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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Prodigy, and thus may contain spoilers.
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A Zahl colony fired upon by the Krenim weapon ship…
…and the alternate timeline where the colony never existed
Alternate timelines were altered versions of the timeline. Unlike parallel universes, alternate timelines often did not seem to diverge from the universe, but instead rewrote history to the point of wiping out the original timeline. However, alternate timelines did sometimes co-exist as alternate realities. (ENT: "Storm Front"; TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever"; TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"; DS9: "Past Tense, Part I", "Past Tense, Part II"; VOY: "Non Sequitur", "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II", "Relativity", "Timeless"; Star Trek; PIC: "Penance")
Alternate timeline creation[]
There were several methods of temporal manipulation that could create an alternate timeline:
- A temporal incursion into the past could cause an alternate chain of events to unfold. However, in the cases where the time travel event was part of a predestination paradox, an alternate timeline would be created if the paradox was not completed. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations") In at least one case, when accidental time travel from 2371 led to the premature death of Gabriel Bell in 2024, an altered future existed for the same amount of time it took for Benjamin Sisko to replace and complete Bell's vital role in the "Bell Riots" of 2024. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I", "Past Tense, Part II")
- Time travel to the future of a timeline could create an alternate future, where the time traveler had never returned back to the past from the future. Such was the case, for example, when the USS Enterprise-C traveled from 2344 to 2366 through a temporal rift. (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"; DS9: "The Visitor"; ENT: "Shockwave", "Shockwave, Part II") This however did not always occur, such as in the case when Samuel Clemens visited the 24th century through a temporal distortion created by the Devidians. (TNG: "Time's Arrow, Part II")
- Sometimes objects and people who had traveled through time from the future into the past would vanish when the timeline is altered enough, such as an alternate Captain Jean-Luc Picard who came to the past through an energy vortex in 2365. (TNG: "Time Squared") When objects were pushed completely out of the space-time continuum, they were also erased from history, creating an altered timeline, where the object never came into being. Such was the case with the effect of the main energy beam weapon of the Krenim weapon ship and destroying the interspatial parasites that had infected Captain Jonathan Archer in the 22nd century. (VOY: "Year of Hell"; ENT: "Twilight") According to the Borg Queen, a similar fate would have awaited the alternate future Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway, if the Queen had managed to kill her counterpart Captain Janeway in 2378. (VOY: "Endgame") More commonly though, changes to the past of a timeline did not cause the objects and people from an alternate future to vanish. Multiple versions would then coexist. These alternate versions could be reintegrated into a single person using 29th century technology. (VOY: "Relativity")
- Sometimes, the original version of the future would come to be regarded as an alternate timeline after changes to history were made. For example, Kes of 2376 in the original timeline damaged USS Voyager, murdered B'Elanna Torres, and vanished by traveling five years into the past. Her presence in the past altered the future, creating a new timeline where, at the time of Kes' return, Captain Janeway prevented harm from coming to her crew, and Kes returned to Ocampa instead of time traveling. (VOY: "Fury")
A display featuring several alternate timelines created by the Krenim
As a rule, Starfleet officers were forbidden to cause changes in the timeline or to share their knowledge of future events by the Temporal Prime Directive. (VOY: "Shattered") The Department of Temporal Investigations was tasked to ensure that time travel events did not contaminate the timeline. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations") By the 28th century, changing the timeline had become more universally illegal after the Temporal Accord was established. (ENT: "Cold Front") By the 29th century, Starfleet had taken it on as a mission to use time travel as a means of upholding the integrity of the timeline by fixing changes in the past. It was also Starfleet policy by then to integrate different versions of people into one, when several coexisting ones appeared due to paradoxes and time travel. (VOY: "Relativity") By the 32nd century, time travel had been banned outright because the Temporal Wars made it clear that time travelling societies could not be trusted to shun fanatics such as Vosk who felt entitled to alter the timeline regardless of the consequences. (ENT: "Storm Front", "Storm Front, Part II"; DIS: "That Hope Is You, Part 1")
While the prime timeline was usually restored by operatives from the 29th to the 31st centuries, in some cases, the influence of alternate timelines remained as a part of the chain of events in the prime timeline. The crew of the USS Enterprise-E, for instance, would not have learned that they had to travel to the past to convince Zefram Cochrane to make the test warp flight, had they not accidentally witnessed an alternate timeline, where the Borg prevented Humanity's First Contact with the Vulcans and assimilated Earth. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Relativity") Warnings, temporal incursions and information of the original future were also an integral part of the prime timeline. Such was the case, when Captain Jean-Luc Picard shared his experiences of the future shown to him by Q, to his crew in 2370, causing them to make different life choices that created a new and entirely different timeline of the future. (TNG: "All Good Things...") USS Voyager was rescued and aided by its crew members from the future. In 2375, a transmission from Harry Kim from 2390 averted the crash landing of the Voyager. In 2378, technology and assistance from Admiral Janeway from 2404 saved the ship from a longer disastrous journey through the Delta and Beta Quadrants. (VOY: "Timeless", "Endgame")
Alternate realities[]
Different timelines and realities.
