I gather the alliance stopped all Annorax-shenanigans after the two failed attempts that we got to see/play and probably banned its use.
Possible reason: The Annorax is not a time-travel device, it erases whole civilisations or objects from time and once used it cannot be undone (that's how I understood it worked in "Year of Hell").
As to why Noye's angry and cracked? See my previous posts and add the fact that NOONE is doing anything to bring those back that he/we lost.
Everyone seems to be fine with all the losses and the timeline that we have, everyone wants to rebuild now, everyone is relieved that the war is over, everyone sees the dangers of further Annorax-deletions, everyone but Noye.
And that is probably the major problem in STO story-telling: There is only one outcome and one possible resolution for every story. Our characters go through it on rails and have no choice at all.[/quote]
Indeed. A Temporal Incursion pushes an object completely out of the time stream at the source of its conception into the universe and the time stream has to adjust to account for its absence. Which if time is a fabric must be incredibly stressful.
The only way to bring those objects back is unknown to the characters, namely to use the Temporal Incursion on the ship itself, pushing it out of existence and thus removing every effect the ship ever had on history. But they don't know that/haven't figured it out as Janeway only did it by accident, thus it's never happened before or been tried.
You're arguing semantics. The Alliance is happy to use the tech when it suits them, everyone else be damned.
Your argument fails though, you're using the actions of the alliance against a successor state three centuries later. That's the same as making arguments on modern United Nations policy based on the mistakes of the British Empire in the seventeenth century.
I understand completely. This raises the question of who are we (the Alliance) to be determining the future for everyone else? We have the technology (banned or not) and all the time in the world to use it. Why not try?
Because every attempt thus far has been a miserable failure, and we don't know what constantly tampering with the timeline will actually do to the structure of space time.
I played through it several times. We use a time weapon that can change history as we see fit. There's no escaping that. It's only a bad idea because the Federation doesn't want anyone changing the outcome to better suit their own interests over the Federation. Call it what it really is.
Your interpretation is flawed.
In Midnight our Captain actually keeps history exactly the same as it already was. The Iconians attack, we save them (as we had already done being The Other), Sela kills a bunch of survivors thus spawning T'Khet and the Iconians hatred of the Romulans and the Hobus Supernova, and then escape grow up to be our enemies, we take the World Heart they left behind and give it back to them in the present. Nothing in the past changed at all. If we hadn't time traveled, then there wouldn't have been an Iconian War at all, which would've been a vastly superior outcome, as every war or conflict post-Hobus in presented in Star Trek Online would not have occurred.
On the other hand we may have gotten the Destiny Storyline instead, so I'm good with this.
OK, Noye I get it now that he's desperate to blame anyone and everyone but himself (because honestly, his wife was lost to nothing but the law of unintended consequences --everyone including him and her both were on board with the plan which they in fact helped create). He's irrational, and like Rattler said he snapped. His motivation now makes sense from the perspective of "it makes sense to him because he's nucking futs". He is off the rails and needs to be stopped. Cool with me.
I dig.
The Na'kuhl, though, are absolutely RIGHT and nothing anyone has said in this thread has done anything but reinforce that. It is pure, naked hypocrisy for the Temporal people to say "when it's us in trouble we will do anything no matter the risk to save our necks" and "when it's you, sorry pal sheet happens suck it up buttercup!". They have every right to be furious and to be willing to do whatever it takes to save their homeworld --EXACTLY as we would do in their place. In fact, not just as we would do but exactly as we HAVE DONE more than once. When the whale probe was at the door, or the Iconians bearing down on us, nobody said "well maybe we should just accept our fate because changing things might negatively affect future timelines". We just did it, because we felt we had the right to self-defense and no responsibility to theoretical people that don't exist yet as far as we're concerned.
On the Iconians as I stated above, ultimately not changing the timeline was the correct path for us, and all our attempts TRIBBLE us over. That's a lesson we learned.
