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Voyager recruit

Sela...and why she appears so Tasha

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My feeling is that her Romulan father found, after several failed marriages, that he, despite best efforts, could not bear any children..at least with a Romulan wife; due to some untreatable rare condition. However, research showed that he might father a child with someone outside his genome..with some assistance via genetic therapy. He comes across Tasha, this beautiful human who just happens to be in a, shall we say, bit of a bind...and proposes the deal that would save her shipmates-and just perhaps for our General, or whomever, provide an heir. It works-but something in the solution has weakened portions of his genetic structure, and the presumably dominant Romulan material has a flaw, yet...resulting in Yar's genome becoming that. Presto-a 'mirror' of our brave, beautiful security officer. If only she had made good her escape.....

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Respectfully, I disagree. But to each his own. Thanks, Ms. Paris, for your words. Best regards.And, yep, I did ponder it more than a bit!

Edited by Voyager recruit

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It's canon. It aired so it happened it. All Trekkies need to find a way to reconcile these events with logic.

Thats the problem. There was no logic in it at all. All of those events took place in an alternate timeline. When the Enterprise-C went back through the rift, the original timeline was restored and the alternate timeline ceased to exist. At that moment, the "alternate timeline" Tasha should have ceased to exist and Sela should have never been born.

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Two things:

 

1) MOST of Star Trek is in an alternate timeline. You know why?

 

2a) Picard is actually still in the Nexus, and anything showing him after Generations is taking place in his mind. Sure Picard and Kirk could do anything they wanted while in the Nexus, but the Nexus doesn't have the power to send inhabitants to places outside the Nexus.

 

2b) Picard and crew and the Borg interfering with First Contact with the Vulcans also created an alternate timeline. In fact, it created the Mirror Universe. What we saw at the beginning of In A Mirror Darkly was the way First Contact would have happened without 24th Century interference. The Mirror Univers was the way things were supposed to happen.

 

2c) Scotty gave the 23rd Century Transparent Aluminum formula to a 20th Century engineer. I highly doubt this engineer would have developed the formula by himself with a 1986 Macintosh without Scotty's help.

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It's canon. It aired so it happened it. All Trekkies need to find a way to reconcile these events with logic.

Thats the problem. There was no logic in it at all. All of those events took place in an alternate timeline. When the Enterprise-C went back through the rift, the original timeline was restored and the alternate timeline ceased to exist. At that moment, the "alternate timeline" Tasha should have ceased to exist and Sela should have never been born.

 

Agreed, I didn't think it was that difficult to figure out..

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It's canon. It aired so it happened it. All Trekkies need to find a way to reconcile these events with logic.

Thats the problem. There was no logic in it at all. All of those events took place in an alternate timeline. When the Enterprise-C went back through the rift, the original timeline was restored and the alternate timeline ceased to exist. At that moment, the "alternate timeline" Tasha should have ceased to exist and Sela should have never been born.

 

Agreed, I didn't think it was that difficult to figure out..

 

Well yes I totally get that but what I mean to say is that whether it makes sense or not it occurred the way it occurred. That being the case I choose to try to find reasons to explain why it occurred that way rather than criticize the fact that it did. Does that make sense? I just woke up. :P

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Re any criticisms of the very existence of Sela, well, had it turned out that there is no 'logic' to her existing at all, I could withdraw my theory....but no need. The producers at TNG were sage enough to know that if Tasha's presence in our future timeline held no water, after her couraegeous act in Y.T., they'd never have allowed it! Granted, this ep has been analyzed, both in st mags, and amongst the fans, ever since it aired. I have certainly pondered it, and this plot ranks likely among the most studied...but it all comes out right in the wash. In my,ahem, opinion. I am intrigued by this stimulating debate after my post. Wow! Hmm...maybe I should post another Sela-related idea i've had....or should I? Grin.

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And if Skynet hadn't sent back the first Terminator then there would be no reason to also send Kyle Reese back, John Connor wouldn't have been born, and the machines would have won. But then if Skynet hadn't sent the first Terminator back then there would have been no Skynet.

 

And Doc Brown built his time machine KNOWING all the problems it would cause him and Marty.