Different versions of a timeline also sometimes coexist as parallel universes. Most active temporal anomalies allow interaction between two different alternate timelines for a moment, making them parallel realities in relation to one another. (ENT: "Shockwave"; TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever"; TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"; Star Trek)
Borg Queens had transtemporal awareness, which granted them knowledge bridging into other alternate timelines and realities, described as hearing "echoes" of alternate versions of themselves that co-existed with their own. (PIC: "Penance")
- The term "alternate reality" was briefly referenced by T'Pol and Archer when the two debated whether such a phenomenon even exists. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly")
The Narada appearing out of a black hole, creating an alternate reality
- Time travel to the past by the Romulan mining vessel Narada through a black hole created with red matter resulted in the creation of an alternate reality. (Star Trek) In 2384, Wesley Crusher referred to this alternate reality as the Narada Incursion. (PRO: "The Devourer of All Things, Part I")
The writers of Star Trek, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, were asked about the implications of the new alternate reality that was introduced in the film in an interview. They explained the new reality runs parallel to the prime reality as a new quantum reality, as the concept was explained by Data in the episode TNG: "Parallels". [1] The continued existence of the prime reality was later confirmed with ST: "Calypso" and Star Trek: Picard. This is the only case shown in canon for a time-travel caused timeline to not have erased its original timeline and having two coexisting. The reason for this particularity has never been explained canonically, however, the involvement of the experimental "red matter" used by Spock might have something to do.
- In 2370, Q allowed Picard to shift his consciousness between three different timeframes, one in the past, one in the present and one in the future from Picard's point of view, in order for him to create an anti-time eruption. The eruption was linking these timelines together, and when it collapsed the timelines ceased to exist. (TNG: "All Good Things...")
- In 2371, radiation poisoning and the temporal energy emissions of an artificial quantum singularity of a Romulan Warbird allowed Miles O'Brien to jump between the prime timeline and several alternate timelines, in some of which Deep Space 9 was destroyed. At least during some of the jumps two of the timelines coexisted. O'Brien was eventually replaced by one of his future selves. (DS9: "Visionary")
- Harry Kim considered an alternate reality as one possible cause for his sense of déjà vu and familiarity to a region of space in the Delta Quadrant, until the Taresian retrovirus was discovered to be the actual cause. (VOY: "Favorite Son")
- In 2384, Wesley Crusher mentioned that as a part of the Travelers, he had visited all of the quantum timelines, alternate realities and planes of existence. (PRO: "The Devourer of All Things, Part I")
Several statements in Star Trek suggest that many alternate timelines co-exist. It was stated in ENT: "Azati Prime" that the Sphere-Builders had technology that allowed them to examine alternate timelines. In the episode, Daniels even had the technology to take Archer to the future of an alternate timeline. The time vortex was called a focal point of "all timelines" in TAS: "Yesteryear".
By the 32nd century, the existence of alternate timelines is treated as fact: Kovich demonstrates knowledge of both the mirror universe (DIS: "Die Trying") and the alternate reality (DIS: "Terra Firma, Part 1"), and references an Interdimensional Displacement Restriction as legally preventing travel between timelines.