Since it's a time travel storyline, the reason why we don't actually do the logical thing, go back dig up the Tox Uthat tell Ben to fix there star and then go back and bury again, likely hasn't happened yet.
And that's another thing that bothers me, that the whole existence of this temporal agency puts a damper on causality and free will. Nothing we do ever causes anything unless the future powers that be are ok with it, and we won't be allowed to do anything that they disapprove. If (for extreme example) we decided that to spite them we would toss a few tricobalt torpedoes in the sun to make it go nova and thus make sure they never existed, would they stop us? And could they? I mean, if we do things now that prevent them from existing how COULD they stop us? They wouldn't exist to do it! And yet because they do it means we're predestined to do things in such a way that brings them about. We can't rebel, even if we want to. We're railroaded. My captain can't side with the Na'kuhl and destroy the Temporal Agency, nope can't happen because it didn't happen according to people that from my perspective don't exist yet --except they do. The future is now set, and there is no fate but what THEY make for ourselves.
The only real way forward is to do exactly that --to destroy this set future and return the future to an unknown state. Only then can our actions be free and consequences flow from them. Otherwise, we're just pawns in a game played by people who don't yet exist and yet insist we make sure they do no matter whether we like it or not.
I hate time travel. A lot. And I hate prophecy storylines, for the same reasons you stated.
But, to answer your question, presumably any temporally shielded time traveling agents out there would still exist to strike back. And you need Trilithium Torpedoes, not Tricobalts.
And from those future people's perspectives, it isn't destroy our free will, but don't rewrite our history books. The problem with being a literal historical figure.
Well, to borrow from another canon: fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to assassinate Hitler? No. Fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to save Abraham Lincoln? No. Same reason.
Could someone go back and hoist George and Gracie into the future? Apparently yes, because their whereabouts were not particularly important or well-known--or, from the perspective of the 29th century, that's how it played out, so there you have it.
In the STO (and indeed, the entire Star Trek universe), the 25th century our characters inhabit is already someone else's past, just as the 16th century is our past. (And one of many--a certain Klingon ambassador could tell you stories about alternate timelines.) In the timeline we (or Noye, or Worf) inhabit, once the quantum mechanical probability wave collapses, that's how it is, no arguments allowed. In our proper timeline (go as the Guardian of Forever about it, I suppose; one could theorize that there's a potential energy calculation that can be run for a time-line, and that the "proper" time-line is the one that follows a consistently lowest potential energy profile), the Na'kuhl's star was destroyed, and there's no putting it back. Subsequent events in the timeline leading to the 29th century depend on that event, perhaps even with any other time-travel episodes you'd care to remember. Only a tautology works here: it has to be because it has to be. (That's temporal mechanics for you, right?)
The larger question is that of free will: if these events had to have happened (or must happen at some point in the future), where is everyone's free will in all this? Noye doesn't have a choice--he must do these things because the future demands that he do them. (Although Walker seems confused by the sequence of events, which is a paradox by definition.)
Oddly enough, the question of free will is currently being debated as a consequence of the meaning of quantum entanglement and intepretations of Bell's Inequality. Either all this stuff is random (as in inherently unpredictable, not whatever the kids mean by "random" these days), or there's no such thing as free will. Given that the 29th century is watching what happens in the 25th, one has to lean toward that latter interpretation.
Barring a first initial timeline where everything was random and then everything behind it is set in stone. Logically if you think that time happens, the it happened for the first time. However if time is merely perception of a set path then there is no free will ever.
Hmm... I don't want to dismiss the work of the devs or the writers in this case. I'm very happy that STO is going the direction of advancing the storyline. Still, people in here have brought up some valid points in respect to what seems like a problem with the temporal prime directive or at least its motives.
