Hello, Ric here with a lore breakdown on the Traveller.
The Traveller was a mostly unknown factor in the next generation shows but was expanded
upon in other media where we learn more about his motives and the fact that there are more
of them.
Spoilers for Star Trek Picard season 2, although the plot points I’m discussing as of yet
are irrelevant to the tale of that series.
But I have to remind myself everyone’s spoiler threshold is different so…
He is described as being from Tau Alpha C but it is unknown what species he was and
if he was native to that planet at when questioned by the crew, he responded that he did not
consider himself to be from another time or reality as he perceives it, but might be depending
on how we understand the linearity of time.
A cryptic answer but one that hints very much at his role as a powerful entity capable of
existing and perceiving beyond our view of the universe.
When we first meet him, he is working alongside Starfleet engineer the warp theorist, Specialist
Kosinski.
He is aiding in the acceleration of Starfleet’s warp technology by focusing his powers through
the warp systems of Starfleet ships and using this as a method to travel and explore the
Federation.
He describes his motivations in helping Starfleet as mostly out of curiosity and the name Traveller
even hints at the wanderlust of his nature.
This might be true for the character personally, but the books go on to add to his motivations
adding a degree of responsibility to them.
We learn here that there are more travellers who not only explore to find new members to
join their ranks, but that they have a greater goal in mind of at least maintaining the timelines.
This is born from the fact that any species or organisation with the capability of time
travel is going to have to inevitably fall on the either side of the non-intervention
line.
This principle of non-interference from the travellers is something that has been added
to canon recently and at first seems to oppose the initial actions of the first Traveller,
which were born from self-confessed curiosity.
However, I think there might be a bit of a loophole in that the Traveller was dealing
exclusively with Starfleet here, an organisation that abides by a similar Prime Directive,
temporal or otherwise and would ultimately understand if he chose with withhold his power
from them.
The powers that the Traveller can bring to bear seem to focus on the manipulation of
space-time through simple conscious decision.
His first appearance had him amplifying a warp core to travel potentially far beyond
what even he was capable of by himself, firstly the galaxy M33, then the edge of creation,
but this exhausted him.
On top of this, he could not be read by emphatic abilities and later on was shown to be able
to alter is appearance.
He may have even possessed some level of foresight, but with the abilities to manipulate time,
this was more likely simply knowledge of potential future events.
Within the books and show, we see similar powers develop within Wesley Crusher with
one of the earliest being the aiding of the traveller but soon he displayed the ability
to freeze time, or rather, remove himself from it.
It is described as Wesley simply stepping back out of spacetime to observe it yet be
apart from it.
In its most early forms, it would lead him to perceive time as being frozen while he
could still interact as normal and in apocrypha this develops further to allow him stay out
of phase with a timeline, allowing it to progress while remaining invisible to those within
it.
This was similar to the Voth’s interphasic cloaking devices, but accomplished with no
technology behind it.
The basis for his powers was claimed to be rooted in simply an advanced understanding
of space time and reality.
From this view of things, came the unlocked potential that space time and thought were
not separate things but could in fact manipulate one another which is a pretty science fantasy
idea.
But sometimes, Star Trek does lean into the stranger and more near-mythical or supernatural
elements of science fiction.
Personally, I kind of like it when Trek does this, as it serves as a reminder that not
everything is understood, even in the Trek universe and there are still seemingly inexplicable
things that can occur.
We see a similar level of power unfolding with the manifestation of the full Ocampan
potential in Star Trek Voyager, although the origin here was more an evolution of Kes’
psychic power.
During the transformation, she explains that she is seeing and understanding a realm where
matter, energy and thought are no longer separate, in a similar fashion to the sort of cosmic
awareness that the Traveller spoke of.
Kes essentially ascends into a higher level of power and exhibits the ability to not only
display psychokinetic and telepathic powers, but manages to fling Voyager over 9 and a
half thousand lightyears.
It was not a smooth ride, but the fact the ship survived the trip at all shows that there
was some level of warp manipulation ws at play.
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that Kes was a traveller, just that this sort of greater
understanding and thought based power is a recurring thing in Trek and that both Kes,
the Traveller and Wesley walked a similar path it would seem.
They also exhibited the ability to manipulate subspace in the form of warp bubbles, which
seems on par for the sort of manipulation the traveller could perform, as seen in 2367
when they pulled Beverly Crusher from a collapsing warp bubble experiment where her own mind
and fears were shaping that pocket reality.
As Wesley’s powers grew in the books, we soon learn that he can travel not only through
space, but time as well although the length of the journey does exert a toll of exhaustion,
as does maintaining his “out-of-phase” state.
As part of his tutelage from the Traveller, Wesley learned the responsibilities he had
with his new powers when he removed the Maquis from existence.
The result was a full scale war with Cardassia and the Federation Department of Temporal
Investigations noted the alteration as an aberration and investigated, and the timeline
was restored.
Wesley completed his training with the Traveller in 2378, but what with all the time-jumping
he undertook, who knows how long it really took, especially as his new state of being
also lessening the rate at which he aged.
In one potential future, he lived to be over 300 at least but did appear as an old man
by then.
Now, stepping into the spoilers for Picard now, although as mentioned it’s less of
a spoiler and more of a cameo.
Wesley arrives on earth in 2024, visibly an adult and recruits Kore to join the travellers
too.
He states that the mission statement of the travellers is to maintain a cosmic tapestry,
to prevent its unravelling in both time and space by observing threats and maintaining
the destinies of certain individuals and events that were pivotal in preserving that stability.
Kind of Star Trek Timelords.
This lines up more with the travellers of the books, and he goes on to describe that
it is the Travellers who created the undercover agents and supervisors such as Tallinn and
Gary-7.
I already did a video covering the apocrypha on these from before this inclusion, but their
mission was in a similar vein, although the agents themselves made it a point of not utilising
time travel so that they could avoid becoming another variable in this delicate manipulation.
It seems that this does not extend to their handlers, an organisation called Aegis in
the apocrypha, the Travellers in canon.
As far as I can see, this is the only collision of the two factions, but it’s not inconceivable
that they are the same organisation, just operating on two separate levels.
Much of this seems drawn from the extended roles that both the Supervisors and the Travellers
had in apocrypha.
So what do you think?
I have no objection to Wesley retaining his role as a traveller and I certainly feel that
he would inevitably seek to do something more with his powers, something good, so perhaps
even with all the timey-wimey stuff he can pull, perhaps it was even he that founded
the travellers into this force for universal consistency.
I don’t think that would be out of character for him and the contradiction that the Travellers
try to limit their intervention has been present literally since the introduction of the first
Traveller in TNG when he was definitely interfering.
Overall, as said, I like the addition of these sorts of things, but it’s not to everyone’s
taste and I hope it serves a better roll that just a cameo appearance.
After all, the books have recently splintered into their own official timeline, separating
them into another reality and the travellers play a major role in that, with the emergence
of an extra-dimensional threat, but that is for a future video.
Thanks for watching, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you out there!
Goodbye!