Re: Confirmation "Enterprise" is in Alternate Universe ('Carpenter Street' spoilers)

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Timo S Saloniemi) writes:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "D M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>>6. Daniels says; "The changes haven't reached us, yet [meaning in the 31
>>Century]It takes a while for changes to ripple through the time-line"
>> What the hell?  The effects in TOS: "City on the Edge of Forever", DS9:
>>"Past Tense" and many others showed they were instanteoneous.

>But not consistent. Clearly, there are several very different time travel
>methods available in the Trek universe. And there could quite well be room
>for one that works on the BTTF principle...

        Asimov's ``The End of Eternity,'' which is something like the 
final thought on time-travel-warfare, includes several ideas which the 
episode (and again I've not seen it either) seems to be using, perhaps 
by coincidence.  First there's the principle that there's an ``inertia'' 
to the timeline, and any change in history has a period when it causes 
a maximum deviation from the old timeline, but eventually becomes a 
negligible effect.  (An important plot element there is that there's a 
change that doesn't eventually become negligible.)  

        The other is ``physiotime,'' that there's a meta-time which our 
interpid time travellers live in, separate from any Changes made in the 
Real universe; and a change in Reality doesn't take effect until enough 
physiotime has passed that the change is irreversible.  Asimov wisely 
spares us too much detail about this, but it moves directly into the 
question of how you could un-Change your history changes.  If you don't 
include something like physiotime it's hard to make any history-change 
story that leaves the principals with any chance to make a difference.  

                                                                Joseph Nebus
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