Edited by Lt. Van Roy

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:P

Click for Spoiler:

DONTCHA JUST LUUV TIME TRAVEL? Well..unless your'e with Teporal Integrity. Kudos to the Lt. from The Other Galaxy Far Away for his analysis of Ahhnold's epics....very logical!Speaking of the general subject-which I inadvertantly began(and find it 'fascinating'...here is the final cut on Yest. Ent....One-EC rushes to help the Klingons at Narendra, whom they, and, as is later presumed, they alone hear the distress call from-a very plausible likelihood, since all that bombardment could have impeded subspace signal strength, for one thing.....battle ensues-a 'no-win scenario' Garrett could easily see. Heavy photon torp activity causes with help of superstring material(ref Data later) a Kerr Loop-whatever that is-and a temporal anomaly forms. EC is drawn in...to THE FUTURE 22 YRS HENCE....finding war between the Klingons and UFP. Picard confabs with Garrett, following that heated debate with Guinan, who purports 'this isn't right', that he presence of her crew, not otherwise recorded at Nrendra in the past, COULD make the difference between war and peace, somehow, its presence or lack therof, became a 'tipping point' in obviously rocky relations in the span between....Garrett agrees. Tasha, speaking with Guinan, who senses that she died a senseless death(at Vagra, where this altered-future Tasha never went) and this Tasha volunteers to go back;maybe she will help them make the differnce in what may be the battle to change HISTORY...and she does. EC loses the fight, but, some survive amongst the crew, along with Tasha, who is back in the PAST OF THE REGULAR TNG TIMELINE with EC...not an altered, seperate line. Narendra falls, yes...but someone must survive on the colony, to tell of a Starfleet ship's valor on their part.And no Klingon worth his or her salt could ignore such courage.So, then Tasha and the other survivors are taken to Romulus, or some secure facility to remain POWs-not victims of execution, for Tasha accepts the 'deal' made by the Romulan in charge of their disposition, presumably, and becomes his mate so that the others will be allowed to live...for the rest of their lives somewhere inside enemy space. Tragic, still...and yes, noone in the UFP ever heard of their fate, it seems.Iadmit, you'd think that the Romulans would have shouted their victory over the vesel whose name has long been a curse in the annals of their recent history, but...the producers of TNG could only work so much into a script, including all this overarcing material. At the core of it, a courageous, noble young woman hhelps MEND a broken Future of Our future century timeline...only to perish herself in trying to take the part-human child she so loves with her back to a world where both can truly be free....Allright. There's my loong take on it, this great TNG ep. I'll shut up now-likely to many's relief!

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2c) Scotty gave the 23rd Century Transparent Aluminum formula to a 20th Century engineer. I highly doubt this engineer would have developed the formula by himself with a 1986 Macintosh without Scotty's help.

 

 

Now that's just funny. Funny because it's true.

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I agree that it's a wasted effort to try to worry about all the time travel created plotholes in Star Trek. You just have to live with them because thinking about them too much will make your brain go boom.

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I agree that it's a wasted effort to try to worry about all the time travel created plotholes in Star Trek. You just have to live with them because thinking about them too much will make your brain go boom.

Yeah.

 

Even if we deduce that Sela logically can't exist, there she is anyway.

 

Spock and Sherlock Holmes and Data have all said that once you eliminate the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Clearly Sela's existence is possible because there she is. Arguing that her existence is impossible will get you nowhere.

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I agree that it's a wasted effort to try to worry about all the time travel created plotholes in Star Trek. You just have to live with them because thinking about them too much will make your brain go boom.

Yeah.

 

Even if we deduce that Sela logically can't exist, there she is anyway.

 

Spock and Sherlock Holmes and Data have all said that once you eliminate the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Clearly Sela's existence is possible because there she is. Arguing that her existence is impossible will get you nowhere.

 

That is true. However, out here in the real world, it just proves the laziness of the writers....

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I agree that it's a wasted effort to try to worry about all the time travel created plotholes in Star Trek. You just have to live with them because thinking about them too much will make your brain go boom.

 

Agreed.

 

AND WELCOME BACK, QSMB!! MISSED YOU LOTS!

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Sela would exist but only in the the AU Tasha went to through the rift, just as Spock now exists in the AU he went to.