Anyone ever read Assimov's End of Eternity? Good book and I think STO should borrow to better explain some of the premise behind the Temporal Prime Directive. Not to spoil too move for anyone who hasn't read the book, but it turns out that the larger problem is that by changing the timeline so that everything is safer for humanity (or I guess the galaxy in this case), it doesn't allow for much in the way of evolution and creates a complacency that kills off the very thing that was meant to be protected. I think that should be the muse behind the Temporal Prime Directive is that by ensuring that the timeline isn't nixed in the past for one reason or another, we ensure that hardship occurs. Only through hardship do we better ourselves and get to a stronger future for the most of us.
I like that. The Prime Directive is also meant to ensure each species individual trials and triumphs.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Have to admit though that not being able to stop Noye is one of the few things that DOES make sense about the episode's plot.
And this making sense is conveniently provided by the plot device from Star Trek Voyager - aka Temporal Shielding.
Now that Noye is on Annorax inside it's Temporal Shield - NOTHING we do in the past would influence his current actions: we could kill him as a baby, but the vengeful adult Noye on Annorax will still be there, we could blow up the Annorax, when it is still being built, but Noye's Annorax inside its temporal shield will stay intact. The Temporal Shileding basically allows objects and living beings, that have no past and no future, exist. So until this particular Noye, which is leading the whole conspirancy, is taken out of the temporal shield - he will continue with his plan. Basically, we need to pull a Janeway from Year from Hell (maybe, not the same method, though).
Ah yes. A weird thing since Chroniton torpedoes are normal weapons in this game. As a matter of fact we should also have paid mention to adjusting our weapons for his temporal shielding to even defeat him at all. Fortunately that's information we should have having participated in the weapon ship's construction, so no problem there.
That makes the Temporal police the VILLAINS and we as Starfleet officers are morally obligated to defy them and fight them if necessary to protect the innocent. As I said from the getgo, we're on the wrong side and the story forces us to be on the wrong side. The only moral path is to rebel against the future authority because real lives in our present outweigh theoretical lives in one possible future. If THEY get to choose the future, WE have no free will in our present. That is unacceptable.
A key point we're not considering.
It's entirely possible that our Captain could actually do just that rebel, do the right thing and in doing so actually ensure the signing of the Temporal Accords. It could be that's the reason they brought us forward. The reason that everything is so important and hinging on us. We may be just as important to the Temporal Accords actually succeeding as Archer was to the Articles of Confederation. It is not outside the realm of possibility, that the Temporal Integrity Commission is inadequate to solve this problem, trapped in their own temporal causality, and thus we're required to solve this problem. Keep in mind the Pastak's crew is actually from further ahead than the signing of the accords, meaning we're still playing a role in his history, even if it isn't the history he remembers.
Simple. When the Tox is in our hands after we recover it from the Tholians, we fly back and reignite the Na'khul star. If they complain, we say "look if you really want us to we can snuff it back out for you" but I highly doubt they'll complain too much about us cleaning up our mess and saving billions of their lives. THEN we go bury it on Risa.
I don't see why this is so difficult to grasp?
Agreed. Very confusing unless something horrible happens to the rest of the galaxy with the Na'khul star going along at normal.
From our Captain's perspective there was no pressing need to hide the Uthat, BEFORE we repaired the damage to the star.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
You can't just consider your own internal logic, but the established logic of the universe. Kirk saving Humpback Whales is the only successful time manipulation usage in Star Trek history.
Or maybe he accidentally caused the Whale Probe attack......
Comments
How did you play through all that and still think the game was on the side of temporal manipulation?
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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There is no simpler way to put this than: no, it wasn't.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Can we go back in time to assassinate Hitler? No. Fixed point in time.
Can we go back in time to save Abraham Lincoln? No. Same reason.
Could someone go back and hoist George and Gracie into the future? Apparently yes, because their whereabouts were not particularly important or well-known--or, from the perspective of the 29th century, that's how it played out, so there you have it.