Pockets, folds, and fragments[]
An alternate Earth, assimilated by the Borg after their temporal incursion, seen from the wake of a temporal vortex
- It was possible to artificially create pockets where a previous timeline continued, while the timeline of the rest of the universe was changed. Such technology as a subspace bubble, a subspace isolation field, temporal shields, and the wake of a temporal vortex kept any enveloped object in a pocket with its own timeline. The Guardian of Forever was also capable of maintaining the time planet in its original timeline. (TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever"; TNG: "Timescape"; DS9: "Past Tense, Part I"; VOY: "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact)
- The race of the alien who took the shape of Cosimo existed in temporal inversion folds of the space-time matrix. The folds were parallel time streams visible as temporal anomalies intersecting the prime reality. Inside the folds, reality remained unaffected by changes in the timeline. It was possible to utilize a fold to exchange one's consciousness with an alternate timeline version of oneself. (VOY: "Non Sequitur")
- Temporal causality loops create independent fragments of time, inside which the time of the universe repeats itself. From outside the loop, it appears as if anything inside it simply vanished from the space-time continuum. For people inside the loop, the memories from previous loops begin to assert themselves as a sense of déjá vu and eventually as clearer memories. (TNG: "Cause And Effect")
Time continuums[]
The Devidian time continuum
Within the universe there were also several parallel time continuums occupying the same space but in different times. (TNG: "Time's Arrow")
- The Devidians lived in a different time continuum, only a fraction of a second away, with a positive phase variance of 0.004 percent from the normal timeline. (TNG: "Time's Arrow", "Time's Arrow, Part II")
- The quantum singularity lifeforms were native to a parallel time continuum. They utilized temporal apertures to travel between continuums and delivered their embryos to mature in nests inside the gravity wells of quantum singularities in our universe. The adult beings of the species were capable of taking humanoid form and were unaffected by temporal fractures. (TNG: "Timescape")
- Elysia was a small parallel time continuum that periodically touched the prime universe in the Delta Triangle region. Elysia was described by Devna as a pocket in the garment of time. The collisions between the two alternate universes produced time warp vortexes in the time barrier between the universes, that allowed passage from one side to the other at high warp speed. (TAS: "The Time Trap")
List of alternate timelines[]
| Timeline | Timescale | Created by | Status | Appearance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Captain Archer disappears and the United Federation of Planets never forms | 2152-31st century | Daniels transporting Archer to 31st century Earth | Negated when Archer returned to his own time | ENT: "Shockwave", "Shockwave, Part II" |
| The Xindi and Humanity do not engage in hostilities throughout the 2150s | 2150s | Original timeline | Negated when the Sphere-Builders manipulated the Xindi as part of the Temporal Cold War, sparking the Xindi incident | ENT: "The Expanse" |
| The Xindi destroy Earth and all other Human colonies | 2153-2165 | Original timeline | Negated when Archer's interspatial parasites were erased from history during the Battle of Ceti Alpha V | ENT: "Twilight" |
| The Sphere-Builders invade the Milky Way Galaxy, but are defeated at the Battle of Procyon V | 26th century | Unknown, possibly original timeline | Unknown, possibly negated by the destruction of the Delphic Expanse spheres in 2154 | ENT: "Azati Prime" |
| Enterprise NX-01 remains in the Delphic Expanse for 117 years | 2037-2154 | Temporal displacement of Enterprise by a subspace corridor | Unknown, possibly negated when Enterprise avoided time traveling | ENT: "E²" |
| Temporal War | 1916-31st century | Unknown, caused by a predestination paradox | Negated when Enterprise prevented Vosk from returning to the 29th century | ENT: "Storm Front", "Storm Front, Part II" |
| Michael Burnham is killed by a vicious predatory animal in Vulcan's Forge | 2236 | Original timeline | Negated when Gabrielle Burnham warned Spock in time for him to intervene | DIS: "If Memory Serves" |
