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Time travel in Star Trek operates with real logic, consistently affecting the past and future within the framework of the story. Major series and movies rely heavily on time travel, introducing rules such as the “slingshot” effect and parallel realities. Changes in the past affect the future of Prime's timeline, except for the creation of the Kelvin timeline as a parallel reality.
Star Trek, which has been a science fiction mainstay for 60 years, is no stranger to time travel stories. At first glance, the rules of time travel may seem lax in Gene Roddenberry's world. The first time time travel is used chronologically is at the end of Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1, Episode 6, “The Naked Hour”, when the USS Enterprise is sent back three days before her arrival. Since then, every major Star Trek series has featured time travel, and some even rely heavily on the convention.
Time travel also appears in films from Star Trek IV: Homeward to Star Trek: First Contact. JJ Abrams' 2009 reboot film Star Trek also relies on time travel to create entirely new worlds. Star Trek also uses parallel realities, such as the infamous Mirror His Universe. The universe has rules, but the way time travel in Star Trek actually works is essentially a narrative convenience. What the narrator desires actually happens, but a framework emerges through these choices made by different narrators.
Time travel in Star Trek: The original series sets the tone.
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“Naked Time” and the Enterprise being sent back in time were intended to be the first part of a two-part story. The second part was “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” which ended up being the 21st episode of the first season. In this story, the USS Enterprise accidentally sends her to 1969. In this episode, a “slingshot” effect was developed in which the ship warps around the sun and uses it to break through the “wall of time.” In this story, the Enterprise succeeds in erasing its past by undoing the changes it has made. In Season 2, Episode 26, “Mission: Earth,” the Enterprise returns to the past once again, supposedly on a “routine” observation mission. In return, they help Gary Seven – a mysterious figure known as the Watcher – prevent a nuclear explosion.
In that episode, Spock discovers that the Enterprise was always meant to be part of the day's events. This is a closed time loop, where the presence of time travelers was always part of the events that took place. However, in the famous episode “City on the Edge of Forever”, the mad Doctor McCoy accidentally returns to the past through the “Guardian of Forever” gate and ends up changing history. . The USS Enterprise is gone, but the expedition team on Earth is not. This was the first time that changes in the past were immediately reflected in the timeline, and this was the de facto manifestation of time travel in Star Trek. Similarly, in Star Trek: The Animated Series, the Guardians of Forever are used to right the wrongs that erased Spock from history.
In City on the Edge of Forever, the crew was not affected by the changes due to their proximity to the Guardians. However, in “Yesterday”, the Guardian's crew was not immune and failed to recognize Spock when he appeared. Finally, in Star Trek IV, the crew alters the past, but the effects remain ambiguous. Scotty teaches a random manufacturer how to make transparent aluminum, while Chekov leaves behind his communicator and phaser when captured by the US military. It is unknown how these changes affected the future, but it is assumed that they were instantaneous and unnoticeable when the Enterprise returned to the present.
How the Next Generation era established Star Trek's time travel rules
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The second wave of Star Trek had a number of episodes that featured time travel with implications for the future. In the Star Trek: Voyager two-parter, Ed Begley Jr. essentially brought his 1980s and his 1990s computer era to life in a way that the storytellers of Star Trek: The Original Series never anticipated. I played an important character. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's “Past Tense,” Captain Cisco must stand in for historical figure Gabriel Bell during a key historical event, the Bell Riot. Deep Space Nine also reveals that Qwark, Nog, and Rom are “Roswellians” thanks to the time travel commotion. But one episode made it even clearer how the changes to the timeline would work.
In the third season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Yesterday's Enterprise,” the USS Enterprise-C is transposed from its time into the 24th century. The moment she gets there, the timeline changes, leaving none of the Enterprise-D crew any the wiser. Only Guinan was subtly aware of these changes due to his El Aurian ancestry. When the Enterprise-C returned to the Time Rift, its reality not only returned to normal, but to the moment in which it first emerged. This was true even though several days had passed in the alternate present created by the ship's arrival. This is also consistent with how the sequel series' temporal changes work. Sometimes other characters were exempted from the changes, sometimes for sci-fi reasons, but again for narrative convenience.
In Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg sent the sphere back to the year 2063, successfully altering the past. The USS Enterprise-E's proximity to the temporal singularity made it immune to changes in the timeline, allowing it to eventually follow suit. The version of Zefram Cochrane that appeared in the original series was ignorant of the Federation, so it's safe to assume that the character's presence in The Next Generation changed its past from what it once was. When they returned to the present, perhaps permanent changes to the present became invisible again.
Star Trek: Enterprise and Kelvin timelines further change the rules of time travel
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The idea of ​​a temporary war was introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise, once again suggesting that the version of events viewers saw was not the history known to characters from previous series. From the war with Cindy in Season 3 to various temporal invasions earlier in the season, the NX-01 Enterprise has experienced an alternate history than its original. This suggests that every Star Trek travel adventure has changed the past, with the possible exception of the events in “The Assignment: Earth.” But this episode is an outlier because it was conceived as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff starring Gary Seven. According to Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, at some point the Time War went from “cold” to “hot,” leading to even more significant changes.
Still, changing something in the past almost always affects the future of the Prime Timeline. There is one notable exception, which also exists for narrative convenience. When Ambassador Spock and Narada traveled to the past after the destruction of Romulus, an alternate timeline was created that ran parallel to the Prime Timeline. Unlike other time travel events that changed Star Trek canon, the Kelvin timeline continued forward without reversing the events of the Prime timeline. Star Trek: Picard Season 1 proved this by confirming the destruction of Romulus. And when those characters time-traveled in Season 2, the changes in the past were reflected back into the Prime Timeline's future, rather than creating a branched reality.
For those looking for a sci-fi reason for this, the mysterious “red matter” used by Spock may have something to do with it. However, the Kelvin timeline is not the only parallel reality created by time travel. In Star Trek: Discovery, the Guardian of Forever hinted to Philippa Giorgio that there was a time in the Mirror Universe's past that was in the same timeline as fans know. However, the Enterprise showed that divergence occurred at least as far back as First Contact on Vulcan. Still, aside from that and the Kelvin timeline, Star Trek's rules of time travel suggest that changes in the past affect the future of the Prime Timeline.
There are still unsolved mysteries about how time travel works in Star Trek
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As for why you would create an alternate timeline rather than a parallel reality in a real-world story, it all comes down to the needs of the story. The Kelvin Timeline existed without altering the Prime Timeline because it needed a future unencumbered by existing norms. However, the intrusion of time travel in the Star Trek universe almost always doesn't work that way. However, events change due to other unexplained reasons, such as the birth and rise of Khan Noonien Singh. This character was introduced in the original series His Season 1 episode “Space Seed”, where his reign of terror took place in the 1990s. But Strange New Worlds fixed that in season two.
Raan Noonien Singh, a descendant of Khan, was recruited by the Temporal Agents to resolve past attacks. When he gave her the Time Girl Gizmo, her timeline changed around her, including erasing the bodies of her timeline agents. In the past, she encountered a temporary Romulan soldier sent into the 1990s to kill Khan. Without him, Starfleet and the Federation would never have been formed. However, when she got there, she found no evidence that Khan existed. Eventually, she discovered him in her mid-21st century childhood. She hinted to Raan that certain “canon events” would happen regardless. Perhaps due to the changes made to Voyager's time, Khan's creation took place much later.
These aren't the most obvious rules, but time travel can explain a lot of things, including advanced technology in Strange New Worlds. These changes change how Star Trek will look and function in the future, but they still make “big” things happen. Christopher Pike is the captain of the Enterprise, but he is weakened by an accident. James T. Kirk replaced him and stopped the Romulan War. This also means that time travel events that don't happen on screen can alter the timeline in ways that the characters (and the audience) never realize. In fact, just the way all these different stories, told over decades and by different generations of storytellers, all come together so well is a kind of miracle in itself.
The Star Trek series and Kelvin Timeline movies are available to stream on Paramount+, and the first 10 films are available to stream on Max. All available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital.
Star Trek
The Star Trek universe has multiple series, each offering a unique lens through which to experience the wonders and perils of space travel. Join Captain Kirk and his crew on a journey of discovery in The Original Series, encounter a utopian vision of the Federation in The Next Generation, or delve into the dark corners of galactic politics in Deep Space Nine. You can No matter your taste, there's a Star Trek adventure to inspire your imagination.
Created by: Gene Roddenberry
First movie: Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Latest movie “Star Trek: Nemesis”
Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula
TV Shows Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Animated, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Strange New World, Star Trek: Lower Decks
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