In the STO (and indeed, the entire Star Trek universe), the 25th century our characters inhabit is already someone else's past, just as the 16th century is our past. (And one of many--a certain Klingon ambassador could tell you stories about alternate timelines.) In the timeline we (or Noye, or Worf) inhabit, once the quantum mechanical probability wave collapses, that's how it is, no arguments allowed. In our proper timeline (go as the Guardian of Forever about it, I suppose; one could theorize that there's a potential energy calculation that can be run for a time-line, and that the "proper" time-line is the one that follows a consistently lowest potential energy profile), the Na'kuhl's star was destroyed, and there's no putting it back. Subsequent events in the timeline leading to the 29th century depend on that event, perhaps even with any other time-travel episodes you'd care to remember. Only a tautology works here: it has to be because it has to be. (That's temporal mechanics for you, right?)
The larger question is that of free will: if these events had to have happened (or must happen at some point in the future), where is everyone's free will in all this? Noye doesn't have a choice--he must do these things because the future demands that he do them. (Although Walker seems confused by the sequence of events, which is a paradox by definition.)
Oddly enough, the question of free will is currently being debated as a consequence of the meaning of quantum entanglement and intepretations of Bell's Inequality. Either all this stuff is random (as in inherently unpredictable, not whatever the kids mean by "random" these days), or there's no such thing as free will. Given that the 29th century is watching what happens in the 25th, one has to lean toward that latter interpretation.
That was just T'ket and you may want to pay more attention to what every other iconian says, what they do throughout the arc, and what you can logically infer from those actions.
They're not exterminating us. They're conquering to build a galactic dominion which (and here's the key point) won't threaten them with another great catastrophe. That's their core motivation. The Iconians are reacting to the circumstances of their original downfall, which involves plenty of revenge but with a point just shy of "kill everyone." They still got to kill lots of people, but that's not really what they were after (just a nice bonus for one of them :P).
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Anyone ever read Assimov's End of Eternity? Good book and I think STO should borrow to better explain some of the premise behind the Temporal Prime Directive. Not to spoil too move for anyone who hasn't read the book, but it turns out that the larger problem is that by changing the timeline so that everything is safer for humanity (or I guess the galaxy in this case), it doesn't allow for much in the way of evolution and creates a complacency that kills off the very thing that was meant to be protected. I think that should be the muse behind the Temporal Prime Directive is that by ensuring that the timeline isn't nixed in the past for one reason or another, we ensure that hardship occurs. Only through hardship do we better ourselves and get to a stronger future for the most of us.
That didn't even make sense in Dr. Who. I'd appreciate we don't go there
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As for the claim of the OP: They obviously forgot Divide et Imperia. And the Tribble mission. And the entire Pah Wraith storyline. This was a serviceable set up for the next expansion/ story line.
Hey! I liked the tribble mission. The others sucked badly and Divide et Imperia was absolutely awful. Comparisons to that are may as well invoke Hitler.
^That is the reality brought about by temporal mechanics - if we could save the star and keep the timeline perfectly intact, we would. We cannot... we don't like it (I imagine no one does), but we cannot do both.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
And this making sense is conveniently provided by the plot device from Star Trek Voyager - aka Temporal Shielding.
Now that Noye is on Annorax inside it's Temporal Shield - NOTHING we do in the past would influence his current actions: we could kill him as a baby, but the vengeful adult Noye on Annorax will still be there, we could blow up the Annorax, when it is still being built, but Noye's Annorax inside its temporal shield will stay intact. The Temporal Shileding basically allows objects and living beings, that have no past and no future, exist. So until this particular Noye, which is leading the whole conspirancy, is taken out of the temporal shield - he will continue with his plan. Basically, we need to pull a Janeway from Year from Hell (maybe, not the same method, though).
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I never felt like I had done anything wrong in these missions. At least not intentionally. The one where we wiped out the guy's wife's race, that sucked. Bad. But it was not intentional and my character definitely felt the weight of that for a whole 5 seconds before the timeline changed.