| The USS Discovery is trapped in a time loop lasting only thirty minutes in each iteration, in which most instances result in the destruction of the Discovery, during the Federation-Klingon War. | 2256 | Harcourt Fenton Mudd utilized a time crystal and distracted the crew with a gormagander so that he could explore the ship's technologies and intelligence unhindered before he delivered the Discovery to the Klingons | Negated when Paul Stamets recruited Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler to trick Mudd into ending the time loop prematurely | DIS: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" |
| All sentient life in the galaxy is destroyed by Control, which has malfunctioned due to the inherent contradiction in destroying life to protect life and having become sentient | 2257-3186 | Original timeline | Negated due to multiple incursions by Gabrielle Burnham, followed by the crew of the Discovery intentionally traveling to the far future in order to prevent the rogue AI from obtaining data it required to become sentient | DIS: "If Memory Serves", "Perpetual Infinity", "Such Sweet Sorrow", "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2" |
| USS Enterprise is destroyed during the Battle near Xahea while Control slaughtered the Discovery bridge crew and got the Sphere data | 2258 | Possible future shown to Michael Burnham by a time crystal | Negated by the heroic sacrifice of Admiral Katrina Cornwell and Burnham's warnings changing the course of events | DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow", "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2" |
| Christopher Pike remains captain of the USS Enterprise and the Neutral Zone Incursion leads to open war between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire. | 2259-unknown | Original timeline | Negated by Admiral Christopher Pike showing his 2259 self the timeline's version of the Neutral Zone Incursion via time crystal and dissuading him from attempting to alter the fate shown to him at the Boreth Monastery. | SNW: "A Quality of Mercy" |
| Khan Noonien Singh is assassinated by Romulan temporal agent Sera, leading to a future where Earth has been devastated by wars, the survivors are living on underground lunar colonies and Humanity is a part of the United Earth rather than the Federation. | 2022-2259 | Sera assassinating Khan Noonien Singh | Negated by La'an Noonien-Singh preventing her ancestor's assassination with the help of an alternate timeline James T. Kirk. | SNW: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" |
| Eugenics Wars take place in the 1990s leading to World War III | 1992 | Original timeline | Various temporal incursions shift these events into the 21st century. | SNW: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" |
| John Christopher, a staff sergeant and the Omaha installation personal encounter the USS Enterprise crew | July 1969 | Actions of the temporally-displaced Enterprise crew | Negated when John Christoper and the sergeant were returned to Earth at a point before they encountered the Enterprise | TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday" |
| Nazi Germany conquers Earth and the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet never form | 1930-2267 | Leonard McCoy preventing Edith Keeler's death | Negated when James T. Kirk stopped McCoy from saving Keeler | TOS: "The City on the Edge of Forever" |
| Spock dies at seven | 2237-2269 | Captain Kirk and Commander Spock | Negated by Spock's future self | TAS: "Yesteryear" |
| The USS Enterprise-D is destroyed by an energy vortex | 2365 | Unknown, possibly the original timeline | Negated when Jean-Luc Picard prevented the Enterprise's destruction | TNG: "Time Squared" |
| Mid-24th century Federation-Klingon War | 2344-2366 | Temporal displacement of the USS Enterprise-C | Negated when the Enterprise-C returned to the Battle of Narendra III | TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise" |
| Thomas Halloway becomes captain of the Enterprise-D instead of Jean-Luc Picard | 2327-2369 | Q causing Picard to prevent a fight against a group of Nausicaans | Negated when Picard returned to 2327 and started the fight | TNG: "Tapestry" |
| The Enterprise-D is destroyed by a warp core breach | 2369 | Quantum singularity lifeforms | Negated when Picard, Data, Deanna Troi, and Geordi La Forge reversed time to a point just before the breach occurred | TNG: "Timescape" |
| Alexander Rozhenko never becomes a warrior and his father is murdered on the floor of the Klingon High Council | 2370-2410 | Original timeline | Negated when Alexander's future self convinced his past self to become a warrior | TNG: "Firstborn" |