 

It could be said the Sela appearances occurred in her Universe and for we the viewers, our POV had simply been temporally shifted into that timeline so that we could witness the bittersweet results of Picard's decision to allow her to go.

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The whole Sela character was ridiculous and should have never happened.
It was a gimmick to get Crosby back on the show but seeing as how Tasha did go back in time it did make sense.

 

Of course this is another point of how time travel in the Star Trek universe does indeed effect the past, present and future and doesn't just spin off some alternate universe.

 

I suppose the argument could be made though that when Tasha went back in time everything afterwards was an alternate universe but that's not how it was presented.

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The whole Sela character was ridiculous and should have never happened.
It was a gimmick to get Crosby back on the show but seeing as how Tasha did go back in time it did make sense.

 

Of course this is another point of how time travel in the Star Trek universe does indeed effect the past, present and future and doesn't just spin off some alternate universe.

 

I suppose the argument could be made though that when Tasha went back in time everything afterwards was an alternate universe but that's not how it was presented.

 

No......an alternate universe was created when the Enterprise-C went through the rift and failed to be destroyed in the past. The Tasha from that alternate universe is the one that went back in time. Once everything was set right with the Ent-C going back into the rift, the prime universe was back and Tasha was still killed by the sludge creature. If those events had changed, Picard and everyone else would not have remembered Tasha being killed by the creature.

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The whole Sela character was ridiculous and should have never happened.
It was a gimmick to get Crosby back on the show but seeing as how Tasha did go back in time it did make sense.

 

Of course this is another point of how time travel in the Star Trek universe does indeed effect the past, present and future and doesn't just spin off some alternate universe.

 

I suppose the argument could be made though that when Tasha went back in time everything afterwards was an alternate universe but that's not how it was presented.

 

No......an alternate universe was created when the Enterprise-C went through the rift and failed to be destroyed in the past. The Tasha from that alternate universe is the one that went back in time. Once everything was set right with the Ent-C going back into the rift, the prime universe was back and Tasha was still killed by the sludge creature. If those events had changed, Picard and everyone else would not have remembered Tasha being killed by the creature.

That's just it, an alternate universe wasn't created when the Enterprise-C wasn't destroyed. It altered the future, "our" future but it wasn't an alternate universe. Evidence of that comes from when Sela shows up and we discover that she's Tasha's daughter.

 

The way it's presented to us is as an alternate timeline, not an alternate universe. One timeline skewed by events.

 

Of course in reality it was just a sloppy story plot (Sela) used to get Crosby back into a few episodes. It should have been left as it was without Sela showing up.

 

Like Sela, I believe "alternate universes" are a sloppy plot device used to mask an inability to be creative within the established parameters.

 

Is it the contention that once the Enterprise C goes back into the rift that from that point forward (all episodes thereafter) are in an alternate universe, different from the one that we were in seconds before it came through the first time?

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Of course First Contact and Nemesis both took place in The Nexus since Picard and Kirk shouldn't have had the ability to leave it. The only reason Guinan and Soren could leave is because a ship physically went in and took them out.

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Of course First Contact and Nemesis both took place in The Nexus since Picard and Kirk shouldn't have had the ability to leave it. The only reason Guinan and Soren could leave is because a ship physically went in and took them out.
Insurrection too.

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Of course First Contact and Nemesis both took place in The Nexus since Picard and Kirk shouldn't have had the ability to leave it. The only reason Guinan and Soren could leave is because a ship physically went in and took them out.
Insurrection too.

 

You mean even in the Nexus with a girl doing everything but throwing herself at him Picard still can't get laid? Vulcans and Data get more action than him. Heck, even Wesley Crusher got Ashley Judd while he was still in college!

Edited by Lt. Van Roy

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You have to remember that it was *another timeline's Yar* that entered "our" timeline. The Yar from that timeline ceased to exist in that timeline and continued in ours, albeit in an earlier time. It was not our timeline's Yar that got sent back in time. All we have to do is accept that such "time travelers" can remain in other times and timelines without returning to their original and the problem is solved. Time is not linear. If it was then time travel would not be possible. It's just that we humanoids (except for possibly El Aurians) can only perceive it in a linear fashion because our brains are wired like that.

 

The problem I have is not with the time travel but with the method of time travel. If the passage was really caused by a barrage of weapons fire, and nothing else, then there would have to be an awful lot of such time passages and time travel incidents. The Dominion war would have caused a multitude of them!