Never felt like I did anything intentionally bad, and yes I did feel sorry for the Nakhul, never felt responsible though.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
I think there just needs to be more dialogue options. I was really, really against the use of the temporal weapon (it's a genocide gun, and oh, look what happened when we used it) in the first place, and I was barely given a choice of expressing my feelings on the matter. Even if what I say is ignored and the future guys do it anyways, at least I had the chance to express my outrage at it.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
I hope they add that just for you. And when you get there and it's been too long and the UH cannot reverse it, how mad will you be?
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
But as KDF the morality of it troubles me not at all. pew pew pew, BOOM! Next...
So either the time cops will keep things the was they are or someone else will. We don't get a say (and that has noting to do with that fact that we have to play Cryptic game in Cryptic timeline with Cryptic long term plan/story line) so embrace your future.
But if you need the idea of freewill than the fixed points in time is your best for making your own decision up to those points in time when the outcomes are out of your control.
By the way I thought is was stupid that we didn't at least attempt to fix the star (even if Kal sabotage it without our knowledge to continue the timeline) when we had the Tox Uthat. Honestly for that he could said it's broke and I need to return to the future to fix it then went back in time and buried himself.
If you need a justified reason to do anything in this game just think it's one of Q's test to see if humanity is worthy of existing.
Your morals are not universal, also the timeline was supposed to develop that way, things like the destruction of the Na'kuhl star prompted the creation of the time accords, Mr. 29th century stated that timelines without temporal accords tend to go downhill.
They attacked a civilian delegation, to me that means I can get rid of them with extreme prejudice, plus they are idiots, saving their homeworld would mean they'll cease to exist, and losing a homeworld does not mean they cannot thrive, look at the romulans.
They asked nicely, they tried to be diplomatic, that doesn't mean they are right, it's like attempting to rob a bank after being denied a loan.
21st century human ethics are not the same as 29th century pan-galactic time traveling multispecies ethics, you have to consider the fate of a whole galaxy over the fate of a single planet, I'm sorry but the Na'kuhl do not have any moral nor logic high ground here, they are just morons who think they know better and think their civilization matters more than an entire galactic alliance 2 centuries more advanced.
They are just a bunch of idiots, they've lost their homeworld, they were not the first ones, but their culture and species can live on, the Romulans decided that finding a new homeworld, gather the remaining Romulans and starting again was the right thing to do, meanwhile the Na'kuhl kept complaining instead of following the Romulan example, now they are refugees, they kept looking at the past instead of securing the future.
Plus even if we decided to fight, can you honestly say that the 25th century has the means to actively win against the entire 29th century's tech? We could correct 'supposed wrongs' a million times and they'd correct it a million times, as is their job - they oversee the timeline, because for them, events have already happened, creating their present- they did not decide that events happen these ways; they simply maintain that events do happen as they did (and this isn't just a 'supposed' future, but one that physically exists, due to those same temporal police). Imo, those are not the actions of villains at all.
Like I've said, this is the reality - we cannot change things in the 25th century because of the 29th century, and by the time we get to that century, we cannot make changes either because it would void our then-present. And free will still exists because we do not know what our actions will do, nor how they lead into the events of the 29th century (merely that they will, somehow, which is not enough to believe our every action is controlled) - not being able to save that sun is regrettable, but it's marginally better than correcting that event and selfishly dooming many other races as a result. But that's my personal opinion on the matter.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
*fingers crossed* This year for sure!
And I have no idea what 29th century technology requires a planet to orbit physical ring. Maybe it's a shout out to that Matt Damon movie from a couple years back...Elysium that was the name. Well the top speed of Undine vessels has never actually been established, they could have transwarp drive.
And the Undine split up after they came out of the Jouret Gateway most went to Qonos.
The real TRIBBLE up in that storyline is why they even needed the gateways. They could've just used Quantum Singularity portals to punch through. And appear like the Iconians. Unless the North West Passage is the only place they can make portals? But then how did they attack us before?