| An anti-time eruption forms in the Devron system and prevents the formation of life on Earth | 3.5 billion years ago, 2363-2364, 2370-2371, and 2395 | Repeated temporal displacement of Picard by Q | Negated when Picard sealed the eruption with a static warp shell | TNG: "All Good Things..." |
| The Veridian system is destroyed by Tolian Soran | 2371 | Original timeline | Negated when Picard prevented the system's destruction | Star Trek Generations |
| Gabriel Bell dies and the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet never form | 2024-2371 | Benjamin Sisko and Julian Bashir causing Bell's death | Negated when Sisko replaced Bell's role in history | DS9: "Past Tense, Part I", "Past Tense, Part II" |
| Kathryn Janeway dies on Makull's homeworld in a polaric ion explosion | 2371 | Unknown, caused by a predestination paradox | Negated when Janeway prevented the explosion | VOY: "Time and Again" |
| Miles O'Brien dies from a high-energy laser | 2371 | Unknown, possibly the original timeline | Negated by O'Brien learning of his death prematurely | DS9: "Visionary" |
| Miles O'Brien dies from radiation poisoning | 2371 | Unknown, possibly the original timeline | Negated by O'Brien warning the past Bashir of his death | DS9: "Visionary" |
| Deep Space 9 and the Bajoran wormhole are destroyed by a Romulan Warbird | 2371 | Unknown, possibly the original timeline | Negated by O'Brien warning Sisko of the attack 3.5 hours before it occurred | DS9: "Visionary" |
| Daniel Byrd joins the USS Voyager instead of Harry Kim | 2371 | Temporal inversion fold | Negated when Kim returned through the time stream | VOY: "Non Sequitur" |
| Second Federation-Klingon hostility | 2372-2450 | Temporal displacement of Benjamin Sisko by an energy discharge from the USS Defiant's warp core | Negated when Benjamin Sisko returned to the past and dodged the discharge | DS9: "The Visitor" |
| The Call of the Prophets is not finished | 22nd century-2372 | Temporal displacement of Akorem Laan by the Bajoran wormhole | Partially negated when the Prophets returned Akorem Laan to his proper time period | DS9: "Accession" |
| Henry Starling founds Chronowerx Industries and destroys the Sol system in a temporal explosion | 1967-29th century | Unknown; caused by a predestination paradox | Negated when Voyager destroyed the Aeon before it arrived in the future | VOY: "Future's End", "Future's End, Part II" |
| The Borg Collective assimilates Earth | 2063-2373 | Borg Queen's sphere | Negated when the USS Enterprise-E defeated the Borg in the past | Star Trek: First Contact |
| First Year of Hell | 2373-2379 | Original timeline | Presumed negated by Tuvok due to Kes' actions in 2373 | VOY: "Before and After" |
| The USS Defiant crashes on Gaia and colonizes the planet | 22nd century-2373 | Temporal displacement of the Defiant | Negated when Odo's older self altered the Defiant's flight plan | DS9: "Children of Time" |
| Second Year of Hell | 2174-2374 | Multiple temporal incursions by Annorax's weapon ship | Negated when Kathryn Janeway caused the weapon ship to erase itself from history | VOY: "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II" |
| Molly O'Brien is stranded on Golana for ten years | 21st century | Time portal | Negated when Molly's younger self went back to 2374 | DS9: "Time's Orphan" |
| Voyager crashes on an L-class icy planet upon emerging from a quantum slipstream | 2375-2390 | Original timeline | Negated when Harry Kim caused Voyager to emerge from the slipstream 50,000 light years from Earth | VOY: "Timeless" |
| Voyager is destroyed by a temporal disruptor | 2370-2375 | Captain Braxton planting the disruptor aboard Voyager | Negated when Janeway prevented Braxton from planting the device on Voyager | VOY: "Relativity" |
| Kes murders B'Elanna Torres and time travels to 2371 | 2376 | Original timeline | Negated when Janeway and Tuvok took precautions to prevent history from repeating itself | VOY: "Fury" |
| Voyager is fractured into multiple different time periods in 2377 | 2371, 2372, 2373, 2374, 2375, 2377, and 2394 | Chronokinetic surge | Negated when Chakotay reintegrated Voyager into one time period and prevented the surge from fracturing Voyager | VOY: "Shattered" |
| Voyager returns to Earth in 2394 | 2378-2404 | Original timeline | Negated when Admiral Janeway returned Voyager home in 2378 | VOY: "Endgame" |
| The USS Protostar is sent to Tars Lamora alone | Unknown point in the past-2436 | Original timeline | Accidentally negated by Dal R'El dropping a blaster while helping with the launch, allowing Chakotay and Adreek-Hu to escape with the ship. Later partially restored by sending the Protostar to Tars Lamora | Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 |
