The Battle of Procyon Five was fought in the 26th century and a pivotal point in the Temporal Cold
War. The “Sphere builders” as they were known were the primary antagonists while on the other side,
the United Federation of Planets and its allied powers that supported the Temporal Accords.
That’s a lot of jargon so let’s break them down. For a start, Procyon is a lot closer than you may
think to the heart of the Federation and a place you have probably heard
of before as a Star Trek fan, for it’s the Earth designation for the Andorian System.
The Temporal Accords were signed by numerous powers that agreed that Time Travel be relegated
to observation only, effectively having any signing power agree to a Temporal Prime directive.
This was in response to numerous other civilizations with access to time travel
attempting to alter history for their own benefit, the target of the Early Earth Starfleet being one
of many instances where this was tried. Temporal Agents from as late as the 31st
century would continue to monitor and police the timeline to prevent this sort of event,
and the Temporal Cold War itself would eventually go live with a shake up to time leading to a
radically shifting timeline from one minute to the next. Eventually, the only way to end
it was to simply outlaw all Time Travel usage which happened in the 32nd century, just before
the Burn event that crippled dilithium usage. The Sphere Builders were a faction based in an
extra-dimensional realm that were attempting to format our universe's spacetime into a compatible
region where they could survive. They began their work in an area known as the Delphic
Expanse in the early 22nd century by deploying massive machines that altered space around them.
Each sphere was nineteen kilometers in diameter and were complex gravimetric generators. Each was
additionally concealed in a cloaking barrier and often protected by their own effects
of distorting spacetime, creating increasing hazards the closer you got. This region was an
anomaly that if left unchecked would eventually cover 50,000 lightyears by the 26th century.
But what were the motivations of the sphere builders? Well in Star Trek Online,
we are privy to their origin which involves a time travel experiment gone awry. Their entire
species was effectively removed from time when a Krenim-Federation experiment had some
unintended side effects. This put them into a pocket dimension outside of time where they
adapted to survive, but longed to return. From their perch outside of spacetime however, they
found they could observe into other realities and timelines, and so they made plans. Incidentally,
this means there was a Delphic Expanse in numerous other timelines and realities too, including the
Kelvin Timeline, but their intervention in that era did not take place until 2258,
far later than in the Prime Timeline. Does this mean that the Prime timeline was forever altered
by the events of Star Trek Enterprise or that we are to accept that these events always happened
in continuity and we just never saw them until they were retconned in? I think it doesn’t matter.
There is the long running theory that Enterprise’s events forever altered the Prime Timeline moving
forwards meaning that all shows from the The Next Generation and Original eras are
now their own continuity and while a fun thought exercise, I always just took it as the events of
Enterprise simply are not referred to in TNG because Enterprise was not a show back then.
Additionally, Trek lore is replete with time travel stories and alterations and it has explored
both predestination paradoxes, parallel universes and alteration to the current timeline. It’s a
confusing and chaotic mess because Trek simply wants to play with and explore multiple concepts.
Whether or not this is all canon, is irrelevant and this makes the battle of Procyon 5 rather
interesting because it seems to be an event that is always destined to happen.
The original battle in Star Trek lore occurs between the Sphere Builders making their push
into our realm and the Federation in opposing them, headed by the flagship, the Enterprise J.
However Star Trek Enterprise collapses the Delphic Expanse in 2153, preventing it from forming,
but from Agent Daniel’s description, it sounds like the Battle of Procyon 5 is
supposed to occur anyway, just on a smaller scale with a decisive Federation victory.
In Star Trek Online’s lore, its own continuity now, we learn that the battle still unfolds but
this time it is seen as a linchpin event between forces for the Temporal Accords and those against,
with the return of the Sphere Builders being a contributing factor and them allied with those who
would oppose the Federation. However forces that are present are both native to that era and not,
such as forces from the Timefleet of the 29th century and even ships drawn in from the past that
were crewed by Temporal Agents undercover in that era. This is why we supposedly see things like the
Nova and Prometheus class there, they were agents called to action from their previous assignments.
Now the existence of Temporal Agents are canon and as we learn in Discovery,
they are often recruited from individuals who have been displaced in time or realities, such as Yor
who was operating in the main continuity of the 24th century from the alternate Kelvin Timeline.
Daniels makes reference to this battle being fought numerous times too, so it sounds like
for whatever reason, this front in the Temporal War is always revisited, always changing and
a key event in time. If this were Doctor Who, I would describe it as a fixed point,
a period of time that has to remain unchanged (or close enough) to avoid the collapse of timelines.
Bat as it is Trek, I can simply speculate that this is effectively the climactic confrontation
of hostilities and whenever you involve time travel as a weapon, then of course the nature
of a battle is going to change as new forces are brought in, others never existed and the
very battle lines are constantly redrawn. Honestly the battle of Procyon 5 sounds like
a nightmare to endure and temporally shielded vessels that are unaltered by changes in the
timeline would have to witness numerous outcomes and versions of this fight, as would the Sphere
Builders from outside of spacetime. The real victory of the battle seems to be simply to
limit its scale and keep it to a point in time where the builders tried to invade and failed.
Doing so keeps it as the important part it is, validates the importance of the Temporal Accords,
and stops the theatre of war, the Delphic Expanse, from growing to dangerous levels.
I find the The Battle of Procyon five so interesting because it means almost
any version of it you read about could have been canon at one point or another, with the
events of the Temporal Cold War either side of it shifting the outcome and even belligerents at the
time, even any lore introduced is not protected from alterations to history, with even included
elements from the future getting involved. What we can say for certain is that it ended the Sphere
Builder’s designs on returning or entering our universe and as long as that outcome is secured,
the rest can remain in flux. Thanks for watching this look into this chaotic corner of Star Trek
lore, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you before and again, hello Ric here and goodbye!