That's hardly good reasoning. There's a difference between a personal emotional disconnect from the motivation which is fine, and an actual factual reason. I don't like time travel on principle, but I get why a jerk like Noye would snap from the revelation.
Section 31 has a vested interest in not wrecking the present timeline. Keep in mind they kept a star that is perfect for the slingshot maneuver off starmaps.
Sela already TRIBBLE up. It got get homeworld killed.
Probably trying avoid canceling their own birth.
I think it's time someone answered Picard's question.
I guess they think that time travel counts as exploration.
The Annorax Paradox is waiting for you. Annorax took two hundred years doing that. It always failed. Every. Single. Time. What happened happened. And you cannot cheat the universe. When you do, you will pay the price. Or worse someone else will pay the price. It's The Law of Equivalent Exchange writ temporal. There comes a point where you have to accept what happened and move on.
You can't just consider your own internal logic, but the established logic of the universe. Kirk saving Humpback Whales is the only successful time manipulation usage in Star Trek history.
But that's the thing isn't it? It Failed, catastrophically. It was predicted to fail catastrophically with every projection, and in real life it failed in even WORSE ways than we imagined. Instead of just losing Romulus, we still lost Romulus and we lost the Tuterians. The Alliance learned its damn lesson. And even before that resorting to time travel was a desperate act born of a perceived weakness in the Iconians, that they can't time travel while we can.
The Whales was relatively a relatively benign situation that only affected one world and saved two species from extinction. Also Temporal Investigations hates Kirk. They can't actually stop him due to the paradox that they wouldn't exist without him.
The Borg used time travel against us and we stopped them. Nothing more or less.
The Devidians consistently used time travel against us. In fact attacking into the past where they can't be detected is their primary method of attack.
We don't know yet. The Federation appears to be part of the Galactic Union, so there are apparently A LOT of species signing on here.
I think a key clue, since we don't know anything close to the whole story yet, is that the Tholians are signors of the Temporal Accords and more aggressive about it. It's possible them attacking the Na'khul was their overzealous idea of an enforcement action.
I think your memory is slipping.
Doing precisely that is the reason that we first got Romulus assimilated and second, got the Tuterians assimilated and hidden in another dimension. This has already been tried and made things a lot worse.
The Temporal Accords are not just the Alliance. The Alliance just leads to the next evolution in Galactic Government, the Galactic Union. Which I presume has a much wider influence and population base (Cryptic did fail to show all the species we would encounter in the next three hundred years though) hence the word Galactic. Even the Dominion is on board.
The Iconian situation is an interesting study. There appears to be a predestination paradox there. Think about it. If we had not time traveled then Sela wouldn't have killed those Iconians, meaning that the Iconian War would've never taken place. Either the Iconians would've escaped on their own with the World Heart and continued a quiet existence not caring about us, or they would've been trapped on Iconia like the history books say and went extinct. Either way, it wouldn't have been our time to end. And in fact, Hobus wouldn't have happened. As for what initially triggered that change, we'll never know.
The fact that the Temporal Accords are being signed indicates that they've come to the conclusion that they can't predict what changes are going to affect what, so they've decided not to make any changes, and prevent , anyone else from making changes or reverse them. A decision you're railing against.
[quote="letsfadeaway;12839108"
From what I gather the alliance stopped all Annorax-shenanigans after the two failed attempts that we got to see/play and probably banned its use.
Possible reason: The Annorax is not a time-travel device, it erases whole civilisations or objects from time and once used it cannot be undone (that's how I understood it worked in "Year of Hell").
As to why Noye's angry and cracked? See my previous posts and add the fact that NOONE is doing anything to bring those back that he/we lost.
Everyone seems to be fine with all the losses and the timeline that we have, everyone wants to rebuild now, everyone is relieved that the war is over, everyone sees the dangers of further Annorax-deletions, everyone but Noye.