| Solum is destroyed in a civil war after first contact with the Federation | Late 24th century-2436 | Original timeline | Negated when the USS Voyager-A made peaceful first contact with Solum following Asencia's defeat and her attempted war which left the Vau N'Akat with knowledge of the wonders and dangers of the galaxy. | Star Trek: Prodigy |
| Alternate reality | 2233 and beyond | Nero's appearance in 2233 | Intact; coexists with the prime timeline as a parallel universe at least as late as 2379 | Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond |
| Philippa Georgiou attempts to reform the Terran Empire and stop Gabriel Lorca's coup, but she and Michael Burnham kill each other | 2250s | Morality test by the Guardian of Forever | Unknown; may have only existed for the purposes of the morality test, but may also be still intact due to the Guardian of Forever's comment about how an alternate version of Georgiou "may not be feeling so hot" and that Saru will go on to save many more lives due to Georgiou's intervention. | DIS: "Terra Firma, Part 1", "Terra Firma, Part 2" |
| The xenophobic, authoritarian Confederation of Earth rules much of the galaxy, having conquered the Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Borg, amongst others. | 2024-2401 | Q interferes with the Europa Mission, causing Humanity to turn to Dr. Adam Soong instead | Negated when Jean-Luc Picard, Seven of Nine, Cristóbal Rios, Agnes Jurati, Raffaela Musiker, the Borg Queen and Tallinn ensure Renée Picard's survival and the launch of the mission. | Star Trek: Picard Season 2 |
| The USS Stargazer is self-destructed by Jean-Luc Picard. | 2401 | Original timeline | Negated when Picard, after returning from 2024 to moments before the explosion, realized that the Borg Queen was the same one that had merged with Dr. Agnes Jurati and thus he halted the auto-destruct. | PIC: "The Star Gazer", "Farewell" |
| The Federation is devastated by the Breen after getting Progenitor technology. | 3191-3218 | L'ak and Moll infect Discovery with a time bug, causing it to experience time cycling and never stop them. | Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets and Rayner end Discovery's time cycling with the help of the crew of the alternate 2256 Discovery. | DIS: "Face the Strange" |
| Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets and Rayner enlist the help of the 2256 Discovery crew to remove the time bug, revealing details of the future to them. | 2256 | Burnham, Stamets, and Rayner's efforts to stop time cycling caused by a time bug placed on Discovery by L'ak and Moll. | Negated when the crew removed the time bug before it could cause a reset, meaning that their changes to history didn't become permanent. | DIS: "Face the Strange" |
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
Alternate timelines are depicted in the following episodes or films:
- TOS:
- "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (Season 1)
- "The City on the Edge of Forever"
- TAS: "Yesteryear" (Season 1)
- Star Trek films
- TNG:
- "Time Squared" (Season 2)
- "Yesterday's Enterprise" (Season 3)
- "Tapestry" (Season 6)
- "Timescape"
- "All Good Things..." (Season 7)
- DS9:
- "Past Tense, Part I" (Season 3)
- "Past Tense, Part II"
- "Visionary"
- "The Visitor" (Season 4)
- "Children of Time" (Season 5)
- "Time's Orphan" (Season 6)
- VOY:
- "Time and Again" (Season 1)
- "Non Sequitur" (Season 2)
- "Future's End" (Season 3)
- "Future's End, Part II"
- "Before and After"
- "Year of Hell" (Season 4)
- "Year of Hell, Part II"
- "Timeless" (Season 5)
- "Relativity"
- "Fury" (Season 6)
- "Shattered" (Season 7)
- "Endgame"
- ENT:
- "Shockwave" (Season 1)
- "Shockwave, Part II" (Season 2)
- "Twilight" (Season 3)
- "E²"
- "Storm Front" (Season 4)
- "Storm Front, Part II"
- DIS:
- "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" (Season 1)
- "If Memory Serves" (Season 2)
- "Perpetual Infinity"
- "Terra Firma, Part 1" (Season 3)
- "Terra Firma, Part 2"
- PIC:
- "The Star Gazer" (Season 2)
- "Penance"
- "Assimilation"
- "Watcher"
- "Fly Me to the Moon"
- "Two of One"
- "Monsters"
- "Mercy"
- "Hide and Seek"
- "Farewell"
- PRO: "Time Amok"
- SNW:
- "A Quality of Mercy" (Season 1)
- "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (Season 2)
Related topics[]
Background information[]
The following is a list of episodes involving alternate timelines.
