Temporal Questions

captclazorus · February 2014

I was wondering what exactly was the first known account of someone travelling through time?

And secondly, what, not necessarily restricted to hard canon, predestination paradox has stretched farthest into the past? Which one has went the farthest back?

hevach · February 2014

The first known account depends how you measure it. It's either Johnathan Archer or the temporal cold war agent known as Daniels. Daniel's was the first confirmed time time traveler, but originated from the 31st Century, while Archer is the first Starfleet officer confrimed to have time traveled, once to the 26th Century and once to 2004.

The farthest back also depends on how you count.

-Voyager visited the moment of the Big Bang thanks to Quinn, but were technically outside the uinverse at the moment, so the normal interpretation of time might not apply.
-Picard was taken by Q to the dawn of life on Earth, but due to subsequent events that visit was eliminated from the current timeline.
-Kirk intentionally took the Guardian of Forever back to 1930. This one definitely counts.

kirahitomi · February 2014

Lets not forget Picard went back to 1893 in the two part "Time's Arrow."

hevach · February 2014

You're right, and I'm kind of ashamed I forgot that one. Kills Kirk's record and has a solid predestination paradox attaced.

steamwright · February 2014

Is the OP counting "first" regarding time of origin at the start of the travel or time of arrival?

If origin, I think there's a case to be made for Gary Seven of TOS, set in the late 1960s. His startled outburst, about Vulcans and humans working together, revealed that he was somehow tied to time travel or time travelers, at least.

lilchibiclari · February 2014

Not necessarily--Vulcans were a warp-capable species for at least a few decades prior to "Assignment: Earth"--T'Pol's great-grandmother was a survivor of a Vulcan scout ship that crashed on Earth when it was investigating Earth's first satellite launches (ENT episode "Carbon Creek"). Anybody who knew anything about the state of interstellar affairs at the time in the sectors surrounding Earth would know that Vulcans would be among the first races to interact with Humans once Humans started interstellar travel. "Vulcans and Humans will work together in the future" is something that any appropriately-informed person would be able to predict.

moonshadowdark · February 2014

Yeah, I'm going to end this before you all hurt yourselves.

Wibbley Wobbley Timey Wimey, Don't think about it.

This thread is now about bacon.

maxvitor · February 2014

Mmm Bacon.
My answers are based on the contest I take of the question.
The first in the Franchise was Kirk going back to the 30s through the Guardian of Forever. The furthest back was Voyager witnessing the Big bang thanks to Quinn.
Chronologically I would assume it would be whatever race that was involved with Gary Seven who were apparently abducting humans to train as agents for centuries, then Picard fighting the Davidians in the 1890s, the race involved in the temporal cold war(alien space TRIBBLE), the Vulcans, Friggin Quark in Area 51, Archer, etc. etc. and now I have a headache.

I would really like to make a YouTube animation with a scifi producer sitting in an office then suddenly a writer runs in all excited telling the producer he has a great idea, then the minute the writer says time travel the producer pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head, laughtrack included.

hevach · February 2014

lilchibiclari wrote: »

Not necessarily--Vulcans were a warp-capable species for at least a few decades prior to "Assignment: Earth"--T'Pol's great-grandmother was a survivor of a Vulcan scout ship that crashed on Earth when it was investigating Earth's first satellite launches (ENT episode "Carbon Creek"). Anybody who knew anything about the state of interstellar affairs at the time in the sectors surrounding Earth would know that Vulcans would be among the first races to interact with Humans once Humans started interstellar travel. "Vulcans and Humans will work together in the future" is something that any appropriately-informed person would be able to predict.

Gary Seven did say he was from the 20th Century, and his novel activities as far as I'm aware are limited to the 20th and 21st Centuries. His story was that he and other altered humans had been working with aliens for thousands of years to... Well, other than stopping a nuclear war in the 60's he never really specifies what they were doing, but it didn't really sound like time travel was involved.

As for knowing the Vulcans and Humans would work together in the future... Under TOS logic, anyone who met humans at any point in history would either recognize or by episode's end be convinced that they would be the future leaders of a peaceful cooperative union of many races. Under any other logic, humans looked like they were going down the same violent and imperial path many races were and nobody would ever expect Vulcans to play nice with anyone (Even before Enterprise ruined them, they were still off-putting to most other races and easily annoyed by their illogical and emotional antics). But TOS was not subtle about the standard scifi human exceptionalism.

ricosakara · February 2014

Another example is the episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday," where the Enterprise ends up in 1968 after a sling-shot effect from the gravity pull of a black star. Technically the first time-travel Trek episode.

Temporal Questions

Comments