Star Trek: 10 Terrible Ways To Time Travel

[TMC]

https://whatculture.com/trekculture/...el?rf=homepage

Perhaps we do have the time to argue about time after all.

BY JACK KIELY
NOVEMBER 23RD, 2023

Professor Stephen Hawking once famously organized a party for time travelers at the University of Cambridge, but only issued invitations — including date, location, and time — after the event. In the real world, the fact that no one turned up was perhaps further indication that time travel is impossible. If Hawking’s past self within the Star Trek universe was left waiting, however, it was probably because time travel exists but is by and large a terrible idea!

One problem with time travel, not exclusive to Star Trek, is that no matter the manner by which you mean to achieve it, things will likely end (and begin) in paradox. If you don't wind up facing that one famous patricidal self-contradiction, then it will be 'Pogo,' 'Dalí' (or the 'melting clock'), and never-ending causality loops. Forget trying to get your tenses straight — "the past is the future; the future is the past" — and prepare for one headache after another!

After and before all that, if it’s not the effect that gets you, it will be the cause. Out of all the ways to go about a temporal displacement in Star Trek, very few, if any, are sure-fire or safe. In fact, the vast majority are fraught with danger, are downright disastrous, or just damned dodgy, and there are plenty that didn't make this list.

No wonder there was a war fought over it!