| Episode | Time Periods | Cause | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The City on the Edge of Forever" | 1930-2267 | Edith Keeler's death averted by McCoy | Nazi Germany lasts beyond 1945, United Federation of Planets does not exist |
| "Yesteryear" | 2269, 2237 | Death of Spock as a child | Amanda Grayson has died, Thelin became USS Enterprise's first officer |
| "Yesterday's Enterprise" | 2366 | USS Enterprise-C went through a temporal rift in 2344 | Federation embroiled in a long war with the Klingons:
|
| "Past Tense, Part I", "Past Tense, Part II" | 2024, 2048, 2371 | Gabriel Bell dies | Federation does not exist, Romulans encroach on Alpha Centauri |
| "Accession" | 9174 (Bajoran year) in the 22nd century (Earth calendar) | Akorem Laan disappears from history, entering the Bajoran wormhole | Akorem doesn't complete his poem The Call of the Prophets |
| "Non Sequitur" | 2372 | Timestream | Harry Kim did not join USS Voyager, Daniel Byrd joined instead |
| "Year of Hell", "Year of Hell, Part II" | 2374 | Krenim weapon ship | Numerous incursions |
| "Twilight" | 2153-2165 | Interspatial parasites | Archer removed as captain of Enterprise NX-01, Xindi destruction of Earth and Human colonies |
| "Storm Front", "Storm Front, Part II" | 1916-1944 | Multiple spatial incursions; Na'kuhl violate Temporal Accord; Temporal Cold War goes hot | Vladimir Lenin assassinated by unknown temporal agent and not replaced; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics never founded; Nazi Germany able to focus on West, resulting in an alternate World War II where, with the help of the Na'kuhl, Germany successfully invades the United States |
| Star Trek Generations | 2371 | Tolian Soran destroys the Veridian system | Civilization on Veridian IV wiped out; USS Enterprise crew killed; Soran enters the Nexus |
| Star Trek: First Contact | 2063 | The Borg assimilate Earth | Humans never achieve warp drive; Federation never founded; Borg space in the Alpha Quadrant |
| Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond | 2233 onward | Accidental temporal incursion by the Narada, whose captain proceeds to enact a revenge plot that irrevocably changes the timeline | Among other changes:
|
| Star Trek: Picard Season 2 | 2024-2401 | Interference by Q causes the Europa Mission to fail and Earth turns to more extreme measures to combat climate change and social strife | Confederation of Earth timeline:
|
| SNW: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" | 2022-2259 | Romulan time agent Sera destroys a cold fusion reactor in Toronto, destroying the city and killing a young Khan Noonien Singh. | United Earth Fleet timeline:
|
Apocrypha[]
According to the Star Trek: Myriad Universes story "Places of Exile" by Christopher L. Bennett in the 2008 novel of the series, Infinity's Prism, the concept of quantum realities is synonymous with all types of alternate timelines. According to the 2008 novel Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods, the mirror universe is also a parallel quantum universe, further suggesting that even trans-dimensional realms are alternate timelines.
The exact moment of divergence between Prime and Mirror universes is unknown. Star Trek: Enterprise's openning on their mirror universe version seems to imply that Earth was different since at least the Modern Age, however if as mentioned in Star Trek: Discovery that Terrans are a different species to Humans (albeit very similar) with some genetical difference that make them more sensitive to light and more agressive and violent, then the divergence happened at least 200.000 years ago if not even earlier.
The Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations novel Watching the Clock goes into detail about how and why some forms of time travel create parallel alternate realities and others lead to the overwriting of the same timeline. According to the novel, the only way one timeline could replace another is if they coexisted side by side from the moment of their divergence and were merged together again at a later point. Timelines diverge when they shift sufficiently out of phase to become non-interacting, but it is not impossible for them to interfere again at a later point in time. If they did become entangled as a single system, quantum information theory demands that only one of the two conflicting sets of information survive, as quantum history has to be self-consistent. After the merge, it would be as if one timeline suddenly transformed into another. The previous events would still have occurred, but they would no longer be remembered, as the information would have been destroyed. Two different timelines coming back into phase would violate entropy, so there needs to be some kind of force acting to merge them back together.
The game Star Trek: Armada features the USS Premonition (β), a starship that came from an alternate future where the Borg controlled most of the Alpha Quadrant. Captain Thaddius Deming of the Premonition hoped to warn the Federation of a coming Borg invasion in time to prevent the Borg victory. With the help of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise-E, and after making two further temporal incursions, the Premonition's mission was a success and she returned back to the future.
The Star Trek: Coda novels establish the material seen in the relaunch novels for the series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager as being set within a quantum reality known as the First Splinter timeline (β) in order to reconcile the differences resulting from the creation of series such as Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Prodigy.
External link[]
- Alternate timeline at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works