Where are the Temporal Police from 100 Billion AD?

[Graham Kennedy]

I would think that the far future beings have all transformed off into noncorporeals like the Organians or something, and no longer really care what happens in the distant past.

[Thorin]

I would think that the far future beings have all transformed off into noncorporeals like the Organians or something, and no longer really care what happens in the distant past.

It's possible they exist outside space-time, not allowing any changes in the past to effect them. Perhaps that's what the Q are? They're not all powerful, I think one of the Qs said that they may appear omnipotent, but any person would appear omnipotent to a lesser advanced species (as per the saying about a future technology looking like magic).

[Aaron]

If a time travelling organisation lives in the 30th century, then by definition, it can exist at any point in all of time. To say it couldn't exist in the billionth century, when it does exist in the 30 century, is impossible. It can exist when it wants, that's the point of time travelling. Perhaps the 30th century was as good as any?

The temporal police could, yes. How exactly are they going to move their entire civilisation into this state?

[Thorin]

Just like they'd move anyone through space. The Feds of the 30th century have shown to be just as good, if not better, at moving through time as easy as it is for 24th century Feds to move through space.

[Aaron]

Just like they'd move anyone through space. The Feds of the 30th century have shown to be just as good, if not better, at moving through time as easy as it is for 24th century Feds to move through space.

That's not quite true. We have no idea how much energy it requires or how difficult it is for the time cops to do their thing. And there is a massive difference in energy requirements between a ship and a planet.

[Thorin]

In the future they have infinite time to double the size of ships, to increase their energy production by a hundred (or a billion, or a googleplex). There couldn't possibly be constraints like insufficient time/energy/man power when due to time travel, there is an indefinite supply of all of it.

[Sonic Glitch]

And why was it up to the E-E, not the temporal police, to sort out the Borg's passage through time at sector 001?

Perhaps the temporal police know something we don't? Perhaps that was indeed the way history remembered the event and they only step in when something interferes?

[Aaron]

In the future they have infinite time to double the size of ships, to increase their energy production by a hundred (or a billion, or a googleplex). There couldn't possibly be constraints like insufficient time/energy/man power when due to time travel, there is an indefinite supply of all of it.

Don't be ridiculous, what you've got here is a massive no limits fallacy. There is a finite limit to everything, even the universe itself isn't infinite. Besides what your proposing violates their very own Temporal Prime Directive.

[Thorin]

And why was it up to the E-E, not the temporal police, to sort out the Borg's passage through time at sector 001?

Perhaps the temporal police know something we don't? Perhaps that was indeed the way history remembered the event and they only step in when something interferes?

It's a bit confusing, because my counter argument for that would be that if every other time incursion had continued, history would have remembered it like that, but they stop some from happening and not others. As they're time travellers they could stop things from happening before they have.

[Duskofdead]

I've wondered this many times during Trek. The Time Travelers seem to be only from a few hundred years in the future but wouldn't it make the best sense to have the Temporal Police be from some incredibly distant future? Trek's technology moves at an incredible rate for Starfleet at the very least so why are they counting on Temporal Police from the 26th, 29th, and 31st century? Why not the 393,120,238th century AD? Wouldn't the incredibly advanced races of the far flung future be better adapt to handling these things?

My guesses, some have been stated before.

1) The Federation as such ceases to exist in the distant future. Humanity itself may either evolve into something higher, or be annihiliated.

2) The future Federation is advanced enough to be "immune" to temporal tampering. Today's WMD is tomorrow's obsolete weapon, and the threat of temporal tampering which seems to be the defacto cold war weapon of the relatively near Trek future may eventually become irrelevant if forms of temporal shielding or temporal security are built into all future technology and planets. You could wipe out all of humanity at the moment Voyager ended and if everything 200 years in the future from that has temporal shielding (or the technology to detect and deflect changes in the timeline on a mass level) then you have accomplished nothing. They could always just go right back and fix it. Voyager being immune to changes in the timeline wrought by the Krenim timeship the moment it established some form of chronaton based shielding is a case in point.

3) Non-interference policies which underline Starfleet policy and the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive may eventually apply to allowing time-appropriate eras to deal with their own problems. Only if someone from 10,000 AD goes back and tries to tamper with 10,000 BC would the future step in. Allowing 27th century temporal investigations to handle temporal problems in the 22nd, 23rd, 25th centuries negates the need for a vastly more advanced future version to step in. And indeed by that point in the timeline, those things have "already happened and been taken care of" by temporal investigations in their history books.

[Teaos]

I would think that the far future beings have all transformed off into noncorporeals like the Organians or something, and no longer really care what happens in the distant past.

They would care if it ment they got destroyed along with their ancestors.

[Thorin]

In the future they have infinite time to double the size of ships, to increase their energy production by a hundred (or a billion, or a googleplex). There couldn't possibly be constraints like insufficient time/energy/man power when due to time travel, there is an indefinite supply of all of it.

Don't be ridiculous, what you've got here is a massive no limits fallacy. There is a finite limit to everything, even the universe itself isn't infinite. Besides what your proposing violates their very own Temporal Prime Directive.

There is not a finite limit to time. It is continious, not discrete. Thus you extract, say, all the energy from a super nova, and plonk it in a container. You go back in time a trillionth of a second, and extract all the energy from the super nova again. Keep going back in time as many times as required to get infinite energy. Hardly a fallacy. And while it may take a while - years, millenia, quadrillions of years (relative to the time travellers, not to the universe), it could all happen in a second if you limit it to that second. The moment you can time travel is the moment the universe's [supposed] finite-ness becomes irrelevant, as you will never get to it's end if you can just travel back in time a bit.

Temporal Prime Directive doesn't apply to time travelling organisations, I wouldn't have thought. I mean if you both have the ability to time travel (the 30th century peoples, the billion century peoples) you can't violate time knowledge.

In any singular moment of time, there is a set amount of energy. Over a given time period (no matter how small), there is infinite energy, as shown by my super nova analogy.

[Teaos]

There is not a finite limit to time. It is continious, not discrete.

To my under standing time started when the Big Bang happened and will finish when the universe flies apart. Thus it does have a beginning and an end.

[Aaron]

To my under standing time started when the Big Bang happened and will finish when the universe flies apart. Thus it does have a beginning and an end.

Exactly. Thank you, I knew I missed something basic in there.

[Thorin]

There is not a finite limit to time. It is continious, not discrete.

To my under standing time started when the Big Bang happened and will finish when the universe flies apart. Thus it does have a beginning and an end.

Under normal space-time rules, yes. When you can travel back in time, no.

The point was it is not discrete - a situation arising of 'one or the other' cannot exist, it is flowing continiously. So the time intervals between extracting energy can be as small as required.