Hello all! Ric here yesterday with a video for next, last fortnight to come. Time travel is
weird and causes all sorts of problems, paradoxes and issues in any Science fiction. This is why
Starfleet and the Federation have a standing order not to interfere in the timelines where possible,
akin to the Prime Directive. By the 31st century, time travel was common by followed a strict set of
regulations, but after the Temporal Cold War, it was simply outlawed altogether,
barring accidents. But I’m not here to talk about those today! Instead, let’s look at ten
methods of time travel employed by Starfleet and the pros and cons of these select few.
Starting with 6th, we have the slingshot method. This involves flying a vessel at near luminal
speeds towards a high-gravity object, a star often suffices, but theoretically anything with a
significant pull would do. You basically speed the ship towards it’s gravity well and build momentum,
catching it at such an angle as to orbit around the object, gaining momentum before breaking away
at faster speeds than you approached. This method can be used to travel both forwards
and backwards in time, but there are all sorts of subspace equations and variables that have to be
taken into account when trying this and it is not always guaranteed to work. If the maths is off,
then you can end up way off target at best, or flying apart or into a star at worst.
It’s a messy and unsubtle way to jump through time, with a rather large margin for error,
but for a while it was the most practical way Starfleet knew of, sanctioning several research
missions in the 23rd century using this method. At 7th, we have the Bajoran Orb of Time. The orbs
are relics of the Prophets or wormhole aliens, beings that persist in a realm beyond time,
accessible through the Bajoran Wormhole. While all the orbs can grant visions into the future and
past, usually guided by the viewer’s meditations or direct intervention by the Prophets, so far,
the orb of time is the only one to demonstrate the ability to actually transport matter through
time. In 2373, the Orb was used to send the USS Defiant and crew back to 2268 during an attempt
to assassinate Captain James Kirk. This method of time travel is strictly overseen by the Vedek
Assembly in partnership with the Federation’s Department of Temporal Investigations,
and while its cultural significance to Bajor means that access to it cannot be completely redacted,
there are laws in play to protect it from misuse. It is also high subjective to the user’s whim
and there is no guarantee it will even do anything.
At number one, we have the Borg’s temporal Vortex technology. It is unclear which species
they assimilated to get this from, but it is an ace in the hole for the Borg. The Borg develop
through assimilation, and the absorption of technologies through advanced cultures,
the more tech-savvy that culture is, the better the pickings for the Borg. But,
push them too much, and the collective might just decide that your species is not worth the effort
of assimilating and just go back in time to stop you from ever having existed in the first place.
And assimilate your homeworld as a bonus for the added drones while they’re at it. This technology
was among some of the most advanced Borg stuff they ever displayed, being both accurate,
transportable and rapid. There weren’t many downsides to it, except that, you know, it’s in
the hands of the Borg. So good luck obtaining it. At 3rd, we have Project Daedalus as it was known,
the Red Angel suit. This was a personal time travel suit designed in secret by Section 31, that
sort of worked. Only one prototype was created and for security, it was biometrically sealed to work
only with Gabriel Burnham and her lineage. It also required the use of Time Crystals to work, a form
of natural lattice that generated strong temporal effects. The suit would use this to open a small
micro-wormhole, then tether itself to its starting point in order to keep the wormhole stable.
With lots of calculations, time travel was possible with it, but only for a limited period,
before the tether would snap taut, and bring the suit and pilot back to their starting point.
It was less time travelling, and more a time bungee. It was also very delicate but with some
tinkering, could be used to open a temporal rift. In second place, we have the Chrono deflector.
This was actually developed by a Klingon scientist called Korath around the early 25th century,
but one obtained and used at one time by Starfleet. The deflector was akin to the
Borg’s own vortex technology as it opened a rift with intense tachyon emissions. This device was
accurate and it functioned perfectly, for one time only. The downside to its use was
that the level of radiation it generated was so intense, that it would burn itself out, meaning
that a temporal rift to a specific point could be generated, but after the ship passed through,
there was nothing to keep it open or open a new one. So it was a one-way trip.
At 10th place we have the temporal transporters in use by Starfleet of the 29th century,
and present on vessels such as the Wells-class USS Relativity. These belonged to the Temporal
Integrity Commission and could pin-point an exact location in time and space before
beaming a person to that point. However, this came with side-effects known as temporal psychosis.
