There is no moral greyness. The only timeline you can know the outcome of is the one you have lived. Stopping irresponsible fools from gambling with the very existence of everything anyone has ever known is very much of the good.
Temporal Affairs can clearly detect "anomalous" changes to the timeline. They know when the timeline was changed, and when it wasn't. They have some means of charting which temporal changes are beneficial and which are harmful to the existence of the members of the Temporal Accords as well as threats to Temporal Affair's existence. The only time they cannot detect changes is when it is beneficial to the plot.
They KNOW that temporal meddling caused the deaths of millions of Nakul, but they need the Nakul to die in order for Temporal Affairs to exist. That IS moral greyness. They have the power to save those sapients and actively prevent saving them. Temporal Affairs allows temporal meddling to save Earth from the whale probe, but condemns and prevents temporal meddling to save the Krenim from the Iconians (because it benefits Temporal Affairs).
Temporal Affairs is playing God; deciding who lives and who dies all for it's personal benefit. It justifies it's existence by saying it MUST exist, while giving no compelling reason other than that. Temporal Affairs must play God because it must. "The Ends Justify the Means" is their mantra. There is most certainly a massive degree of "moral greyness" there.
Nobody murdered Noye's wife. The Noye who stole the Annorax was never married. We don't actually know if Clauda lives in the new timeline, whether she was assimilated by the borg or is with the sphere builders in their subspace whatever, but either way Noye obviously never met her.
This whole paragraph I wrote was referring to the story. "They" are the writers at Cryptic, who did indeed murder Noye's wife. We, the audience, know this and it undercuts the larger moral issues at play, since it goes from "who gives you the right?" to "waaah! You murdered my wife on Ceti Alpha 5!". Noye's personal logs clearly state he is angry and distraught over his wife and unborn child being killed.
Noye suffered a breakdown as a result of learning about an alternate timeline in which he would've been married, and that the Annorax project changed that timeline. We can hope that future temporal research organizations learned their lesson and perform better screening to ensure their employees are psychologically capable of handling such revelations.
OR...
Temporal Affairs allows unstable researchers to run amok in order to create the future they desire.
The only "temporal shenanigans" they logically should support are the ones who's outcomes they have already experienced and therefore know. Known timeline vs rolling the dice on the unknown. But we don't see much of their organizational structure...then again, we don't see much of the organizational structure of anyone else, either.
Here, again, is that hypocrisy. "The only temporal meddling that should be allowed is the one's they have experienced". How do you know the only ones they "experienced" were the ones that were "allowed", not "orchestrated"? If people from the future make changes to the past; the whole timeline will seem like "that is the way it always was". If your organization decides what the "correct" version of events is, that is "self serving".
The issue is the lack of transparency from Temporal Affairs. How do they decide which time events should be allowed? What is their criteria, in a universe that has sapients jumping forward and backwards in time, to alter events drastically? All we see is them defending themselves in a war, which is fine, but why are we supporting these temporal tyrants? "Because they were in the show" is rather lame since they are in an ideological war and have a weak moral position.
> @starswordc said: > > @warpangel said: > > Perhaps. Noye does seem rather too crazy and fanatic to attract such a diverse group of allies. I mean, the na'kuhl could've gone along with it. Their temporal temper tantrum was every bit as irrational as Noye's quest to...do whatever it was he hoped to accomplish. But the others should really have known better. > > I'm curious why you think the Na'Kuhl wanting their darn planet back after losing it in an unprovoked genocide by time travelers is irrational.
The actions their descendants took was the direct cause of the Tholian attack on Na'Kuhl home star. Vosk sent agents to the 23rd Century to wipe out a Tholian colony fleet and the Queen leading it. They planned to frame the Federation for it but failed, and the Queen reported to her peers who had murdered them. The attack on Enterprise in the 22nd Century seemed to be coordinated with Tholians in the future and intended to pin down the moment for them to seize the Tox Uthat and enable them to exact their revenge.
Comments
They KNOW that temporal meddling caused the deaths of millions of Nakul, but they need the Nakul to die in order for Temporal Affairs to exist. That IS moral greyness. They have the power to save those sapients and actively prevent saving them. Temporal Affairs allows temporal meddling to save Earth from the whale probe, but condemns and prevents temporal meddling to save the Krenim from the Iconians (because it benefits Temporal Affairs).
Temporal Affairs is playing God; deciding who lives and who dies all for it's personal benefit. It justifies it's existence by saying it MUST exist, while giving no compelling reason other than that. Temporal Affairs must play God because it must. "The Ends Justify the Means" is their mantra. There is most certainly a massive degree of "moral greyness" there.
This whole paragraph I wrote was referring to the story. "They" are the writers at Cryptic, who did indeed murder Noye's wife. We, the audience, know this and it undercuts the larger moral issues at play, since it goes from "who gives you the right?" to "waaah! You murdered my wife on Ceti Alpha 5!". Noye's personal logs clearly state he is angry and distraught over his wife and unborn child being killed.
OR...
Temporal Affairs allows unstable researchers to run amok in order to create the future they desire.
Here, again, is that hypocrisy. "The only temporal meddling that should be allowed is the one's they have experienced". How do you know the only ones they "experienced" were the ones that were "allowed", not "orchestrated"? If people from the future make changes to the past; the whole timeline will seem like "that is the way it always was". If your organization decides what the "correct" version of events is, that is "self serving".
The issue is the lack of transparency from Temporal Affairs. How do they decide which time events should be allowed? What is their criteria, in a universe that has sapients jumping forward and backwards in time, to alter events drastically? All we see is them defending themselves in a war, which is fine, but why are we supporting these temporal tyrants? "Because they were in the show" is rather lame since they are in an ideological war and have a weak moral position.
> > @warpangel said:
> > Perhaps. Noye does seem rather too crazy and fanatic to attract such a diverse group of allies. I mean, the na'kuhl could've gone along with it. Their temporal temper tantrum was every bit as irrational as Noye's quest to...do whatever it was he hoped to accomplish. But the others should really have known better.
>
> I'm curious why you think the Na'Kuhl wanting their darn planet back after losing it in an unprovoked genocide by time travelers is irrational.
The actions their descendants took was the direct cause of the Tholian attack on Na'Kuhl home star. Vosk sent agents to the 23rd Century to wipe out a Tholian colony fleet and the Queen leading it. They planned to frame the Federation for it but failed, and the Queen reported to her peers who had murdered them. The attack on Enterprise in the 22nd Century seemed to be coordinated with Tholians in the future and intended to pin down the moment for them to seize the Tox Uthat and enable them to exact their revenge.