Summary
Some timelines inStar Trekcan’t be erased without actually breaking the structure of the multiverse. InStar Trek: Prodigyseason 2, episodes 9 & 10, “The Devourer of All Things”, Traveler Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) confirms thatStar Trek’s Prime Timelineis just one part of a multiverse comprised of many timelines. When a time traveler inStar Trekgoes to the past, they’re supposed to make sure that the future that they originally came from is still there, butsometimesStar Trek’s time travelers alter the past in a way that prevents their future from existing. That paradox, Wesley explains, attracts the Loom, interdimensional scavengers who feed on dead timelines.
The Loom are newStar Trekvillains, so they couldn’t have been in anything that predatesStar Trek: Prodigy, but the Loom and the multiverse concept put into perspective some earlierStar Trektime travel stories. It’s been understood that time travelers who prevent their own existence cause their original timelines to be erased and rewritten. The Loom ostensibly help with that, but if the original timeline is erased, then the time traveler also ceases to exist, and so would their actions. Therefore,time travelers who cause important events inStar Trek’s Prime Timeline must hail from another timeline in the multiverse:one that can’t be erased.
20 Best Star Trek Time Travel Episodes & Movies, Ranked
The Star Trek franchise has done a lot of time-travel stories in various shows and movies, and some have been undeniably better than others.
6Alternate Kirk’s War-Torn Timeline
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3 - “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”
Star Trek: Strange New Worldsseason 2, episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” briefly sends Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) to a timeline where Starfleet is replaced by the United Earth Fleet, and the Enterprise is a warship captained by an alternate version of Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley). Earth is at war with the Romulans, the Vulcans are practically decimated, and human casualties are high.This timeline is the result of Romulan meddling in Earth history,and La’an accidentally takes James with her to 21st century Earth to put time back on track.
This version of Kirk and his war-torn timeline doesn’t do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of the entire multiverse, so the stakes if it gets erased are mostly personal for La’an Noonien-Singh.Without the alternate Kirk, Lt. Noonien-Singh might still be able to complete her mission from the Department of Temporal Investigations,but La’an’s character arc would be very different. The importance of Kirk’s timeline in the long run all depends on whether La’an’s capacity for love and vulnerability play a larger role in the Prime Timeline’s more significant events.
5The 24th Century Klingon War Timeline
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 15 - “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
When the USS Enterprise-C emerges from a temporal rift inStar Trek: The Next Generationseason 5, episode 15, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”,the USS Enterprise-D shifts into an alternate timeline where the Federation is on the losing side of a decades-long war with the Klingons. The militaristic crew of the Enterprise-D helps repair the Enterprise-C before sending her time-displaced crew back in time to a fight they can’t win, defending a Klingon outpost from a Romulan attack. Although the Enterprise-C’s crew faces certain death on the other side of the temporal rift, their actions speak volumes to the Klingons.
This timeline’s version of Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) believes that her tactical skills will give the Enterprise-C crew a fighting chance after the loss ofCaptain Rachel Garrett(Tricia O’Neil), and for the most part, she’s right. The Enterprise-C still goes down, but some Starfleet officers survive the battle, including Yar. Crosby returns toStar Trek: The Next GenerationasTasha’s half-Romulan daughter, Sela, who wouldn’t exist in the Prime Timelinewithout the existence of the alternate reality from “Yesterday’s Enterprise”.
4The Confederation of Earth Timeline
Star Trek: Picard Season 2
At the start ofStar Trek: Picardseason 2, Q (John de Lancie) seems to be up to his old tricks again, twisting reality around as a perverse form of gratitude, as Q sends Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) to a timeline where the Confederation of Earth reigns over the whole planet. Here,General Picard is hailed as the Borg-slayer to a global population of xenophobic humans, a symbol of humanity’s supremacy in the cosmos. To escape this hellish reality, Picard and the crew of La Sirena must go back in time to stop Q’s interference with 21st-century history.