And that is probably the major problem in STO story-telling: There is only one outcome and one possible resolution for every story. Our characters go through it on rails and have no choice at all.[/quote]
Indeed. A Temporal Incursion pushes an object completely out of the time stream at the source of its conception into the universe and the time stream has to adjust to account for its absence. Which if time is a fabric must be incredibly stressful.
The only way to bring those objects back is unknown to the characters, namely to use the Temporal Incursion on the ship itself, pushing it out of existence and thus removing every effect the ship ever had on history. But they don't know that/haven't figured it out as Janeway only did it by accident, thus it's never happened before or been tried.
Your argument fails though, you're using the actions of the alliance against a successor state three centuries later. That's the same as making arguments on modern United Nations policy based on the mistakes of the British Empire in the seventeenth century.
Because every attempt thus far has been a miserable failure, and we don't know what constantly tampering with the timeline will actually do to the structure of space time.
And it isn't the Alliance but the Galactic Union.
Your interpretation is flawed.
In Midnight our Captain actually keeps history exactly the same as it already was. The Iconians attack, we save them (as we had already done being The Other), Sela kills a bunch of survivors thus spawning T'Khet and the Iconians hatred of the Romulans and the Hobus Supernova, and then escape grow up to be our enemies, we take the World Heart they left behind and give it back to them in the present. Nothing in the past changed at all. If we hadn't time traveled, then there wouldn't have been an Iconian War at all, which would've been a vastly superior outcome, as every war or conflict post-Hobus in presented in Star Trek Online would not have occurred.
On the other hand we may have gotten the Destiny Storyline instead, so I'm good with this.
I dig.
On the Iconians as I stated above, ultimately not changing the timeline was the correct path for us, and all our attempts TRIBBLE us over. That's a lesson we learned.
Since it's a time travel storyline, the reason why we don't actually do the logical thing, go back dig up the Tox Uthat tell Ben to fix there star and then go back and bury again, likely hasn't happened yet.
I hate time travel. A lot. And I hate prophecy storylines, for the same reasons you stated.
But, to answer your question, presumably any temporally shielded time traveling agents out there would still exist to strike back. And you need Trilithium Torpedoes, not Tricobalts.
And from those future people's perspectives, it isn't destroy our free will, but don't rewrite our history books. The problem with being a literal historical figure.
Did we change anything in the past? No.
You're associating our victory, or rather survival with changing the past. Nothing of the sort happened.
Barring a first initial timeline where everything was random and then everything behind it is set in stone. Logically if you think that time happens, the it happened for the first time. However if time is merely perception of a set path then there is no free will ever.
I like that. The Prime Directive is also meant to ensure each species individual trials and triumphs.
Ah yes. A weird thing since Chroniton torpedoes are normal weapons in this game. As a matter of fact we should also have paid mention to adjusting our weapons for his temporal shielding to even defeat him at all. Fortunately that's information we should have having participated in the weapon ship's construction, so no problem there.
A key point we're not considering.
It's entirely possible that our Captain could actually do just that rebel, do the right thing and in doing so actually ensure the signing of the Temporal Accords. It could be that's the reason they brought us forward. The reason that everything is so important and hinging on us. We may be just as important to the Temporal Accords actually succeeding as Archer was to the Articles of Confederation. It is not outside the realm of possibility, that the Temporal Integrity Commission is inadequate to solve this problem, trapped in their own temporal causality, and thus we're required to solve this problem. Keep in mind the Pastak's crew is actually from further ahead than the signing of the accords, meaning we're still playing a role in his history, even if it isn't the history he remembers.
Agreed. Very confusing unless something horrible happens to the rest of the galaxy with the Na'khul star going along at normal.
From our Captain's perspective there was no pressing need to hide the Uthat, BEFORE we repaired the damage to the star.
My character Tsin'xing