While this transport was effective, repeated us would culminate in sensory aphasia, followed by
delusional behaviour and finally death as the mind struggled with adjusting to varying timelines. For
this reason, temporal operatives from this era preferred to recruit temporary operatives from
the timeline they were investigating, so they could limit their number of transporter trips.
If needs must, the ships themselves could activate a temporal core and jump through time as well.
9th, In a similar vein to the temporal transporter, and perhaps even its precursor,
we have Chroniton-infused transportation. In this event, a myriad of factors need to come into play.
Firstly, the transporter beam needs to be passing through a high level of chroniton particles,
particles that move through time the wrong way. Then those particles
need to be activated by a nearby temporal surge from something like a singularity.
The outcome of these events occurring at the same time has the transporter beam sent through time,
along with the chorniton particles, rematerializing the transported individuals
in the correct place, but at the wrong time. This was seen in 2371, again with the USS
Defiant accidentally sending an away team back to 2024, when the Earth was in a dire situation.
Good job Star Trek is all made up, right! Ha… At fourth place, we have a method of time travel
that was also discovered by accident, but one that was eventually used to the benefit
of those involved. Like temporal psychosis, this one too has side effects, the degradation of the
nervous system with repeated jumps and associated light-headedness and weakness. Basically, a body
can be flooded with delta series radioisotopes and then exposed to tetryon emissions. Tetryons are
subspace particles… and subspace is strange, but the effect has a person teleported physically from
their current moment to a point and proximity in their own future timeline. From there, they have a
couple of seconds (minutes maybe) where they exist twice in that future timeframe, before the effect
wears off, and the individual is brought back to the very instant they left in the first place.
For an observer, the time traveller appears not to have moved at all, but in an instant,
they would have explored a potential future timeline. The downside is the aforementioned
nerve damage which is ultimately lethal. At 8th place, we have the use of Red Matter
to produce a singularity. This device was a creation of the Vulcan Science Institute
and would lead to a runaway reaction, generating intense gravitational forces until a black hole
was formed. However, this black hole was different from regular ones as although it did indeed have
a strong pull from which not even light could seemingly escape, it also created a passage back
in time. This seems to be an infrequent event however, as in 2387, the Romulan supernova led
to the Narada interfering with Spock’s science vessel which had deployed the Red Matter, and the
resulting black hole pulled both vessels back to 2233. Subsequent uses of the matter however never
recreated the effect, suggesting that there were other plot-convenient factors at play here too.
Nevertheless, Red Matter remains a known substance to Starfleet and experimentation
on this would be possible in the future. The downside is quite simply the sheer destructive
potential the substance has, and the seeming random factor to its use in a temporal capacity.
Finally at 5th, we have the simple and good ol’ warp core itself. These devices work by
bending space time in a controlled fashion and are the backbone of many interstellar powers.
But improperly tuned, it can cause a myriad of space-time phenomena including, but not
limited to, accidental wormholes, subspace rifts or forced mutation of organic life.
In several instances across numerous ships, Starfleet and not, faulty warp cores have led
to ships being flung through time as well as space. This probably partially down to
the fact that without the proper manipulation of subspace, relativity rears its head at the
faster-than-light speeds, throws a tantrum about light-speed, vacuums and time, before flinging the
unlucky vessel through time. Needless to say, this is not an ideal method of time travel,
as Warp drive is designed expressly to try to avoid instances like that. So when they do occur,
they are often violent and unpredictable. So there we go, that was ten methods of time
travel used by Starfleet and their upshots and downsides. There are many others I could
have mentioned, but many of these involve things like finding a temporal anomaly,
saying a “Hail Mary” and flying into it, but such discoveries are not consistent and re-creatable.
Equally, there is always the option of pestering a Q to teleport you wherever, but again. Not exactly
reliable. This is also why I left of the Guardian of Forever, for a stable a method as it is,
it has a mind of its own and is capable of relocating itself if it doesn’t want to be used.
Many of these also involve some form of damage to the traveller,
something that I want to do a separate smaller video on at some point, but until then, Thanks
for watching this video on the methods of time travel. I will be Ric, thanks again and hello!