 

The only other explanation, which we saw in the latest movie, is that black holes / quantum singularities might in some situations lead to passages in time. Destroying such a ship powered by a singularity in an Enterprise-C era space battle might do it. However, we don't know when the Romulans began mucking about with singularity drives and, again, from all the Romulan ships that have been destroyed with such drives there would still have to be a lot of such passages.

 

Even then we can't be sure. The black hole in the movie was caused by red matter. I don't know how the singularities the Romulans use for power are created but it is probably some other way, and a way not strong enough to collapse a supernova, which is why they needed Spock's help.

 

I could say more but you know where I am going with this.

Edited by Lt. Van Roy

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You have to remember that it was *another timeline's Yar* that entered "our" timeline. The Yar from that timeline ceased to exist in that timeline and continued in ours, albeit in an earlier time. It was not our timeline's Yar that got sent back in time. All we have to do is accept that such "time travelers" can remain in other times and timelines without returning to their original and the problem is solved. Time is not linear. If it was then time travel would not be possible. It's just that we humanoids (except for possibly El Aurians) can only perceive it in a linear fashion because our brains are wired like that.

 

The problem I have is not with the time travel but with the method of time travel. If the passage was really caused by a barrage of weapons fire, and nothing else, then there would have to be an awful lot of such time passages and time travel incidents. The Dominion war would have caused a multitude of them!

 

The only other explanation, which we saw in the latest movie, is that black holes / quantum singularities might in some situations lead to passages in time. Destroying such a ship powered by a singularity in an Enterprise-C era space battle might do it. However, we don't know when the Romulans began mucking about with singularity drives and, again, from all the Romulan ships that have been destroyed with such drives there would still have to be a lot of such passages.

 

Even then we can't be sure. The black hole in the movie was caused by red matter. I don't know how the singularities the Romulans use for power are created but it is probably some other way, and a way not strong enough to collapse a supernova, which is why they needed Spock's help.

 

I could say more but you know where I am going with this.

It wasn't another timeline Tasha, it was an altered timeline Tasha. That Tasha didn't enter our timeline, our timeline was altered in such a way that our Tasha didn't die. That's the thing, is there one timeline that can be altered or are there billions of timelines and any alteration makes no difference because it's just one of billions so who cares?

 

If it's just a different timeline then Guinan wouldn't care about Tasha being there and wouldn't think anything is out of place by her being there. But since she has some kind of intuition she can sense an alteration in the timeline.

 

The way Star Trek has always been presented to us there's only one timeline, there are alternate universes but there's only one timeline. If there's multiple timelines then there's no need for a temporal prime directive or temporal investigations. No need for the USS Relativity. The Voyager that gets tossed back to 1996 can stay in 1996 because that's normal and natural for that timeline. McCoy being thrown back to 1929 and preventing the US from entering WWII in time to stop Hitler is also ok because that's normal and natural for that timeline.

 

Red matter and "special" time travel are just lame plot devices used because of a lack of creativity and imagination. Did old Spock and the Romulan (who's name escapes me now) time travel or did they pass through a portal in space into a different universe?

 

If it's the latter then that's how it should have been presented. If it's the former then it goes against well established parameters for time travel in Star Trek and in my opinion was a mistake.

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If the timeline was altered, why does Picard and crew remember Tasha dying? If it was altered, they would only remember the altered timeline.

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If the timeline was altered, why does Picard and crew remember Tasha dying? If it was altered, they would only remember the altered timeline.
In the altered timeline when Tasha was suddenly alive they didn't remember her dying because she didn't die. She was alive. When the ship went back into the rift it fixed the time line and their memories of what had originally happened were restored.

 

It could be explained as an alternate time line but alternate from the standpoint of having it skew off from it's original path rather than branching off as a new "universe". That's why it's always been so important to restore the time line when those things have happened or why it's been so important not to make any changes to history so as not to change history.

 

That's why Ben Sisko had to pretend to be Gabriel Bell, so the Bell Riots would still happen in the same way that they originally did and Earth history would not be changed.

 

That's why Picard had to follow the Borg back in time to prevent them from assimilating Earth of the past.