Picard’s victory in the 21st century might not be impossible without the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) from the Confederation of Earth timeline, but it would certainly be harder.The Borg Queen is responsible for performing the calculations needed to slingshot around the sunfor La Sirena’s trip to the past and return to the future, and erasing the Confederation of Earth timeline would force La Sirena’s crew to figure out another way to stop Q.
Star Trek: Picardreveals that the Borg Queen possesses interdimensional knowledge and the ability to perceive alternate realities. It’s unknown whether the new Borg Cooperative Queen, blended with Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), has the same skill.
3The Solum Civil War Timeline
Star Trek: Prodigy Seasons 1 & 2
Solum’s Civil War is at the heart ofStar Trek: Prodigy’s complex time travel plot. Sometime before 2436,Starfleet’s First Contact with the Vau N’Akat, Solum’s people, leads directly to civil war.The Vau N’Akat infect the USS Protostar with the Living Construct as revenge against Starfleet, soCaptain Chakotay sends the Protostar back in timeto save Starfleet. The Diviner (John Noble) goes after the Protostar, and creates his daughter, Gwyndala (Ella Purnell), to finish the search. The Solum Civil War is averted inStar Trek: Prodigyseason 2, when the USS Voyager-A makes successful First Contact with the Vau N’Akat.
Without the Civil War, however, Gwyn would be erased from existence, becausethe Diviner wouldn’t have a reason to go back in time to search for the Protostar.Star Trek: Prodigyseason 2dives deep into the ramifications of temporal paradoxes, including what happens when Gwyn does and doesn’t exist at the same time. The fact that the Loom don’t come back after contact between the Federation and the Vau N’Akat means that the timeline is stable, so the Solum Civil War has to continue to exist in an alternate reality.
2Admiral Janeway’s Original Timeline
Star Trek: Voyager Season 7, Episodes 25 & 26 - “Endgame”
Star Trek: Voyager’s series finale, “Endgame”, opens 26 years in the future, in a timeline where the USS Voyager took 32 years to reach the Alpha Quadrant.The Voyager crew suffers heavy losses in this timeline,including Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), and Lt. Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ) is suffering from a degenerative neurological disease. Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) is determined to change the past, to get the USS Voyager home much sooner, and leave the Borg with a debilitating parting gift.
While Voyager getting home later doesn’t seem to have a detrimental effect on the timeline,Admiral Janeway’s original timeline is impossible to erase, because erasing it actually causes it to come into being. WithoutAdmiral Janeway going back in timeto get Voyager home sooner, Voyager takes 32 years to get home, so … Admiral Janeway will have to go back in time to get Voyager home sooner. you’re able to’t get around it.
Star Trek: Voyagerseason 5, episode 6, “Timeless”, features a very similar story to Admiral Janeway’s in “Endgame”, but on a smaller scale, with Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and Chakotay sending messages to the past from an alternate future where everyone else aboard the USS Voyager perished in a quantum slipstream accident.
1Star Trek Movies' Kelvin Timeline
Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond
Most of the new timelines inStar Trekare overwritten by the events of the Prime Timeline, but in this case, the Prime Timeline is the one seemingly being overwritten. When 24th century Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) travels back to the 23rd century to destroy Vulcan as part of a revenge plot against Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy),Nero’s interference causes more than just a split timeline.Star Trek(2009)’s “Narada Incursion”, as the Travelers call it, ripples along the time stream to alter events that happened even before Nero’s arrival, giving birth to a brand-new version of reality.
The impact ofStar Trek’s Kelvin Timelineon the Prime Timeline can’t be measured in-universe, since there have only been a few passing mentions of the Kelvin Timeline in the Prime Timeline itself (once inStar Trek: Discovery, and once inStar Trek: Prodigy).The Kelvin Timeline did, however, reinvigorateStar Trekwith new incarnations of the original USS Enterprise crew, and paved the way forStar Trek: DiscoveryandStar Trek: Strange New Worlds.Because of its lasting impact on the future of theStar Trekfranchise, the Kelvin Timeline tops the list of timelines thatStar Trekcan’t erase.
