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Teaos wrote:The cover up works. It also explains the urban legends the Hansens heard. But I just dont like the idea. It seems so un-federation-ish.

Temporal Investigations kinda seems to be like a CIA of sorts. Paralegal powers to do what it takes to preserve the timeline and the Temporal Prime Directive. If the TPD operates like the Prime Directive, then any other policy or law or even starship is expendable to protect the timeline.

The problem with people above the law is they tend to abuse their power. How do they decide the right action to take? Why not stop the Borg in the first place.

Teaos wrote:The problem with people above the law is they tend to abuse their power. How do they decide the right action to take? Why not stop the Borg in the first place.

Oh I agree. And they could easily play with the timeline to cover up abuses, too. Unless someone comes up with a better idea though I'm just thinking it seems like the most likely explanation so far.

Keep in mind, Teaos, the Federation wasn't around back then. They could be as un-Federation-ish as they liked.

We're talking about the Temporal guys who are apparently part of the Federation. Unless they are like Section 31.

Oh, right.

I discuss this in my story "The Hansen Diaries" over in the writer's forum....

And Braxton certainly found a way to justify his own little vendettas.

But he was still held accountable. So it would seem they do "try" to do the right thing.

The "right" thing from their POV, but not perhaps from the POV of the time frame which is being screwed with.

They say they try to preserve the prefered time line what ever that is. But they seem to let a lot of stuff slide.

Exactly what I meant - "preferred" by whom?

Teaos wrote:They say they try to preserve the prefered time line what ever that is. But they seem to let a lot of stuff slide.

I am assuming , given that we know they have temporal sensors and can "detect" changes to the timeline, that preferred means "as close to unmodified as possible." Of course it could be that the whole temporal cold war thingamajig wound up getting into a totalitarian "whose interests are going to win out" thing amongst the major powers, or that the fight merely got dirty and the Federation had to play dirty too, but somehow I can't imagine it meaning that the Federation cherry picks how to change history. I think preferred to them would mean minimizing, preventing, or fixing, rogue elements or tampering with the "natural" timeline. And if they have temporal sensors and temporal shielding, then they can keep ships outside of timeline changes, and spot them when they happen.

Ah, but if changes did happen, they would already have been part of the timeline...

Forget it. Discussing time travel makes my head hurt.

It makes Starfleet's heads hurt, Mikey. Best not to think about it too much.