 

That's why it was so important for Sisko and crew to find the Tribble Bomb that Darvin had planted as a plot to kill Kirk.

 

If all of these events were just new alternate universes and "our" universe was still on it's same path then there was no need to "set things right".

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Kor - Because sending the Enterprise C with Tasha on board did restore the timeline - not perfectly obviously but enough to make it seem familiar. Just like restoring an old car does not mean you are using the original paint chips and torn upholstery, just something close enough to make it look familiar enough.

 

VBG - That Romulan dude's name was Nero. I thought you owned the DVD.

 

There are multiple timelines (or dimensions or universes if you prefer) that all exist simultaneously. It's just that, as I said before (and the Prophets from DS9 have stated it a couple different times I believe), time is not linear but our brains are wired such that we can only perceive it linerally. We can only perveive one timeline at a time, the one we find ourselves in at the moment.

 

Look back to the TNG issue Parallels where we had about 80,000 Enterprise Ds with multiple Worfs of different ranks and positions and different Captains, sometimes Picard sometimes Riker. In some of them Wesley was a LtJG or higher and in others still a Cadet at Starfleet Academy (thus offscreen). One of those might have even been a timeline where the alternate Enterprise D we saw in Yesterday's Enterprise survived the war long enough to reach that point. Heck, I'll even throw in the possibility of a Mirror Universe Enterprise D. The point is ALL of those timelines took on physical form (at least the Enterprise Ds) in the same area of space for those few minutes. That would only be possible if those timelines already existed previously.

 

This "multiple timelines exist at the same time but this is the one we are experiencing now" explanation is the only one that is largely consistent with what we see on screen. It is also consistent with the "new canon" that last year's movie intorduces us to. Like Paramount and JJ Abrams said, the original canon still exists. It hasn't been erased from existance. They just aren't writing stories about it right now. It is also the only one that prevents a 23rd century Guinan from throwing a hissy in the Delta Quadrant saying "OK, this is REALLY not right! Just wait until I tell my friends on The View about this!" since Picard's existance is not assured in this new timeline.

 

The only remaining inconsistency is Guinan's apparent clairvoyance of time that extends beyond linear timelines. However, even here, the alternate timeline Data is merely hypothesizing. Sure we would like to imagine Guinan as having this ability (perhaps one she aquired from her brief time in The Nexus before being rescued by the Enterprise B?). As Star Trek abilities go it is a cool one to have and also adds to the mysteriousness of the character. But if we as viewers evaluating canon conflicts have to make a choice between giving Guinan this ability, which leaves open lots of other inconsistencies, and an alternate theory that would resolve these other inconsistencies but leave that one with Guinan open, I think we have to go with the one that provides the greatest amount of consistency throught the Trek universe and not let a few lines by a minor character define temporal mechanics for us. We just need to accept it as something that got the writers out of a tight spot and not dwell on it.

 

Accepting the existance of multiple timelines does not mean there isn't a plot role for the Temporal Prime Directive, temporal investigations, USS Relativity, Crewman Daniels, etc. In fact this is the only explanation I can think of as to how Lt. Leslie ended up driving that truck that ran over Edith Keeler. It just means they pick and choose their counter-interventions according to an agenda we don't know about or understand. They exist in a certain timeline, which isn't all that bad as timelines go, and might want to ensure that their timeline is not "corrupted". In other timelines they might not exist at all or maybe their theories about timelines are flawed. It's as good an explanation as any as to why we don't see their presence in any other timeline, the Mirror Universe, the new movie canon (yet), etc. If there is just one, single timeline and one, single reality it seems to me they really were asleep on the watch to let this whole US Kelvin / Destruction of Vulcan / Chekhov with Curly Hair thing happen.

 

Red matter was a writing mistake. No explanation was given as to what it is, just what it does. Like Guinan's timeline clairvoyance we shouldn't dwell on it and simply accept it as something that got the writers out of a bind. The more important issue is how this gigantic suernova caught everyone by suprise. Even today's scientists and astronomers have a pretty good idea what types of stars will become novas, supernovas, nebulas, black holes, quasars, etc. Certainly late 24th century scientists and astronomers could do the same - maybe not pinpoint the exact time but still with enough advance notice to put a tentative plan together and have it reado to go when needed.

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