Temporal rift
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A sensor representation of a temporal rift
A temporal rift is a physical passageway through time, which can allow temporal displacement.
A rip or tear in the space-time continuum, time rifts are characterized by temporal distortions.
These distortions allow for temporal displacement through space and time, or even traveling through past, present, and future all at once.
They can sometimes be recognized by their emissions of tachyon particles.
Encounters:
- In 2344, the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-C drifted through a temporal rift, which had been formed through the intense energy discharges of weapons fire, as the Federation ship defended a Klingon outpost at Narendra III from a Romulan attack. Emerging from the rift 22 years into the future, the Enterprise-C encountered the Enterprise-D, the vessel's immediate successor. Sensor readings taken by the Enterprise-D indicated that the temporal rift was the formation of a Kerr loop from superstring material.
The surviving crew of the Enterprise-C discovered that, due to their 22-year absence, negotiations with the Klingon Empire had broken down, and the Federation was on the brink of losing a 20-year-long war with the Empire. Based on the unique perception of El-Aurian bartender Guinan, the Enterprise-D crew realized that an alternate timeline had been created, and that the Enterprise-C had to be returned through the rift. Their return would result in a heroic sacrifice in defense of the Klingons, which in turn would avert the war.
Although returning to the battle would mean their almost-certain deaths, the Enterprise-C crew elected to return, and arrived at almost the exact moment from which they had originally departed. The Enterprise-C's actions in the past had the effect of returning the timeline to normal, leaving the crew of the Enterprise-D with no memories of what had transpired in the alternate timeline.
- In the 29th century, Federation timeships utilized artificially-generated temporal rifts to travel through time, as part of their efforts to preserve the timeline from temporal incursions. One such rift was encountered by the crew of the USS Voyager in 2373, when Captain Braxton traveled back in time in the Aeon to destroy Voyager, believing that they would be responsible for a devastating temporal explosion which would destroy all of Earth's solar system.
Countering Braxton's attack, the Voyager crew destabilized the rift, which pulled both ships in and sent them back to Earth, Braxton to 1967, Voyager to 1996. While there, they discovered that the Aeon had been stolen by an industrialist named Henry Starling, who was planning to take the timeship to the 29th century, where he would inadvertently cause the explosion. As Starling launched the Aeon, Captain Janeway managed to destroy it with a manually-launched photon torpedo moments before Starling could enter the rift, an act which had the effect of creating a new timeline in which the explosion never occurred. Moments after Starling's rift dissipated, a new rift formed, created by Captain Braxton's counterpart from the new timeline, who traveled back to escort Voyager to its proper place and time.
- In an alternate timeline, Admiral Janeway generated a temporal rift in 2404 using a time travel-device called a chrono-deflector.
This device produced a tachyon pulse, which Janeway directed towards the Delta Quadrant, to the year 2378.
Traveling through the rift she had created in a shuttlecraft, Janeway encountered Voyager, and instructed her counterpart to seal the rift using an antitachyon pulse.
Now in the past, Admiral Janeway successfully collaborated with the Voyager crew to change history and return Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant.
